Shadow Sun Expansion Read online

  Shadow Sun

  Expansion

  Book Two of the Shadow Sun Series

  Dave Willmarth

  Copyright © 2019 by Dave Willmarth

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters and events depicted in this novel are entirely fictitious. Any similarity to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  Bears Do It In The Woods

  Allistor and Helen both sipped coffee from thermoses in the early morning silence. They’d pulled the ranger truck over to the side of the road and let Fuzzy out when he indicated that he needed to go. The bear cub was now more than twice the size he’d been when Allistor first found him trapped at the waterfall. Though he was only several days older and just as cute as ever, the cub had leveled up several times and his body had grown larger. Watching him waddle into the brush alongside the road, Helen chuckled.

  “He’s like one of those big prize bears you see at the carnival. Just as cute as the little ones, but on steroids.”

  Allistor smiled as his companion disappeared amid much rustling and shaking of bushes. “He’s not exactly stealthy, is he? And at this rate I’m going to have to dedicate a part of each day hunting just for him. He eats like a full-grown bear.”

  Turning in her seat so that she was facing forward, she looked down the road ahead of them, then consulted the map in her lap. As usual they were taking back roads, exploring the territory and looking for interesting potential Outposts or sources of useful loot. They’d left the Citadel before sunrise, two days later than Allistor had planned. There had been business he needed to take care of at his various properties, like driving up to the Gun Shop to retrieve a second Barrett .50 and other weapons. But now they’d hit the road again and were headed in the general direction of Laramie, about fifty miles west of Cheyenne. Allistor meant to establish a Stronghold there before moving on to Denver. It wasn’t safe to travel the roads over long distances anymore, but with the ability to set up a teleportation network that he’d won for constructing the first Citadel on Earth, they could establish a wide network of Strongholds and Citadels and travel instantly between them.

  “At our current pace, assuming Fuzzy cooperates, we should be in Laramie by noon.” Helen observed. Before the world ended, the trip would have taken about an hour, cruising along on the interstate. But those days were over. Abandoned and destroyed vehicles littered the roads, and creatures both native and alien had claimed their own territories. Earth’s predators had begun to grow and mutate under the laws of Earth’s new ‘game’ system as they killed and consumed their prey. Just as Fuzzy had done, the wolves, bears, snakes, birds, and even fish had grown larger, stronger, faster, and hungrier. So travelers needed to keep a constant lookout for threats anytime they were outside a safe zone.

  “Good.” Allistor followed Helen’s gaze down the empty road. He saw nothing but tall trees and brush on either side. “That’ll give us some time to poke around a bit before we have to find shelter for the night.”

  A sudden thrashing in the underbrush nearby had both of them gripping their weapons. Helen held a Winchester .30-06 hunting rifle with a scope, while Allistor produced his shotgun, loaded with slugs for stopping power. Not wanting to shoot past her head, Allistor climbed into the back seat of the ranger’s SUV and rolled down the window even as Helen pointed her rifle toward the disturbance.

  Speaking just loud enough for Allistor to hear, Helen said, “That’s right near where Fuzzy went, so hold your fire until we’re sure it’s not him.” Allistor nodded, then let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding a moment later when Fuzzy emerged from the brush with a rabbit in his jaws.

  Helen snorted. “Maybe you won’t have to hunt as much as you think. He seems to be pretty good at feeding himself.”

  Allistor opened the back door and got out, holding it open like a valet for his furry companion. But before he let Fuzzy hop in, he held out a hand. “Give me the rabbit, Fuzzy. I’ll put it in storage for you. You can’t be making a mess of it in the back seat. We’ll roast it for you later.”

  Fuzzy glared at him for a moment, obviously not thrilled about giving up his kill. He was, after all, a wild bear until very recently. But becoming Allistor’s bonded pet had civilized him quite a bit. Still, rather than politely hand the prize to Allistor, he dropped it at his human’s feet. Then with a derisive snort, he climbed up into the truck, spun around twice, and plopped down on the seat.

  “Oh, so it’s like that? Maybe I should have named you Grumpy instead of Fuzzy.” Allistor bent down and retrieved the bunny corpse, storing it in his inventory ring. The extradimensional space inside the ring was a timeless void, where the meat would remain exactly as it was until removed.

  Closing the door, he walked around the back of the truck and got back into the driver’s seat. Putting the truck in gear, they continued on down the road. Helen held the atlas book a little closer to her face and squinted a bit. “Says there’s a small lake and a marshland up ahead just a bit. I don’t know this area as well as I know my park, but it might be a good place to stop and get some fish. To feed his majesty back there.” She jerked her head toward the back seat, and Fuzzy chuffed in agreement.

  Allistor looked at his bear in the rear-view mirror. “Oh, hush. You just want to play in the water.” To which Fuzzy replied with what Allistor had come to call his ‘innocent’ face. With a sigh, Allistor agreed. “Sure. We’ve got poles in the back. We’ll catch some fish for all of us. Maybe you or I will be able to raise our Cooking skill tonight.”

  Allistor was all about developing and improving skills. Not just himself, but all his people as well. Since their homeworld had been taken by the aliens and the near genocide of the human race commenced, the surviving humans had basically become NPCs in some kind of universal game. Allistor was determined that if his people were going to be NPCs, then they would be elite NPCs. Not pushovers for the alien invaders when they arrived in less than a year’s time.

  Another of the rewards that came with the first Citadel was an extensive library filled with knowledge that could help his people grow stronger. He had Ramon leading a team of people investigating the library and its contents. Ramon was to train a few additional people in his Scribe skills, which allowed him to make copies of spell scrolls and, Allistor hoped, eventually entire books and manuals. Those copies could then be passed on to his people and the spells learned. He wanted, at a minimum, for every one of his citizens to be able to fight, heal, and craft something.

  Thirty minutes down the road they came upon a gravel parking area that sloped down toward the lake Helen had spotted. Already the grass and shrubs were starting to encroach on the cleared area, reclaiming it for the forest. Allistor parked the truck and got out, walking to the back to retrieve the fishing gear as Helen let Fuzzy out. His nose held high in indignation, Fuzzy strolled down to the water’s edge and began to sniff.

  “Hey, buddy. Don’t get into the water just yet, okay? The last lake I visited had a fish big enough to swallow you whole.”

  The bear cub, who had a foot raised and was about to step into the water, pulled back and sat down on the gravel, now staring suspiciously into the water.

  Chuckling, Allistor carried a couple of poles, a bucket, and a tackle box down the slope to where Helen stood looking across the water. Handing her one of the poles, he set the rest down
and opened the tackle box. After a quick glance toward Fuzzy, he whispered, “We can use bits of the rabbit for bait. Cast it way out there. If nothing big hits it, we’ll know it’s safe for him to go in.”

  Helen just winked, preparing her pole.

  “Hang tight Fuzzy. We’ll test the waters real quick.” Allistor freed the already threaded hook from one of the guide rings on his pole, then reached into his inventory and produced the rabbit. Using Helen as a shield so Fuzzy couldn’t see, he used his belt knife to cut a few furry meaty bits from the rabbit’s leg before stowing it back in his inventory. He ignored the curious sniffs from his bear as he handed a chunk to Helen before baiting his own hook. Quickly casting the bait far out into the water, he risked a glance at the bear, who was sniffing at the breeze and giving him and Helen both a suspicious look.

  Helen managed to keep a straight face as she pretended to ignore the bear cub, casting her own line out a good fifty yards to splash down in the mostly serene water. She immediately began to reel it back in very slowly, a few inches at a time in jerky motions, hoping to attract the attention of any aquatic predators. As Allistor did the same, Fuzzy got up and paced back and forth along the water’s edge. He sniffed at the ripples caused by their lines as they reached the gravel shore, but remained out of the water.

  They each had to cast three more times before Allistor got a bite. Whatever it was, it hit his bait like a pit bull grabbing a hot dog and immediately tried to swim away with it. Allistor’s reel screamed as the fishing line unwound at a rapid pace. He increased the drag a bit, hoping to slow the thing down before he set the hook, worried about snapping the filament line. Eventually it slowed enough that he felt confident that the line would hold, and he jerked back on the pole as he leaned backward to put his body weight into it.

  A violent thrashing began, far out into the water, where his fish reacted to the jerk of the hook. Allistor immediately began pulling on the rod to create slack then quickly reeling it in. Every few seconds he gained ground on the fish, pulling it toward him then taking up the slack. The pole bent nearly double each time he yanked on it, and he began to fear it would break.

  While he fought his catch, Helen got a hit on her line as well and began to reel it in. Fuzzy, excited now, hopped up and down with his front feet, grunting as if encouraging them to hurry up. Allistor gave another heave on his pole, and his catch shot out of the shallow water near his feet.

  It was a lake trout, maybe six feet long. When Helen saw the size of it, she nearly dropped her pole. “Damn. That’s… a big one.” She gave her pole another tug, and it too bent nearly double. “If they’re growing this fast, we’re gonna need a bigger pole.”

  Allistor snorted. “If I had a dime for every time a woman said that to me…” He saw her roll her eyes before he returned his attention to the fish flopping around on the gravel. It was as long as he was tall, and fat. He thought it might be heavier than him. Just the one fish could provide meat for several people, or one bear cub, for days. He was just bending down to take hold of its tail to drag it farther from the water, when Fuzzy took over. Grabbing the tail in his jaws, he clamped down and began to walk backward, pulling the fish up the slope. It continued to thrash a bit, but was quickly suffocating. Allistor looked at the five-gallon bucket he’d brought along to store their catch in, and just laughed. “We’re gonna need a bigger bucket, too.”

  Using a pair of pliers from the tackle box, he carefully and quickly pried the hook free of the lake trout’s jaw and stepped away. Fuzzy was sniffing and licking the fish, but didn’t seem inclined to take a bite. Allistor left him to it. He stepped back to the water’s edge, cut himself another bit of bunny bait, and got his line back in the water just as Helen landed her catch. It was another lake trout, this one maybe fifty pounds. She took a minute to catch her breath and admire the thing before calling Fuzzy to help her. He quickly obliged, dragging the second fish back to sit next to the first after she freed her hook.

  “Um, I think maybe one or two more each, and we’ll have plenty of fish for a week.” she observed, as Allistor paused to grab her a new chunk of bait.

  “When I catch the next one, I’ll see if they stack in my inventory. If they do, we might as well grab a bunch of them and take some back to our friends. Maybe… a dozen?”

  Helen nodded. “That’d be enough to feed everyone we’ve got now, at all three locations.”

  They continued fishing for a solid hour, chatting occasionally but mostly silently as they cast and reeled. Fuzzy got his feet wet, sniffing at the water, but didn’t go in. Allistor thought maybe the sheer size of the fish they were landing intimidated him. He helped them drag each catch back from the water’s edge until they had a full dozen of the big fish. Allistor tried a couple of them and found that they did indeed stack in a single inventory slot in his ring, which was awesome.

  As they packed up the gear and headed back to the truck, Helen said, “Best estimate, we have about seven hundred pounds of fish there. Meaning about four hundred pounds of usable meat, and three hundred in heads, tails, and other parts Fuzzy will probably eat.”

  As if in agreement, the bear licked his lips and bobbed his head several times. Helen laughed. “Glutton! It’s not even lunchtime!”

  Allistor produced the rabbit from his ring and tossed it to the bear. “We need to wait a few while you dry out, so you might as well eat.” He then deposited the rest of the fish into his ring.

  Fuzzy sniffed at the rabbit, then nosed it over so that the carved-up leg Allistor had stolen bait chunks from was visible to the humans. He gave an annoyed snort and shake of his head, obviously accusing his master of stealing. Allistor laughed. “Sorry buddy, but those chunks were the bait that helped us catch all those tasty fish.”

  Somewhat mollified, Fuzzy plopped down on his belly and began to pull apart the bunny. Allistor opened the back end of the truck and was stowing away the gear when Helen screamed, followed immediately by a roar from Fuzzy. Allistor hit his head on the door frame as he straightened up to see what happened. Pain lanced through his brain as his vision went spotty for a moment. Rubbing the sore spot, he stepped back from the truck and stood upright Looking toward Helen even as he was reaching for his shotgun, what he saw initially had him thinking his vision was still off.

  Hovering just above Helen was a dragonfly the size of a golf cart. Its four wings buzzed angrily as it swooped down and tried to take hold of her with its six clawed legs. Helen ducked and swerved, running toward the truck and screaming again. Allistor didn’t blame her one bit. The thing was nightmare fuel. Its dead black eyes focused on its prey, revealing no anger, offering no mercy, or showing feeling of any kind.

  Dragonwing Hunter

  Level 12

  Health: 9,000/9,000

  Allistor pumped a slug into the chamber and took aim. At the same time, he shouted, “Helen! Get down!” The moment she dropped to the ground, he fired at the massive flying insect. The slug tore through one of its wings near where it joined with the bug’s torso, causing it to falter midair. He pumped another round and fired again, this time hitting its midsection. The exoskeleton cracked, but the slug didn’t penetrate.

  Now distracted by Allistor’s attacks and abandoning its pursuit of Helen, the dragonfly recovered some semblance of control and shot forward into Allistor’s face. He couldn’t help but scream as the multi-eyed, chitin-covered face pressed in close, mandibles snapping hungrily at him. He managed to avoid having his face eaten by dropping to the ground, but was too slow to escape the grasping legs. Its barbed appendages latched on to his left arm and shoulder, and the wings beat furiously.

  Allistor yelled, “Help!” as the thing began to drag him away from the truck. With its damaged wing, it wasn’t strong enough to lift him into the air. Still, being dragged away by a giant insect was more than enough to send his lizard brain into a panic. He screamed like a ten-year-old girl and began to beat at the legs holding him. Remembering his shotgun, he aimed it upward and pulled
the trigger without even thinking.

  The slug blasted into the creature’s abdomen, punching through the exoskeleton and into the nasty-smelling guts inside. Allistor gagged as the fluid gushed out onto his face, covering him from head to toe. The wingbeats gradually slowed, then stopped, and the insect’s corpse dropped directly on top of him. He felt suffocated, trying not to inhale the nasty ichor that still leaked from the corpse, while pushing to lift it off of him. A moment later he felt some fresh air on his face as Helen helped to drag the thing off him. Rolling onto his stomach, he propped himself up on his hands and knees and puked out his breakfast onto the gravel.

  When he was done vomiting and spitting, Helen handed him a canteen. He swished some of the water around before spitting it out. Getting to his feet, he saw the disgusted look on her face. “You’ve got bug juice all over you. I recommend a dip in the lake. You’re certainly not getting in the truck like that.”

  Anxious to get the smell off of himself, Allistor didn’t hesitate. He walked to the water’s edge, got down on his knees, then plunged his head into the water. Scrubbing at his face and hair, then his neck, chest, and arms, he managed to get all the nasty goo off. When he straightened back up, he was soaked from the waist up. Fuzzy was sitting there, a grin on his cubby face. He took a few tentative sniffs of Allistor and shook his head. Reaching into the water with one paw, he splashed some water on his human.

  “Ha! I think he’s saying you missed a spot or two.” Helen laughed.

  Allistor sniffed at himself, but his nose was already so polluted by the stench he couldn’t tell if he still stunk or not. So he stripped down to his boxers and just walked into the water. When he was waist deep, he sank down and began to scrub himself in earnest using sand from the lakebed. Helen took hold of his abandoned clothes and started using the gravel and sand in the shallow water to scrub them clean. Fuzzy thought it was some kind of game, and kept pouncing on the laundry as she laid it out flat to dry in the sun.