by R K Billiau
He gave a few punches and kicks out to the closest zombies, then started away, the horde following him as planned. He made it out of the glade and slowed, allowing Cora and the horde to follow. I watched as he jump-kicked another zombie then ran away again. Cora stared at Madison and I, eyes squinted in what I assumed was anger and not just overly bright sun. Then like magic her skin shifted to the brown of her Camouflage skill, and she took off after Kai.
I gave them a few minutes to gain some distance before I spoke up. “Well, should we go see if my Hunch has paid off?”
“Lets!” Madison said, a bounce in her step as she started down into the center of the glade. I couldn’t help it and watched her skirt bounce into the air, glimpsing her skin underneath. I took a breath and went after her. We made it to the center, only to see a pile of completely random junk. As we approached the pile, I got a System message.
Congratulations! You have increased your Hunch skill!
“Damn,” I said. “I was hoping for, well, something to loot, but I guess him having a treasure chest would be too much to ask. What is all this stuff, anyway?” Perusing the pile, I saw that it was separated into several piles stacked close together.
“Trophies or something? This is gross,” Madison said, toeing at the collection. There were piles of bones separated by animal type, and piles of pelts, in the same way. Picking up one of the larger pelts I found that it was a Low Quality Bison Hide. In fact, it looked like there were a lot of them!
“No, these aren’t trophies, these are crafting items! He’s hoarding crafting items. Maybe he is planning on skilling up some crafting skills or something? There’s so much here, I wonder what level this guy is. How did he get all this?”
Madison was pawing through everything looking for anything interesting. Not finding anything that wasn’t animal related, she stopped and wiped her hands. “What are we going to do with all this stuff though?”
“Let’s grab as many of these skins as we can carry, the tribe can sure use them.” I picked up two skins, the most I could fit in my inventory, while Madison did the same. “Do you have like, a group chat or anything? Can you tell Kai we’re okay here?”
“I think my skill has to be higher. All I’m capable of right now is forming a group and seeing everyone’s health bars. Later on it gets things like XP bonuses, chat, combat bonuses… all kinds of cool stuff!”
“I want to see what it’s like learning a skill. I think you have the right idea about this place. Yeah, we are living in a new world, but it is a game world. I want to have fun with it! We really need to help get the tribe past this rough stage I think.”
“What’s going on, anyway? Cora seems so serious, and well, angry. I don’t get it.”
“I have only been out of the tutorial zone for a couple days, but I guess a lot of the others from the tribe, there are about 30, have been out since almost the day we launched, so what, 3 weeks now? I guess they didn’t stay in the tutorial long and had class choices picked for them. Then when they got here, well, it’s been rough. We found out that without an attunement, every animal attacks on sight. It’s made doing anything nearly impossible, since the tribe members keep getting injured or killed.”
Madison frowned. “Dying sucks, I’ve done enough of that to know. If that’s the case, I guess I can kind of see Cora’s point.
“Sure, it’s been pretty sucky, but she’s stupid for not wanting to explore her skills and stuff as much as possible. The only way not to suffer, is to get stronger, right? And you’ll never enjoy something if you’re just fighting against it.”
“Yes... but, if it has been that hard, maybe she has like… PTSD or something. Maybe we should cut her a break.”
I thought over Madison’s words, remembering what she told me about her husband. “Yeah.... I guess... Maybe I was a little harsh. I don’t know. I’ll try to cut her some slack next time I see her. Speaking of which, we should head back.”
Congratulations! You have increased your Empathy attribute!
Madison stopped what she was doing, her face turning white. “Hudson... Kai’s health bar just emptied.”
Chapter 17
“What do you mean his health bar emptied?” I asked.
Madison just stood there; her eyes blank as she watched the group menu. “His health bar; it was a full one second, then it just emptied to nothing! I think he died!”
“What about Cora?”
“Her bar is still full, maybe she’s safe from- no wait, it’s going down too! It’s at less than half… looks like it stopped. I think she must have gotten away?” I watched my mini-map party chevrons. Kai’s had disappeared, while Cora’s was the same direction as when they had left. “Should we wait to see if this is where he spawns?” Madison asked.
“I don’t know, maybe we should go after Cora? If Kai spawns here, or at the other spawn point we cleaned out, he can make his way back to the cave. If we can help Cora, we should.”
Madison smiled at me, it lit up her face. “Now you’re getting it! A little grace can go a long way!”
“If anyone can take care of themselves, Kai is the one I believe in most, so yeah, let’s go help Cora.” I nodded at her, showing a smile myself.
We left the huge stockpile of crafting supplies, walking in the same direction as Cora. After a while Madison stopped. “Kai is back! Wait, OH NO! His health is dropping! Ahhhh crap. He died again.”
“Damn,” I said. “He got the bad spawn point. I hope he pops out soon.”
“It’s not fun dying like that. Thankfully when you have the death curse on, it removes pain, so at least you don’t have to suffer when it happens. It’s more of an annoyance than anything.”
“It, wait, really? Maybe that’s why Cora thought you should be more upset. Maybe she thinks the people in the death traps suffer every time they pop out and die.
“Ohhh, maybe? Either way, I’m sure glad most of my deaths were painless. I mean, I did still get eaten a bunch of times, just because it was painless doesn’t mean I didn’t have to watch it. It still sucked.”
“Yeah, but you’re so chipper, I think that just rubs her the wrong way.”
Madison laughed. She had a pretty laugh. Once again, her cheeriness was infectious, and I grinned from ear to ear. “You haven’t seen or met anyone from the game yet besides us, right? I’ll tell you; I was surprised that this world wasn’t going to have NPC’s in it. No shops or guards or any of that stuff. It’s like a wild frontier.”
“That is a unique aspect for sure! There is so much to this game. Plus, that whole ‘Intention is everything’, I bet that’s like, a clue or something on how to interact with the System.”
I nodded. “I wanted to talk to you about that! I was thinking about what you said, while trying to mess around with my mini-map. I visualized the overlay of group members into it, which is what gave me arrows pointing to them and leveled me up enough to get my bigger map. I think if we-”
My words were cut off by the shambling zombie coming the opposite way straight towards us. We froze, but not soon enough and it saw us with its milky eyes and charged. I attempted to shoulder Madison out of the way, but it was like hitting a brick wall. I looked over to see her muscles bulging like a weightlifter. As soon as the zombie got close Madison lashed out with a powerful kick right in the chest, lifting it off its feet and sending it flying.
“Holy crap! What was that!?” I asked Madison. “That was awesome!”
“I want to pump,” she clapped her hands “you UP!” When I didn’t laugh, she frowned. “Nobody gets the old ones. Anyway, when I use Boost on myself, its effect is doubled.” The zombie got back to its feet and came after us again, and again she sent it flying off with a powerful kick. This time though, its head impaled on a sharp branch and it stopped moving.
You have gained 8 XP!
“Well crap, I’m regretting my class a bit, you and Kai have such cool combat abilities. All I can do is throw rocks.”
“Yeah but you have th
at map and can find all kinds of loot. I am sure that good loot can make a difference in combat.”
I smiled at her. “I’m not all that concerned, I do like my class. I actually wanted to tell you about-” A zombie interrupted us again. Eight of them to be exact. It seemed like the horde of zombies that Kai had tried to lead off was making its way back and we were right in their path. Crap.
“Um... I can’t take that many...” Madison said.
“We need to run. This way!” I grabbed her hand and yanked on her, then fell as the amount of force I used had an equal and opposite reaction to the bulked-up cleric who stood rooted in place. “Madison! Snap out of it! Let’s go!” I yelled right in her face, which was as white as a sheet.
She shook herself out of it, then with a hand gesture her muscles faded, and she was back to her attractive, feminine, self. With another gesture the Boost System message popped up in my Hud. I Boosted my Run skill and pulled on her hand once again.
This time when I took off she followed, and I dropped her hand so we could focus on outdistancing the zombies. They would follow us until they either got their kill, or we could Stealth away, which was not likely with my low skill. So we ran. Running Boosted like that did have a side benefit though that made me smile even when death was on the line.
Congratulations! You have increased your Physique attribute!
Congratulations! You have increased your Physique attribute!
We ran faster than the undead behind us, but all too quickly I realized what our problem would be when Madison slowed behind me, gasping for air. Crap. Stamina. My Stamina bar was nearly depleted as well. A quick look over my shoulder showed the horde still moving after us. “This must be how they got Kai, I bet since they’re undead, they don’t have to worry about Stamina.”
Madison continued with me, now both of us walking at the fastest rate we could to gain Stamina. All we needed was a fanny pack and we’d look like a couple of old lady power walkers. “I don’t want to have escaped all that just to die this close to being free!”
“Me either! Boost us again and let’s increase our Stamina regeneration.”
“Sure, good idea.”
I thought about it for a while, remembering in the primer what attribute controlled Stamina regeneration. “I think if we Boost Physique, we’ll recover Stamina faster!”
Congratulations! You have increased your Conscious attribute!
“Okay here goes, but I’ll be pretty low on Spirit after, I won’t be able to Boost again without resting...”
“Wait, maybe just try one of us?”
I could hear the zombies getting closer now, their feet stamping the ground and their teeth clacking with hunger for living flesh. “I don’t want to separate; I don’t know the way and that wouldn’t be very nice to you anyway,” Madison said. I could feel the heat rising to my face as the words came out. “I couldn’t do that to anyone.” She finished, and I kept turning red but for a different reason.
“You could make it.” I pointed my finger towards the plume of smoke rising above where I knew the tribe to be. “Just follow that smoke, the tribe makes it so that when someone dies, they know how to get back.”
“No, I’m not leaving you!” she shouted. “What if you get caught in a death trap, I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that.”
“Okay, okay, fine, we can try to get out of this together then. Boost both of us and pick Physique, let’s see what happens.”
Madison waved her hands again and my Running skill buff faded to be replaced with a Boost System message. I selected Physique. We walked further, the zombies getting ever closer in their strange loping movements. My Stamina bar was moving up faster, but still slow. “This is an improvement, we may just have to run, then walk, then run, then walk... how is your Stamina?”
Congratulations! You have increased your Physique attribute!
Madison shrugged. “It’s rising, I’m at about 25% now, but it’s still going slow.”
“We just have to make it so we don’t get exhausted, being forced to stop would be the end of us,” I said. “I have an idea though.” I changed my course to be a little more parallel to the plume of smoke up ahead rather than going straight for it. Then, looking at my mini-map, I activated the chevrons for the three rabbit spawn points we had found earlier, and adjusted course to go to the closest one. We broke through the tree line and were on the plains. I knew if it was total open ground then we wouldn’t last long.
“Where are we going?” Madison asked.
“I’m taking us to a few animal spawn points I mapped out. If we can go through a couple, the animals should help slow them down. I don’t know how effective nests of rabbits will actually be against a horde of zombies, but everything we can do to buy time will help.”
“Wasn’t that Kai’s plan, too?
“Yep.”
“Somehow I’m not too confident about it then.”
I didn’t have time for the witty banter as the zombies behind us cleared the tree line. It looked like one had gotten lost in the forest, which was great, but there were still too many for us to deal with. When they got to the open ground, just as I had thought they would, they picked up speed, now running after us. “I’m at 50% Stamina, lets run!” Madison said and took off in front of me. I caught up to her, my Running skill being higher, and kept pace with her. Soon enough we got tired and slowed to a walk again. The zombies, seven of them now, were so close I could smell them. “We aren’t going to make it!” Madison shouted, as I prepared to make my last stand to buy her some time.
A colored circle came into view on my mini-map, showing the outline of the threat zone for a rabbit nest. “This way! Run!” I jogged, trying to stay close to, but still a little behind, Madison while pointing towards the rabbit nest.
“I see it!” Madison shouted and made a beeline to the small creatures. We made it before our Stamina ran out again and going right through the heart, I turned to walk backwards watching to see what would happen. As I had hoped, the rabbits pounced on the closest zombie, five little fuzzballs of doom latching on. A zombie stopped to smack at them, sending one flying. As soon as the rabbit landed, it leapt at another zombie, distracting it.
“It’s working! It won’t last long, though. We need to get to the next group before the rabbits get killed, maybe if we can get far enough away the zombies will wander off.”
“Where is the next nest?” Madison asked. I turned and continued our weird rubber-banding movement with her, running then walking, running then walking. Watching my mini-map, the chevron for the next nest kept getting darker.
“We’re going in the right direction, but it’s still...” We had two fewer zombies chasing us, but still too many to do anything with. Working on an idea, I concentrated on my mini-map, and imagined sliding it over to the party screen. Nothing happened. Then I thought about the strange gestures Madison had made when casting her Boost, and I tried again, this time pinching my fingers as if I was grabbing the map and moving the mini-map to the party screen.
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
My mini-map now had “Displaying in Party” written on a tab above it. It worked! Then I got another System message.
Congratulations! You have learned the Party skill!
My party screen populated with four health bars: one for each of us. Awesome!
“Whoa!” Madison said, stopping to look at something. “I can see your map in the Party window! That is so cool!”
“Don’t stop! Keep moving!” I said over my shoulder. The look on her face captivated me. Even though we were running from a horrible death, suffering from this terrible start and stop routine, her face still lit up with joy at this new discovery. She jumped as if startled, looked around to see if I had noticed, then continued moving. The zombies had gotten closer though, and I slowed down to get behind her. I zoomed out on my mini-map, saw the pin for the next rabbit and nest flicked it. A yellow splash appeared on the mini-map,
cascading through the whole thing and leaving a small, fading yellow chevron on the directional ring.
Congratulations! You have increased your Illugraphy skill!
“I saw that!” Madison said. “That’s where we’re headed? Great!” The stench from the zombies caught my nose, and I risked a glance over my shoulder. They were right behind me. A few stride lengths away, if even. If we stopped for any reason, it would doom us.
“Push it!” I yelled, feeling the onset of panic. I slowed myself even more to give Madison room. I released an involuntary shudder at the touch of the zombie behind me as it raked its dead fingers across me. Each time it hit me as it tried to grab on chunks of my health bar dropped out. The hits weren’t too bad, but if I slowed any more I would be overwhelmed.
This sucked. “What are you doing!?” I heard Madison shout, but she kept moving, and I watched on my mini-map as she came into contact with a rabbit nest threat zone. Now if I could make it, too, that would be great.
Critical hit! You have been struck by a zombie for 23 bludgeoning damage!
The Pain debuff faded into existence on my HUD, the green face with a slight smile taunting me with what was to come. I had never been so excited to hear the angry screech of a wild animal in my life. Shooting through the air at my assailants, the rabbits landed with their customary nibbling. I stopped receiving damage and pinged the next nest on the map for Madison.
“Go! Keep going to the next nest!” My Stamina had gone up only a tiny amount, since I had taken damage while walking. I knew my only hope would be to buy time for Madison. I was thankful that this time three of the zombies engaged with the furry hors d’oeuvres, leaving us with only a couple more to deal with.
We couldn’t stay and fight since we were still in the threat zone for the others, so running was still our best option. Or jogging anyway. I knew the next nest was closer, so I pushed harder. Madison turned to watch me, concern on her face. “Go!” I shouted “I’ve got good HP; you just get to the next nest. I know I’ll make it!”