Mission: Locate and purchase something from the Shopping Arcade at night.
Difficulty: Hard
Requirement: Reach Level 5, Receive Invitation
Success: Get to the shopping arcade and buy at least one item
Failure: Fail to reach the shopping arcade by dawn
Reward(s): 50% discount on items until dawn, 1 Upgrade Point, 1 Salvation Crystal
[--]
Scott’s eyes lit-up. He could go and buy things with his monster loot. The problem was that the shopping arcade was five miles away and open only at night. He rubbed his chin. A fifty percent discount was too much to pass up on even if he did not know how much things would actually cost.
He finished the ghoul clean up and returned to his home. Once he was allowed back inside he gathered the small group and told them what he intended to do.
“Is that really wise? What if it isn’t true?” asked Tammi fearfully.
“I found your family through a letter like that. If it isn’t true, I can still try and scout out the area and seek other survivors. I might even get word about your husband,” said Scott.
“Dad?” asked Wayne suspiciously.
“Yeah, he would have been called in to the city proper, right?” asked Scott.
“The last time we talked to him, he told me that he was near the fifth street blockade,” said Tammi.
Scott took out his map and looked it over. Fifth Street was closer than the shopping arcade, just a mile past the closest bridge.
He discussed the situation with them then set out. They were not to open the door under any circumstances unless they could tell that it was him. No one else could be trusted.
It was well past midday, but it would be several hours before it started to get dark. He had five miles to go. On a normal day that would not have been a problem at all, but given the current situation, he would need to move quickly and as quietly as possible.
Movement through the suburb that he lived in was taxing on his nerves. He had killed off most of the monsters in his little cul-de-sac. Once the moment came to step out of the cleared area, and onto his true path toward the city-center, he knew that things would change.
During the time that he rested, he regained to most of his health. There were still a few minor injuries to contend with during his trip, but he could not pass up this opportunity. Who knew what would be sold at that place? Even if there was nothing to buy, the fact was that he could get an upgrade point and a salvation crystal was worth the risk.
***
A loud growl alerted him to the presence of an oncoming monster. Scott turned to face a ghoul running toward him at almost normal human running speed, a sure sign that it was not a level one beast. During the battle that ensued he was forced to dodge a clawing attack that was faster and more precise than he was used to dealing with from the other monsters.
Several hard strikes came his way whenever the beast took its turn, but Scott fended them off with some effort. Soon, he managed to bat the thing’s arms to the side then reversed his blade quickly and hacked into its neck. A strong overhead cleaving attack followed suit, cracking its skull and sending viscous black blood splattering around the area.
Due to the vagaries of turn-based battle, the fight took over a full minute to finish. Two more, thankfully slower, ghouls appeared during that time. Once the faster ghoul was defeated, the two slow motion monsters were nothing. He received no loot for the fight but it did alert him to the fact that higher level ghouls did in fact exist on his route.
He ran into two more packs of hunting ghouls along the way. They were all low-level, thankfully. He made quick work of them, and continued on.
It took him the better part of an hour to work his way to the first problematic section of his trip. He gazed out at the bridge in the distance and frowned. It was packed with the undead. There had to be at least a few hundred of the rotten bastards over there. He could not handle that many at once, even if they all turned out to be level one. If nothing else their horde-based power boost would make their equivalent power skyrocket.
Swimming across the river was not an option. It was not until he looked off to his right that he realized that there was something in the far distance that might work. “The raft…”
Dale’s raft was still where they dropped it on the first day. It seemed like it was still inflated, though that was hard to tell at such a distance. He hated the idea of taking the little yellow thing across the river, but it was more likely that he would succeed using it rather than trying to cross the bridge.
Scott slipped back carefully in order to avoid the hungry eyes of the bridge ghouls. Who knew what level some of those things were?
He headed off into the housing area where Dale met his tragic end only a few days prior. Growls and a few hisses could be heard from various houses. Scott stopped to fight with several stragglers and the occasional pack of ghouls. He did not want to risk them surrounding him, or catching him from behind.
It took more than another hour to reach the place where Dale met his end. Scott did not see him anywhere in sight, nor did he see his rifle. He did not take long to reflect on the passing of the older man. Scott recalled the eerie look in his eyes as he started to turn, and the words that he said when they had first met, however. Dale told him that those who died rose again as the thing that killed them.
On his way to the end of the road a pack of ghouls staggered out to block his path. There were eight of the beasts. He got to work on whittling down their numbers. The way he saw it, every monster that he killed was one less to deal with in the future.
While the battle meandered along in its turn-based manner, another pack arrived. The reinforcements were only four in number, but one of them was a bit faster than the rest.
Lesser ghouls caused little fear in him by now, however. As far as he was concerned, they were merely experience and potential loot unless they were the chatty kind. The ghouls who could talk and plan were deadly. None of them were in attendance for this battle, however.
Low level ghouls were nothing more than rotting obstacles at the moment. They were like a fence that needed to be crossed. A few days ago even a single ghoul was a deadly threat. Now, they were just part of the scenery.
He gathered a few coins from the fallen monsters and a small treasure chest. Inside the chest was a blood stone, two silver daemons, and another letter.
“Man, I’ve never been this popular. People send me letters all the time now,” he said lightly. He had started to become strangely comfortable in his new role as a slayer of monsters and receiving treasure chest mail.
[A Desperate Cry for Help]
“Please! Someone save me! I’ll do anything!”
Samantha Cole has requested aid from anyone nearby. She is trapped and will die without help.
Mission: Rescue Samantha Cole
Time Limit: 20 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Success: Kill the monsters surrounding her hiding place
Failure: Let Samantha Cole die
Reward(s): 50 Copper Daemons
[--]
As usual there was a map attached that showed both his location and the target. Samantha’s location was a quarter mile away and on his current side of the river.
Scott smiled. An easy mission sounded nice, and he might meet someone else. Score!
He jogged toward his destination. On the way he got the drop on three ghouls and used the three free turns he received to quickly dispatch them. When he arrived at the designated location he saw five ghouls beating on the side of a school bus.
Scott moved in quickly and began the attack. The ghouls did not stand a chance. None of them were particularly strong and just like the previous battle he held the initiative. The ghouls never even got the chance to take a turn. It was indeed an easy mission.
When the last ghoul died a treasure chest popped up. He received his coins, and the chest disappeared.
“Who?” asked a frightened voice.
“Hey. You’re not safe out here,” said Scott, helpfully.
A black haired girl poked her head out the window to look down at her potential savior. “Yeah, no kidding. Thank you for helping me!”
“I’m trying to get to the other side of the river, but if you want a slightly safer place to stay I have somewhere you can set up. There are a few other people there already.”
“You, really?!” she practically squealed with excitement.
Samantha opened the emergency door at the rear and hopped down to the ground. The bus had crashed in such a way that its front door had been blocked off. It was not a bad temporary resting place, but it would not have lasted as a true shelter.
Scott nodded to her. “Did you get a little treasure box this morning that lets you fight these things?”
“Yeah, but… Well, I’m not good with that sort of thing,” she admitted.
He gestured for her to follow. “My place isn’t that far, but you may have to defend yourself a bit. Are you able to do that?”
She reached down and picked up a baseball bat that had been laying near the back tire. “With this I can. I kind of dropped it while climbing into the bus through the emergency window, and those things showed up before I could get it.”
“Why hide in the bus when there were so many houses?” asked Scott as they walked toward his promise of security.
“The bus was here. The houses were over there,” she said before pointing to the houses nearby.
He accepted her reasoning easily enough. When in an apocalypse, a survivor took what they could get. She required frequent breaks during their travels, but it was obvious that she was a player. She could keep up with him to a far greater degree than Tammi and her kids. The duo were nearly back to his cul-de-sac before the next pack of ghouls arrived. There were six of them, all low level.
“Dammit, so many!” exclaimed Samantha.
Scott shrugged then ran in to deal with them. “There’s only six of them.”
“Only six?” her eyes widened in surprise. Was he suicidal? The light of battle flared through the area and the fight was on. She tried to help but she could only take two steps at a time. Samantha never came within striking distance of a ghoul before Scott easily dispatched most of the monsters. His movement and number of attacks were insane compared to what she could do.
“Damn…” She would not have believed it if she had not seen it. While she was watching him, a ghoul snuck up on her from outside of the battlefield.
Samantha gasped and attacked it recklessly with her bat. By the time Scott finished the first group of ghouls, she had taken a few turns. Bloody and torn, all she could do was try to back away from it while crying. She had done very little damage to it, but the same could not be said about her opponent's attacks. She was close to death.
Scott physically interceded after he got within range, and took the ghoul for his own. It did not take long to simple hack it to death due to his greater number of allowed attacks. He did not even use his magic during the fight. His damage output was high enough per round to easily kill two or three low level ghouls without resorting to fire attacks.
“Not too bad,” said Scott.
She panted a little a nodded. “Yeah. I'm a Badass, right?”
He laughed and scooped up a few random coins that floated in the air. Money was always welcome.
“What the hell? Floating coins?” she asked. It was her first time seeing a loot drop directly. She had been hunkered down and hiding during Scott's fight with the ghouls outside the bus.
“Yeah, among other things. They sometimes drop letters and treasure chests. That’s how I knew where you were,” said Scott.
“Say what?” she asked, once again surprised.
Scott pulled out the mission letter that he had received for her rescue. She stared at it stupidly for a moment.
“This is just so freaking weird,” she said.
“True, but I decided to stop questioning it and just go with the flow. It’s helped a lot so far,” said Scott. He gestured widely with his hand. "None of this makes any sense, so why try to force logic on it?"
"I guess..." she said in a non-committal manner. What he said made sense, but it was hard to let go of the propaganda that school had fed her regarding the laws of physics and other scientific laws of reality.
They moved on after that. They picked off a few straggling ghouls here and there on the way, but arrived back at Scott’s safe zone not long after. He knocked on the door. It took a moment, but Tammi opened it.
“Got a present,” said Scott. He gestured toward Samantha. She waved nervously using only her fingers and said, “Hey.”
“Holy shit! Samantha!” cried out Anna.
“Anna?” asked Samantha. “Anna!” The black haired teen peered closely at the other girl. There was just no way that it could be her.
“Let’s get inside before you wake the dead out here,” said Scott.
Once they were inside, Scott headed off to the bathroom to clean his weapon and to check his status. The girls sat together and started to chatter rapidly.
“So, you go to school together?” asked Tammi.
“Yeah, we have most of the same classes,” said Samantha.
They were not best friends, or anything, but they hung around in the same social circles. It was incredible that they would meet like this. They immediately began to discuss school and other things.
In the bathroom, Scott finished cleaning his bush axe and then checked his status. He had gained a level! “Sweet. Going on missions must help with experience or whatever.”
He finished up and headed back out to the five people that he had taken in. “Alright, I’m heading out again. Same as last time. No one comes in here unless it’s me.”
“Who died and made you boss?” muttered Wayne.
Scott glanced at the mouthy little boy. There was no point in arguing with a petulant child. He merely shook his head then headed out. Tammi barred the door behind him.
He performed a quick search of the area to make certain that there were no lingering ghouls. He found two of them milling around near the wood-line that were easily dispatched. He even gained a copper coin for his trouble.
The trip back to the raft took longer than he would have liked. Several small packs of ghouls wandered into his path and his loose change increased slightly.
Scott checked the raft over carefully. There were no tears or holes. The oars were still inside. Ghouls apparently had no taste for inflatable rafts.
The map was brought out once more and he found his location. He made a route in his mind then pocketed it once more. It was time to get going. He was starting to lose the light.
Scott pulled the raft to the water-line then pushed off into the river. He slowly made his way across while the water carried him further away. Luckily, no lizard men arose to drag him into the deep. He pulled the raft up the river bank a bit and hid it next to an old shack.
He started off toward a set of public access stairs a few hundred feet further down the river, but something strange came over him. Scott stopped in his tracks and then started to tremble. A sound, a light and soothing sound, echoed through the air. It was music, a beautifully clear and resonant tone sung in a female voice.
Unable to resist the urge to turn back, Scott looked toward the river bank. Just inside the water was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen in his life. The voluptuous maiden reached out for him and sang in a warm, sweet, voice.
“Oh come away, dear one. Bring your heart and come on… Throw your cares away…” sang the voice.
Something was wrong, desperately wrong, about this situation. He could not fight it. He barely even recognized that there was a problem. His mentality began to degrade and soon all he could feel was his need to go to the beauty who sang to him so sweetly.
“Give up on worldly desire. Let our love be your fire. Why struggle when you can plaaaay? Why live in hell, when you can feel my heaven…”sang th
e girl in a flirty tone. Scott did not even register the sudden flap of a fishy tail when it rose out of the water.
“Why fight for tomorrow, when we can live for our to-daaaay…” sweetly sang the girl as Scott stepped into the water. He never even noticed the sudden flare of a bright blue battle light. His eyes were glazed over and despite the fact that the fish-tailed girl had stopped singing he continued to hear the song playing in his mind. His bush axe fell from his nerveless fingers.
"Scott Keen VS. The River Siren! Fight-O!" exclaimed the announcer, though Scott paid the voice no mind. Instead of the typical battle music, a soft and sensual piano score began to play in the background.
She opened her arms to embrace him and Scott moved forward slowly in a daze. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.
Her eyes shimmered with a dangerous light. She leaned in a whispered in his ear. “Oh my sweet boy, hold me tighter.”
Once it was his turn again, Scott obliged the lady and she laughed in a dulcet manner. Her soft pink tongue slid out and began to taste the side of his neck. She kissed his collar bone. “Such a strong flavor…”
She playfully nibbled at his ear causing him to moan softly. The playfulness shifted to pain as she bit down a little harder. Her beautiful fingernails clawed at his back. They tore through his coat, though they did not penetrate his denim jacket.
“Such a sweet boy. You’ll be my husband, won’t you?” she whispered tenderly into his ear.
“Yes…” whispered Scott, his eyes still glazed over.
“What’s your name, sweet one?” she asked him before kissing him softly on the ear.
“Scott,” he said in a flat monotone.
“Till death do us part, my lovely Scott,” she said sweetly, before she began to grind her body against his.
Earth Tactics Advance: Volume 1 Page 13