Allistor limped into the room, one hand over his right butt cheek. “Oh, miss. I have a boo-boo on my-”
“Don’t even think about saying that next word, or you’ll have one for real.” She cut him off. Her new apprentice covered her mouth to try to hide her laughter.
Allistor stopped limping and changed tactics. He bowed to her, waving his hand with a flourish much like she’d just done during her chant. “Would milady do me the honor of joining me for a quiet evening of snuggling and plotting to take over the world?”
Though she resisted, a small smile escaped. “Idiot. I’ll have to check my calendar. With all these new men around, I’m considering my options.”
Covering his heart with both hands, he staggered backward. “My lady! You wound me!” Turning to stagger toward the door, he made gasping noises. “I fear… it may be a mortal wound.” He listened carefully as he exited and turned to lean against the wall outside. A wide smile broke across his face as he heard the two women laughing.
The woman whose name he didn’t remember said, “Lucky you.”
Amanda sighed and said, “Yes, lucky me. He’s young, strong, not completely stupid, and he doesn’t snore. Such a prize.” He rolled his eyes and crept away, stepping carefully so as not to alert her that he was still within earshot. When he cleared the building and entered the crafting hall, he got another notification.
You have learned the skill: Sneaking!
He didn’t bother to read the rest. Waving it away, he went to see if he could improvise a new weapon with his recently acquired skill increase.
*****
Another week passed in relative peace. Allistor took a party of five back to the RV lot to retrieve three more. One luxury model, and two more functional ones. They also filled more steel drums with gasoline. A drive-by of the Stronghold showed the gates still closed and no sign of activity. Allistor was glad – he hoped to reclaim it as part of their territorial expansion. Luther had come to him more than once, asking about the fate of the Stronghold, and whether Allistor planned to claim it for himself. The situation was awkward. Luther was a prideful man who had been strong enough to gather a larger group than Allistor’s and create a stronghold. If not for the interference of Evan and his men, Luther might well be the stronger of the two. Allistor reassured Luther that the Stronghold was his anytime he wanted to void his oath and separate from Allistor’s people.
Foraging parties of three and four went out daily, ranging farther and farther. They’d found a distribution warehouse off the interstate that was full of mostly useless items. The foragers did find several dozen winter coats, including some small enough for the children. Another container held thousands of bags of peanuts, like you’d find at a ballpark or on a plane. They tossed a few fifty-pound bags of dry dog food onto the truck for Max and the rabbits.
A howling sound cut short their exploration of the multi-acre warehouse. Rushing back to the truck, they closed the roll-up door and exited the area. Standard procedure was to avoid a fight if a group was potentially outnumbered. And the canids were roaming in larger and larger packs.
Amanda led a group back to the hospital to stock up on more linens and antiseptics. They ran across a smaller pack of canids and managed to kill them with only minor injuries on their side.
The RV that he’d put on the market sold for one hundred sixty thousand klax. He didn’t put the next one on the market right away, wanting to make them seem scarcer and thus valuable.
Amanda slept in his quarters more often than not through the week. When he jokingly asked her if she’d finished considering her options and made a choice, she just gave him a funny look and put her head on his shoulder. He let the subject drop.
Though they were scouting and foraging as far as forty miles out in every direction, none of the parties returned with any news of other survivors. There had been a dozen or so reports of evidence of attacks. Some of them recent enough that the blood at the scene wasn’t fully dried. But there was no way to tell if it was human blood.
Sam came home triumphant from a foraging trip with a box full of radio equipment. He’d finally located a short wave radio. But after spending a full day setting it up and testing various frequencies, he’d received no replies to his calls. He made it a habit to stop by the crafting hall where they’d set up the radio each day and cycle through the channels, calling for other survivors to respond.
The general consensus was that Ramon and Nancy had a full-fledged romance going. Neither admitted to it if asked, but they weren’t fooling anybody. Chloe was growing attached to him as well, suckering him into tea parties and wheedling him into reading to her at bedtime.
A nearby farm had yielded a chicken coop and a dozen chickens, as well as three goats. The coop was set up next to the greenhouse, and the livestock was allowed to roam the enclosure. The areas that weren’t paved, which was everywhere but in front of the gate and around the garage, supplied more than enough grass for the goats to browse. The kids sometimes fed them dog food nuggets as a treat. Meg began to offer the kids a klax or two in return for collecting eggs, cleaning out the coop or the rabbit hutch.
Though their sensor network had expanded with the addition of the walls, they still kept two people on guard atop the walls at all times. They patrolled together, keeping each other awake through their shifts.
It was on the twelfth day since they’d brought Luther’s group home that they lost their first citizen. Two of Luther’s people were on guard duty. A man named Rick and a woman who called herself Candy. The two were walking the parapet and flirting. A guard duty shift was mainly four hours of mind-numbing boredom, since they relied on the sensor system that would alert them to incoming intruders. At night, when visibility was low, the sensors alert would come long before the guards could see anything.
This afternoon, the two were into the third hour of their shift and only keeping a casual watch outside the wall. It never occurred to either of them to glance upward.
That oversight cost Candy her life. A rushing of wind was their only warning before a pair of talons locked onto Candy’s head and shoulder and dug in. With a roar of triumph and a few wingbeats, a creature with leathery wings, horns, and a long tail dragged her off the wall and up into the sky.
Rick fired his weapon, trying to hit the creature’s wings without injuring the screaming Candy. Shouts could be heard from the direction of the cavern as people came running out to see what was wrong. Rick fired again, rewarded this time with a spray of blood and the sight of the creature faltering with an injured wing. Before he could reload and fire another slug, the creature dropped below the tree line in the general vicinity of the creek.
Shouting in frustration, Rick ran down the stairs and headed for the gates. Allistor and Michael caught up with him as he was pushing one of the doors open.
“What happened?” Allistor grabbed the man and spun him around.
“Did you see that thing? It was a damned dragon! Or, close to it. It took Candy!” Rick shoved the gate open and ran out in the direction the monster had gone. “We need to catch up before it kills her!” Candy screamed, the sound echoing through the trees.
Allistor and Michael followed him out, Sam and Luther not far behind. They ran across the open ground and into the tree line. Thirty seconds later the screaming stopped abruptly. Rick halted, leaning against a tree and panting as he searched the woods ahead. Michael put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. She’s gone.”
Rick shrugged off his hand. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I’m going to find that thing and kill it!” He started off again in the same direction, moving through the trees and brush as quickly as he could. A roar from the monster confirmed their direction a minute or so later.
They emerged from the trees to see the creek right in front of them. Just upstream, the monster was perched on a fallen log. Rick bent over and puked as the dragon took hold of Candy’s arm with its jaws and ripped it from her body. Tilting its head upward, it s
wallowed the limb whole. Allistor Examined the beast.
Forest Drake
Level 12
Health: 8,700/8,700
The creature was maybe thirty feet long from nose to the tail, with a wingspan nearly as wide. Its head was covered in small horns that coalesced at the top of its skull into a ridge that ran the length of its back and down its tail.
As it bit into a lifeless Candy again, Rick shouted a curse and charged at it. His shotgun fired again and again as he got closer. The beast took the hits, bits of green scale chipping off. When he was within reach, the drake flicked its tail at Rick. The impact knocked him off his feet to smash face-first into a tree. Rick’s body crumpled limply to the ground.
Allistor cast Flame Shot at the monster’s face, the fireball screaming toward it and engulfing its head. Having seen that the scales were tough enough to resist Rick’s shots, the others all fired their weapons at the drake’s head as well. Round after round from Sam, Michael, and Luther pounded into its nose and throat, each doing less damage than normal.
More shots rang out as some of the other survivors caught up. Ramon and two of Luther’s guys added their firepower. Allistor was raising his own weapon when he saw the drake take a deep breath.
“Take cover!” he shouted as he cast Restraint at the monster. The spell worked, and it froze, its mouth open and chest expanded. He fired one slug straight into its mouth then retreated behind the nearest tree.
When the spell wore off after four seconds, the creature resumed its attack. A molten liquid boiled up from its gullet and spewed outward toward the spot they’d been standing. Everything in its path caught fire.
The drake bellowed in pain and began shaking its head violently. The flames abruptly ceased, and the survivors risked a peek from behind their cover. Smoke rose from the drake’s mouth as it thrashed, and blood splattered in every direction. When it opened its mouth to roar, they could see a nasty-looking burned patch in the roof of its mouth.
Resuming fire, they tore into its face and neck. When it raised its head and spread its wings as if to take to the air, a shot from Sam’s rifle penetrated its throat just below the jaw. It bellowed again, weakly this time. Allistor cast Restraint on it again just before its feet left the ground, and it froze with the wound in its throat exposed. Every man present focused his fire on that weak spot without a word needed. The shotgun slugs and rifle rounds ripped into the damaged flesh, opening the wound further. Each of them got off two shots before the spell wore off.
With a gurgling sound, the monstrous lizard’s head fell. Its wings collapsed as its legs buckled, the weight of the creature’s body crushing small trees and bushes as it hit the ground. A few of the survivors leveled up, and Allistor got a bit closer to level ten.
They moved forward, the xp gains making them confident the creature was dead. Allistor marveled at it, standing next to the head that, even laying on its side on the ground, was nearly as tall as he was. The drake’s menacing jaws were open, and Allistor peered inside, looking past fangs as long as his arm at the burned spot near the back.
Ramon put a hand on his shoulder and spoke from behind him. “I think that last shot you took before it breathed fire is what did that. You punched a hole in its flesh and that liquid fire flowed right up into it. Probably would have fried its brain if it hadn’t stopped.”
Allistor nodded, imagining how screwed they all would have been if it had been able to continue. The earth in front of the thing wasn’t just burned, it was melted.
He touched the drake’s head and looted it. The rewards were decent – a hundred klax, a stack of drake hide pieces, two drake teeth that he thought might make excellent weapons, and the drake’s heart. This one wasn’t purple, but he suspected it might still have some value as a crafting item or cooking ingredient.
They sent a runner back for one of the ATVs, and the rest of them began to harvest what they could from the drake’s corpse. When the ATV arrived, several other survivors joined them. Allistor lifted what was left of Candy and set her gently on a sheet someone had brought along. As they wrapped her body, he retrieved Rick’s corpse and loaded it onto the ATV. When both bodies were secure, and the harvest was complete, the entire group washed themselves off in the creek and headed back to the Warren. Each of them gathered wood as they walked, and when they reached the clearing outside the walls, they constructed a pyre.
An hour later, the bodies burned and goodbyes spoken, they closed the outer gates behind them and retreated underground for a quiet meal.
Chapter Twelve
The Bear Necessities
“Giant smelly titans, rats the size of grizzly bears, and friggin’ dragons? Screw these guys!” Amanda was sitting on Allistor’s bed, pulling on her boots. “The bastards running this place need to pay.”
Allistor agreed whole-heartedly. Their arbitrary judgment that nine out of ten humans needed to be purged from the planet was unforgivable. But for now, they needed to keep discussions of vengeance at a minimum. They still had no idea when people were watching them. For all he knew, he and Amanda had had an audience during their sexual escapades last night. Though he would like to think he’d have earned some Fame Points if that were the case.
“They absolutely do. But we need to focus on ourselves right now. Get stronger. Learn more. Conquer more territory. Beef up our defenses.”
She sighed as she stomped her boots on the floor to settle her feet in them properly. “I know. Time is passing, and we only have a year. I’m studying the little critters that seem to be the key to all the magic and stuff. But I feel like those apes from that old movie, touching the big obelisk and trying to make sense of it.”
Allistor pulled her to her feet and hugged her close, kissing the top of her head. “You know that old saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That Clarke guy was right. You’ll figure it out. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
She hugged him back briefly, then spun out of his embrace. “Meg might have real eggs for breakfast this morning! And Sam said he was going to test out dragon steaks.” Allistor’s stomach growled at the mention of food. She patted his belly and took off toward the dining area.
Allistor hadn’t told her, but after the fight with the dragon, he had decided to go on an extended solo mission. There were several things he wanted to accomplish, and he wanted to do them without risking the lives of any of his friends. As he followed his… girlfriend? to breakfast, he mentally ticked off his goals.
He wanted to locate more survivors. He couldn’t claim more land if he didn’t have the people to hold it. In his mind, he pictured a wide circle of Strongholds with a town or even a city in the center.
He needed to kill some more creatures and reach level ten. Based on the reading he’d done, this would allow him to choose a ‘class’ based on how he wanted to interact with this new Earth. It was supposed to come with a few class-specific abilities as well.
Allistor also wanted to find another dungeon. The best way to level his people up and make them strong enough to thrive here was to run them through a dungeon where they could kill dozens, if not hundreds, of mobs. Failing that, if he could find more elite creatures like the ancient shellback, they would give good experience as well.
Ideally, he’d like to lead one of those back to the Warren and fight it from the walls. This gave added protection to his people, with the bonus of Stronghold points when they killed it. They got points for the dragon, but only because it attacked Candy atop the walls before flying away.
At breakfast, he told Amanda what he planned. She argued briefly but quickly realized his mind was made up. When they finished the meal, he gave her a hug and a brief kiss and headed for the kitchen, then the parking area.
Checking his inventory quickly, he confirmed he had healing potions, bandages, food and drink for a week. Including half a dozen eggs that Meg had slipped him. There was a rope, because everybody knows you need a rope when adventuring,
several kinds of weapons including his trusty rebar spear, one of the radios – which he took out and plugged into the pickup he was taking – a tent, and a frying pan. He’d picked up the cooking skill from Meg when she insisted he help her in the kitchen a few days back. She had decided that everyone in the Warren needed to be able to cook themselves at least a basic meal if they were stuck outside foraging.
He put two extra gas cans in the back of the truck, along with a siphon and hand pump. With that done, he was ready to roll.
A few of the kids who were playing near the cavern gates waved at him as he passed. Max barked happily and trotted along next to the truck until Allistor told him to go back. If the silly mutt got taken by a flying creature, the children would be crushed.
Pulling up to the outer gates, he got out of the truck to open them. It annoyed him to have to either station someone at the gates or open and close them himself each time he went in and out. Rather than open the gates, he leaned against them and opened his Stronghold interface. He’d been meaning to look into this for a while, but he kept getting distracted.
Scrolling through the options for a good couple minutes, he finally found what he wanted. The gates could be opened remotely. Just like with the interface sharing, he could add authorized individuals who would be able to open it. Then he had some options for remote activation method and security settings. The gate could be opened with a specific sound, like a whistle or a tune, or a phrase. It could be set so that the sensors recognized the authorized individuals and opened the gates as they approached. There was a biometric option that required a handprint and eye scan.
With Evan and his murderers in mind, Allistor went all out. He chose the biometric option, combined with a passphrase and the sensor recognition. The three together cost ten thousand system points, but he figured it was worth it. If he was being pursued back to the gate, he likely wouldn’t have time to get out, open the gates, drive through, then get out and close them again. He set the system so that it required two of the three be activated. Either sensors and password, sensors and biometric, or biometric and password.
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