by Arthur Stone
“Yeah. What is that? It looks like a river delta. A very intricate river delta.”
“It doesn’t matter what it is. Could be Chinese rice fields, for all we care. But that’s the place you have to reach. We’ll go together, of course. I’ll explain what we need to do in detail, but for now finish up your beer, because it’s time for another one. I’ve already gone through four. You can never pump your Alcoholism too fast, remember that. Come on, drink up. I’ll tell you the most important thing to remember right here and now. Here, take this can. Ugh, that’s so warm it’s disgusting. Anyway, us two going across the border is a terrible idea. For a move like that, you need a whole team, and that’s what I’m assembling. Five days from now, we’re assembling a short distance from here. I’ll give you the coordinates. You’ll be meeting a few of the others. There, you’ll get further instructions and move towards our main meeting point together. As long as you’re not stupid, you can pump to level 18 in that area I just showed you. If you don’t hit 18, well, then I was wrong about you. That would mean you’re a reliable guy who doesn’t know how to level up. And that’s just not compatible with the business I have coming. I’ll have to look for someone else with promise. If that happens, don’t even come to the meeting point, and forget you ever knew my nickname. That’s your minimum task. Level 18. But that’s not all. If I’m even half right about you, you’re capable of more. And more will make things much easier, for me and you both. I’ll let you join the team without question if you’re level 18, but if you’re level 20, I’ll add you with such overwhelming joy that I’ll treat the whole group to a beer.”
“My total stats right now are 81. To hit level 20, I need another 19. At this level, I’ll have to massacre rafflers en masse to hit that in five days.”
“I honestly don’t give a damn how you do it. Don’t think of 18 as a level. Think of it as reaching adulthood. In the country I came from, 18 was the age of majority. The age you became a man. The age of unrestricted marriage. The age you could vote for which band of thieves would rule the country next. So don’t tell anyone about all the beer I’ve served you, because as far as I’m concerned, you’re still underage. Got it? I need a Cheater who’s come of age. Hit level 18, I’ll bring you on without a word. Hit level 20... And you’ll be starting out ahead. That’s the kind of player I really like. How’s that?”
A red message appeared in front of Cheater’s eyes.
March has offered you the quest Pump or Chump. To complete the quest, you must raise your base level to 18 within five days. Bonus objective: to increase your reward, reach level 20 within five days. If you agree, clearly say or think the word “yes.”
Cheater’s jaw dropped. “A quest...
From you? But you’re a player, not an NPC. Right?”
“I’m the man who is your only hope of any future with your darling Kitty. Now accept the quest already, and we’ll down this beer and set off to see the sights.
Chapter 24
Life Seven: Water, Water
No matter how desperately Cheater tried to control his breath, he faltered. His inhalations and exhalations became louder and louder—and did him less and less good. And no wonder. He was running on rough terrain. The grass was thick, and knee-high at times. Fallen trees and garbage were often in his way, sourced from the gigantic landfill he and March had been skirting around before things went to hell.
Twenty-five or thirty runners were breathing down the back of their necks. Runners were no challenge in single combat, and Cheater could even take out three without breaking a sweat. March was much stronger and could probably take out a dozen while sipping on a beer.
A mob like this was another story.
Destroying them all was physically impossible. The crowd would knock them down, dogpile them, crush them, bite and scratch and tear them. And even if they escaped, they would be wounded. Even a light wound hit you with a temporary debuff to your combat capabilities, and players did all they could to avoid that. So after taking out a trio of the ghouls, Cheater and March had taken off running, fleeing from the dozens of ghouls who had come at the call of their ill-fated vanguard. The landfill had been full of ghouls. Cheater had no clue what they had been doing there, but they had emerged in a quick and semi-orderly fashion.
As he noisily plowed through another band of dense bushes, Cheater nearly fell. He looked to the left. Nothing good. The only interesting object was the rusted shell of a burnt-out tank, its caterpillar tracks stripped and its weapon pointing skyward. A look to the right made him want to swear loudly, but that would be more of a waste of breath than usual.
“March, more runners.
A dozen of them! They’re coming in from all sides, and I can’t go farther.”
“You can,” his companion barked back.
“No. I’m going to stop and fight them off!”
“Fight them off? Idiot! This is just the vanguard. Behind them, a bunch of rafflers, and probably worse. We have to keep running or they’ll trample us clean into the ground!”
“But I...”
“You can do it, Cheat. Just follow my lead. Half a mile more, that’s all we need.”
Damn your bullshit secrecy! Why just half a mile more? Why not a dozen? Was March lying? Just trying to encourage him? Or did he know something Cheater didn’t?
Running at this speed with a Stamina meter barely above zero was like taking his first swimmer’s test in full ceremonial armor. Still, he would try.
Grass. More grass. Bushes. More bushes. And more bushes. At last, though, the underbrush cleared out and they hit some trees, for the first time during their whole run. He saw the lush tops of old poplars up ahead. Perhaps there was a decent forest up ahead, somewhere they could hide.
But Cheater had no idea how he could manage that with his Stamina at zero. In fact, he had no idea how he had not collapsed long ago. Maybe it was faith in March’s words that had encouraged him to press on, his legs running on pure hope.
A meadow filled with short grass opened up in front of them. It was here that the huge poplars dwelled. The earth dove downwards to a narrow body of water, the opposite bank of which was covered in reeds.
“Come on Cheat, one last burst,” March announced as he went straight for the shore.
Were they going to swim? That wasn’t the worst idea. The beasts hated water. Cheater had dropped his monstrous rifle and his stuffed backpack at the very start of the chase, and lost most of his other weighty items along the way. Their loss might have driven him to tears, but what good was plunder to a corpse? As a bonus, he would not sink like a stone once he was in the water.
But there was no need to swim. A cove on their side, which was clearly manmade, housed a large boat.
March managed to jump into it at full speed, keeping his footing only thanks to a pole he grabbed that stood next to the boat, anchored in the ground. “Come on, Cheat!” he screamed.
“All aboard!”
His protege leaped awkwardly after him, landing with a thud on a tarp that hid some sort of cargo. His side crashed into something pointy and hard, causing him to gasp loudly in agony. March pushed off from the bottom so hard that the boat was a few yards from land within milliseconds. The runners were at the edge of the slope then, but they could only grumble sadly as they watched.
After another push from the bottom, March yanked the pole out and launched it like a spear. It struck one of the ghouls in the stomach, causing him to keel over, roll down the slope, and crash into the water.
March chuckled deeply. “If you sharpen these up enough, they’re good at killing things.
Cheat, hoist the anchor rope before it pulls us back.”
“What?” Cheater gasped.
“Ugh, forget it. I’ll just do it. Alright, so what did we just learn from today’s lesson?”
“...lesson?”
“Come on. Didn’t you see what I just did? When you leave a boat somewhere, always place it so you can get away from the shore as quickly as possi
ble. Don’t forget that. It’s the simplest way I know to save your own skin.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“You look tired.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Well, you can rest in the next world. Here, there are things to be killed. Come on, grab your bow and send these bastards to infected hell.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to pump your character, of course. Shoot the ugliest ones. Their levels are the highest. I doubt the little ones will give you much, especially since you’ll get penalized for my help.”
“They’ll barely give me anything,” Cheater said through ragged breath. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Have you forgotten why we’re here? Come on then, pick up your bow and get to work.”
Cheater regretted not dropping the quiver and the bow. Arrows were pretty cheap, and the bound weapon would have come back to him. He could have been resting right now.
Shooting arrows from a standing position on a rocking boat was an awkward affair. But one after another, runners fell down the shore. Then he took out a raffler, which had knocked a walker from his path just to stand at the edge with the rest and grumble in annoyance.
After Cheater’s twelfth shot, the ghouls started realizing that they were wasting their time and decided to look for new adventures. They ascended the slope with surprising efficiency, and Cheater only had time to take out a couple more before they were gone.
“Satisfied?” he asked March, who was listening to the rustle of the fish and the sounds of withdrawing infecteds.
“Not really. You didn’t shoot enough arrows. But you didn’t miss a single one. Nice accuracy. Now we can get out of here.”
March raised anchor, slammed the oars into the oarlocks, turned the boat, and set straight out away from the shore.
Cheater put down his bow and grinned. “Why did you even anchor the boat in the cove?
What if an elite had shown up? I hear they can swim pretty fast.”
“Not using your brain again. The water could have risen and taken the boat out who knows where. That happens a lot with all of the resets. I would have had no idea where to even look for it.”
“Right,” Cheater nodded. “You can’t tie it to something ashore, either. The resulting delay could be fatal. Every second we had in that situation was golden.”
“There you go. Starting to use your head instead of asking dumb questions.”
“But there was another option I’m surprised you missed.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pole.”
“What was wrong with the pole?”
“You stuck that pole in the bottom. That way, you could pull it out easily. Well, if you tied the boat to that pole, it wouldn’t have floated away.”
“Still risky. Like I said, reboots can cause massive surges in the water level. Sometimes even an anchor won’t keep your boat in place. Oh hey, look at that beauty!”
A true monster was now prowling the shore. Not an elite yet, but stronger than a trampler. One of those monsters that you only dared face with the most powerful guns, and even then only at great risk. Seeing its prey escaping, the beast moved through the bushes along the shore, branches cracking as it tried to move parallel to the boat.
“It intends to follow us,” Cheater noted.
“Let it. It’s not going to come in. They hate getting wet. Alright, now take a look at your map.”
“I’m there.”
“See where we’re at? The edge of a big water system. This place is a maze of lakes, canals, and even swamps. All in all, it’s eighteen miles long, and five miles across at the widest point. This is where you’ll get some experience.”
“Killing toads? How much experience do they give you?”
“I assume you mean frogs. Toads live on land.”
“They’re basically the same.”
“Look at your map again. Use your eyes this time, not whatever you were using just now. There are no cities in the area, but there are lots of villages, both large and small. Some are located right up on the water. The System has joined a dozen reservoir clusters together here, creating a maze that would stump Ariadne herself. But that’s because Ariadne doesn’t have this map. I do. You know what I’m getting at?”
“Yeah. I have the map too.”
“Ding ding ding! Meaning you can become top dog here. Just use the same tactics we used back there. Nothing original. Just shoot ghouls from the boat, simple as that. Figure out how to lure them to the bank if you need to. That ‘figure out’ part is called thinking. You should give it a try now and then. If something massive appears, you can get yourself killed, you can try to kill it, or you can just run away. For that purpose, you have these oars and two working motors. One runs on a mix of oil and gas, and there are four cans of fuel for it here. That should be plenty. It’s not very powerful, but it’s relatively quiet. ‘Relatively’ meaning ‘still loud.’ If you need to operate in silence, grab the oars, or tried out the other motor. It’s electric, with a solar-rechargeable battery. The battery is large but collapsible. If you need help figuring any of this out, you can ask me in the chat, and I might answer. There aren’t any weapons in the boat, but there are some snacks, some medicine, a sleeping bag, an awning in case it rains, a gas stove, and numerous other amenities. You’re basically a tourist anyway. So you can hold out in here for five days. But remember, what do you need to do?”
“Level up.”
“Right. I’ll mark this point on the map so you can return for these ghouls in a couple of hours. Shoot any scavengers and gut their sporesacs. And don’t worry about the ones that were running after us; they won’t stand around for long. After that, go look for other leveling opportunities. You could spend all day here going up and down the coast and across the river, shooting groups of ghouls without worrying too much about an ambush. Stables are all far away, ant the clusters here are poor, so few players are interested in this location. You have little chance of running into any. So keep clearing the shore and gaining experience. Remember: be at the meeting point five days from now. I’ll show you where to drop me off.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“I should have left a while ago. I’m out of time here. Preparations to make.”
Chapter 25
Life Seven: Adrenaline Pump
At first glance, it seemed like the most promising building of all. This small town was little more than a single street and a few willows running along the water. The houses were low income and generally unremarkable, except for this one.
It was a sizable home. Surrounded by a tall fence, it had a pool and even a sauna, which made Cheater want to take a nice hot steam. A two-car garage and a big yard rounded out the property. In addition to the gentle slope to the water’s edge and the pier and boat shed. The boat itself was still tied down to the pier. It was an aluminum alloy craft, of good quality and with fishing rod mounts, and life vests of several sizes. This family had liked to take the kids out fishing.
Perhaps they also liked to hunt, and hunters had guns. These thoughts came to Cheater as he drifted past the village.
It was a promising place for finding targets to pump up his stats on, too. He was going in.
First, he drove in circles with the engine roaring loudly, a great gas-guzzling dinner bell for the whole neighborhood to hear.
It didn’t take the guests long. They rushed up and down the shore as he circled, flapping their arms about absurdly and stretching them out as if they seriously intended to grab the boat from afar. Cheater kept going around and around, and the infecteds kept coming.
Nine runners and one raffler in all. There was another one in between—either an advanced runner or a novice raffler. It was missing one arm at the elbow and had grown so filthy that the dirt caked on its skin could have counted as an extra defensive layer.
Mockingly waving at the beasts, Cheater abruptly turned the rudder to push the boat in between two litt
le islands positioned near the coast. There he found a place none of the beasts could see him, shut down the engine, and switched to the oars. He might have switched to the electric motor, but this was the second day of bad weather already, so he had been unable to charge the battery. Oars were better, anyway. Good for stretching his muscles after sitting for so long,
besides being the quietest option. The last thing he needed was for the ghouls to hear him. They could keep fretting over him at the edge of the village that was farthest from his target house.
* * *
Remembering March’s advice, Cheater anchored the boat under the shade of a linden tree that stretched out low over the water’s surface. He also stuck the pole in the muddy surface and tied the boat to it with a long cord. That would help him push off quickly if needed.
Once he was ashore, he made his way stealthily towards the village and was at the edge in two minutes. He passed straight by the first house, which looked hopelessly poor. Perhaps there was something good inside, but probably not. Time was precious, and he had to spend it on the most promising prospects.
He continued to move in secret from one yard to the next. The fence gate on the side facing the water was open, so there was no need to climb the fence and risk being seen. He had stuck to cover well, as the shore was lined not only with the willow trees but with a variety of other trees and shrubs.
The house’s door was not just open; it was smashed. Large but distinctly non-human bones littered both the inside and outside of the entrance area. Probably dogs, since he had noticed a dog house in the yard. Infecteds loved any meat, including dogs. Cats were delicacies, to the point that most infecteds would try to chew away the trunk of any tree in which a feline was taking refuge.
The rooms of the house smelled terrible. The half-eaten corpse of the house’s old owner was somewhere around, or the smell of spoiled food was wafting out from the refrigerator. Used to it by now, Cheater hardly grimaced. Soon his expectations were confirmed: One of the rooms displayed a picture of man posing with a gun in his hands, and a stuffed duck hung on the wall opposite.