Chapter 38: Under the Mountain I

  Janette hurried the confused scientist down the hallway, while Achara had started to run on her own. Marcus looked back at the door and a high pressure water stream shot water over his head. The door buckled and finally broke. A torrent of water rushed down the corridor and quickly reached them. The water level rose in three seconds to their knees and then their hips. Bianca fell but Marcus grabbed her and held her head high, as the water reached his shoulders. The faster team members were ten meter ahead but the wave caught them too. The water pressure dragged them along the corridor until they reached a larger room and were able to free themselves.

  Gasping they came up and Marcus tried to remember which way to go, but Kou was already pointing at the correct corridor. The water reached their knees again and they quickly moved forward. Marcus helped Malcolm while Kou shouted “Do not swallow the water!” and they continued to run. Two more corridors down and one large junction and the water finally stopped following them, for now. “If there is a fresh source of water behind that room, we might have just flooded the whole complex.” Kou said and looked around how everybody was feeling.

  They were wet and unhappy but nobody had swallowed some water. They had protective shots but a full load of micro-organism from a different planet could be dangerous, and fatal at worst.

  “From now on, we should check every closed door by knocking.” Marcus said and everybody agreed. In their wet state they finally decided to make camp. Change some clothes, eat some food and get some rest. “From what I can tell this was some form of bunker or storage facility. It also has space for inhabitants. We have not seen many rooms suitable for large projects, like a workshop or heavy machinery.” Bianca said, feasting on an instant noodle dish. “Maybe an emergency bunker against catastrophes.”, Carmen said and the women continued their debate. Janette talked with Achara, and Malcolm did some work with his tablet. Marcus sat down next to Kou and ate some dried meat and a paste, he didn’t want to know what it was, let’s call it tomato.

  “That was a close one.” Kou finally said after some silence. Marcus nodded and ate more “tomato”. They watched Janette and Achara talk and the girls gave them looks from time to time.

  “You think, they are talking about us?” Kou asked. “Most likely.” Marcus answered and worked on the rest of his dry meat.

  “Have you told her yet?” Marcus said and had some nice fresh Earth water to finish. “No. But I think she knows anyway.” Kou said and they sat in silence. They watched the infrared lamp flickering and humming for some time, and were satisfied with the conversation.

  An hour later Janette joined Marcus in the corner of the room and used his arm as a pillow. “Good talk?” Marcus asked. “Yep.” Janette said and closed her eyes. Achara had the first guard shift, Marcus would be next. He was not really tired and rested with his eyes half open while his mind worked on the “Anchor-Falling Damage” problem. Two hours later he took his shift and Achara went to sleep. Marcus walked around the perimeter and peered into the long dark hallways. “splish, splash” Marcus turned and walked to the doorway he had checked five minutes ago. It was completely silent and dark. He activated his IR view. “Slowly grab your gear. We have hostiles.” Marcus whispered into the com.

  Through the IR vision he saw dozens of bodies in the dark hallway, small creatures with elongated heads, needle sharp teeth and claws on hands and feet. Even so IR vision did only give limited details he knew what he was looking at. “Goblins” he whispered. Like “orks” “goblins” are not your fantasy variety monster. Humans just call these nasty monsters goblins because they are just as much a menace. They exist on many worlds, always a bit different, but fundamentally cruel and brutal. They hunt in large packs and devour their targets to the bones. Marcus tried to count but there were so many and they started to move silently forward, exposing their sharp teeth in anticipation of soft flesh.

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  Marcus made a quick decision. If the horde entered the room we are royally fucked, Marcus thought. We do not have good aoe damage and those bastards will devour the scientist even if the rest can survive. Marcus slowly stepped back towards to the doorway. The closest goblin crouched down on its legs and with a screech lunged at Marcus. The same moment light flooded the corridor blinding the little devils and a bullet from Janette tore the monster apart before it could reach Marcus. He planted his feet in the doorway prepared to take on the horde. “Achara help me take on those which break through. Janette support Marcus.” Marcus smiled as he heard Kou’s voice, the man instantly knew what Marcus tried to do. But then there was no time to think.

  The first wave of four little shits rushed him and he kicked and stomped two to red paste while one caught a bullet from Janette. The last one jumped at his leg but the small teeth and claws did not penetrate his armor. He punched the thing right between its red, cat like eyes. He had not finished his strike as several more monsters jumped up on him and some squeezed by him, smelling more things to mutilate in the room behind. The roaring of Achara’s and Kou’s weapon mixed into the screaming of the monsters and the ear shattering noise of Janette’s rifle.

  Marcus quickly lost sight of everything and just flailed wildly at everything that came from the hallway. He bleed from a dozen wounds and small claws tried to cut his throat and needle teeth bit into his muscles and joints. Marcus could not tell how long this was going on but his lungs ached like fire and the floor was covered with goblin viscera as finally the last goblins fled into the darkness.

  He took a deep breath and leaned against the doorway. Everybody in the room looked exhausted, Achara was wielding her swords and was covered in goblin blood, Janette had discarded her rifle and wielded her pistol and Kou stood in front of the civilians with deep cuts on his face and arms.

  “That was unreal.” Janette said and moved to Marcus checking his wounds. “Nothing serious I will heal quickly.”, he said and it was true. Even so the little monsters had clawed at him dozens of times the damage to his body was very limited, his armor though looked torn. Achara helped Kou with his wounds and Janette took the guard to allow Marcus to rest for a moment. “If you had not plucked the doorway this would have been a massacre.” Kou said enjoying Achara taking care of him.

  The scientists looked rattled but fully unharmed. They thanked the team and sang praises about their courage and skill. “I thought this was it. At some point Marcus was buried under those little devils and I believed we would all die.” Carmen said with a white face.

  “Bloody hell, I think I got two whole levels.” Janette shouted and shook everybody up. Marcus and the rest checked and it was the same for them. “How many of those rats did we kill?” Janette asked, “At least 50?” Achara said and gave Kou a short kiss (on the lips!) and got up. Kou instantly looked more alive and it was not the levels he had gained.

  They spent their crests and cleaned the camp and themselves up as good as possible. “Even if we find nothing here, 4 levels alone was worth the trip.” Janette said and smiled. Marcus was happy too, very soon he would have enough vitality to start searching for his third ability. He had 28 vitality now and he was certain that 30ish was the next threshold. He looked at his hands and after half an hour all the smaller cuts and bruises were gone. Unreal.

  They rested for six more hours and no more problems showed up. Janette told Marcus she had spent a few points in vitality and dexterity to increase her survivability. Hearing that, the other two also reported to him and he felt a bit awkward. Achara still pushed her intelligence (based on Marcus’ insider knowledge) and Kou had also increased vitality and dexterity. “I have one clip for my rifle and two for my pistol left.” Janette said with a worried look to Marcus. “You can take my gun if you ran out, I can still fight with my swords.” Achara said and Janette gave her a grateful nod.

  Marcus got up and stretched his legs. He walked around and looked at the pile of dead goblins and a distressing thought crept into his mind. “What do you think, how many goblins does it take before one shows up that evolves?” He asked the team and Janette kicked his leg. “Thanks for the death flag!”