Shadow Sun Rebellion

by Dave Willmarth

  “Nope. Uh uh. I’m out. I don’t do bugs. Especially bugs big enough to eat a cow.” She hadn’t forgotten the swarm from the goblin fight. Allistor heard a few of the others chuckle.

  A moment later, the creature’s left forearm shot outward faster than Allistor could follow, snagging one of the light globes and drawing it back. It attempted to bite into the globe, causing it to disappear with a slight pop.

  “Damn, that was ninja fast.” McCoy said, his voice filled with respect.

  Michael took over. “Alright, this should be pretty straightforward. Allistor will stun it. Standard stun rotation behind him. The rest of us, burn it down. Do I need to tell anyone to stay out of range of those front legs?”

  The group answered with grunts and monosyllabic replies as they checked their gear again and got ready. Another light globe was taken out, and four more flew forward from behind Allistor. He began to channel Flame Shot, building it up as he said, “3…2…1!” Then he released the spell, sending a column of flame crashing down directly atop the big bug’s head. Immediately after, he cast Mind Spike on it, making it squeal in a high-pitched insectile keening.

  Several spikes erupted from the floor, puncturing the back segment of its abdomen. Fireballs and arrows sped past Allistor. He took out his own titan bow and sent an arrow into its thorax. The titan bone arrowhead punched through the chitin, and the entire shaft disappeared.

  Mantis Prowler

  Level 30

  Health: 59,250/71,000

  The monster didn’t have a huge health pool, but its armor was thick, and each of their attacks were only knocking off small chunks of health points. Though the creature did significant damage to itself a moment later when it attempted to charge forward. The spikes in its abdomen ripped long gashes, knocking off a quick five thousand hp and causing the thing to scream louder. More spikes appeared a moment later, shortly before the first ones faded away.

  When the mantis hit seventy-five percent health, it tilted its head back and screeched at the raiders, an aoe attack that deafened them, stunned them briefly, and did five points of damage per second for four seconds.

  Unable to hear, Allistor just pointed at the monster and shouted, “Burn it down!”

  His people got the idea, and more spells flew past Allistor. Fireballs impacted the monster’s face. Allistor cast Mind Spike on it, and the creature began to rip at its own skull with its barbed forelegs.

  Taking advantage, Michael activated some kind of tank class skill and shot forward, shield slamming into the mantis’ face. The force of the impact broke its antennae and pushed it back, forcing it to step backward awkwardly. Michael reached up and stabbed his sword into the monster’s face, the steel scraping against its chitin mandibles.

  Meg shouted, “Get back, you fool!” and Michael turned to comply. He’d taken two steps when the mantis recovered its senses and lashed out.

  Allistor didn’t actually see the blow strike. He saw the leg flash out, then saw it return covered in blood. A moment later, one of Michael’s legs just seemed to fall out from under him. The mantis’ blade arm had severed the leg just above the knee.

  Michael fell backward screaming, having the presence of mind to hold onto his shield and use it to cover his body. The leg flashed out again, hammering against the shield, scratches appearing as a metallic clang rang out. The healers chain healed Michael, the flow of blood pumping from his leg slowing, then stopping. Another blow to his shield created a diagonal crease across its surface. Logan made to move forward to pull Michael out, but Allistor held him back.

  Allistor quickly cast Levitate on Michael, then waved a hand and sent him shooting back toward the healers. When the mantis tried to follow, several more spikes erupted from the floor, some barring its path, others doing more damage to its abdomen.

  The mantis let out another screech as its eyes began to melt under Andrea’s Dissolve spell. At the same time, One of Meg’s grenades struck its head and shattered, and several fireballs struck it a moment later. The head and neck began to cook, the chitin becoming superheated and the soft tissue roasting underneath. Allistor found himself wishing Lisa, who had joined them on the Fort Knox raid and had an ice spell, was here with them. Freezing the overheated armor might have made it shatter.

  Blinded now, and crazed from the pain and the heat that was boiling its brain, the monster surged forward. Its rearmost section, still skewered on several spikes, ripped away from the rest of its body. It flailed blindly as its health bar plummeted, the deadly front scythes creating wide arcs of death in front of it.

  The raiders backed up frantically, but they weren’t all going to make it through the stairwell door before some of them got hit. So Allistor took a huge risk.

  Drawing his sword, he focused on a particular spot and cast Dimensional Step.

  His aim was slightly off, because the giant mantis was moving. But he appeared upon its back, partway down the section behind its head. Already he was falling, his body not adjusting quickly enough to the change between standing still and standing on a moving monster’s back. But he used the momentum of his fall and all the strength he could bring to bear to swing his sword. The blade cut through the segmented neck of the mantis, its still burning head dropping to the floor about the same time Allistor did. The legs still waved frantically for several seconds, its body not immediately realizing it was dead. But its forward progress halted, allowing Allistor’s people to stay out of range.

  A few of Allistor’s raiders leveled up. Chapman and all of his men received several levels each. They were on average about half the monster’s level going into this fight. Allistor lay there on the floor long enough to reach out and loot the monster. He received a thousand klax, a hundred gold coins, one of the monster’s forearm scythes, and its heart.

  Remembering Michael’s injury, he jumped to his feet and sought out his friend. He was happy to see his health bar at about eighty percent, which Allistor assumed was as high as it would go with a missing leg. He made a note to check into that later. Right now they needed to get Michael back to one of the machines that could regenerate his leg.

  “Colonel, try again, please.” Allistor called out to the man, who was zoned out looking at either his stats or his loot notifications. Chapman blinked a few times, then looked at Allistor. It took him a moment to replay what he’d heard and comprehend the words.

  “Oh! Roger that. One second.” His eyes went unfocused again, and a few seconds later the area around them went transparent.

  The raiders cheered, and as soon as Chapman had made his choices and the place solidified, Allistor called out. “Right! Everybody grab your share of the gold, and let’s get back so we can heal up Michael. Colonel, I assume you can take it from here?”

  “We can. Thank you, Allistor.” The man stuck out a hand. “We could not have done this without you. And watching you guys fight… I have a lot of ideas how to make my people stronger and more effective fighters.”

  Allistor grinned. “Great! We’d like our gold in coins, if that’s possible?”

  The colonel chuckled, and they moved to join the others and coordinate payment of the rewards to Allistor’s raiders. It didn’t take long, and within the hour they were back in DC dropping off the colonel. His raiders had stayed to help guard the facility until more troops could be sent.

  The moment Kira landed the yacht back at Invictus, one of the droids lifted Michael in its four arms and began to jog back to the tower, with Amanda doing her best to keep up. Nancy followed at a more sedate pace. “I’ll get there before it’s over.” she said, taking Ramon’s hand as they walked.

  *****

  Hel’s tentacles twitched in annoyance. The human Prince had defeated the occulant and ruined her plans to claim the gold at Fort Knox. Then almost immediately he’d claimed the larger deposit in New York where she’d placed the leprechauns. She’d just now watched him help the representatives of the former local government take yet another one that she’d not even known abo
ut. Her scouts would pay dearly for that failure.

  There was one more on that continent that her stealthy scouts had managed to locate before Stabilization had expired. This one was in a place on the western coast of the same continent called San Francisco. She’d already sent mercenaries hired through a long chain of shadow representatives so that they could not easily be traced back to her. In fact, she’d made sure that at least three links within that chain would seem to lead back to Loki, instead. Knowing that just a hint of his involvement would be enough to confirm Baldur and Odin’s suspicions of illegal interference and rain their wrath down upon her father.

  Her forces had already seized a similar facility in a city called London, on the continent called Europe, but it was discovered to hold more silver than gold. Certainly a worthwhile acquisition, and one that would make a fine gift to garner influence and recruit an ally at some point. But it wasn’t the resource she had planned for. With a sigh of frustration that swirled the mists around her, she got back to work, reaching out to issue the first in a long chain of orders that would eventually send a band of Dark Hearts mercenaries to seize the gold storage facility in San Francisco, and hold it until she determined its disposition. She had no need of the currency herself. She had wealth and power beyond imagining. Its value to her was as a tool to persuade others to obey her orders. To move about the pieces in this particular galactic game.

  That, and the ever present desire to cause her father’s demise were her only reasons for continuing after eons of physical existence. Even the vagaries of playing the game on new worlds, with new players and strategies every so often, were beginning to lose their attraction. Though, her recent forbidden incursions onto still-stabilizing worlds, and the threat of extermination should Odin, Baldur, or the others catch her at it, still provided a thrill.

  The holo feed that followed the human Prince, and monitored the wagers placed both in support of and against him, flickered in the mist behind her.

  *****

  Loki paced the floor in his new home. He’d constructed it near the top of the volcano known as Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii. Recent tectonic activity under the Pacific Ocean had generated earthquakes, eruptions, and deadly waves that had wiped out most of the living inhabitants of the islands, and caused others to flee. The entire island was not his yet, as a few determined humans had held out and continued to occupy small areas of high ground. But Mauna Kea was his, as was nearly all the land within sight of his high perch.

  The magma below his new home allowed him to keep it pleasantly warm, a constant one hundred thirty degrees Fahrenheit, and to use the geothermal power to generate the mists that filled the halls. That same power generated a barrier that would protect the entire structure should the volcano erupt on a large scale. Or redirect the quiet lava flows of smaller eruptions to flow around and past his home.

  Loki paused to gaze out the floor to ceiling windows facing east across the ocean. He’d chosen the observatory atop Mauna Kea for its position as the highest point on the island. The volcano beneath him wasn’t your classic cone shape with a deep crater at the top. It was more of a large bubble, waiting to pop. From this high point atop the bubble, he could see for miles in every direction.

  “That little minx. My daughter thinks to undermine me?” the words pushed the mist toward the windows, where it rebounded and swirled back past him, his own voice echoing in his ears. “I have taught her well, but she has never learned to recognize her limits. It seems another lesson is in order.”

  With just a thought, he disappeared from the room, the vacuum left by his sudden absence sucking in the surrounding mist so that it briefly coalesced into a rough approximation of his form, before slowly dispersing again.

  *****

  Having no urgent business in the morning, Allistor decided to make good on his plans to develop his own crafting skills. He’d always enjoyed crafting in the various VR worlds he’d played in. He’d been a blacksmith more than once, as well as a tailor in a game where he’d played a squishy, cloth-wearing sorcerer, and wanted to make his own gear. In the back of his mind he was hoping that his previous crafting experience might grant him some quicker skill leveling.

  He began by visiting Michael and his fellow smiths at the Citadel. They’d outgrown the crafting hall Allistor had originally constructed in the lower level of the Warren, and decided to relocate their operation to the Citadel where there was more room. Allistor had granted all his original crew the authority to make changes to his properties, and Michael had taken full advantage. Allistor shook his head and smiled as he took a moment to observe the new free-standing smithy.

  The building was two stories, each floor having several large windows on every side to allow for air to flow through, dissipating some of the heat from the forges. The steeply pitched roof sported a forest of chimneys, as well as a few skylights. Each floor was about two thousand square feet, with a dozen workstations in clusters of three. Each cluster had its own magical furnace that burned with a blue flame. The individual workstations consisted of an anvil, workbench, grinder with interchangeable wheels, various clamps, tools, stool, and buckets of sand and oil. There were also a few large machines off in the corners, big power presses and hammers. And one whole side of the lower floor was filled with shelf after shelf of materials. Bars and rods of metal stock, flux, scraps of usable metal waiting to be melted down and refined.

  The moment Allistor walked in, he was greeted with a wave of hot air. Even with the windows open, a smithy was a hot place to work in late summer. Surveying the various workstations, he didn’t spot Michael anywhere. So he approached the nearest smith and asked, “Is Michael around today?”

  “Oh, hey boss. Didn’t see you come in. Yeah, mister delicate is upstairs in his private section. Says we lowly smiths down here make too much noise for him to focus on his enchanting.” The man grinned and waved his hands about in a delicate manner as he spoke.

  “Ha! Did you tell him he can always go enchant in his own Stronghold?” Allistor grinned at the smith.

  The man’s face grew serious. “No, better he do it here. He’s experimenting with pushing enchanted crystals directly into the structure of weapons and armor. There have been a few… mishaps. Better we’re nearby if a mishap becomes an explosion and he needs immediate heals.” The man looked over his shoulder, then up toward the ceiling before leaning in to whisper.

  “One of us is always up there, puttering around and trying to look busy without making too much noise, just in case. If what he’s trying to do actually works, it’ll change everything we create in here.” He winked at Allistor. “But don’t tell him. It would hurt his feelings.”

  Allistor gave him a solemn fist-bump promise and a pat on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work.” He headed over to the stairs and climbed up to the second floor, where sure enough, another smith was seated at a bench doing some quiet engraving work. Just past his station, an open door led to a large private forge where Michael sat at a bench. His tongue was sticking out to one side as he focused on a glowing crystal in front of him.

  The man in the main room smiled at Allistor, then held up a single finger and shook his head slightly, indicating that Allistor should give Michael a minute to finish whatever he was doing. Allistor spent the time looking around, seeing the second floor was much the same as the first, with one fewer cluster of workstations since Michael had claimed one of the forges for himself. Allistor also noted that he could barely hear the hammering from downstairs. Michael must have included some kind of soundproofing when he constructed the smithy.

  “Allistor!” Michael called out, having finished whatever he was doing. “Come on in! What can I do for you?”

  “How’s the leg, Limpy McGimperson?” Allistor grinned at him. Amanda and Nancy had regenerated his lost leg, and by all accounts it was as good as new. Though for some reason, the new leg was less hairy than its twin.

  “Too soon, man. Too soon. That shit hurt. Like, a lot.” Micha
el grimaced at him. “And I need some new armor and a shield now. That mantis hit like a freight train.”

  Allistor nodded, sympathizing. “I saw. And heard. When it hit your shield, it sounded like you’d just been eliminated in the Gong Show.” Allistor waited to see if his friend would get the reference to the mid-20th century tv show.

  “Asshole.” Apparently, he did. “So what brings you here, other than to give me shit?”

  “Well, I came to see about getting myself set up and working on my Weaponsmithing skill for real. Since you’re the closest thing I have to an expert…” He nudged his friend with an elbow. “I thought I’d start with you. But now that I’m here, I’m more interested in what you were just doing. There were glowy things. And your tongue was sticking out, telling me you were using all your limited brainpower on whatever it was.”

  “You do realize that it’s rude to insult someone you’ve come to ask a favor from, right?” Michael looked sideways at him as he reached for a sword that lay on the bench in front of him. He held it up for Allistor to Examine.

  Sword of Sliceyness

  Enchanted Blade

  Item Quality: Uncommon

  Attributes: +2 Stamina; +2 Strength, +3 Agility;

  Enchanted: Steelruption; Charge 20/20

  This enchantment allows the blade wielder to trigger Steelruption, causing the blade to lengthen by 50% for thirty seconds.

  Allistor studied the blade, reaching out a hand and accepting it from Michael. He turned it over a few times, admiring the shape of it. The blade itself was maybe twenty inches long, a slight belly about two thirds of the way down before it tapered into a sharp point. There was a fuller running up the center from just above the hilt and fading away near the belly. The grip was wrapped in what Allistor thought was probably canid leather. Between the hilt and the fuller was a small crystal embedded within the blade.