Book 2 C 3 Survivors

There is a scramble going on as we assemble the personnel to head for Farmington. The Ny'Har'en all volunteer, but I ask they stay, as the people there do not know about them yet and might spook them.

I take all the elite and super soldiers excluding the two at the portal site, I also include our 11 soldiers from the Kingdom Army. I include Julie, Doc snow, Doc Wilson and Doc Mathews. Several more volunteer, but we have enough now, as we will have to transport survivors back. In all we are 55 strong. I take out 11 Hum-Vees and we all get in, Elite and Super Soldiers get in place where the 50 cals are mounted, but use their rifles instead.

Once all are ready, the guards open the gates and we head out. Our head lights light up the night as we rush to the main road that leads west out of town to Farmington. Along the way several shots fly out to kill wandering creatures. The Drive takes us 45 minutes, as we drive to avoid vehicles along the road and other obstacles. At one point a large pack of over 100 Worgs was spotted in front of us, Corporal Stinson who was my Gunner in the Hum-Vee simply held down his trigger and began to wipe them out clearing a path. The Bright bluish white beam was almost blinding in the night as it ripped thru the masses.

Driving thru the Worgs the other gunners also lit up the night sky with their beams. This repeated several times, until we hit the outskirts of Farmington. We know the Mall has to be on the main road so we kept driving thru the barren town. Creatures notice us and come running in hunger at us, we had slowed down to about 35 mph now, and our gunners were kept busy, shooting anything that was not human and we weaved in and out of vehicles that were left abandoned on the roaqd, sometimes ramming them to move them out of the way. At first it was the Worgs, then slowly turned to Orcs. As we saw the Mall ahead in the distance of the night sky. Flashes were erupting from there. We also saw OwlBears and a great number of them.

I stop the vehicle and we all get out. Our path is blocked here, the vehicles choke the road thickly in this area, with no way thru, many are turned on their sides or upside down. Semi Trucks are turned over their trailers torn open with wide gashes in them. The search for food by the creatures was evident everywhere.

Our headlights gave away our position as many heads turned and saw us.

“Line up! Take position to fire, kill them all!” I yell as the remaining Hum'Vee take side by side positions. The 11 Kingdom Soldiers man the 50 cals. Everyone else takes position around the Hum-Vees.

Julie's mana barrier goes up covering a 10 meter radius around her. Everyone else activates their personal barriers as light blue glows light up.

“Fire at will! Short burst continuous fire only, conserve mana, this may take a while!” I say taking out my mana blaster and blasting an approaching Owlbear, I fire short burst of continuous fire, melting a gaping hole in it's chest. It falls on the spot. I had ordered each Hum-Vee to make their own parties as we left the Keep. Each group had 5 ppl in it, mine had 5 as well. Myself, Julie, Doc Snow, Corporal Stinson and one of the Kingdom Army guys named Harold Spencer. I left Ki'Diera behind, she complained and even begged to go, but I asked her to remain with Cindy to keep her company and calm and let her know where we are in case she woke up.

Also since Farmington was so far away, we could restock things and she could unload the inventory quickly in the Auditorium now turned warehouse if we needed the space. She finally gave in grudgingly.

The auditorium was filled with foods from the Grocery warehouse we raided. But also boxes and boxes of potions we got from the Were-beast later. Doc Snow, Doc Mathew and Doc Wilson had many boxes in their inventories as well, so they could administer them as needed quickly. The three were walking warehouses of potions.

The potions were only medium grade, but they were better then none at all and plentiful, as in total we have over 10K of each potion, health, mana and stamina, plus a some new ones, rare ones, like cure poisons, invisibility, harden skin, and many more. The discovery of the potions, as we saw them littering the field of the massacre was a surprise. The Super Soldiers quickly tried to get them only to discover their inventories were already full at that time. We also gained other items like were-beast hides, over a million of them alone, swords, and other items typical of a MMO drop. But little to no gold or coin drops if any.

I fire my mana blaster over and over taking out an OwlBear with each burst, they are rushing en-mass right now, from behind, coming from the East where we came from, the Orcs, lured by the sound of the 50 cals, are rushing at us as well, it seems when hunger is involved, territory no longer matters.

“50 cals cover the rear!” I yell, as they all switch targets and now fire into the night at the oncoming Orcs.

The xp messages keep coming non stop, I turned off the messages already, but the unread notices were piling up fast. So far no creature has made it close to us before being mowed down as beams of light and 50 cal fire cover us in all directions.

“Master Gunnery Sergeant, it is getting thick here on the North side”, someone calls out loudly. I move quickly over to that spot and see the mass heading towards us. Hundreds of Orcs are swarming now. I pull out Big Daddy and charge it up and switch to cold fire, I wanted to try this out and see what is actually did. I fire 3 quick shots into the mass coming at us. Suddenly a strong wind hits us and it is freezing cold, forcing me to close my eyes. When I open them again, I look thru frost covered eye lashes and see almost the entire mass of Orcs is frozen in place covered in ice.

“What the hell was that?” someone cries out shocked “It is fucking cold!”.

“That was Big Daddy boys and girls” I laugh, so need to watch my range with that one, could be bad if I shot too close to us.

You think Scott? Julie answers in dry humor.

I change the setting back to explosive and fire one shot and all the frozen Orcs shatter to pieces. Very nice combo there!

I put away Big Daddy and use my mana blaster again since it was over kill for the remaining Orcs. The Orcs who have some intelligence, are now hesitating after seeing the mass killing of their kind and are slowly backing away now and beginning to retreat, some of the Orc Chiefs are howling commands.

On the West and South fronts the Owl bears are still coming but have dwindled greatly. The 50 cals watch the rear but have fallen silent now. Only the forward shooting of the Phaser and Mana Enhanced Rifles can be heard. I move back to the West side to assist.

“Alright, lets start to move forward, Hum-Vees follow, cover our rear” I command. As one we form a semi circle in front of the hum-vees and move forward, shooting at anything that moves right now. We move the crowded vehicles to the side making room for our Hum-Vees to pass, the entire process slows us down quite a bit. It seems the Owlbears lack the intelligence of the Orcs and keep running into the killing field. We slowly approach the Mall mowing down the creatures in front of us.

I can now see one of the main entrances to the Mall. I also see more creatures at the entrance trying to get in, but are being held back by a mana barrier, it is flickering wildly. Then lightning comes shooting down into the mass of creatures down from the roof. We hear the crack of the lightning, a thundering boom as it tears into the creatures stunning them. Another bolt and another follow. Each bolt booms into the distance. Then the bolts stop, seems he or she ran out of mana.

“Lets hurry, break thru!” I say and begin to run at a sprint killing OwlBears on the way, but as we get closer to mall, they are no longer OwlBears, but the BugBears like New York City. One of the Elite Guards fires into one and staggers the creature but does not kill it. Others are having the same results, they are not going down like the Owlbears did. Our advance comes to a screeching halt.

“FOCUS FIRE” I yell as several more BugBears Approach. Several Super Soldiers Hold down continuous on one BugBear and it slowly is melted away. I fire continous with my mana blaster, and find it take far longer to cause damage to the BugBear, but it too, eventually goes down. The 50 cals open fire, but are doing no damage to the BugBears at all.

“50 cals! Save ammo, do not fire on the BugBears cover the sides and rear, we will handle these guys.” I yell out.

We begin to focus fire on the BuBears as they begin to close in on us, some getting as close as 20 meeters now making several nervous seeing them take continuous beam shots and keep on coming. One on one, my guys were no match for them. But as team we were taking them down slowly.

The other Bugbears at the entrance are now slowly turning their heads towards us having heard the 50 cals firing, and see us approaching.

I take Big Daddy back out and charge it up, these guys are tough and need to be dealt with quickly. As soon as I can, I fire a shot at one, the BugBear is thrown off its feet and explodes in the air. Not good one shot one kill here.

More are coming but there are not as many as there was Owlbears.

“Over here, we are here!!” The person on the roof yells, jumping up and down. It is a male voice. He keeps yelling at us trying to draw out attention.

“Let's finish these guys off!” I say out loud.

“Master Gunnery Sergeant I am starting to run low on mana.” Someone yells.

“Mee too!” another cries out.

“Doctors! Get the mana potions out, fill their tanks up!” I order.

With that the Doctors all bring out a box of mana potions each and begin to hand them out quickly while the super Soldiers and Elite all drink them over and over refilling their mana.

It is slowly getting to where almost all the BugBears are gone, even at the entrance, as they all turned as one and came at us, giving the entrance a break.

“Kill them all, kill those motherfuckers! Go Army!!” Cries the man on the roof. Suddenly I had an urge to shoot him, but I fought it down.

Finally only a trickle of creatures remained, the BugBears thru focus fire, had all been eliminated here. OwlBears were still trickling in from around the area drawn by the noise, but were easily taken out.

We see people pouring out of the mall.”There are more on the South side.” someone yells.

“Have your people retreat to us, we will handle them”. I yell back waving them to us.

“We have many wounded in here” Cries another.

I sigh, "Alright set up a perimeter around the entrance and send three teams to cover the South entrance. Doctors, Julie with me” I say as we all rush to enter the mall, the mass of people make way for us. In the middle of the mall, the wounded lie every where. Some are missing arms or legs with make shift bandages on them. I also see a few people dressed similar to Cindy's fire garb but in blues and whites. The man from the roof comes running to us, grinning from ear to ear

”thank god you arrived, that was the worst attack yet, it was only a matter of time before they over ran us.” says the man out of breath in all blue with silver designs robe, the designs looking like lightning bolts tracing all over, carrying a blue steel looking staff with a blue crystal on top. He is 18 year of age looking with thick ash blonde hair, green eyes standing at 6' tall, he has above avg looks almost a ladies man in looks, if not for the giant sized nose on his face.

The Three Doctors and Julie quickly rush forward taking out boxes of healing potions to be handed out to the wounded and then begin to use their heals on them. The Doctors and Julie issue order to those standing around watching, directing them to administer the healing potions to the wounded. Quickly the wounded are being tended to.

“How many you got here?” I ask looking around.

“With the wounded 384 people. You Army guys sure showed up in the nick of time” He says almost laughing in joy.

“Marines” I say coldly.

“Marines huh? Even better!” He laughs.

“By the way my name is Wilfred Decker.” he hold out his had to me.

“Scott Smith, nice to see you folks made it” I reply with a smile now taking his hand seeing all the faces watching us with relief and hope returning to their eyes

“Did you hear they are Marines!”

The US government sent help!”

“We are saved,, thank you lord for the Marines!”

“Cries of joy rise up all over as the word spreads, the false information is spreading fast.

“FOLKS!! LISTEN UP!” I yell, my voice booming loudly thru out the mall.

NOTICE!Notice you have used Voice of the beast!

Congratulations! Voice of the beast has leveled.

Ahh crap.

Everyone is stunned into silence. Fear showing in their eyes at me.

In a kinder gentler voice, I continue “Folks we are not the US Government, we are from the next town over, We have a Fortified Keep with Walls and guards and 5 km safe zone. We Welcome you all to join us” I say to the crowd.

I look at the crowd and see the fear fading as the words slowly sink in.

“So they are just like us?”

“What will we do”

“Can they really have such a place?”

Many begin to whisper to one another in doubt and disbelief.

“Our Safe zone includes almost 1000 people, we have 10 ft walls that are protected by magic and guards that can repel creatures by their presence alone. We welcome you all to our home and offer you a safe place”. I say once more in a commanding voice.

I see the doubt beginning to wear away, my leadership skill kicked in now.

“How will we get there, there are so many of us.” One person asks.

I look over the crowd 384 of them and our 55, the 11 Hum-Vees and the 5 spares I have are not going to be enough. Even with the 6 tanks, it was still not enough.

“The main School bus yard is not far from here, if we can get a some of buses.” One female person speaks up,” I drove a school bus, so I know where everything is.

“Alright we will do that. How many buses will it take? I ask of the woman who spoke up.” we can put the wounded in the back of the Hum-Vees, 3 per Hum-Vee, only those who have to stay laying down.

“I would say 6 or 7 buses will do then” She answers.

“Ok we need drivers” I say out loud. And several hands go up, most stating they had their CDL licence.

“Alright Staff Sergeant Halloway, take 5 teams and go secure the buses. Sergeant 1st class Montgomery, cover the North and South entrances with the remaining teams till they get back” I order.

Doc snow approaches me”, Scott a few are really bad of even with healing, you think you can make a few of those rings? I am not sure how much longer they can hold out.”

“how many Doc” I ask

“three at least” He replies with a grim expression.

“Alright but it is going to take a while you know that.” I say to him.

“I know and I would not ask if it was not a last resort, we can not move them without the rings.” he replies back to me.

“Alright Doc I will make them. FOLKS who here has access to their inventory? I see several of you in robes and such.” I yell out.

18 hands go up, so few sigh......

“Ok if it is not nailed down, grab it and put it in your inventories, all essentials. Food, tents if there are any, sleeping gear, cold and warm weather clothing. Anything we need for day to day living, including toilet paper! Julie contact Ki'Diera and start sending her stuff too, we got one hour before we need to head out, EVERYONE else help them repack make big boxes, the bigger the better and the more they can carry!”

With that everyone begins to scramble in all directions, motivation is seen on all faces, this mall only has one floor, so it should not take too long.

Julie approaches me, “Scott I need to help the Doctors,” she says in uncertain voice, she looks uneasy.

“They have it under control, we are getting more people and we need more things now. Please.” I say to her.

“Scott I think you should know, a few of the women, they were.......they were found and rescued from the goblins.” Julie says in a quivering voice, tears are now forming.