Project Alpha 2 Read online

  Project Alpha

  Book 2

  By R.A. Mejia

  © 2019 Ramon Mejia

  All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7 - Interlude 1

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15- Interlude 2

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  Dedication

  For all the wonderful fans that have patiently waited for the next book in this series.

  Prologue

  It’s a dark and cold night in the run-down neighborhood, and the broken streetlights only aid in concealing the dark deeds that normally take place in the area. Yet, even the most hardened of criminals and thugs would think twice about approaching the man walking through the streets tonight. Although he is physically imposing, it’s the aura of violence surrounding him that is truly frightening. No one truly knows all cruel and evil acts he’s committed--especially recently, now that his restraints have been stripped away, and he is free to explore whatever depraved impulses come to him.

  But tonight is not the night for indulging in those impulses. Tonight is for laying traps for his enemies.

  He spots the house he’s looking for, a two-story home that rents out cheap rooms. He opens the back gate and barely notices the dead grass and toys in the yard. He takes a small red globe out of his duffel bag and looks down at it for a moment. It is covered in a tiny runic script, and emits a red aura that seems to pulse as he stares at it. This little beauty will help set things straight on the scales of justice. He puts the red orb back in the bag and begins searching the side of the house for an open window. Despite his broad shoulders and muscular figure, the man is surprisingly agile and quiet, the exact opposite of what most expect. It’s almost as if he has some strange power that muffles the sounds he makes. After only a brief search, he finds an unsecured window, lifts it open, and climbs through. There is a toy rocket ship and teddy bear on the counter, the sink is piled high with the day’s dishes, and there’s a picture on the wall of the woman with bright blue hair, a child and two older people who are likely her parents. Conspicuously absent, however, is any sort of wedding photo or a picture of her with anyone who might be her spouse. As best he can tell, only a single woman and her child live here.

  As he passes through the kitchen, an open door to his right reveals the living room, where the woman and her daughter lay curled up together on the couch asleep, the light of the left on television giving them a pale glow. The man lingers over the two, contemplating how simple it would be to take the woman and child and the many torments he could inflict on them. His imagination fills with the things he could do to illicit the screams he’s come to love and when he was done, no one would ever find their bodies. And for a moment his hand twitches towards the two, but no, that would be too easy. The point is to make him suffer.

  The man, quietly but confidently walks through the kitchen to a door. Opening it, he takes the stairs down into the home’s unfinished basement, which houses the heating and A/C systems and serves as a place to store items. He retrieves the small sphere from his bag and places it on the basement floor, right under the stairs. A blue screen appears, and the man taps several commands causing the ball to seemingly melt into the concrete floor. A red door appears on the wall a few feet away, and he covers it with a paint-stained drop cloth before moving some boxes in front of it. He smiles as a red miasma starts to leak from under the door and then turns and leaves, knowing the havoc that his hidden gem will cause and the kind of terrible men it will attract. A small thing at first, but it will grow.

  Chapter 1

  Boom! The grenade I fire goes off with explosive force, scattering the cemetery dirt and cracking the surrounding headstones. The tenacious group of undead soldiers trying to flank my group is blown apart. Their bone bodies splinter and break, pieces of their grey uniforms and their weapons go flying, and multiple red 20s float away from them. Even if the single grenade did not destroy all the skeletons, I’ve bought us a desperately needed moment of respite.

  We’ve been in this dungeon for about a week, cutting our way through wave after wave of undead and searching for the dungeon boss controlling it. An independent scouting group found the dungeon in Atlanta, Georgia, and then sold the information to the outfit I work for, Monster Squashers Inc. The dungeon has been feeding off political and social unrest, growing in power, and sending out an invisible miasma of negative energy that’s been making regional conflicts worse within the city. Our job as dungeon divers is to destroy the source of the conflict and help bring a measure of peace back to the area. It doesn’t hurt that we also get a ton of XP and credits for our work.

  Once we got here, we realized that it was going to be a tougher job than we’d originally thought. The level 11 Dungeon not only had a high time-compression ratio, but it also allowed for a mixture of magic and technology. While this meant our group could use a greater range of powers and weapons, it also meant that we were facing off against a wider variety of opponents that were using similar levels of magic and tech. We learned very quickly after entering this dungeon that, although magic and mechanical technology are allowed here, the dungeon forbids electronics and bullets are pretty useless against undead soldiers. Thankfully, my grenade launcher is completely mechanical, and the fundamental technology that makes it work meets the tech limits of the dungeon: no circuit boards or electronics. It’s not a great weapon to fire when your friends are nearby, so they put me in the back of the group as fire support. That also means, however, that I’m able to protect our rear in situations like these without having to worry about friendly fire. After all, the best way to destroy these soldiers is with good old-fashioned blunt force trauma or magical attacks.

  At first, the level 6-8 undead soldiers appeared in groups of one and two and were barely a challenge for any single member of our group. Then, as we progressed through the dungeon, the undead started to get smarter and better armed. It still wasn’t much of a challenge to progress through the re-imagined version of Atlanta, which contained twisted swamps and empty, diseased-looking plantations. Approaching any of the dilapidated homes usually triggered an area event, and we had to protect the suddenly emerged NPC residents from waves of the undead. While the XP from the fights were decent, the homes also provided a place for us to rest and restore our hit points, mana which fueled our spells, and tech points which fueled our other mart
ial abilities. Additionally, after completing the quest “Save the Southerners” and defending five plantations, we got new information about where the dungeon boss might be.

  So, following the new information we had been given, we headed to one of the last places you’d want to go if you were fighting the undead: a massive overcrowded cemetery. The undead here seem to be the most organized and intelligent that we’ve faced so far, and they will even go so far as to lay traps and set ambushes--which is how we found ourselves in this situation: trying to fight our way up a hill toward a massive mausoleum in the center of the cemetery while avoiding the additional mobs from the sides.

  We know that our respite is over as an explosion is heard from the top of the hill and a moment later a cannon ball explodes through the waist high tombstones one of my team members had taken cover against, cutting him in half. Looking towards the source of the explosion we see a new group of soldiers at the top of the hill with a massive iron cannon pointed down at us.

  Lillian Coke, the person who introduced me to this world of dungeon diving and the only person to have faith that I could be apart of it, also my boss and girlfriend, is leading our team. Even covered in the dirt and viscera of this fight, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. My heart races as the sun glistens off her pale skin as she raises her hand and gives the single for the melee fighters to charge up the hill. Her long blonde hair streams behind her as she leads the attack, bullets shattering against her magically-strengthened full plate armor and her two handed hammer smashes through her foes scattering bone and decayed flesh.

  There’s a cacophony of smoke and gunshots as the organized lines of undead soldiers fire their percussion cap rifles at our group, and the volley hits us. I glance to the corner of my vision and see several group members’ health bars drop as they take fire. Despite the weight of the metal surrounding her, Lillian makes it to the top of the hill before any of the people following her, and she swings her long two-handed war hammer at the enemy line. The weapon crashes into the line of undead soldiers, sending them flying like bowling pins. A soldier tries to stab her with the bayonet attached to his rifle, but it skitters off her platemail. She swiftly responds by smashing her hammer into the soldier’s skull, and a spray of gore and bone explodes behind him as he dies--again. A flurry of XP notifications scroll across the bottom right corner of my vision, but I’ve long since learned to ignore those until after the fighting is done.

  The rest of the team catches up to our leader by the time the first undead are down, and we engage the soldiers in melee combat. I switch out my grenade launcher for a simple war hammer. I normally only do a base damage of 4-5 per hit on the skeletons, but I use my special ability Smash this time for double damage at the cost of tech points. My hammer glows red when I activate the ability, and as I knock back several skeletons, I hear sickening cracks as my war hammer breaks their bones. The monsters’ health only drops about a tenth per blow, and if I wasn’t with a group, I don’t know that I could defeat them all.

  As my group bashes their way through the ranks of the undead, there’s a loud howling sound, and a stream of green light bursts from the mausoleum as it cracks. A wide rent appears in the ground, and a tall thin sickly figure wearing a tattered long dark suit and a wide-brimmed hat rises from the broken earth. As he reaches his full height of eight feet, his bony hands reach up into the air. A nauseating green miasma billows out of the hole he emerged from and then crawls along the ground, encompassing my team and the graveyard surrounding us. The tall undead man cackles evilly, mutters a string of arcane words, and then cries out, “The South will rise again!” There’s a loud rumbling sound, and skeletal hands erupt from the earth as a massive group of level 11 Civil War skeletons rise from their graves ready to do battle.

  My eyes widen at the sight of the necromancer boss and his reinforcements. I unequip the war hammer, and it disappears back into my inventory as I switch back to my grenade launcher. I point my weapon upward at a forty-five-degree angle and listen to the thuds as I pull the trigger six times and launch a volley of grenades over the heads of my teammates and right into the oncoming fighters. There’s a fraction of a second before the explosives go off, and then a wave of red numbers fly into the air along with the body parts of the various undead.

  As I reload my grenade launcher, I note that the explosive force was enough to blow away about half of the enemy, but oddly, the necromancer at the center of the formation did not seem to take any damage. Instead, a translucent shield flashes red as it absorbs the damage from the blasts, stopping me from harming the boss.

  The necromancer raises his right hand and mutters some arcane phrase, and a black energy shoots forth from his hand and strikes Lillian. She screams in pain, and I panic when I see her health bar flash and then start to drain. I try to push through the groups fighting, but I’m not able to get to her. There are just too many people and monsters between me and her. Instead, I charge through a gap that opens up in the ranks of the skeletons to my right only to find myself facing the necromancer. There is enough expression left on his rotted, undead visage that I can see how he delights in hurting Lillian as he drains her life with his spell. Memories of my own recent torment at the hands of a sadistic kidnapper flash through my mind, and I feel my flesh burn with anger as my blood begins to boil. I point my weapon point blank at the monster hurting my girlfriend and pull the trigger six times, sending every grenade I have loaded shooting straight at the creature. The necromancer’s eyes go wide as he sees the projectiles approach, but the grenades slam into his magical shield. While waves form on the shield from their impact, the grenades themselves bounce off, hit the ground and roll back toward me. The world seems to slow as the explosives go off. Shrapnel rips through me, and I’m sent tumbling backward through the air with a series of red numbers floating away from me. Then everything goes black.

  Chapter 2

  I open my eyes and see a cloudy grey sky. Sitting up, I see the floating blue respawn crystal and groan, realizing that I killed myself like an idiot noob. A quick check of my notification confirms it.

  You’ve been killed by Anthony Tinoco.

  Respawn in 3…2…1…

  You’ve respawned at the dungeon Respawn Crystal.

  You lose 15,120 XP. XP needed to level 11: 16,234

  Anthony Tinoco

  Level 10

  Unspent stat points: 0

  Unspent skill points: 01

  XP to next level: 16,234

  Health 250

  Mana 300

  TP350

  Strength 10

  Dexterity 12

  Constitution 15

  Intelligence 20

  Wisdom 25

  Charisma10

  Credits 157

  Skills Level

  Analysis 3

  Armor design 2

  Bludgeoning Weapons 3

  Chemical Mixing 2

  Computer Interface 2

  Computer Knowledge 2

  Cooking 3

  Deception 1

  Dungeon Inspect 3

  Dungeon Mapping 4

  Dungeon Scan 3

  Explosives 5

  Firearm 4

  Gadget 4

  Grenades 3

  Guilt Trip 1

  Handgun 2

  Inspect 7

  Inventory Management 6

  Laser Technology 3

  Mapping 3

  Mental Math 4

  Piano 3

  Piercing Weapons 1

  Ranged Combat 7

  Rifle 4

  Speed Reading 4

  Throw 5

  Trap Making 10

  Vector Analysis 3

  Weapon design 4

  Writing 3

  Abilities

  Camouflage

  Fireball

  Flying Kick

  Ice Needle

  Iron Grip

  Naughty Children

  Roll

  Smash

  Spider C
limb

  Stab

  I groan loudly, frustrated that I made such a stupid mistake. I knew that the shield was there, but my fear got the best of me. Some primal part of me saw the woman I care about being hurt and just had to act. I stand up and look off in the direction I think the battle is in. Watching everyone’s health bars in the corner of my vision, I can see that a few people are struggling, but no one’s near death. Lillian’s health is down to halfway, but it’s holding steady there. I feel like such a moron, knowing that my team is still fighting and I’m here at the beginning of the dungeon useless, because I killed myself.

  There’s no point in me trying to get back to the fight, so I decide to watch it unfold through the notifications. I have to adjust my User Interface settings, but in a moment, a blue screen appears in front of me labeled ‘Group Combat Log,’ which shows me a text-based version of all the damage received and dished out by my group as well as when a monster is killed. It would be such a distraction to keep up with information this way in the middle of a fight, which is why I normally don’t use this function. At the moment, however, it’s like a window into the fight without actually being there.

  From the text, I can tell that my group is dealing out way more damage than they’re taking and I’m relieved to see that our healer is keeping Lillian alive while she focuses on the necromancer’s magical shield. The dastardly necromancer casts several spells I don’t recognize, and he seems to have some aura that is draining small amounts of health from my group every second. Once I see Lillian break through his shield, I shout and cry out, excited to know that the fight is heading towards its conclusion. Information streams past me even more quickly as the rest of the group finishes off the summoned minions and everyone focuses on the boss. I worry for a moment as burst of surprise AOE spells cast by the desperate necromancer drops the group’s health and it’s a race to see if my team can take out the necromancer before he finishes them off. I cry out, “Woo Hoooo,” as I see the last notifications.