Sanctum

by Matthew Powell

  Three options were simple enough. Rotten Zombie served as the basic warrior class, having a stronger body than the others but no special abilities. Irradiated Zombies worked like a weird caster class, learning how to manipulate radiation like magic. Plague Zombies worked as a puppeteer or minion class, enslaving others to their whim. While Joshua was struggling with his decision, another popup box appeared.

  Please remember that neither class nor race choices are final. Class and race can both be changed to virtually anything given the proper technology or magic. A player with a beginner class can change to another beginner class at any time, though this will reset your level.

  Seeing that he could change his class later made the choice easy for Joshua. He selected the Plague Zombie and watched the character take shape in front of him. Plague Zombie seemed like it would be the most complex class available to him, and switching to it later would cost precious time. While he didn’t enjoy playing minion-based classes in games, the Body Swapper class evolution sounded too interesting to give up.

  Next was the character’s appearance, which was surprisingly short on options given the varied selections of choices available before. What Joshua wound up creating was a generic zombie, the kind you would see in any number of zombie movies. Hopefully, there would be more appearance options available as he evolved. All that was left to do was pick a character name. There was a single name Joshua had always used for his main characters, and he saw no reason to stop using it now.

  You have chosen the name Zandrius. Is this what you want to be called?

  Joshua selected yes, and the world went black. The room fell away, leaving nothing but an endless void around him. As he looked around wondering what was happening, he saw the environment begin to take shape around him. He was standing in the middle of the street in what looked like a small, abandoned town. In front of him was a single blue screen.

  Welcome to Sanctum, Zandrius. We at The Organization hope you enjoy your time in Macrocosm.

  Chapter 2

  Zombies are an interesting and annoying race, both in Macrocosm and the Omniverse at large. There are hundreds of possible variations, ranging from still corpses that can barely twitch, to sentient hiveminds that consume worlds. They are practically impossible to kill, capable of sustaining damage that would cripple other races without so much as flinching, and certain variations can even abandon their own body to take another. – On zombies, from the Chronicles of The Founder

  ◆◆◆

  Immediately after entering the game world, Joshua was stunned. Games had long-since achieved lifelike graphics, but this was different. He could see dust, blown up by gusts of wind. He could feel the ground underneath his bare feet. That brain implant they installed must have been a new level of tech altogether if it can simulate this kind of environment. Joshua only took a moment to admire the environment before moving on to more pressing matters. Primarily, learning how to move.

  Moving, as it turned out, was pretty easy. All that Joshua could do at the moment was slowly shamble forward, but at least he didn’t fall flat on his face. The speed left a lot to be desired, taking nearly 20 seconds just to cross the street, but that would hopefully improve with time. Sitting out in the open probably wasn’t the best idea, so he ambled towards an abandoned office complex.

  While he walked, Joshua began trying to access his status screen and game menu. He knew that there was one, having seen it in some of the beta gameplay, but he didn’t know how to access it. He tried hand motions at first but just wound up looking like an idiot waving his hands around. The second logical choice would be voice commands, but his current zombie body wasn’t capable of anything but unintelligible grunts and growls.

  Accessing the menu turned out to be much easier than expected. All that Joshua had to do was think about accessing it, just like how he would normally access his neural implant, and the menu would appear in front of him. It would still be several minutes at his current pace before he reached the office building, so he took the time to read up on his character.

  Name: Zandrius

  Race: Zombie

  Class: Plague Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 1 EXP: 0/10

  HP: 100/100

  Mana/Stamina/Energy/etc.: N/A

  The status screen was fairly normal as far as video games went, just showing Joshua the basic information he already knew. Having a way to track his health and EXP was useful, but the list of resources and the N/A next to them concerned him. Thankfully the system quickly provided an answer.

  Expendable resources will appear here once acquired. A small selection of possible energy types will be listed here as a placeholder until one is attained. For a full list focus on the etc.

  Joshua still had a way to go, so he focused on the etc. and began looking at the possible ways for him to grow stronger.

  Possible resource types include: Mana, Stamina, Energy, Rage, Force, Light, Holy, Power, Necrotic Energy……

  The list went on, containing hundreds of possible power sources. The sheer number of them stunned Joshua, having never seen such a wide selection in any game before. Out of the entire list, one in specific caught his eye.

  Pestilence

  A resource used by disease-related undead, certain necromancers, and followers of the Plague God. Used for various plague-related abilities. More information will be made available once it is learned, or if this resource is chosen.

  Out of all the resources available, this one spoke to him the most. He was already a Plague Zombie, might as well go all the way. Of course, that was a problem for future evolutions. For now, Joshua had finally arrived in front of the abandoned office building he had been walking towards.

  The building was covered in glass windows, though most of them were coated in dirt and dust. Some of them were shattered, with glass lying on the ground near them, implying that something had broken out. Whether it was safe or not was irrelevant, Joshua knew that it had to be safer staying out in the open like this any longer.

  Joshua slowly walked up to the automatic doors. They had long since stopped working, but they were shattered anyway. He stepped through them into the lobby, seeing torn up chairs and broken tables scattered on the ground. There weren’t any bodies lying around, and no zombies seemed to be waiting in ambush, but Joshua kept his guard up just in case.

  There was a receptionist desk at the other end of the lobby, with two doors flanking it on either side. There was also an elevator, but there was no chance it still worked, so he had no choice but to make his way across the room to those doors. During this painfully slow walk, he took the time to look around for a possible weapon. All that he was able to find was a broken chair leg, thankfully made of metal.

  Broken Metal Chair Leg

  Damage Potential: 20 Blunt/50 Sharp

  A metal stick, broken off a chair. The sharp edges where it was broken off have eroded with time. Barely passable as a weapon.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all he could find. There were other similar chair and table legs, but most of them were wooden and had lower damage. Makeshift weapons like this were all that he would probably be able to find until he learned how to craft his own or buy from other players, assuming none dropped from monsters.

  Speaking of monsters, Joshua spotted his first since starting. As he approached the doors next to the receptionist desk, a decaying hand flopped onto it from below. Another zombie, having just as much trouble moving as Joshua was, had been laying on the ground behind the desk. As he was watching it, a status screen appeared.

  Sleeper Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 1

  HP: 50/50

  A zombie that has barely moved since rising from death. It does not possess any special features and is no threat to anything that notices it before it can bite them.

  Seeing the monster’s slow movements, possibly even slower than his own, Joshua didn’t hesitate. As quickly as possible, he moved in front of the desk and prepared
himself. As the wild zombie pulled its head onto the desk, Joshua hit it with the metal chair leg.

  Hit might have been the wrong word. His zombie arms were barely capable of lifting the leg, even though it couldn’t have weighed much. He brought it over the zombie’s head and let its own weight pull his arm down, creating a wet smacking sound on impact.

  Sleeper Zombie has taken 7 damage

  Remaining HP: 43/50

  The impact slammed the Sleeper Zombie’s head into the table, disorienting it. Joshua took the opportunity to bring the chair leg up and down again, dealing a little more damage with each strike. The creatures head had a visible dent where the chair leg had repeatedly smacked it. On the 8th blow, while it had 10 HP left, something in the zombie’s head cracked.

  Critical Hit! Skull Cracked! Sleeper Zombie has taken 15 damage!

  Level 1 Sleeper Zombie had died!

  Zandrius gains 5 EXP

  The zombie slumped back to the ground, its life extinguished. Joshua disappointedly noticed that there was no loot. He came to a quick realization that he had no idea what loot would look like in Macrocosm. Would he have to loot if off the corpses? Would they appear in shiny floating bags with pillars of light to indicate their position? Anything was possible, but he didn’t see anything remotely valuable near the Sleeper Zombie.

  Looking at what he did gain, Joshua was both excited and disappointed at the same time. On one hand, 5 EXP didn’t seem like a lot for his first kill. On the other, the low EXP requirements for zombies to level up meant that he was already halfway to level 2. Once he reached level 2 and got a little power, things should start to speed up.

  Walking past the receptionist desk and the zombie corpse, Joshua finally reached the doors to the rest of the building. He walked to the door on the right side and raised his free hand to open it. Thankfully they had handles, as turning a doorknob with his current fine motor control would have been difficult. On the other side was a straight hallway, with doors going off into small offices on either side.

  Joshua began to walk down the hallway, keeping an eye out for potential ambushes. Most of the offices on this floor looked like they weren’t meant to have doors, but they had all either been broken or rotted away. This was good since it meant Joshua could easily see any potential ambushes. It also meant that there was nothing to slow the monster down when another zombie stumbled towards him from an open doorway.

  Walker Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 1

  HP: 70/70

  A zombie that has stumbled around since rising from the dead but has not managed to actually kill anything. It does not possess any special features and is no threat to anything capable of a brisk walking pace.

  Unfortunately, Joshua was not capable of a brisk walking pace at the moment. The zombie currently digging its teeth into his left arm. He wasn’t fast enough to dodge out of the way, but he had thankfully been able to bring his arm up to block the zombie’s scarily accurate path right towards his neck.

  You have taken 6 damage.

  Remaining HP: 94/100

  He couldn’t feel any pain from the attack. Whether this was because he was a zombie or because Macrocosm did not feature pain was a mystery, but it was a boon for Joshua. It meant he had a clear head despite the attack, only slightly startled by the ambush.

  The Walker Zombie’s teeth had apparently gotten stuck in his arm, and it wasn’t willing to let go. It was dealing another point of damage every few seconds, which didn’t give Joshua a lot of time to think of a plan. Thankfully, he already had one.

  He tripped himself, falling back towards the floor. The Walker Zombie, with its teeth still in his arm, had no choice but to be dragged along. Joshua attempted to twist in midair, so he would land on top on the zombie, but was only half successful. He managed to make them both land on the ground facing each other. The Walker, slightly surprised by the move, started clawing away at Joshua’s arm. It only dealt a few points of damage, but he didn’t have much HP to work with in the first place.

  With a bit of struggling and a lot of effort, Joshua was able to maneuver on top of the zombie and start bashing its head with the chair leg. Its teeth refused to let go of his left arm, so he used the limb to press its head into the tiled floor. His HP was still dropping from the bite and the claws, but the Walker’s health fell faster.

  You have taken 8 damage

  Remaining health: 70/100

  Walker Zombie has taken 7 damage

  Remaining HP: 60/75

  And so, the process continued. Eventually, just like with the Sleeper, something in the Walker’s head cracked.

  Critical Hit! Skull Cracked! Walker Zombie has taken 13 damage!

  Leve1 1 Walker Zombie has died!

  Zandrius gains 8 EXP

  The zombie’s teeth, instead of going limp, tightened with its death. The bite dragged Joshua’s HP down to nearly 50 before he was able to pry it loose. When he finally freed his arm, the zombie fell limply to the ground. Just as with the previous one, it did not seem to drop anything valuable, though that may have just been Joshua’s lack of knowledge.

  With the Walker Zombie lying dead in the hallway, Joshua ambled into the office it ambushed him from. It wasn’t much protection, but he needed a place to rest and see if HP regenerated or not. He had also gotten enough EXP to level up, and that part intrigued him the most. He sat on the floor in a spot where he couldn’t be seen from the hallway and checked his status.

  Name: Zandrius

  Race: Zombie

  Class: Plague Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 1 EXP: 13/10

  Level Up Available!

  HP: 52/100

  Mana/Stamina/Energy/etc.: N/A

  Joshua selected the level up option, causing another screen to open in front of him.

  Congratulations on reaching level 2! As this is your first level up, it is important that you know some details. Leveling will not restore any HP or expendable resource but will increase your maximum of both. The amount of EXP required to level starts off small and begins to increase exponentially as you evolve. Leveling up and evolving can be performed while enemies are nearby, but evolving in this situation is not recommended.

  The details regarding leveling up weren’t too special, though not restoring HP was annoying. Regardless, he mentally pressed the level up button. Small changes immediately began to happen in his body. Joshua could feel his muscles grow and tighten, though just a little bit. The process only took a few seconds, and he eagerly checked his new status screen.

  Name: Zandrius

  Race: Zombie

  Class: Plague Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 2 EXP: 3/20

  HP: 102/150

  Mana/Stamina/Energy/etc.: N/A

  The extra EXP had carried over, which was good. The EXP requirement had also only gone up by 10, which meant it would only take another two or three zombies before he leveled up another time. The requirement would probably go up by 10 each level until he evolved, but for the moment that was just speculation. It could just as easily double each time.

  The HP buff was the real lifesaver. He still had all of the damage taken previously, his arm had the bloody bite and scratch marks to prove it, but he wound up with more HP than when he started. Hopefully that 50 Hp boost every level wouldn’t be his only form of healing, or it was only a matter of time before the zombies wore him down. A spark of inspiration struck him, and he focused on the HP section.

  HP

  HP is a rough measure of an entity’s health. An entity’s HP dropping to 0 does not necessarily mean death but can result in any number of status conditions such as unconsciousness and coma. HP can be recovered in several ways including regenerative skills, restorative items, natural regeneration due to species traits, and more. It is recommended that all players attempt to learn at least one regeneration skill at some point. If the HP of a player without an available form of healing drops too low, monsters will begin to
drop healing items at a heightened rate.

  The information was exactly what Joshua needed to see. While he didn’t have access to any healing powers right now, he could get them eventually. Until then, he just needed to get healing items from the zombies faster than they damaged him. Given how slow and weak they were, that wouldn’t be a problem with another level or two.

  With his business settled, Joshua set back out into the hallway. He wanted to get to the second floor and see what was there. It was probably just more zombies and empty offices, but in his current situation that was a good thing. It didn’t take long for another zombie to try and ambush him.