by Wolfe Locke
Emblems Earned
No Such Thing as a Stupid Question
For being one of the first humans to request a change of function to the query system, you have gained a personalized Lirai.
Big Brass Ones
Awarded for opting into Mature Mode. This Emblem prevents certain death from single-target spells. If an attack would kill the possessor, their health is instead set to 1. This ability resets when the user’s health rises above the 80% threshold.
Weapon Specialization - Blunt
Mastery Level - Wet Noodle
Upgraded Items - None
Staggering Blow 1/10 - For each point invested into Staggering Blow, you have a 2.5% chance of stunning an enemy with every hit. This bonus is doubled while unarmed.
Accumulate 2/10 - You may store power during battle to add up to 10% extra force per point invested on (X) amount of attacks, where (X) equals the number of points invested into Accumulate.
??????
Level 1 > 4 - Current experience: 19/100.
Strength - 1 > 4 1
Agility - 1 > 1 1
Magic - 1 > 1
This was basically my casino strategy, putting everything in strength instead of on black, and I hoped it would be enough that I could one hit the undead outside. If I could just reach that single milestone, I might be able to make it out of this and complete the quest. Once I’d assigned my stat points, the upgrade selection came up and, considering how often I kept dying, I figured an upgrade to help me survive like Iron Skin would do the trick and the last went into Accumulate.
Crusader Systems - Upgrade Terminal - Upgrade Selection
Unused Points (3)
To purchase an upgrade simply click the name of the upgrade once for each investment. For additional details on abilities, please consult the Crusaders manual at the enclave headquarters.
Available Upgrades
Price
Investment
Iron Skin
2
1/5
Staggering Blow
1
1/10
Quick Step
3
0/3
Blighted Touch
5
0/2
Accumulate
1
3/10
Fire Resistance
2
0/5
Ice Resistance
2
0/5
Lightning Resistance
2
0/5
Dodge
3
0/3
**Further Upgrades**
10
0/10
Notification: Upgrade Unlocked, Iron Skin.
Details: You have unlocked Iron Skin 1/10. Passive. For each point invested into Iron Skin, incoming damage is reduced by 4. This passive bonus applies before buffs, debuffs, and armor bonuses.
This is what progress looks like then. Hopefully it’s enough. The effect on my body due to the increase in my strength was instant. A little bit of my gut and the flab on my arms disappeared, replaced by hardened muscle. Well, not completely replaced, but it was a start; I could work with that. The change was a relatively painless process, but damn did it make me hungry. I had to eat all of the food I had packed away and I’d been saving those for a real emergency. It was the highpoint of my day and something I was glad respawned with me, and I don’t mean those bars were all clumped together and half-melted, I mean the bars were practically brand new, fresh out of the box quality. Another benefit of respawning.
Was it the best idea that I put all of my points into strength? Should I have maybe taken all of the sixty seconds it would have required to ask Lirai to explain to me the differences between the stats? Yes, absolutely I should have. As you can tell, I didn’t always make the best decisions on my own and sometimes take things a bit too much at face value. Not to drop any dimes, but for the longest time I’d been the kind of guy that thought agility just meant speed and I was plenty fast, thank you very much.
With nothing else holding me back, I dipped into my secret stash, a box of energy drinks I kept under my bed in case of an absolutely urgent need to get pumped, and tossed one back as the liquid power flooded my veins and I took off, grabbing my bat on the way out as I muttered Accumulate to make sure the first undead I came across was guaranteed to get destroyed.
I stormed through the house with my heart racing and the bat glowing in my hands. Tossing back a thanks to the mimic for getting the place spider-free, I bounded out the door.
The undead hadn’t dispersed at all, though they weren’t wound up as tightly around my destroyed car. My father’s words echoed again in my mind, “Just do the work.” I nodded as a sort of grim determination came over me and I launched at the nearest undead, trying to kill stragglers that I could pull from the herd.
The target I unleashed Accumulate on was a towering undead, probably having been a construction worker or some kind of farmer in life. None of which saved him when I activated the stored power and the very air around the bat started to spark, the bat moving through the air with enough force that when it hit the undead, the bat completely severed the torso.
Notification: Experience Gained - +14 experience, next level in 67 experience. +7 Sol.
Current Experience: 33/100.
Sol: 7.
Item Found, “Common Upgrade Schematic - Unidentified.”
The mob of undead crashed on me after that, but thanks to my Iron Skin upgrade, I lasted a bit longer than I would have. I actually tried a little trick I’d seen once on the television, and thought that with my strength being a little higher now, it might just work.
I grabbed the handle of my bat with both hands and stood back on my heels as I started to spin in a circle, going as fast as I could force my body to move as the undead moved in on me. It was a little rough, but I actually managed to pick up a few kills like that before being sent to respawn with a level up under my belt.
Notification: Experience Gained - +156 experience, next level in 67 experience. +89 Sol.
Current Experience: 189/100.
Sol: 96.
Item Found, “Dead Man’s Finger - Unidentified X2.”
Item Found, “Rotten Apple.”
I’d managed to level up before this death, and as soon as I respawned, I put the stat point into strength, deciding to level Iron Skin some more as soon as I had the points. I think I’d killed around ten of the undead, give or take, and all I could do was improve as I launched myself back into it in a brutal rinse and repeat process. It was difficult to track progress in the moment because, unlike my body, the bodies of the undead didn’t linger after death. I mean, I didn’t think mine lingered either, with the whole recycling and clean up thing, or after having watched my body collapse in on itself. But something different happened for me, because my bodies lingered. All I knew was that by the time I hit level 8, time between respawns had grown exponentially and the undead had started to thin out.
It was crazy seeing myself in bloody fleshy piles all over the place with deformed undead crouched over shoveling pieces of me into their mouths. I’d learn later on that was an important piece to remember.
The rest of the day kind of sucked afterward. It was a grueling and boringly repetitive grind. Sure, killing your neighbors when you had an ax to grind sounds like a walk in the park, but it’s not. You’d be surprised how quickly the smell of blood wears on you, or the smell of rotting bodies and fluids, for that matter.
Over and over, I did the same thing like a badly-themed Groundhog Day episode on a favorite show. I’d wake up in the bed, run out into the street, and kill more of the undead until I’d be killed again. For the most part, it came down to me either succumbing to my wounds or just getting overwhelmed by the horde from the constant stamina drain of battle. The advanced undead didn’t bother me again, but the deaths kept coming. I’d repeat the cycle over and over and over again. It wasn’t all bad though; in the process I gained another three levels, pu
tting me up at level 11 and it took me all of thirty seconds after a respawn to put all the points I’d banked into strength. That seemed to be my secret sauce, but as for the upgrade points, I kept them saved. Iron Skin was doing enough with just the second upgrade.
Eventually, through my diligent efforts, the herd of zombies had thinned enough that I was finally able to freely dive in and throw wild haymakers. I stood on top of a parked car, bat primed in hand, as I took advantage of the high ground to easily kill more of the undead that came at me with relative ease and comfort. Unfortunately, as I gained levels, the experience I was gaining from the undead lessened until it was almost not even worth it anymore. Almost, but not quite. Though level 12 seemed to be the hard cap, because I stopped gaining any experience or money.
Call it a cheat, call it whatever you want, but I found after my seventh time dying that whenever I respawned, it was with full energy, not tired or sore at all. My grim work outside was made all the more easy by my body rapidly adapting. Comparatively speaking, I was somewhere near the level of physical fitness I’d been in when I left basic training in the Army. I was making good progress and was fully in the zone, getting lost in my routine, and after hours had passed, I finally got the notification.
Notification: Quest Completed - They Were Legion
Details: You have destroyed all the undead (1780) within the subdivision.
Quest Reward - You have been granted ownership of the subdivision and have unlocked the settlement building function. Please visit the upgrade terminal for further details.
What is your new Kingdom to be called? Please state verbally the answer.
I thought for a minute. I’d never really thought of myself as a king or anything like that, but what the hell, right? Better to dream big and fail than never try at all. “The name of my new Kingdom is “The Republic of Dan.” Here at the Republic of Dan, we believe in helping one other, accepting whoever comes our way, and are desperately looking for somebody who knows how to cook.”
Notification - ALL: New Kingdom - The Republic of Dan
Details: The Republic of Dan has an open border policy and is currently accepting all new immigrants, though special consideration is given to chefs. Please inquire within for further details.
I had to shake my head and laugh; that wasn’t exactly what I’d said.
With all the undead, well, dead, I could have dicked around and taken my sweet time, but I knew it was only a matter of time before this Black Tournament started, and I needed to do something about the score of bodies with my face on them that were scattered all around the area in various states of gore. I didn’t think I had much time, but I thought I was at least as ready as anyone else was going to be. I had an idea of how to use my time. I needed some upgrades, and I needed to take care of the bodies. Which is exactly what I did before heading back inside to use my new points to bring my strength up to 13 while I decided to bank the rest of the upgrade points for later.
Chapter 19: Welcome to the Jungle
As I said, I made the best use of my remaining time. Knee-deep in blood and gore, I collected all the bodies I’d left behind from my past lives, and stacked them in the yard. It was a little extra work and definitely wasn’t my best effort, but I made do and tolerated it. I just didn’t have the drive otherwise; it was kind of demoralizing. I went ahead and attributed all the blood and human waste to being a result of having opted into Mature Mode, because I certainly didn’t remember some of these smells from when I’d first started.
When I was finished stacking bodies, I sat down in the ruined doorway of what had been my house and touched the frame, seeing the places my parents had used to mark my height as I grew up. It was a good memory to touch on before whatever fate had in store for me arrived. I didn’t need to wait long. I welcomed the notification screen as it appeared in front of my eyes, enveloping my vision completely. In the famous words of some white guy we’ve all known, it was time to blow this popsicle stand.
Notification: You are being transported to the Black Tournament, currently being hosted in the newly-appropriated Battery.
Details: You may feel a faint sense of discomfort, but this will quickly pass. Do not panic, transportation is a completely harmless and safe means of travel.
It’s been said that there are a few things a man will never forget in his lifetime. Things like losing his virginity, the day of his wedding, drinking bong water, the birth of a child, his first divorce, all that feel-good stuff. But first, let me start this off with a little insight about the carrot and the horse. Actually, never mind. Basically, the sheer hell of being transported blew all of those things out of the water.
Transportation magic was extremely uncomfortable and made for a miserable experience. Suddenly disappearing and reappearing elsewhere only sounds cool before you try it. It’s shocking, sure, and has a certain pizazz to it, but follow me for a second. Imagine a strawberry daiquiri. Now imagine for the sake of this exercise that drinking one doesn’t make you any less of a man. Trust me, it doesn’t. They are delicious, and you, like I, should regret nothing. If you’re still hung up on it, just pretend it’s a snow cone of shame.
Getting a little off track here, so listen close; transportation magic is like being the strawberry those daiquiris are made from. Completely pulverized and disassembled into raw components and remade into something else. Except, unlike the strawberry, you’re partially aware of what’s happening and feel at least some of it.
For most people, the people who didn’t ignorantly opt into the pain train that was Mature Mode, with transportation magic they might at worst might have to deal with an unpleasant discomfort. Something that ranked right up there with the pain of a toothache and the joy of having your mother-in-law over. For me, it was agony. I mean that word in a qualitative sense, like when you have to make small talk with people who can’t read at family reunions, but in terms of pain.
Notification: Now arriving at the Black Tournament - Subsite - The Battery.
Details: The Black Tournament refers to the bi-yearly event hosted at numerous locations during an active Death Game, consisting entirely of participants who have been chosen by the watchers and recruiters. The actual arenas change every event and are typically commandeered from the local market for use.
Notification: Would you like to be known under an alias during your time here? You will arrive once your selection is complete. The alias will expire once you have left the arena area.
Yes/No?
A localized name change was pretty convenient. I’ll admit that freely, and Dan didn’t exactly have the zing I wanted to be known for in a fight, and I didn’t really want my real name getting out either. Since I had no idea what sort of situation I was walking into, I quickly selected yes. It didn’t even take a second thought. I already had the perfect name picked out for my time there. A name I’d gone by in every videogame I’d ever played since leaving behind Runebattle in the early 2000s.
Notification: You have selected to use an alias, please choose your alias now.
The words formed in my mind; there wasn’t any kind of interface. The process was just sort of intuitive, and when it was done, I had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face as I read the name on the notification screen that popped up. Why, you might ask? Because, at heart, I was a child.
Notification: Alias Confirmed - You have selected the name “Edgelord Supreme” as your alias during the duration of your activities during the Black Tournament. Have a nice day.
As soon as I read the message, it completely disappeared. At that point I landed, well more like materialized, in the middle of a dark metallic-looking room that was lit up with pink and green neon lights that was every bit Vegas before the invention of the internet. I wasn’t alone, but as far as I could tell, everyone else was human, and since it was now on my radar as something I needed to pay attention to, everyone was alive, which was a plus. I hadn’t actually seen another person in days.
From what I could tell, the
room I had arrived in was basically a solid cage with no way in or out. The room had that special stink that only people who’ve visited East Germany before the wall came down would know what I was talking about. The general vibe of the place was poster material for misery porn, though I did see one single terminal with a line of people waiting to get some last-minute upgrades before beginning.