Fist Full of Credits: A New Apocalyptic LitRPG Series (System Apocalypse - Relentless Book 1)

by Craig Hamilton

  I joined in and fired at the swarm. Every shot of mine dropped a bird, but it was like spitting into the howling wind of a raging blizzard.

  The birds whirled around us and dove into our group. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow as I flailed at the swarm with my free hand. I batted several of the birds with my blind swings, but the rest tore into me.

  I felt almost no sense of impact from the starlings’ attacks, but their tiny claws left behind a burning sensation as if I was being raked by a thousand paper cuts. Gradually, the assault slowed as the swarm passed on, and I cautiously lowered my arm.

  My adventurer’s jumpsuit was shredded in several places and hung in tatters around my arms and legs. The more heavily armored sections of my torso and greaves had held up to the onslaught, and I was surprised to find myself only down about twenty hit points from the attack.

  Several explosions behind me pulled my attention back to the fight, and I holstered my ineffective pistol as I turned. The murmuration had swept over the entire party and passed into the area we had already cleared. The swarm was spinning and turning back toward us.

  Everyone on the perimeter of the party shared my disheveled state except for the three armored suits. At the center of the group, Borgym had deployed a small shield that covered himself in a translucent dome.

  Missiles launched from the armored suits erupted in the midst of the swirling flock. Every detonation tore out a chunk of the swarm and sent avian bodies tumbling from the air.

  I summoned the hybrid rifle from my Inventory and aimed it at the densest portions of the murmuration, over the heads of the gnomes at the rear of the party. The rifle whined then fired a round that split the air.

  The round’s passage bore a circular hole about a foot in diameter through the dense flock, and even those not directly hit plummeted to the floor as the shockwave knocked them unconscious. My attack was less powerful than the gnome’s explosive missiles but far more effective than the initial volley from my beam pistol.

  “Switch to flechette,” commanded Ipbar over party chat in a message that was clearly not meant for me.

  The pair of gnomes with the multi-attachment rifles stopped firing long enough to make some quick adjustments to their weapons. When their fire rejoined ours, instead of individual rounds, each of the shots from the gnome’s projectile weapons split up into a cloud of tiny darts that swatted swaths of starlings from the swarm.

  The combined attacks whittled away at the murmuration, and the birds only swept over us once more before we managed to drop the last of the flock. Only when the birds were all dead did Borgym drop the shield that had protected himself from the attack.

  Everyone in the party, except for Borgym and the three suited gnomes, had taken some damage during the fight. None of our injuries were serious, but we waited in our current position to heal up, instead of moving forward immediately.

  So many fallen birds littered the floor that we ended up kicking them into piles as we looted, just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. A mass of feathers, tiny talons, bird brains, and a few dozen starling eggs made up the loot.

  Once everyone had rested sufficiently, we moved forward into the next section of the concourse. The next hour and a half passed uneventfully beyond the steady clacking of the automated turrets as they were deployed with each push forward through Concourse B.

  Finally, we reached the end of the lengthy concourse where it opened up into the central hub of the terminal. The Airmall was an octagonal structure filled with a food court, numerous shops, and escalators that descended to an underground transit system. The tram ferried passengers between the airside terminal and the landside terminal that housed the airline ticket counters, baggage carousels, and security screening areas.

  The air here smelled of smoke residue and rot. My nose wrinkled in disgust, and I stopped short, carefully looking over the area before I stepped out of the concourse and into the Airmall.

  A few rotted corpses were scattered across the floor of the area, and I figured they were likely the source of the scent of decomposition that hung in the air. I saw no obvious signs of charring or soot, so the smoke must have come from somewhere else in the terminal.

  I looked up and was surprised that I could smell much of anything since the skylights that supported a raised section of the central roof had all caved in and covered the floor in shattered glass. I figured that only my Keen Senses ability let me detect the odors, since the broken windows up above allowed a steady breeze of fresh air to swirl through the area.

  I kept my gaze focused on the Airmall as I gestured for the gnomes to deploy the turrets along either side of where the terminal joined the central hub. The machines whirred as they deployed, and their silence told me when the task was completed.

  I cautiously stepped out into the open area as the gnomes waited at my back. The wind that drifted through the broken skylights far overhead died down and left the area in an oppressive silence. I instinctively slowed, ensuring that my footsteps stayed quiet without the whistling breeze to cover my movements.

  Something hard scratched faintly across the tile floor, out of sight below where the escalators dropped toward the lower level of the terminal. The sharp sound broke the eerie silence, and I froze, waiting to see if the noise continued. When I heard nothing else after the initial scraping, I cautiously approached the railing that overlooked the open stairwell and peeked over the edge.

  The area directly below me consisted of two staggered flights of stairs that separated twin pairs of escalators. The stairs were brightly lit thanks to the skylights far overhead, but past the end of the stairs, the area was obscured in shadow.

  The scratching sound had come from the darkness that led to the transit system, and I peered into the shadows to look for the source of the noise.

  For a long moment, nothing moved. Then I saw a large shape move within the depths of the dim space and heard more of the scratching, now identifiable as claws, scraping across the hard tile floor. It was too dark to make out anything, but the figure that shifted within the shadows seemed quadrupedal. I peered into the darkness, hoping to make out more detail, and continued to listen as the creature moved about below. Then I heard a sound I could only describe as a soft, shrill screech.

  An answering hoot came from deeper underground, and I realized the large creature was not alone.

  I slowly backed away from the edge and returned to the gnomes at the edge of Concourse B. They watched my movements with apprehension, clearly nervous about whatever had made me so cautious.

  “There are at least two of something large down below in the transit tunnels that lead to the groundside terminal,” I said to Borgym. I kept my voice low but avoided whispering since the pitch of those sounds traveled farther, and I really didn’t want to alert the beasts I’d spotted. Not until we were prepared, at least.

  “Can you tell me anything else about them?” Borgym asked.

  “They communicated by screeching,” I said with a shrug.

  “That hardly narrows it down.” Borgym frowned. The old gnome looked lost in thought for a moment, then shrugged. “We still need to clear them out regardless. How do you want to do it?”

  I looked back at the open area and the descending stairway. There was another set of stairs opposite the route down to the transit system, leading up to the mezzanine level where American Airlines had their VIP lounge.

  “Suits on the backside of the stairwell, so they can shoot down and hit the creatures in the back when they’re coming up the stairs,” I said, then pointed up. “Everyone else goes to the upper level so they can shoot down from an elevated position.” I grinned wryly. “Then I play bait and hope you can pick the things off before they catch me.”

  Borgym agreed to my plan, though he had a couple suggestions to improve it. The turrets were placed around the perimeter of the Airmall so that anything coming up the stairs would be caught in a crossfire. He also handed me two stacks of thin, beige discs, each abou
t the size of my hand and a quarter-inch thick.

  While the gnomes moved into position, I crouched low and scattered the beige mines across the space at the top of the stairs. After the mines were placed, the thin discs promptly shifted their coloring to match the tile floor and practically disappeared.

  Once the gnomes were all in place, Borgym signaled me over party chat, and I creeped down the stairs. At the landing between the two flights, I lay down so that I was out of sight from below. Careful to keep quiet, I slowly crawled across the floor to spread out the second stack of mines across the landing.

  With the mines emplaced, I pushed myself to my feet and started back up the stairs. A surprised screech from behind alerted me that my retreat hadn’t been as unnoticed as I hoped, and I sprinted to reach the top of the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs, I pulled the Banshee hybrid rifle from my inventory as I turned and got my first good look at the creature that had emerged from the shadows below.

  A horrid, brown-furred quadruped was already halfway up the first flight of stairs. Each of the beast’s four stocky legs ended in paws tipped with claws several inches long, though their sharp curves looked more like the talons of a giant bird of prey. The rest of the animal’s body almost resembled a bear—smaller than the mother bear I had killed on day one of the apocalypse, but not by much. However, instead of a snarling bear head, this creature had a feathered, flat-faced cranium with a large hooked beak.

  I pulled the rifle to my shoulder and fired. The hybrid weapon whined as it spooled up, then kicked sharply into my armpit as it discharged. The blast caught the bird-bear-thing in the face, and it staggered from the impact.

  My shot was the signal for the gnomes to attack, and weapons fire rained down onto the creature from the armored suits positioned above it. Micro-explosions wreathed the monster in flames, and energy beams raked across its furred pelt. The creature stumbled under the sudden onslaught but continued to push its way up the stairs and onto the landing.

  Then the beast stepped onto one of the mines. The tripped mine launched itself upward into the creature’s underside before it exploded in a blast that lifted the creature off the floor. Fire engulfed the beast, and it let out an ear-piercing screech as it slammed back onto the floor. It feebly crawled back onto its feet as a flurry of answering screeches poured from the transit tunnels behind it.

  I fired again, and another round of attacks from the armored suits poured into the injured creature. It keeled over as four more shapes charged up out of the gloomy underground.

  Two of the new beasts were the same size as the one we had just managed to kill. The other two were even larger.

  I shifted my aim to the first of the bigger bear-things that rushed up the stairs and fired the hybrid rifle as fast as it would cycle. The rest of the mines on the landing detonated under the big animal’s thundering footsteps, but it pushed through the explosions with little more damage than singed fur as its hate-filled eyes bored into me.

  Behind the creature I targeted, the other of the larger creatures saw the twitching corpse on the landing and stopped to nuzzle it. Then it leaned back on its haunches and gave a mournful screech that filled the air. The piercing sound echoed through the Airmall, and I winced as the shrill noise stabbed at my eardrums.

  Mental Influence Resisted

  The agonizing cries over party chat let me know that most of the unarmored gnomes had been affected by the shrill cry.

  “They’re birdbears,” Borgym said over party chat, finally able to see the creatures from his position on the mezzanine above as the monsters climbed higher in the wide stairwell.

  At least I now knew what the ugly beasts were called.

  I quickly backed away from the stairs as the big birdbear reached the top and continued its charge toward me. The automated turrets activated, and all four fired simultaneously. Their beams caressed the massive beast and left behind singed fur.

  I cast Frostbolt, then immediately activated Hinder. The combined movement-impairing effects slowed the creature enough that I stayed just beyond the reach of the massive beast’s slashing claws.

  I jogged backward, away from the center of the Airmall, as the big birdbear chased me, and I snapped off a shot from my hybrid rifle at the first of the smaller birdbears to reach the top of the steps in an effort to pull that creature into pursuing me as well.

  The small creature looked around for the source of the attack. Then a pair of beam attacks from the gnomes on the upper level hit it in the side, and it charged toward the other stairwell that led to the mezzanine above. The mines scattered across the floor there exploded beneath it, and the beast tumbled into a skid. Its claws dug into the tile floor as it scrambled to its feet and headed toward the stairs ahead of it once again.

  I fired another shot at the stair-bound birdbear, but the younger creature ignored my attack and continued toward the upper level. The gnomes would have to deal with that one on their own.

  The second smaller birdbear crested the top of the stairs, and I cast Frostbolt. This time, my attack succeeded in catching the creature’s attention, and it rushed toward me.

  Still dancing backward, I returned my focus to the bigger birdbear and hit it with another blast from my hybrid rifle.

  The repeated attacks were taking their toll on the large creature. The fur of its underside was singed from the explosions of the mines, and its face had become a matted, bloody mess from my repeated railgun shots. All that remained of one eye was a gaping, ragged hole where a lucky shot of mine had punched through the cheekbone.

  The beast’s remaining eye glared angrily and promised death if it reached me. I vowed to myself not to let that happen as I ran through the food court that took up a large portion of the Airmall.

  Tables and chairs flew through the air as the two birdbears bowled through the food court and chased me. Every couple of steps, I twisted back to fire my rifle, and I activated Hinder when the smaller birdbear surged ahead of the larger one.

  When Frostbolt finished its cooldown, I cast it again at the bigger birdbear. The creature shrieked angrily when the shard of ice burrowed into the thick flesh of its torso, and I fired the hybrid rifle into its open beak. The angry screech turned into more of a choking cough, and it staggered to a halt. The birdbear’s head jerked down as it wheezed and hacked, blood spraying from its damaged maw to splash across the tiled floor.

  I sped into a sprint and turned to circle the wounded creature, keeping its bulk between the birdbear youth and me. I ran around behind the creature and came up in the blind spot of its dead eye. The birdbear’s shoulders stood nearly as tall as me, but with its head down due to coughing, the beast’s face was near the floor, and I didn’t have a good angle into the open wound.

  I crouched and squeezed the trigger as I jammed the end of my rifle barrel into the hole in the birdbear’s face. The creature squeaked in surprise as the rifle whined right beside it, and the birdbear swung a leg toward me just as the rifle discharged.

  The powerful backhand crumpled the armor built into my jumpsuit, knocked the wind from me, and broke several ribs as the attack lifted me from my feet. I pinwheeled through the air, unable to breathe while the world spun around me. My rifle slipped from my grasp when it caught on something, and I only caught a glimpse of the weapon spinning through the air before it clattered out of sight.

  Tables and chairs scattered, scraping across the tile floor, as I plowed through the food court. Each impact sent a stab of pain jolting through my chest as the offending piece of furniture skidded away. A table edge dug into my back before its legs gave way and I tumbled to the floor.

  When I finally slid to a stop, I sat up with a groan and glanced at the birdbear. The massive creature lay slumped to the floor and looked as though it was missing half of its head. I glanced at my health bar and found that I was missing over a third of it from the single blow, so I felt as though that was a fair trade.

  “One down,” I gasped over party chat as t
he smaller birdbear barreled toward me across the food court. My chest heaved with the effort it took to breathe, and I felt a stabbing sensation as one of my broken ribs cut through my flesh.

  I pulled one of the health potions from my inventory and gulped it down. A soothing sensation spread through my chest and dampened the pain, though the distant agony lingered. My health crawled upward, and I tossed aside the empty potion bottle as I felt the disconcerting sensation of my ribs shifting as they settled back into place.

  I painfully heaved myself to my feet and drew my beam pistols to face down the onrushing juvenile birdbear. I opened fire as soon as my weapons were on target. The energy beams lashed across the beast’s face, and it flinched from the assault. The attack wasn’t enough to halt the creature, though the distraction slowed the beast enough for me to cast another Frostbolt before it reached me.

  The birdbear leapt toward me, and I dove out of the way. I rolled to my feet and turned back to keep up my barrage of energy fire before the creature could halt its momentum. The beams lit into the birdbear’s flank, and the smell of burnt hair filled my nostrils as the brown fur charred under my attacks.

  The smaller creature was far slower than the larger one that had pursued me so ferociously, and I was easily able to avoid its claws. Still, the birdbear kept me occupied enough that I didn’t have any attention to spare beyond a few quick looks around to ensure that none of the remaining beasts were trying to sneak up on me.

  I had no idea how the gnomes fared, until a glance at the party menu showed one of the portraits grayed out with empty health bars.

  Shit.

  I still had an angry birdbear to contend with, and I couldn’t do anything about helping the others for now.

  My pistols emptied their charges with the beast still on its feet, and I had to stash the drained weapons in my Inventory. I pulled out one of my projectile pistols, along with the beam pistol looted from the dead alien.

  The projectile pistol thundered as I fired, filling the indoor space with its sharp retorts and the acrid smell of gunpowder.