Welcome to my latest fan fiction: Apocalypse: Valhalla's Darkest Hour!
Obligatory Copyright Paragraph:
Spoiler Alert!
This is a fan fiction.
It is intended solely for the purpose of being released on heroscapers.com.
Any copying of the text within this fan fiction will be in violation of the copyright laws of the above heroscapers.com, and of those expressed within this fan fiction.
You may not copy any part or portion of this fan fiction without the express permission of the original creator.
Certain characters and places within this fan fiction are the creation of Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast.
I do not claim these characters or places as my own, and use them solely for the purpose of tying this fan fiction to HeroScape. They are not used with permission.
October 2015
Author's Note:
Spoiler Alert!
Greetings, one and all. Before you get into the fan fiction below, there are a few things I would like to mention. Please bear with me as I go through them.
Firstly, this is my second-to-last fan fiction. Heroscapers launched me into writing, and from that platform I've been trying to improve my style until I feel comfortable writing novels. I have at last reached that point. I fully intend to write one final fan fiction before diving wholesale into novels, but writing can take on a mind of its own. There is a small chance that the final fan fiction may be bypassed. As of right now however, that is not my intention.
But onto this fan fiction. Apocalypse is a zombie story, with a little Valhalla twist. If you ever plan on writing novels, know this: zombie novels will fall apart unless you build them right. I regret to say... that I did not build this one right. It took me no less than seven failed starts, two complete revisions, and around 19,500 words before I could begin to get the fan fiction into a form that I was able to get through. I have a forty-seven page document comprised of nothing but failed drafts. Fortunately, I was eventually able to pin down the multitude of problems and twist the fiction into a workable shape.
One last note before the tale begins: I would like to thank BiggaBullfrog, who has once again helped me out by proofreading and reviewing this fan fiction. I would also like to thank you, my readers, for keeping me going throughout the years. Without your support, I would not be where I am now.
I will now stop talking and allow you to start reading. Without further ado, I give you Apocalypse: Valhalla's Darkest Hour! Let the zombie-fest begin!
Due to the long nature of the chapters, I've split them up in several spoilers, so that you can read them in short(er) sittings if so desired.
Spoiler Alert!
Thormun’s Journal: We always assumed the war would end in victory or defeat. Either the Alliance or Utgar would triumph eventually. And then, one way or another, we would finally have peace. We were wrong. The war ended in chaos. Jandar, thinking to cut off Utgar’s power at the source, went for his wellspring. The Valkyrie had all known from the beginning that the wellsprings were linked through magic. Jandar devised a spell that would use that magic like a gate, traveling through it and right into Utgar’s wellspring. The spell would then explode, destroying the wellspring instantly and permanently. Unfortunately, the wellsprings were connected on a level far deeper than Jandar had anticipated. His spell destroyed Utgar’s wellspring as he had planned. Then the explosion traveled back through the magic, instantly destroying all of the other wellsprings as well. In an ironic twist of fate, Jandar was caught by the explosion. His body was never found. With no way off of Valhalla, allegiances shifted. Warriors, suddenly realizing that they could never go home, rethought what they were fighting for, and formed alliances of their own. Those who had previously been enemies became allies. Betrayals and plots were everywhere. When the smoke cleared, Einar had taken charge of what was left of the Alliance, Valkrill had retreated underground, and Utgar had withdrawn his weakened armies to the Volcarren to rebuild. Ullar and his elves had thrown up walls about their territories, and Vydar’s remaining forces had retreated to a network of bunkers, where they were never heard from again. The Ticalla was overrun with Marro, inhospitable to all, and Aquilla was dead, her forces scattered. And then it began. From the south came the Infected. The war stopped. Panic reigned. The Apocalypse had begun. It was later speculated that the Infected were Marro crossed with Cyprien’s zombie horde. It was a logical deduction, for the Infected possessed traits of both. They were the bodies of Marro, with the plague of the undead, controlled by the superior intellect of the hive. Cross one killing machine with another and you get an unstoppable, insatiable predator. Still, no one truly knows where the Infected came from. It seemed unlikely like Utgar had unleashed them, for all communication with him was lost. Warriors of his that made it to Allied lands reported that his castle was overrun, and Utgar himself, slain. Once it was realized what the Infected were capable of, evacuation began in earnest. Some people laughed at the idea of running. They were the first to turn. The rest were wiser. Infected. Everyone in Valhalla shudders at the word now, and well they should. All we had at first were scattered reports, half contradicting each other. No one knew anything about them save what could be guessed. It took the soulborgs to finally trap one and tell us exactly what it was. It seems that the plague began with the Marro. Whether they created it, or were infected themselves, we don’t know. What we do know is that their weapons, blade or gun, spread it. Those attacked by the Marro prayed to be slain by their weapons, for if they were spared, it wouldn’t be long before they joined the ranks. The infection entered the bloodstream through any opening it could find; so much as a scratch could be deadly. Once in, the victim was lost. It only took three hours for the plague to infiltrate the bone marrow. Once there, it took over the production of all red blood cells, forcing the marrow to instead create more of the infection. In four months’ time, not a single red blood cell was left in the body. Infection pumped through the damaged veins instead. Many of those that were infected thought at first that they had escaped. There were no effects to be felt, and many assumed they were safe. Then, one by one, it began. The instant it enters the body, the infection penetrates deep into the rib cage, seeking the most protected place it can. Once it finds a suitable location, the cells invade the surrounding tissue, and begin reworking the DNA to suit their own needs. In the process, crucial organs are usually damaged, resulting in the unfortunate side effect of death for the victim. The cells eventually rework the tissue into what can only be described as a primitive brain. Instead of thinking, it is designed to receive telepathic communication from the Hives. Once it is complete, the victim gets up as if nothing ever happened, and joins the rest of the horde. We knew how the Infected worked. We knew what made them what they were. And it showed us just how impossible this apocalypse was to cure. Not even the soulborgs, with all their technology and knowledge, could save us. There was no cure. Einar gave the soulborgs free reign to counter the Infected. Every offensive they tried failed. The plague spread north, unstoppable, silencing anything it touched. Unable to stop it, the soulborgs turned to getting those that remained untainted off of Valhalla. We made for Haukeland. The soulborgs ferried us across the Bitter Sea in great vessels, large enough to hold a city. Walls were constructed on the mainland of Valhalla, keeping small pockets of land secure. Here the soulborgs built powerful flying machines, capable of traveling farther and longer than a kyrie, and carrying weapons able to strike a bird from the air a mile away. Soon, Valhalla was empty, save for the soulborgs, the dead, and the unending mass of Infected beyond the walls…
Spoiler Alert!
Valhalla, One Month after the Exodus to Haukeland
Mike sat, staring at the object in his hands. It was small, hardly more than two inches long and not even half as wide. A red light, silent and dark, was embedded in its black surface. Other than that, it was unmarked. I’m doing the right thing, Mike thought. Somehow, the words did nothing to vanish his doubts. He continued to watch the object he held. Slowly, he turned it over, revealing a note pinned to the underside. It was written in a hasty scrawl, with small lettering:
Mike, this is the program you wanted. All you have to do is plug it in. I still think you shouldn't do this.
- D
Mike removed the note from the device and reread it. A friend had made him this device, which now held the program he needed so desperately. No one could know.
Mike tore the note several times, and then buried the pieces in a deep pocket. He closed his hand around the device, and hid it in a different pocket. He would dispose of the torn note as soon as he could. I’m doing the right thing, he told himself again. He remembered only too well saying those same words out loud not long ago. He had been by his father’s deathbed. His father had asked if he still intended to go through with his plan, and Mike had nodded.
“I loved your mother too,” his father had coughed. “But she’s dead, son. I know you’re looking for a reason, or for resolution, but you won’t find it.” He had looked Mike in the eye and said the words he had said so many times before: “You have to move on.”
But Mike couldn’t move on. His mother was alive; he knew it. She had been trapped on the roof, they all had. The soulborg craft had landed and begun taking on passengers. But then the Infected had burst onto the roof through another door, and they had been forced to take off, without his mother. Mike had watched, unable to do anything. His mother had run back to another door with the others that hadn’t made it, and ran down the stairs, back into the building crawling with Infected. But she wasn’t dead. Mike would have felt it. It was only a month ago, and Mike knew she was still alive.
“Look,” Mike’s father had said, struggling to sit up, “I know what you’re planning. You’ve gotten yourself accepted on this mission, and you’re going to hijack the plane and try to find your mother. But it won’t work, Mike. I didn’t want to move on either, but we have to. Accept the truth, son.”
Mike remembered clenching the program in his pocket, making sure it was still there. Without it, the plane would never go where he wanted it to. “She’s alive,” he had said. “No one ever found her body, or any of the others for that matter. As long as there is a chance, no matter how slim, I will never, never stop searching.”
Mike’s father had fallen back on the pillows, letting out a sigh of defeat. After a minute, he had spoken again. “Do you remember when you were seven?” he had said. “I told you about obsession after your friend enlisted. I said that obsession is like a disease; it consumes you bit by bit until it finally becomes your life. Eventually, you have nothing left except for your obsession.”
Mike’s father had struggled back into a sitting position. “Don’t be consumed by your obsession over your mother. This apocalypse has already taken my life. Please, don’t let it take yours too.”
Mike’s mind returned to the present. He was surrounded by metal. He sat on a metal seat, his feet resting on a metal floor, his back against a metal wall. He was, in fact, sitting in the belly of a massive armored aircraft. ‘Plane’ was hardly a fitting word for it. It was more like a cross between an aerial transport vehicle and a tank. SACEV, the soulborgs called it – Soulborg Aerial Combat and Evacuation Vehicle. It was where he would be spending the next few days, and it was the machine that would, if his plan worked, lead him to his mother. His mother still lived. He knew it.
Spoiler Alert!
A door in the back of the aircraft opened, allowing Mike a brief view of dusty ground, bleak sky, and the unending wall. The new Valhalla. Through the doorway came a collection of individuals nothing but the magic of the wellsprings could have put together.
First came a massive figure, wrapped in dark leather and carrying a large rifle on his back. The soulborg’s metal arms gleamed in the faint daylight, and his mask-like face, designed to mock the Mariedians he had once guarded, shone coppery-golden in the semi-darkness of the craft. Each step he took sounded like a hammer on an anvil, and though his metallic hands were hidden in dark gloves, Mike could guess the power they possessed. Warden 816 stepped into the craft.
Behind the Warden came three metal warriors, various shades of blue cloth twined into their armor. Two warforged soldiers came first, dual swords crossed on their backs, faces set and unexpressive. Behind them came Heirloom, his golden staff glinting dully in the shadowy craft. Every step the warforged took, while nowhere near as heavy as those of the Warden, still made an unpleasant grinding noise, as if a thousand pebbles were crushing themselves into oblivion.
After the Warden and the warforged, Mike expected more grisly warriors, or at least more soulborgs. Who came next was about as far from what he expected as Valhalla could provide.
A human stepped onto the craft. She was clad in simple garb, consisting mostly of cloth padded with leather armor, and she carried no weapons that Mike could see. There was something about her that Mike couldn’t quite place. She seemed taller, almost lighter, than a human. He would have called her an elf, but he quickly saw that her ears were not pointed. One glance at her face showed light brown hair, blue eyes, and a complexion that seemed very familiar to Mike, though he couldn’t say why.
Following the woman came an actual elf, and the only person aside from the Warden that Mike had met before. Chardris was not the young elf he had once been. The war on Valhalla had lasted several generations, and Chardris now had light gray hair, a slight limp in one leg, and a weathered appearance. The staff he carried was as gnarled as the hands that held it, and Mike noticed that he used it to support himself as he entered the craft. Still, one look at Chardris’ eyes was enough to see that the old fire still burned there.
“Mike!” said Chardris, spotting him and limping over to him.
“Chardris,” Mike replied, standing and grasping the elf’s hand. “How long has it been?”
“Too long,” Chardris sighed. He lowered himself slowly into a seat. “How’s your father?”
Mike’s answer caught in his throat. “Dead,” he said, after a moment. Not long after they had spoken, Mike had received word of his father’s death. Old war wounds and the panic of the Infected had finally taken their toll. Not to mention his mother’s… absence.
Chardris’ face fell. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Your father was a great man and a good friend. Not to mention one of the best Microcorp Agents I ever knew.”
“At least he’s escaped this apocalypse, one way or another.”
Chardris gave a grim nod. “What about you? Where are you living now?”
“Nowhere,” said Mike. “I signed up for this mission, and I have nowhere else to be, so I’ve been camping nearby with some of Einar’s kyrie.”
“You have my sympathies,” Chardris observed.
“It wasn’t that bad. Once you get over their endless search for plots and conspiracies, they’re a good group.”
Chardris chuckled.
“Laughing already, Chardris?” said a voice nearby. “And here I thought you were as serious as the Warden.” It was the woman Mike had noticed earlier, who had come up beside them.
“Merely old,” Chardris said. “Old and weary. Mike, I don’t believe you’ve met Kara?”
Mike shook hands with her. “You look familiar,” he said. “Have I seen you somewhere before?”
“It’s probably my father,” Kara said. “People say I look like him. He speaks highly of you, you know. I was excited when I heard you were on this mission too.”
Mike was perplexed. He had never served in the war; who would speak highly of him? He looked back at Kara, wondering where he had seen her face before. And then it hit him.
“Drake! That’s it, you look like Drake.” That explained it. Drake had been friends with Mike’s father during the war. He had become something like an uncle to Mike as he grew up. “But then, you must be…”
“His daughter,” said Kara, smiling at Mike’s realization. “My father never managed to get us to meet each other, though he kept saying we should.”
Mike was still a little confused. Except for that strange lightness about her, Kara seemed perfectly human, if a little tall. Mike knew that Drake had married Raelin shortly after the wellsprings had been destroyed, and he knew that they had soon afterwards had a daughter, but he had always thought…
“I’m what they call Kyr,” said Kara, noticing his examination of the absence of wings. “Half-human, half-kyrie. Kyr usually don’t have wings, though a few do.”
Mike was about to answer when they were interrupted by the Warden.
“We can get to know each other later. Right now, we’re behind schedule.”
Though Mike had heard it before, the Warden’s voice was still jarring. It was about as far from human speech as one could get while still being intelligible, and gravelly didn’t even begin to describe its roughness. The three of them turned around to face the Warden, who stood at the head of the craft.
“You know the nature of this mission,” the Warden rumbled, “otherwise you wouldn’t be here. However, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, I will re-state the details.
“Our mission is simple. There is a soulborg machine that we have to retrieve. Its nature is classified, and would mean nothing to most of you anyway. Recovering this machine could potentially allow us to destroy the Infected and reclaim Valhalla.”
Silence met these words. Mike glanced at Kara, and saw that she was focusing on the Warden with almost painful attention. He thought he knew why; Raelin had fallen to the Infected.
“This machine is in Utgar’s Soulborg Lab, in the center of the Volcarren. I know its exact location, as does Heirloom if I should not make it. Our flight path takes us straight there, and straight back. There will be no detours or delays. Any questions?”
“What about fuel?” Kara asked. “You’re talking about going two-thirds of the way across Valhalla; won’t we need to refuel?”
“No,” the Warden said. “This is a soulborg aircraft. We run on concentrated Hydrogen Peroxide, not oil.”
“You what?” asked Chardris, raising his eyebrows.
“The solution is perfectly controlled and stable. The point is, we will be able to complete the mission without having to stop once, save to collect the machine.” Chardris looked like he had further doubts on the stability of the fuel, but the Warden didn’t give him a chance to express them.
“Most of you have never met me or anyone else here before. Therefore, I will brief you all on who we are. I am Warden 816, and I am in command. You may refer to me as 816, or simply Warden. When I give an order, you follow it. The same goes for Heirloom if I am absent. He is second-in-command. He will also be transporting the machine for us through his magic, as it is rather heavy. The two warforged soldiers are here to protect him at all times, as without him, we will be unable to move the machine.
“Chardris is here for his extensive knowledge of the Infected. He was involved in many close encounters with them, and may know more about them than any other survivor. Aside from soulborgs and warforged, he is also one of the most effective at destroying them.
“Mike is here as a technician and surveillance expert. Normally I would have all the information we need, but the three factions of soulborgs on Valhalla did not share their data, meaning my records are incomplete. As an operator of Vydar’s surveillance system, Mike has knowledge of all the soulborg programs we might run into.
“Kara is here as a healer. She has trained extensively under Kelda, and she possesses the Spear of Gerda, passed on from Raelin. The warforged and I are immune to the Infected, and should be on the front lines if it comes to a fight. If Mike or Chardris get injured though, Kara will need to heal them. The infection only needs a scratch to enter.
“Any questions?”
Mike had one. “Why are there so few of us? Wouldn’t it be better if we had more manpower?”
“Normally, yes,” Warden said. “However, the fewer of us there are, the easier we will be able to escape detection.”
Mike privately thought that having the Warden alone ruined their chances in that field, given the sound of his footfalls, but he said nothing. Soulborgs had plenty of surprises.
“In that case,” Warden said, “strap yourselves in. The flight will be smooth, but taking off can be a bit jarring.” He turned to face the cockpit, and then stopped. “Stand by,” he said, still facing away from the rest of the crew. “I am receiving new details about our mission.”
Mike impulsively clenched his hand over the device in his pocket. Had someone found out what he was planning? This was his only chance to rescue his mother.
Warden stood still for nearly a minute. Mike knew he was communicating with Prime Command, the central head of all soulborg operations. Mike glanced about at the others. Chardris looked nearly as tense as he felt. Kara looked confused. Heirloom and the warforged had no expression whatsoever.
After about five minutes of total silence, in which Mike’s heart rate steadily increased, Warden finally turned around.
“There has been a change of plan,” he said into the dead silence filling the aircraft. “We will be making one additional stop after recovering the machine. We have been directed to land at the soulborg lab in Kinsland. There,” he paused for a fraction of a second, and turned to face Chardris, “our orders state we are to search for and rescue Jorhdawn.”
There was a very thick silence.
“What is going on, Chardris?” Warden asked. “No one who got left behind survived. It is impossible.”
Mike turned to look at Chardris as well. Sweat beaded his face as he looked up at Warden from his seat. “It’s not impossible. Not for her. She’s even more powerful than I am, which is the main reason Einar cleared it. She could deal with any Infected that got in her way.”
“Then why haven’t we heard from her?” asked Warden.
“She was trapped in the labs, and the communications had been severed. Kinsland is overrun; she’d know better than to try to cross it.”
Warden was silent.
“The lab is just over five minutes away from the machine with this craft.”
Warden seemed to be calculating, sizing Chardris up.
“Please,” Chardris whispered. “She’s my daughter. My only daughter. I need to save her.”
After a moment Warden spoke. “We will search for Jorhdawn, Chardris. It is in the orders. But know that all orders are carried out at my discretion. The odds of Jorhdawn still being alive after all this time are practically zero.”
“I know the odds, Warden,” Chardris said. “I also know that I will never stop looking for her, and that I will do anything, anything to find her.”
Warden watched Chardris for a moment longer. “Fine,” he finally said at length. “I’ll give you time to look for her, but if at any point the crew or the mission is endangered, we pull out, with or without you. Understood?”
Chardris looked right at Warden. “Perfectly.”
“Strap yourselves in,” Warden said, turning back to the cockpit as if nothing had happened. “We’re behind schedule.”
Mike realized he was still clutching the device in his pocket and quickly relaxed his hands. As he secured himself to the seat, he reflected that it seemed he wasn’t the only one with plans for this mission.
Oh boy, oh boy, zombies, zombies, zombies! Great read, excellent as usual, can't wait to see how things fall apart when the Infected show up.
Early predictions for shaming later:
Spoiler Alert!
There ain't no way Jandar's dead. In fiction, if you can't show me the body, they ain't dead. Calling it now! Ten bucks, anybody? Twenty bucks? Place yer bets!
~TAF
TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT
Mike closely examined the paper he held. It was nothing but a dark black and blue blur, but to him, it was hope. The paper was, in fact, a thermal scan of a building, the very building Mike had last seen his mother in. Humans gave off heat. The Infected, being technically dead, did not. This scan had been Mike’s hope at proving that his mother still lived.
Save for a dull red rectangle in the middle of the building, there was no heat signature. None at all. If there had been any humans, kyrie, or any other person not tainted by the plague in the building, they would have shown up on the scan. The only place anyone could be was directly below the red rectangle in the middle of the building. That, Mike knew, was the soulborg furnace.
‘Furnace’ was a bad name for it. In reality, it was simply one giant piece of metal that, through some complex chemical property, emitted heat. The soulborgs used it to heat buildings and run some passive systems. The device had become widely used in Valhalla years before Mike was born.
The only thing standing in the way of Mike’s mother being beneath that panel was a second thermal scan, showing the grounds outside the building.
Mike pulled the sheet from a pocket and looked at it. It showed a small group of red dots – the survivors Mike’s plane had left behind – making their way slowly away from the building. Mike didn’t need to pull the last of the scans from where he had them hidden; he knew what happened to those dots. One by one, they turned cold, disappearing into the blackness about them. The Infected had found them. She wasn’t with them, Mike told himself for what felt like the thousandth time. She was smarter than that. She would know the best option would be to stay put. And yet, as the second scan showed, at least more than half of the survivors had decided to take their chances outside the building.
Mike stared at the scan he held, seeing past it. Had his mother gone with them? Surely not. True, there was no way to gauge the number that had ventured out, due to their being so close together, and true, no one had been seen in the building since. But that fit. They wouldn’t be wandering around; they would be trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. Mike was convinced that his mother and whoever remained were hiding under that soulborg panel. They had to be. It was the only way they were still alive.
“Pitiful.”
Mike started and hastily stuffed the scans back into the pocket they had come from.
Spoiler Alert!
“What a shame,” Chardris repeated.
Even though he had heard him speak twice, Mike still had to look for a few seconds before he finally spotted the elf. He was sitting in the far back of the craft, mostly hidden by shadows, staring bleakly out of one of the small windows set in the wall of the craft.
Mike relaxed. Chardris hadn’t seen the scans. He had checked that no one was around before opening them, but he must have missed Chardris. Luckily for him, Chardris had never turned around.
“What’s a shame?” Mike asked, standing.
Chardris looked up. “What? Oh, just this land in general. I always thought Feylund was a beautiful land, at least until Ullar summoned me here. Why, Ekstrom alone; tall trees, rolling fields, endless streams… it was paradise. I wish you could have seen it, Mike.”
“I did,” said Mike. “I was with Vydar’s surveillance, remember? I saw everything.”
Chardris waved his hand. “None of your cameras or scans can convey the life of Ekstrom, or the awe of Jutengard, or the majesty of Nastralund. You can’t feel the steam on your face in the Ticalla, the scorching heat of the Volcarren, or the biting cold of the Thaelink. No device can convey the fear inherent in the woods of Bleakwood. You had to be there, Mike.”
Chardris sighed and returned to the window. “And now,” he said bleakly, “it’s all gone. First the war trampled over all Valhalla had to offer. It grew back, and was trampled down again. Then, just when the war was slowing down, this apocalypse began. Now I fear we may never see Valhalla the way it was before.
“You talk about Valhalla as if you were born here,” said a voice from the front of the craft.
Mike turned around and saw that Kara had entered the back of the craft where they stood.
“I’ve never heard any but the kyrie speak of Valhalla like that,” she said to Chardris, her voice curious. “I didn’t think any of the Summoned cared for the land like we do.”
Chardris turned in his seat to face her. “All elves revere life, Kara,” he said. “We respect both its simplicity and its complexity, for both are present. Life in any shape fascinates us, and the beauty of this world is something we hold most dear. The Summoned are the reason Valhalla was put into this state. The least we can do is to return it to what it once was. It’s our duty to make Valhalla a beautiful land once more.”
“It’s our duty to retrieve this device,” Warden said, stomping into the back of the craft. “We can talk about the scenery later. Right now you should strap yourselves in; we’ve arrived.”
As if on cue, the craft gave a slight jolt, and Mike felt the sensation in his stomach he associated with going down in an elevator.
Warden remained where he was while the others found seats. Mike knew from the soulborg designs he had studied, that Warden could remain on his feet if the floor was at a forty-five degree angle.
“Now remember,” Warden said as they strapped themselves in, “our mission is to find and retrieve this machine. No detours, no pauses. I will take point, as I can pick up any Infected long before we run into them. Mike, you and Heirloom will be right behind me. The warforged will flank Heirloom at all times. Kara, you’ll be behind them, and Chardris will bring up the rear. We make as little noise as possible, and take no unnecessary risks. Clear?”
Everyone nodded.
“One more thing,” Warden said. “This machine runs off of a power source similar to Earth’s nuclear reactors. It’s nothing so primitive; it will merely result in a small explosion if it overheats, rather than killing everything for miles around. However, it does need to remain cooled. While on board, the warforged will make sure the machine stays cool. If they’re absent, it will be up to you Mike, since you know how it works. This device is our top prio—”
An unfamiliar voice interrupted Warden.
Spoiler Alert!
“Movement at the landing location. Diverting to a secondary area.”
Next to Mike, Kara glanced around, looking for the source of the strange voice.
“It’s the ship,” Mike whispered to her, leaning over. “It’s a soulborg just like Warden; its body is just an aircraft. That’s why it can fly itself for the entire journey.”
Kara’s eyes widened in understanding.
“What kind of movement?” Warden asked, apparently of thin air.
“Infected,” the ship replied. “About eighty meters off our port side. Looks like a frost giant. We wouldn’t want to tackle it.”
Mike twisted around in his seat to look out the window. He could just make out a large figure against the rubble and burnt rock of the Volcarren, standing still, watching their progress across the sky.
It looked about the right size for a frost giant, though its skin had turned black, like all the Infected. Only the faintest trace of dark blue remained in what was left of its hair and beard. Tattered and torn armor covered it, and the helmet that had once covered its head had long since been discarded.
“Why is it so big?” Kara asked. She was looking out the window adjacent to Mike’s.
“Carapaced,” Mike replied. Kara simply looked blankly at him.
“After a while,” Mike said, “the Infected start to grow a hard carapace over their bodies. The longer it grows, the harder and thicker it gets. After about six months, they’re practically bullet-proof.”
“And these Infected have been here for a lot longer than six months,” Warden added.
“But,” Kara said, glancing from one to the other, “what if we meet one? What will we do? If they’re bullet-proof, how are we going to—?”
Warden patted the enormous rifle slung on his back. “They aren’t bullet-proof to this,” he said. “I could bring down Utgar’s fortress wall with this gun if I wanted to. And Chardris tells me that their carapace burns like dry paper. Plus, this craft has a few guns of its own. They aren’t invincible. Not to us.”
Kara still looked doubtful as the craft circled around, and gently landed far from the frost giant. Everyone unbuckled themselves and assumed the positions Warden had detailed, facing the back of the craft.
Warden unslung his massive rifle. With the flick of a switch the curved blade fixed to the underside began to pulse with an orange light. Mike knew that it could cut through nearly anything given enough time.
Behind him, the two Warforged pulled their dual blades from the sheaths on their back. Their edges were jagged, and the reverse edges were covered with sharp spikes.
Behind Mike, Kara produced the Spear of Gerda seemingly from thin air. Almost at the same time, Chardris seemed to stand a little straighter, and his staff, though as lifeless as ever, seemed to give off an aura of power.
Mike’s weapons were slightly less extraordinary, though still deadly. He had two Beretta M9 pistols strapped to his legs, and he carried an M4 Assault Rifle at his side. It was the job of Warden and the Warforged to fight the Infected. His job was merely to identify soulborg systems.
“Okay,” Warden said. “Once the ramp drops, we get out and get into the building as fast as possible. We don’t want the Infected to see us out in the open. Once in, we move quietly. The chance we’ll meet up with Infected is about ninety-six percent. I’d prefer to keep that number as low as possible.”
Mike didn’t want to know the odds. He’d learned long ago that if he stopped to consider the odds, he would never do what he had to. If he had truly considered the odds that his mother was still alive for example, he would probably never have gone on this mission. She’s alive, he told himself sternly. I would feel it if she wasn’t. I don’t care what the odds are. But that wasn’t true. Mike did care about the odds, and the only way he would be able to rescue his mother was by ignoring them.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Warden nodded. Slowly, the back wall of the craft began to drop, forming a ramp. It hit the solid rock ground with a dull thud, and hot air struck Mike in the face.
From what he had heard of the Volcarren, Mike could tell that it hadn’t changed much. Thin clouds of smoke and ash trailed by far overhead, streaking the pale sky with darkness. The ground was made up of red rocks, and Mike could see shimmers in the air he knew to be sulfuric gases escaping through cracks in the ground.
The air wasn’t overly hot, though it was still warm. In fact, a large portion of the Volcarren was nearly as cold as the Thaelink. Mike knew this was because the vast clouds of smoke overhead blocked so much of the sun. In a few secluded areas though, close to active volcanos, as they were, the heat from beneath Valhalla overpowered the lack of sunlight.
Warden glanced left and right. “No movement,” he reported. “Let’s move fast.”
Mike moved off the ramp, and then took off after Warden at a fast jog, all the while keeping his eyes open for movement. The structure they were heading for loomed above them, the entrance – relieved of its door somehow during the apocalypse – a yawning black wall of dark.
They arrived a moment later in the mouth of the bunker-like structure. After checking to make sure that everyone was accounted for and that they hadn’t been followed, Warden motioned them forward, and plunged into the darkness. Mike took a deep breath, and followed him.
A note on my writing status: I am postponing beginning Code 4114 for a short time. I am currently deep into developing my first novels, and would like to finish the first phase before turning my attention back to fan fiction. I still plan on writing it.
The air, at first smoky and hot like the Volcarren, quickly turned cooler. The smoke was replaced with a different taste, something almost metallic, like oil, or perhaps blood. Maybe both.
Mike stopped after a few feet. It was pitch black; he couldn’t see anything.
“Heirloom,” said Warden quietly, “if you would.”
There was a moment of metal scraping against metal, and then a soft gray-blue light faded into existence. Mike turned to see that Heirloom’s palm was alight, as if there was something just beneath the metal shining brilliantly. The light didn’t flicker or waver; it merely shone there, unchanging and unmoving.
“Now,” Warden said, “follow my lead. I have some intelligence on the largest concentrations of Infected in this complex, so I’ll guide us around those. My intelligence is incomplete though, so be careful and keep your eyes open. And whatever you do, don’t get scratched on anything. It’s all the plague needs to enter.”
Guided by the hulking shape of Warden and illuminated by Heirloom’s light, they moved off down the narrow hall, their boots echoing on the metal grating that served as a floor. Aside from the sound of their footsteps, everything was silent.
As they walked, Mike felt, rather than saw, Kara draw a little closer to him. She wasn’t the only one. No one wanted to be too far from the person in front of them. A zombie-infested building is never the best place to be spread out, whether or not those zombies are part Marro.
Warden never faltered. First right, then left, then left again, then through the second door; Mike supposed that being from Utgar’s side originally helped him to know where he was going.
As they walked, Heirloom’s light shown on more than metal walls and empty rooms. It wasn’t difficult to piece together what had happened to the place. Mike could see scratches and bullet-holes along one wall, and knew that the soulborgs had made a stand there. Judging by the slick of oil on the floor, it had not been successful. Here a door was mangled and crushed; something big had beaten it in, allowing the hordes to move forward.
As they moved deeper into the massive soulborg complex, the silence was punctured by occasional sounds: the groaning of the structure, the far-off whir of some automatic machine still running, a sudden clang, as if a metal beam had been dropped somewhere.
With the sounds came a new smell, the smell Mike had learned long ago meant only one thing: Infected. Marro had their own unique smell – something like a powerful combination of swamp slime and bad eggs. Combine that with the sickly sweet, slightly warm smell of rot and decay and you had the Infected. It was without doubt one of the worst – and most sinister – smells Mike knew.
With the smell and the irregular sounds, Mike fully expected an Infected to jump out at them at any moment. Every time they approached a corner, he tensed and raised his gun. But every time, the silence continued unbroken, and Mike’s tension would ease for a few moments, until he saw the next turn.
Right, left, right, right again, down some stairs, left, through a demolished door, the pattern never ended. The smell was so overpowering by now that Mike had to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he opened it.
The sporadic sounds were starting to add to Mike’s tension. He told himself to calm down, to relax. If he got too tense, he could pull the trigger at a shadow, and then every undead in the building would know where they were.
Up ahead, Warden suddenly raised a fist. “Light!” he hissed in as quiet a voice as a soulborg can manage. Instantly Heirloom put out the light in his hand.
As much as he wanted to know what was going on, Mike knew better than to move or make a sound. There weren’t too many reasons Warden would signal a stop and douse the light.
Spoiler Alert!
Sure enough, within seconds, a horrible sound met their ears: a ragged breathing, accompanied by uneven footsteps. An Infected was in the hall directly before them. How Warden’s scanners had seen it fast enough, Mike didn’t know.
They couldn’t see the Infected in the darkness. They couldn’t even see each other. All they could do was wait; wait and listen.
The Infected drew closer. It sounded as if one foot was broken, and being dragged along behind it. It was entirely possible: injuries meant nothing to them.
The footsteps suddenly stopped, not three feet from where Mike guessed Warden stood. Mike held his breath, the hand holding his gun coating the handle with sweat. They waited. And waited. What was the infected doing? It couldn’t see in the dark, so why had it stopped?
There was a sudden step; the Infected had moved forward. In an instant, there was the creak of Warden moving, a gurgling sound, a sudden sharp snap, and then a final sound of metal slithering through flesh.
“Light,” Warden said calmly. Heirloom’s light flared back into existence, revealing the Infected lying on the floor. It had once been a kyrie, probably a minion of Utgar judging by the leathery texture of the tattered wings. Its neck was snapped nearly in two, its face crushed, and a large jagged hole was in the center of its chest. Black blood covered it, and was quickly forming a pool beneath it.
“Avoid the blood,” Warden said. “It’s made up entirely of the infectious cells.”
“How did you kill it?” Mike asked as he stepped gingerly over the pool.
“Waited until it was in range,” Warden replied. “Then I crushed its mouth and snapped its neck so it couldn’t make a sound. One of the Warforged finished it off.”
“How much further?” Kara asked from behind Mike. She sounded slightly sick as she stepped over the pool of blood.
“About ten more minutes,” Warden replied. “Now be careful. The machine is in a side room off the central chamber of this complex. When this place fell, the Infected fought their way to the center, and then stayed there. So we stay away from the central chamber. Clear?”
Everyone nodded, and Warden set off again.
As he walked, Mike tried to dry his hands on his jacket. It wouldn’t be good if his hand slipped at a crucial moment. That was why, when Warden abruptly signaled halt again, Mike was not looking, and promptly walked into one of the Warforged.
Warforged are nearly as sturdy as soulborgs. They can regain their balance within half a second. Unfortunately, doing so does require some space to shift their weight. The Warforged did not have that space, with the result that it fell sideways into the wall, resulting in a loud, echoing clang.
Mike instantly knew they were in trouble. Screeches sounded on all sides of them, and suddenly the entire complex was full of shuffling footsteps, beating wings, and galloping creatures.
“Follow me!” Warden roared, charging down the hall.
Everyone followed him, weapons leveled at dark corners and dancing shadows. Their only chance now was to get to the machine and close the door before they were caught. Mike didn’t know how they would get out again.
An orc, its skin dark with blackened blood, burst from a buckled door on Mike’s right. Without preamble, he rolled forwards to avoid its first attack, came up, leveled his gun, and fired three rounds into the infected’s head. The orc staggered backwards as each bullet struck it, and for a moment Mike thought it was about to fall, but then it righted itself and charged right at him.
The zombie was caught by a jagged blade. One of the Warforged sliced cleanly into its chest. At first the zombie struggled to get at the Warforged. Then, as if the sword had struck something, it suddenly went slack, and fell limply to the ground.
“Always aim for the chest,” the Warforged said, pulling Mike to his feet.
There was no time for thanks; they could hear the rest of the Infected close behind them, as well as on both sides.
They ran down darkened halls for about twenty seconds, the sounds of pursuit constantly growing louder and more numerous. Then, suddenly, an explosion sounded behind them, followed by a terrible red glow.
Glancing back, Mike saw that Chardris had flung a fireball into their pursuers. The Infected screamed and shrieked as they burned, staggering around blindly, until they finally fell to the floor, where they twitched their last.
Kara suddenly screamed a warning, and Mike turned around just in time to see the claws of an infected wolf inches from his face. The next moment, the blackened wolf had been flung backwards as the Shield of Gerda slammed into him. Mike put three rounds into the wolf’s chest, and it fell limply to the floor, black blood oozing from the wounds.
“We got a problem!” Chardris shouted from the back as they continued to run. Glancing back, Mike saw one of the last things he wanted to. What appeared to be an Infected Krug was barreling towards them. That at least explained the doors. Worse still, Krug was covered in layer upon layer of dark yellow carapace. No mere bullet could get through that.
“Drop!” Warden thundered. Everyone instantly fell to the floor, and the next moment, Mike heard such a gun-blast as to wake the dead, ironically enough.
The front of Krug’s carapace shattered as Warden’s bullet hit it, but a large amount still remained. Krug staggered backwards, shook his small head as if ridding himself of a fly, and then charged forwards, bellowing.
Another shot shattered the hall. Pieces of Krug’s carapace blasted off in all directions, and again the troll staggered backwards. “Run!” Warden shouted. “Chardris! Use your fire!”
Mike staggered to his feet and took off after Heirloom. Glancing behind him, he made sure that Kara was following, and then saw Krug light up like an obese Christmas tree.
The troll roared in anger and flung himself after Chardris, who was sprinting to keep up with the rest of them. He’s not going to make it, Mike realized with horror. Chardris was far too old to run that fast. He swung around and fired a few rounds into Krug’s face.
Krug staggered a bit and shook his head, but then continued after Chardris. However, that was all the time the elf needed. With all the speed born of his kind, he tore up the hall, motioning Mike and Kara on as he came.
They didn’t need to be told twice. There are few things in the universe that can motivate you like a five-ton armored troll carrying a deadly disease.
“In here!” came Warden’s voice from up ahead, and Mike knew they had reached the machine. Chardris was nearly level with them now, and as one, he and Mike turned. Bullets and fire thudded into Krug, and he stopped, trying to shield his eyes from the onslaught. That was all they needed to escape.
Krug chased after them a moment later, but he was too late. Chardris close behind, Mike dived through the doorway Warden held open for them, heard it close, and then heard Krug slam into it a moment later.
“Don’t worry,” Warden said into the darkness. “This door was built to withstand Jotun.” Jotun, Mike thought in a detached fashion. I hope we don’t run into him too.
“Kara,” Warden said as Heirloom’s light flared into existence again, “check for injuries.”
Mike scooted back to the wall and leaned against it, catching his breath. It was a few moments before he noticed the room they were in.
Spoiler Alert!
It was so small that it could have been used as a walk-in closet. It was an exact rectangle of metal, and all the walls were bare save for the back one. Plugged into this wall through several cables as thick as Mike’s arm, was a machine that took up nearly two thirds of the room. In fact, now that Mike saw it, he realized just how cramped it really was with all six of them.
The machine itself wasn’t that large. It was a cylinder of metal, thicker in the middle than at the ends, the tips tapering to rounded points. It was held off of the floor by four three-foot high struts. The machine was only about two feet wide; what was taking up all the space was the variety of antennas, aerials, and other lengthy receiving equipment jutting out from it at all angles. Together, they nearly filled the room.
“Heirloom,” Warden said, “begin folding up. I want to be ready to leave as soon as possible.” Heirloom and the Warforged instantly moved towards the machine and began folding the various antennas into compartments on its sides.
“Leave as soon as possible?” Mike echoed. “With Krug out there?”
“Krug has been dealt with,” Warden said calmly. “I understand Chardris’ fire doesn’t go out easily, and it only takes so long for it to burn through the carapace. You will notice that the door is no longer being beaten down. As for leaving soon, other Infected will be drawn to this spot. The sooner we get out, the better.”
Mike nodded his understanding as Kara knelt beside him and began checking for injuries. “How are you doing?” he asked.
Kara didn’t answer right away. “I never told you how I came on this mission,” she said after a moment.
Mike was confused. “What – I thought you were selected by Einar with the rest of us.”
Kara shook her head and looked up at him. “I – I volunteered. My father didn’t want me to go. He said I wasn’t ready for a mission like this, because I had never been in combat before. I thought he was just being overprotective… but he was right. I’m – I’m not ready.”
Mike wanted to tell her that she was ready, but the fact that she had defied Drake - something no soldier of the alliance would dare do – had rendered him temporarily speechless.
Kara seemed to take his silence to mean the worst. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I just wanted to prove myself to him, and now I’m here, and I can’t protect you like I should, and what if I make a mistake, and I—”
“Calm down,” Mike said. He was surprised to find that he was smiling, and forced his face into a more suitable composition. “You’re ready – you saved my life back there with that wolf. That takes presence of mind. My father always said that new recruits – the first time in combat, they’d freeze. You didn’t.”
Kara half-smiled at him. “I still shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“You should have listened to your father,” Mike corrected her, standing up. “But you’re here now, and you’re doing fine. Besides, who else was there?”
Kara appeared to think for a moment, and then smiled faintly. Ana had been slain in the apocalypse, and Kelda, injured, was in no shape to be sprinting down halls. Rhogar hadn’t been heard from since Aquilla’s forces were overrun with marro, and that left Sonlen, whose dragon’s magic was unreliable, only healing one out of four times.
“Okay,” Warden said. “Take your positions. The Infected know we’re here, so make as little noise as possible.”
Mike looked up, and then did a double take. The machine was floating in midair. It took a few seconds for him to realize that Heirloom was supporting it with magic.
“This machine is far too heavy for us to carry,” Warden said. “We’d just be slowed down, and we wouldn’t be free in a battle. Heirloom can hold it like this for as long as we need, but we sacrifice some speed. That means we don’t make a single move without thinking it out. No distractions,” he glanced in Mike’s direction, “no chases. Now line up.”
They got back into position: Warden in front followed by Heirloom carrying the machine and flanked by the Warforged, then Mike with Kara close behind, and Chardris bringing up the rear. Warden checked to make sure they were all in position, and then opened the door.
Very enjoyable so far, looking forward to more. You have lots of possible "side" stories set up already. I hope we get to see some of them fleshed out.
January 21st, 2016, 04:47 PM
Apocalypse: Valhalla's Darkest Hour
Re: Apocalypse: Valhalla's Darkest Hour
TAF was the Storyteller... 
William099 is Lord of Blades...
I can't resist when opportunity presents itself. 
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