The Witch Tamer, Book 1

by Naosu N R

  "How long have you been in here?" Mandy asked them first.

  "Hm...maybe 2 weeks? We got stuck over a 9 days ago and are way overdue to get back," Miguel told us.

  "We weren't always in this apartment. We've sort of been on the run," the girl in their team told us.

  The heavy dark mood over them also confirms this.

  "Yeah, they'll probably be reporting us KIA soon," James said with a dead voice and eyes looking at the other wall.

  I noticed Mandy is sitting really close to me. I guess that's part of the bodyguard trait, but I didn't realize she'd sit 'that' close. She's basically on the other couch with me with our thighs touching and leaning against me while the other team is on the other couch or standing in this apartment.

  James is standing near the door, which is braced with some furniture. Sadie seems the most at ease, which sort of bothers me given the circumstances.

  "We were paid to come in here and look for survivors. Its one of the adventurer jobs at the guild. Its a week long camping quest, with a base salary and bonuses for each person found. But we didn't expect that this place is much harder than it looks. Its ironic that we're now needing rescue, when we were the rescue team. Undead maps are nothing but trouble," Miguel said first.

  "I see," Mandy said.

  "Everything went bad fast. We underestimated how many undead come in a pull when zombies attack. We got in over our heads. We sort of got stuck here. I wish we hadn't come here so early. We were kind of pushing the edge of things," James told us dourly.

  "Don't tell them that," their leader told James.

  "Whatever. I'm just being honest. We already need help. What if I gave them the wrong idea and got them killed here, if they thought this place was somewhere everyone goes to XP?" James just sort of shrugged.

  "You aren't the leader. There's a reason, I have to tactically be careful about what I say," their leader told him.

  "And we need them to help us get out. If they get killed first we're screwed," James told him.

  "..." no reply then.

  So if I'm reading this right, the quest they took is undo-able, even for us! We should focus instead of doing their quest and getting money, to surviving ourselves!

  "Right. The job details were that it should be survivable. It even said it was an undead zone map. But we didn't realize one bite by zombies and its over," Sadie said wiping a tear. "I lost my friend, Becca," she sniffed.

  "Why did you think you could do undead? Did you have some kind of advantage before?" I asked.

  Some of them flinched hearing that question.

  And then I found out why...

  "We used to. Becca was our healer class. They have an anti-undead spell that comes in handy. They also have the 'esuna' skill, which works on curing undead bites," Josh told us unhappily, while frowning.

  James nodded in agreement, but looking dark. He's staring at the floor a lot.

  Their long faces suggest something bad happened...probably too her first, this Becca girl whatever.

  "Did you say the skill called Esuna? Are you sure you have the right one? That shouldn't work on undead," I said.

  "Kind of. It works in the first five minutes of an undead bite, but not longer than that for treatment. But its not normally the main undead cure spell. The caster has to have a little skill with it too, but not necessarily be any kind of expert," Mandy told me.

  "Oh, I see..."

  That's good to know. Its a hidden effect, but that skill isn't meant to be used as undead defense! Knowing this will be helpful!

  "Becca got bitten when we ran into a rogue wandering boss. Then before we knew it, a whole pile were on her and George even before she had a chance to use the esuna skill. It turns out their dog pile effects when they swarm you are worse than any bites," Miguel swore in Spanish a few times after he said that.

  "Did you say wandering boss?" Mandy asked. Her tone shows she's worried.

  "Yep."

  There are wandering bosses too?

  Damn.

  "Wait, so if you guys came in then, then you know where the zone map exit is?" I asked hopefully.

  Mandy's expression turned a bit more hopeful suddenly.

  We're both very interested in the exit.

  "Yeah, we do. But the problem is getting there. The exit is in the most infested area of the city. We can't get there. We've been trapped for four days here," Sadie sniffed, half crying.

  "And you guys? What about you? We told you how we got here. You need to share also," Josh interrupted.

  "Fair enough. We only had two people to begin with. We're doing all right but just lost," Mandy said.

  I noticed she left out a lot of details. Like for example the car.

  But then I realized maybe that was a good thing. If they knew we had a car they might want to murder us in our sleep, especially since its the only car in the whole map that isn't a dungeon zone map prop that doesn't work.

  "So you guys were here for other reasons?" Josh pressed.

  "We sort of came in by accident. We didn't intend to come into this place. And we're lost," Mandy said.

  "You can join us babe. Why not be my girl also? You're kind of hot," Miguel flirted with Mandy openly. At the same time he was trying to light up a cigarette but his lighter was broken.

  Miguel's actions sort of covered us ironically, because it looked like Josh and Sadie didn't buy that. But Miguel's actions diverted things away from asking us questions!

  "Sorry. I'm already dating Jay here. We're a team," Mandy said.

  I was a bit surprised she did that. I just wasn't expecting her to be real and loyal, because a lot of girls aren't.

  But then I thought it was a good cover story. There are times when a bodyguard wouldn't want to be outed as one to other people.

  So she's stuck pretending to be my girlfriend as long as we're with them?

  I guess if she can live with that its OK. And I guess she didn't want to tell them I'm really her boss, and she's a bodyguard in case they turn on us.

  "Right on. That's cool," Josh diplomatically smoothed it out.

  We kept discussing things further while sharing information.

  They were excited to hear I'm a mage. Mandy did disclose that, but not what kind of mage I was.

  That even made them want to work with us even more.

  With my mage status they were a bit excited to help us. But the problem also is that they are out of ammunition with two of their party being range weapon users (bows etc).

  Seriously can it get any worse?

  Maybe Josh is worried I might take his team lead I wonder, because he was the only one that didn't seem happy to have a mage with them.

  Before we realized it, we'd found a team to work with! They were excited to bring us in with the goal being to escape the dungeon. And they were willing to respect boundaries about us, with us not wanting to share too much about ourselves.

  They just want help getting the hell out of this map.

  Let's see, what were their levels again? Will this even work?

  James, level 24 soldier

  Miguel, level 19 archer (out of ammunition)

  Sadie, level 18 ranger (also out of ammunition)

  Josh, level 25 knight

  That's not good. in essence that means they have no healing class, and lost their mages. And their range and everything not front line is now useless.

  Plus, they must be either really desperate, or totally unguarded to tell us their levels.

  Wow.

  And then there's us.

  Mandy, level 24 knight (Women's business suit; crappy combat armor. Has a crowbar, two nearly empty pistols, a silver dagger+1, an enchanted belt of strength (+5 to strength), which she uses for a damage upper, and a buckler. She also has a cheap small bag of holding, weak item, with only 1 small slot big enough to hold her gear and a 3 day ration kit which she has to split between us.)

  But later I wondered if that level she told them was accurate; I didn't think this unti
l weeks later, that she might have lied.

  The others have better gear than Mandy. This was part of why she'd told them I was a mage.

  Interesting.

  People have an immediate positive reaction mages. It doesn't get tiring. They all hope you'll join them, for even low power mages because its just so hard to even get a single mage.

  They seem to also know enough about mages that it turns them off to immediately demand to know what kind of mage you are. But eventually they will ask me that.

  "If you help us, we can help you," the girl named Sadie reminded us.

  "So let's work out a plan," I suggested.

  "For now we rest. We can try to scavenge for food in the morning. Everything hinges on getting food tomorrow. And after that we can get or do whatever you guys like. You can't go out at night. And don't make any noise," Sadie warned me.

  "Why is that? Not that I'd want to," I asked.

  "At night the zombies experience a zone global buff that ups their stats by +20%, including hearing. Plus, there's some seriously scary shit out there, not just undead," Miguel frowned.

  That's interesting. IF there hearing range changed at night, you could see how that might throw people off that were counting on their hearing not going over a certain range. And then one thing would lead to another.

  We also heard there's some kind of weird enchanted mega obelisk in the middle of the town plaza that's some kind of urban legend. Supposedly its completely filled with the names of parties that have fallen in this map.

  "Jeez..." Mandy swore.

  "Yeah, and the worst part is with that plus them not experiencing pain, and one bite being game over makes this the worst place to go over," Miguel added.

  I wonder why they actually came here then. Or were they just badly in need of cash?

  Mandy and I glanced at each other for a split second.

  It sounds like the level of this dungeon in the 'Tower of Babel' dungeon doesn't match up well with its floor. She's thinking this too I think.

  "But that's not the worst of it," Josh interrupted.

  "The shade creatures..." I heard Sadie mutter.

  "What? What shade creatures?" I asked.

  From their reactions they are quite scared of whatever these shade creatures are.

  They then inform us that not only are there orc dungeon parties, but the shade creatures come out at night, which seem to be some kind of darklings that are creatures made of shadow, but fiercer than zombies.

  Fuck...it keeps getting worse.

  "The darklings are more dangerous than the zombies. They are smarter, and like human flesh, and strong also. But they don't like going inside the human buildings, partly because of the zombies. But worse than them, they can fly," Miguel told us.

  !

  We then find out also that the zombies and shade creatures also fight and eat each other. And some how the shade creatures can eat zombie meat and not become undead...because they are something worse than that.

  "So night travel is out then," Mandy breathed out glancing at me.

  I nodded to reassure her. I think she was worried about me putting her in unnecessary danger.

  "So you guys just hide at night in here?" I asked.

  "Pretty much. We've found that if you kill enough zombies you can get some of them to drop food cans that are safe to eat. And you can also use a 'forage' skill in order to find food in the nearby apartments as part of the dungeon's magic. That's why we're not dead yet actually," Sadie said.

  "But the trouble is that only rangers have the 'forage' skill. And for people without the forage skill, the success rate of finding canned food items drops a ton," Josh said.

  The others are all looking at Sadie, who is the ranger.

  "Yeah, you guessed it. If Sadie dies everyone dies," Miguel said.

  Sadie might have been impressed and feeling good that everyone honored and liked her for this. But unfortunately the moment was sort of lost by the fact that she'd been upset crying herself and also her eye shadow was totally smeared from it.

  So Sadie has to live no matter what...

  Its weird for me to be in a position where I have to save others in order to live myself. But also it wouldn't be a good idea for them to figure out I'm a much lower level than the others.

  "Now that its dark, remember no noise. Both the darklings and the zombies are drawn by the sounds easily," Josh reminded us, but partly trying to probably impress Mandy, and show us he was the leader.

  Mandy just frowned at him, which surprised me.

  And its clear the others are a bit tempted by Mandy also, since she's better looking than Sadie.

  Still...Sadie wasn't bad looking either.

  "For now why don't you guys get some rest. You can take that spare room there, which we aren't using," Josh told us.

  "You're sure we aren't intruding? There's only 2 bedrooms, and six of us now," I said.

  "We prefer to all sleep in the living room together in case we're attacked," Sadie told us.

  "Right," Miguel said.

  "If you take that room, you'll need to make sure you cover the windows well. We'd not bothered to go in there, because we needed to stay in this room and the other bedroom which is ours," James told us.

  I checked the watch.

  Its dark and now 8:31 PM.

  Its going to be a long night.

  ...

  8:31 PM

  Mandy and I went to the spare bedroom together and locked the door behind us.

  It only took a few minutes to cover the windows. But while covering them we're...not really panicked, but yes a bit frantic to avoid trouble as quickly as possible.

  After that we took a few seconds to catch our breathe and make sure nothing saw us out of the smallest possible peek holes we could in the window sides.

  But it seems also that there's no electricity in the building, we confirmed after clicking light switches and broken appliance switches in several rooms. This didn't surprise me at all, and we'd already guessed it, but wanted to confirm it. We'd not yet been able to verify that until now however because of what was happening.

  While doing this we move very quietly.

  Even making floor boards or flooring squeak or creak unnerves us easily.

  We also changed the sheets on the bed. Thankfully there was a clean linen closet in the apartment, though the sheets were slightly dusty from having sat awhile.

  Still, it felt good to know the bed was clean. (It was also clear of gore.)

  Then I began doing mana exercises and playing with my skills for a few minutes.

  Huh? Why didn't I think of that before?

  While playing with my skills, I realized I could do a limited charm that doesn't do much, for temporary use.

  I didn't use it on Mandy, but instead I was trying to see if I can alter and change existing skills or modify them. I practiced for some time.

  This is how mages get new skills essentially.

  ...

  "Hey, so can we talk?" Mandy asked me sitting purposely close, once we were alone in the other room.

  "Am I in trouble?" I asked.

  "Oh no way," she smiled.

  There she goes with her knee and thigh touching mine again. She seems to be trying to sit close.

  But that might not mean she actually likes me. It could just mean trying to keep me doing what she wants. With girls its kind of hard to tell their real intentions.

  "S-sure. Let's talk then."

  "Your family has a contingency plan for checking and finding you if you don't come home at night. Its probably not good for me to tell you that. But in this situation its a must, so you don't do something crazy or get too desperate, wanting to risk running through a crowd of zombies or something stupid," she added.

  "Thanks for telling me."

  "Also, keep your voice really low. Rangers have a special listening skill to spy on people. I just don't know if she's using it right now, which is why I'm so close to you, touching and whispering," she
leaned in especially close to whisper in my ear.

  This felt like it was getting dangerous.

  To lean in close to me she'd straddled my leg with her own and was facing me with my face practically in her bust while leaning over. "We also have to keep up this ruse of being your girlfriend and a couple. We can't risk them finding out I'm a bodyguard. If they find that out, they'll assume you're rich, and that's too much temptation," she added.