My mech lurched forward as I adjusted the throttle dial, silently cursing the gnome that placed it in such an awkward position. Rotating the torso toward the entrance to the cave, I tried to maneuver around the gnomes that were running around underneath me. Some of the gnomes were armed and in armor, charging toward the threat, while a stream of non-combatants flowed in the opposite direction, heading deeper into the cave.
While there was no radio inside my mech, there was an odd pink crystal mounted over my head that started to hum loudly before the sound changed into the voice of Fitzfazzle. He ordered the mechs to head to the entrance of the cave and form a line to hold back the undead who had appeared sooner than they had hoped. It was slow going as I was learning how to move the mech and at the same time trying not to accidentally step on any of the gnomes.
One of the mechs passed me by, its gnomish operator must have gotten in a bit more practice than I had. The other mech reached the entrance, which sloped down and away from the cave, blocking my line of sight with whatever was coming. Balls of light began to fire from the tubes mounted over the right shoulder of the other mech as its pilot fired at a target I couldn’t see.
Another two mechs passed me and I was starting to feel a bit useless while piloting this thing. Moving the mech did seem to get easier as I started to get a feel for the controls. It’d take some time before it felt as familiar as driving a car, but I could at least get it moving in the direction I wanted now. I finally made my way up to the cave entrance, looking behind me, I could see pilots jumping into the final pair of mechs.
The other mechs at the cave entrance kept about twenty feet of distance in between them. I followed the same pattern, realizing that would give us enough room to use our melee weapons without accidentally hitting each other. After parking the mech I finally got a good look at what I was dealing with.
The slope down from the cave was gentle enough that the people climbing up had little trouble. At the foot of the slope was a large village. Individual, colorfully decorated huts dotted the village, and there were plenty of open spaces with gardens planted around the place. A wall about six feet high surrounded the village, and just past the village, the ground leveled. On the level plains outside the village, large fields of crops were growing. Further away, past the fields, was a forest.
It would have been a perfect place to live, if it wasn’t for the horde of zombies pouring in from the forest. They had crossed most of the field, and some were entering the village proper now. A small group of armored gnomes holding long spears tried to hold off the zombies that were swarming the pair of gates nearest the forest. The press of zombies spilled slowly out around the wall as they sought a way to get at their prey.
Much of the village population had been evacuated and were already running toward the cave. What they would do if the zombies followed them into the cave, I had no idea. All I could do was try and stop the undead before they claimed any additional victims.
Another volley of magic missiles fired from the first mech to arrive. I looked for the target, seeing the missiles impact with a man that looked almost normal but was biting at a screaming woman. The zombie was destroyed, but given that he looked almost normal, and was a gnome, I was worried that the infection, or curse, or whatever caused someone to become a zombie, could be spread just like in all the zombie movies I had watched.
As the people arrived at the cave entrance armed guards sorted through them, and a group of gnomes in robes, led by the elderly Fazzlemore, constantly cast spells over the crowd. The spells must have done something to neutralize the zombie curse, as nobody inside the cave had turned into one of the creatures, but several in the crowd outside had.
“We need to move toward the village and help stem the tide of attackers. Rico, Flunzzlebump, follow me. The rest of you guard the cave entrance,” Fazzlemore ordered. I followed his mech as we walked down the hill. The incline made things a bit more difficult, but the swarm of evacuees had started to abate.
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“Rico, you head around the wall counterclockwise, and Flunzzlebump will follow the wall in the opposite direction. I’ll head through the center of the village. It’s extermination time!” Fitzfazzle said.
Once we made it down the slope and started toward the village proper, the ground leveled out, making my task quite a bit easier. I was figuring things out and was ready to test out the weapons systems. I kept the village wall on my left and started making my way around. It wasn’t long before a few zombies came shambling into view.
There were about a half dozen monsters and they were banging on one of the side gates to the village. The gate wasn’t reinforced and would fail before too long. Given my height inside the mech, I could just barely see over the wall protecting the place. Only four or five armed gnomes guarded the gate. When the gate inevitably failed, they would be hard pressed to hold back even a handful of zombies without additional support.
Reaching for my connection to the wands I had linked with, I fired my first magic missile. The ball of light flew from the barrel and homed in the zombie I had targeted. It blasted into the zombie’s chest, spraying gore everywhere and causing the monster to collapse. Good, these weren’t the “you have to hit them in the head” kind of zombies. Enough damage would bring them down without needing to do anything special.
The wand I had activated wasn’t ready for another shot, so I worked my way around the twelve barrels I had linked with. I was moving forward while firing, but that didn’t seem to affect my aim at all. The accuracy wasn’t due to any skill on my part, it was the magic missile spell that seemed to always hit its target. I couldn’t do pinpoint sniper shots, but it would usually head toward the target’s center mass and only deviate slightly.
One by one the zombies dropped, and I could see the relief on the guards’ faces as the pounding on the gate finally ceased. If I could find another small group of zombies, I wanted to try out the mech’s melee capabilities. Welded to each hand was a metal shafted spear that ended in a blade about two feet long. I could stab or slash depending on what I wanted to do.
More zombies were shambling my way as I continued around the wall. As accurate as my magic missiles were, my hits with the bladed spears weren’t quite what I was hoping for. It took some finesse to land the hits just right, but it turned out the metal shaft of the spear did just fine as a weapon when I timed the strike wrong and missed with the blade.
“Rico, I’ve got reports of one of the farms near the forest on your side of the village being under assault. The farmers weren’t able to get out in time and now they’re surrounded,” Fitzfazzle called out.
I had been focused on the wall, not the farms in the distance, but I could see a large farmhouse and barn that was located right against the edge of the forest. Given the number of zombies milling about out there, someone must still be alive inside. It was a bit of a trek to get there, but it gave me a chance to try out the speed of my mech. I could get the mech up to about fifteen miles per hour, which wasn’t bad for a four-legged machine that was cobbled together with spare parts and magic.
As I approached the farm, I kept trying to trigger a magic missile, but I was still out of range. Fitzfazzle never had told me what the range on a wand was, but I would soon find out. I was still out of range when the door to farmhouse collapsed, and the zombies poured inside. Screams and the sound of fighting were heard through the open viewports.
The sounds at the farmhouse died out as whoever was trying to shelter inside was overrun. I might not be able to save whoever was in the house, but the barn was still swarming with zombies that hadn’t found a way in yet. The creatures that had assaulted the house were starting to drift over when I finally got into range. Magic missiles flew out as fast as I could activate the wands, each shot dropping one of the undead monsters.
I didn’t bother trying to get into melee range, I was just fine pelting the creatures from a distance. The zombies barely reacted to my attack and kept concentrating on getting inside the barn. At least fifty monsters were circling the barn, and an equal number were stumbling out of the house and joining the attack. Given the gruesome, fresh bloodstains on many of the zombies coming from the house, I didn’t think any survivors were going to be found inside that particular building.
It seemed like forever but was probably only about five minutes before the last of the zombies fell prey to my magical firepower. There was quiet over the farm for a tense minute when the barn door started to open, and a gnome peeked out. I maneuvered closer so I could shout through the viewports to talk with him, but before we could talk, a loud crash was heard over at the house.
A cloud of dust and debris obscured my vision of what had just happened to the structure. From the cloud emerged a hulking figure, nearly the same size as the house itself. Old, dried blood from a myriad of wounds covered the behemoth. It looked like it had once been a giant or ogre that had been zombified. The giant zombie was larger than the mech I was piloting. It turned its dead, glassy eyes toward me and roared.
“Hungry!”