The cooldown of Teleportation wasn’t over yet, so I utilized Acceleration instead and darted to the side to dodge the bullets.
Only then did I realize that the alleyway was only three yards or so wide, which meant that there wasn’t enough room for me to run around the PKs the way I had during the fracas between us the other day. I had to adjust my tactic since Acceleration was nearly useless now.
Yet there wasn’t enough time for me to think up another plan.
Once the cooldown was over, I used Teleportation again and materialized behind the two PKs again.
Frozen got puzzled again, whipping his head left and right, but Croc made a one-eighty, well aware that I could materialize only directly ahead of or behind them in this confined alleyway.
I decided to lure the two PK into the open and dashed down the alleyway toward the way out. At this exact moment, a bullet punched into my back. My movement speed reduced considerably and an icon of a debuff appeared in my HUD. Dammit!
No way I could get out of the alleyway before the two PKs whacked me, what with my speed slowed down. I had no choice but to turn around and continue to fight them in the alleyway.
Having activated Shield, I used a stimulator and vigor to restore my health and mana respectively.
The power dome popped. I used Disarming to yank at the weapon clutched in Croc’s hands and flung it thirty or so yards away with Telekinesis. Without flinching, the player wrenched a heavy pistol out of a hip holster and opened fire.
The first bullet struck me in the chest, the force of the impact slamming me flat onto my back. I checked my HUD. The HP shrank noticeably. My character was running low on mana as well.
Croc’s pistol kept on barking, gritty dust spitting up from the sidewalk all around me. Then Frozen discharged the grenade launcher. This time, I fully focused on the rocket-propelled grenades dashing through the air toward me and managed to lobe them all in the opposite direction. The resultant explosions boomed around the two PKs.
Croc continued to shoot at me, but most of the bullets went wide. Either his pistol had an extremely low Accuracy attribute or the player just wasn’t used to wield pistols.
I activated Shield and rose to my feet. The debuff was still slowing down my movements. When I used a heal, the bullets from Croc’s heavy pistol destroyed the power dome. Frozen instantly discharged the grenade launcher. I performed my trick with Telekinesis once more, sending the four grenades backward. Frozen disappeared in a cloud of smoke for a few moments.
Still, he survived. Once the smoke dissipated, I saw his index finger pulling the trigger again. Frozen was about to discharge his grenade launcher once more. He wasn’t very bright, for sure. Or his rage made it impossible for him to think clearly.
Croc shouted to him, “Wait! Don’t do that!”
But Frozen already had. When the resultant growing fireball of the explosion swallowed the two players up, I used Teleportation to pop up behind the PKs and fired at them. A few bullets slammed into Frozen’s helmet. The player spun around and sighted.
But he didn’t discharge the grenade launcher this time around. He finally realized that he just made things worse by firing it. He set about firing his assault rifle instead, shouting above the rattle, calling me names. The bullets failed to penetrate the Shield I’d created.
My revolvers spat flames almost ceaselessly. A few more slugs punched holes in Frozen’s helmet, dribbles of blood streaking the metal surface.
The player finally realized he was about to die. He discharged the grenade launcher, spun around, and raced for the way out, pulling a stimulator out of a pocket on his vest as he ran.
I fired at him one last time, the bullet hitting him in the back, and then concentrated on the grenades, sending two of them flying in the direction of Croc and the others down the alleyway toward the fleeing Frozen.
The last bullet placed a debuff on the player, slowing him down, which was why he failed to get away in time. The two grenades exploded behind him.
The player stumbled but recovered his balance and limped toward the way out. I set a vortex trap a couple of yards ahead of him and turned my attention to Croc. Despite a few gaping breaches in his armor, Croc was still alive and kicking, anxious to deal with me.
An enraged shout came from farther down the alleyway. Frozen had just gotten himself into the vortex trap. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him being hurled up in the air.
Croc was firing at the power done and soon destroyed it. I attempted to disarm him with the psi-power but to no avail although I bore some mana reduction.
I hoped to dispose of Croc before the vortex trap wore off. Croc’s pistol dealt much damage to my character, causing me to activate Shield and use a heal each time a heavy bullet hit me. I almost didn’t employ Teleportation, for there weren’t many places I could transfer my character to in the alleyway. Out of all my psi-powers, I would mostly use Shield.
When the vortex trap wore off, Croc had little health left. He began to remove a stimulator from a pocket on his utility belt. Aware that he wouldn’t be able to patch himself up before I finished him off, he shouted to his brother, “Hey, cover me!”
Frozen, who was about to run away, turned around. He looked at Croc first, then lay his eyes on me, brought his assault rifle up, and discharged his grenade shoulder. Attaboy!
“What are you doing, moron?” Croc snapped at him.
I intercepted the grenades on their way to my character and sent them flying Croc’s way. I started to fire shots at the player before the grenades even reached him and exploded.
When the smoke dissipated, I saw the dead body. Croc was finally taken care of. That left only Frozen to deal with.
The player just stood there staring at the corpse. Although the mask concealed his face, reading his mind was a no-brainer at the moment. Croc had needed assistance, but Frozen just helped me to finish Croc off by discharging the grenade launcher. He awfully let his brother down and felt ashamed of himself for it.
Then the player snapped out of it and attempted to run away for dear life, drawing a stimulator on the run. He didn’t get far. Frozen was low on health, so the first bullets to leap from my revolvers killed him, slamming the player face first onto the ground. The loot appeared all around the splayed body.
I let out a sigh of relief. It was a hard-fought victory, all right.
Holstering the revolvers, I went to check the loot out. The two PK’s played as Soldiers, so they both wore heavy armor, which was of no use to me. Frozen’s assault rifle and Croc’s submachine gun were highlighted in blue.
The same held true for Croc’s heavy pistol. I picked it up. It weighed more than both of my revolvers did. I fixed my eyes on the pistol and its stats popped up in my HUD.
> Name: Executer (*)
> Weapon type: Pistol
> Rarity: Rare (common)
> The player’s required level: 14
> Damage: 250 (+50)
> Accuracy: 35
> Fire rate: 400
> Magazine size: 7
> Special quality: This weapon belongs to a particular player. Other players cannot use it. Moreover, the owner of the pistol is immune to such skills as Warlock’s Disarming or Engineer’s Backdraft. The owner of the gun can boost one attribute of his or her choice. If the owner is killed, another player can become the owner of the pistol in three days. The new owner can cancel out the boost to improve another attribute if they’d like.
> Elemental damage: None
> (*) Note: The owner of the pistol is Croc.
Just to make sure that I couldn’t use the pistol, I put pressure on the trigger. Nothing happened. The trigger wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t unexpected.
I wasn’t sure whether I needed to keep the pistol for three days to test it out. Its damage attribute was pretty good, but all the others sucked. Perhaps I should just to sell it at a vending machine.
After putting the heavy pistol into m
y bag, I picked up all the consumables and ammo. The armor and weapons of the PKs weighed a lot. I wondered if I could carry them all over to the car in one run.
There was a rustle behind me drawing me back to the moment. I spun around, raising my revolvers to the eye level. In one doorway showed up the player, who had been being robbed by Frozen and Croc.
> Name: Flynn
> Level: 14
He flinched when I sighted on him but didn’t run away. He also made no attempt to reach for his shotgun in a scabbard on his back. He showed no sign of aggression toward me.
Flynn scanned the alleyway and uttered admirably, “That was awesome! You whooped their asses all on your own! Cool!”
I shrugged off his praise, “No big deal. I got level 16 while they had only 14 each.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Flynn opined. “They’ve killed me recently. I was 15 and they were 12 each. And a freaking Resurrection Pod was nearby. When I revived, these two guys waited nearby to kill me again. Why would the developers make players revive in a pod? That’s totally stupid if you ask me. Anyway, these pricks killed me several times already. And they surely would’ve killed me again but for you.”
“Looks like they’ve been roughin’ you up since the very first day,” I observed.
“Yeah,” Flynn understood what I was getting at and his mood darkened. “The first time I met them was in the mall. They made me kneel and suggested I give them some goodies in exchange for my life. But I was a novice and had nothing useful to give them. Then I saw you. I thought that if we teamed up, we would deal with them. But it turned out differently. Well, you know what happened, right?”
It was a rhetorical question, so Flynn didn’t expect my answer. He went on, “Truth be told, I was angry with you. So when we met next time, I tried to kill you. Glad you managed to get away. Shame on me! I should’ve known better than this. Even if we’d teamed up, we’d never have killed those two guys. We were just novices while they had good armor and excellent weapons at their disposal. We had no chance of defeating them, for sure.”
It was obvious that it wasn’t all that easy for Flynn to open up. And now he nervously waited for my reaction and probably expected retaliation for his having tried to kill me the other day.
Only then did I realized that I was still holding the revolvers in my hands, pointing them at the player.
Sliding them in their respective holsters, I said reassuring, “Chill, pal. I ain’t mad at you for your tryin’ to whack me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Flynn relaxed.
“So we cool?”
“Yeah.”
Flynn smiled a big friendly smile. His gaze swept across the alleyway once again. “The way you dealt with those two guys is totally amazing! You seem very experienced player.”
He’d been watching me fighting the PKs while lying low. You should’ve assisted me instead of hiding out, y’know, I thought. However, I didn’t voice my thoughts.
Flynn deemed Frozen and Croc to be quite strong opponents and was sure that they’d be able to deal with both of us. They’d murdered him several times already and he wasn’t very eager to be killed again. It was understandable.
So despite his not having come to my aid, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and not to judge him by his past actions.
“Why don’t you pick up the loot?” Flynn asked bringing me back to reality.
I noticed that the bodies had already disappeared leaving only pools of blood behind.
“I’m a Warlock. They’re Soldiers. Their stuff’s useless to me. Take it if you like.”
“I’m not a Soldier either. Wearing heavy armor and wielding assault rifles aren’t my thing,” Flynn stepped to Croc’s submachine gun and studied its stats. “But I sure could do with this beauty. I take it if you don’t mind.”
“Suit yourself.”
There were only the heavy armor and assault rifle lying on the ground. None of us needed these items. So we divided the items between us to sell them later on.
After leaving the alleyway, I turned to head for my car. Flynn looked at me and said, “Hey, the nearest vending machine is in the opposite direction.”
“I know. Better to drive over there than to go on foot.”
Flynn was genuinely surprised. “You got a ride?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Nah.”
“Wanna a lift then?”
“Sure thing!”
I reached my car, opened a door, and put the PK’s items in the rear. Judging from the expression on Flynn’s face, the player was impressed by the car.
“Wow!” He exclaimed looking the vehicle over. “What a wheels! I shouldn’t have been surprised though. It’s a given that such an experienced player like you has an awesome ride.”
I wondered what Flynn would say if he learned that I’d simply jacked the vehicle instead of crafting it. But I simply clammed up.
“Listen,” Flynn said, “how about teaming up?”
“What, you need a bodyguard or something?” I quipped.
“I mean we could team up tonight to hold out against night mobs together.”
“Don’t think it’s such a good idea,” I said doubtfully. “The more players are on a team, the stronger night mobs get. Besides, the total number of mobs depends on the group size. It’s very difficult to get through all ten waves if there too many players on the team. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Flynn nodded in agreement. “But there will be only two of us on the team. This way mobs won’t get much stronger. And I got a good, detailed plan of action for surviving to boot.”
I wasn’t all that keen on teaming up with Flynn. I didn’t know him at all. What if he was a weak player? If he blundered and got himself killed tonight, I’d have to deal with the mobs two times stronger than the usual ones all on my own. It’d be extremely hard for me to survive it. I wasn’t eager to take this chance.
Guessed my doubts registered on my face, for Flynn hastily added, “I’ve been reading the official forum. I perused a lot of various game guides and how-tos. One of them deals with teaching Engineer players how to survive at night. I got all the skills mentioned in the guide. So yeah.”
Suddenly, Flynn gripped my attention. Flynn had been visiting the official forum, reading various threads, and communicating with other players. He should know a lot about the game. I sure could benefit from it.
What if I told him that I was trapped in the game and asked him to ask around on the official forum if other players had ever encountered such an issue? Perhaps it was just a funny glitch that could easily be fixed.
But there was a thought in the back of my mind that it couldn’t possibly be just a glitch, because I wasn’t just stuck in the game. No, I’d mysteriously been transferred from 2018 farther into the future and inserted in the game, deprived of the opportunity of quitting the game.
Should I tell Flynn all this now? Was it such a good idea to burden him with my problems within ten minutes of making his acquaintance? What if it’d scare him off like that player, whatshisname, whom I’d first told about my predicament on the first day. So perhaps I was better off not telling Flynn about my problems right off the bat. Instead I’d best wait until we struck up a friendship.
Flynn was still waiting for my answer, so I asked, “Okay, what’s your plan?”
Flynn’s face brightened. “So as told in the guide, the team size has to be two or three and there has to be an Engineer on the team, who can create turret guns.”
“Turret guns? All Engineers I met so far unlocked only robot and drone skills.”
“Yeah. I know. My character build is rather uncommon. Drones are mobile, pretty nimble and fast. But they have little HP and can be destroyed pretty easily. On the contrary, turret guns are stationary, but their tough armor and good damage output make up for inability to move. Moreover, I had a medical robot.
Most players unlock the medical drone because it can fly. Sure, my medical robot is pretty slow and can’t fly, but it’s got tough armor and a turret gun of its own, so it can handle itself, which is pretty awesome if you ask me.”
Flynn got carried away. He would’ve continued to explain why he preferred unusual skills to standard ones had I not interrupted him, “Okay, I get it. Cut to the chase.”
“So we have to find a suitable house. It has to be pretty spacious but not too big. Even a one-story house will do us pretty nicely.”
“I know of one such a building. I held out in there last night.”
Flynn looked at me attentively. “Did you make it?”
“Yeah.”
Flynn looked as if he hadn’t expected another answer. “It’s no wonder at all. You’re way more experienced player than me. Guess if you’ve already taught yourself to survive at night, then my plan may not appeal to you.”
“Maybe yes. Or maybe no. Can’t tell for sure until you lay your plan out. You haven’t said nothing’ about it yet.”
“Yeah. Right. So I have all the needed skills. The next step is to reinforce the house, to board up windows and install doors.”
“I’ve already done it. The house’s as secure as possible.”
“Good. So the final step. I need to examine the house to find good spots for my turret guns so that there’re no blind spots. The plan is to keep monsters at bay as long as possible. My turret guns have infinite ammo, so they don’t need to reload and could shoot ceaselessly. If a turret gets damaged, I’ll repair it after a current wave’s over.”
“What about boomers and fleshshredders? One needs to fire at their vulnerable spots in order to kill them. Don’t think your turrets know about it.”
“No, they don’t. Which is why we’re going to deal with such monsters ourselves.”
“So let me get this straight. You set up your turret guns, then we try to keep mobs at bay, and when a boomer or fleshshredder show up, we turn our full attention to them. That’s your plan, right?”
“Yeah,” Flynn nodded. “That’s my plan in a nutshell.”
Glitch Boxset Page 30
