The Rifleman - Bk1 - Ch.9

Chapter Nine

Onward

The next big room seemed to be a carbon copy of the one before it, right down to the boss itself, sat with a mace across its knees. Normally Wes preferred a little innovation and creativity in game dungeons. It turned out that if you were actually in one, what you wanted was precisely the same shit you did last time. At least that gave you a chance to improve.

Improvement was exactly what he wanted this time, so Wes spent a good twenty minutes figuring out a plan for the room. There was no Safe room here, only the hallway, which changed things considerably. Checking his Reload tattoo showed it to be over half full, which worked out to three clips… Wes had just put in a fresh clip, which meant four full clips were available to use. That meant he had thirty-two bullets for thirty-one enemies, including the boss. 

If it was a boss. The lack of loot from the first one he killed was still bugging him. 

Whatever it was, he had killed the last one; this one was doable as well. The problem he had was being stuck in the choke point. If this corridor filled with smoke, he was screwed.

Going back and forth on the plan didn’t help, so in the end, Wesley gritted his teeth and decided to just start. It would either work or not. 

His plan was to use his new stats to the full. He was faster, more accurate, and stronger than anyone on Earth could even dream of being. If he kept trying to fight like that wasn’t the case, Wesley knew he would die. 

With a final deep breath, Wes stepped to the end of the corridor and started to pick his targets….

The first Flare shot hit the bruiser at the room's far end, causing fire to erupt in seconds. Wes had deliberately shot for the chest rather than the head. Two more Flare shots hit bruisers in the chest, one in the middle of the room, and finally, one to the corridor's left. Five more shots rang out, and walkers dropped. Wes Reloaded in a blur of movement. The whole clip had been fired in under two seconds, and this one emptied just as fast. 

Focusing on the bruisers in the room first had cleared them almost completely. It was now that Wesley did the thing he would never have dreamed of doing before… he stepped into the room and met the first walkers head-on. Bayonet and rifle butt shattered and stabbed skulls as he dodged and wove amongst the forms. 

Using the smoke to his advantage, he changed out his clip. The Reload spell was now spent. Any bullet from here on would cost him in the battle against the boss. Speaking of which, the cooldown of Flare would be up soon. 

Wes smashed his rifle butt into the skull of a shambler before kicking the legs out of a charging walker and stabbing the bayonet into its skull, and moving on. The last of the burning Bruisers had fallen just as he looked up. His plan to have them spread the fire to others had barely worked. Some of the surviving half-dozen zombies were looking scorched, but without the narrow confines of the tunnel, he guessed only one extra zombie had died to the fire. 

Three walkers rushed him at once, forcing him to use a precious bullet to take one out. This enabled him to finish off the other two before the slower shamblers caught up. 

The moment his army boot smashed the skull of the last shambler, the boss moved.

Being in the same room as the boss when it was activated had a big drawback: There was no opening shot to begin the fight. He tried to snap off a quick shot, but he was forced to scramble back as it charged recklessly toward him, not giving him a chance to shoot. 

What was worse was he noticed it skirting the dead bodies and shielding its head with the mace. It was smarter than the one he faced last, it seemed. Still, he had a backup plan…

Getting into melee range with the thing hadn’t gone well last time, so Wesley dove past its next charge and ran for the far side of the room. Dropping to one knee, he sighted at the head; seeing the boss’ head duck behind the mace as it raised it to block gave him the time he needed, dropping the rifle barrel to a lower target and firing twice, a bullet shattering each knee.

The boss crashed to the ground, its momentum and weight completing the job of severing both legs at the knee. 

The fight wasn’t over, of course. The boss still came after him, crawling along on one arm and both stumps doggedly while trying to smash him to pieces with the hammer, but he was much faster than it now, and before long, a fire was billowing from the eye sockets as a Flare shot ignited whatever it used for brains. 

The moment it stilled, Wesley dashed forward, kicking the skull across the room before smashing it with the rifle butt again.

He could not loot this one either, but he confirmed a theory he had about them. Mentally, he changed his label for these things from ‘Boss Zombie’ to ‘Elite Zombie.’

Looting the rest of the room yielded a bunch more bones and scraps of cloth—not even any leather. At this point, Wesley was willing to take anything that vaguely resembled some form of loot. Not seeing a dungeon exit option coming off from this room was not even a surprise. It was just about what he had expected once the wall from the last one closed behind him.

The only surprise was seeing the chalky writing appearing on the wall as soon as Flare gained a charge…

Flare (100%)

Ready to upgrade:

Choose an upgrade path…

Flare — Fireball

Fireball:

Launch a ball of fire at your enemies.

Magical fire spreads quickly.

Charges: 2

Flare — Improved Flare

Improved Flare

Launch a ball of light and heat.

Loses height slower than (Flare).

Charges: 6

Wesley grinned the moment he saw the Fireball spell. It was classic swords and sorcery stuff. Plus, the upgrade to it could lead anywhere. He had brief visions of launching massive fireballs from the M1 or even turning it into a flamethrower.

Once it is upgraded.

The problem was that he was in the dungeon, and the basic Flare spell was just too good when paired with the gun, at least against undead like he had been fighting so far. With twice his current charges, the rooms would be a lot easier, and even the elites would fall faster with a burning double-tap to the skull.

Normally, Wesley preferred to take the long view on things, but here and now, it was an easy choice, even if he was sure to regret it later.

Improved Flare (0%)

With the choice made, the little tattoo on his right hand grew a tiny bit. That was it. 

“This dungeon really sucks,” Wesley muttered as he sat and drank a sip of water, waiting for the charges of Reload to refill.

The following two rooms were identical to the ones before, but clearing them had become less of a challenge. His idea to double-tap the elites with Improved Flare took them out before they could even rise, and from there, the rest became more and more predictable as he learned their movement and attack patterns.

After the third room on the level, he finally got another chance to leave the dungeon. Again, he thought about it. Last time, he had barely survived before finding the exit, now he was confident and relaxed.

The chance to improve his fighting against a type of mob that he had a hard counter to was simply too good to pass up. With every room he cleared, Wesley felt himself improving when it came to how he moved and how he fought. Every fight helped him adapt to his new body and stats, which would pay off in the future a hundredfold.

He did not want to get experience with fighting and killing these many enemies outside of a dungeon. The raised dead were perfect, allowing him to practice and learn without ever having to kill anything sentient or sapient. 

Not surprisingly, Wesley turned away from the exit portal and headed deeper into the dungeon.

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The bottom of the ramp revealed a welcome sight. A Safe Room. Wesley walked into it and felt his body relax. It was nearly identical to the one he had started the dungeon in, except this one also came with a small pair of bonuses. The first was a bed. He tapped it a few times with his rifle, just in case, before throwing his pack on it to test for any other traps, but it seemed to be a perfectly normal bed of rock and some kind of straw mattress. 

Okay, so a perfectly shitty bed, but it was still something. Despite the tag saying Safe Room over the door, he still made sure to pull the mattress off the stone ledge, batter it against a wall and wrapping it in the tarp from his bag before being willing to even think of sleeping on it. 

He seemed to be developing some trust issues, sue him.

The other bonus in this safe room was a wooden table, dusty and rough but otherwise serviceable. It also got a round of poking and kicking, just to be on the safe side, before Wes drained his canteen and finally lay down, head resting on his pack, pulled his blanket over his head, and slept. 

His dreams put him back in London on the day he had signed up for the acting company. Everything was identical, save the fact that every single person in the entire city was a zombie. Zombies were waiting in line for coffee, reading newspapers, and even on the tube… Although that could have just been the normal mourning passengers, it was hard to tell sometimes. Everywhere he went, he was followed, not by the zombies but by a strangely large coyote. 

He stopped and looked back at it a few times. It always gave him a huge smile, like something out of a cartoon.

After shaking hands with Matt on the job, he stepped out of the pub, and saw the coyote again, waiting for him.

“What are you doing?” He asked, which seemed reasonable thanks to dream sense.

“I’ll see you soon,” the coyote said, leaning forward, pressing one paw against his chest, and then fading away. 

Wes frowned at the imprint left behind.

‘DRAFTEE’ was printed in red block letters on his chest.

“Weird dog,” Wes shook his head and walked away as the dream faded.

Wes stared accusingly at the water as he refilled his canteen. It had to be something in the water. That was the cause, definitely. Dreams were not something he had ever tried to understand before. His normally involved lots of nakedness and very easy-to-understand motivations. 

What bugged him the most was that it had made him remember something that he wasn’t entirely sure had ever happened. When he had gone to meet Matt that day, he had noticed a weird guy who seemed to be going the same way. He had looked off somehow, not scary or anything like that, just like he wasn’t really there. Wes had looked then, and if he was honest, the man’s smile had been weirdly big.

The guy had also tapped him on the chest and even said the ‘see you soon’ thing back then. But nothing happened for months. It had to just be his mind making connections where none existed, but it still made his skin crawl.

It wasn’t like his real life wasn’t weird enough these days. What was the point of his mind making shit up just for fun?

No matter what, Wesley did feel better for the sleep. He had expected to wake feeling stiff and sore, but instead, his body felt almost perfect. There was still a slight ache where the elite stabbed him the day before, but it was faint now.

Breakfast would have been nice, but he had nothing left to eat, so it was a canteen of water and a few stretches instead. 

Packing away his gear and frowning once more at the collection of cloth scraps in his backpack, the only loot he had bothered with so far, Wesley got himself ready, checked he had a fresh clip in his M1, and headed off down the corridor, not even blinking at the fact the entrance had once again disappeared. 

For the first time since entering the dungeon, Wesley encountered a new room. The mass of zombies was gone, replaced by a pair of elites flanked by a new type of enemy. 

Tattered robes couldn’t hide the skeletons beneath as empty skulls stared out from under hoods lit by the pale fire in their eye sockets. A staff of bones was clutched in one hand. They were either casters or close enough that it would make no difference. 

Four casters, two elites. 

To make matters worse, they stood on opposite sides of the room. Theoretically, they could be pulled separately. Still, new enemies with unknown abilities made him nervous. Could he burn a skeleton? Would Improved Flare do anything at all to them? He would like the answer to these questions before he fired, but that wasn’t going to happen. So…

The burning bullets slammed into the heads of the elites, and they crumpled instantly. The casters immediately started to move. Not toward him, but away. Keeping their distance, they grabbed their staffs and pointed them toward him, sending spikes of bone from the tip that buried deep into the stone walls when they hit. 

Wes swore and ducked back, peaking out to fire a couple of Improved Flare shots, which managed to set the robes on fire, but little else. He tried regular bullets next, which at least shattered a few bones. The flow of spikes didn’t seem to be slowing, which he felt was complete bullshit. How did they not get a cooldown and charges to deal with? 

Figuring it had to be the staff each of them held that was causing the problem, Wes put his next shot through the wrist of the closest skeletal mage, severing it and sending the staff clattering to the ground. Its partner moved in front of it, sending a bone spike faster than he had accounted for. It drilled into his shoulder, and Wes cast Emergency Heal as a reflex; of course, he was still holding the rifle…

The spell passed into the rifle and settled in the bullet like the Improved Flare spell did. Pulling the trigger was just logical. What good did a healing spell in a bullet do him?

The bullet whined across the room, slamming into the skeletal mage, who dropped the staff to the floor and looked at the hole in its chest bone in puzzlement.

Wes was happy enough just to see it confused, but then something remarkable happened. 

It exploded.

Shards of bone pinged around the room as Wes pulled the spike of bone out of his shoulder and cast Emergency Heal properly this time. Looking back around the edge of the entrance, Wes saw that the skeletal mage behind the one who exploded was in bits. Another healing bullet– and wasn’t that a weird term– caused a similar explosion in another skeletal mage, which also finished off its buddy. 

His new trick was fun, but it wasted charges on his healing, making him nervous. Using his healing as an attack was dangerous. If he was out of charge the next time he was seriously injured… well, the outcome was obvious.

It was wild; he could even put the healing spell into a bullet. What was the use for that? Here, let me heal you. No, don’t run… I promise shooting you will help. The thought made him chuckle, but it also made him think. Would that even work?

Well, he certainly wasn’t going to shoot himself to find out. It did prove one thing, however. The Flare and the Heal were both merely types of energy—or different forms of the same energy. More than that, the healing and light energies seemed to react badly when mixed with whatever energy brought the dead back to life. Mentally, Wes visualized it like a color wheel. That made a twisted kind of sense to him. Except in this case the opposites on the wheel, the contrasting colors, as it were, reacted, well, explosively. Sort of how opposing ends of a magnet pushed against each other. 

Looking at the small Improved Flare tattoo on his hand while he thought gave Wes an idea. If the energies were close enough together… could they mix or change each other? He had already cast two charges of the same spell simultaneously; could he cast two different ones at the same time?

Testing it was dodgy, as he still had no idea what he was doing. If he was guessing wrong, it might blow his hand off or worse. Still, if he was right, it would open up another possible option for him to use in tight situations. 

To be safe, Wes waited until he had full charges on his Emergency Heal.

His idea was based exclusively on his experience with the undead. The creepers outside the village had burst into flame when hit with a Flare, and so had the zombies. Dry as both looked, they should not ignite like that from a single hot bullet. Hell, he doubted even phosphorous would ignite something that quickly. He had no actual experience with that outside of what he had seen on TV. His current theory, which he was basically betting his hand on, was that they ignited from the light energy instead. It was a similar, if less extreme, reaction to what he saw from the healing energy. Like similar colors on a spectrum. 

If he were right, what he was about to do would not harm him at all.

If he was right.

“Please be right,” Wesley muttered as he raised his hand and fired off a charge of Improved Flare and an Emergency Heal at the same time. The energy from the spells surged and traveled down his arm, gathering for a split second in his palm before a deep red flare burst out of his palm and raced toward the roof. The moment it hit, the speed vanished, and it fell slowly toward the floor. 

Wes grinned as dozens of minor cuts and aches began to vanish from his body as the room was bathed in the warm red light. 

“Who’s a fucking genius?” Wesley asked himself and laughed. “This is going to come in so damn handy.”