Concept Stories - Untitled Zombie Story - Chapter 2
This time, it sounded like there were two zombies. Each hit caused the door to splinter more, and pretty soon there wouldn’t be a door. I had to move quickly. The first thing I did was dump those 5 points into strength. I played my fair share of video games to know how this worked. It seemed like I could bring up this status menu with a thought, and redirect points as I desired.
Name: Gavin Willis
Class: Warrior
Level: 1
Health: Good
Strength: 15
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
Skill(s): Identify
I put all of it in strength because I had a feeling that this stat was what I’d need to keep myself alive. I was a warrior, after all. I had never been a weak guy. I played sports casually with the guys and while I didn’t have a six-pack, I wasn’t overweight. Assuming 10 was a standard human, then was I 50% stronger than the average now?
As I quickly looked through my status, my eyes also fell on my skill, Identify. Why couldn’t I have gotten some skill like slash or instakill? I didn’t have a sword, so what use would that have gotten me? It still felt like I had a useless skill. Maybe they were all useless. I doubted it though. Dave probably got great skill. Assigning it by random was truly a crap move. It also sounded like I’d only get awarded new skills by accomplishing feats. That sounded like something difficult. Perhaps it involved fighting a boss mob? Wait, was their boss mobs? Since this all felt like a video game, I had to assume that there were.
I grabbed my phone to see if Dave had any thoughts on the world suddenly becoming a real-life video game. I hadn’t even confirmed if he had gotten a similar request this morning. I found the phone was dead. If the ladies who had previously occupied this room had a similar charger to my phone, I didn’t have time to go looking for it.
Don’t let your mind wander. Focus!
My eyes landed on a folded pile of clothing that had been set aside. I realized I was still standing in my blue plaid boxers. Whoever I had slept with the night before had folded my clothes before they left. They hadn’t left any other note. I picked up the shirt, and then nearly dropped it.
Standard T-shirt : Defense : 1
Those words appeared in my vision. That had to be Identify kicking in. That left me a question. Was that what all T-shirts were, or did my T-shirt only become Defense 1 because I identified it? If it was the later, then perhaps this skill wasn’t so useless after all. I decided to identify the rest of my clothing as I put it on. Every other item lacked Defense except for one, which happened to be one of my socks.
Yeah, one sock had defense, and the other sock did not. How did that work? So, items had different stats, and these stats were given randomly? I checked my status again.
Name: Gavin Willis
Class: Warrior
Level: 1
Defense: 2
Health: Good
Strength: 15
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intelligence: 10
Perception: 10
Skill(s): Identify
So, if I was correct, then defense was evenly given to the entire body based on what you were wearing, and any given item would offer potentially different stats. As I was contemplating this, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. The girl I had killed had suddenly shifted. A shock shot up my spine, but a moment later, she disappeared. It took about a minute for her to disappear. Where did she go? I didn’t dislike the self-cleanup, but why?
Boom! The upper half of the doorway cracked down, and they pushed against the dressers, moving them an inch.
Damn, these guys are persistent.
My mind was running a mile a minute, yet I still didn’t feel like I could keep up. I could only imagine how people were fairing who were caught outside or didn’t get the multiple warnings I did. I looked around the room again, this time not hesitating to open drawers and tear apart the room. My quest was to find anything I could use as a weapon. I found one potential thing, but I didn’t like it.
There was an assortment of pens on the girl’s desk. They had various names of drugs on them. I picked up each one and used identify on it. I found nothing but a pen. After the tenth one, my eyes locked on an expensive-looking pen that sat in a case. I pulled it out and then looked at it as well.
Decorative Pen – Attack: 1
“You got to be kidding me.”
I knew that this was the very outcome I was looking for, but this was rather ridiculous. I turned to the zombies. One of them was trying to climb over, and she was making a good job of it. This one looked a bit different than the last one. She was dressed, for one. She also seemed to be more obviously dead. The other only had the pale skin and eyes, but this one had many gashes and cuts. She was someone who had died a horrible death.
That won’t be me.
I made such a commitment in my mind, and then I took a step forward. My foot hit the chair, and I got an idea. I reached down and kicked the leg of the chair I had previously thrown at the zombie. I kicked it with all of my strength two more times, and the leg finally broke off. I picked it up and then went to the desk where I found some duct tape.
I identified the leg just in case, but it had no bonus. I grabbed the pen and then pressed it to the tip of the leg while wrapping duct tape around it. I didn’t want to get close to the zombie at all. I still didn’t know if bite meant death or not. I looked at the finished object.
Makeshift weapon – Attack: 2
I was surprised by that. It hadn’t been my intention to make it stronger. Somehow, my Identify acknowledged my work. More text quickly followed.
You are among the first 1000 to craft a weapon. For this accomplishment, you will be granted the skill Crafting Level 1. Complete more feats to gain more skills.
It turned out that feats were a bit easier than I had originally thought. Then again, I had a feeling like the text didn’t pop up just because I made the item, but when I identified it. That meant normally I couldn’t have gained crafting until the system identified the item. I was becoming increasingly certain that identify might be a pretty amazing skill. This was a more specific feat, and also one that needed to be leveled.
At this point, I had no more time to spare. The first zombie had squeezed her tiny ass through the top of my barricade, and the second was seemingly following close behind. Before she could get up, I squared my shoulders and then stabbed as hard as I could. I imagined the pen immediately breaking off and then the zombie lunging at me a second later.
However, that didn’t happen. Instead, my makeshift weapon stabbed right into its eye. It let out a screech, but then it fell back. I struck it again, and this time, it only twitched once more before dying. I was shocked at how much stronger my attack was. The first zombie I had bashed with all my strength. Had I not had it in the situation where it couldn’t move, there was no way I could have challenged it.
However, increased strength and a weapon with 2 attack, and I could now kill an enemy rather easily. The second zombie was easier to kill because it was still wedged in. It made a swipe for me, but I was able to keep my distance and then stab it twice until it died as well. Mind you, these were two zombies that were crawling at about chest height in narrow corridors directly at me.
The zombies outside seemed to be able to run. If a zombie was running at me at full speed in an open field, I couldn’t promise anything close to this result.
Like the first zombie, these two also disappeared after about a minute. However, I noticed that one of them had left something behind. It was a small coin sitting on the floor. Zombies could have drops too? This was even more like a video game.
I leaned down and picked it up. Naturally, I identified it.
Reinforcement Token – Reinforce item.
Zombies could drop tokens that could be used. Were reinforcement tokens the only type? I had a feeling there were more, but this one allowed me to reinforce an item.
I could guess what it meant, but until I used it, I couldn’t be certain. My gamer instinct told me to hold off and perhaps save it up for later. I didn’t know how rare these tokens were. I had seen one on my third kill, but that could have been a coincidence.
However, when I was playing a game, if I came to a challenge I couldn’t beat, I could reload. I only had one life here. I couldn’t be stingy. I held the token up to my makeshift weapon. There was a flash, and light wrapped around the weapon for a moment.
When it was done, it looked like the pen had somehow been melted into the leg. Either way, it looked sturdier than before. I checked it with Identify.
Reinforced Makeshift Weapon – Attack : 3
As I was admiring my weapon, I heard another girl scream outside. This one sounded closer. Perhaps this was another opportunity to test out this weapon?
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