“What the hell was that?!” I ask Pops as we ride back towards Mike's safe zone.
I'm pretty banged up, but luckily, it's mostly blunt damage from running into things. A few dozen broken bones, some huge bruises, a torn muscle here and there. Nothing to slow down my healing rate, so I'll be good as new before we get back to base.
“What was what?!” Pops asks.
“You know! The Jesus pose, the floating guns, all that!”
Pops laughs. “One of my skills! I just got it! I jumped a few levels from setting off those bombs!”
I use analyze on everyone, and I find that most of them went up two or three levels. All except for Emily and I. We both leeched some of the experience since we’re all partied together, but I got the bigger cut. I figure it’s because I had a hand in setting up some of the charges, but I can’t be sure.
Pops is the last one I analyze, and he comes as the biggest shock.
Thomas Harrington - Level 33.
Race: Human, Male.
Titles: None.
Class: Enforcer (adept).
Health: 200/200.
Mana: 100/100.
Status effects: Nerves of Steel (4 minutes, 19 seconds); Thick Skin (1 minute, 28 seconds).
“Level 33?!” I blow up.
He grins. “Yeah! That skill is called Bullet Hell, it unlocked at level 30!”
More surprising are his health and mana. Even though his class is only adept difficulty, he seems to be keeping up with me just fine. He has more levels and skills, but in terms of attributes, we're in the same ballpark.
The only difference is that he'll plateau sooner.
I wonder what all of that means for our future.
----------------------------------------
The monster horde keeps up with us for a few minutes, but they steadily fall behind. They just lost half their numbers, and the other half are injured.
I bring up the groggy effect’s description to read it.
Status Effect: Groggy.
Description: A powerful buffing spell has backfired or been interrupted, causing a rapid flushing of excess mana. This creature is now suffering the adverse effects, leaving it slow and vulnerable.
Effects: -20% to all attributes; reduced reaction speed; reduced coordination.
Duration: 23 hours, 55 minutes.
It's still not great, but it's better than the alternative. At least now, our defenses stand a chance.
We get back to the safe zone, and I realize just how tired I am when I stumble as I jump off Luna's back. Never before in my life have I pushed myself as much as over the last few days. So much fighting. So much pain. So little sleep and so many worries.
All I want is for the siege to be over already. For me to hand the leadership to someone else and sleep for three days straight. But for now, there's still work to do.
The others disperse, returning to their duties. Pops, Emily, and I go looking for William.
We find both him and Mike a few minutes later, both of them outside of Doug’s home. The man bought a huge property right on the edge of Dianne’s neighborhood, which completely stops any development in that direction. The home itself isn’t anything too out of place, just a normal two story house with a larger than average yard and an expanse of hilly grasslands behind it.
Doug has cleared some of it over the years and built a few crop plots, but I have no idea how that’s going for him. I myself have never been too big into growing my own veggies. There’s also the unfinished skeleton of a greenhouse, a shed full of tools, and a few rain barrels. Beyond those, Mike’s walls and trenches criss-cross the fields.
“How’s it going?” I ask as we approach Mike and William.
Mike shakes his head, and William says, “not great. He won’t come out.”
We spend a few minutes catching each other up. Things are mostly the same here, not much has changed over the few hours we were away. William does however warn me that our ammo reserves are about to dry up. We still have a couple hundred rounds of various calibers for each gunman, but the monsters are growing stronger, soaking more and more bullets before they die.
This last one will turn into a huge melee, and a big chunk of our ranged fighters will be useless for a while unless that system shop sells ammo.
I tell them about our own misadventures at the trailer park, including the narrow escape. Mike is taken aback by my exploits, but William doesn’t bat an eye. Such crazy stunts and near death experiences are becoming the new norm for me, perhaps a bit too quickly.
“What now?” William asks.
“Now we get ready for the third wave.”
“ETA?”
“Maybe an hour, probably less.”
William rubs his chin, fingers going over the shadow of a stubble. “That would be enough time to set up an evacuation and get the non combatants out of here. We could send them downtown.”
Not a bad idea, it crossed my mind as well. About 80% of the people here have non-combat classes if they even have a class at all. We’d be able to fight much more freely without them in the way. But I don’t like the idea of an evacuation for multiple reasons.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
One is the large number of evacuees that can’t defend themselves, a little over eight hundred of them. If we sent them off unprotected, even a small group of monsters would tear them to shreds. They’d all either die or scatter. Just giving them a security detail wouldn’t be easy either, they’d need a seizable chunk of our fighters to cover them all.
More than we can spare when every man and woman counts.
And even ignoring the logistical side of things, chances are if we sent them away, the horde would follow. I have a feeling that the bosses don’t roam at random, but that they’re drawn to the biggest cluster of people in the area. Reduce the density here, and the bear might swing its minions towards the downtown safe zone.
I explain all that to them, and it gives them food for thought.
“We can’t be sure about that,” William says about my second point.
“No,” I admit, “but it does make some sense. Just think about it. The first boss I found was headed towards the downtown safe zone. The second one gathered a horde near there as well. And now, the third is about to hit here. We’ve had scouts out there the last few days and they found a few smaller groups, but the bosses and their hordes don’t seem to target them. It’s probably because they’re not big enough.”
William shrugs. “When you put it like that…”
“Well if we won’t evacuate them,” Mike interrupts, “we have to figure something else out. Doug’s bunker was a good idea, but even if we got him to open it up to us, I doubt we would’ve been able to fit enough people in it to make a difference anyway.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it and I think I have an idea.”
----------------------------------------
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Carter and Derek are brought here. I give Carter the military uniform I took from Pops, and he spends a bit being drilled on military jargon.
“Not perfect,” Pops says, “but he’ll do.”
“We should’ve used one of the vets, we have plenty,” William weighs in. “They’re less likely to mess it up.”
“Yeah, but Doug is also more likely to recognize them. And Carter will manage, won’t you, buddy?”
Carter gives me a half-hearted thumbs up, not entirely convinced.
“Okay, everybody get to it.”
Mike leaves to put some finishing touches on our fallback positions. The rest of us go into Doug’s house and down into the basement, using candles to see.
He has a few security cameras here and there, but without electricity, they’re useless.
To my surprise, the stairs go lower than they should. The house has a sub-basement with thick supports and smooth concrete walls. One of said walls, the one facing away from the neighborhood and towards Doug’s property, has the entrance to a short tunnel. It’s only about thirty feet long and narrow enough that we can only go in one at a time. A thick steel door sits locked at the end.
Not the fancy bank vault door I expected to find, but it does the trick. No one in our small town is getting through that door any time soon. At least, not without system enhancements. I approach and place a hand on the smooth steel, giving it a probing push. It doesn’t budge an inch, but with a few more level-ups, I’m certain I could at the very least bend it. Then, either the lock or the hinges would give.
That thought is both scary and exciting at the same time.
I get out of the way and motion for Carter to get into position. We squirm past each other in the tight space, and I wait right behind him. Pops and William are behind me, and Derek is right outside the tunnel, ready in case anything goes wrong.
“Okay, get started,” I whisper.
Carter clears his throat and knocks loudly.
“Open up! This is the US military!”
He keeps that up for a few minutes, but nothing seems to be happening. I tell Carter to keep at it and he does.
“We’re wasting time,” Pops whispers aggressively into my ear.
“Give it a couple more minutes. If it doesn’t work by then, we’ll leave.”
Carter knocks again and again, and although it's faint, I can make out footsteps on the other side. A slit on the door slides open, revealing light from the inside and a pair of eyes that take Carter in.
Said eyes go wide.
“Good evening, sir!” Carter says, not breaking character. “I’m officer Thomas Grayson, here with the US military. We’ve come to defend the town and recruit all veterans into emergency service.”
Just as I hoped, Doug’s old instincts kick in. He salutes back, closes the slit, and cracks open the door. We don’t have long until he’ll notice all of the details that don’t match up, like the uniform being an old desert camo model. Or that Carter is only wearing the vest of said uniform, the rest of it still in my inventory. I push past Carter, grab the door with one hand so it won’t close, and I grab Doug with the other.
Surprise flashes across his face, followed by betrayal, then anger — all in the span of a heartbeat. He has a lit candle of his own in one hand that he drops, and a gun in the other that I don’t see until it is too late.
He fires it point blank into my gut.
The sound is deafening in the cramped tunnel, making everyone recoil. I slap the gun out of Doug’s hand before he can fire it again, then I pull him out of the door and toss him to Pops. The pain comes at me in full swing, making me double over as I take a hand to my perceived wound.
I’m surprised to feel no blood slicking my fingers.
“No! Let go of me!” Doug screams, his voice dampened by the ringing in my ears.
“It’s us, you idiot!” Pops screams back. “We won’t hurt you, calm down!”
He shoots me a worried look, but I wave him down. As they get to work restraining Doug, I lift up my tattered shirt in the faint light. No blood. No entry wound. The bullet broke a couple of ribs and left a nasty impact bruise, but it bounced off my skin.
I haven’t been shot at since the Morris situation a few nights ago, but I didn’t think I was somewhat bullet proof already. Then again, I’m only okay because Doug doesn’t have a class or levels. The same gun in the hands of someone like Pops would’ve done a lot more damage.
Douglas Franklin - Level 1.
Race: Human, Male.
Titles: None.
Class: None.
Pops and William have no trouble restraining him with their enhanced strength, but the man refuses to give up struggling. I put Carter in the door to the bunker so it won’t close, then I go over to Doug. He kicks my shin as I bend down, but his own leg crumples instead of mine.
I put a hand on his chest and speak softly. “Doug, man, calm down. It’s us. We just want to talk to you.”
He looks at me — really looks at me — and his face goes white. I’m once again covered in blood and torn clothes, so I must be quite the sight.
“Jack?” He asks in a terrified whisper.
“Yeah, man.”
“Oh no, what have I done? What have I done?!”
“Nothing,” I say reassuringly. “This isn’t from you, don’t worry about it.”
“I shot you! Oh God, I shot you!” He looks from side to side and finally notices who is holding him down, which only aggravates his panic. “I didn’t mean to! Don’t arrest me, please, I swear I didn’t mean to!”
Pops and William look at each other, and they start laughing. I myself can’t help but grin. The thought of arresting someone, after everything that’s happened so far, is just too wild.
“Tell you what,” I say, slapping a hand on Doug’s leg. “They won’t arrest you if you come up top with us and listen to what we have to say.”
Doug nods sheepishly. I motion for Pops and William to let him go, and as soon as he’s free, he tries to bolt past me.
I sigh as I catch and stop him.
“Let me go!” He screams into my ear. “You’re not fooling me, it’s the end of days!”
I pin him against the wall, using a bit more force than necessary to get my point across. By now, he probably figured out that something is extremely wrong. It’s one thing for Pops and William to be so much stronger than him, but me as well? I lean in and I talk in a grave voice.
“You’re right, Doug. It’s the end of days. There are monsters everywhere and people are dying by the thousands. Men, women, children, no one gets spared. But we’re out there fighting, trying to stop it. So get your ass into gear and help us, soldier!”
Another kick of the good old instincts makes him stand straight, and he takes a hand half-way to his forehead for a salute before he catches himself. He deflates, hopefully for good this time.
“Okay,” he says in a defeated tone. “What can I do?”