Our three new arrivals marveled the atmosphere of our home. Electricity, running water, the comforts of a couch and clean floor beneath your feet… I remember closing my eyes and imagining being back before the apocalypse began. They were probably feeling the same. It was a lot to take in on such short notice: surprise and excitement were clearly bubbling beneath the bewildered expressions on their faces.
“Have a seat.” Jessica ushered the three of them towards the couch and began asking some questions. It was better to be safe than sorry. If things seemed off about them, we could always send them away. Thomas approached with a glass of water for each and then joined the group to listen.
“Do you mind going over your experiences so far?” Lucas asked, “We’re very curious about what others went through.”
Unsurprisingly, it was Bethany who spoke for the three. She was most likely the main tank of their little group, and the one who had grown into a leadership role naturally while leading from the front. “Absolutely.” She didn’t show any signs of hesitation, and began describing their journey.
The three of them were actually close friends and colleagues. They had worked in advertising, mostly for beauty products, but some luxury comfort goods as well. They were attending a business lunch, as they called it, but mostly just socializing and building business connections on the company dime, when things went awry.
Their lunch meeting had ended minutes before, and they were simply chatting about their thoughts on their potential future business partners. There was suddenly a loud crash following by honking horns on the street outside. The three of them went to the window and watched the chaos.
The three were aware of the odd occurrences the morning of the apocalypse, but paid them no mind. Those things were happening mostly to hunters and farmers, people living near the wilderness and regularly interacting with wild-life. The thought that it was something that would affect them in the city, wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.
Even watching from the window they had merely been spectators, and the ensuing chaos had nothing to do with them. Not until a human figure burst through the restaurant window. The tempered glass shattered entirely and rained upon the floor. At the time Bethany didn’t connect the dots, but it was a zombie.
As confused as they were about what was happening, the three didn’t hesitate to leave immediately. Once outside, they got into their car and saw the absolute chaos ensuing in the streets and nearby buildings. The three were relatively quick, and lucky.
As soon as they were in their vehicle, they drove over the median and on the sidewalk to bypass the accident that was slowly clogging the entire street. Once free, Rebekah didn’t step off the pedal until they had made it out of the city and into the farmlands just twenty or thirty miles north of our current base.
Before the world-shift, there was an abandoned farm house they stayed in, and the three slept in their car. It wasn’t until the third or fourth day, and they were left with no choice but to slay a wandering zombie, did they discover the game-like elements.
Listening to how they leveled to 10, and then obtained their class-changing stones gave me a good understanding of their characters. They were crafty, or at least one of them was. It wasn’t obvious from the story who decided on their actions at that time, but they often utilized the terrain to fell their foes.
In fact, for their first class changing stone, which went to Rebekah and allowed her to become a druid, they collapsed a literal silo of grain onto an abomination they had lured for nearly five minutes by vehicle. Once she learned the ability to heal, they were able to be a bit less crafty, and had more agency in combat.
They had a few run-ins with people. The true believers had tried to recruit them as well, but with a smooth tongue, they managed to delay that and slip away during the night. After that experience, they avoided others like the plague.
They even avoided the secret shop, which put us in our first dangerous situation with other players. If we hadn’t teleported with the scroll at that time, we probably wouldn’t have made it out in one piece. We did conquer our first dungeon shortly after that, which really pushed us ahead of the curve, though.
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The three were nomadic in this area, and actually knew the surrounding terrain better than we did, which was a great boon for us. They were all level 17, which I thought was quite an impressive feat given the circumstances. None of them had been interested in games before the apocalypse, and they were going into this experience blind.
Because both Nicole and Bethany were the same classes as Richard and Alan, we were mostly curious about Rebekah’s class. She was a druid, and a more unique class even than Thomas.
Rebekah had a natural affinity with nature as part of her class. She could summon treants to fight and tank for her, but currently she could only spawn three, and they weren’t exceptionally tanky or good damage dealers. Besides that, she had two healing abilities, one was a heal-over-time that lasted over twelve seconds, and the other was just a single-target high HP heal. Lastly, she could summon a faerie that provided light, and would be incredibly useful during the night.
From what we heard and their own expressions, it didn’t seem like they were lying. None of the three had ever killed another person, and we were the first group that they seriously interacted with.
In fact, according to them, if not for the constant draining of the blood-red light in the sky, they would have avoided us as well. They had decided as a group that reaching our bastion was paramount, regardless of what would come next. It was better to try to survive than slowly die under a menacing gaze.
After we were certain the three of them would be safe to live here, I explained our basic understanding of Humble Abode. I also had Jessica explain the rules we’d agreed, feeling it would be easier for them to digest coming from her and not one of the men. They had no issue, and were less skeptical because of our caution towards them, which was surprising, but made sense. How could we have lived this long without being cautious as well? Those without fear were probably the type to be the ones causing problems.
Overall, meeting these new arrivals was a joyous occasion, and after some small talk, Lucas had a bright idea.“At level twenty you’ll get a new skill slot, maybe we can trade for skills?”
I had an extra skill slot, and a few of us also hadn’t picked up any new skills. It was rare to find a skill that fit your class perfectly, and as of right now we didn’t know of any way to redo skills, which meant our decisions were permanent.
“I’ve already got a skill lined up for myself at twenty,” Bethany said. She actually handed it to Alan to take a look. They were both knights, and because of that the two seemed to have a tacit understanding between each other. I could see Maria giving them both a side-eye, but she chose to not start any trouble.
Intimidating Cry: Shout out with frenzied vigor, causing nearby enemies to cower in fear. Enemies inflicted will have their attack power reduced by twenty-percent and be inflicted with the fear status for three seconds.
No doubt, this was a useful tanking ability. Damage reduction and CC were invaluable. It probably caused a good bit of threat too. Alan eyed it with some jealousy, but he handed it back without the slightest hesitation.
Neither Rebekah or Nicole had skills lined up for twenty. Unfortunately, we weren’t the best suited to trade with each other. There was too much overlap between our classes, as any skill that Nicole or Rebekah would want, Thomas and Richard would also most likely benefit from. Still, the idea that we would soon have a full complement of people here to trade with was exciting.
It was still early in the day when everything that needed to be talked about was said and done. The three were now aware of the demon waves, and what was expected of them as members of this Humble Abode.
The desire to go and explore for our professions vanished as quickly as it came. Bethany, Alan, Richard and Nicole left as a group and discussed their experiences as tanks. Bethany was particularly interested in Alan’s demon encounter, and what his gear looked like, especially after they found out our levels.
It seemed they had a lot to discuss, as they would be fighting side by side for the foreseeable future, or at least when the demon waves became too overwhelming. I could tell the three were incredibly open to learning and absorbing any knowledge we could bestow upon them, anything to keep them alive just a bit longer.
In fact, even Rebekah sought out Thomas, and had plenty of questions to ask him. From what little I could overhear, I suspected she was the one most likely responsible for their cunning survival tactics. She was definitely intelligent beyond her looks. Despite her not being familiar with games, her questions were insightful, and I even heard Thomas say more than once, “I never thought of that.”
I felt slightly bad for Maria. Alan wasn’t doing anything wrong, but it was hard to watch him get along with another woman, and someone whom he could relate to so well. Still, the three of them were the best possible teammates we could ask for, and it was a great start towards expanding our new bastion.