Kapitel 32: Preparations
Xan and his companions finished making their preparations for the attack about an hour ahead of schedule. Poole prepared a late dinner. Xan had informed him they probably wouldn't have much of a chance at a break for the entire night. It was a good idea to eat, relax, and have enough rest for the night of fighting ahead of them.
Xan reclined in a chair and sipped some tea Poole prepared. Yahn the Healer smoked a water pipe and Poole, for once, was quietly sitting doing nothing. Xan insisted he also rests. During the quiet before the storm, Xan introduced a few artifacts he crafted. By now, even Poole understood Xan wasn't just some savage swordmaster from the lands of the rivers. He had a sophisticated and subtle intellect. He was capable of producing one fantastic artifact after another. Otrera had protested his approach to the night's activities. She once again informed him relying on technology and not his martial skill to solve his problems was a severe violation of the rules. Xan ignored her.
As they sat near one another relaxing, Xan got up and brought over some artifacts for them to look at. "We don't know what we'll be facing tonight, but we can make some guesses. I've produced a few artifacts that can work against a wide variety of enemies. Whether those enemies are humans, beasts, demons, or immortals," Xan said.
"To begin with, I've created new glasses for all three of us. These glasses will help us see in the dark, track enemies, and can identify the kind of enemy we are facing and suggest a countermeasure. There are some creatures whose natures are obvious but others who seem human but are not. These glasses will help us identify them and their weaknesses.
We faced Werewolves last night. Where there are werewolves there are almost always vampires. Vampires are the lords of the creatures of the night. There is also a possibility we'll face zombies. Zombies are very useful for besieging towns and cities. They are hard to kill and quickly infect others, so they grow their army as they fight. If we do fight zombies tonight then we'll want to identify the bokor. Kill the bokor, our problems are solved.
These are our three most likely enemies tonight. The glasses will help us identify what or who we are fighting and can suggest countermeasures. Next, I have produced two more of the revolvers of the same make as Yahn's. I've also created a variety of new types of bullets. Depending on what kind of creatures we're facing, some bullets will be more effective than others. For large numbers of enemies, I have created a variety of grenades. The grenades are marked as 1 through 5. Your glasses will tell you which type to use. The same goes for the bullets. Finally, I have an assortment of swords, axes, and other primitive weapon types. The discs we put up earlier will activate a sticky field. The sticky field will act as both a force field keeping our enemies out and away from us; any enemy that touches it will become stuck to it. Our weapons can attack out of the field but they can't attack in," Xan said.
"Good lord man, how did you make so many weapons?" Yahn the Healer shouted in shock.
"I didn't create these things one by one. I created machine fabricators and they created everything I needed. The important thing is to try to last until the morning. I think our enemies will leave by dawn if they don't have success during the night," Xan said.
Both Poole and Yahn were very impressed by Xan's preparations. They put on their glasses which instructed them which weapons they should arm themselves with first. The last hour came to an end. The strangeness of the night increased. Wailing and grunting sounds could be heard.
"Poole, Yahn, let's head down to the lobby. If anything tries to enter from the top we'll be notified through our glasses. Notice in the lower left-hand corner of your glasses a circle with moving bright dots. That is a map with indicators of moving friends and foes around you. You are the central dot. Yellow, green, and blue dots represent friends while red dots represent hostiles. Kill the red dots. Let's go," he said.
The trio descended the stairs armed with their weapons and outfitted with their strange glasses. The owner of the inn saw them and ran up to them in greeting. "Sirs, I'm sorry to tell you but we'll be under attack soon and you shouldn't try to leave. It's much too dangerous," the owner said.
"I'm aware of what's going on. We aren't trying to leave, we're here to fight," Xan said. The owner was surprised, but he was too worried about the evening's battle. He merely nodded and went back to his position in preparation for the attack.
Many people from the town huddled together in the Inn abandoning their homes in the hope that more people meant more safety. Xan knew that it depended on what was attacking them. Those present were lucky, they happened to choose the one place in the town Xan was protecting with his bizarre artifacts.
The door to the Inn started to moan as if something were pushing against it. Xan fished into his pocket and pulled out a small rectangular object with rounded corners and buttons on it. It looked like an electronic key for a car. He didn't immediately press the button, he wanted to see what was attacking. The door burst open and a whitened figure stumbled into the room. Countless shadows could be seen behind it. "Zombies," Xan said. He almost preferred fighting werewolves over zombies. Werewolves would be limited in number while zombies could enter a town like a tide and those unfortunate enough to be in their path would become part of the tide.
"Everyone, step back! Don't let those things bite you, they're zombies!" Xan cried out as he pushed a button on his little box. The sticky field was activated but nearly ten zombies entered the room before it fully activated. "Step back, we'll take care of these," Xan said.
Everyone did as he said. They instinctively feared these creatures and if someone else wanted to fight them, why not let them? Xan loaded type two bullets to his gun and shot at the crowd of zombies. The shot was an area effect shot. It landed in the center mass of the group and hit all of them with a strange energy wave. The zombies trembled and screamed but fell to the ground.
Xan ran over to the zombies and following the indicator on his glasses he examined the first zombie he came upon. "Yahn, Poole, come over here, quickly!" Xan yelled. Yahn and Poole practically flew to Xan's side.
"What is it, Elam?" Yahn asked quickly.
"Don't kill the zombies," he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. "If we can disable them we can save them. These zombies can be reverted to humans if we remove the control node," he said.
"Control node?" Yahn asked.
"Look at your display in the glasses. Focus on the zombie in front of us, you should see a spot on the body of the zombie that's glowing white-hot. Pull that out of the zombie's body and it will revert to humans. The zombie bokor installed a control node in it. Be quick, my shot won't keep them out for long. Yahn found the control node and removed it. Poole heard the instructions and also helped remove control nodes from the other zombies. Xan removed a few and within a few minutes, all of the zombies had their control nodes removed.
"Elam, these control nodes are teeth?" Yahn the healer said in confusion.
"Indeed, the zombie bokor bites people and the teeth converts them to zombies and acts as a receiver for his orders. Remove the node and save the person. It's hard to find the nodes without the glasses. It's better to save these people than to kill them," Xan said.
"Who are these poor souls," Yahn the Healer asked.
"They're the missing townspeople!" the Inn owner said in surprise.
"That's right, and we'll try to save as many of them as possible, but I don't think zombies will be our only problem tonight," Xan said. Just when he finished speaking a huge booming sound could be heard.
"Just as I thought, it's here!" Xan said.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein