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  His voice trailed off as a rumbling growl echoed out from across the field. A moment later, a creature emerged from the shade. Walking on four thick, muscular legs, Allistor could only describe the thing as a cross between a bulldog and a rhinoceros. Except it was bigger than any rhino he’d ever seen. Its head stood easily six feet high, and Allistor could only see its front half, but from that he estimated its body was ten feet long or more. Instead of hooves, its front legs ended in paws with claws much like Fuzzy’s, only several times larger.

  Canis Lacerta

  Level 12

  Health: 9,000/9,000

  As it stepped farther out into the sunlight, Allistor could see it was covered in midnight black fur. There was a long serpentine tail that ended in a wickedly sharp, barbed point that looked like it might be hardened bone. At the other end of the monster, dead black eyes were spaced widely on a massive bulldog-ish head. Its shoulders and neck were so thickly muscled that Allistor couldn’t help picturing it charging headfirst into a bulldozer, and winning. In its abnormally elongated jaws, still dripping blood, was what looked like the hind leg of a canid.

  “Uhh… nice doggy-lizard?” Allistor’s voice cracked as he spoke. Now fully revealed, he guessed the thing was closer to twelve feet long, without the tail. It had to easily weigh a ton, maybe two. Its gaze centered in his general direction, though it didn’t seem to focus on Allistor directly. Dropping the canid bits onto the turf, it took a few steps forward and raised its head, sniffing the air.

  Allistor held very still, hoping the monster was nearsighted, or like he’d heard T-Rex was, only focusing on movement. He suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to fight this monster. It wasn’t the highest level mob he’d fought to date, but with the others he’d either had a group behind him or howitzers to shoot it with.

  As it turned out, the monster didn’t need him to move. Its gaze followed its nose and zeroed in on his location. Though he still didn’t think it was focused on him personally. There wasn’t that connection you get when you see someone or something looking directly at you.

  Still, it took several steps in his direction. Its nose leading it closer as saliva began to drip in long, bloody strands from its jaws. Allistor knew he didn’t have long before Helen fired on the approaching beast. He didn’t want it going after her and Fuzzy, so he did the only thing he could. He cast Mind Spike on it, causing it to wail and shake its head. The spell did some damage, but he didn’t pause to see how much. Instead, focusing on the ground directly in front of the ponderous beast, he cast Erupt and caused a stone spike to shoot up from the earth, directly into the lizard-dog’s gut.

  The spike penetrated its belly, causing the disoriented monster to rear up on its hind legs. Allistor got a glimpse of what looked like scaled skin, very similar to an alligator’s belly, with a gaping hole. Even as it rolled over backward, its innards began to push out of the opening. Taking advantage of its vulnerability, he cast Flame Shot in the form of a column of fire descending directly onto the wound. The beast howled in pain and rolled back to its feet, the last bit of flame scorching the hairs on its back.

  A shot rang out from above, and Allistor saw the thing flinch at the impact of a round from Helen’s .30-06 rifle.

  Canis Lacerta

  Level 12

  Health: 5,100/9,000

  Allistor was elated. They were doing serious ranged damage to the beast. It was still nearly thirty yards away from him, and it was almost half dead. Focusing on its face, he tried out his other new spell, Vortex. It took three seconds to cast, and in that time the mob had regained its senses. Staring balefully at Allistor now, eye to enraged eye, it let out a howl that nearly caused Allistor to lose track of his cast. At the last instant he managed to retain control and finish the spell. A small whirlwind of compressed air sprang to life right in front of the lizard-dog’s muzzle. It quickly picked up dust, sand, turf, and even some of the creature’s dripped blood, spinning them in a tight cone that expanded slightly to engulf the monster’s head.

  Allistor was preparing another Flame Shot when the monster burst forward through the vortex. It had used some kind of charge or speed boost ability, and covered the ground between them in less than three seconds. It smashed through his magical shield with seemingly no effort, and all two tons of it smashed into him. The snout slammed into his chest, knocking him backward to smash into the wall. He felt his neck pop at the same time that several of his ribs broke, and there was searing pain both inside and out. His health bar dropped below half as his vision flashed red.

  Nearly unconscious, he managed to cast Restore on himself, raising his health bar slightly. The monster was three feet from his face, growling and pawing at the ground. Allistor managed to fire a round from his shotgun directly into its face, taking an eye and half its cheek in a spray of blood and bone.

  The massive lizard-dog yelped and rolled away from him, pawing at its ruined face, disoriented by the sudden lack of sight on one side. Allistor took advantage and cast another heal on himself, hoping to live long enough to get back over the wall and breathe for a moment. But when he looked up, the wall he was still leaning against looked impossibly high, at least seven feet if it was an inch. The pain of his ribs healing themselves nearly caused him to pass out as he tried to stand.

  Turning back to the monster, he cast Mind Spike again. The lizard dog went insane, growling and thrashing its head. Allistor managed to get to his feet and, leaning against the wall for support, back away several steps. He cast another Erupt directly at the ground under the monster’s head. This time the spike shot up and into its neck. Blood fountained, and the thing whined in pain. It sounded so much like an injured dog that for a moment Allistor felt pity for the thing.

  He took a step forward, his hand already raising and his mind preparing to cast a heal on it. Something in the back of his head was saying ‘maybe you can tame it’. But the monster sealed its own fate. Seeing his movement toward him, it lunged forward trying to eat his face. It managed to clamp down on his wrist before he could pull back, but at the same time it drove the stone spike farther into its flesh.

  Allistor screamed at the same time the lizard-dog did. But it didn’t let go of his wrist, even as it died. The weight of the collapsing corpse dragged him down to the ground, his wrist bones snapping and his skin tearing. Blood began to pump from the wound, and Allistor felt light-headed. The impact with the ground caused a flare of pain in his half-healed ribs. He lay there on the ground, looking at his arm where it disappeared into the monster’s jaws as blood began to pool under it.

  A moment later he felt the twin tingles of leveling up and being hit by a heal spell at the same time, then the pain of his wrist bones knitting themselves back together. “Damn.” he gasped between labored breaths. “That hurts.” He waved away the notifications that popped up, one of which told him he’d reached level thirteen.

  Helen was there next to him a moment later, with Fuzzy right there sticking his nose into Allistor’s face and licking, as if that would somehow help.

  “Gah! Please, Fuzzy. Your breath is worse than that lizard-dog thing’s!” He tried to push his bear cub away, but lacked the strength. His health bar was refilled but he was short quite a bit of blood. Helen handed him a health potion, which both improved his condition and restored some of his lost fluids.

  Leaning against the wall, he pulled a water bottle from his inventory and gulped it down. Following it up with some dragon jerky that Andrea had handed him before he left the Citadel, he chewed and swallowed the tough meat. It almost instantly made him feel better, and gave a buff of +4 Stamina. Holding it up to show Helen, he said, “Should have thought to eat some of this before I pissed off the big gator-doggy-thing.”

  Helen looked nervously around the field and up at the stands above. “Don’t get too relaxed. These things might run in packs.”

  Allistor stopped mid-chew, resisting the urge to gulp down the chunk of dragon jerky he’d just bitten off. He too started looking ar
ound, his ribs hurting as he turned his body. “Shit. I didn’t even think of that.” Fuzzy chuffed at him, licking his face again, causing Allistor to wince and cover his nose.

  “Park ranger, remember? Animal behavior is kinda my thing. Especially wolves. Which this thing sort of resembles. Kind of.”

  Not pausing to loot the dead monster, Allistor quickly opened up his interface as he chided his bear cub. “Fuzzy, seriously. We need to find you some mint leaves or something.” When he got to the proper tab, he mentally clicked on the Outpost button. This time there was no rejection notification. Apparently, the lizardy-dog-gator thing was the last living resident in the stadium.

  “It’s clear now. Says I can claim this as an Outpost. But I don’t want to waste resources. Let’s head back toward the gate and wait for the others.”

  “No need!” Daniel’s voice came from the tunnel above. “We’re here. And what the hell is that thing?” The others were filing in behind him, all of them going wide-eyed at the site of the dead mob.

  “That’s the former landlord here. We couldn’t agree on the rent, and things got a little ugly.” Allistor grinned weakly up at him. Then with a wink, he added, “You know how I said I’d help feed you?”

  He watched a few of them turn pale at the idea of eating the gruesome dog monster, but Richard spoke up. “Hell, I’ve had gator meat. It ain’t so bad.” He opened his mouth to add more, but Virginia stopped him.

  “If you say it tastes like chicken, I’ll smack you.” The others chuckled, and the mood was broken. Allistor walked slowly over to the corpse and gingerly bent to loot it. His ribs and wrist were healing, but weren’t all the way there yet. And the muscle around them wasn’t fully healed either. Helen looted it as well, while Fuzzy sniffed at the corpse, then growled. Each of them got twenty pieces of meat, some teeth and claws, three hundred klax, and Helen got the tail spike. She called Austin and a few of the others down, and they skinned the corpse and harvested the remaining meat. Fuzzy helped himself to the internal organs, much to the disgust of nearly everyone present.

  *****

  Half an hour after the monster fight, Allistor was standing mid-field with the entire group of survivors. He had his system interface up, and was about to make the stadium into a Stronghold. He’d given them warning about what would happen, but when he pushed the button to confirm, there were still gasps of surprise as the bright light surrounded them and the area immediately around them became a translucent grid. A few people grabbed onto others to keep from losing their balance. Someone made retching noises.

  Allistor quickly made his selections, having had a little practice with the features. He chose solar power, water, walls, security system, and greenhouse. He tripled the size of the greenhouse, having it occupy most of the field area in the center of the stadium. His expectation was that many more of Laramie’s survivors would be joining this first group.

  On the advice of Daniel and a few others, he also incorporated the nearby facilities like the indoor practice field and the round auditorium building, and extended the walls out to encompass some of the parking area outside. The land could be broken up and used as farmland, or space to construct more housing. And when it came to living spaces, well, the stands became wide terraces, each about twelve feet high and forty feet deep, upon which sat row after row of housing units. Allistor left the wide stairways that had run up and down between the seats, cutting them in half vertically. The left half remained stairs, while the right half was smoothed out into ramps. They were steeper than he would have liked but, with handrails to hold on to, items could be rolled up and down. He also added two more banks of elevators large enough to drive a car into.

  There were oohs and ahs as he completed his selection and the structures modified themselves, the stadium reshaping its basic form, walls rising up around them, the components seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

  The net result was a sort of stepped apartment complex on either side of the field, with structures on both ends that could be used for any number of things. The residential units pushed back through the bleachers into the walkways behind, so that each home had at least two bedrooms and a thousand square feet. Some of them he designated as three and four bedroom in case there were large families still living, or new families that would expand. These were much larger, and also featured two or three bathrooms. The Stronghold, the largest he’d constructed so far - not counting the Citadel - now had housing for up to twelve hundred people. There was a thirty-foot high stone wall that encircled the entire Stronghold, with a single large gate sporting massive twin metal doors. The walls had the usual staircases and ramparts, with four guardhouses at the compass points. There were also protected guard posts along the tops of the stadium itself.

  He reserved the skyboxes for himself and his officers, breaking them into eight large residential units, four on either side, that looked down over the rest of the Stronghold. He also created larger units in the top floor of both the end zone buildings. He reserved the southwestern corner unit for himself, and let Daniel and the others choose who would get the remaining ‘executive units’, warning them to leave some for leaders of the other groups.

  “Please, take a few minutes to look around and claim a living space. We’ll work out spaces for crafting and shops later. Daniel, I’d like to speak with you and your fellow leaders. Let’s say… thirty minutes. I built a large meeting room in that building at the south end zone, right behind the greenhouse.” He pointed at the four-story building that had filled in one of the open ends of the stadium. The others nodded and everyone moved off to explore.

  When they’d gathered back together, Daniel had brought Richard, Virginia and Bob, Ray, and the woman who’d asked about the oath, whose name he learned was Angela. Allistor got them all seated at a long conference table with simple wooden chairs.

  “I don’t know how many other groups there are, but we should talk about which ones you’ve met, where they are, and how best to reach out to them. And the sooner the better.” Allistor told them right off. “This place isn’t exactly inconspicuous, and its creation may trigger rash action by Barden, or one of the other groups. And, speaking of Barden, we’ll need to make a plan to draw him out and deal with him.”

  The planning session took about two hours, then everyone headed out to get dinner and a good night’s sleep. For most of them, their first in a very long time.

  Chapter 3

  Shot Through the Heart

  As it turned out, they didn’t need a plan to draw out Barden.

  Shortly after breakfast the next morning, the lookout that had been stationed atop the Stadium roof shouted down that there were vehicles incoming. He pointed down toward the former parking area to the east. Allistor and most of the Stadium’s new residents ran to the eastern wall, weapons in hand.

  When he reached the top of the wall, he saw that the scout had given plenty of warning. The vehicles were moving slowly and were still a quarter mile out. Richard, standing next to Allistor, said, “That third vehicle back, that’s Barden’s truck.” He sounded very sure of himself.

  Looking to his left and right at his fellow survivors, Allistor said, “Uhh… guys. You’re about to hear a voice. Don’t freak out, it’s just Nigel. He’s the AI that runs all of our facilities. Nigel, please say hello.”

  “Good morning Lord Allistor, and to the rest of you. It is my pleasure to meet you all.”

  Several of the group just stared at Allistor, while others mumbled greetings. Austin held his stomach, laughing quite hard for some reason.

  “Nigel, how far out does your sensor grid extend?”

  “Two hundred yards in every direction, Lord Allistor.”

  Allistor estimated that the line of vehicles would shortly cross into Nigel’s range. “All of you pull up your maps. In a moment you’ll start seeing red dots. One for each bad guy. Nigel, I’m designating the approaching force as hostile. Please mark and track them accordingly.”

  “Of course, Lord A
llistor. They are entering my perimeter now. Shall I secure the gates?”

  “Yes, please lock them down. Thank you, Nigel.” Allistor looked around. Anybody got anything like a bullhorn? Something that’ll make it so Barden can hear me down there?”

  One of the ladies on the wall raised a hand. “Um… I was poking around this morning, and I found the press box and the broadcast booth. It looks like all the equipment is still there. So the loudspeaker they used to announce the games might still work.”

  Allistor laughed out loud. He bowed his head to the woman. “Thank you. I should have thought of that. It’s a damned stadium after all. Let’s make some noise! Nigel, can you access the stadium’s loudspeaker system and broadcast my voice through it?”

  “Of course, Lord Allistor. One moment.” They all waited while Nigel did whatever it was he needed to do. After about twenty seconds, the AI prompted, “You are now connected. Let me know when you would like me to activate the loudspeaker feature.”

  Allistor didn’t speak right away. Instead, he reached into his inventory and pulled out two metallic cases. One long and sleek, the other shorter and thicker. After Dean had used the Barrett .50 so effectively against the dragon at the Citadel, Allistor had left the weapon in his care. He’d taken the time to retrieve a second one from the gun shop Outpost before he and Helen set off on their current trip. He’d also nearly emptied the shop of firearms, distributing them between the Warren and the Citadel.

  Opening the rifle case, he produced the long gun amid appreciative whistles. He opened the weapon’s bipod legs and set it atop the wall. Taking his time, he opened the other case and removed the scope, carefully securing it to the sniper rifle. When it was all assembled and loaded, he took a knee. Sighting through the scope of the rifle, he adjusted slightly to get it comfortable against his shoulder. The recoil from this weapon was no joke, and improper placement could become painful.