Sanctum

by Matthew Powell

  Joshua’s first target was going to be a Bloater. While he hadn’t actually killed one yet, pretty much every zombie game had a freak just like them. Filled to bursting with acid, zombie blood, or some other kind of dangerous substance. The moment a deadly attack landed, the Bloater would explode, covering everything nearby in the foul liquid. The gunk would either melt everything it touched or cause every zombie in the supercenter to track him like a bloodhound.

  In addition to popping like balloons when killed, Bloaters had numerous advantages over normal zombies. They were stronger, sturdier, and slightly smarter, though thankfully not faster. If they managed to grab an enemy, they could vomit the same gunk that went everywhere when they exploded, only without dying. Joshua was not willing to go anywhere near these things with his knife.

  Because of their tendency to vomit and explode, most other zombies avoided them when possible. Of the half-dozen or so Bloaters that the flying eyes had managed to spot, only two had packs of zombies following them. Those same two packs also had Defaced hunting nearby, which Joshua could pick off easily with his new armor and weapon.

  Joshua approached the first Bloater in an aisle filled with decaying boxes of cereal and junk food. It was chewing on the long-emptied containers and was completely oblivious to its surroundings. This first Bloater likely wouldn’t have been a challenge either way, but Joshua had been hoping for something exciting to happen.

  Bloated Zombie

  Tier: 2

  Level: 7

  HP: 600/600

  A zombie that ate a little too much before reaching its first evolution. Will explode when severely damaged, coating the surrounding area in a potent acid. Melee combat is extremely dangerous, even for higher tier players.

  He lined up the shot. The Bloater made a much easier target than the first zombie. It didn’t even see him yet, completely engrossed in eating the remains of a cereal box. A single bullet silently rang through the air, piercing into the Bloater’s head and taking a slight chunk off. The oversized zombie exploded instantly.

  Critical Hit! Brain Damaged! Bloated Zombie has taken 500 Damage!

  Level 7 Bloated Zombie explodes!

  Zandrius gains 80 EXP

  Joshua had expected a lot of things, but instant death was not one of them. Sure, the shot had been a critical hit, but to cause the Bloater to explode instantly? That seemed a little overkill, especially since the pistol still hadn’t been upgraded with Pestilence. Speaking of Pestilence, Joshua was dismayed with what he found from the Bloater’s corpse.

  Well, the lack of a corpse. The acid from the zombie had melted anything that may have held Pestilence in it, destroying his chances up taking it from them. The EXP was still worth going after, but not gaining more Pestilence was disappointing. When Joshua turned to walk away from the acid coated isle, he heard a loud creaking noise.

  The acid had started eating through the bottom of the aisle shelves, causing them to lean. He had maybe a few seconds before they collapsed. While the collapse itself wouldn’t be dangerous given that he was already near the isle’s exit, the noise it caused would draw every Brute and Defaced in this half of the dungeon straight to this location.

  Joshua turned and ran, getting as far away from the collapsing isle as possible. Just as he had predicted, within a few seconds of the collapse the entire area was overrun with Defaced. He left a Plague Eye behind to keep an eye on the scene and retreated towards the shopping cart area where he would be safe.

  The eye saw carnage. Defaced swarmed over the isle’s tall shelves like spiders, desperately trying to find whatever had caused the collapse. Brutes arrived shortly after, ripping any Defaced that didn’t move away to shreds with their bare hands. The chaos had created an unexpected opportunity, however. The areas that these Defaced and Brutes had previously been wandering was now mostly clear. Only a small handful of enemies remained.

  This presented what Joshua hoped would be the final weapons tests that he would need to run in the dungeon. The normal zombies and Bloaters were good first targets, but they didn’t have the intelligence of the Defaced or the sheer muscle of the Brutes. He really needed to upgrade the pistol before testing on stronger targets, especially since the first upgrade was so cheap, but there wasn’t time. He only had a few minutes before the distracted zombies started wandering back to their original places.

  Using the flying eyes, Joshua was able to find the Brute farthest away from all the others. Finally taking a minute to observe them, the Brutes were easily the most dangerous of the tier 2 zombies. They looked less like humans and more like caricatures, as if someone who had never seen a bodybuilder had been asked to draw one. It was the same height as a normal human, but nearly three times as wide and made entirely of muscle. The surface flesh was rotting, but the muscles that showed underneath were strong and taut.

  Zombie Brute

  Tier: 2

  Level: 5

  HP: 1100/1100

  A zombie that killed a tier 2 monster before evolving, gaining a much more powerful evolution. Significantly stronger and faster than normal zombies, but virtually no intelligence to speak of. Only found in dungeons or high-density zones due to difficult evolution requirement.

  The Brutes HP was absurdly high. Even if Joshua managed to land two critical hits, it would take three shots to kill. The fact that a random zombie had an evolution requirement was something to consider later, but ultimately not important. It just meant that once Joshua escaped the dungeon, he wouldn’t have to worry about running into another Brute for a while.

  Joshua tried to approach the Brute for a good shot, just as he had with the Bloater, but it quickly noticed him. While the monster may have been as dumb as a normal zombie, that stupidity meant it acted largely on instinct, making it nearly impossible to ambush without some sort of stealth ability that Joshua still hadn’t found.

  Joshua almost didn’t realize he had been spotted until it was too late. The Brute didn’t roar, or hiss, or make any sound to give away that it had spotted him. It just charged at him with no hesitation or concern for its own safety. Joshua barely dodged out of the way in time for the Brute to smash into the aisle shelves. The shelves shook but held. The Brute was strong, but giant shelves like these would take more than a single hit like that to bring down. With the Brute’s back exposed as it dislodged itself from the indent it had made in the shelves, Joshua unloaded the Pistol into its back.

  Zombie Brute has taken 112 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 137 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 110 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 104 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 155 damage

  HP Remaining: 482/1100

  Five bullets slammed into the monster’s back, digging into its muscles but not penetrating all the way through. While the wounds looked devastating, the Brute didn’t show any pain or hesitation because of them beyond the initial staggering they caused on impact. Joshua couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the disfigured zombie. If he had that kind of strength and speed, with the same weapon and armor crafting capability, even killing the Drudge Bear wouldn’t be out of the question. He actually regretted not picking Body Swapper for his tier 2 class.

  While Joshua was daydreaming about what he could have done with the Brute’s power, the Brute he was fighting had freed itself and was charging again. This time Joshua didn’t see it coming. The Brute tackled him in the side, the force picked him up and carrying Joshua right into another set of shelves.

  Zandrius had taken 332 damage!

  Joshua had never been more grateful to not feel pain. The Brute’s tackle had taken his remaining HP and nearly cut it in half, burying him a few inches into the shelves at the same time. His gambeson was torn apart, barely holding together on his frame. As he regained his composure from the attack, Joshua had just enough time to see the Brute raising its fist to finish the job.

  He needed to stop the attack in some way, but he couldn’t move. Much like how t
he Brute had lodged itself into the aisle shelves on its first charge, it had lodged him into them with the second. Joshua was barely able to twitch his right hand enough to point the pistol at the Brute before it threw its punch.

  Just before the Brutes punch landed, it froze. A moment later, as Joshua was struggling to free himself from the wall, it collapsed to the ground. The skin around the holes where the Brute had been shot was dark black and emitted a horrible smell. The infection damage from the Pestilence bullets had eaten the Brute from the inside, draining the rest of its HP before it could land the killing blow.

  Level 5 Zombie Brute has died!

  Zandrius gains 180 EXP

  The extra EXP was nice, but not worth the danger that fighting these things currently posed. As it was, the Brutes were too dangerous to engage again until he was stronger. That was what Joshua thought until he drained the Pestilence from the hulking zombie. The single Brute had given him 8 maximum Pestilence! That was equal to several Spitters, or several dozen normal zombies. It had even dropped a health potion.

  Moderate Low-Quality Health Potion

  A potion that isn’t completely horrible. Mostly used by beginner adventurers setting out on their first adventure. Heals 250 HP.

  Joshua drank the potion right away. It wasn’t enough to fully heal the damage from the Brute’s tackle, but it helped. Before he could savor his victory and figure out a plan of action, the flying eyes watching the Bloater’s explosion site saw the other tier 2 zombies making their return. Joshua made his way back to the shopping cart alcove, determined to get out of the dungeon sooner rather than later.

  Chapter 10

  There are, of course, several things we chose not to tell players about on Macrocosm’s release date. Things like item shop prices, methods to reach other worlds, and other hidden mechanics. One of these mechanics is made to encourage players to enter dungeons. If a player logs out near a dungeon, even if just for a minute, a monster significantly above their means to defeat is spawned nearby. When they log back in, they are offered the choice of trying to fight or automatically spawning in the nearest town. Of course, most choose to spawn in town, but every now and then someone doesn’t. Most of these poor fools still die, killed instantly by the monster. The few who survive will escape into the dungeon, where once again a similar process occurs. These few will either die and respawn, moving on with the game like normal, or be pushed to new heights. – On the creation of Champions, from the Chronicles of The Founder

  ◆◆◆

  When he got back to the alcove, Joshua sat down in his meditation spot and prepared to stay there for a while. The tier 2 zombies hadn’t just returned to their previous position as he had thought but were instead raging across the entire dungeon. Some had even come close to the entrance, startling Joshua enough to not let his guard down until the fighting stopped.

  Event Triggered! War of the Fallen!

  The one Bloater he had shot wound up triggering some sort of special event. The remaining Bloaters and tier 1 zombies had all been killed almost instantly. They simply couldn’t compete with the cunning of the Defaced or the strength of the Brutes. These last two forces, however, showed no signs of slowing downs. The Defaced outnumbered the Brutes ten-to-one, but the raw power of the Brutes more than made up for the difference. Had the situation not presented such a golden opportunity, Joshua would have run right out the door and taken his chances with the bear.

  All these rampaging monsters left behind a buffet of corpses filled with Pestilence for him to gather. The main problem would be collecting any of it without dying. The zombies, in their rampage, would attack anything that moved – including the weaker Plague Eyes. No, the only way to reap the benefits of this conflict would be to kill everything and sort it out later.

  Joshua took a few minutes to regenerate his Pestilence, repair the gambeson, and upgrade the Tainted Pistol. Despite its extremely high damage potential, the pistol only took 100 Pestilence for its first upgrade, some of which he had already filled while testing it out. With his current Pestilence generation of 12 per minute, it only took a few minutes to finish the upgrade. The gambeson, having been made from Pestilence, repaired itself with just a few points.

  Tainted Pistol

  Soul-Bound Weapon

  Damage Potential: 40 Blunt/1000 Piercing/300 Infection (DOT) 25P/shot

  Pestilence Towards Next Upgrade: 0/500

  The damage upgrade was massive, but the increased cost per shot was painful. Still, as long as the shots landed, even if they weren’t critical, nothing that Joshua had seen in the dungeon would be able to survive more than a few shots. The gun itself changed a little as well, with small black lines started to cover its surface.

  Once the gun's clip was full and his Pestilence was refilled, Joshua set out to start fighting. He would only be able to kill a small handful of enemies with his current weapons before retreating, and he was determined to make the most of it. Joshua made a beeline for where two Brutes were fighting nearly a dozen Defaced.

  The Brutes were winning the fight, killing or crippling one of the Defaced any time they managed to land a hit. They were covered in countless cuts and scratches from where the skinless monsters had slashed with their claws, but none of the cuts had done more than take off a few HP. Once one of the Brutes was distracted tearing a Defaced in half, Joshua made his move.

  He fired four shots into the hulking monsters back. The shots were noticeably stronger than before, tearing through the Brutes thickened muscles. One of them penetrated all the way through, leaving a gaping hole where it exited. The recoil that the shots caused almost knocked the gun from Joshua’s hand, already used to the recoilless shots that the gun had before the upgrade.

  Zombie Brute has taken 331 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 299 damage

  Zombie Brute has taken 274 damage

  Critical Hit! Penetrating Shot! Zombie Brute has taken 512 damage

  Level 3 Zombie Brute had died!

  Zandrius gains 120 EXP

  The Brute went down right away. Each of the shots had done nearly three times their previous damage, and he had even landed a crit. The Defaced that the Brute had been fighting barely registered Joshua’s presence before rushing to help its brethren fight off the other muscled zombie. Joshua planned to kill them too, but the Defaced were much less of a threat than the Brutes for the moment.

  Joshua drained his Pestilence into the gun, spending 100 to fully reload it before targeting the other Brute. It was distracted by the Defaced just as the first had been, but without its ally, the Defaced were wearing it down. Rather than killing the Brute right away, Joshua decided to kill off some of the Defaced first, just to even the odds. Once the second Brute died, the Defaced were almost certainly going to turn on him next, and the less of them alive when that happened the better.

  Joshua didn’t open fire, opting to use his knife this time. While the gun could probably kill the Defaced with a single well-placed shot, each shot was expensive, and he needed spares just in case this Brute turned out stronger than the last two. The Defaced were ignoring him in favor of ganging up on the Brute, which gave Joshua the chance for a not-at-all sneaky sneak attack.

  Of the original 20 Defaced, 14 were left to overpower the last Brute. That was a few more than Joshua was comfortable fighting, certainly all at once, so he needed to take as many of them out as possible before they noticed. Almost out of Pestilence and preferring not to waste his limited ammo, he crept up to the back of the nearest Defaced and stuck the knife right into its neck.

  Critical Hit! Neck Stabbed! Defaced has taken 721 damage

  Level 4 Defaced has died!

  Zandrius gains 50 EXP

  Two more Defaced fell in the same way before the others took notice. Five of the Defaced turned to fight him, leaving six to handle the Brute. They surrounded Joshua, not giving him any way to escape the situation. He had no choice but to fight his way out. Two of the Defaced attacked at once, one stabbing him in
the back and the other trying to slash his chest.

  Joshua couldn’t turn fast enough to attack the one behind him, but he was able to cut off both arms of the Defaced in front of him before its claws landed.

  You have taken 112 damage

  Remaining HP: 556/900

  Critical Hit! Arms Severed! Defaced has taken 392 damage

  Remaining HP: 108/500

  The backstab head dealt a lot more damage than Joshua had anticipated, digging through his gambeson and into his back. If it weren’t for the armor, the stab would have dealt over 200 damage, possibly more if it turned into a critical hit. Joshua turned around, swinging his knife in a wide arc. The swing almost decapitated the backstabber as the knife sailed cleanly through its neck.

  Critical Hit! Neck Slashed! Defaced has taken 703 damage

  Level 5 Defaced has died!

  Zandrius gains 60 EXP

  Taking a quick glance at his character sheet, Joshua saw he was only a single kill away from leveling up. He quickly turned back towards the armless Defaced, determined to land the final blow and get the bonus HP from leveling, when the other Defaced attacked. Rather than wildly slash or stab with their claws, these three Defaced showed teamwork in their approach.