Sanctum

by Matthew Powell

  On the other hand, a tier 4 monster…it was too good of a chance to pass up. The Defaced gave nearly 10 times as much EXP as regular zombies, and if the tiers kept that kind of exponential increase then…would a tier 4 monster give 100 times as the Defaced? If it did, that would instantly propel Joshua up several levels, maybe even straight up to tier 3. It wasn’t something he could afford to pass up.

  Decision made, Joshua respawned at the front of the strip mall supercenter. It took him all of five seconds to regret his choice when he saw, standing in the parking lot, a bear. Seven feet tall and just as wide, with rotting flesh but clearly exposed powerful muscles, Joshua knew in an instant that this monster would rip him apart effortlessly. It was distractedly munching on the corpses of the zombies he slew earlier, but it wouldn’t be long before it noticed him. Joshua quickly tried looking at the bear’s status page to learn more about it.

  Drudge Bear

  Tier: 4

  Level: 37

  HP: ????? / ?????

  It was so much stronger than Joshua that he couldn’t even see the bear’s HP, just a string of question marks like what had appeared when he tried to inspect the Plague God. All he could tell was that the number was five digits, and that was two more digits than his own. It wasn’t a fight he even stood a chance in. The bear, as if sensing his attempt to learn about it, turned its head towards him.

  Joshua froze, hoping that if he didn’t move, maybe the bear wouldn’t attack him. His hopes were for naught, as the bear roared. The roar itself had a physical force behind it, dealing a little damage and throwing him to the ground. His ears wouldn’t stop ringing as he tried to stand back up.

  You have been affected by Deafening Roar!

  The roar has temporarily disoriented you.

  Now was not the ideal time for the status boxes to distract him, but at least they gave him a bit of information. Not seeing any other way out of this and still stumbling from the roar, Joshua staggered towards the door to the dungeon. He wasn’t strong enough to beat the dungeon on his own, but at least he had a chance to survive. This bear, on the other hand, was both unsurvivable and inescapable if he didn’t take this chance right now.

  Joshua reached the door just as the bear reached him. He tumbled forward as the bear’s claw ripped his right leg off, sending him falling forward towards the sliding glass. That single glancing blow had taken off both a limb and nearly 300HP. To his relief, the bear seemed content to simply munch on his leg and didn’t follow him inside. Either it couldn’t enter the dungeon, or he simply wasn’t worth finishing off. Taking a quick look around, there weren’t any monsters waiting to ambush him near the entrance.

  Missing a leg and down to nearly a quarter of his maximum HP, Joshua had no choice but to find a place to hide and regenerate. Thankfully the supercenter dungeon had a large alcove for shopping carts right near the entrance. It connected to the outside and outside was the bear, but the shutter was closed. Presumably, the bear couldn’t get in since it was a dungeon, and if it could then he was dead anyway. Best not to worry about that for the moment.

  Joshua crawled over to the shopping carts, making sure he was out of sight from the rest of the massive store and contemplated his next move. He couldn’t fight without a leg, that much was obvious. That meant he needed to take some time and regenerate. Unfortunately, his current regeneration was still slow as hell. He didn’t need to heal back to full, just enough to regenerate his lost leg. After that, he could hunt the normal zombies until they dropped some health potions.

  Joshua came up with a plan. He laid his back against the wall and started focusing his Pestilence towards both the wound and his knife. He had a passive Pestilence generation of 5/min right now, and that was enough that he could split it up. Every minute, 2.5 Pestilence was sacrificed to heal and 2.5 was fed to the knife. The knife already had over half its total Pestilence needed to upgrade from what he had pumped into it while clearing the mall, and if his math was right, it should upgrade around the time he was able to walk again. If he was wrong, then he would be stuck here even longer.

  Chapter 8

  Dungeons were a no-brainer, any decent MMO has them. How they would work was another question altogether. Most games go for one of two options: open-world dungeons that are basically just caves or buildings with slightly stronger monsters and faster respawn rates than the surrounding area, or instanced dungeons that give each group their own experience. For Macrocosm, the open world dungeons made the most sense. Our explorable worlds are so massive that there is no need to give each player their own instanced dungeon, as there are enough dungeons to go around. This also helps to foster competition as players inevitably start fighting each other over the valuable EXP and items that high-level dungeon monsters can drop. – On Macrocosm mechanics, from the Chronicles of The Founder

  ◆◆◆

  Two hours. It took Joshua two hours sitting in that alcove before he could finally walk again. The knife finished upgrading halfway through, but even with all of his Pestilence being funneled into healing, the leg took a lot longer. When he had lost his arm, he managed to retrieve the limb itself, so the healing process wasn’t that difficult. Now, however, his severed leg was sitting in the stomach of that massive bear. Retrieval wasn’t exactly an option.

  Pestilence Knife

  Soul-Bound Weapon

  Damage Potential: 100 Blunt/500 Sharp

  Pestilence Towards Next Upgrade: 0/1000

  The upgrade for the knife was a nice leap. It had grown a few more inches, looking less like a long knife and more like a short serrated machete. Another upgrade or two and it would turn into a full-fledged short sword. The knife wasn’t the only upgrade Joshua had managed in that time, and the other one excited him more.

  Pestilence Sacrifice improved!

  Through training and constant use, you have learned how to use Pestilence Sacrifice more effectively. Pestilence/HP ration has improved to 4P/1HP.

  Joshua had completely forgotten that he could upgrade abilities through training, and it seemed that desperately reattaching limbs counted. The ratio was still horribly skewed against him, but it was better. Between the improving ratio and his constantly growing Pestilence, it was only a matter of time before Pestilence Sacrifice became useful without multiple hours of waiting.

  This little tragedy had also proven something Joshua was unsure of: whether or not he would be able to regenerate lost limbs. The answer was yes, though it was slow and a gruesome thing to watch as the muscles and bones slowly stitched themselves together. He was able to direct the regeneration to focus on the limb, but he wasn’t able to manipulate what it regenerated. The new limb was the exact same zombie leg he had before.

  While he wasn’t fully healed by any means, having less than half his total HP, Joshua knew he couldn’t afford to sit here and heal back to full. Even with the new ration, it would take far too long. It was time to start scouting out the dungeon. He spent a chunk of his saved Pestilence to create five flying eyes and sent them to learn the layout of the dungeon.

  Once they got just a few feet away, two of the eyes dissolved, the Pestilence returning to him. It seemed that three was his current maximum, and even that number may decrease as they got farther away. Once they left the shopping cart alcove, Joshua closed his eyes and focused entirely on the sight of his flying scouts.

  Moving and controlling three of the eyes had been difficult in combat when Joshua had completely ignored their vision and used them as flying darts. It was even harder now, with him trying to control all three separately without letting their vision disorient him. Closing his real eyes was the only way he could manage doing this without a headache. It meant leaving himself vulnerable to attack, but no monster had wandered near the entrance in the two hours he had sat there, so it was probably safe.

  As the eyes scattered through the mall, Joshua began creating more of them and sending them out as well. Any he created beyond the original three may break down once they got too far awa
y, but that number would never go up if he didn’t practice it. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, and he had enough Pestilence regen to make one every two minutes while still funneling most of the energy in HP regen.

  The supercenter was made up primarily of an entrance, where Joshua was now, a checkout area, and several dozen isles filled with dust and rotten goods with two main isles going down the middle. Lining the walls of the store were several smaller areas, including some restaurants and smaller stores.

  The entire area was filled with dozens of zombies. Most of them were the plain old zombies he had massacred outside, but variants were peppered throughout the store. This was Joshua’s first time seeing actual tier 2 zombies, instead of Defaced. Zombie Bloaters and Brutes roamed the aisles, knocking anything that got too close out of the way. A few Spitters sat out in the open, surrounded by weaker zombies they used as meat shields. Defaced were there too, roaming on top of the massive shelves that lined the aisles, occasionally jumping down to rip apart and eat lone roaming zombies.

  This place was one massive death trap. Sure, Joshua knew he could take on as many of the weaker zombies as he wanted without trouble, but everything else was too much. If he tried to thin the horde, the Spitters would wear him down from a distance. If he tried to stalk the aisles, the Defaced would stalk him right back. He was strong, but he wasn’t strong enough to brute-force his way through the Brutes and, if previous movie and game knowledge held true, killing the Bloaters would cause an explosion that would draw every zombie right to him. There were simply no good options.

  Well, none except for one. Attempting to fight the zombie hordes inside the dungeon was suicide no matter how Joshua looked at it, and if his plan worked then he wouldn’t have to fight them. Joshua called his scouting eyes back, leaving only a single one to watch over the entrance zone and make sure nothing came too close. He dissolved one of the remaining eyes, leaving him a single one to work with.

  Joshua thought back to when he had first created the eye while trying to find the Defaced Moaner. The notification box had mentioned that it could be upgraded and even used for combat. He gathered as much Pestilence as he could spare and started pumping it into the eye, keeping the eye itself as small as possible. After nearly 30 Pestilence, changed.

  Eye of Pestilence Variant Skill Unlocked!

  Explosive Eye learned!

  An Eye of Pestilence that has been pumped full to bursting with energy. Can be detonated at will, dealing damage to any nearby enemies. Damage amount increases with Pestilence used. Attempting to fill the eye with too much Pestilence can cause it to explode early, damaging the caster.

  Joshua immediately stopped using his Pestilence, letting the eye float in the air. Just looking at it made him uncomfortable as the energy underneath it writhed, making the eye pulse and jerk in weird ways. Even the vision coming from it was distorted by the excess energy, like looking at something through water.

  Joshua created another normal eye and used it to guide the explosive eye towards the back of the supercenter. He wasn’t confident in his ability to control the bomb with its messed-up sight, but he could move it just fine so long as another eye watched it. It was time to test out the explosive power of his first offensive ability.

  He found a lone zombie wandering on the far end of the store and maneuvered the eye near it. When it approached the close, the zombie took notice and started trying to knock it out of the air. The zombie’s attempts were futile, it was just too slow to catch something as small and fast as a flying eye.

  When the eye got close enough to almost press against the zombie’s head, Joshua detonated it. In the distance, he could hear the slight popping sound of the bomb going off. Half of the zombie’s head exploded, killing it instantly.

  Critical Hit! Head Exploded! Walker Zombie has taken 417 damage!

  Level 5 Walker Zombie had died!

  Zandrius gains 12 EXP

  It was beyond his highest hopes. Joshua had been expecting it to damage, maybe even cripple the zombie, not to kill it outright. Sure, the explosion right next to the head had caused a critical hit, but that was still impressive. The only problem was its cost, taking a huge 30 Pestilence to use just once. He didn’t even get the Pestilence back when it exploded as he could do with the normal eyes. He also didn’t get the Pestilence from the slain zombie.

  The Explosive Eye, while certainly powerful, wasn’t what he needed. No, Joshua knew he needed something subtler. Something that dealt less damage, but also cost less and let him take the Pestilence from the dead enemies. He didn’t need an Explosive Eye, he needed an infectious one.

  Joshua waited for his Pestilence to regen and went back to work on making a better eye. He summoned up a normal eye and studied it, trying to figure out how to make it do what he wanted. After racking his brain for anything that would help, a stroke of inspiration struck.

  The eye wasn’t really an eye, just a mass of Pestilence that served an eye’s purpose. That meant he could break it back down into Pestilence, which he did every time he reabsorbed them. If that was the case, couldn’t he just break it down and keep the Pestilence from coming back, or even control it further?

  Congratulations, you have discovered the inner workings of a skill!

  Eye of Pestilence has been upgraded to Plague Eye!

  Plague Eyes can break down into Pestilence and reform at any time, even using the transformation to avoid attacks and reform after taking critical damage. While broken down, the Plague Eye can infect other creatures, dealing constant damage while ripping them apart from the inside. Plague Eyes can recover the Pestilence from dead enemies and return it to the player. Plague Eyes infection damage scales with the amount of Pestilence that the eye possesses and can grow stronger as it absorbs more Pestilence before returning with its bounty.

  The new ability was exactly what Joshua was hoping for, but he needed to know its effectiveness before relying on them too much. He created three Plague Eyes with 10 Pestilence each and set them out to hunt, targeting lone zombies first. The eyes proved their worth quickly.

  The first one to reach a zombie burst into a cloud of Pestilence, enveloping the zombie’s head. It struggled and clawed against the cloud, unable to damage it but too stupid to try anything else. The cloud quickly shrunk in size as it entered the zombie’s body through whatever orifice it could find, ironically blinding it in the process.

  Joshua couldn’t see through the eye once it burst, but he could still feel its rough location and control it. This meant that he couldn’t see the zombie’s HP, nor did he receive any damage indicator, but he knew it was being hurt. The Plague Eye tore it apart from the inside, collecting Pestilence energy as it went. It took less than a minute for the death and EXP notification to appear.

  The cloud exited the zombie’s body just as it entered, quickly forming back into a flying eye. It came out slightly stronger than before thanks to the Pestilence it had absorbed. The eye would kill its next target marginally faster. Joshua saw the potential for abuse in an area like this: he could just have the eyes jump from zombie to zombie, growing stronger, until they cleared the dungeon for him and he reaped all the rewards. Something was probably going to go wrong, that was just too easy, but it was worth a shot.

  All three eyes scattered, focusing on any zombie that was on its own or walked too far from its pack. They quickly started racking up both kills and Pestilence, quickly growing larger and more powerful. The zombies started to die faster as the eyes grew, but this also attracted attention.

  One of the Spitters took a shot at an eye, nearly shooting it down. Joshua immediately recalled it back to the alcove, absorbing it and increasing his Pestilence cap by 5. By his estimation, the little eyes were too small and weak for the tier 2 zombies recognize them as enemies, but that changed the moment they gained a little too much Pestilence. Joshua called them back the moment they had 5 extra Pestilence, a number they could reach in slightly more than a dozen kills.

  This repetit
ious process continued for another hour. The eyes would kill zombies, run back when they grew too big, and a new one would take their place on the front line. With a little experimentation, Joshua found that the zombies only started taking notice if he put more than 15 Pestilence in them. This gave him a solid threshold for when they needed to return and gaining a few extra maximum Pestilence every few minutes started to add up fast. The EXP was nice too, and Joshua reached level 6 shortly after starting, but the requirement to level up was getting too large for the simple zombies to mean much.

  At the end of the hour, Joshua’s Pestilence supply had skyrocketed all the way up to 85. As the Pestilence grew, so did its generation, and with that his passive HP regen. He was quite a bit short of his maximum, but with over half his total, he was ready to start the next phase of his plan.

  Two Plague Eyes, loaded with 20 Pestilence each, and a single explosive eye with 40 Pestilence, set out towards a Spitter’s zombie pack. When they got close, the normal zombies grouped up around the Spitter, forming what was effectively a wall of bodies. A wall that meant nothing to the speedy airborne eyes. The Spitter’s ranged attack, on the other hand, was a much more real threat.

  Its jaw unhinged, lobbing a glob of acid with terrifying accuracy towards one of the Plague Eyes. Joshua was able to move it away in time, but just barely. The Spitter took a few seconds between each shot, as he had seen when he watched a Spitter pack fight off against a Defaced, so this was his chance. The Explosive Eye darted forward, shoving itself through the Spitter’s extended mouth and down its throat.