Sanctum

by Matthew Powell

  Another walker stumbled out of a doorway towards him, just like the last one. It seemed that slowly walking out of doorways was the normal ambush tactic here. Unlike before, Joshua was prepared for it. The zombie lunged towards where he was standing, just to fall flat on its face when he dodged to the side. Joshua quickly sat on the zombie’s back and started beating the back of its head with the chair leg. Unlike before, he had enough muscle to lightly swing it this time.

  Walker Zombie has taken 12 damage

  Walker Zombie has taken 15 damage

  Walker Zombie has taken 13 damage…

  The difference was noticeable. Just the slight boost from leveling had nearly doubled his damage. Most of that came from the ability to actually swing the chair leg instead of letting it pull his arm down, but it was a nice improvement nonetheless. The Walker’s skull cracked after only six swings.

  Level 1 Walker Zombie has died!

  Zandrius gains 8 EXP

  He had managed to kill the zombie without taking a single point of damage. Not a great accomplishment, but it meant lasting until he learned some kind of regeneration shouldn’t be too hard. Attacker dead and EXP earned, Joshua continued back down the hallway.

  As Joshua approached the staircase, he spotted movement in the hallway’s last office. He slowly walked towards it, not willing to take the chance of another ambush. When he got close enough to peek inside, the sight warmed his heart. Lying next to each other were two more level 1 Sleeper Zombies, and neither of them had noticed him. He couldn’t have asked for a better gift.

  He wasted no time bashing the nearest one’s head in. It only took four swings given their lower health pool, but they provided the same amount of EXP as before. The other tried to intervene, but he just knocked it away before killing it too. The Sleepers weren’t a threat to him before level 2, they certainly weren’t after.

  Level 1 Sleeper Zombie had died!

  Level 1 Sleeper Zombie had died!

  Zandrius gains 10 EXP

  With the two zombies dead and still no loot in sight, Joshua sat by the door to the staircase and pondered his next move. Obviously, he was going to move towards the next floor, seeing as he had already cleared this one out, but he preferred to go in with a strategy instead of just blindly walking forward. There was no guarantee the enemies on the next floor would be as weak as these ones were. Before anything else, he went into his status menu and leveled up.

  Name: Zandrius

  Race: Zombie

  Class: Plague Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 3 EXP: 1/30

  HP: 152/200

  Mana/Stamina/Energy/etc.: N/A

  He still couldn’t move around well, but the situation was improving with every level earned. At this rate, he would reach the first evolution in no time. For now, before moving up, he wanted to go back to the lobby and look outside. He had walked towards this building because it was the tallest in the area, being four stories, but it was possible there were other weak zombies like these wandering around outside.

  Just as Joshua stood up and started walking towards the entrance, he froze. He could hear crunching noises coming from the receptionist’s desk, and what he saw sent a shiver down his spine. Whatever the creature was, it was mostly hidden from view. It was kneeled, with only its feet visible from the doorway, eating the dead Sleeper Zombie at the entrance. While he couldn’t see much, Joshua could tell that its feet were different than a normal zombie. It didn’t look like rotting or diseased flesh, it looked like muscle with the skin peeled off. What little he saw was enough for him to get a status box to appear.

  Defaced

  Tier: 2

  Level: 7

  HP: 400/400

  One of the first mutants to rise following a nuclear apocalypse. They are an advanced form of regular zombies, possessing limited regeneration and enhanced muscles. They largely resemble humans without the skin, and their appearance can psychologically scar the weak-minded.

  It had a higher level than him, had more HP than him, was probably evolved, and fighting it was too much of a risk right now. Instead, Joshua slowly inched towards the staircase behind him, careful not to make any noise. Just as he was backing through the doorway, the crunching noises stopped.

  Joshua watched with dread as the Defaced’s head peered around the corner, staring at him. The status box’s description of the creature was accurate, but it left out two important details. First, the creature’s fingers were several inches longer than normal and took the shape of dagger-like claws. Second, the creature’s jaw hung down nearly a foot from its face, taking the already disgusting monster and turning it into something straight out of an old horror movie.

  Joshua held as still as possible, ready to move if the Defaced decided to rush him. While he probably couldn’t win, he certainly had a fighting chance. Joshua never had the opportunity to test his chances, as the Defaced simply went back to crunching on the Sleeper’s corpse. It was apparently content with eating its stolen meal and leaving him alone.

  With the entrance effectively blocked off, Joshua had no choice but to move up through the building. If he was lucky, there would be enough zombies here to get him his first evolution. That should give him enough power to fight off the Defaced, and if it didn’t, he would be learning the death penalties sooner rather than later.

  Chapter 3

  The Defaced are a strange race, even by our standards. They aren’t really evolutions of zombies, though we have made them such for gameplay purposes. They are actually a completely separate race of monsters, with no apparent ties to any other humanoid race despite their appearance. They just kind of…appeared, one day, on a world that had just recently undergone an apocalypse. After that, they quickly started to appear on almost every post-apocalyptic world regardless of the technology or magic present. Despite our best efforts, we have still yet to find the true source of their creation, though I suspect the Plague God Filth has something to do with it. The only reason we don’t consider them a threat is that even their evolved forms are pathetically weak. – On Defaced, from the Chronicles of The Founder

  ◆◆◆

  The stairs proved to be a danger-free zone. It took over a minute just to climb the first set of stairs, where Joshua found a landing he could rest on halfway to the second floor. Climbing the staircase was exhausting in this body, but that was a good thing. These stairs would probably be a safe place for the moment, if only because the zombies seemed too weak to climb it quickly and would probably die from a quick fall. If too many tried to rush him, he could just fall back here and watch the monsters stumble over themselves trying to catch him.

  Joshua left the landing to climb the rest of the stairs. He could see through the doorway to the second floor, as the door itself was missing like all the others. From what he could tell, the second floor was mostly made up of tall cubicles. Too tall to see over unless he jumped, and so densely packed that he wouldn’t be able to spot a zombie until it was already in lunging range.

  Joshua breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the landing on the second floor was safe as well. He couldn’t hear any zombies moving around on the next landing up either. It may have just been luck, but it seemed almost like the zombies were avoiding the staircase. Probably best not to question a good thing too much.

  As he stepped through the door into the cubicle office, Joshua instantly started to hear the growling and shuffling around of zombies. There were definitely a lot more of them here than on the first floor. If he wasn’t careful, they could swarm him. Hopefully, the noise of them moving around would cover up his actions because a little danger wasn’t going to scare him off that easily. It helped that Joshua’s only route of escape was blocked by something even scarier.

  There was a Walker Zombie in the very first cubicle he passed by, so Joshua had to test his noise theory quickly. It was facing away from him, which gave Joshua the opportunity to have his own ambush for a change. He quickly came up with a plan, and while it was
going to hurt, it was his best chance at staying quiet.

  Joshua walked up behind the zombie as stealthily as he was able. It was still loud, but the Walker was either distracted by other noises or just didn’t care. Joshua reached his hand around to the zombie’s face and quickly wrapped his arm around its head, covering its mouth. It started biting and scratching his arm, as he predicted, but this kept it from screeching or growling too loudly.

  With the zombie quietly munching on his right arm, Joshua brought his left arm around holding the chair leg. The edge where it had broken off was worn down, but it would be enough. He stabbed it into the zombie’s eye.

  Critical Hit! Eye Pierced! Walker Zombie has taken 32 damage!

  Remaining HP: 68/100

  The zombie clearly felt the attack, but it couldn’t do much about it. It started biting and scratching harder, bringing Joshua’s own HP down to 140, but it still couldn’t cry for help as he dug the blunted edge deeper into the monster’s eye. Its health slowly drained away as the edge went farther, and eventually, it stopped moving altogether.

  Critical Hit! Brain Pierced! Instant Death!

  Level 2 Walker Zombie has died!

  Zandrius gains 12 EXP

  So, getting through to the brain was an instant kill on these monsters. It made sense, but Joshua was still surprised there was no actual damage value. Instantly killing something, even with an attack so obviously lethal, was extremely rare in most games that used HP systems. While it may have been an oddity, it was one that he could abuse.

  The monsters being higher level was worrying, but it was extremely useful. That one level difference had meant 50% more EXP, and the zombie was barely any stronger than its lower level counterpart. If this kept up, evolution would hardly take any time at all.

  The next few cubicles were empty, but Joshua wasn’t disheartened. There had to be over a hundred cubicles on this floor, and he could still hear the zombies moving around. It didn’t take long for him to stumble into more zombies, but they were still just low-level Sleepers and Walkers.

  Joshua reached level four quickly and was halfway to five when he stopped hearing the noises of other zombies. There either hadn’t been as many as he thought or killing so many zombies had triggered some sort of event. Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be the second option.

  Constant killing of zombies has triggered a special spawn!

  Floor is locked until the special monster is defeated.

  Joshua had a bad feeling about this turn of events, and this feeling was quickly justified. He heard a low moan that resonated throughout the entire floor. He slowly moved back towards the staircase, only to find a fully functional and locked door blocking the way. He was either leaving here a winner or respawning.

  As he checked the entrance, the moan kept getting louder. It started as an annoyance, a sign that the enemy was nearby, but now it was so much worth. Joshua couldn’t feel the pain, but he could feel his body vibrating from the noise. The danger was apparent, he needed to find and kill this monster as fast as possible.

  The monster proved more difficult to locate than expected. The first logical place to check was an open area in the middle of the cubicles, but when Joshua arrived nothing was there. The noise was too loud to pinpoint any source or direction, and it was growing worse by the second.

  As he stumbled through the cubicles searching for the monster, Joshua couldn’t help but think about his situation. Maybe wandering into the first building he spotted without scouting it first wasn’t the best idea. There were plenty of broken windows he could have looked through, and even more buildings in the area that were smaller and probably safer.

  After another minute of searching, Joshua felt something wet on the side of his head. When he touched it with his hand and saw blood covering his fingers. The moan had gotten so loud it was making his ears bleed, and it was doing damage to him.

  Name: Zandrius

  Race: Zombie

  Class: Plague Zombie

  Tier: 1

  Level: 4 EXP: 24/40

  HP: 160/250

  Mana/Stamina/Energy/etc.: N/A

  The situation wasn’t just unbearable anymore, it was deadly. The monster was still nowhere in sight, but then something strange was happening with the vibrations inside Joshua’s body. He didn’t just feel his skin or bones rattling, he felt as if every single cell of blood in his veins was vibrating, and that intrigued him.

  Even if it was happening, that wasn’t something he should have been able to feel. He may have had a zombie body, but it was still human, and humans weren’t capable of feeling sensations like this. It was these thoughts that dragged his mind to something he read all the way back in the character select screen.

  Plague Zombies, like him, didn’t take control of the zombie itself. They took control of the disease, allowing them to steal bodies and infect armies of minions. Most importantly, Plague Zombies can manipulate the disease outside of their host body.

  Joshua wiped his hands on the side of his head, getting as much of his own blood on them as he could, and help them up to where he could see it. When he focused, he could feel the disease cells in the blood. It may be outside of him, but it was still a part of him. And that meant he could still control it.

  With a bit of willpower, the diseased cells floated out of the blood and into the air. They were incredibly small, far too tiny to be visible, but Joshua could still feel their presence. If he could control them outside of this body, and they were apparently capable of going airborne, then this might be his ticket to finding the source of the moaning.

  The floating disease particles themselves were too small to accomplish anything, but Joshua already had an idea to fix that. He began to gather more particles from the blood, even pulling more out of his body, to create a floating mass large enough to be visible. It took another excruciating, painful minute, but he managed to create a tiny flying eye. He could even see out of it.

  Controlling the eye was easy, but using it was disorienting. It moved according to his will, flying around the cubicle he was hiding in. It was like having a drone with a camera feed hooked up straight to his brain. Joshua tried to stand up and walk while controlling the eye at the same time, just to immediately stumble and fall. Differentiating between his main bodies sight and the floating eyes was too much for him at the moment. He knew that, with practice, he would be able to move around freely while controlling the eye, but he didn’t have time for that right now.

  It wasn’t the weapon that he wanted, but Joshua knew this was exactly what he needed to get out of this situation. Unfortunately, creating the eye had been an incredibly draining process. He would only last a few minutes before collapsing, less with the sonic attack currently hitting him. The eye, capable of flight, just floated up to the roof and started scanning around for the monster. While controlling the eye’s movements, Joshua took the opportunity to browse the notification windows that had popped up.

  Skill learned: Eye of Pestilence

  A floating eye created through solidified Pestilence energy. Only usable by advanced necromancers and intelligent plague-related undead. Capable of transferring its sight back to its creator, serving as cheap and expendable mobile scouts. Advanced forms are capable of stealth, autonomous movement, and moderately explosive self-destruction. Pestilence cost increases with size and added functions.

  Congratulations on learning your first skill! Normally you would gain access to skills and a spendable resource after your first evolution or class-up, but players caught in dangerous or stressful situations can learn them earlier. As one of these people, you now have access to Pestilence as a resource.

  Pestilence

  Used by advanced necromancers, plague-related undead, and followers of the Plague God Filth. All life forms possess some small amount of Pestilence inside of them, and this is what magical and anomalous diseases feed on.

  Class Feature Learned! As a Plague Zombie, you are a disease that has taken possession of a c
orpse and evolved anomalous properties, becoming living Pestilence energy. Learning rate of Pestilence-related skills is greatly enhanced. Learning rate of all non-Pestilence related skills is greatly reduced. Pestilence, as a resource, does not grow with practice or with level. Instead, your total capacity grows as you absorb the Pestilence energy from other creatures.

  Current Pestilence: 1/5

  Please remember that, as a Plague Zombie, you are Pestilence. Your HP will determine the approximate health of whatever body you inhabit at that moment, whereas your Pestilence shows how much of YOU is actually in that body. Using all your Pestilence energy, or having it destroyed by an outside source, will kill you.

  The Plague God Filth has taken notice of you.

  That would certainly explain why Joshua felt so bad after creating a single, tiny eyeball. He had nearly killed himself doing it. While it was certainly difficult to use, it seemed incredibly versatile. If he could make other body parts, or even take over other bodies, he could become a one-man army.

  That was an issue for far, far in the future. Right now, using one of the weakest possible Pestilence abilities had nearly caused him to commit suicide. Equally worrying as the abilities drain was the last message he received. While he may not know who Filth is, it's probably better when the possibly-evil Plague God doesn’t know about you.