Flynn and myself ran from one window to another to peer out long openings. We didn’t have to do anything. The turret guns kept monsters at bay totally without our assistance. No mutant was able to get too close to the building thus far.
We sailed through the first three waves. Flynn and I almost didn’t engage mobs. The turret guns did all work for us. Mutants occasionally managed to get to the house and inflict some damage on the armored windows. Other than that, they didn’t bother us.
The fourth wave brought some trouble. While weak mutants still couldn’t get into the house, Flynn and I had to deal with boomers. Flynn had attached special devices that gave out loud signals when detecting the presence of boomers. We disposed of them as the turrets gunned down the weaker mobs.
We got through the fifth wave with ease. It was a lead-pipe cinch. The mutants still failed to get inside. All we had to do was to fire on them out the windows and repair them when necessary.
The sixth wave was a bit tougher. There were much more mobs, sieging the building. Including boomers. The turret guns couldn’t cope with such a swarm of mutants. Many of them would crash through the windows and we’d have to engage them.
Flynn created a medical drone near the end of the wave. It set about shooting down the weak monsters, for neither Flynn nor me were in urgent need of medical attention. The robot crawled on its spider-like legs rather slowly, yet its damage output was pretty good. The robot aggravated some of the mutants and dealt with them even before they could get within striking reach.
In the time between each wave, we would gather up the loot and repair the broken windows as well as turret guns.
The seventh wave began. All the turret guns opened up. Flynn and I waited for a fleshshredder to show up. A sudden bellow shook the walls. Flynn tensed as he was firing out a window on mutants attacking the house.
The rising pounding of feet on the sidewalk reached our ears from outside. The fleshshredder soon reached the other side of the door. Deep dents appeared on the metal surface as the boss smashed it with its drills. It only took him a few moments to bust through the door.
I was to take on the fleshshredder while Flynn was to do his best not let the weaker mutants inside the house. Such was our plan. It didn’t exactly play out the way we hoped it to. Our plan blew up the way the cookie crumbled.
I wounded the boss when it drove its drills into the floor. The monster bellowed in pain and rage and went after me.
After some time, the fleshshredder buried its drills in the ground once again, causing an earthquake. I was looking for a vulnerable spot and not finding it. It might’ve appeared somewhere on its back this time.
Flynn, who was behind the monster at the moment, was blasting away at the weak monsters with his shotgun. He shot a glance at the boss and must’ve noticed the vulnerable spot because he suddenly turned and shot the huge monster in the back.
His action went against our plan. Sure, he’d realized that I wouldn’t be able to go around the boss and shot his vulnerable spot in time, so he’d just wanted to assist me. But in doing so, he’d put us in harm’s way.
The buckshot impacted the swelling––the vulnerable spot––bursting it apart. The monster straightened up and turned around to confront Flynn. My teammate was about to have kittens over the danger that hung over him.
Had to hand it to him, he quickly gathered his wits and broke into a race. The fleshshredder ran after the player. The monster was on his heels. It swung its drill in a wide arc and struck Flynn on the back. The player was thrown off his feet and flung across the room to smack against the wall at the far end of the room. It was a wonder that he survived that. Still, his severe wound required immediate medical attention. Raising to his feet, he was removing a stimulator from his bag.
The fleshshredder bore down on him as I ran after the monster. To give Flynn a bit of chance of staying alive, I utilized Stasis. A bluish, translucent dome surrounded the monster, causing it to slow down.
Then one of the nearest windows broke down in a flurry of splinters flying every which way. Monsters instantly poured into the room through it. Flynn was closer to them than I was, so they charged at him, circling the player in. There was no way he could survive that. His medical robot was too slow and clumsy to get to his aid in time.
Once Flynn was dealt with, all the mutants, including the fleshshredder, turned toward me. I dashed through the nearest archway that opened into a pretty spacious room, with a swarm of mutants on my heels.
My revolvers barked ceaselessly spitting out flames and slugs as I ran around the house.
Finally, the fleshshredder stopped to drive its drills into the floor. As soon as I came to a halt, weak mobs circled me in. Instead of dealing with them, I activated Shield and turned my attention to the immobile boss.
Its vulnerable spot appeared on its back once again. To get it I had to run around the monster. Which was pretty hazardous. I chose to wait until after the wave to whack the fleshshredder when the weak monsters would cease to spawn and swarm the house.
I ran around the building shooting down the mobs and glancing over my shoulder from time to time to determine my distance from the fleshshredder.
Finally, the wave was over. Flynn revived at my side, naked and unarmed.
“Stay close,” I said to him.
Flynn obeyed. Once all the weak monsters were dealt with, I aggravated the fleshshredder so that Flynn could dash to the dead body of his previous character to retrieve his stuff.
“I’ll get the boss. The house is on you,” I shouted to him and concentrated on the fleshshredder.
Yet it wasn’t until the next wave began that I took care of the fleshshredder. The turret guns roared to life and high-pitched screams of dying monsters filled the air. I didn’t even get to take some time off from my fighting the mobs.
Luckily, the boss didn’t respawn at this wave.
Monsters soon crashed through some of the windows and poured into the building. My revolvers barked instantly, the slugs biting into them, causing the bodies to explode in bursts of crimson, pus, and strips of flesh.
Flynn discharged his shotgun endlessly, buckshot tearing the bodies of mutants to ribbons. My teammate was doing his best. He was well aware that it was solely through his own fault that we’d been on the line at the previous wave, so he wanted to make amends for causing such trouble.
We managed to get through this wave with ease this time. Then we repaired the broken windows and got ready for the next wave.
Although the weak monsters poured into the house from all sides and the fleshshredder broke through the entrance door to boot, we didn’t have any problems this time around.
While I fought the boss, Flynn was doing his best to keep the weak mobs at bay. He also stayed out of the fleshshredder’s way so that not to aggravate the huge monster like he had last time.
So Flynn turned out to be a very good player. Sure, he’d made a mistake at the seventh wave, which resulted in his getting killed, but like they say, to err is human.
The wave was soon over. We reinforced the building, gathered up the loot, and got prepared for the final wave. I noticed a small smile touch Flynn’s lips. After getting whacked, my teammate lapsed into gloom, but now he was clearly in a good mood again.
I wanted to warn him to stay on full alert, yet once the final wave began, Flynn’s smile disappeared and the look in his face hardened with determination. He’d turned completely serious, preparing himself for a tough final battle.
At the beginning of the wave ten, we got in a bit of predicament, which almost resulted in another Flynn’s death.
Two fleshshredders got into the room and came to a stop in the middle of the room. Behind them, a swarm of monsters poured into the room through the entrance door broken by the two bosses. Flynn went around the two huge monsters to deal with the weak mobs.
His medical robot was sticking to him. And it was the robot who let my teammate down. B
efore the night began, Flynn had tweaked his turrets guns so that they attacked only the weak mobs, ignoring boomers and fleshshredder.
Either he’d forgotten to adjust his medical robot or it was some glitch, but the robot’s turret swiveled around and opened fire on one fleshshredder, aggravating the monster. The boss turned and started for the nearest player, Flynn.
“Watch out!” I yelled to him and instantly used Stasis to slow the huge monster down.
The second boss caused an earthquake. A vulnerable spot popped up on its left shoulder. Yet I had bigger fish to fry at the moment. I had to help Flynn out before he got slain again.
I darted around the second fleshshredder and opened up on another one who was heading in the direction of my teammate. Finally, I managed to aggro the fleshshredder. The monster turned and headed my way. Another one removed its drills from the floor and started after me as well.
None of them paid Flynn attention anymore and he resumed gunning down the weak mobs. I’d saved the day. Hooray.
Oddly enough, the initial predicament aside, we got through the final, most difficult wave without so much as breaking a sweat. I aggravated the fleshshredders while Flynn dealt with the weak monsters.
I whacked one boss and then the wave was over. The weak mobs no longer spawned. After disposing of the remaining mobs, my teammate joined in with taking care of the last fleshshredder. Finally, the huge monster collapsed, dead.
After that, a hush hung in the air. After all the barking of our weapons and monsters’ screaming and bellowing, the resultant silence seemed unnatural, uncanny even.
I slid my revolvers into their holsters. Another night was over. The second notch on my belt. I was starting to get used to it.
Flynn was looking around suspiciously, his shotgun still clutched in his hands.
“Is it over?” He wanted to know.
“Yep,” I said grinning. “So you can chill now.”
He slowly slid his shotgun in its scabbard on his back and looked me in the eye.
“So the night’s finished, right?” He queried. “But it’s still dark in the street.”
“Daylight will begin in a few minutes,” I explained.
The realization that we’d actually survived the night finally sunk in and Flynn’s face brightened.
“Let’s check the loot out,” I suggested.
The two fleshshredders had dropped a rare item each highlighted in blue color. One of them was a sniper rifle. Neither Flynn nor I could wield it. The second item turned out to be medium armor. Flynn put it on, as it was better than the armor he’d had on before. He didn’t take the sniper armor, so I slung it over my shoulder to sell it later on.
Each of us also leveled up once during the night. My level was 17 now and Flynn’s was 16. He started to assign the skill points right off the bat. I decided to get to it a trifle later when I returned to my garage to resume working on my bus.
I got out of the house. In the distance, at the far end of the city, I saw a beam of purple light directed up in the air. It was getting fainter by the second.
Footsteps sounded behind me. Flynn stood by my side and peered in the direction I was looking in.
“Think we can get there before it disappears?” I asked.
“No. Too late.”
True to form, the beam vanished in a few seconds.
“I wonder what was there.”
Flynn looked me in the eye.
“Don’t you know?”
“No. You?”
“I know.”
I almost wasn’t surprised.
“How did you learn about it? From the forum again?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, what did you find out about those purple beams?”
Then Flynn explained that every night several UFOs flew from the space station, one UFO per location. Each landed at random spots and deployed a loot chest. Immediately afterward, a beam of purple light shot up in the air, indicating where a chest was situated.
Inside each chest might spawn very good items. Sometimes one could find a unique or even legendary item inside a chest.
The problem was that UFO dropped chests only at night and always at random spots, so there was no way a player could know beforehand where a chest was going to appear next time. And getting to a chest might be very challenging considering the number of dangerous mobs spawning at night.
So the mystery of the beams of purple light was solved. I thought that while there were such players as Stan and Guard, who enjoyed exploring the game and accomplishing their goals on their own, there also were players like Flynn, who preferred to read lots of various game how-tos and follow the instructions given in such guides.
Not that it was a bad thing. Thanks to Flynn’s knowledge gained by reading various guides on the forum, we managed to get through the night without encountering many difficulties.
So now I’d just gotten another reason for crafting my bus. If I created a vehicle covered by tough armor and armed with dangerous turret guns, it’d be pretty easy for me to get to one of the purple beams and loot a chest.
The sun was coming up and it was getting lighter in the street by a second. A message popped up in the log.
> Congratulations! You’ve made it through two nights in a row!
“There we go,” Flynn grinned. “I’ve finally done it.”
“Yeah. And I just a got a message that I’ve gotten through two nights already.”
“Every five nights you survive gives you a bonus called EXP boost, which enables you to receive the double amount of experience points. It lasts a few hours.”
“That’s sick.”
The sun was floating above the rooftops to the east already, flooding the streets with morning sunshine.
“So what do we do now?” Flynn asked.
I told him about my bus and the guy got really excited. My idea of constructing a tough vehicle to tool around at night appealed to him a great deal. He said that he himself had wanted to create a car of his own and therefore read a lot of guides on this subject, so he knew the ropes.
When he offered a helping hand creating the bus, I agreed, remembering Cooper saying that I’d be better off crafting and maintaining such a big vehicle with friends of mine, rather than doing it all on my own.
We reinforced the building, in case we didn’t finish crafting the bus before night fell. Then we got in Christin’s car and headed for my garage. We dropped by the mailbox on the way. When I walked up to the computer, a message popped up on the screen.
> You have got 1 unread letter.
As it turned out, the letter was from the Desert Wanderers clan. They had told me the other day that they’d already reached out to the developers to inform them about a player trapped in the game and that they would write me as soon as they got an answer from the developers.
So Desert Wanderers had written me again, which meant that the developers had already answered and perhaps given them instructions for fixing the issue preventing me from quitting the game.
My hopes raising up, I quickly opened the letter and immersed myself in reading it.
What I learned from it knocked me for a loop.
THE END OF THE BOOK THREE
TO BE CONTINUED…
Other books by Victor Deckard
The Glitch Series (LitRPG)
Glitch Book One
Glitch Book Two
Glitch Book Three
Stand-alone (Urban Fantasy)
Outbreak
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Glitch Book Three Page 9