Wasteland Warlords 3: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG Adventure, page 1
Wasteland Warlords
EPISODE 3
JAMES A. HUNTER
EDEN HUDSON
Contents
Summary
Author and Publisher Updates
1. Relics of the Past
2. Voodoo Throw Down
3. Secondhand Books
4. Hollywood Hills
5. A True Shonen Protagonist
6. The Three Labors of Clay Jaeger
7. The Wyrd, Wyrd West
8. Breakfast of Champions
9. Going in Loud
10. War Machine
11. High Noon in Haunt Topic
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Books by Shadow Alley Press
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About the Authors
Summary
“If you’re not ready to lay it all on the line out here, you won’t make it a week. The wasteland’ll chew you up and spit you out.”
Clay Jaeger finally has the chance to become the spellslinger he always wanted to be—the one his family needs him to be to survive the dangers of the wasteland. A teacup pig claiming to be a cursed Great Blue Wyrm has offered them a quest to take out a Dungeon Lord with the exact power set Clay’s been looking for.
There’s just one problem. The Dungeon Lord can steal the souls of his enemies and summon them to fight his battles for him.
Clay is more than willing to lay down his life to protect his family, but is he willing to risk his eternal soul on a gamble that might not pay off? Time to roll the dice and find out…
Author and Publisher Updates
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Chapter 1
Relics of the Past
“There it is!” Bacon Bits squealed, curly tail wagging with excitement. “My dungeon.”
Clay looked off the overpass in the direction the teacup pig’s chipped hoof was pointing as Alex, Joe, Chonk, and Griff crowded around him in a semicircle.
Down below sat the ruins of a sprawling shopping mall. Unlike most of the urban decay they ran into out in the wasteland, however, this place might not have been destroyed by the Merge and the subsequent twenty years of human abandonment. At least, not entirely.
The wings looked as if they’d been demoed to make way for new construction, then forgotten about. A little off-center, at the edge of what might’ve once been the food court, stood a massive obsidian plantation house straight out of a horror movie about the back streets of New Orleans. It was cheesy antebellum architecture at its finest, complete with a huge double-decker porch held up by cracked columns, and a gabled roof crowned with a squared cupola. There was no way in hell that had been an original part of the mall.
Clay had read about places like this before coming to the wasteland. They were called Artifact Structures.
Twenty years ago, their world had collided with Hearthworld, one of the most popular VRMMOs ever created. Los Angeles had been at the epicenter of the Merge, and according to legend, it hadn’t just been monsters that poured through the rift. Buildings, villages, dungeons, and even landscape features like mountains and caves had rudely smashed into the world like a hail of asteroids. The closer the Jaeger Squad got to LA, the more these Artifact Structures would appear.
Still, this particular structure had clearly undergone some significant design changes in the years since its arrival.
Where the parking lot should’ve been was a lush rolling green field dotted with gnarled trees, cracked stone mausoleums, and aboveground vaults covered in kudzu vines and Spanish moss. A thick ground fog swirled through the out-of-place graveyard, drifted over its leaning steps, and climbed into its shattered windows. Remixed synth music thumped out of unseen speakers, and corpse candles floated over the graves, flashing neon colors in time with the bass. A black fence topped in iron spikes ran around its perimeter, skirted by an uneven cobblestone road that looked like it’d been worn smooth by centuries of horse and foot traffic.
The iron sign over the carriage gate read Haunt Topic.
Joe whistled. “Well, I’ll give the big bad Voodoo Daddy this—he’s got style.”
“No, he doesn’t!” Bacon Bits snapped. “He appeals only to the lowest common denominator pop culture ideal of a voodoo dungeon. There is not an original scale on his body.”
“If that’s what works for you…” Joe shrugged.
Clay ignored them, studying the graveyard barring their path. In order to make it to the front door, they’d have to follow the winding cobblestone street through the displaced cemetery. Problem was, that cemetery wasn’t empty. Creatures shambled and danced around in beat with the unseen music. At first glance, Clay thought they were bright neon skeletons dressed in ancient emo and gothic-hip apparel, but on closer inspection, he realized they were humanoids covered in black grease paint and Day-Glo skulls and bones.
“What type of creatures are those?” he asked Bacon Bits, keeping his voice low.
“Hauntsters. They spawn here in droves and spend all their time fawning over the leather corsets, specialty suspenders, novelty shirts, and fingerless gloves.”
“Do they have any special abilities?”
Bacon Bits turned up her snout. “If you consider amassing hoards of minor accessories from something called ‘anime’ a special ability. Many wear pentagrams and carry Voodoo Dolls and Chicken Blood Bombs, but they are only emulating our fool of a Dungeon Lord.”
“I haven’t had much dealing with the Voodoo school of magic,” Griff said, watching the skeletal rave below with his one good eye. “Wasn’t a part of Hearthworld’s original system. But I’d say treat anything with Bomb in the name as particularly dangerous.”
“Same,” Clay agreed.
Seeing they didn’t share her scorn, Bacon Bits turned to Alex, who had become her best friend in the short time they had been helping her.
“I ask you, Alex, is there anything more cliché than a haunted house? When I am on the Dungeon Lord’s throne, I will return dignity and terror to the office, beginning with a complete renovation from the ground up.”
Alex smiled down at the little pig. “What kind of dungeon will you make it into?”
“Oh, the most formidable and intimidating Wyrm Farm!”
Clay raised an eyebrow. “You might need to reconsider the name.”
“You could call it the Bait Shack,” Joe suggested. “Clay and me used to get worms from a placed named the Bait Shack out on I-44 all the time. Excellent night crawlers. They had this worm casting pile out back, and for twenty bucks—”
“It will not be that type of worm farm!” Bacon Bits snapped. “It will be a battleground for the Draconic Grubs that spawn here to evolve into Great Wyrms of any color they choose, not just the colors the Lizardman believes set off his gothic ambiance. Why, they could even become Great Dull Gray Wyrms or a respectable Taupe.” She sighed. “Imagine the variety!”
“By the way, obvious grammar violation,” Alex said, pointing at Joe. “It should’ve been ‘Clay and I got worms from the Bait Shack.’”
Joe looked at her like she was crazy. “But you don’t even like to fish.”
“I’m talking about how you should have phrased it. Clay, tell him.”
“Let’s focus,” Clay interrupted. This wasn’t the time to play games. Before they’d hit the sack last night, Bacon Bits had dropped the bomb on them that her Voodoo Shaman Dungeon Lord could steal a soul and turn it into his zombified slave. Clay had been turning over possible scenarios since then, trying to come up with something in their arsenal that would protect them against a spell of that caliber. Unfortunately, all the sleepless night had yielded him was that they needed to take out the Dungeon Lord before he managed to get off that hit.
He pulled the Camera Obscura out of a drop pouch. It looked like one of those old-fashioned wooden box-style cameras, except it fit in the palm of his hand and was steampunked out with shining brass gears and embossed telescoping lens caps.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Camera Obscura
Durability: 27/49
Properties: Grants a 30-ft circle of invisibility, hiding user and all allies from enemy spy engines, scrying technology, and underlings for up to 20 minutes per charge.
To activate Camera Obscura, press the shutter button.
Charges: 5/6
To charge Camera Obscura, user must kill an elemental chimera of at least level 1, attach a rune of power, or plug in to a 110-volt electrical outlet.
“What you see isn’t always what you get.”
╠═╦╬╧╪
The Camera had come from the Sooq as part of a quest reward. They’d gone after it with the intention of hiding from the drones of the Gearhead Incant Flynn Lynes, but with him out of the picture, they were free to use its magical stealth technology on the spies or lookouts of any enemy they might face.
“Once this is activated, we’ve got twenty minutes undetected.” Clay looked at Bacon Bits. “Is that enough time to get us to the Lizardman?”
“More than enough,” she said. “It is a small matter
Bacon Bits sounded confident enough, but Clay had his doubts. There were a hundred ways this could go south.
But they did need to take out another Dungeon Lord, and they probably weren’t going to get a better chance than this.
Clay knelt down by a stretch of sand that had drifted onto the overpass and started sketching out a rough map. “Here’s the throne. Griff and I go in first—I’ll go right; Griff, break left—guns and magic blazing. When we have his attention over here, Joe and Alex, you come around the back of the throne and hammer him from behind. If everything goes right, we’ll keep the Voodoo Daddy off-balance enough to finish him before he gets his bearings and starts firing off that zombie curse at us. While we’ve got him distracted, Bacon Bits, you find your cursed claw—”
“And when I am restored to my true form, we will see how Saurian enjoys fighting the Terror of Santa Clarita, the awakened and furious Great Blue Wyrm of Vengeance,” Bacon Bits said, her beady little pig eyes flashing in a chillingly draconic way.
“So basically, the plan is to go in heavy and hit him with everything we’ve got.” Alex grinned and cracked her knuckles. “I’m down with that.”
“You would be, Katotes,” Joe said. “Chonk and me are a little more sophisticated. We’re going for less ‘Hulk Smash’ and more ‘Lumberjack Buddies Save the Day,’ aren’t we, pal?”
Chonk chittered and revved his little hedge-trimmer arm in agreement.
Everybody checked their loadout. That job used to take a lot less time back when the Jaegers first came to the IZ and had barely anything but their guns and the body armor on their backs. Now Joe was clanking around in a mech suit, Alex was kitted out with armored samurai sleeves called kote that boosted her already insane Incant Constitution and Strength, and Clay had his trusty Cinderscale Cuirass that granted him +2 Strength, +1 Con, and a passive +18% Fire Resistance Bonus. Even Griff had leveled up his jacket to a brown leather duster with a better armor rating and +2 to Magicka.
They weren’t the same tumbleweeds who had rolled into Camp Liberty a month before, not by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, at the time, taking on a Tier 4 dungeon would’ve been suicide. A total party wipe. But now, with two of them wielding Incant powers, a former NPC on their side, and a bunch of stat potions helping Clay keep up, they were just the squad for the job.
Clay hated that he was their weakest link, but he wasn’t going to let himself get caught up in that. If everything went well today, he just might come out of the Haunt Topic an Incant himself. And they could really use a spell caster to round out their party. Griff had some ranged spells, but he was a melee fighter at heart and better with a sword than he was with an Arcana ball.
“Also, Joe, Alex was right before,” Clay said, now that everybody was on the same page and ready to rock. “It’s ‘Chonk and I.’ The pronoun has to make sense by itself if you take the other person’s name out.”
“Boom,” Alex said, opening her hand as though dropping a mic.
“Huh-uh, you don’t get that point,” Joe protested. “Only grammar violations with official rulings at the time of violation can be counted; it’s not retroactive. As my bank used to say before they closed my account, ‘No backdated checks.’”
“If we are ready, then let us be on our way,” Bacon Bits said cheerfully. “The sooner begun, the sooner Saurian will have his comeuppance.”
“All right, everybody squeeze into the shot,” Clay said, putting an arm around Alex.
Joe leaned over Clay’s shoulder, sticking out his tongue and making rock ’n’ roll horns at the Camera Obscura. While Griff edged in the side and Chonk climbed onto Joe’s head, Alex snagged Bacon Bits and tucked the teacup pig under her arm.
“Cheese!” everybody said.
Clay thumbed the shutter.
The miniature Edison-style flashbulb went off, sending up a curl of smoke. With a whine, the Camera ticked down to 4/6 charges. Something stabbed into Clay’s palm. Out of a thin, scrollworked slot in the bottom of the box, an old-timey photo printed, square and glossy. Somehow the photo managed to capture everyone’s worst side. It floated to the dirt.
“Did the rest of you guys just get a notification that you’re obscured from enemy spies for the next twenty minutes?” Alex asked, her eyes losing focus as she read unseen text.
“Aye,” Griff said.
“Yep.” Joe nodded, and Chonk either agreed or was just nodding to mimic his owner.
Clay checked his Active Effects with the Monocle of True Seeing just to make sure he was covered, too, then slipped the eyepiece back into a pocket on his vest.
“All right,” Clay said, “let’s do this.”
“Hold up!” Joe snatched the photo off the ground and dusted it off. “Aw! Group pic. Now we can look back on this day and say, ‘Remember how young we all were right before we whooped that big bad Voodoo Daddy’s ass?’” He slipped it into the pocket on his sleeveless flannel shirt, then waved his hand to summon his mech suit. He took a deep breath and blew it out with a satisfied grin. “These are the days we’ll cherish forever. Always take a keepsake—write that down, Chonkie, it’s the key to a long and happy life.”
“If you are finished waxing poetic,” Bacon Bits grunted, “then follow me, squadmates.”
The teacup pig led them down an off-ramp and around the Haunt Topic’s street level.
As they approached the strange aboveground cemetery, Clay eyed the moss and vines strangling the black iron gate. The greenery was sprinkled with brilliant black-, white-, and purple-striped trumpet flowers. A mundane lizard scampered out of the street, probably following the scent of standing water in the boggy Haunt Topic yard, but it never made it through the fence. The second it brushed a violet-colored petal, it was instantly chomped in half with teeth made of razor blades.
Clay’s eyebrows shot up.
Next to him, Alex said, “Um, do those flowers have teeth made of those emo necklace razors? I swear I just saw a heart on one.”
“They are ridiculous, aren’t they?” Bacon Bits said, rolling her eyes. “What have razor blades to do with voodoo? The theme does not fit. I suspect he just found what remained of the store which stood here earlier and reused it. Much less point-spend that way. When I am the Dungeon Lord, the Wyrm Farm’s flowers will shoot flame or some other breath attack, and hang the cost. I intend to stay entirely on brand.”
Despite their vicious nature, the snapping vines ignored them as Bacon Bits trotted up to the gate. It was like they didn’t exist at all. She hiked up onto her back hooves and hopped at the gate latch until Clay reached over and opened it for her.
“This is very embarrassing.” Bacon Bits grunted. “I am normally more than equal to the task of opening my own gates. I am very adept at flying, and in my natural form I am many times larger than this ridiculous little potbellied body.” She gave an adorably flustered headshake that made her ears flap. “However, thank you for helping me, Clay. I extend my gratitude.”
He shrugged. “What are squadmates for?”
“Indeed!” She wiggled excitedly. “Oh, I am very much enjoying being part of a team.”
As they skulked in through the gate, Clay kept an eye on the gyrating ravers painted up like Day-Glo skeletons. Thanks to the Camera Obscura, none attacked or even seemed to notice as they passed by, but he couldn’t quite make himself relax. He felt like he was in the middle of a circle of claymores, staring down the words FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.
