[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Verity Monroe]
[Level: 1 – Boss Stage]
Jared stopped in front of her, so sharply that she nearly bumped into him.
“What?” She asked crossly, looking around them quickly. Nothing seemed to have caught onto her. The zombies hadn’t caught onto them. Maybe from the amount of zombie blood she was covered in acting as a cloak against their sense of smell, but there was no point in exercising a little more caution. But a careful sweep proved that there wasn’t any threat in their vicinity.
Then she realized they were standing right on the edge of a break in the Hygeia walls. Except it wasn’t one that was torn into the Safe City after the King Zombie had risen. It was cleanly constructed, built beforehand. It could only be the one break in the boundary that had been preplanned.
“The river?” She blinked, stepping onto the small, grassy bank. The white froth of the river was so fast and stinging that any zombie that had stumbled in had been swept away by the rapids. The smears of green blood slick on the river rocks proved that.
“Yeah.” Jared agreed, crouching down to reach the river and clean his hands under the spray. It was so sharp that his skin lit up red. He hissed and pulled away, “You’ve been picking at your skin for a while, so I thought… you might want to wash off. You always make sure to keep very clean before. But there isn’t a bucket here, so we might need to set that aside for a little while.”
She reached forward, picking up the sharp jet of water and pouring it over her arms, watching the thick shell of dried gore get sluiced off with no issue.
“It’s okay.” She replied, brightly, pulling out a pack of soap she had hidden in her coat and began efficiently scraping blood off her clothes, hair, and skin. Jared watched, horrified, as she weathered the arduous spray of the high-pressure water.
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Hours later, when she was walking through the streets in soaking clothes and boots that would never be empty of water again. She felt like a drowned cat. In a warzone of death and destruction.
Thankfully, the streets were becoming familiar, and she began walking ahead of Jared even without the map to navigate. He didn’t correct her, so she began picking up speed, taking a corner, bringing down a passing zombie that tried to stumble onto them.
Now that the cover of blood was gone, more zombies were creeping onto them, attracted by the scent of fresh humans. She didn’t mind. The extra fight was fun. Really allowed her to whet her bloodlust in preparation for the big day.
Finally, they appeared in front of Hygeia. The windows were bashed in, and the large stately doors were hanging on its hinges. Verity stood, frozen, watching as a zombie bashing its head on the one window on the second floor still intact.
“Where’s the bunker meant to be?” She asked Jared.
“Not sure.” He replied, twisting his map around to get a good look. Verity sighed, thinking up a solution.
[Applying Tracking…]
Grey and black covered her eyes, except for a few flashes of green and red trails. One such trail led from the stairs of the Hall, just days old, and went down to a decorative statue sitting on the side of the flowerpots set about the edges of the hall.
Verity walked up to the statue dragging it to the side purposefully. Jared didn’t even need to be filled in on the situation, he automatically understood and began pulling alongside her. They got the statue to the side, to reveal a manhole cover like any other. One shared glance, and the pair knew that neither or them were fooled by this façade for a second.
She pulled the grate to the side, and Jared dove in first, crutches in one hand, the other in his pocket, curled around the Card of Compulsion. If anyone was inside – which she doubted – it was best to have him deal with it. When there were no sounds of shouting, or conversation, or even a gunshot, Verity followed him. It was a classic bunker. Nothing but a mere hole in the ground, lined with heavy sheet metal, and crates of unlabeled supplies.
There was no sign of anyone having ever been here, despite the tracks definitely leading here. It was like the person who had been coming inside had vanished while climbing down into the bunker. Verity wondered if this Mob was as willing of a participant in this as Marc had been. Maybe this bunker was a way to escape the influence of these Developers which controlled everything?
“Look alive, someone planted a bomb in here.” Jared spoke, pointing towards a small case at the very back, which had a small, red light blinking surreptitiously. Verity tensed, any sympathy vanishing. There didn’t seem to be the same ticking sound coming from this that came from every timed bomb, so that couldn’t be the trigger. They had to tread carefully here. Literally.
“Tripwires.” Jared noted, gaze flittering over the messy floor. There was more than one wire shining out amidst the clutter, and she had no way of knowing if she had missed any.
Stolen story; please report.
“I throw you, you disarm it?” She settled on saying, eventually.
Jared gagged, “I hate Maneuver Five.” It was one of their earliest ‘combo moves’, so to speak. Before they found out that the world was a video game and that combo moves were a very possible thing. Wait, were they possible? She should follow up on that rabbithole eventually.
For now, she simply raised her hands, giving Jared a steady platform to stand on, so that she could fling him at the box recklessly. He was shaking, which was understandable, because it must have been a year or more since they had practiced this, and the stakes were high, but if there was one thing Verity was confident about, it was her strength. Even if it turned against her, it never failed.
And when she snapped her forearms upwards, throwing Jared across the room, she did so with unerring accuracy. Her friend landed on the edge of the table the bomb was on, rocking it wildly, but thankfully nothing got displaced, except for sheets of spare paper.
Even paper could do a lot of damage, though, so they both sat with bated breath, waiting for the explosion. When none came, Jared sighed, and pulled the blinking box towards him, skillfully taking apart the mess of wires and fuses and a stick of… plastic explosives? Talk about overkill.
“Clear!” Jared announced, finally tucking the tiny sliver of C4 she had spotted into his pockets, leaving the guts of the bomb scattered across the table. Verity didn’t wait a second longer, already sorting through the nearest box. They were filled, she found. Filled with enough canned food to sustain an army. Even some fresh produce.
This was what raised red flags for her. No way a bunch of bananas would have survived in conditions like this and remained so beautiful. There was something nefarious afoot. She poked the bananas with enough force to send the bunch rocking. A flair of pixels shot up around it. She pushed it harder.
[You have Dispelled the Deception!]
The message popped up so cheerily that she nearly fell out of her chair. The bananas were shifting, wilting into their true, rotten forms.
Verity gagged, and Jared rushed over to see what was going on. She gingerly picked up one rotten fruit, and the two exchanged squeamish looks.
“You think there was any motivation for… this?” She asked, dropping it back into its box, where it exploded into a softy mash, oozing with wet slime.
Jared hummed, trying to think it over, “They wanted… someone to think that there was a lot of good stuff here.” He decided, “Get their hopes up. And then when they were truly glad for their salvation, someone would invariably trip the bombs and… Kapow.”
“Gruesome.” She whispered, “Think there’s anything worth looking for, or is it all crap that has a Deception laced over it?”
“Hard to tell.” Jared admitted, “I noticed there was something wrong, but I didn’t realize there was a Deception, or whatever you called it. I’ve never even heard the term before.”
Right. Because she was the only one on the team with Deception as an Ability. Verity wanted to punch herself. Why did she keep on self-sabotaging so much? It was like she was her own worst enemy and she couldn’t stand it.
“So, if you can dispel it, though, I want you to give this a look.” Jared barreled onwards, not noticing her confliction, which was uncharacteristic of him, “I may have very well found the motherload we came for.”
He held up a box wide enough to comfortably fit… maybe Terry. Or Verity. She wasn’t sure which of them was smaller. Just that they were the smallest of the group. And this box was big enough to fit them. But it couldn’t hold her right now, because it was stuffed high with pill bottles stamped with various names, and one common subtitle. Antibiotics.
Verity pushed against this supposed Deception, both physically and mentally, searching for a crack in its defenses. There was none. It was solid. And non-existent. Nothing could be dispelled.
“It’s real.” She announced, hardly daring to believe it, “A real bait.”
“Right. Let’s ask Tench to check if there isn’t any tampering going on physically.” Jared agreed, turning away for less than a second.
It was barely a second. But that was exactly when a panel in the wall fell apart, exposing a zombie.
No, it didn’t fall apart. It was pulled. By a trip wire. Wrapped around Jared’s left crutch. Jared, who was now poised directly in the way of the zombie’s teeth.
She thought fast, rushing past to slam Jared out of the way, screaming as the clammy body of the zombie collided against hers, and scrabbled against her for purchase. Teeth grazed against fabric, and for a second she feared it may rip straight through.
And then a bang went ripping into her ears, and oddly warm liquid splashed across her cheek. She didn’t even care that she had only recently washed off. All she cared about was the snub-nosed gun in Jared’s hand, and the panel declaring the zombie to be dead for the moment and prime for revival in some hours.
“Thanks for the save.” She mumbled to Jared.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He replied, eyes fixed on the panels of sheet metal that looked unsettlingly unstable, all of a sudden.
“Yeah, let’s get out of-” She started to say, turning on her feet to leave. Something tugged at the toe of her boot. Metal screeched around her. And then they were surrounded by zombies from all sides. Jared screamed, she herself was swearing up a storm. Guns were being fire, teeth were gnashing, and her knives were suddenly working double time.
Now if only this stupid Direct Message panel could get out of her face.
“Come on!” She cried, sending Ben a distracted reply and finally wresting herself out of the deathtrap and onto the ladder, dragging Jared by the collar of his shirt as he tried to hold onto the treasure trove of possible-medication they had found.
The outside was still bad, still surrounded by marching zombies and endless crowds, but at least none were getting as close as the rabid ones they had fallen into.
She collapsed onto the pavement, breath coming in short fits and bursts.
Water was coming down on her, she realized. It was raining again. And it wasn’t made of acid, instead deliciously cold on her skin, wiping away the few splatters of gore that had accumulated in the bunker.
There were a pair of bright tennis shoes inches away from her face, she realized. Pink and green and ludicrous to the eye. She flopped onto her back, unsurprised to see Terry standing there, backed up by Asadullah. Though no Tench in sight.
For a second, she thought he had died, and Asadullah must have realized, because he shook his head, “Back at the clinic.” He explained, “We’re here to pick you up and take you to Michael.”
“Get to Derek.” Terry added, hair dripping with green water as the rain washed out the dye.
“Derek?” Verity asked, “What does your pet zombie project have to do with this?”
Terry looked at her as if the answer was obvious, “He’s the King Zombie.”
[Player Log End!]