Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

“Peace be upon you. I am Haroun. Welcome to my home. Please be seated.” The man was dark skinned with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard that might once have been jet black. He pushed aside the door flap and led the way inside a tent that John would previously have considered a marquee.

John, Evie and a Bio-Bob took seats on plush cushions wrapped in silk. The interior was no less lavish than the exterior but it contained many idiosyncratic inconsistencies. To one side an area contained a BME mobile kitchen unit on top of which an ornate, antique looking kettle boiled, steam hissing from the spout. On the opposite wall hung a paper thin view screen that currently showed a map of the Line across the north and south of the Sahara.

The centre of the room was occupied by an intricately embroidered rug that was easily five metres on each side upon which were scattered the luxurious cushions that the team lowered themselves onto as their host moved to the kettle and began making coffee.

They sat in silence as their host moved a small folding table into the centre of the seating area and began laying out cups, fresh baked bread, butter and, for some reason, a bowl of salt.

Bob reached out and took a piece of bread, slathered some butter on then carefully sprinkled some salt on it before taking a huge bite. With his other hand he reached for his drink and took a sip of the bitter black concoction.

It’s a guest rite. Eat some bread and salt, then drink the coffee. It’s a promise he won’t hurt us and we won’t hurt him, Bob sent to John and Evie via their implants. The pair did as instructed and once they had both eaten and drank their host smiled, revealing gleaming white teeth.

“Peace be upon you. What can this humble Berber do to assist the Carnival?” Haroun asked.

“We’re looking to deal with the worms,” said John. Despite not leaving the UK for years before the Advent, he had travelled a fair bit in his younger years and had always been fascinated by the ancient customs of other cultures. This Haroun must have been exposed to modernity before the advent, the integration of post-system tech in his tent suggested he wasn’t against it, but had fallen into the old ways of his tribal ancestors for some reason since the system arrived.

“Allah be praised! At last the Signatories will act! That will not be easy however. They are simple to bait out, disturb the sand in the deep desert and they will come, but they will flee deep underground if they face a dangerous foe,” Haroun took a long sip of his coffee and smacked his lips. “Smoke?” He offered a carved wooden box that revealed a row of cigars when he lifted the lid open.

“Don’t mind if I do, but I would like to offer a small gift in return for your hospitality. John?” Bob looked to his friend who blipped in a cigar for the old man and a rollie for himself. They both lit their smokes with a thumbs up while Evie fanned her face and grumbled. John had brought in an additional cigar to Bob who offered it to Haroun, the old man accepted it with thanks. He put away his case and brought out a pre-system zippo to light it.

“Most generous.” he blew out a cloud of smoke. “The problem is containment once they are engaged. Flyers make excellent ambushers for this type of beast. They are sensitive to vibrations so a small ground team can draw them in to be attacked from above by a surprise element. You have studied them?” he asked.

“We know as much as anyone. Animated sand. Fifty metres long, four wide on average but there have been sightings of much bigger ones from afar. They can be chopped up but their bodies flow back together if given the chance. Around level forty as a rule. We were considering glassing the desert. How would you feel about that?” asked John, conscious that this old man represented a culture older than his own who might take badly to such a dramatic approach in their homeland.

“That would be ill advised. Turning the bled into a mirror would have profound ecological consequences. Besides, the worms would quickly move to the extremities and begin making a new desert around it. We would not be able to contain so many moving at once. Our only advantage has been that they can be driven back. When they surface to drive the sands north or south we attack and they retreat into the heart of the bled, the deep desert.”

“So bait them out, stop them running and kill them one by one?” asked Evie.

“Yes, girl.” Evie scowled at his response. She wasn’t used to being patronised. Nobody took that tone with the Stormwitch anymore. She bit back her answer and leaned back on her cushion, trying to smooth her expression back to neutral.

“You have some self control. Apologies, Stormwitch. I was testing you.”

“You didn’t test the blokes,” she muttered. “So how do the things hold themselves together if they’re made of sand? Maybe we can disrupt that mechanism and kill them quickly.”

“An astute question.” Haroun's voice was respectful now. “We believe it is some form of geomancy. These beasts have some access to a power similar to the Earth Mover Guilds members. They can break things down to sand. Think of it as very rapid erosion. It’s how they grow the desert.”

“Anything below level forty two is not going to be a problem,” said John. “those ones will go into orbit or get cooked. Or blasted apart. It’s only the higher level ones we need to plan for.”

“We have never seen the tribulation worm,” said Haroun. “Perhaps for the best. If we were to face one of these creatures that was at such a high level there would be little we could do. Merely containing the activities of its children is almost more than we can handle. There is a reason no one wants to serve on this Line. The Imperium send handfuls of second rate troops, with insulting reluctance. Otherwise everyone on the line is North African. Allah is on our side so we have not been defeated but the lack of external support is troubling. Even the Caliphate, brothers in the faith, sends the absolute minimum and only from their Coptic Egyptian forces. There is not much Essence to be farmed here so we are left to struggle. The desert tribes are used to such disregard.”

“Well, we’re going to change that today. Perhaps killing enough of its young will bait the tribulation to the surface?” asked Bob.

“Perhaps.” Haroun shrugged. “It is rare that we kill one of the beasts as they are cowardly.”

“There aren’t many cowardly monsters out there. Normally they’re easy to drive into a killing frenzy. How many in total would you say there are?” asked Evie.

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands. Not more than ten thousand. They seem to require a large area for each creature and are not sociable. Our flyers have witnessed them duelling in the bled. They fight for territory but do not slay each other. The loser retreats towards the water-lands and tries to expand the desert. When they are repelled by our holy fighters the worms retreat and more infighting occurs amongst them.”

“I think I have the basis of a plan,” said Bob, he rose to his feet and put the cup down on the small table. John and Evie followed suit.

“Will you require the assistance of the Bedouin?” asked Haroun as he stood in response.

“Not if it works. Thank you for your hospitality. Peace be upon you,” Bob replied with a small bow.

“May Allah bless your enterprise,” Haroun said simply, giving Bob a nod of his head. John teleported them back to the disc Flash was maintaining just south of Kasserine on the edge of the desert.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Sam. Evie summoned her own disc and moved to hover nearby. John blipped Winston over to her disc. The council representative had offered to act as an observer for the next part of their rebellion against the council. Mindscar had reluctantly agreed on the condition she got to debrief him. Winston had refused at first but Mindscar had sworn he wouldn’t be harmed in the process as long as he didn’t resist her intrusion into his mind.

“Well, the summons to the council is this evening so we need another win. This time we need to not destroy half a continent as that is going to be their big complaint about South America. We bait the worms up and pull them together. The worms will fight each other. Any that try to run we blip back into the fray. Hopefully that will draw out the big one. Then we nuke the babies, seal the sand around the big one and whittle it down. Then it’s home for crumpets and medals.”

“And a bollocking from the chief mind witch,” complained Evie.

“I’m not sure how bad that’s going to be. It might just end up being medals all round. Somehow what we’re up to is all over the Bobnet and the council summons for censure got leaked as well. Can’t imagine how that happened,” said Bob cheerfully. “All the lowbies are rooting for us and are pretty pissed off at the council for threatening to collar us.”

“I said that in the heat of the moment! You know I wouldn't, even if I bloody could!” snapped Winston.

“Still, somehow it got leaked and you’re the council rep on this mission,” Bob smirked at the man who squirmed and glanced around angrily. Bob felt a pang of remorse at putting the kid in this position but this was do or die. If they had to break fully with the council it would be catastrophic for everyone on earth. No portals, no Bobnet and there wouldn’t be much anyone could do to them. The Carnival could retreat to Mars if they had to and portal in when and where they wanted.

“Bring in the BFOs and let’s get this show on the road?” sighed Flash. His bmails from his sister had become increasingly enraged. Normally it was Pete who caught the flack from Claire but she seemed to have focussed all her energy into explaining to him, at length, what a terrible thing they had done.

“Claire will chill out, Flash. The Agrarian Association are already regrowing the now ant free jungle. She’ll see it was the only way to root out the nests in the end, mate,” said Evie in a soft voice. Flash smiled but shrugged ruefully.

“She is on a tear right now though. I’m getting new messages almost every hour!”

“BFOs are moving towards the battleground. We’ll need Sam clones all round the desert. Sam, conjure a thousand or so please. Then John can position you and they all run into the centre. I’ll put pings on your maps but if we aim for Ghat, on the Libyan border, as the place to have the big worm fight. Relatively central and hopefully the big one occupies the centre of the desert. If it doesn’t draw out the big one, we’ll at least have culled the majority of the worms.”

As clones began to appear on the ground below them and rapidly multiplied, John did a rapid circuit of the Sahara. He kept his mask sealed. His suit was air conditioned and it was hot outside. Sweating in a mostly sealed set of armour wasn’t fun and he understood why ancient desert warriors tended to opt for the lightest armour they could get away with.

As he reappeared with the team he began blipping the now thousand strong army of Sams into position. A minute later he looked up and nodded to the rest.

“On your marks. Get set. GO!” cackled Bob.

“You’re not funny old man,” muttered Sam from Flash’s disc.

“Let’s head for Ghat while we wait for the clones to run the longest desert sprint in history,” Bob said a bit more soberly.

They appeared floating in the sky above a sand strewn wasteland.

“I thought you said this was a town?” asked Raoul. Since the attack at the Topping he had never completely turned off his ability. He stood a little over two and a half metres tall now, claiming to have “gone analogue” with the implant that controlled his power, transforming it from a normal man to a hundred metre tall giant digital switch into something he could operate on a sliding scale. Various Bob’s were furiously trying to research how the hell he managed it but as the implant had been absorbed by his body they were coming up short with replicating the process.

“It was. Only a thousand people or so lived here before the Advent. Now… it’s, well, that.” Bob waved an arm at the parched desert below them. The dunes had long since reclaimed anything made by humanity. The BFOs became visible on the horizon, gleaming arcs of reflection showing in the west as they flew rapidly over to join the team.

“I’ve got some early bites,” said Sam. “These things are fast in the sand.”

“Can’t you keep ahead of the wee bastards?” asked Reg.

“Mostly. I’ll probably lose a few clones before we get them all here though.”

John pulled up a feed from the nearest Bob-sat and zoomed down to follow Sam's run. The clones in the east and west had started before the ones in the north and south as they had a much greater distance to cover. Despite the superhuman speeds Sam’s clones could achieve this would be a marathon, not a sprint.

The clones bounded across the sand in long leaps as though they were on the moon. Dust puffed from dune crest to dune crest as she covered the ground faster than ought to be possible. Behind the clones dust clouds rose as the worms surfaced and tried to chase down the interlopers.

“How many are we dragging in?” asked John after a few minutes.

“We’ve got six hundred on the hook at this point but the prediction is most of the buggers live near the centre. They’ll be the strongest ones as well so these are the little fish,” replied Bob.

“Big bastards,” muttered Reg who was also watching the feed on his implant.

“Meh, the Shadeworm was bigger,” replied Sam absently.

“Aye but that fecker couldn’t just hide in the sand!” snapped Reg.

“Oh don’t be a baby. This won’t be easy but it’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing,” said Evie. Reg scowled at her briefly then sealed his mask against the heat, hiding his face.

“How’s Ryn doing?” asked Evie to pass the time as they waited.

“Good. She should hit level ten soon. The whole team is coming together well. They’ve all been refitted with pyroclast armour so she can teleport her mates about without frying them. They’re opening up the last slots for recruits as well. They should be a full team in the next couple of days if they can find good candidates,” John replied absently, his attention glued to the feed. Three Sams had been caught unawares by worms rising beneath them unexpectedly and clones that hadn’t picked up a follower had diverted to pick up the stragglers.

“Bruiser in Pyroclast? That’s not ideal. Much less protection,” said Flash.

“Yep but they are both mobile bruisers, not tanks, and the option of being teleported makes it worth the downgrade. They’re also getting secondary upgrades, wrist blades, sensory enhancements, rapid healing and the full works. Things are falling apart and they need to be strong,” said John.

“That’s going to upset a lot of people. Those kinds of enhancements are heavily controlled and not just handed out to kids,” said Winston. John turned to the man and his mask retracted. “Ok! I’m sure it will be fine!” he stammered. He never wanted to see those cold blue eyes look at him that way again.

They fell into silence and watched as the clones raced across the desert. From orbit it appeared as though hundreds of sandstorms were rushing towards them as they waited at the eye of the hurricane. When the worms were only a few miles away, clearly visible to the naked eye John minimised the feed and looked around. Every direction was masked in a rising column of dust and sand. It was as though the world was constricting around them, getting smaller and smaller as the beasts they had baited here closed in.

“Maybe we should go up a bit?” asked Winston nervously.

“We’re half a mile up, dude. You’re perfectly safe,” said Evie.

“Yeah but-” Winston’s reply was cut off as the worms began to jostle each other. Flurries of sand flew hundreds of metres into the air as the behemoths clashed. They looked like sand falling sideways down a glass tube when they moved normally. Dull orange and yellow grains somehow stayed together as they flowed across the desert. At the front end was an inverted conical maw, lined with a whirlpool of grains that glowed faintly red, as though some internal combustion powered the monsters.

They slammed into each other causing clouds of the grains that constituted their bodies to fly away, only to creep back to the main form along the ground. Soon the Carnival couldn’t make out any details on the fights. Worms were knocking each other apart only to reform and try again. Whenever one tried to retreat, John would blip that monster into the centre of the melee, forcing it to fight for its life.

After half an hour the fighting had slowed down. The worms were now almost completely focussed on digging their way underground but John was ever watchful. When one tried to dig he would drop it on another that was resting on the surface, resulting in a brief but brutal struggle.

“Any of them killed each other yet?” asked Sam. She had dismissed her clones once their run was done.

“One or two maybe. They seem to melt into each other rather than kill each other, like those two there. It’s really-” Bob began before falling silent.

The worms had stopped trying to dig or fight. They all began to flow into each other, forming clumps of larger worms at first before moving towards each other like mercury connecting on glass. In a matter of moments only one worm was left. It curled around itself, miles long and a hundred metres wide.

“Ah. They were all one monster. Who’d have thought? Ok boys and girls. Let’s nuke the bastard!” said Bob cheerfully.

The beast rose up, reaching into the sky like a cobra coming out of a sandy basket, and looked down on them with its infernal maw hovering above their heads. Reg reacted first and as he flexed his power it slumped, falling past them and failing to engulf the team.

The sky boomed as lightning fell, peppering the length of its body with blasts that fused the flowing sand into blocks. Vic released her sunfire, focussing a series of CME attacks along its length that began to melt the grains in the coiled body together. Flash and Evie created overlapping discs of force beneath the thing that made it thrash as it tried to dig its way into the desert to hide and heal.

“Danger close! Cover your eyes!” called Bob. The Carnival quickly activated the light filters in their masks and Winston threw himself down and curled into a ball to try and hide his face.

From the BFOs bars of light blinked on and off. Each one stretched down from the sky and smote the worm and the surrounding desert. Sand turned to glass and partially bonded to the worm's body. Even with the filters at max it reminded John of when he’d approached the sun for the first time. He blinked to clear the afterimages and began opening portals to slice chunks of the worm away as it writhed and forced parts of its body out into space.

With a happy yell Raoul leapt off Flash’s disc and fell to earth. As he dropped he grew to his full size and smashed down on a thick coil of the beast, driving his spear deep into a section that had been fused together and sending cracks reaching out in all directions. Then he lay about him with his sword, going into a frenzy that threw up chunks and clouds of still flowing sand as the others worked to fuse and port the beast apart in chunks.

Team report:

Reformed Sandworm killed (level 52): 1

Essence per kill: 85000

Essence gained per team member: 85000

“This is bullshit. We’re never going to level again! There aren’t enough monsters!” snarled Evie. The fight had dragged on for another half an hour and they were all exhausted.

“There’s the wasps?” said Flash.

“I fucking hate the wasps,” Evie grumbled.