Event Horizon 2: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 32
“That’s a song?” Gerald asked, though he knew the answer. Nyco was still singing in his mind, and the power and sound thrummed out all around him.
Nyco didn’t respond, and Gerald got the impression that he wouldn’t speak until he wanted the song to end. That was fine. Gerald could wait, even though he was restless and wanted results now.
After all, he would be reuniting with Herman and meeting another alien for the first time soon. He would be willing to wait a long time for that to happen if that was what it took.
CHAPTER 45
HERMAN
There, wheeling above them and lining up for another pass at them, was the biggest flying Phenomenon Herman had seen.
Then again, other than the qwee he’d run into in the mall when he was getting the walkie talkies, it was the only one he’d seen.
Regardless, it was massive. He guessed it must have been some kind of eagle before it’d been turned, maybe a vulture. Whatever it’d been, it was approaching again, and fast.
“Are you going to do anything about that?” Ohsheit asked.
Herman ground his teeth. “Considering you’re the one who jinxed our luck, I think you should take care of it.”
Ohsheit gave him a side-eyed. “I do not think this lizard form is sufficient for—”
“Sarcasm, Ohsheit, sarcasm,” Herman said. He blindly snatched one of the handguns from the seat next to him. Fumbling for the safety, he shoved his arm and the weapon out the window, and fired.
Most of the rounds went wildly off target until he got himself oriented, then he angled the weapon at the huge flying monster.
Small explosions of tar erupted from its body, and it shrieked. Banking away, it clipped the top of the car still, but not enough to leave much damage.
Herman wanted nothing more than to finish it off, but he couldn’t without leaving steering in Ohsheit’s hands. Yanking his arm and the gun back into the car, his eyes caught on their next turn.
“Almost there,” he said. “How are we looking back there? Are most of them still following us?”
“From what I can tell, yes,” Ohsheit said. “Oh, prepare for impact.”
“Impact?” Herman asked, a moment before something slammed into the back of the car. He got thrown forward, the seatbelt that was still wrapped around his upper arm keeping him from going too far but hurting deep in his joint and feeling like the worst case of rope burn he’d ever had across his skin.
“What the—”
“Faster!” Ohsheit said.
Herman didn’t need to be told twice. He caught a glimpse of the eagle in the rearview mirror pulling itself off the trunk of the car.
What he didn’t see was the small, sprinting Phenomenon coming up beside the car. Not until it lunge at him through his open window, snapping at his arm with a snarl.
“Fuck!” he yelled. Swerving, the Phenomenon lost its hold on the open window, tumbling out but managing to land on its feet.
Herman swerved back toward it, the broken door slamming into it with a satisfying wet squelch.
Congratulations! You have killed one Phenomenon-infected fox. You have earned 1 stat point.
Defensive Driving +1
You have 5 stat points to spend.
He didn’t have time to celebrate as the final turn into the gulch where they’d set their trap was coming up fast. Clenching his jaw, he slammed on the brakes, then threw the wheel to the side.
The howling and roaring of the Phenomenon behind them grew. A moment later, something else slammed into the back of the car again.
“Keep driving!” Ohsheit yelled. “Go, go!”
Herman didn’t bother looking back, trusting Ohsheit to tell him if something needed his attention. Flooring the gas, he sent them shooting down the road that led to the gulch where they’d set up their trap.
A few seconds later the gulch was within view. He glanced up, catching sight of Lara crouching on the ridge. He couldn’t make out her face from this far away, but he did see her whole body flinch in what he guessed was shock from the sheer number of Phenomenon following him.
Hands tightening on the steering wheel, Herman willed the car to go faster. Lara would bring down the far end of the gulch first, sealing off the forward exit and hopefully keeping most of the Phenomenon from escaping that direction. Then she’d work her way back, dropping rock onto the beasts until they were all covered and smashed by stone.
Behind him, the Phenomenon clamored and pushed against each other. Many of the leaders made it through the narrow gap fine, but the ones farther back weren’t so lucky.
A being not in your party has killed one Vesper. You are unable to collect stat points for that encounter.
A being not in your party has killed three Phenomenon-infected pigs…
A being not in your party has killed two Phenomenon-infected badgers…
“It is extremely fortunate the Phenomenon do not have any of their leaders directing them at the moment,” Ohsheit said, looking back. “Or Lara would not be safe on the ridge. As it is, it seems all of them are focused entirely on you and are foolishly all trying to follow you through.”
“All the better,” Herman said. “They’re killing the smaller monsters themselves.”
Several seconds later he shot out of the gulch area, clearing it enough for Lara to explode the first propane tanks. As much as his instincts yelled at him not to, he stopped the car and got out with Ohsheit. They would retrieve the car if it didn’t get totally destroyed by the Phenomenon, but he couldn’t keep driving it. There was nowhere to turn around for nearly ten miles, and he didn’t want to get separated from Lara at this point.
He turned to run up the large hill Lara was perched on when he heard the first shots she fired. Not even a fraction of a second later, four propane tanks exploded.
An avalanche of loose stone came crashing down into the gulch.
Congratulations! Someone in your party has killed three assorted Phenomenon. You have earned 1 stat points.
You have 6 stat points to spend.
“Yes!” Herman said, running up the hill. Ohsheit ran up next to him. “Next ones, Lara! Next ones!”
He looked to the next line of propane tanks, expecting Lara to shoot them all and make a second landslide.
“Oh,” Ohsheit said from beside him, sounding dazed and unbelieving. “Can you hear that?”
“All the Phenomenon? Kind of hard not to,” Herman said. The snarling and howling of the monsters echoed through the tight space.
Or at least it did, until they all abruptly stopped.
The sudden silence sent prickles of unease down Herman’s spine. He looked down at the mess of monsters. He expected them to be massing on the far end of the gulch, trying to climb the rockslide and get at the car on the other side.
He didn’t expect them all to have stopped short, perked up as if they were dogs that had heard a distant master’s whistle.
“What in the world?” Herman said.
“No, not the Phenomenon,” Ohsheit said. His voice was turning excited, though it hadn’t lost any of the disbelieving tone. “The song. Can you hear it?”
“What are you going on about?” Herman asked, finally reaching the top of the hill. Lara was a few dozen feet away, and though she still held the gun in her hands, she looked almost like the Phenomenon below.
Like she’d caught a hint of some sound she found endlessly interesting and inviting on the wind.
He opened his mouth to call out to her, to ask her what she was hearing—
Then it all erupted into chaos.
One of the Phenomenon bellowed, and it whirled around and started pressing through the crowded gulch in an effort to get out the other side.
Every single other Phenomenon followed suit. Faster than Herman could fathom, they started spilling out the way they’d came, dozens of Phenomenon rampaging back toward the main road.
“Stop them!” he shouted at Lara, but she was already ahead of him. Whipping the gun toward the other end of the gulch, she shot all propane tanks on that end, then swept the muzzle of her weapon over every other cannister, exploding all of them.
The ground rumbled and Herman’s ears hurt from the noise. Covering them, he watched as the landslide hit whatever Phenomenon hadn’t escaped the trap yet.
It wasn’t nearly as many as he’d hoped.
Congratulations! A member of your party has killed thirty-four assorted Phenomenon. You have earned 6 stat points.
You have 12 stat points to spend.
Quest Update: Defend the Valley. There is a monster surge that threatens all the residents of this valley. Protect your people and defeat the surge.
1. Completed: Lure the monster surge away from Glasset and the surrounding residents.
2. In progress: Protect Uncle Ray’s property from the surge. 5 stat points for completion.
3. New Objective: Figure out how to protect Glasset and Uncle Ray’s property from the remainder of the monster surge.
Bonus: Kill 90% of the Phenomenon in the surge to ensure another surge does not happen soon. 10 stat points for completion.
Progress: 51%
Herman ignored the update other than feeling relieved that they’d at least killed a large number of the monsters. He couldn’t help but also feel frustrated that they hadn’t managed to get more of them. Even with Lara’s attack having killed over thirty and another fifteen or so having been trampled by the Phenomenon on their way to the gulch, that left close to at least fifty or sixty Phenomenon, if not more, that could attack Uncle Ray’s property.
Fifty or sixty wasn’t all that much different than a hundred when it came down to it. It was still too many for him to deal with on his own. Which meant it would come down to how well the townspeople had managed to fortify the property before now.
He shook his head, frustration building in him. What had caused the monsters to run the other way? There was absolutely no reason the tarbags should have all turned around. They had an enticing target right in front of them, and if anything they should have been frothing at the mouth to stay in the gulch and find what had caused the explosion. It was as foolproof of a plan for killing a large number of Phenomenon as there could be.
His eyes flicked toward Ohsheit and Lara, then to the retreating Phenomenon again. What had all of them heard that he hadn’t?
Lara turned the gun toward the back of the retreating Phenomenon. She let loose dozens of rounds in quick succession.
Lara scowled, standing. Turning, her face softened when she saw Herman and Ohsheit. Though she looked disappointed. “That didn’t go as planned.”
“Understatement of the fucking year,” Herman said, scowl matching Lara’s. “Of all the things that could have happened, that was not one I thought of.” He looked between Lara and Ohsheit. “Did either of you?”
Lara shook her head. “Not at all. But what is that sound?” She tilted her head like she was trying to hear something better. “It’s like listening to someone sing really far away, and their voice is just barely carried to you on the wind.”
Herman blinked at her. “What? I don’t hear anything.”
Ohsheit bounded up to Lara though. “You can hear it too! Oh, this is excellent. It is very good.”
“What is it?” Herman asked, starting to feel excluded from the conversation.
Ohsheit turned to him, and Herman never thought he’d know what pure happiness looked like on a lizard’s face, but he did now. “It is a signal from one of my party! It means one of my fellow warriors is still alive!”
CHAPTER 46
HERMAN
Herman opened his mouth, but found he didn’t have any words. Another alien who had experience with the Phenomenon? That was…
That would be a huge advantage to humanity. If they could find the alien, that was.
Ohsheit laughed, bounding over to him. “I know! It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Herman nodded. Opening and closing his mouth a couple more times, he finally found his words and said, “Where are they? Can you tell that from the… song?” He blinked again. “Actually, how does that work?”
“It is an ability he has because of his class. He can use essence to transmit messages over long distances! And he is not far, not far at all.”
“What other kinds of things can he do? Is he a knight like you?” Lara asked. She seemed more excited than Herman felt. To be fair, he’d probably be even more excited if he could hear the magic alien song too. That seemed like some awesome shit.
Ohsheit shook his head. “No, he is a thief and a sneaky spy.”
Herman frowned, then tilted his head side to side. “Not… as helpful as I was hoping for. A sneaky ninja sounds like he wouldn’t stand up well against a one-on-one fight against a Phenomenon.” At least he didn’t think so, if video game logic was anything to go by.
Ohsheit fixed him with a look. “Nyco is an incredible warrior in his own right, even if his methods differ. In addition, if humanity lasts longer than a few weeks, you will want more than just one ‘sneaky ninja’ on your side.”
Herman nodded. He could only hope humanity lasted long enough that their main problem was wanting more sneaky ninjas.
“What’s he like?” Lara asked.
Ohsheit hesitated a moment, then said, “Nyco is the most self-absorbed, bitter bastard I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
Blinking in surprise, Lara looked at Herman. He just shrugged. He had no idea if that was meant to be a compliment or if Ohsheit thought this Nyco character was actually awful to be around.
“So we got summoned by a sneaky ninja bastard,” Herman said.
Ohsheit perked up. “Exactly.”
Herman nodded, then looked up at the mess of a road where the Phenomenon had shed globs of tar. His heart stuttered in his chest. “I hate to cut the celebration short, especially considering how… wonderful your friend Nyco sounds, but we still have a whole mass of Phenomenon that are now loose and potentially going back to Glasset or the property.” They were too far from the other road for him to tell which direction the tarbags had gone.
“Oh, I can tell you for certain they are going toward the property,” Ohsheit said.
Herman’s heart stopped in his chest now. “What? How do you know? We have to go!” He darted toward the Hummer, leaving the sedan abandoned on the far side of the landslide Lara had made.
Lara ran after him, Ohsheit scrambling to keep up. “I know because every Phenomenon within the radius of the song will be heading toward it as well. And that happens to be directly toward Warrior Ray’s property.”
Herman stared down at him for a second until his toe caught on a rock since he wasn’t watching where he was running and he nearly faceplanted. “Well, shit.”
Lara nodded beside him. “Double shit.”
Ohsheit cocked his head. “I… am missing some kind of context.”
Herman shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. The point is, everyone’s up a creek without a paddle if they haven’t gotten the property fully fortified. And they’re not expecting that many monsters coming their direction. They thought maybe fifty, not however many are going to appear on top of the fifty or sixty that we didn’t manage to take down here.”
They got into the Hummer, Lara throwing it in drive and sending it down the side of the hill and back onto the road. She jabbed her finger toward the glove box. “There’s a radio in there. Ray said he’d make sure someone had the connecting one at all times.”
Leaning forward, Herman opened the glove box and snatched the radio out. “Dang, that would have been handy to have instead of having to go back for the walkie talkies when we came up here.” At least he’d gotten a bunch of points in his Sneak skill on that trip.
Turning the radio on, he held his breath as he pressed the button to transmit. “Hello, anyone there?”
He waited for a few seconds, exchanging a look with Lara. Her jaw was tense, but she said, “Try again. If they’re doing something noisy to prep the property, it might take a couple tries for anyone to hear.”
He nodded, pressing the button again. “Anyone there? This is Herman. You have Phenomenon coming your direction. They’re approaching fast. Hello?”
A second of silence stretched on, then—
“Herman? What happened? Did the surge get past you guys?”
Herman breathed a sigh of relief at the British voice. “Jack?”
“Yeah. You guys alright?”
“We’re fine,” Herman said. “The surge is headed straight for you guys. We’re on its tail, but we can’t stop it. Only about fifty of the monsters died before they turned to come for you all.”
Jack let out a low curse the radio didn’t fully pick up. “And how many does that leave coming for us? Gotta say, man, you saying ‘only fifty’ doesn’t really make me excited about what’s on its way.”
Herman let out a nervous laugh. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, “Well… I have no idea. The whole mess is a bit more complicated than just the surge. The crux of it is that Ohsheit thinks that pretty much every monster in the area will be going for what attracted the surge away from our trap. I have no idea how many that will bring to the property. But the surge had probably at least fifty that fled from the gulch. So more than fifty that we’ll have to fight.”
Jack groaned. “Herman, dude, way to give a mate good news. So we’ve got an untold number of monsters that are searching for some kind of pot of gold that requires them crossing the property to get to?”
“That… covers the important parts,” Herman said. He wondered if the song really did seem like a pot of gold to them. “How are things looking there?”
Jack let out another string of curses. “Everyone’s nervous. Had plenty of people fire weapons already at nothing more than the wind. On the plus side, it looks like the fortifications we’ve made will do something at least. We already had a couple Phenomenon curious about all the noise. They got roasted on the fence we had up. Only problem is the bodies weigh it down, and we can’t remove them without disconnecting the core so we don’t electrocute ourselves.”
