Ghouls'n Guns Read online

  Davidoff backed away quickly, before backflipping onto a branch, using his newfound athletic and gymnastic prowess. He saw a path through the trees that he could leap, and he took three bounds and found himself twenty feet from the ground, looking down as the leader cursed him. The leader aimed upwards and shot twice. Both missed—one shot went wide whilst the other hit the tree trunk, shivering the whole thing but leaving Davidoff unharmed.

  How am I supposed to deal with this? he wondered. How do you beat an opponent who cannot be injured?

  He saw a path through the trees. A couple of well-executed jumps and swings would take him five trees over, clearing this fight with a good margin. Immediately, his route in place, he sheathed his blades and pulled a grenade from his belt, took out the pin and dropped it to the forest floor. Then he leapt, swinging through a couple of branches before landing, with an agile flip, on the thick branch of a tree at a safe distance as the third explosion of this fight went off.

  He did not know what to expect of that attack, but it had to be worth a try. If nothing else, Davidoff had seen the leader being thrown down by Mara’s grenade. If it doesn’t hurt him, it will at least disorientate him, he thought.

  He was right.

  To one side, the obese woman was punching through trees and bushes, trying to get at Mara. She had brass knuckles on and seemed to be treading her own swathe through the woods as Mara ducked and retreated. Every so often, Zeke’s rifle went off, catching the large woman, taking off a hundred or so HP. It was never enough, however, and Zeke could not get the shots off quickly enough. Every time he managed to get a good one in, the woman had all but regenerated from the previous one. Mara’s own health was taking a hit; she was down to only HP 140 left and her breathing was coming hard as everything around her was wrecked and she had to dance through it all.

  Below Davidoff, the leader had dropped, thrown aside by the grenade blast. A couple of trees began to fall, crashing into those around them so that only the density of the canopy itself stopped them from coming down altogether. Flames licked the edges of the trees and crackled around the roots and butt of the ruined one. As the leader stood up, Davidoff saw that he had taken some damage at last: it was down to HP 182.

  Fire, Davidoff thought. Heat. It is damaged by heat.

  But how the hell do I make the most of that?

  “Zeke,” he said, clicking at his radio. “How can I use flame as a weapon with the kit I’ve got?”

  “You can’t,” Zeke’s reply came back, instantly grasping what his friend had meant. “But I can. I’ve a few incendiary hellfire bolt rounds for my rifle, as well as a couple of flares in my pack. Let’s switch targets. You help Mara deal with the big woman and I’ll get your man.”

  “OK,” Davidoff replied, glancing around.

  Below, Zeke’s bulk emerged through the woods, barging through some bushes as he focused on loading some new rounds into his rifle. Then he sighted the leader, fell to one knee and began to aim.

  But Davidoff could not dwell on that fight with his own to get involved with. He looked through the trees down to Mara as she backed away from the obese woman, taking pot shots with her sidearm as she went, and he found a route traced out for him. He took it, jumping across a couple of boughs before tucking, rolling and falling, landing lightly on his feet. The impact dealt him Damage 10 but it was the fastest way he could find and Mara needed his help.

  He quickly unpinned and threw another grenade, catching the woman by her side with an almighty explosion. It caused a Damage 104, a small amount for such a direct hit with a grenade, after modifiers for the woman’s innate resilience. But it’s a start, Davidoff thought.

  He unslung his Uzi, clipped a new magazine in and walked towards her, letting loose a constant volley of bullets which barked harshly against his shoulder.

  With the woman distracted, Mara could halt her retreat through the woods, turn around and begin to attack afresh. However, she disappeared, leaving Davidoff to face off against the warlock all by himself.

  “Come to mama,” the warlock laughed, and immediately Davidoff realized his mistake.

  Though she was unbelievably tough, and though she was able to regenerate, these were the least of this warlock’s gifts. As she turned her gaze on him, her amber eyes filled him with dread. His morale immediately dropped by half so that his aim would be almost completely negated, and he found himself almost compelled to bow down before her.

  She is the ultimate enforcer for the leader, he thought. His arms fell down by his sides, useless, as he gazed at her, transfixed and unable to fend her off. She began to walk towards him, coming slowly as her bulk impeded her. All Davidoff could do—all he felt able to do—was back away, slowly at first. Then he managed to tear his eyes away from the woman and he began to flee, as Mara had before him.

  The woman laughed some more, breaking out into a slow, ponderous trot behind him. Where Davidoff had to cut and wind through the trees, she smashed straight through them so that, though he was faster and more agile than she was by far, the warlock could make a direct beeline for him.

  God, how has it come to this? he wondered.

  However, as he made a circle, determined to get the woman back towards Mara so that maybe he could get some help, the largest explosion of the day went off. Davidoff was swept off his feet. He flew forwards, landing heavily in the dirt, as a shower of debris fell down all around him. At the same time, a hideous, pitiful wail went up. It was choked as the obese woman cried out in pain.

  He turned, as his mind cleared a little, to find her lying just fifteen feet or so away from him, one arm missing and a great hole gaping in her back. She lay face down, bleeding heavily, as Mara walked up to stand over her. Obviously, Mara had set one of her traps, using a couple of her explosives fitted together and getting close enough to inflict some real damage.

  The woman was down to HP 204. Though it began to climb as she lay in place, the skin of her back knitting itself together as Davidoff watched, Mara was not allowing any of it. She aimed her assault rifle at the rear of the woman’s head and squeezed the trigger, emptying the clip, still firing long after the woman’s HP dropped down to zero so that all that was left at the end of it was a bloody, pulpy mess.

  “Damn,” Davidoff sighed, falling down to his knees. “That’s not what I had in mind when I said I wanted girls to chase me.”

  50 XP came to him as, he imagined, a lot more went to Mara for being the one to actually finish off both the big woman and the majority of the other warlocks.

  As Davidoff caught his breath and stood, ready to go and help Zeke deal with the leader, there was a strangled yell from a few hundred yards away. An explosion rang out and then there was movement in the trees as something large came towards them.

  It was Zeke, his bolt rifle clung to his chest and his face white. A nasty gash had been cut across his forehead and blood poured out of it, nearly blinding him, as a flap of skin bobbed and bounced with every fast-paced stride he took. He crashed through a few branches, clearly favoring one leg, and Davidoff noticed that he was also bleeding from a wound to his hip.

  “Is he dead?” Mara asked as Zeke slid to a stop before them.

  He was shaking, and his HP was down to 258 / 487. He panted, his hands on his knees. Lacking the agility of his two comrades, fighting in such terrain as these woodlands was more tiring to him than it was to them.

  Zeke shook his head, gasping at the air and swaying on the spot. “Nearly, though… I managed to get him below HP 100, but he was too much… He was tearing me to shreds.”

  “Well done, though, pal,” Davidoff said. “That was more damage than I could do. Where is he now?”

  Before Zeke could answer, another strangled cry rang out.

  There was more movement in the woods from where Zeke had just come and the smell of smoke and fire came wafting towards them. Both Mara and Davidoff held up their rifles as Zeke sunk down to the ground, faint and hurting. Then the
y saw the leader; he emerged from the trees a hundred yards away, staggering and screaming in rage. His silhouette burned and crackled, aflame. He was wreathed in hellfire from Zeke’s attacks and he wobbled, his eyes glinting and his katana raised.

  Mara began to fire, cracking single shots from her assault rifle straight towards the leader. However, as before, the bullets went straight through him, causing no damage. Zeke was right; he had brought the leader down to HP 89. As Davidoff watched, its HP levels flickered upwards and downwards. For a second, it would climb up to HP 92 or 93, before falling back down to HP 82, rising and falling around the same point.

  He can heal himself, the same as the giant woman, Davidoff realized. It is only the flames keeping him from regenerating more fully.

  “Stop with the bullets,” he shouted to Mara. “It does no good. Only fire can harm it.”

  “But the fire’s doing no damage,” she snapped back, looking over at him for a brief second. “It’s not bringing his health down enough.”

  The leader was just fifty paces away, moving slowly and howling in pain but determined to reach them nonetheless. It was like a demon from hell, wreathed and smoking. Its skin fell away in patches, blistered and burned, before healing briefly once more. Over and again, the flames tore pieces of its flesh asunder only for it to knit itself back together again immediately.

  “David… David… Davidoff…” Zeke mumbled from the ground.

  Davidoff glanced down and saw that his friend had dropped further in health. He was bleeding too heavily, and he had come down to HP 213. However, he was conscious, and he was thinking the situation through. In one hand, he held one of his rifle’s bolts, a shell twice the size of a normal bullet and fitted with an explosive warhead. Those exploded on impact, giving them their heightened, mad damage stats. The bolt’s cap was unscrewed and Zeke held up his other hand to Davidoff.

  Davidoff held out his own hand to his friend, palm up. Zeke smiled and poured a few grams of refined gunpowder into his palm. “Chuck that in his face. Get the blaze going. He is at equilibrium now… we need to tip the balance, buddy.”

  Davidoff nodded, smiling. “You are a genius, buddy. Mara, cover me. Aim for his face. He can’t be hurt but he can still be distracted.”

  She did so, bursting bullets from her assault rifle into the leader’s mug. True enough, he began to blink and turn his head aside as the rounds buzzed through him, irritating him. He only stayed diverted for a couple of seconds before he grew accustomed to it all and began once more to ignore the bullets.

  But it was enough. Davidoff ran quickly in a large arc, going to the leader’s left, its weaker side. Then he darted in, trying to get close.

  The leader roared and swung his katana haphazardly at Davidoff, staggering to one side as he moved. He was barely in control anymore and his aim was poor. Davidoff ducked under the blade, feeling the heat of the flames as they ate at the ever-regenerating man before him. He tucked down and rolled, passing behind the leader’s feet before springing up just behind him. Then he nimbly skipped backwards, away from his quarry as he threw the powder, like confetti at a wedding.

  The first few motes caught and went off with little crackling bangs as small flashes of light were sent up. Then the main body came within the heat’s radius and all flashed at once.

  It was over in a second when an incandescent fireball lit up, and the leader crumpled. He fell to the floor as the small blast hit him in the back of his ribs. He rolled over, scattering sparks across the leaves and twigs on the forest’s floor. Another 40 HP had been leached from his health, though this began to climb again as he recovered.

  Davidoff did not give him time to get up, however.

  As soon as he let go of the powder, he had begun to gather dry leaves and sticks in his hands. Whilst the leader lay on the ground, struggling to regenerate and get to his feet once more, Davidoff walked up to him and dumped everything on him, the fuel catching fire immediately. Then he stooped and took hold of a larger log which he threw onto the leader’s back. The log passed right through the body, as had the leaves and sticks, but the fire was hot now. It was hot enough to ignite the log almost as quickly as it had the smaller branches.

  Davidoff picked up a few more discarded pieces of wood and piled them all on top of the enemy, forming a merry bonfire as the leader writhed and struggled, burning alive. His HP wrestled to stay up, flickering forever around the HP 40 mark, but it was no good. He was in too much pain and he was too weakened by it all to move away from the pyre. And as the added wood caught and the bonfire grew, the leader’s HP began to lose the battle.

  Very soon, it could no longer climb as quickly as it was falling, and the leader locked eyes with Davidoff as he dipped down to HP 20. There was fury in those eyes, fury and pain and a desire to hurt. This is who the warlocks are, Davidoff thought. Maddened by the plague that has settled over this land, maddened even as they are gifted with unnatural powers.

  The leader passed out very soon, his body giving up the fight, and he lay still. By the time his HP disappeared and he died, the logs were burning high. In this forest, they could be deadly, Davidoff knew. They could set the whole place ablaze. So he stepped up, finding the leader’s body whole now that it was dead, tangible and real. He began to kick the fire apart, scattering the embers and stomping out the flame from the burning wood.

  All would be well, now. He looked at the timer and found that they still had a little over five hours on the clock. OK, he thought. OK, we can do this.

  50 extra points of XP hit him, adding to his total, as the leader perished and as all fell still around them. A worthy battle, he thought. No doubt Mara and Zeke had done well out of it, too.

  He returned to them and found Mara tending to Zeke’s wounds. She had staunched the bleeding and was applying dressing to gashes in his hip and shoulder. “It’s as much as I can do in one go,” she said. “Medics can only do so much apiece.”

  “I’ll join with you,” he replied. Two medics could heal a player’s HP by more than one alone could, so he knelt down next to his friend. A curious sensation overcame Davidoff as he worked. As he reached into his field medical kit for antiseptic and bandages, he felt something flowing from himself to Zeke. Of course, the bandages and all else was just for show, as was every other part of the game’s aesthetic. The real work was in the coding, in Zeke’s profile itself. Whilst it might look like Davidoff was a soldier of sorts bandaging his comrade’s head, really he was a player profile with the Medic keyword, and that was allowing him to artificially undo much of the Damage to Zeke’s profile.

  As he went through the motions, allowing his Medic keyword to take over and bandage etc. as David, in real life, devolved power of movement to a sequence that was almost cinematic, Zeke’s health went from HP 256 / 487—the point to which Mara had been able to take him on her own— to HP 307 / 487 with Davidoff’s help.

  By the time the sequence had finished, Zeke looked a lot better. They gave him some painkillers and a shot of adrenaline, and his other stats stabilized. They climbed back up to nearly their full, so that his whole profile was good enough to continue.

  “Can you walk?” Mara asked him over her shoulder. As Davidoff had taken over, she had assumed a watchful pose, looking through her binoculars, holding them in one hand as she kept the other firmly wrapped around the handle of her assault rifle.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” Zeke replied. “But that was nuts.”

  As Davidoff packed away his field medical kit, he received another 35 XP, courtesy of his completing his first spot of medical attention. His total was now XP 86, an impressive amount indeed to have acquired so quickly. When they next had a chance to rest, he would use them to further bolster his own durability. For the moment, however, they were unsafe and exposed. The camp would surely know that their leaders had come into the woods and may well send others after them.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered. “Mara, what’s our next path?”

&nb
sp; “Straight up there,” she said with a wave of the binoculars. “There’s a small town on the far side of the peak, opposite us, near enough. We go a mile short of that and then turn to head directly upwards. It’s easier going than the other paths and should get us there within an hour. Then we can blow these bastards off the face of the Earth and get back to the compound.”

  ***

  They jogged along for ten minutes, toting their guns against their chests as they went, wary and ever watchful. They were still expecting more warlocks to arrive and overtake them at any minute, either more of those overpowered leaders or their minions from the camp, or else some from the castle above had they been alerted by then—which, Davidoff thought, they were bloody sure to have been. He was nervous, but he was also detached. Fatigue and immersion kept him from feeling the situation too keenly, and he fought only ever to keep one foot in front of the other, to keep to the next part of the mission, the next fight, the next casualty. Were he to stop and seriously consider his predicament and the strangeness of his situation, he thought he might never be able to pull through.

  Keep yourself focused, keep yourself cool, he thought, and he trotted along through the thick woods next to his comrades, hoping against hope that they would both be able to do the same.

  However, after ten minutes of rough going through the dense foliage, just as a more open track was beginning to form and Mara was reassuring them that the hardest part was over—“from here it will be a smooth, short track, and then a little climb until we are there,” she had told them—the world began to vibrate once more.

  “God, not the bloody psyker again!” Zeke growled, out of breath from having to keep pace with the other two.