Hunting Knife - Melee Bladed Weapon – Attack +0 / Damage +1
Durability 100% - Value $5
This basic knife has a 7-inch stainless steel blade. It can be used for just about anything, such as cutting enemies, skinning animals, or opening annoying plastic packaging.
Basic Medkit - Heals 3HP
Durability 100% - Value $5
This basic medkit contains a sewing kit, disinfectant, and bandages. It can be used to heal your own wounds, or those of an ally.
Basic Frag Grenade – Grenade
Damage 5 / Armor Shred 2 - Radius 6yds
Durability 100% - Value $5
This grenade can be thrown or launched out of a grenade launcher. After a short time, it explodes, shredding armor and dealing damage to all creatures within its radius.
“You said something about a depot?” Boothe asked.
“The Depot. It’s a bar, right over there,” she pointed to a squat red-brick building, longer than it was wide. It looked to be the oldest structure still standing in the town. “Might be able to find some work there, or just get a drink, if that suits you. There’s a restroom in the back that you can use to change your clothes. If Cliff gives you any trouble, tell him I sent you.”
“Thanks,” Boothe said. “I’ll be back for Caden’s package.”
“Sure thing. Come and see me again if you find anything nice out in the Wasteland,” she said. “Or if you earn yourself some more money.”
Boothe walked away, his arms full with the new equipment, and made his way up the two brick steps to the door of The Depot. Inside, the smoky air smelled of cooked meat and alcohol. In the dim light, Boothe saw a dozen people scattered around the tables, chatting idly. Heads raised and eyes turned to watch him as he stepped inside. He walked through the bar, towards the back where a sign identified the Men’s restroom. He could feel the patron’s gazes following him the entire way, until he walked in and shut the door- a cramped, but clean space with a sink, a toilet, and a trash bin.
There, he stripped out of his rags and put them into the trash. His eyes caught on the tattoo on his arm that he hadn’t seen before. A small block of letters and numbers.
3H1A9C
D832B
G14FA
He recognized this series of numbers as the ones that he had typed in from his Metaticket. The tattoo signified that he was a player.
Boothe slipped into his new clothing and found that they fit perfectly. He put his belt back on, sliding it through his new knife’s sheath, so that the snub nosed .38 hung on his right while the knife hung on the left. The medkit and the frag grenade clipped onto his belt as well. Boothe found that he had no place to hold the steel pipe now, unless he was going to walk around carrying it in his hand all the time. Bent up as it was, he doubted it was worth anything, so he tossed it in the garbage along with the rags he had been wearing.
He looked at himself in the mirror hanging above the sink, his face covered in dirt and blood. The faucet dribbled murky water when he turned the valve, so he used it to wash his face and hands. Then, feeling a little bit better, he headed back out into the bar.
“You looking for work?” the bartender asked as Boothe emerged. He was a wide man with not a single hair on his face or head. He stood behind the bar, drying a cup with a towel.
“Maybe,” Boothe said, pulling up a stool.
“My name’s Cliff. I try to keep up with what’s going on around here. I can pass some work on to you if you’re interested. There are always people that need one thing or another.”
“Sure,” Boothe said. “What do you have?”
“Well, Giles over there had his farm overran by gecks the other day. He’s offering a reward for clearing them out. Seems like it might be something you could help with.” Cliff pointed to a man with a handlebar mustache and a ballcap who sat alone at a table across the room.
“Thanks Cliff,” Boothe said. The bartender gave him a nod and a smile, then moved on to refill another patron’s drink.
Boothe made his way across the room and sat across the table from Giles.
“Hear you have some problems at your farm?” Boothe said.
“Oh God yes,” Giles said, lifting his head to look at Boothe. “Can you kill some gecks?”
The man didn’t look like a farmer to Boothe. His face was soft and untanned. His hands didn’t have the callouses that came with hard labor.
“What is a geck?” Boothe asked.
“You’ve never seen one? They’re mutated lizard people. Slinky things. Fast too! They’ve been trying to move into this area for a while. They eat people, I’ve seen it,” he shuddered.
“Where’s your farm?”
“Across the highway to the west, past Caden’s Outpost.”
Good, Boothe thought. He’d be able to drop off Caden’s package before heading out to deal with these gecks. That drone he would get as a reward could be useful in combat.
“You’ll see the vaporators. They’re hard to miss.”
“Vaporators?” Boothe asked.
“Yeah,” Giles said confused. “You know, big machines that pull moisture from the air. Where do you think your water comes from?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Boothe confessed.
“Well, I need you to go to my farm, kill the gecks, and turn the vaporators back on. It’s real simple, just activate the console next to each of them. I can offer you $100 if you do this for me.”
NEW QUEST: Giles and the Gecks
Farmer Giles has been run off his land by a group of gecks, and he needs you to clear the place for him.
-Kill all gecks in the area.
-Activate all five vaporators
REWARD: $100
DO YOU ACCEPT?
“I can do that,” Boothe said. One hundred dollars seemed to be quite a bit of money. Kill some mutant lizards? How hard could that be?
“Thank you so much!” Giles said. “Be careful out there, okay?”
With that, Boothe stood up and headed out the door and back onto the street. He picked up the package from Wulfa’s stand. She gave him a wave and said, “Good luck, new blood!” as he began his trek back to Caden’s Outpost. The walk took some time, the sun now hanging low in the sky. He hoped he could get to the farm before night fell completely. Despite his goggles, he would rather not fight these gecks in the dark.
Finally, Boothe arrived back at Caden’s Outpost.
“Welcome back, [HUMAN],” the machinegun robot called, as Boothe walked inside the station.
“No public restrooms,” Caden grumbled without looking up.
“I brought your package,” Boothe said, setting the box down on the counter.
This made Caden sit up quickly, reaching for the box with a smile on his face.
“Good job, son! Thanks for this.”
He took a folding knife from his pocket and cut the package open, before pulling a steel robotic leg from inside the box. It looked much like a real leg with metal muscles and tendons.
“Sexy, huh?” Caden said.
He quickly slipped his amputated leg inside, fastened all the straps, and then flipped a switch on the side of the knee.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you,” he said as he stretched and twisted the robotic prosthesis. “Bandits robbed me and stole my last leg. That’s why I built Robert out there. To keep out the riff-raff.”
Caden rose to his feet and walked over to the workbench to pick up the drone, then carried it towards the front door where Boothe stood.
“Let’s go outside, and I’ll show you how to work this thing,” he said.
Boothe followed the man out the front door.
“Thank you [HUMAN] for…”
“Oh hush, Robert!” Caden yelled at the machinegun robot. “His name is Boothe. Learn it.”
“Yes sir,” Robert said. “Thank you [BOOTHE], have a nice day.”
The robot gave a digital smile, then turned away.
“Here, plug this into your goggles over your
right ear,” Caden said, holding out a small plastic device.
Boothe slid it over his ear and snapped it into a tiny port on the side of his goggles. Immediately, a line of text appeared at the bottom of his vision.
Drone connected
“Press the button on the receiver and you’ll be able to see and hear through the drone’s camera and microphone.”
Boothe pressed the button and a small picture-in-picture window in the bottom right of his vision displayed the camera feed from the drone. A speaker symbol appeared on the camera window as well, and he could hear Caden’s words through the earpiece, slightly amplified by the drone’s microphone.
“It understands speech and can recognize simple hand gestures,” Caden said. “You can guide its flight with your hands if you want, or it will just do its own thing, following you and watching for enemies.”
Boothe waved towards the drone and moved his hand. The drone followed his movements, flying wherever Boothe pointed.
“I’ve only programmed it with basic recon right now, but if you know anything about machines, you’ll be able to modify it to fit your needs later.”
QUEST COMPLETE: A Helping Hand (or Leg)
REWARD: Basic Drone
Boothe gains 50XP!
ITEM OBTAINED
Basic Drone - Techie Class Item
Durability 100% - Value (Cannot be sold)
+2 Hacking
This customizable drone can scout out enemy locations, hack computers, and activate basic machinery. With further upgrades, many other functions are possible.
“This is so cool,” Boothe said.
“Glad you like it,” Caden replied. “Go, have fun.”
4
Giles was right - even in the dark of the rapidly setting sun, Boothe could not miss the vaporators. The hulking machines were thirty feet tall, and about thirty feet in diameter as well. Huge tanks, with pipes coming off them, making them look like giant steel ticks on the landscape. There were five of them, all lined up in a row. About fifty yards to the north was a small farmhouse, a waist-high white picket fence around it.
Boothe pressed the night-vision button on the side of his goggles, turning everything into different shades of green, but brightening the landscape significantly. He pressed another button to zoom in on the area around the farmhouse. Immediately, enemies were highlighted in red and text appeared on the bottom of his vision.
Enemies Detected: 5
Two stood at the front door, hissing a strange conversation to each other. The rest patrolled around the perimeter. They were all thin bipedal reptiles, with long slithering tails and short arms. Spiny scales of varying colors covered their bodies - some orange, some green, some brown, and others a mixture of all three. Their heads were topped by huge eyeballs with slit pupils.
Boothe was surprised to see several of them wearing clothing. One wore a dirty white t-shirt, ripped and ragged, while another had a pair of cutoff blue jean shorts with a slit in the back to allow its tail to pass through. Some of them were carrying weapons as well - a machete, a baseball bat, and one even had a sawed-off shotgun.
Panning over, Boothe zoomed in on the terminals attached to each of the vaporators. Covered in sun-yellowed plastic sheets to protect their components, each of them had a keyboard and a boxy monitor.
He turned to his drone, hovering in the air a few feet away from him.
“I need you to sneak over and activate that terminal,” Boothe said, pointing at the vaporator furthest from the farmhouse. “Can you do that?”
Text appeared on the bottom of Boothe’s vision.
Stealth mode activated
The LEDs along the outside of the drone darkened, and the whirring of the drone’s propulsion system went nearly silent.
Activate [Vaporator Terminal], Confirmed
With that, the drone sailed off towards the vaporator, moving quietly and soon disappearing into the darkness. Boothe watched the picture-in-picture camera feed as it flew smoothly through the air, descending towards the terminal. The area seemed clear. All the gecks were gathered in other places, hopefully long enough to allow him to figure out this computer system.
The drone hovered in front of the keyboard, its tiny robotic arms extending to press the power switch on the side of the monitor. The screen glowed to life with green text over a slightly darker green background. The display showed a command line with the word “terminal5” and a blinking cursor.
“Hack terminal?” Boothe said, not knowing if the command would work.
The drone’s arms moved quickly along the keys, typing in a series of commands and searching through the file structure.
Hacking (75%) - SUCCESS!
With a rumble, the vaporator came to life and the turbines inside began to spin. The gecks turned towards the noise and began speaking in their hissing language.
“Come back to me,” Boothe commanded the drone, and it quickly lifted back into the air.
When three of the gecks split off from the rest of the group and headed towards the noise of the vaporator, Boothe rose to a crouch and crept towards the farmhouse. Everything was going just as Boothe had planned.
Stealth (55%) - FAILED!
Before he even made it to the picket fence, the gecks spotted him. The two guarding the front door turned and pointed at him, hissing. One of them held its machete up high and charged forward.
Boothe pulled his revolver from its holster, aimed at the geck, and pulled the trigger. There was a small explosion in the gun, but no shot came – the bullet was lodged in the barrel. “Dammit!” Boothe yelled. He stuffed the jammed pistol back into its holster and grabbed the hunting knife that he had bought from Wulfa to defend himself.
The machete-wielding geck scrambled across the dirt, its legs slapping almost comically against the ground, while the other called out in a deep croaking noise. Through the drone’s camera feed, Boothe could see the enemies who had been distracted by the vaporator were now turning back towards the farmhouse.
Then the geck with the machete in its hand jumped the picket fence in a single leap and its blade came down towards Boothe’s head.
Boothe tried to defend himself, holding his knife up to block the attack, but the geck’s machete slashed into his forearm, biting through skin and muscle down to the bone.
Boothe takes 4 DAMAGE!
Boothe HP - 2/6
Holy hell that hurt! This was going bad fast!
Boothe spun away from the geck and jabbed the hunting knife upwards. The blade sunk into the geck’s scaly neck and Boothe pulled sideways through flesh. Blood spewed from the creature’s throat and it let out a pitiful croak as it slumped to the ground.
Seeing the rest of the gecks approaching, Boothe ducked behind the picket fence. It wouldn’t provide much protection, but it was the only cover he had. He reached over and took the machete from the dead geck’s grip. Boothe knew first-hand that this thing could do some real damage.
ITEM OBTAINED
Machete - Melee Slashing Weapon - Attack +1 / Damage +2
Durability 80% - Value $6
This 17-inch heavy blade can be used to hack down weeds to clear a path through brush, or to hack down your enemies.
Three gecks ran back from the vaporators and yet another now emerged from the farm house. A total of five remained, and Boothe had been half-killed by one. He couldn’t win this in a straight fight, and he couldn’t outrun them - he’d seen how quick the gecks moved. He had to think of something, fast!
A shotgun blast echoed in Boothe’s ears, cutting through the night air with a deep boom. The fence that he hid behind exploded in a shower of splintered wood. Now completely in the open, Boothe scrambled further down to hide behind the undamaged fence a few yards away. Through his drone’s camera feed, he saw all the gecks moving towards him. They weren’t going to let up and they weren’t coming at him Bruce Lee-movie-style, one at a time. They attacked as a group - close together.
Boothe reached down for the grenade
clipped onto his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the cluster of gecks. The grenade bounced a little further than Boothe had wanted, but when it exploded it still caught nearly all the enemies in its radius. The creatures screeched. Blood and pieces of geck flew in every direction, splattering against the ground.
When the smoke had cleared, Boothe saw only a single geck still standing. The green-skinned creature wore a ragged white t-shirt, now splattered with the other geck’s blood, and fortunately carried no weapons.
Still, it charged at Boothe unarmed, its feet scrambling across the dirt, a horrible screech rising from its throat. It leaped across the fence, its open mouth revealing rows of pointed yellow teeth.
Boothe quickly shifted to the side, letting the geck sail past him. He pulled the machete back and then swung it down towards the geck in a wide arc. The blade sunk deep into the geck’s spine, nearly severing the creature in half. It fell to the ground, its arms and legs twitching uncontrollably for a few moments until it stilled.
By killing six Geck Brutes, you have learned more about them.
Boothe selected the Expand button on the notification window and another panel popped up with a small picture of a geck and a list of its stats. Below this was a short description of the creature.
Brutes are the most basic gecks and most of the species falls into this category. They move fast, but don’t hit very hard.
“They hit hard enough,” Boothe said, looking down at his nearly severed forearm, the bone visible through bloody meat. He took the medkit box from his belt and poured disinfectant over the cut, sewed up the skin, and bandaged the arm.
Medkit used (+4 HP)
Boothe HP - 6/6
The pain quickly fading, he walked around the broken fence to inspect the farmhouse.
5
Boothe leaned down and picked up the smoldering remains of the sawed-off shotgun, now little more than pieces of broken metal covered in the blood and bile of its previous owner. The grenade had destroyed anything of value that these creatures might have been carrying, but it was worth it. If he hadn’t blown them up, the gecks would have likely killed him, and you can’t use a shotgun if you’re chewed to bits and inside of a lizard-man’s belly.
Apocalypse 2020: A Wasteland LitRPG Page 3