Shadow Sun Survival

by Dave Willmarth

  The others frantically fired around him as he writhed in pain and tried to get back to his feet. He couldn’t get any purchase or leverage, as everywhere he touched with hand or foot was covered by slimes. And he was quickly becoming trapped inside the jello-ish monsters.

  Bjurstrom began to shout. “Cease fire! Bullets will just pass through them. We need anti-acid. Or more fire.”

  Helen stepped forward and tried to reach for Allistor, intending to help him up. He shouted, “No! Don’t touch them. Or me. I’m covered in the stuff.” Seeing that his health had ticked down to forty percent, he cast a heal on himself, then another immediately. Focusing through the pain, he created a fireball in his hand, burning away the slime on his palm. Using his spear as a crutch, he rolled over and levered himself to his knees. The rough rebar spear gave him enough of a grip to push himself to his feet. He quickly cast Flame Shot again, burning the slimes at his feet.

  As he stepped back onto the landing, the airman with the fire extinguisher blasted him without warning. The bits of slime still attached to him seemed to crystallize, and several of the airmen wearing gloves helped brush the bits off of him. “Thanks for that, guys. And good thinking!” he said to the fire-extinguisher bearer. None of them would look him in the eye.

  “What?” he asked Helen, half delirious from pain.

  She grimaced. “Your face, your hands… that’s got to hurt.”

  Not having a mirror, he asked, “How bad is it?” He raised a hand to see that his skin was discolored a nasty yellow shade, with blisters covering most of it. A quick check of his interface showed a poison debuff.

  “Shit.” He cast another heal on himself. His health bar improved, moving back up to eighty percent. But the skin didn’t heal that he could see. “I guess I’ll have to wait out the debuff.” Even as he spoke, he saw a piece of skin fall from his forehead past his nose. One of the airmen lost her lunch.

  “Dude. You make Deadpool look sexy,” McCoy said to him.

  There was no more time for discussion as another wave of slimes were pushing over the top of their dead cousins. Bjurstrom shouted, “Salt! Anybody got salt? That might work.”

  Nobody had salt.

  The fire extinguisher blasted again, and the oncoming slimes paused, seeming to harden up a bit. Campbell fired his shotgun, and the two nearest the door shattered into pieces. “Right on! Hit ‘em again!” he called out. The airman sent another long blast of potassium bicarbonate through the doorway. This time three others fired their shotguns, and chunks of slime mobs flew everywhere. Allistor shot more fire in to scorch the hardened pieces.

  They alternated this way, a blast of cold from the extinguisher followed by shattering shotgun blasts, then fire. Two minutes later the hall was cleared of slimes.

  Allistor croaked. “When you loot them, there should be cores. That’s what gives them life. The cores should have some value, so let’s get them all.” His throat was raw, some of the slime apparently having gotten in his mouth. Every inch of him screamed in pain, so that he couldn’t feel one particular ache over another. He cast another heal on himself as he waited out the debuff. The icon on his interface showed three more minutes and was counting down.

  Fuzzy stuck his nose close and sniffed at him, then snorted and backed away. “I don’t blame you, buddy.”

  He sat and watched the others carefully loot the slime corpses, afraid of suffering the same kind of burns they saw on his skin. When they were done, there was a pile of thirty-eight cores on the floor in front of him. He touched the pile with his ring and they disappeared.

  “Thanks, guys. We’ll figure out the value and divide up the proceeds evenly. Just need to rest here a few minutes. The debuff wears off in two min, and I should be able to heal my skin fully. Get nice and pretty for you again.”

  One of the female airmen coughed. “You weren’t that pretty.” And just like that, the mood lightened. They all took a seat, leaning against walls or stair rails. Allistor produced some jerky and nibbled at it, hoping it would help his skin regenerate faster. He drank some water to wash down the salty jerky.

  Bjurstrom looked at Andrea. “Permission to speak freely, Sarge?” When she nodded he looked at Allistor. “Look, boss. I know you said you’d lead the way. And we all appreciate you lookin’ out for us. But I can’t sit back and watch you take all this abuse instead of us. It’s not right.”

  Allistor grunted, his throat still raw. “I’m the closest thing to a tank down here. I’m level ten. My health points are two or three times what any of you have. If one of you had nose-dived into those slimes like I just did, you’d have died instead of just looking stupid and ugly.”

  The others looked around, not liking this answer, but not having a good argument. Allistor smiled slightly. “Don’t worry. Pain fades. Healing is much faster in this new world. I can take it. One of the perks of being the boss, right?”

  Five minutes and two pieces of jerky later, and his skin was nearly back to normal. Unfortunately, his hair was taking much longer to grow back. He looked like a B-movie mutant with random patches of scorched hair sprouting from his bare skull. His helmet strap had been eaten away, and it lay on the floor in the hall. He had no desire to pick it back up.

  “I hope the guys upstairs are seeing this. Even Durham can’t complain that you’re not sacrificing for the team,” Andrea whispered to him.

  Back on his feet, he led the way into the corridor. They cleared room after room, finding nothing. Eventually, Bjurstrom observed. “It’s like they were all chasing something toward the stairwell, and just piled up against the door and stayed there.”

  With that floor cleared, they continued downward. There were still more levels to go.

  The next level was where most of the humans had perished. According to the airmen, the mobs had spawned on the lowest level, killing two techs before they had time to call for help. Then they’d moved upward and caught the others on this level unawares. This was pieced together from video footage from the security cameras.

  As soon as they opened the stairwell door, they found a scattered set of bones on the floor. They had been pulled apart, picked clean, then broken and the marrow sucked out.

  “Shit,” An airman with “Weiss” on her name patch whispered. “I think this is the captain. Was the captain. He held this door while the others retreated up.” The others were silent for a moment, bowing their heads in respect.

  “He was a good man and a great commander. He will be remembered,” Andrea spoke quietly. The others all repeated. “He will be remembered.”

  Moving on, they were maybe a third of the way down the hallway when an octopoid emerged from a doorway ahead of them.

  Octopoid Reaver

  Level 9

  Health 4,100/4,100

  This one was bigger than any Allistor had faced previously. It had clearly killed and eaten several beings – human or monster – and grown strong. Its tentacles waved in their direction as it slowly turned on its stumpy legs and advanced on them.

  “Shoot it in the face!” Andrea shouted. An instant later the mob’s bulbous head caved in from multiple shotgun blasts. Just to be sure, Allistor hurled his spear, the weapon puncturing its face and driving through the back of its head. It was dead before it even hit the floor.

  “Overkill, much?” Helen asked as she bent to loot the corpse. Fuzzy stepped forward and sniffed, then took a bite of one tentacle. Seeming pleased with the taste, he took another.

  “The bear likes sushi!” one of the team joked.

  “You guys help yourselves. Won’t catch me eating that thing.” Andrea shuddered.

  Nobody stepped forward to harvest any tentacle meat, and after a few more bites, Fuzzy stepped away and picked Fibble back up off the floor.

  Moving on, they encountered three more octopoids of a similar size and level in different rooms along the corridor. When they reached the end, a ground-shaking thud made them all freeze.

  In front of them was a metal hatch. When Al
listor looked to Andrea with eyebrows raised, she whispered back through her throat mic, “Storage. Big room, maybe a hundred feet square.”

  Allistor nodded and was reaching toward the wheel that would open the hatch when something smashed against it from the other side. He jerked his hand back quickly, then tried to look casual when he saw the others smiling. Fuzzy poked his nose at the door, putting it right up against the hatch’s seal. After a series of sniffs, he backed up slowly and sat down behind the rest of the group, shaking his head. A quiet chuff was the only sound he made.

  “Whatever’s in there, Fuzzy’s not looking to play with it,” Helen translated for the bear.

  “Sounds pretty big for a mini-boss,” Goodrich ventured.

  “Only one way to find out!” Bjurstrom shouldered his shotgun and took hold of the wheel. “Ready when you are, Allistor.”

  Taking a deep breath and gripping his spear tightly, Allistor nodded his head. Bjurstrom spun the wheel until the lock disengaged. The moment he heard the click, Bjurstrom leapt back out of the way, in case the door flew open. It would be embarrassing to be killed by a door. Despite the tension of the moment, Allistor smiled to himself, remembering a character named Dave in a book called War Aeternus that was tragically killed by a trapped tavern door.

  The smile disappeared when the creature inside the room struck the door again. It flew open, striking the wall with a clang and revealing what awaited the group.

  Behind Allistor, he heard Helen gasp. “Is that… Godzilla?”

  Agamid Rex

  Level 10

  Health: 7,000/7,000

  The creature filled a good portion of the room. Smashed boxes and shattered crates were pushed up against the walls, and the center of the room was clear except for the lizard-thing. Allistor’s first impression was that it looked like a cross between a Komodo dragon and a T-Rex. It stood upright on its hind legs, with a long sinuous body and tail. Its body and front legs were longer than a T-Rex, and as Allistor observed it the thing dropped to all fours and charged toward the door. Its head very much resembled the king of dinosaurs, with beady eyes and massive jaws filled with teeth a foot long.

  Fortunately, its head was larger than the hatch. Allistor and several others fell backward as the giant lizard slammed its jaws through the opening. The entire chamber shook under their feet at the impact, and the squeal of bending metal could be heard.

  Its jaws pinned shut in the tight opening, it snorted at its prey, showering several of them in grey-green snot. Airman Weiss began making gagging noises as she wiped a blob of it from her face.

  Allistor, regaining his composure, leapt forward and jammed his spear point up into one of the beast’s nostrils. The weapon sank deep, and he lost his grip as the monster yanked its head back. The moment it cleared the doorway, its jaws opened and it roared in pain. The sounded echoed through the corridor, deafening every member of the group.

  Allistor withdrew his shotgun as he watched the creature rear up on its hind legs and thrash its head back and forth trying to dislodge the painful spear. It tried to reach its snout with its forelegs, but they weren’t quite long enough.

  Allistor pumped a round into the chamber and took aim. He fired at the lizard’s exposed belly and watched as the slug embedded itself. There was a small amount of blood, but it didn’t look like the wound was very deep.

  “Switch to rifles! This thing has a tough hide. Even in the soft spots,” he called out, matching action to words. He raised his rifle and took aim. The head was still thrashing too violently to hit with any accuracy. So he aimed at the unarmored spot exposed under the monster’s foreleg as it continued to try and reach its snout.

  This time when he fired, the round went deep. Blood sprayed, and the agamid roared in pain. Behind him, several other shots rang out, and trickles of blood appeared in various spots on its belly.

  The creature spun with surprising agility, slamming its tail against the doorway and blocking their view. When the tail moved away, so had the monster. Sounds of crashing crates off to the right told them where it was.

  McCoy whispered, “That damn mob just LoS’d us!” A few of the others chuckled nervously, adrenaline pumping through their bodies making them jittery.

  Allistor let out the breath he’d been holding. When that thing charged, he’d very nearly pissed himself at the sight of those massive jaws closing on him. He was still shocked to be alive. After a couple more breaths, he said, “Looks like we’re going to have to go in after it.”

  There were groans from nearly everyone in the group. He held up a hand. “I’ll run in and distract it. You guys wait a few seconds, then get in there and fire. Stay close to the door so you can retreat if necessary.”

  He stepped close to the door and paused. Behind him, Helen said, “The thing seems smarter than the average bear. No offense, Fuzzy.” She looked at the bear with a smile. “If I had to guess, it’s waiting to nail you the moment you step through that door.”

  Allistor nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He looked at the door again and shook his head. “If this thing gets me, you guys promise to sing songs of my bravery?”

  “We’ll sing songs alright,” Bjurstrom said. “Anybody know what rhymes with ‘stupid’?”

  Allistor rolled his eyes and took a few steps back. Then, with a wink at Helen, he said, “Fuzzy, you stay here, buddy,” and dashed toward the opening. He used his last step to propel himself forward as he dove headfirst through the door and into a forward roll.

  The group in the hall cried out as the massive jaws shot down from above and clamped together just inside the door, where Allistor had been half a second earlier. A few of them had the presence of mind to fire, one hitting the creature’s eye before it raised its head again. As soon as the massive skull wasn’t blocking their view, they saw Allistor running full speed away from the monster. A ragged cheer went up when they saw he was still alive.

  Allistor made for the nearest wall and the pile of damaged crates. He slid behind them even as the monster turned in his direction. Peeking through a hole in the debris, he saw the others begin to charge through the door behind it. On a whim, he tried casting Restraint. The massive thing instantly froze in mid-step. Unable to plant its foot, or move its tail for balance, the lizard’s momentum sent it tipping forward. It crashed like a meat statue in the center of the room, still unmoving.

  Allistor and everyone else raised their weapons and poured on the damage. He fired directly into its open mouth, shattering teeth and turning them into shrapnel that shredded its gums and throat. Andrea was shouting something about focus at her team, but Allistor only half heard it. He managed three shots in the ten seconds the giant mob remained stunned.

  “Not so smart after all, are ya, big boy?!” he shouted. T-Rex’s were known to have tiny brains, and despite its clever actions, it seemed this big look-alike wasn’t much more intelligent, based on the duration of the stun.

  The moment the stun wore off, the creature loosed another deafening roar. A few of the airmen dropped their weapons to cover their ears. The mini-boss was back on all four feet in an instant and turned to swipe its tail at Allistor. The massive thing had to weigh a ton or two all on its own, and a wave of debris was pushed along like a bow wave in front of it as Allistor scrambled to get out of the way.

  He didn’t make it.

  The end of the tail smashed into his back as he ran, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying into a deformed metal shelving unit and a pile of cardboard boxes. His health bar dropped by thirty percent.

  The impact knocked the breath out of him, and when he tried to recover it, nothing happened. He wheezed, panicking as the air failed to fill his lungs. Gravity rolled him over onto his back as he descended the pile to the floor, and when he hit the concrete, his lungs opened up and he inhaled deeply. Immediately he felt a stabbing pain in his chest, the result of broken ribs poking at his muscle and lungs. A slight groan of pain was all he could manage.

&nbs
p; Rapid and sustained gunfire rang out from the direction of the door. Allistor couldn’t see the monster, or manage to adjust himself so he had a better view. He lay there wheezing as he cast a heal spell on himself. After a few seconds, he shifted his body enough that he could tilt his head and see the creature.

  It had its back to him, tail thrashing wildly as it recoiled from the combined damage the others were inflicting. Allistor watched it advance on them as he cast another heal on himself. His breathing eased a bit, and he was able to get back on his feet. Out of malice, he cast Restraint on the mini-boss as it charged toward the other humans. Once again, it fell on its face. The others fired away, blasting big chunks out of the thing’s face. Both eyes were gone now, and a pool of blood was forming on the floor under its head.

  Agamid Rex

  Level 10

  Health: 2,100/7,000

  As its head was near the door, and his friends, he shouted, “Get back out the door! Fire from there!”

  Andrea began shouting, and the group walked backward, firing as they went. Allistor was proud of them. They kept their cool and acted like professionals, even when up against a creature from a child’s nightmares.

  Allistor limped over to a different pile of crates about fifty feet away. He barely made it by the time the stun wore off. Hunkering down with only a wince at the pain in his chest, he watched the monster get back to its feet. The action was much slower this time, and its legs wobbled slightly as it rose.

  Still behind the creature, he cast Flame Shot in the form of a pillar of fire descending from the high ceiling. It splashed down upon the lizard’s head, burning into the damaged eye sockets and cooking exposed flesh. The giant actually screamed in pain, thrashing blindly, frantically trying to locate its tormentors.

  One of the airmen, whose name Allistor couldn’t recall, charged forward. He had an improvised machete in one hand and a .45 in the other. Dashing up to the thing’s right rear leg, he began to hack at it with the blade. Two others joined him, laughing wildly as they charged. The rest continued to provide cover fire, aiming for its face. Allistor looked around him, choosing a mostly intact crate and casting Levitate, he flung the five-foot-square box at the monster’s head.