[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]
[Level: 1]
It took a long time for Ben to find the Warp Point. This wasn’t her fault, it was really far away, taking her all the way back to her hometown and then past it.
Then, there was the zombie hoard. Ben had no way to explain it. There had been no warning signs for a big hoard like there usually was, no trampled grass and glimpses of their movements from the corner of her eyes. It was just a giant swarm of zombies standing in the middle of a highway, swirling around with restless energy, but going in no direction.
Ben had been convinced that she could have walked right past them, they were so fixed on that one spot in the highway. But the second she had put her shoes onto the tarmac, all of them turned around as one. She flinched backwards, jumping behind the road boundary rail. Maybe the zombies would turn back if they could no longer see her? No chance, they continued looking at the spot where she had been, and then lurched forward in that direction.
Goddammit, she climbed on top of a tree, watching in fear as they flooded the area. It would be so easy for them to burst right out from the flimsy boundary-fence and surround her. But they didn’t. They remained milling around in that space, returning back to their dormant, directionless state, except several meters to the left.
Her eyes caught onto the space near where they had set up shop before. There was a dark spot on the road, gobs of flesh and mulch and ripped fabric piled around it in what could have been a human. Once.
She took another look at the Console, which confirmed that the most direct way was through the zombies. Which she most definitely was not going to do. Maybe go further down the highway and try to avoid them?
This proved harder than you would think, as she began her trek down the solid black river of tar. Once, she had walked until the hoard had vanished in the distance, but when she stepped onto the highway, there they were, stampeding towards her with grasping hands and snapping jaws. And it wasn’t even from the distance. No, they were right behind her, about to gouge into her soft flesh. She barely managed to throw herself behind the boundary line, where the zombies could not come, for some reason.
They stood over her, empty eye sockets looking down at her, leering from the very edge of their domain. Her heart was beating a staccato in her chest, and she tried to wipe out the image of Gerard looking down at her, judging her.
She hadn’t found him when she was passing by town. Not that she had looked hard, given the speed she was going at. She had expected to make good time, then, but now she wished she had dawdled more. Three days had already been wasted on this one obstacle. How long would it take for her to get to the Warp Point at all?
But whining would do nothing. She needed to figure some way to make it over the zombies. A run wasn’t going to work, so what else was on the table?
She looked through the Inventory, searching for options. A zipline launcher immediately caught her eye.
There were trees all around her, some reaching truly staggering heights. If she really tried it, she might be able to glide over the heads of the snapping jaws easily. Also, she really wanted to do a zipline at some point. One click later, and she had in her hands a gun that would shoot out the line to more than a thirty feet. Perfect for the width she was going for.
Climbing up the tree of her choice was an arduous task. With the abrasive tree bark, brittle branches, and lack of handholds, she even had to employ her Climbing skill to make it up to a height that made her feel safe. Funny how clutching onto a tree barely wider than herself, inches away from a fall that would most certainly break her neck, was more conducive to her wellbeing than solid ground.
Still, nothing to be done about that fact. She held onto the branch with her legs, aiming the launcher at the tree opposite her. Braced carefully and fired the line out.
The recoil was brutal, sending the entire tree shivering, but she held on and weathered the storm. And the aim was true. The other end of the cord now sticking out of the gun was wrapped around the trunk of a tree all the way across the highway.
Fighting the urge to celebrate her victory, she began to methodically secure the zipline on this side, wrapping it around the tree that had served her so well. And then, she began to climb over the taut rope. Now, it was called a zipline, implying speed. However, Ben hadn’t fired the gun to a lower angle from where she was standing, but instead straight ahead, which meant she had to climb all the way over on this thin wire on her own strength.
Okay, that was… that was alright. She could do that. Ben always did that before. Now it was more literal.
She made it, though. She touched down onto the other side, and the rough bark digging into worn and reddened hands was the best feeling she had ever felt. Sure, she lost the zipline launcher, as there was no way to dislodge it without going back, and like hell she was going to do that, but Ben decided to count it as a victory. A victory against the zombies on the highway.
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The sun was setting, she noted with despair. A fourth day wasted on this leg of the journey. She would have to speed it up immensely if she were to get there. Maybe Tench had already wrapped up his Objective? That would be the ideal outcome for her.
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Nearly a week off-schedule, Ben stumbled onto the Warp Point. Unlike all the rather deserted areas where Warp Points had appeared in the past, this was in a town. An abandoned, ravaged town, with not even the rotters left behind.
That was a lie. There were a few. She killed whichever ones crossed her path, but she wasn’t certain that she got them all. Best to avoid them where she could. The needle wobbled on the spot as she was led into a dusty bar with cracked windows, right at the edge of the town. There was a smashed screen in the corner, and rotted dead bodies lying slumped on tables. Actually dead, not just undead. Must have gotten the sweet release before the infection could spread.
She almost envied them.
No, Ben shook her head. She did not envy them. They were gone, and not in a bad way, but being alive was better. It was a chance to keep going. Even when it felt like… the world didn’t want you to.
So that’s what she did. She kept going, led by the unerring arrow of the Console, straight to a plain, wooden wall, not unlike the many other walls in the building. Except for one, miniscule difference.
[Warp Point Reached!]
[This Individual Sub-Level is Unfinished]
[Maximum Exp Points to Gain: 2,000]
[! Only 1 Volunteer is allowed to Enter !]
And only one volunteer was here. The very last one.
But she couldn’t just dive in like that. For starters, they needed to store the Console here, because it couldn’t be brought inside. Not only that, but it had to be hidden, or a zombie, or something more nefarious, could snap it up while they were off playing secret dungeon.
She finally found a safe underneath the bar. It had a few guns inside it, but they were of little consequence. Just shoved them aside and shut the thing. Verity might like a gun, she mused. The girl had been in a fragile state recently, and this seemed like a good enough gift for her. For now, though, she walked headlong into the wall that hid a secret dungeon layer.
[Benedict Carrey has Entered the Warp Point!]
[Preparing Teleportation to Individual Sub-Level…]
The sensation of being overtaken by a rainshower of pixels is an odd feeling. Like… being covered by ants, more and more, until you realize that bits of you had become ants.
[You have Entered Individual Sub-Level #7!]
[Realm: L-35 | Trackland]
[Objective: Finish This]
Oh, no. This sounded like a big one. Finish what? A grudge match? The little story they’ve been playing out? The Apocalypse?
No, that last one was ridiculous. No way would it be asking that from someone like… her. She cringed at how ‘pick me’ that sounded. She wasn’t putting herself down or playing off her accomplishments. Surviving at all in her world was already a big achievement. She would never be fool enough to pretend that it didn’t take something special to make it this far. Even if that ‘something special’ was plain dumb luck, as was the case with Terry.
But what she meant was that, saving an entire world was… a bit much, even for her. It wasn’t something you’d expect for a person to just do, you know? No single person should be expected to save the world. That’s why [Party(Main)] required many teammates, and even they were cutting it a bit close with their small band.
It’s all well and good when you say that you’re going to save the world. But actually doing it? That’s where the real trouble started.
She readied herself for trouble the second it started. Tench had gotten the good quality oxygen cylinder, leaving Lucky to wrestle with a rebreather. She wasn’t mad at him for it, in fact had insisted he take it, but it still bit now that she was in the pure intensity of the Tracklands.
There were tracks at her feet, she realized. Train tracks, for big locomotives. And there was one of them, standing right in front of her.
Standing, not moving. Stationary. And, judging by the way the wheels were no longer fixed on the tracks, and all the carriages were thrown in disarray, it was not a smooth stop. She rushed inside, looking through the carriages. Boxes upon boxes, lots of cargo, some survival equipment, some food, no casualties, except for this strange broken pot and- oops, never mind, found a body.
It was slumped near the doorway, most of its body still inside, but its head sticking out, blood sprayed out every which way from where a door had shut directly on the poor guy’s head. Except, there were scarlet handprints on the door handle. This was no mistake. Someone had done this, deliberately.
Luckily, she didn’t have to play detective to solve that mystery. A group of figures was making their escape, bound tightly in clothes that blended right into the smog and the sand. They didn’t seem to notice her, so she followed carefully behind, quickly gaining ground. By the time they did realize what was going on, it was too late, she already had her bat aimed at the tallest one’s head.
“Alright, folks.” She muttered, voice failing to hide the vitriol that hounded her, “Start talking. What did you do to that train?”
“What we had to.” The tallest squeaked in a voice too young for it, and Ben froze as the figure she was holding a bat over bent into two, turning around to reveal two tiny children with twin smiles. Angry, bloodthirsty smiles, but still smiles.
“The Rustage have been tightening up on medical supplies recently.” One of the others explained, both a more reasonable age of maybe early twenties, “And we heard of a miracle doctor in the old tumblethorn outback, so we headed there for aid.”
“But the driver wasn’t intent on letting us leave, so we took matters into our own hands.” The last one explained. Ben could already feel herself relaxing. Oh, good. These were good kids. And they were obviously talking about Tench. Who else could it be?
“I’m looking for them, too.” She explained, grinning brightly, “Can I come with.”
They seemed uncertain, but allowed it. The journey, compared to everything they had gone through before, was comparatively tame. They even found the place in the same day, though it was not as secretive as they had made it out to seem. Not just because of all the structures outside, but the people who gathered there, too. Many people were there, and a few had on very fancy getups.
That was the first alarm bell. The second was the woman in the chair, standing down as if she was conceding a fight. Ben didn’t think twice about the situation. Just rushed forward and started swinging.
[Player Log End!]