by Brian Simons
Coral repositioned herself so she could face the zombies’ feet. She couldn’t bear to take their clothing off and see the true extent of their fetid decay, so she stitched through their tattered pants. She started just above the ankle and worked her way up to just below the knee, then from above the knee to below the hip. She kept going, sewing the zombie’s skin together up their sides as far as she could before the curvature of their torsos forced their bodies too far apart. Each zombie was forced into awkward angles to accommodate the other’s body, but her work was done. She had stitched them together.
She climbed off the zombies and the others released their grasp. The two-bodied monster struggled to push itself up from the ground, straining against the unnatural tethering. The zombies couldn’t pull themselves away from each other. The suture thread held.
The monster tried to push forward and attack them, but Coral and others were too fast, hastened by the potions they had drunk.
Galbrag had instructed her to sew together 100 of the shambling corpses and install them around his cottage as a wall of rotting flesh. He promised that she’d improve her Seamstress abilities along the way. She accepted the strange new quest.
New Quest: Dead Ringer
Galbrag believes that good fences make good neighbors. He has asked you to make a fence out of his neighbors. String together 100 zombies around Galbrag’s cottage.
Requirements: Skinweaving. An iron stomach.
Reward: Access to a new set of Skinweaving skills.
Everyone was reluctant to take on this task, if only because of how much time it would take. They spent hours hunting zombies, tying them down, sewing them up, and then tying them to nearby trees to keep them at bay long enough to amass the rest of the bodies they’d need.
During the exercise, Coral did learn some valuable lessons. She learned how hard to push the needle through pinched skin, how thick the patch of skin would need to be to keep it from tearing off the body when a zombie’s forced twin pulled away, and how to knot the suture thread close to the skin to prevent too much slack. She also learned what rancid meat smelled like at point blank range.
No one talked while they worked. It was as if none of them wanted to acknowledge their indecent undertaking. Coral tried to think happier thoughts to distract herself from the cold squishy feeling of dead flesh in her hands. She thought back to a time that her parents took her to Penn Treaty Park (not a swamp). She remembered holding a spool of kite line (not suture thread) as her kite soared in the sky, the line pulling gently as the kite (not zombies) pushed further away. That was a pleasant memory, but it could only distract her for so long.
Her hands were covered in putrid blood-sludge, but she forced herself to keep going. After all they had been through — Daniel scouting the way ahead despite his vulnerably low level, Sybil buying the supplies they would need to embark on Coral’s quest, Sal’s temporary “food” poisoning after foraging for herbs that might help them. After all that, it was Coral’s turn, and she took her challenge in stride.
They were tired, suffered occasional bite wounds, and frustrated by the tedious work. Still, they pressed on, and after hours of capturing and stitching, they finally had 100 zombies end to end.
They pushed the wall of gray flesh toward the cottage and positioned it so the zombies faced outward, ringing Galbrag’s house. Daniel and Sybil chopped down a few swamp trees and fashioned stakes out of them while Coral and Sal kept the zombie line in place. After mounting stakes in the ground behind the zombies, Daniel and Sybil looped rope around some of the zombies’ legs and tied them to the poles. They left an aperture near the front of the cottage, wide enough that zombies from either side couldn’t reach a person walking to the front door. The wall was finally mounted in place.
Daniel knocked on the cottage door while Coral checked her notifications to see how far she had come.
>> Congratulations! You have improved your Tailoring ability to 5. +2.5% total to Tailoring speed.
>> Congratulations! You have improved your Skinweaving ability to 3. +4% additional crafting speed when Skinweaving.
Galbrag opened the door and stepped outside. “It’s beautiful,” he said. He closed his eyes and stood silent for a moment. “Do you hear that? The low chorus of the undead? As far as background noise goes, it’s almost soothing. Like being near the ocean without that disgusting saltwater smell.”
“You said,” Coral started, but was breathless from exhaustion. Her haste potion had worn off some time ago. “You said that you could teach me something useful?”
“Yes, I did. You won’t like it though. It involves more zombies. But it is what it is.” Galbrag put a hand on Coral’s head. After a quiet moment, Coral received this message:
>> Congratulations! You may now use Skinweaving to create special armor. Open the Skinweaving menu to see which options are available.
“I made Carcass Armor available for you within the Skinweaving skill,” Galbrag explained. “Now you can use monster bits to make protective gear. You’ll have to spend one skill point for each type of item you want to craft so you can make full sets. Go on.”
Coral did as instructed, sinking another 7 skill points into Skinweaving. Just like that, she only had 2 unused skill points left.
“Thanks,” Coral said. Shew knew she was obliged to thank him for this, but more Skinweaving seemed like a punishment, not a reward.
“Don’t thank me, thank Harold, your loving Regent. He cashed in his favor for your benefit. Sounds you like you owe him one.”
The party said goodbye to Galbrag and left the cottage, and the wall of writhing zombies, behind them.
“Did you guys see what just popped up in the world chat?” Daniel asked.
Coral glanced down at the chat log.
>> Januar has descended from the sky near Havenstock. Visit him now for blessings and holy tidings! Appearance duration: 5 minutes. Countdown to Januar’s renewal: 5 days.
“I don’t have the energy for whatever that is. I’ve got to log off,” Sybil said.
“I think we all should,” Daniel replied. “I know I’m beat. And when we get back online we have to kill a bunch of zombies so Coral can make armor. Hopefully Januar comes back later.”
“So let’s rest up, and meet back here tomorrow morning?” Coral asked. She wondered how Alua the court psychic knew that Januar would visit, but the head priest didn’t. Unless he knew and he lied. Neither option painted a very respectable picture.
“Good night, everyone!” Sal said, and they all logged out in thin puffs of smoke.
20
Daniel’s sword sank into a zombie’s upper arm and the blade lodged in its bone. “Not again,” he said, tugging the stuck sword by its hilt. The zombie danced to and fro in sync with Daniel’s pushing and pulling. He finally got the weapon free and stabbed the zombie in the leg, forcing it to fall to the ground. Once it was laid out, he chopped off its head.
“This is a lot harder than it sounded!” Daniel shouted to Sybil and Sal. Each fought with a zombie of their own. Coral sat with her back to a nearby tree, shearing the skin off the zombies they had already decapitated.
“She said she needs the torsos intact,” Sybil said. “You’ve leveled up some by now, no?”
“Yes,” Daniel said. Happily, he had bumped up to Level 15. Still below Coral, but with her busy crafting instead of fighting, he’d catch up to her in no time. Crafting provided XP, but at a much slower rate. He also had the sense that his attributes were climbing faster than when he was a Fighter, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. He checked his stats.
Name:
Daniel_the_Maniel
Gender:
Male
Race:
Human
Class:
Scout
Level:
15
Diplomacy:
17
Constitution:
41
Dexterity:
22
Defense:
> 37
Intelligence:
21
Strength:
46
Spirit:
30
HP:
820
Stamina:
80
MP:
60
Skill Points Available:
14
XP:
24,903
XP to Next Level:
697
He noticed that his Diplomacy was at 17. He really was gaining Diplomacy as he levelled, though he didn’t know why. He had never known Sal, Sybil, or Marco to grow that stat except through quests. His stamina was finally at a decent level. And he hadn’t allocated any of his skill points yet. He figured he’d wait to see what made a Scout so special and pour everything into the most important skills, rather than wasting them on something mundane like First Aid. No way was he going to miss an opportunity to min-max this class for all it was worth.
“How many more?” asked Sal, digging his feet into the swamp mud for purchase against a zombie that was currently throwing all of its weight at him.
“Not many,” Coral said. “It takes a lot of skin to patch these together, but I almost have enough suits for all four of us to wear into the castle.”
Sybil stabbed her spear through a zombie’s foot, rooting him to the ground. She reached forward and snapped its neck with a loud crack. The zombie didn’t stop grasping at her with outstretched hands though. Not until Sybil rotated the head 360 degrees and yanked it off the zombie’s body.
“Here’s another one,” she said, dragging the headless zombie toward Coral. Coral had a large pile of cadaver pieces next to her.
“Ok,” Coral said, “I think you can stop now.” After a few more minutes of stitching, she held up her handiwork. She had sewn long vertical strips of back skin together to create a tunic of sorts. She had scraped off all the congealed bodily fluids and cleaned the skin first, then made armor that would cover an adventurer’s front and back, with holes for arms. Thick flaps of skin jutted out horizontally over the shoulder opening. More skin hung down past the waistline, where it fanned out slightly to accommodate the hips. It came down mid-thigh.
“You’ll keep your pants on, obviously,” she said, handing each of her friends their own armor.
Wary of cloaking himself in the gray gear, Daniel inspected it first.
>> Deathskin Armor. Putting the “disinter” in disinterested. Defense +10, +50% resistance against dark magic, -50% resistance against light magic. Durability: 45/45. Status effect: impervious to healing potions.
“Coral,” he said, “the Defense on this is pretty good considering you’ve only improved to Carcass Armor 2 at this point. But the other effects are a little off-putting.”
“Agreed,” Sybil said. “We wait until we get to the castle to put these on.”
Coral looked a little dispirited. She had just spent two hours stitching four pieces of armor and only leveled up her new ability once. Hopefully for her sake her future creations had fewer negative status effects.
“Does everyone have enough MP to teleport?” Sal asked.
“What?” Coral said.
She still didn’t know how to teleport? Do not call her a noob again, do not do it!, Daniel thought to himself. He decided to be patient with her. This time.
“It’s a basic teleport, for 10 MP. It takes you to your bind spot. When you start the game as a human, that’s automatically Havenstock. Unless you changed it?”
“No,” Coral said. “It’s still Havenstock then.”
“Ok,” Daniel said. “Then activate your teleport. It takes a few seconds to kick in. You can’t teleport during combat, and if something attacks you when you’re trying to teleport, it’ll fail and you’ll have to deal with your attacker before you can try again. Give it a try.”
Daniel watched as his friends’ avatars glowed green and then disappeared in a burst of neon light. He reappeared alongside them just south of Havenstock.
“Keep an eye out for Otto,” he said, “and let’s head up to the castle.”
The four walked through the city, but saw no sign of Otto. They saw very little sign of anyone, actually. Players must be avoiding Havenstock right now, and NPCs must be hiding indoors. Unless Otto had slain them all…
They arrived at the castle door and equipped their new Deathskin Armor. Sal reached up and found a small pull-string for the front gate’s new bell. He gave it a tug and a high, dainty chime rang from the other side of the main entrance. Soon the gates opened and a few guards stood blocking their path.
“What business do you have here?” one asked.
“We were completing a quest for the Regent. We would like to show him our progress,” Coral said.
The guards stared at them, aghast. They apparently did not approve of the group’s new look. The guards led them into the castle nonetheless. The main hall was alive with people, all of whom had their eyes transfixed in horror at the four adventurers.
Daniel wondered if wearing a shirt made of skin gave the impression that he was, in fact, shirtless. If so, it was Coral and Sybil that should draw the most curious glances.
As the four approached the throne, the Regent stood from his gilded chair and walked toward them.
“Stop,” he yelled, speeding into a jog. “Not a step further.”
They stopped.
“What is the meaning of this?” His eyes narrowed at Coral first, then the others.
“Your Highness,” Daniel said, “We have returned from Galbrag’s cottage in the swamp. He taught Coral how to Skinweave. She created this Deathskin Armor. We expect that Otto’s axe cannot permakill someone clothed in the skin of a creature that has already defied death.”
“That infernal witch. He sent you here with this nauseating farce of a skill? You expect my men to wear the flesh of the evil undead?”
One of the guards behind him made an “ahem” sound.
“And woman. One of my guards is a woman now. Thank you, Janice. As I was saying,” the Regent continued, “no, and more no.”
“But, Your Highness,” Daniel started, not sure how he would finish.
“Coral_Darning, this is appalling,” the Regent said. “Your quest is unfinished, and I encourage you to try again or there shall be no reward. And do hurry. We have lost more citizens today than we lost yesterday. Otto gets stronger by the minute, and we cannot house all the city’s refugees for long before we all starve in here or go stir crazy. Would you believe I haven’t been out on my horse in a week? I’m getting claustrophobic cooped up in here!”
The castle had more square feet than Rhode Island, but Daniel didn’t bother pointing that out. He kneeled before the Regent and said, “Yes, Your Highness. We will try again.”
“Good. I was worried you would say no, and then what would I do? Now, make haste you wretched cadaver mongers!”
They left the throne behind them and walked out of the castle. Sybil was shaking. When the castle’s gates closed behind them, she screamed.
It was a loud, long scream. The kind that sounded like it would be cathartic, even if it did scratch up the vocal cords. When she finished she stood in place, panting like someone that had just run a long race. “We still,” she said, pacing her words very slowly, “have absolutely,” she clenched her fists, “no money.”
They all needed money. They all had rent, and food, and utilities to pay for, but Sybil took the Regent’s disapproval particularly hard. Daniel knew why. She was fiercely protective of her little sister, and without gold to trade for IRL cash, she might not be able to feed them both.
Daniel was worried. They needed Sybil if they were going to finish the Regent’s quest. They would lose her soon if they couldn’t earn some money. They might also lose their chance to finish the quest if they didn’t find a way to make anti-Otto armor before all of Havenstock was permakilled.
He looked down at a new message in the world chat.
>> Januar has descended from the sky nea
r Havenstock. Visit him now for blessings and holy tidings! Appearance duration: 5 minutes. Countdown to Januar’s renewal: 4 days.
“We could try asking Januar,” he said, “how we can earn some money. And on the way, we can sell these zombie suits and other loot to get some cash together. We can even sell back the health potions we bought but didn’t use. How’s that?”
Sybil looked at Daniel, then at the others. “Yes,” she said.
“Good,” Daniel said. “We don’t know where exactly Januar is, but maybe I can locate him.” Daniel climbed on top of a nearby crate and grabbed hold of a second floor balcony on one of the nearby NPC homes. He hoisted himself up and then grabbed hold of the roof’s edge, pulling himself up onto the roof. He walked carefully across the thatched roof until he got to its highest point. Then he looked around.
