Dark Fate, Chapter 39 (Patreon)

No, I didn't forget it. RL just made it a bit late, is all.

Chapter 39 – Rescue

Stalking through the Bloomingdale’s as we headed for the stairs, the scenery began to get more and more chaotic. Before, the mall had looked mostly abandoned, with a few signs of fighting. But here? It was like a war zone.

Everywhere we looked, there were broken shelves and scattered products. Blood stained the walls and floors, and pieces of bodies could be found in places, like the severed arm still clutching a useless taser we found by the head of the stairs. That there were survivors at all was surprising, given the sights we saw.

As we got to the bottom floor, we heard the moans of the undead, and readied ourselves for battle. But the undead weren’t coming our way. For a moment, I was confused, wondering what the Dungeon was up to, and then I heard the sound of breaking glass, and the screams began.

“Shit, they’re going after the survivors!”

I was already in motion as those words left my lips. The dungeon had clearly decided that its ‘home grown’ undead weren’t going to be able to do the job of killing me, so it decided to try and wipe out the survivors. I wasn’t sure whether it was because it was more intelligent than normal dungeons, or whether it just wanted the resources to try and summon more defenders. Either way, it was a good trick.

Undead dungeons played by slightly different rules than other dungeons, as far as anyone knew. They had slower respawn times than other dungeons, and often had weaker monsters, overall, but as a group their monsters, and the nasty diseases they could carry, could overwhelm more powerful foes. And anyone who fell and was raised as an undead by the dungeon didn’t count against the dungeon’s spawns for 24 hours, giving them a chance to potentially get some valuable pawns when high-level adventurers died in their halls.

These survivors couldn’t be all that high level, but they had survived for a month inside a dungeon. They weren’t going to be level 1, that much was certain. If they died, then the dungeon could raise them, and replenish its forces.

And I had to save them. Not because it was the right thing to do, or any of that. I left those delusions behind in my last life. No, I had promised to save Ezraekiel’s sister, which meant that if I let the girl die, then I would be breaking my word. And I hated when people made me a liar.

The girls were hot on my heels as I ran past the ruins of the mall management office, and I saw a horde of the undead breaking down the doors of the spa, and forcing their way past the barricade inside. I was suspicious, naturally, since if they could have burst through the doors so easily, then it must mean that the survivors had been allowed to survive this long. But why?

I didn’t have time to think about the answers, or what they might mean. My scythe blazed with the holy hellfire as I cut a swath through the undead like a reaper scything through grain. The undead parted before me, fleeing towards the food court.

“Inside, quickly!”

We rushed inside, cutting down the last undead that were pressing on the barricade. I heard someone screaming from the other side, but I didn’t bother with that. Instead, I just hopped up, landing on top of the desks and debris that had formed the barricade, and turned back to offer my hand to Rachel. The other girls had the skills and abilities to get over the mess on their own, but Rachel had devoted more of her points from levelling up to mental attributes than physical ones, making her magic hit harder.

“Who the hell are you?”

Even as I turned to look at the sound of the voice, my pet vampire climbed up the wall beside me, and called out, “It’s ok! They’re from the outside! They’ve been killing the undead between here and the exit!”

Zarina Vasquez

Human   Female

Level   3 Adept / Enchanter

Market   Value: $1,500

“Ezrae? You’re alive! I thought for sure that you’d been killed when these undead started going crazy. And we heard an explosion from above!”

The vampire hopped off the wall to hug the speaker. She was definitely a Latina, with a figure that would have boys howling after her like werewolves on a full moon. Looked to be a bit younger than what I took Ezraekiel’s age to be. I figured her for high school, probably a senior, but someone could be more developed than others for their age, and the System would have reshaped her, even if only slightly, to better reflect her new attributes.

So, guessing her age was pretty much impossible. Not that I was considering her in that way. I had plenty of lovely ladies to keep me company, so I didn’t need to go adding to them at every step. But, if one fell into my lap, I certainly wasn’t going to turn them down, either.

Ezraekiel looked back at me, and said, “Master, this is my sister, Zarina. Zarina, this is my Master.”

“Master? What the hell do you mean, Ezrae? What did this bastard do to you?”

Ah, it was nice to see a sister coming to her sibling’s aid. But I wasn’t going to simply allow her to throw abuse at me. And yet, it would be a bad idea to mention slavery so soon after the Apocalypse. Best to let society collapse a bit, first.

“I am your sister’s Master, because she bound herself to me, body and soul. As part of the binding agreement, she will serve me, doing anything I ask of her. In return, as a reward for her service, I will take you out of this place, and offer you my protection.”

I looked up and saw twelve pairs of eyes focusing directly on me. The other survivors, who had been huddling as far from the barricades as they could get, were now watching me, as well as Ezrae’s sister. “The world outside this dungeon is not what it appears in the windows. That is an illusion, made by the dungeon to increase the ambiance of the dungeon.”

An elf in the back of the crowd spoke up. “You mean it isn’t the Apocalypse?”

I had to laugh. “Oh, no, it is definitely an Apocalypse, but not a zombie one. They’re calling it the System Apocalypse. The world outside has changed in this month you’ve been huddling in a dungeon, and it has gotten one hell of a lot more dangerous. But that doesn’t mean it is the end of all things. Not yet.”

A man dressed in the remains of a suit raised a hand. Probably a businessman doing some shopping after work when the Apocalypse hit. “Can we get out of here? If the outside world isn’t overrun with zombies, then I want to go home!”

“Sure, you could have gotten out of here at any time, if you could have fought your way to the entrance. This building is a Dungeon now, and that means that the only way I know for sure in or out is the entrance, up on the Mall Level. There may be a door that opens up down here, but that won’t happen until the boss is defeated.”

A little gnome female pushed her way to the front. “The boss? You mean that huge fucker?”

“Exactly. If we’re very lucky, killing the boss will open up a second way out, or offer some other means to get back to the entrance without trekking through the entire dungeon. Though this one might be too young and weak for such things. Still, even if we have to walk back, it isn’t like there’s anything in here that is a true threat.”

“NOT A TRUE THREAT?!?”

Karen Smith

Human   Female

Level   1 Commoner / Soccer Mom

Market   Value: $0.50

My eyes fixated on a slightly overweight white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. Her clothes showed the least signs of wear out of everyone’s, being a simple track suit that likely hadn’t ever been within six miles of a track. Her hair was slightly disheveled, but still retained that ‘I want to speak to your manager’ style. In short, it was a Karen that was actually named Karen. Fucking lovely.

“How DARE you say that those brutes aren’t a true threat! They killed my poor Suzy! Those monsters ATE my BABY! She was a shoe-in for the tiara at the Pre-Teen Miss Georgia pageant next month! We had been training for months, and then—”

“Bitch, I don’t give a fuck about your daughter, and I doubt anyone else here does, either. Those shambling mounds of rotting flesh that ripped your precious little angel into bite-sized chunks like you attack the pastries every time you see an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet? Yeah, they aren’t even capable of scratching me.”

The Karen, aghast that I had actually cut her off, opened her mouth again. “Wha-“

“No, your speaking privileges have been revoked. I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t care what you think. I could kill every last one of you, and the only thing that would happen is I would get some extra experience, and a bunch of people who had already been written off as dead by the outside world cease to exist.”

I looked her directly in the eye, daring her to speak. “My pets and I have cut our way through this dungeon that you have been trapped in for the last month, slaughtering everything in our path, facing odds of easily greater than ten to one against us. And we have yet to have any serious injuries.

“Let that get through the perfectly smooth slab of cement you call a brain. I was already Level 10 before I stepped foot into this dungeon, and started killing everything that got in my way. Outside of entities bound directly to the System, I am the most powerful being in the entire goddamn city right now!”

I allowed the shapechange I was wearing to fade away, revealing my demonic form in all its glory. When I spoke, I infused my words with magic, giving them extra weight. “Listen well, you impudent fool! I am no mere mewling human, desperately clinging to the trappings and memories of the world that was! That world is gone, and will never return!

“The time has come for each and every one of you to make a choice. Will you stay stuck in the past, until the new world crushes you under its heel, as uncaring of you as you are of an ant? Or will you force yourself to new heights, grow to be more than what you once were, and adapt to live in this new world?

“Choose well, because I can tell you plainly that there is no room for the useless and the weak in this new world. You either rise to the challenge, or you fall. And there are fates far worse than death in this new world, creatures out there that can take your soul, and torture it for a thousand years in the time between one breath and the next, condemning you to countless lifetimes of untold agony! And that still is not the worst fate that can be found in this new world!”

I took a deep breath, and looked them all over again. My voice returned to its natural sound, and I said, “If you are not going to rise up, by your own hands, then you should ask one of your fellow survivors to kill you now, so that they at least get some experience as a benefit for your foolishness. Because there are no managers for you to call, and no amount of yelling will save you from the troubles that inhabit this new world.”

I was about to continue, when I heard a loud roar from behind me, just before a table came flying through the doors, shattering them completely, to slam against the barricade!