by R. A. Mejia
Zombie Howler
Level 8
Health 80/80
TP 15/15
The Howler is an unusual zombie that howls loudly when it spots prey, alerting all nearby zombies. The Howler, though relatively easy to kill, is dangerous because of its ability to gather other zombies into a horde.
Abilities: Bite, Howl
Weakness: Fire, Attacks to the Head
The group only leaves when the tall purple Howler sees a deer run through the streets. The purple zombie let loose a piercing scream that echoes through the streets and takes off at a run after the poor deer. Frank and I don’t look to see what happens to the animal, and instead take the opportunity to sneak into the small grocery store.
The smell of rotten and spoiled food clings to me as I enter the store and find it mostly ransacked. My Quickie Stop Mart training kicks in and I automatically start taking inventory of what’s left in the store. When finished, I not only made progress in increasing my Inventory Management skill but also found six candy bars, ten cans of vegetables, and a box of coveted zombie apocalypse gold—Twinkies.
I’m out of inventory space, but thankfully Frank has some spots left in his inventory. The rest we load into plastic bags and have to carry. The streets are empty as we exit the grocery shop and it’s a clear path out of town. I spot a pickup truck and convince Frank to let me try and hotwire it. If I can get it to work, we’ll have a way to get all these supplies and the survivors to Safe Haven quickly. If I can’t, we’re just out the few minutes it’ll take me to try.
The truck is an old Ford F-150, and I use a coat hanger from a nearby used clothes store to pop the lock on the driver's door. I unlock the passenger side door, and Frank climbs in and puts the grocery bags on the floor by his feet. I take one of the screwdrivers from my inventory and unscrew the plastic panel under the steering wheel and remove a metal plate and find a lot more wires than I was expecting. I glanced up at Frank and saw him watching me intently. I smile confidently while inside I realize that just because I watched a YouTube video once on this doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. Still, how hard can it be?
If I remember correctly, I pull some wires from the starter and touch them. Then the motor should start. I pull the thick black wire out and touch it to several other wires creating a spark but not much else. It’s not until I stick it in a small gray box near the steering column with a bunch of colored wires that something happens. When the wire goes in, there’s the sound of the motor staring but also every other part of the vehicle starts up too. Including the truck alarm.
A loud ear-piercing horn starts to blare, and I hit my head on the steering wheel trying to get out of the truck. When I’m finally out of the truck, I see that Frank has wisely abandoned the bags of food and is already running away towards the other side of town where we’re supposed to meet up with the rest of the survivors. As I start to jog towards after him, I hear the unmistakable scream of the Howler.
Chapter 25
Frank and I run as if our lives depend on it. Well, they do depend on it. We’re being chased by a horde of zombies.
Thankfully, the zombie horde as a whole is relatively slow, and we’re able to outrun them. However, the call of the Howler has attracted zombies from all over town. As we run through the streets of Blumkin, more and more of the undead come out from shops and alleys. We’re able to dodge and weave around most of them but have to stop and reroute our path when large groups of them block the main road. We dare not stop to fight, or we’ll be overwhelmed by the mass of Shamblers coming up behind us.
After what seems like forever, we finally make it to the other side of town where the rest of the survivors are waiting for us. Understandably, they’re not pleased to see us being followed by zombies.
Thankfully, while Frank and I were salvaging and traveling through town, one of the survivors was able to hotwire a couple of abandoned SUVs and siphon enough gas to get them running. The whole group of survivors plus the four Users are barely able to squeeze into the vehicles, and we get onto the road just as the first Shamblers from the horde reach us.
The two SUV’s tires screech as they burn rubber to escape. Our little caravan gets back on the highway, and we put a few miles between Blumkin and us; at least until it starts to get dark. Then it becomes too dangerous to navigate on the highway and try to avoid abandoned vehicles, debris, fallen trees, and other obstacles. We pull the vehicles onto the side of the road and try to get some sleep.
I don’t know about the other survivors, but I don’t sleep well, plagued by nightmares of zombies devouring my flesh and then becoming one of them.
The next day, we skip breakfast and get out on the road as soon as there’s enough light to see what’s on the road. Even though the vehicles can’t travel more than 20 mph because they have to navigate around the various obstacles, we still arrive at Safe Haven by mid-afternoon.
Unfortunately, Safe Haven isn’t the paradise we thought it was going to be.
The settlement is located off the highway, through some winding dirt roads, up a hill in the forest. The forest has been cleared away from the massive ten-foot wall that disappears around a curve and surrounds Safe Haven. When the SUVs stop, everyone gets out and stares at the gates to the community. Two massive metal gates lay broken and hanging off their hinges, blocking the road. The vehicles can’t drive past the gates, but there’s more than enough room to make it through on foot.
Once the last member of the survivor group walks past the fallen gate, I get a notification.
You’ve completed the quest - Save the Survivors - Part 2.
You receive 1000 XP.
While I’m glad to get the experience points, I’m as disappointed by the state of Safe Haven as the survivors are.
The gravel road crunches under my feet as I walk inside the gates. It looks like Safe Haven is a converted housing tract with rows of one and two-story homes. There are shiny solar panels on the roofs of each house that provide power. There’s a massive field of vegetables growing in the middle of the community. It looks like the perfect place to start over. There’s food, water, electricity, and a wall to keep the zombies out.
What it doesn’t have, is people.
“Where the heck is everyone?”
I turn to see that it’s Nancy who’s spoken, Frank and Joe standing behind her. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail today, and she looks tired. Her shoulders hunch forward slightly, and her eyes are red. She had her rifle out and aimed at the ground, but her expression shows that the situation worries her.
I’m confused myself. “I think the whole place may be abandoned. If anyone were still here, they would have heard us coming and come to say hello.”
Nancy nods in agreement. “It’s weird that the mission isn’t over. We signed up for an escort mission, and it’s done. So why hasn’t the dungeon ended?”
There’s a shout, and a scream from somewhere ahead of us and the four of us run to see what’s happened. We pass the homes and the garden and run all the way to the far side of the complex and the wall that protects that side. Well, the wall that should be there. Instead, there’s a beat-up pickup truck that’s crashed through the wall. On the ground are parts of the smashed wall and truck along with a mass of dead half eaten bodies.
Even though I know that this scenario has all been set up by the User that runs the dungeon, I can’t help but feel horrified at the sight. Either someone accidentally crashed into the wall and a zombie horde happened to be close enough to overrun the town, or this was intentional. Either way, Safe Haven isn’t all that safe at the moment.
There’s another scream, and we run to find one of the people from the survivor group crawling away from a zombie. Well, what’s left of the zombie. Only the upper half of the zombie is clawing its way towards the survivor. Nancy ends the zombie with a single shot to its head, and her brothers help the survivor get to her feet.
Juan and the rest of the survivors arrive a moment later, weapons in ha
nd, ready to fight.
I raise my hands to calm them down, “It’s ok, guys. We already took care of it. It was just a single zombie.”
Juan shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t. We’ve already found four others around here. We put them down, but we’ll have to clear every building before we can start to get settled.”
“Wait, you plan to stay here?”
“Yes. Safe Haven is going to be our new home.”
Pointing to the truck and the battered wall, I yell, “Do you not see that giant hole in the wall there? This place isn’t safe.”
Juan gestures around him, “Do you not see the homes, the solar panels, the food just waiting for harvesting? Yes, the place needs some work, but we can rebuild the walls and improve security measures.”
I look around and see the determined looks on all of the survivors faces and realize that nothing I say is going to change these people’s minds.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and angrily turn to see Frank staring up at me.
He has a small smirk on his face, and he tells me in a low voice. “Calm down. You’re getting worked up about nothing. None of this is real. We’re in a dungeon, remember? All this has to be part of some quest.”
I slap my forehead and calm down. Of course. The darn dungeon got me. I got so involved in the story and the realism of the situation that I forgot where I was.
I turn back to Juan and apologize for yelling. He nods understandingly and tells me, “That’s ok. I appreciate that you care about our group. You’ve already helped us get here. Are you willing to help us make this place our home?”
On cue, a new quest notification pops up.
Save the Survivors - Part 3
The group has decided to stay in Safe haven. Unfortunately, a massive horde of zombies is on the way. Will you help them survive?
Conditions: At least one member of the group must survive the three zombie attacks.
Reward: 3000 XP
Do you accept?
Woah, that’s a lot of XP. That’s enough to get me to level 7 and well on my way to level 8. I quickly accept the quest and see Frank, Joe, and Nancy all do the same.
As soon as I hit accept, a new window pops up.
Time to first zombie attack: 24:00:00
As I look at the window, the numbers start to count down, and it’s clear that we have 24 hours to do whatever we can to get this place into shape before they attack.
When we ask Juan what we can do to help out, a new blue screen pops up.
Optional Tasks
Rebuild wall.
Create defense installations.
Create hospital/medical center.
Find/create weapons.
Create and install traps.
Train survivors.
Looking at our options, we agree that fixing that huge hole in the wall and building better defenses should come first. When we ask Juan about it, a new interface opens up that allows for virtual construction.
This new interface is similar to one found in games that give players the freedom to build structures. On the interface are pictures of objects that can be put together to create larger structures. For example, by tapping on the picture of a wall, a small red transparent 4x4 square appears in the air. The square stays red until placed somewhere a wall can be constructed. When I put the square on the ground, it turns blue, and an accept button appears. Each object that you want to build costs a certain amount of construction material. Tapping the accept button causes the resources to be taken, and the square of wall starts building. Then I can place another square of the wall on top of that one to make the wall taller. Or I can place another wall square to the left or right of it to make the wall wider or build in a particular direction.
Other objects can be built and attached to each other to create more massive structures. Tapping on the picture of a floor in the interface produces a square of flooring that can be placed on the ground. Placing this floor tile on top of a wall tile turns that floor tile into a ceiling tile. Placing four wall tiles and two-floor tiles make a simple building. Want a two-story building? Just add a stair tile to the outside of the building, and now you can add four more walls and another ceiling. I can also add things like doors, windows, doorbells, and other objects to add functionality and change the look of structures.
Honestly, it’s all a little too complicated to me. But Little Joe goes to town with the System. He starts to play around with it and creates outlines for five-story buildings made of marble with pools and mine shafts. His sister has to stop him from playing around with it too much since we’re short on time. Joe not only creates outlines to repair the wall surrounding the community but also designs platforms and stairs that line the walls. The structures will let people shoot at zombies from up high while still being protected by the wall.
While the repairs to the wall start immediately, building the other stairs and platforms hits a snag. According to the interface, we don’t have enough resources to build everything.
Little Joe stomps his feet and complains, “Darn, we can only build three platforms.”
“Maybe we can search for more resources?”
We puzzle over the problem. Just having three platforms to shoot from isn’t going to help us much. We need enough to let everyone defend the walls.
As I’m considering the problem, my eyes wander over to the empty houses in Safe Haven and something clicks. There are our extra resources. There’s no way that the survivors can use all of these homes, so why not use those construction materials to defend the place?
I test out the option by taking the construction interface over to one of the empty homes. I think about deconstruction, and the whole building turns blue and the interface tells me exactly how many resources we’d gain if I deconstruct the structure.
“Here we go, folks. We’re in business. We have all the resources we need right here.”
I explain to the other Users how we can get more construction resources and Little Joe’s face lights up. He starts to deconstruct most of the homes, leaving just enough for the small group of survivors to have a place to live. With the new resources added to the construction pool, he starts building the blue, transparent outlines of enough platforms to line the walls.
The actual repairing the walls and constructing of new platforms is completed by the survivors and is automated for the most part. It will take time, and there’s not anything else for us to do unless we want to aid direction in the construction effort. Instead, the four of us return to Juan to try to complete the rest of the optional tasks.
Create hospital/medical center.
Find/create weapons.
Create and install traps.
Train survivors.
Nancy takes the task of organizing the community medical center. She orders Little Joe to search for weapons or materials to build them. Frank is on zombie clearing duty. He’s to go through each building and kill any zombies that wandered into Safe Haven through the hole in the wall.
I am intrigued by the idea of trap building. I talk to Juan about it, and he leads me to a workshop he found. There I see one of the survivors, John Brown, who knows these tasks. Mr. Brown is a thin man with a wiry dark hair and a large bulbous nose. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him much during our journey here, but I know that he used to be some kind of detective before the world changed.
When I walk into the workshop, Mr. Brown greets me warmly. “So, you’ve come to learn how to make gadgets and traps? Good, I thought I’d be all alone doing this job.”
He then introduces me to the crafting bench. I vaguely recall reading something about crafting in The Idiot’s Guide to the System. Vol. 1, but I wasn’t too interested in it at the time. It turns out it’s a kind of mini-game. As long as I have the materials available, I can try to combine them to build different types of traps that can then be laid out like large floor tiles. I empty out my inventory of all the items I salvaged from the stores in Blumkin, and Mr. Brown shows me a
simple example. Combining nails and a wooden board makes a floor trap that damages and slows down someone when they walk over it.
It’s fun mixing different seemingly useless items together and seeing if a new type of trap pops up on the crafting bench interface. However, when I try to build some of the traps, only the simplest of them are made.
Mr. Brown points out a small detail I’ve overlooked. In the corner of the interface is a percentage number that shows the chance I have to build the trap. Simple traps have a high probability of being made, but as the traps get more complicated, the chance that I can make them go down.