[Mission Briefing]
The undead are wreaking havoc across the land. A call has gone out for fearless zombie killers to slaughter the undead. Kill zombies and earn fabulous rewards!
Difficulty: H-1
Reward(s): Double zombie kill experience.
Acceptance Cost: 1 EXP
Time Limit: 30 minutes
[--]
Scott stepped back from the door and thought about things for a moment. Killing zombies was dangerous work, but he might be able to earn more EXP. There was also the possibility that his next mission might involve killing zombies anyway.
He went back to the shop menu and searched through the available selections. He needed a weapon, but the only thing that he could afford was the Pathetic Stick. Even at a cost of only one point, that did not feel like a good deal. A pathetic stick sounded, pathetic. He would just have to find a weapon when he got on site. For a moment he was annoyed that he lost all of the stuff he dragged back to the room. His knife or crowbar would have been useful.
Annoyance was put aside not long after in favor of checking his remaining possibilities. He could not afford even the least expensive feats or powers. They were all locked anyway. He needed to increase his stats in order to unlock them.
That only left the need for purchasing food that would last for a few days, and upgrading his status. He purchased enough food and water to last one person for two days with four points. He would use one point to take the side mission. That left him twenty points to spend on his status.
From what he uncovered while screwing around with his status menu, one full point in any stat was considered to be the base average for his species. A human being with a strength rated at one, had the same strength as the common fit human on the street. He, or she, was not an athlete, but they weren't lacking anywhere either.
Four out of five of his stats were below that supposed average. His only truly above average stat was concentration.
"Probably all the reading and gaming that I do," he said as he stared at the concentration stat. He did not get out much other than to go to work or to hang out with his few friends. He was not the type to go running or head to the gym. In fact, if it was not for the fact that he worked as a stock boy, his strength would probably be lower.
Scott frowned at his limited choices. No matter what he increased, it would not make him superman. What would twenty-seven percent more strength than an average person really give him? If he could lift one hundred pounds overhead with one point of strength, would a strength that allowed him to lift one hundred twenty-seven pounds help him that much more?
In the end, he chose to split the points between vitality and resilience. He increased vitality from 0.81 to 1.00. He added the left over experience points to resilience to get it to ninety percent of standard. Vitality was the most important stat of all at the moment from what he could tell. It would determine how long he could run if he needed to run, and how quickly he could recover his stamina in order to run again.
[Status]
[Name: Scott Davidson]
[Age: 20]
[Race: Earthling]
[Level: 0 [20.00/1000]
[EXP: 1.00]
[Life Span: 1 Day(s)
[ATTRIBUTES]
[Strength: 1.07][Resilience: 0.90]
[Vitality: 1.00][Dexterity: 0.78]
[Concentration: 1.48][Charisma: 0.74]
[FEATS]
[None]
[POWERS]
[None]
[—]
Everything seemed to be in order when he checked his status, but he did notice one change. The experience counter next to his level increased by twenty points. "So, that's how I earn experience toward gaining a level? I spend it on my stats?"
It seemed to him that buying things with his EXP did not increase his level. It made sense in a way. If he improved himself, he became stronger. Buying a tasty plate of spaghetti did not make him stronger.
Nothing else to do, Scott rubbed his face for a moment then turned toward the door. He had no choice but to try and earn more points. He had no idea whether he could even kill a zombie, but he needed to find out. Things were not going to get any easier by sitting in this prison cell of a room while he waited to die.
Chapter 3: Unlimited
The stage was set. The door was open. Scott took a deep breath of clean air, and then stepped out into the zombie apocalypse. This time he stepped out of his cell and onto the top of an abandoned transfer truck semi-trailer. It was not perfectly level, but his vantage point provided clear sight of the surrounding area.
There were dozens of cars abandoned on the street up ahead. In the distance, he could see a familiar sight. It looked a great deal like a smoldering gas station. Low moans began to rise up from various points around him.
He had wasted enough time in admiring the post-apocalyptic scenery. He needed a weapon, and a bit of luck.
Scott rushed forward along the trailer of the massive vehicle, and then down to the hood of the truck. He hopped from the hood to the back of a car abandoned in front of it then looked around for the source of the moans that he heard before.
He saw a zombie pressing its rotting face against the back window of a nearby car, but no others were immediately apparent. Time passed more quickly than he would like given the fact that he only had a few minutes to try his luck at zombie slaying. Honestly, he'd already had enough of the place, but it did not matter. He needed EXP.
The cab of the truck was his first stop. He searched it quickly, and discovered something nice right away. It was not nice enough, however. He pulled the black handgun out of the glove compartment then checked it out. There were no bullets in it, nor any in the truck anywhere that he could find. He had a gun, but no way to use it! That was worse than useless. He stuck it in his coat pocket anyway. It would probably disappear when he returned to his cell, but one never knew.
What he did find of use was a tire iron in the back of the cab. It was a down grade from his oversized crowbar, but it was still a lot better than fighting empty-handed.
A low growl signaled the fact that something had found him. He barely had time to make it back to the front seat before a rotting hand reached around from the side and gripped the open door. Scott swatted at the hand with his tire iron, but the zombie's grip did not loosen in the slightest. A destroyed caricature of a face came into view. It was the remnant of a man with a long shaggy beard, and far too much forehead.
The zombie, clad only in coveralls, a flannel shirt, and a name tag that revealed his former name, caused an immediate visceral reaction from its would-be dinner. There was very little leverage inside the cab to use his new weapon, so he kicked out hard at the face of the walking corpse. "Back off, Bubba!"
Bubba was knocked back slightly, but his grip never wavered. Scott's eyes went wide and he kicked at the undead bastard several times. Bubba could not have cared any less about those feeble strikes. His grip barely loosened.
Scott was forced back slightly, and he started to pant a little. Who knew zombies were so damned strong! What the hell had Bubba been doing all his life to have such hand strength after he had started to rot? Low moans rose up all around as more and more of the rotting corpses came to call.
Desperate, he rolled back then launched both feet into the cannibal corpse. He snatched at the steering wheel and used it and the back of the seat to brace himself so that he could exert all of the strength that he had in him. There was no choice. If he did not break Zombie Bubba's death grip on the door jam, he would die here. There was no way he could get out through the other side before the rotten bastard managed to snag one of his legs.
Zombie Bubba let out a surprisingly pained sounding moan just before his fingers snapped. He fell back and hit the ground hard. Scott wasted no time in slipping out of the truck and then upward. It was an instinct brought on by the sound of so many moans from nearby. Bubba was on his knees by the time Scott clambered back up onto the roof of the truck.
/> He looked around and saw dozens of the walking dead surrounding the vehicle. Rotten, festering, the putrid corpses reached up for him. They gazed at him with their dead eyes and blank expressions.
This time there was no lawn mower to save him. There was no escape. He was in it till the bloody end.
Whoever said that zombies could not climb was an asshole. They climbed just fine as long as the structure was not purely vertical. The undead began to come for him by ones and by twos now. They came from the front. They used the car in front of the truck as means to get onto the hood of the big rig that Scott used as his last bastion of hope.
A wave of fear and of nausea passed through him. The stench of the things alone was enough to make him want to stagger back. He used to joke that the undead generated a fear effect that weakened people and made them stupid in the movies. No, it was nothing so sophisticated. The damn things simply stank so badly that it would drive even the most sober of judges insane. In the face of that unholy stench, no one could think straight!
He gritted his teeth then gripped his tire iron so tightly that his knuckles went white. "God damn it, all!" he snapped before moving forward to strike at the zombie that made it onto the roof of the vehicle. There was a short gap between the roof and the trailer. He was forced to stop short to avoid falling into it, but to his surprise the zombie did not. He ended up swatting its hands to the side just before it fell forward. The rotting bastard's head slammed against the edge of the trailer as it fell, snapping its neck in the process.
An unwanted laugh bubbled up from inside of the man as he took in the sight of his good fortune. It was a process that repeated in various ways for several minutes. The dead, desperate to get at his sweet meats, practically crawled over each other to try and cross the gap to get to him. Most fell in and damaged their bodies severely in the process. More severely than a zombie was already damaged at any rate.
Whenever one of them made it across the gap there was a brief moment where it tried to finish climbing up since they rarely made it all the way across when they fell. Most often the ones that made it across only managed to catch the edge of the trailer and were left dangling in the air.
Scott moved forward and bashed at the head of one such zombie. The tire iron did little damage. He beat her about the head with heavy strikes that would have easily killed a zombie in any movie. Unfortunately the rules of this game took into account the fact that the human skull is sturdy enough to ward off blows to a surprising degree. A simple concussion was not enough to drop one of the undead. The brain had to be battered severely to do any real damage. There was no swelling to aid the process of brain death. Only brute strength and a desire to kill that which was already dead were available to him.
He tried stabbing the poor dead woman with the wedge end of his tire tool, but it merely glanced off the bone. Either it was not sharp enough, or he was not strong enough. Either way, it would not be enough to finish her off.
The zombie clung for dear unlife, and worse, she acted as a sort of anchor for a zombie bridge when another of the recently fallen used her to drag its broken body upward. Another zombie appeared on the roof right after that, and then promptly fell atop them. They struggled and squirmed. Soon they were loosely wedged in place. That was when things went from bad to worse for Scott.
"Shit..." he snapped. There was not much time left, but he was trapped. He had to stay alive long enough to get back to his cell.
Zombies staggered over the top of the squirming meat bridge. The first one that tried to cross lost his balance and fell to the ground. Surprisingly he hit head first and then went limp. Scott glanced down at the corpse just in time to see something that he had not seen before. A bright green number rose up from the body [+0.3].
He did not have time to ponder this bizarre event. Another zombie started to stagger across the mass of undead humanity. Scott struck out at it, but he was not able to connect solidly. He swatted a grasping hand to the side but the beast kept moving forward.
The zombie, a fat woman who smelled like death itself, tackled him down to the top of the trailer. She tore at him with her claw-like fingernails and bit at his face. Desperate to prevent those teeth from tearing into his money maker, Scott wrestled with her for a moment then blocked her with his forearm.
Broken teeth clamped down on his forearm with deadly intent. He screamed in pain as she worried his arm like a starving dog. By some feral instinct he slammed his shoulder forward and then rolled hard, hard enough to get on top of the massive undead ham-beast. His tire iron in his off-hand, he screamed as he slammed the sharp end down on her skull. He had to do it three times before he broke through, before he could get at her putrid brain and end the suffering for both of them. [+0.5]
Another green number popped up in his field of vision, but he did not have a chance to think even now. More of them were coming. This time two of them were across the gap. One had partially fallen and began the arduous climb upward. The other staggered forward, half-crouched, then fell to his knees after losing his balance.
Moans, screams of the damned, intensified all around him. Scott's chest heaved as he gazed upon his doom. How much time was left? Would he survive this? Those questions were ignored, just as he was forced to ignore his tire tool after trying to pull it free. There was no time and it was stuck inside the skull of the great undead ham-beast.
Absently, he could feel something warm trail down his leg. Whether it was blood, or his bladder giving in to the fear, he did not know. It did not matter. He screamed out desperately then lunged forward. Scott unleashed all of the strength left within him to deliver in one swift and decisive kick. He took the beast under the chin. Its head snapped back hard and its body went limp. No number rose up from its corpse, however. The zombie's teeth chattered lightly and it moaned a little. It had not been killed, only inconvenienced.
He repeatedly kicked at the fallen zombie's head a few times then did the same for the one that was even now trying to finish its climb onto the roof of the trailer.
Scott cried out in shock as the trailer started to rock not long after he solved the most recent combat crises. The zombies were pressing back and forth on the sides of the vehicle suddenly. It was as though they discovered a better way to get him down. He did not understand it, but it was happening. Something had changed. The supposedly braindead creatures developed a strategy.
He fell hard as the truck pitched to one side. Thankfully, he was not knocked off as the zombies on the other side pushed back at the last moment. Instead, it leaned heavily in the opposite direction.
The zombie bridge fell apart, but it did not matter. No more of the undead bastards were trying to climb up. Scott, gave up on his tire tool and made a concerted effort to get off the top of the truck before it went from bad to being in a zombie digestive tract.
Just as he hopped across the gap the truck tilted. He skidded sideways on the cab of the truck and was forced to grip the back in order to avoid sliding off onto the ground below. An agonized screamed erupted from his throat as he felt teeth tear into his pinky finger.
He snatched what was left of his hand back then clutched at the bloody stub of what once was. Tears welled up in his eyes and he began to pant. His only hope was that he could get it fixed back in the room. He needed to survive at least that long.
Scott slid down the front of the truck, his hand bleeding heavily, and then practically rolled off the hood and onto the boot of the car in front. His forehead smacked down hard against the back window glass. Stunned briefly, he shook his head in a desperate bid to regain his senses.
Moans and shuffling steps caught his attention. He scrambled forward over the top of the car, practically slithered over it, to get to the front. The closest zombie was only a few feet away now.
His world was spinning around him even as he reached the ground. He staggered forward drunkenly, his injured hand cradled against him. In many ways he looked much like the horde that followed him.
Only a
powerful desire to live kept him going, or perhaps he merely wished to die on his own terms. He refused to become food for the howling dead that shambled after him. Whoever said the zombie apocalypse would be fun was full of shit. Zombies sucked. They sucked hard.
Pain flared up in his left knee as he staggered forward. Unknown until now, he'd injured it in his fall earlier. He struggled forward with it as best he could. He remained a few steps in front of the undead bastards howling for his meaty goodness. At last, after staggering away from the road and into the field nearby, he heard an overly cheerful voice tell him that he could go home. The door of light appeared ahead of him. Even as he staggered heavily toward it, the countdown began.
He forced himself forward at all possible speed. The door was farther away than he thought. Several precious seconds passed as he moved toward it. He reached out his good hand toward the light, even as the zombies behind him reached out to add him to their horde.
Twenty-three seconds remained. He was almost there. Scott doubled his efforts, pushed himself beyond what he thought were his limits. Yet, just before he stepped through the door, he was tackled from behind.
Scott screamed in both pain and frustration as teeth tore at him. Claws, not just fingernails, tried to get through his coat. Teeth that felt like tiny daggers bit at the back of his head. He could feel himself slipping away. The door counted down the seconds. It was now at fourteen.
He reached feebly for where he needed to go. He crawled forward with what little strength remained within him. The rest of the horde began to catch up. He felt the rancid teeth of another zombie tear into the flesh of his calf muscle.
Screaming in pain and in desperate fear for his life, his fingers touched the semi-transparent doorway of light. The moment his fingers made contact, the zombies shrieked. They were flung away with tremendous force. Scott paid no attention to them, there was no time to waste. He had only one thought left. He must make it through that door.
Galactic Fist of Legend Page 4