“Always, Hero... always and forever,” Becky sniffled. “Let’s go save the town.”
“I’ve looted the necromancer,” Kuro said from beside the Humvee.
“Thanks, Kuro,” Alvin said as he finally let go of Becky.
“Ruffian, follow us,” Becky said as she let go of Alvin and headed for the open door of the Humvee. “We going to loot the grezles on the way back?”
“Yeah. We might need to run, and I’d rather not leave the loot behind,” Alvin said as he opened the driver door.
“That might cost more people their lives,” Kuro said.
“Helping them almost cost Hero his life,” Becky snapped.
“I’m sorry, Matriarch,” Kuro apologized. “They are still my people, but I understand and will not question you again.”
“Good,” Becky grumbled as she got into the back of the Humvee. “Let’s go loot and see about the town.”
“Kuro, you’ll be the one doing the looting,” Alvin said as he put the Humvee in gear.
“Understood, Hero… I’m glad you survived.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Alvin waited for Kuro to get back in the vehicle before he drove them toward the closest gate. “You still have Gothy’s Tommy gun?”
“Yes,” Kuro replied, pulling out the gun.
“Open the window and be ready to shoot anything that’s dead and moving,” Alvin said. “I’ll be going to the manor, since that’s likely to be where the action is.”
“I’m loaded and ready to go. I have my shotgun and MP5 for whenever the M240B is reloading,” Becky added.
“Keep your head on a swivel, and if in doubt, get back in here,” Alvin told her.
“I will.”
“Let’s see what we find,” Alvin said. He let the Humvee climb up and over the rubble that had been the gates.
The entire town seemed to be on fire. Every wooden building was burning, which was at least two out of three. The smoke was rising up, but visibility was poor as Alvin guided the Humvee over and around the rubble.
Becky fired the M240B, making Alvin wonder what she had seen because he hadn’t seen anything out the front.
“We have cats and wolves inside the walls still,” Becky told them, answering his suspicions. “Some of them are on fire and don’t seem to care.”
“Great,” Alvin grumbled.
Kuro began to fire the Tommy at another burning animal shape. It dropped and lay there, unmoving. “I think looting the dead is going to be problematic.”
“We’ll be skipping the looting for now,” Alvin told her. “We’re not leaving the vehicle if we can help it.”
The M240B fired another burst. “They’re coming to us... that’ll make this easier,” Becky said.
“For now,” Alvin replied.
“Fuck!” Becky yelled as something slammed hard into the roof with a loud thump. The rapid-fire boom of Becky’s shotgun echoed inside the Humvee. “Damned cat wanted to eat my face!”
“You okay?” Alvin asked.
“I got him before he was able to take a swipe,” Becky replied. “I think the town is a lost cause. Is the road clear enough to get to the manor?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Alvin said as the Humvee rolled over the burnt remains of a sevra.
“More coming,” Kuro said calmly, firing into a group of shambling humanoid figures.
“Got it,” Becky said, swinging the machine gun around to help out.
They filled the air with the sound of gunfire over the next few minutes. Alvin even commanded the Humvee to drive itself slowly down the street until he told it to stop, just so he could open his window and help.
Dead Elves, falunes, and wulnines came at them over and over again. A couple of dead sevras even joined in as they got further into the town. Becky swapped back to the machine gun as it reloaded again when they reached the town square.
“Hero, on the right!” Becky called out.
A horde of undead were battering themselves against a barrier that surrounded the manor. In the middle of the group, an Elf in long black robes was chanting. Both of his arms were up, revealing skin close in complexion to Kuro’s.
Becky and Kuro didn’t hesitate to fire at the necromancer. The bullets hit a barrier around the caster, attracting the attention of many of the undead behind him.
“I’m going to drive for the manor, which means going over these things. Be ready,” Alvin said, shutting his window. He swung the Humvee around to face the manor and put his foot down. Alvin hoped it would be enough to at least disrupt whatever the necromancer was casting.
The first undead rebounded off the Humvee as it hit them, and the next few were pushed under it, slowing the vehicle a bit while it bounced over the bodies. Alvin focused on the necromancer, wondering if the Humvee could break the barrier that Becky was emptying the M240B into.
Cracks appeared across the barrier as the gun fell silent. “God damn it, break already!” Becky yelled.
Hitting the barrier stopped the Humvee in its tracks, its tires spinning against the ground. “Come on! That is some serious shit,” Alvin hissed. The barrier’s cracks grew wider as he watched. “Yes! Come on!”
It fell just as the necromancer completed the spell. A pulse of energy burst from him, causing the undead around to grow in size as it washed over them. Before the necromancer could do anything else, the Humvee hit him, his body vanishing from view as it went under the vehicle.
As the Humvee continued to plow through the undead toward the front of the manor, arrows flew from the second story into the enraged horde. “We finally have help,” Becky told Alvin. “I see Wintersbreath. She looks wounded, but still alive.”
“I hope the Matriarch is still alive,” Alvin said, angling the vehicle so he could end up sideways to the front doors.
The M240B began to fire again, killing a few of the wulnines that were attacking the Humvee’s slow-moving tires. Kuro kept switching between the Tommy and the MP5, doing her best to finish off any wounded undead.
“Still alive, fucker? Not for long,” Becky snarled.
Glancing in the side mirror, Alvin saw the necromancer getting to his feet, blood trickling from his brow. “Oh fuck, please don’t let him explode yet. Gothy, wait!”
The first few rounds plowed into the necromancer, knocking the unstable Elf off his feet, before Becky pulled the gun off him. “Right… sorry.”
The undead had slowed the Humvee to a crawl with sheer mass, but Alvin shifted into a lower gear to get more torque and kept pushing through. When they reached the door, Alvin looked back and could see the necromancer getting back to his feet. A number of the undead placed themselves between the Elf and the vehicle.
“As good as we’re going to get,” Alvin said as he parked the Humvee and opened his window. “Get him, Gothy.”
“Gotcha,” Becky replied as she pulled the gun back to the necromancer. None of her shots hit him, as the undead beasts jumped in the way to shield the caster from her bullets. “Motherfucking undead.”
Kuro had slipped into the rear and opened the window facing the horde so she could keep firing at the ones closest to them. Alvin didn’t bother to aim: it was like shooting fish in a barrel. However, they were very angry, predatory fish that didn’t want to stay in the barrel.
The M240B ran dry and Becky switched to her shotgun, pumping out the rounds as fast as she could. “Shitfuck,” Becky cursed as she fell into the Humvee.
Alvin looked back to see a falune halfway into the vehicle, its claws and teeth raking across Becky’s body. Kuro had spun in place, the MP5 falling into her lap as one of her blades hit the beast in rapid succession. Its head came clear off its body under the onslaught.
“Thank you,” Becky growled as she touched the body, looting it. “Damn it, stop trying to come in.” Her comment was aimed at the wulnine that had just wedged its head into the hatch, making her fall into Kuro’s lap.
Seeing Kuro already attacking the wolf-beast, Alvin glanced back out his
window. For a brief moment, he could see where the necromancer had been and that he wasn’t there anymore. “Necromancer’s gone,” Alvin told them as he put a round into the eye of a wulnine that was trying to bite the window.
“The manor is not going to last much longer,” Becky said, sitting up now that Kuro had dispatched the wulnine with her blade.
A few hard thunks hit the top of the Humvee, and Becky pulled her gun up to shoot the next beast trying to climb inside. Her first shot hit one of the guards in the chest, pushing them back from the hatch. “Fuck! Sorry!” Becky yelled.
“We understand,” another Elf said as she dropped into the vehicle. “We must flee. The town is lost.”
“Quickly. They are buying us time,” Wintersbreath said as she came through the hatch, landing in the other Elf’s lap.
Alvin put the Humvee into gear and floored the accelerator. “Works for me. Gothy, the gun should be reloaded.”
“Got it,” she said, shoving Wintersbreath and the Elf out of her way to stand back up. A moment later, the gun began to fire again. “Ruffian, go to the front of the manor. Once you have two Elves in you, follow us.”
“Hang on, this is going to be ugly,” Alvin said as he slammed his window shut again.
His words were true, but it wasn’t as bad as he had feared it would be. The undead they encountered on the way out fell quickly as they rolled past. Finally getting out of the west gate, Alvin was able to speed up to fifty. “We’re clear,” he sighed.
“Ruffian is behind us, so we might have saved two of your people,” Becky said as she closed up the gunner’s hatch. Without waiting for a response, she climbed into the front seat.
“We’ve never lost an entire town before... the manors have always survived until now,” the Elf under Wintersbreath murmured. “The Queen will not be happy with me.”
“You did the best you could. We’ve never seen a horde that size,” Wintersbreath said firmly. “They had two necromancers. We killed the first one to get to you. I wasn’t expecting a second to show up.”
“They had three, then. We killed one on the outside,” Alvin said.
“Three?” Wintersbreath breathed, shaking her head. “What is causing them to do this, now of all times?”
“Probably because they’re expecting the changes to the world to cause you problems. Attack when the enemy is confused,” Alvin replied.
“Maybe they’re having trouble, too, raising more undead,” Becky suggested. “Animals don’t normally zombie, at least not on Earth. If they’re using the same rules, then it’s possible that they’re using most of their hordes to try getting undead Elves.”
“It’s just speculation unless we can capture one of them,” Wintersbreath winced. “The last one got away, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Alvin grumbled. “He used his pawns as shields. I hate it when the bad guys are intelligent.”
“Did you need healing?” Kuro asked Wintersbreath.
“A bit, but I’ll get it looked at once we get back to Meiraholt.”
Kuro pulled a medkit from her bags, and pressed it to Wintersbreath’s side. “You’ll need to see about acquiring healing items from Earth once you can.”
Wintersbreath took a deep breath, slowly blinking. “Yes. Yes, I will. We have to establish a town on Earth’s side of the Gate for that to happen.”
“That’s one way,” Alvin muttered under his breath as the vehicles headed away from the ruined town.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Yawning widely, Alvin woke slowly. Becky was glued to his side with her leg over his and her arm across his chest. A thin trickle of drool trailed from her mouth down his chest. “My delicate princess,” Alvin murmured, kissing the top of her head.
Grumbling, Becky rolled away from him. With a smile, Alvin got out of bed, cracking his neck as he went to the bathroom. Fun time was interrupted by that damned attack on Helinaholt. By the time we dropped off Iceblood and Wintersbreath, we were all just ready for bed. Maybe tonight will be better.
Once he’d freshened up, Alvin left the bathroom and saw Kuro looking at him from under the bed. “May I leave my cage, Hero?”
“Yes, Mousie. Go get cleaned up, then wake up Gothy,” Alvin replied softly.
He left the bedroom, and something that had been bothering him finally clicked. “Did they change guns so they don’t hurt our ears?”
“They did, sir,” Jarvis said from the kitchen. “I was about to come tell you that I was starting breakfast, though it will still be some time before it is ready.”
“Because it’s more game than reality now?” Alvin asked.
“Correct. It was decided that having to use a medkit all the time to restore hearing was suboptimal,” Jarvis explained.
“Makes a certain amount of sense,” Alvin nodded. “Not going to complain about something that actually helps me.”
“You asked me last night to remind you to buy a few of the panaceas, sir.”
“Thanks. I want to check on the Humvee as well,” Alvin said as he headed for the kiosk room.
When he prodded the kiosk, he found messages from various people and about items that had sold. He collected the XP then read over the other notes, chuckling. Alvin put some more stuff up for auction before replying to them.
“Nice, easy XP for me,” Alvin snickered. After buying a few panaceas for the three of them, Alvin put everything in his bag and checked his remaining XP. “Damned mobs here are worth a bit... still over a hundred and seventy-two thousand XP.”
He left the kiosk and went into the garage to check the vehicles. Both the Mustang and Humvee had gotten beat up some last night. A few more dents were visible on the Humvee, and the gun looked a bit worn.
M1114 UAH (Uncommon)
Armor: 503,718/625,000
Modifications: Luxury seats, Gunner plating, battle bumper, radio
Runes: 3/4
Fuel, Tires, Durability: 25%
Armament: M240B (Uncommon)
Damage: 8
Durability: 16,327/25,000
Ammo type: 7.62x51mm Nato (200 round belt feed)
Runes: 4/4
Reload: 10 seconds, Armor Buster: 33%, Durability: 25%, Wounding: 20%
Damn, we’ll need a few days off to let them be repaired, Alvin sighed internally. We should head back to Green River and relax for a bit. Maybe swing through Beatty... or maybe not... I’ll have to have Jarvis calculate a route that misses the drake on US 6.
Going back into the main room, Alvin found a pot of coffee on the table along with cups. “Thanks, Jarvis. Did the girls stir yet?”
“You could call it that,” Jarvis replied primly just before the mostly muffled sounds of pleasure drifted from the bedroom.
“I should see about more soundproofing,” Alvin chuckled. A pad appeared next to Alvin’s cup. He snorted and purchased the upgrade and the muffled sounds vanished entirely. “It wasn’t that expensive, and now it will be better for you.”
“It is most appreciated, sir.”
“We have a meeting this morning, don’t we?” Alvin asked as he recalled Wintersbreath saying something to that effect when they left her last night.
“You were asked to come by once you woke, sir.”
“They probably want to talk about what can be done for the two remaining towns,” Alvin sighed.
“That is likely.”
“I think we’re going to need to go into the woods, and that seems like suicide,” Alvin said.
“Just the three of you would probably be less than optimal,” Jarvis said.
“We need to speak with Wintersbreath. If they want the attacks to stop, we’re going to have to go into the woods. That will mean using her troops as fodder.”
“That is one way of doing it,” Jarvis nodded.
“Hmmm,” Alvin murmured thoughtfully as he picked up his coffee.
Lost in his thoughts, Alvin blinked when the sound of the bedroom door opening got his attention. Becky and Kuro came out in leggings and shirt
s. “Morning, ladies. Glad you could join us.”
“You could have woken me,” Becky said with a raised eyebrow.
“I could have, but I wanted to get some stuff done,” Alvin told her as he put four panaceas on the table. “Keep those handy. We’ll need them if we kill another necromancer.”
“Two each?” Becky asked, staring at him as she put the bottles away.
“Yeah. We’re going to need to let the vehicles repair for a few weeks after this. Both of them took some damage, but the M240B is losing its durability way too quick.”
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