Wasteland Warlords Episode 5: Chapter 7 - Hostile Takeover

“This way,” Shifty said, waving for Clay and the others to follow him up the steel stairs to the ground floor. “First door on our right.”

The tower’s curved hall was deserted, but when they came to the door marked Control Room, it was locked and they could hear muffled voices inside.

“Any idea how many guards are usually manning this thing?” Griff asked.

Shifty grinned sheepishly. “Less than a thousand, more than zero?”

“Helpful,” Herman muttered.

“Hey, I’m just proud to be here,” Shifty said.

Clay switched over to his reptilian-inherited heat vision. The door showed up in blues and purples, with a pair of warmer figures moving around the other side. They weren’t bright orange or red like humans, but cooler greens.

“Two guards on the other side,” he informed them. “One over here and one straight ahead.”

Herman crossed his arms. “So, how do we get in?”

Clay switched back to his regular vision and sized up the door. Steel, solid lever handle, no keyholes on the outside, intercom next to the jamb, just like at the lab. The hinges were on the inside, so even if he’d had a screwdriver and a hammer, he couldn’t tap them out. He had no doubt that Joe would’ve taken it apart in a second with his Arcane Engineering abilities. Alex would’ve smashed her way through, and Bacon Bits would’ve melted it. Clay was mainly the magic and ranged weapons guy, and right then he didn’t have either on him.

“I don’t suppose either of you has massive Strength abilities you haven’t mentioned?” he asked Herman and the tree druid.

Both shook their heads.

“Right.” Clay quickly ran through his character sheet, mind racing.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Clay Jaeger

Level: 15

Race: Incant

Class: Mystic Fateslinger

Alignment: Wyrd

Exp: 1,013 Exp; to next level: 15,000

Available Characteristic Points: 0

Health: 309/309

H-Regen/5 Sec: 35

Magick: 722/722

Magick-Regen/5 Sec: 44

Stats:

· Strength: 27 (25 + 2 item bonus)

· Constitution: 30 (29 + 1 item bonus)

· Dexterity: 47.5 (44 + 3.5 item bonus)

· Intelligence: 58.22 (56 + 2.22 item bonus)

Attributes:

· Armor Rating: 125

· Melee Attack Damage: 235.83

· Ranged Attack Damage: 300 (275+ 25 Wyrd Damage item bonus)

· Spell Damage: 305

· Movement Rate: +12.65%

· Critical Hit Chance: 14.5%

· Critical Hit Damage: +73.75%

Active Effects:

· Magick Reserve Regen

· Reptilian Infrared Detection

· +18% Fire Resistance

· +13% Quick Draw Speed, Reload Speed, and Firing Speed

· +39% Wyrd Damage to Voodoo-Aligned Creatures

· +39% Spell Resistance

Mystic Fateslinger Skills:

· Tier 1:

o Fateslinger

o Infinite Ammo

o Spelled Ammo

o Friendly Fire

· Tier 2:

o Fast Hands

o Tether Shot

Player Special Skills:

· Ranged Weapon Proficiency (Ranged Skill) – Lv. 7

· Firearm Mastery (Ranged Skill) – Lv. 6

· Weapons Specialty: Pistol – Lv. 5

· Cartography (Trade Skill) – Lv. 2

· Weaponsmith (Trade Skill) – Lv. 4

· Brewer (Trade Skill) – Lv. 3

· Discordant Inversion Tribal Tattoos (Voodoo) – Lv. 5

Player Grimoire:

· Sludge Slick – Lv. 3

· Control Lights – Lv. 7

· Beguiling Call – Lv. 5

· Minor Shield of Warding – Lv. 6

· Haphazard Cast – Lv. 2

╠═╦╬╧╪

Clay had picked up eight levels since taking out Saurian the Ostentatious, Voodoo Dungeon Master of the Haunt Topic, and he’d made some impressive gains. His Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity had far surpassed what a normal human was capable of, and with a 58 in Intelligence, he could cast any spell he could get his hands on. He’d also leveled up several of the spells in his grimoire and unlocked two more abilities within his Mystic Fateslinger Class—Fast Hands and Tether Shot.

When activated, Fast Hands made time seem to slow down and take a deep breath, allowing him to reload his weapons at a supernaturally enhanced pace. Tether Shot was a powerful nonlethal option that was great for crowd control. With it, he could shoot a spot, then blast a secondary target, forming a magical tether between the two points that drastically limited the movement of either target for up to two minutes.

Unfortunately, neither skill would help him here. Not without a rifle or pistol to use.

The baton he’d taken from Jeremy was considered a melee weapon. There was a slim chance that with his Fateslinger ability, which swapped his Intelligence stat for his Strength when calculating ranged and melee damage, he could bust the door handle off and get them inside. Of course, that went out the window if the electronic lock was separate from the handle mechanism, like it was in most of the labs and medical offices his construction company had built.

“Jeremy.” That was the ticket.

Clay sprinted back to Solitary, opened Jeremy’s cell, and pulled the passive-aggressive anemone out, kicking and tentacle-slapping.

“Cut that out!” Clay snapped.

The anemone didn’t listen. His flailing wasn’t doing much damage, but it was annoying, and worse, it was slowing Clay down.

Clay dropped Jeremy long enough to rip the sleeves off his prison greens. Jeremy didn’t make it more than three scrapes toward the stairs before Clay grabbed him again. Twining the tentacles around one fist, Clay tied them together with the human arm and leg, like a nightmarish Lovecraftian man-bun.

“All right, listen up,” Clay growled, giving the immobilized anemone a shake. By then, Griff and the others had drifted after him to see what the hell he was doing. “You’re a hostage now, Jeremy. Do what we say, and we’ll let you live. Got it?”

“I always knew this would happen sooner or later.” Jeremy hiccupped. Sounded like he was crying somewhere inside that bony coral column. “This is why I wanted to be in a band.”

Clay wasn’t sure what to say to that.

Shifty picked up the slack. “Play your cards right, Jere-bear, and we’ll let you keep enough appendages to play an instrument. Piss us off, and well…” He shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to see what it’s like to pull the tentacles off an anemone.” He mimed plucking the petals off a flower with twiglike fingers. “Jeremy loves us… He loves us not… Jeremy loves us…”

“Okay, okay!” Jeremy yelled. “Just tell me what to do.”

After giving him the directions, Clay packed Jeremy back up to the Control Room and lifted him to the door. Griff punched the intercom button.

“Uh, yeah, this is Jeremy, from Solitary,” the anemone said. Shifty gave him a warning poke, and Jeremy put some urgency into his voice. “We’ve got a situation! Besides the one outside, I mean. Let me in, man! It’s urgent!”

The buzzer went off, the lock chunked open, and the door swung inward an inch.

“It’s a trap, idiots!” Jeremy yelled at his coworkers. “Obviously!”

Clay charged in before the guards inside could slam the door on them. Herman was right on his heels, and Griff not far behind. Shifty, not so much.

Inside, Clay’s magically enhanced eyes focused on the ICSOs manning the Control Room and took in the details faster than a regular human could have spotted them. Straight ahead, an armored nautilus as tall as Clay and twice as wide was sitting in front of a bank of monitors. Off to the left was a dumbo octopus the size of a linebacker. Instead of those cute earflaps, however, this dumbo had human arms holding a shiny new M4 complete with laser sight on top and a grenade launcher down below. Not the usual single-shot M203, either. This one had a rotating drum attached.

The red dot floated smack-dab in the center of Clay’s chest.

“Incoming!” Clay yelled, chucking Jeremy into the octopus’s line of fire and dropping low.

The launcher boomed. Chunks of anemone showered the Control Room. A high whine screamed in Clay’s ears, muffling all sound. Clay almost felt bad for Jeremy—the poor guy had just wanted to start a band—but in the wasteland, it was kill or be killed, and Jeremy was just unlucky enough to end up as the latter.

On the plus side, the split-second distraction worked. Clay barreled forward and slammed into the solid mass of jiggling flesh, tackling the M4-wielding octopus into the table of control boards. The dumbo thrashed as it tried to crack Clay in the head with the stock, but Clay buried his face in the wriggling folds and held tight. The creature was strong, inhumanly so, but inside the control room Clay could feel his supernaturally enhanced Incant strength slowly returning like a trickle of water running from a leaky faucet. Whatever suppression wards the prison had in place didn’t extend to the control room—not fully.

Herman dropped in right behind him, whaling on the ICSO with one fist while he yanked on the rifle with the other. With no shoulders to anchor a sling over, the dumbo’s M4 came free. Herman kneed Clay out of the splash zone and dispatched the oceanic guard with a staccato burst of rifle fire.

On the opposite side of the room, Griff hammered on the nautilus with the shellfish’s own rolling chair, the clunks still muffled by the whine in Clay’s ears. From his angle, the old weed couldn’t see the arms wiggling underneath the shell. The nautilus shot toward Griff, slamming into him like a Mack truck. They crashed across the room in a tangle of ergonomic chair, arms, legs, and shell.

Clay saw Herman’s mouth move as he drew a bead on the Nautilus and knew he was yelling at Griff to move. Problem was, Griff was probably as deaf as the rest of them right then. There was no way Herman could make that shot without killing Griff—or, at the very least, seriously injuring him.

But Clay could.

He lurched forward, dropped low, and slammed a shoulder into Herman’s ribs, knocking the muzzle away before he could light up the guard and take Griff out in the process. The rifle barked as rounds chewed into the wall and ceiling.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Herman yelled, rounding on Clay.

“Trust me,” Clay hollered back, “I’ve got this.” He pulled on the M4, and Herman begrudgingly let the weapon go.

Clay wheeled around, shoved the buttstock into his shoulder pocket, and let it rip. He didn’t even bother to aim. There was no need when using a grenade launcher at this range…

The launcher barrel rotated, and there was a soft thwomp as the grenade smashed into the opening of the nautilus’s curling shell. The grenade detonated an eyeblink later, and a wave of heat and flame rolled through the room. An enormous pressure slammed into Clay’s chest making it hard to breathe for a beat, but then the broiling heat guttered and the fire from the explosion faded. The Nautilus lay dead on the floor, its shell cracked, its eyes vacant, wisps of steam floating up from being broiled alive.

Griff didn’t even look singed. Herman’s mouth was open in a wide “O” as he patted down his body in disbelief.

“Why the fuck would you fire a grenade in a room this size?” he railed. “And how the fuck are we not all dead?”

“Friendly Fire,” Clay replied with a grin. “I’m a ranged class, and it’s one of my special abilities—allows me to heal allies by shooting them.”

“Or blowing them up with grenades, apparently,” Herman muttered, running a hand across his sweaty forehead and smearing a streak of black soot down the side of his face. “That’s a helluva way to establish a beachhead, I guess.”

“Woo!” Shifty gave a disingenuous shiver as he strolled into the control room. “Scary stuff. I’m just glad that’s over.” He kicked the door shut behind him and slung a mossy arm around Herman’s shoulder. “Good work, team.”

Herman shook him off. “Way to hold down the hallway, asshole.”

“I prefer to bat cleanup, good buddy,” Shifty said. “Looked like you guys had it under control, so no need for ol’ Shifty to come in and save the day.”

An image on the monitor caught Clay’s attention: Alex, blood dripping from her kama blade, shoulders heaving as she tried to catch her breath. At her feet lay Bacon Bits’s ZombiePop. On another monitor, ICSOs piled onto Joe, trying to bring him down under a wave of bodies. Corpses were heaped around them, but they couldn’t compete with the sheer number of creatures flooding from the barracks. They were being overrun.

Clay assessed the bank of switches and buttons for a second before finding the one for the exit to the prison yard. He locked it, then checked the monitors. Confused cosmic fish creatures crammed into a bottleneck at the closed door, unable to get through.

He’d bought Joe and Alex a little time, at least.

Clay felt his magic returning slowly, in fits and spurts, but it was still weak. He stuck out a hand to the tree druid. “Shifty, let me borrow your rune stick again.”

“Sure thing, bud,” he said, tossing it over.

Clay tried to resummon Bacon Bits, but a notification popped up in his vision.

[ZombiePops must be summoned from within a 30-foot radius.]

“Dammit,” Clay muttered.

The corner of Herman’s lip curled when he saw what Clay had tried to do.

“Wouldn’ta worked anyway. Summons ain’t like your cute little cantrips, get a trickle of Magicka from a rune and suddenly you’ve got an army at your back. They’ll eat your Magicka right out from under ya.”

Clay shot him a sidelong look. “Does that mean you’re a summoner class?”

“Means fuck you, pal. That’s what it means.”

On the screens, a tornado of sand and dust kicked up, cutting off the conversation in the control room as well as the fight in the yard. Alex covered her eyes, and Chonk covered his nose and mouth with his hedge trimmer and paw. ICSOs scattered, getting out of the way as the honest-to-God DCU rappelled into the middle of the floodlit prison yard.

Alex backed up a step, raising her thurible-flailed kusarigama into a defensive posture like she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe they were saved. Joe, on the other hand, bolted right for the superheroes, a childhood of comic book hero worship making his bearded face glow with joy.

Out of nowhere, the Dark Sentinel coldcocked him.

“That sonuvabitch,” Clay muttered. “What was that for?”

“Wait, you’re telling me you guys weren’t brought in by the super-dicks?” Shifty said. “Weird, I thought they caught all the Supermax’s Incants. They brought you in, didn’t they, Hermie?”

“It’s Herman, asshole, and they wish they brought me in.” He assessed the DCU lineup with a disgusted sneer. “It took the whole goddamned US government to drag me in here. Those superhero wannabes filled the rest of this shithole up, though.”

There was a crackle of static on a nearby monitor, and the screen went dead.

Clay frowned. The label tape underneath the screen read Cellblock 2 Door to Cellblock 1. As they watched, something flashed in the camera for Cellblock 1 Door to Yard, then the screen full of angry sea creatures blacked out as well.

Shifty’s knobby brows jumped high on his head. “Well, it was nice of that hot ninja and the goober in the mech suit to help us out, but they’re dead. The Warden’s headed their way.”