Starting to channel a Flame Shot spell, he shouted at the general. “Cover me!” Leaping forward, he continued to put more and more mana into the spell as he ran past the front rank of battle droids and down the hallway. He saw wounded and bleeding leprechauns on either side of him as he passed their positions, surprise written on their faces. His group poured on the interrupts and plasma fire to keep them from targeting him.
Nearing the end of the corridor, the fireball was larger than a beachball and getting so hot it was turning white. Two feet from the group of four, he dropped into a baseball slide and released the massive fireball directly up into the faces of the leprechauns. He instantly cast Barrier in front of himself, hoping to deflect some of the heat. While he was protected from it before he released the spell, once it was released out into the world, the heat could burn him just as badly as his targets.
His slide took him through the legs of the four, and between his barrier and the sturdy bodies of the enforcers, he was shielded from the worst of the heat.
The leprechauns, however, took it right in the teeth. The two center mobs had taken the worst of it. Their faces melted off, as did most of their arms. They expired within seconds. The other two were badly burned, falling to the ground and rolling as they screamed.
Allistor felt a heal wash over him, and his burnt hands and face cooled a bit. He got to his feet to finish off the two wounded mobs but the others beat him to it. They had followed his charge, taking out the side leprechauns as they went, and arrived just a few seconds behind Allistor. Prime stomped the head of one of the wounded creatures, caving it in. Fuzzy clamped down on the face of the other, snapping its neck with a shake of his head.
There were no cheers from the group as some of them leveled up. Back where they’d made their stand, there was a body. Nancy and Chloe sat next to the corpse of Campbell, one of Andrea’s elite security force of four that had greeted Allistor on his first trip into the Silo. Bjurstrom, Goodrich, and McCoy all walked back to take a knee next to their friend and fellow gamer. Tears rolled down Chloe’s face, and her mother hugged her close.
“He… he used to give me rides on his shoulders.” the girl sobbed. “Always gave me ice cream, then tickled me when I tried to eat it.”
Allistor wiped the tears from his own eyes. Standing next to him, Amanda said, “He took hits from two different bolts in seconds. We tried to heal him up, but it was so much damage so fast…”
“Did you try CPR?” Allistor asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“What? No. I mean, we haven’t… shit!” Amanda ran toward the prone body. “CPR! Start CPR!” she shouted. Bjurstrom immediately began compressions on the man’s chest as Nancy breathed into his mouth. Amanda was shouting as she slid to her knees. “We’ve been using magic to heal for so long, it didn’t even occur to me to try our old world medicine!”
Reaching into her inventory, she pulled out a syringe and uncapped the needle. A moment later she shouldered Bjurstrom aside and plunged it into Campbell’s chest. “He died from an electric shock! Maybe we can shock him back.” She zoned out as she looked through her inventory again.
“Dammit. I took my defibrillator out a while back.” she cursed herself. “Anybody got a way to shock him?”
Prime stepped forward. “I absorbed significant electrical charges during the battle. I can discharge some of that if it will assist you.”
“Yes! Okay, put your hands here, and here.” Amanda ripped open his leather vest and shirt, then pointed to the proper locations on his chest.
“What level of discharge do you desire?” Prime asked as he put his hands in place.
“Uhm…” Amanda fidgeted as she tried to remember. “Three hundred! Three hundred joules, please.”
Prime nodded. “Please step back for your own safety.” When everyone had moved away, he zapped Campbell’s body. His muscles seized, and his back arched as the shock passed through him.
Still on her knees, Amanda leaned forward and checked for a pulse. When she found nothing, she said, “Please try again at three hundred and fifty joules.”
She leaned back, and Prime shocked him again. Amanda activated her Internal Analysis and gazed into Campbell’s body. “One more time, please.” She watched as the shock passed through the body’s muscle and tissue and reached the heart. The organ actually contracted once, but when it did so she saw a large tear in one of its chambers.
With a sigh, she shook her head. “It’s no good. It looks like his heart exploded. I… I can’t fix that. Heals only work on the living. I’m sorry.”
Allistor was crushed. Turning away, he walked a few steps and sat against a wall. The little surge of hope made the loss even more devastating. A moment later, Chloe came and curled up in his lap, sobbing into his chest as he hugged her close and cried with her. Campbell had been by his side in countless fights since the apocalypse, starting with the Silo dungeon. He’d been part of Bjurstrom’s group that took noobs and lower level citizens to run dungeons and level up. The loss of his friend twisted his gut, making him second-guess himself for trying to take this building. How much gold was the life of his friend worth?
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see McCoy squatting next to him. “Shake it off, boss. We all knew the risks coming down here. Campbell wouldn’t have missed it for the world. His death isn’t on you.”
Allistor shook his head. “But it is. I decided to come down here. I kept going after the mobs nearly took some of us out upstairs. I should have-”
“No.” Bjurstrom cut him off. “This is our world now, boss. You can’t think like that. I know how you feel. Every time I take a group of noobs into even a low level dungeon, I second-guess myself. But it has to be done. We need to fight, and get stronger. Or this world will kill us. And it won’t have to be in a dungeon like this. It’ll be when we’re just walking around picking our noses. This is how we do it. This is how we survive.”
The others nodded. Nancy came over and scooped up Chloe, groaning as she lifted the little girl. “He’s right. We’re all crushed by the loss of Campbell. The man saved my life a few times just today. And I can’t even count how many times in other fights. Just like Goodrich, or any of these others. They make themselves my shield when things get hairy. I don’t think they even realize they’re doing it. And that’s how Campbell died, standing between us healers and the monsters. It’s just what he did.”
Allistor nodded, getting to his feet with a hand from McCoy. “We’ll take him back to the Citadel and give him a proper funeral tonight.” McCoy and Goodrich nodded. McCoy pulled a blue Air Force body bag from his inventory and the two of them went to take care of Campbell.
The others moved to loot the leprechauns, each receiving thousands of gold coins. Apparently the little creatures had been busy converting the gold in the empty cells into coins. Several more scrolls were looted as well, and handed over to Ramon.
The four enforcers also yielded a total of eight enchanted blades, of which Allistor received one. The blade was eighteen inches long, somewhere between a long dagger and a very short sword. It was leaf-shaped, widening from the point to the midpoint, then narrowing again, with a shallow fuller down the center.
Enforcer’s Blade
Item Quality: Rare
Attributes: Agility +2, Strength +1, Luck +3
The blade came with a sheath attached to a belt. What counted as a belt for the tiny creatures was nowhere near long enough to encircle Allistor’s waist. But it fit perfectly around his thigh, so he fastened it there. The system created a slot on his avatar’s legs to correspond with it, and he felt the attribute buffs take effect.
Chloe had been another who’d received a blade. He watched as Nancy strapped the belt around the child’s narrow waist. Chloe drew the weapon with a determined look on her face. The knot in Allistor’s gut twisted a bit tighter. Chloe and the other children were having to grow up too quickly.
When the airmen were done bagging Campbell’s bo
dy, Prime detailed one of the droids to carry him. The droid remained where it was while the group cleared the rest of the floor. They found no more leprechauns or mobs of any kind. And all the gold had been removed.
Back at the stairwell, Allistor called a halt.
“The mobs here were level thirty. They’ve been getting progressively tougher as we go. I have to assume that the next floor will have higher levels, and probably an elite boss. I’m thinking we should wait here and let General Prime’s troops finish clearing upstairs, then come down here and zerg the final level. I don’t want to lose anyone else today.”
Sam shook his head, along with most of the others. “No, boy. We came this far. Campbell gave his life for this place. We’re gonna make these little bastards pay for that.”
Allistor looked around, seeing nothing but grim faces and nodding heads. Still he asked, “Anybody want to stay here? Or get an escort back topside. I wouldn’t blame you one bit. Don’t be shy. If anything you’d be showing good sense.” He looked directly at Nancy, then at Chloe as he finished speaking.
She shook her head, setting her daughter down. “Bjurstrom is right. This is our world now. I’ll protect her as best I can, but she needs to see this through just like the rest of us.” Chloe nodded once as she held her mother’s hand, patting her new blade with the other.
Bjurstrom added, “For Campbell.” followed by McCoy, Goodrich and others. “For Campbell.”
There was some chuckling as Fuzzy goosed Allistor with his snout in a sneak attack, pushing him toward the stairs leading down. With a dirty look toward his bear cub, Allistor said, “I guess it’s unanimous. Let’s do this. But we’re breaking out the big guns. Sam, you have the BFG in your inventory? The plasma rifles don’t seem to do a lot of damage. Let’s see what that .50 can do.”
Sam grinned, producing the gun. Lars and Logan each produced the smaller LMG belt-fed guns as well. After a quick request, Prime assigned each of them a droid to carry ammo and help reload. They took a minute for the gunners to demonstrate, and they were ready.
“Meg, I want you to try a couple of your grenades, too. Fire worked pretty well on that last group. If nothing else, it should make for a nice long interrupt.” Meg wiggled the hand that held her inventory ring and nodded, a grim look on face.
As prepared as he could be, Allistor equipped his Mossberg tactical shotgun with slugs loaded. They descended to the fifth and final level, and Allistor cast Barrier on himself. A nod to Logan, and the door was yanked open.
Allistor advanced into the hallway, finding this one very different from the others. It was wider, with a taller ceiling, and instead of the barred cells on either side, there were big round vault doors. Allistor immediately moved to one side and hugged the wall, taking partial cover behind one of the open doors. It was at least a foot thick and solid metal as far as he could tell.
There was no sign of any mobs in the corridor.
Once the others had filtered through, they began to clear the rooms. Seeing nothing inside, Allistor had the droids fire volleys into each room anyway, just in case there was illusion magic hiding the little monsters.
The raiders made it down the corridor without incident, then turned left and cleared that one as well. At the next intersection, the hallway changed again. This time there were no side vaults. Just a short hall leading to a single massive vault. The round metal door was easily twelve feet in diameter. It hung on a pair of hinges that were each thicker than Allistor’s legs.
“You could drive a tank through that hole.” Sam whispered.
“Or maybe even Goodrich’s oversized head.” Bjurstrom added.
“But not your ego.” Goodrich retorted, smiling at his friend.
Logan looked at the massive door, which stood a few inches ajar, but due to the thickness of the door he couldn’t see inside the room. “I think I’m gonna need a little help opening this one.”
“Yeah. We’re gonna need a bigger doorman.” Amanda muttered, stealing a line from her favorite old shark movie. Most of the people in the room didn’t get it, but Allistor, Sam, and Meg smiled at her.
Her words, coming right behind Sam’s tank statement, had given him an idea. “Guys, I think I have just the thing we need.”
He motioned for them to open the door. He needed to see inside the room before he knew whether his plan would work. Prime waved Logan and the others away, and he took their place along with four droids. Two seconds later, the door began to swing open silently as they stepped back and pulled on it. He peered inside, and laughed. “That’s good, general. Get ready to close the door.”
On the other side of the door was a huge cavern. The walls were natural stone, chipped and sanded to be relatively smooth. Allistor couldn’t see the ceiling, but the room extended back several hundred feet. It was bigger than he’d expected, but that didn’t change his plan. Near the center of the room he saw a throne, atop which sat an obviously female leprechaun. He Examined her quickly.
Leprechaun Clan Mother
Level 35 Elite
Health: 91,000/91,000
From the angle he had through the partly-open door, he could also see at least a dozen male leprechauns standing around. He had to assume there were more. Too many for his group to handle.
Closing his eyes, he focused on the spell he wanted, then began channeling. With his increased attributes and the buffs from all the gear he was wearing, he had high hopes for this spell. He channeled more and more mana into it, until he felt some resistance. Opening his eyes, he focused on the floor just inside the door, and released the spell.
A black cloud formed inside the room, swirling and sighing for a moment before it coalesced into a creature from hell. The foghorn-roar that still made Allistor’s bowels go watery resounded through the room, and he saw the leprechauns start to scramble. He took a quick look at his handiwork even as he shouted, “Kill everything in that room!” and motioned for the general to close the door. The last thing he saw was a massive black clawed hand reaching out to grasp a leprechaun and squeeze it to pulp.
Void Titan
Level 30
Health: 251,000/251,000
Sam roared with laughter as the door closed. “Holy hell, Allistor! That thing was a true monster! That was like throwing a grenade into a shitter.”
Allistor grinned. “I don’t know if it can kill everything in there for us. But it can sure make a large dent. Maybe drain their mana for us. Everybody be ready.”
They listened with smiles on their faces as the titan’s roar vibrated the walls and floor beneath them. There were screams, and the sounds of lightning bolts crashing. A female voice chanting a long spell echoed through the door, followed by another roar from the titan.
Things went silent then, and Allistor waited about five seconds before he motioned for the door to be opened. If anything still lived in there, he didn’t want it to have a chance to heal up. As soon as the door was wide enough, he cast Barrier and ran inside. The others were right behind him.
At first he saw nothing living. There were leprechaun corpses scattered everywhere, stomped into the floor or tossed against walls. The void titan lay on its side, unmoving. It appeared to have fallen atop the throne. Allistor hoped the clan mother had been crushed in its armpit. He shook his head, grimacing as he remembered that particular torture.
As he rounded the body, a scream echoed through the room, and he ducked back behind the titan’s head just as a spray of lightning bolts shot past him. They crashed into the wall, blasting chunks of stone free on impact.
Allistor peeked around the smelly titan’s skull and found the clan mother standing there. One of her arms hung limp at her side, and her head was bleeding. He cast Mind Spike, but the spell failed. He quickly ducked back as her hands shot forward and more lightning flashed past. This time the room shook and some dust and gravel fell from the ceiling.
Sticking his head out again, he cast Erupt, channeling it for a moment to give it some extra power. When he released
it, the spike shot up into the boss’s gut, causing her to scream and interrupting her cast. He tried Restraint, and it worked!
“Go around behind her!” he shouted. “She can’t turn. Shoot her in the back!”
Everyone but Prime dashed back the way they came. Allistor and Prime stepped out, and the general began blasting with both plasma rifles as Allistor built up a channeled Flame Shot. He didn’t form it into a ball this time, choosing instead to call a column of white-hot flame down upon the skewered boss. She screamed again, her hair disintegrating along with most of the robe she wore, and some of her skin. The rest crisped, turning an even darker black than her normal skin tone. Her health bar dropped to below fifty percent.
Screaming in rage, she pushed her hands outward in an abrupt motion, and a massive bolt of lightning shot forth. Prime was moving even before the spell was completed, and placed himself between her and his Prince. The bolt struck him, and though his frame seemed to absorb the energy, he was still knocked backward. He impacted Allistor, and the two of them tumbled backward. Allistor felt his nose and one arm break as the heavy droid landed atop him. His head slammed into the floor, and his vision narrowed to a faint point of light down a long swirling tunnel filled with tiny flashes.
He felt his body being lifted as he closed his eyes and cast a heal on himself. When he opened his eyes, he saw the boss waving her hand again. He was looking at her upside down as Prime carried him quickly to one side. Allistor lost sight of her behind the titan’s skull just before she cast. A moment later, the monster’s head rocked toward him, and large bits of flesh and bone blasted off. Allistor gagged at the stench of burning titan flesh raining down on him.
The next thing he heard was the distinctive sound of automatic gunfire. Sam and the others must have found a position behind her and set up their guns. Casting another heal on himself, he told Prime to set him down, then leaned around to get a look at the boss.
She was squirming on the spike, which would be dissolving at any moment. Allistor cast Restraint on her again, and it took hold. He looked beyond her to see Sam, Lars, and Logan in prone positions on the floor. Sam’s gun was set up on its bipod, while the other two had chosen to use one of the dead titan’s fingers for a weapon rest, giving them some cover at the same time. All three were emptying their weapons into the boss leprechaun’s back. The .50 cal was doing the most damage by far, punching holes in her torso.
Shadow Sun Rebellion Page 5
