Sanctum

by Matthew Powell

  Pestilence: 9/9

  It had only been a single point, but it was a start. With the sheer number of monsters that he would be killing in the future, he would eventually wind up with more Pestilence than he knew what to do with. The potential for infinite growth led Joshua to question if this was abusable. If every single enemy like this Defaced gave him one point, couldn’t he just stay here and grind thousands of points effortlessly? Surely there was some sort of limit.

  With all his business on this floor finished, Joshua jogged over to the staircase. He was ecstatic at his ability to actually jog now and started heading up the stairs. His muscles still strained a bit from trying to climb the stairs too fast, but it took only a few seconds compared to the minute it had originally.

  Once he arrived at the third-floor landing, Joshua peeked inside the entrance door. His eyes practically lit up at what they saw. Row after row of closed offices, with wooden and metal doors that hadn’t been broken or rotten away.

  He moved into the hallway and approached the first office door. Peeking inside, he could see two sleepers lying down and a walker just standing there, staring into space. He repeated this process with a few of the other doors close to the stairs and had to stop himself from jumping for joy.

  All the closed offices, every single one, had at least one zombie in it. Just in this hallway alone, there had to be at least a dozen offices, and there were more hallways farther from the stairs. This floor was a veritable goldmine, and he was going to abuse it for everything it was worth.

  He entered the first office room and shut the door behind him. The three zombies, hearing the door clicked shut, turned to attack. The Walker immediately lunged forward, but the two Sleepers could only slowly crawl towards him.

  Joshua took up a position like a baseball batter, with the chair leg in his hands, and waited for the Walker to shuffle closer. Once it was close enough, he swung the chair leg with all the force his new evolved form could muster. The makeshift bat hit the Walker right in the nose, and something cracked.

  Critical Hit! Skull Cracked! Walker Zombie has taken 130 damage!

  Level 3 Walker Zombie had died!

  Zandrius gains 8 EXP

  Weapon: Broken Chair Leg has dealt significantly higher than its damage rating in a single strike. Broken Chair Leg has broken.

  The chair leg snapped in his hand, breaking into little pieces on impact. Joshua knew it had to happen sooner or later, being such a weak weapon in the first place, but the way it broke was strange. It didn’t wear down over time, instead, it broke when he dealt a lot of damage in one attack. The chair had a damage rating of 20, which Joshua had thought meant it added up to 20 damage to attacks. Instead, the damage stat apparently meant any single attack that dealt too much damage over 20 would break it.

  Regarding the EXP, only six? That was less EXP than a level one Walker had given him. It must have been his recent evolution. Fighting creatures significantly weaker than himself, like these zombies, gave significantly less EXP. This was standard practice in online games, Joshua just hadn’t expected to run into it so soon.

  With the Walker dead, Joshua ran into a problem. He didn’t have a weapon anymore, and there were still two zombies crawling towards him. He was probably strong enough to bash them or kick them to death, but he would prefer to keep his flesh as far away from their teeth as possible. Well, there was no better time than now to try and make a new Pestilence ability. If he needed a weapon, he would just have to make one.

  Joshua backed out of the office and shut the door, trapping the two Sleepers inside. They were both too stupid and too short to reach the doorknob, so he should have some free time. He sat on the ground, back against the wall, and started trying to channel his Pestilence.

  Creating the Eye of Pestilence had, in retrospect, largely been a fluke. Joshua had been in a bit of a haze, made slightly delirious and heavily damaged by the Defaced Moaner’s endless sound attack. In that haze, he had found a sort of clarity that was currently escaping him. The Pestilence had moved so easily then, and he needed to recreate that feeling.

  With no other option, Joshua did the one thing he hated most when playing caster classes in games: he meditated. He sat and focused, looking inside of himself to try and find what was missing. There was just one problem: he couldn’t sense anything. There was no mote of power, no energy core or mana pool. There was just his blood, flowing through his veins.

  That was it! He had first discovered the Pestilence when he saw it in his own blood, so it made sense that was where it resided! Self-harm seemed a little too much just to cast a spell, he wasn’t a blood mage or anything similar, so he needed to find some other way of calling on the Pestilence. With no better options, he tried to manipulate his Pestilence once again.

  The Pestilence responded, albeit only slightly. It started to leave him, taking shape as a small dust cloud in the palm of his hand. Joshua willed it to harden, turning into something capable of being used as a weapon. The result was small, but it worked.

  Joshua held in his hands the beginnings of a knife hilt. It wasn’t much, barely an inch of wood-like substance, but it was a start. Just creating that much had drained his Pestilence down to one, and he was starting to feel weak and light-headed as a result. He waited a few minutes for his Pestilence to recharge and kept forming the knife.

  Another eight points of Pestilence created another inch. It seemed like this process was going to repeat quite a few times before it was finished. With nothing better to do and no enemies in sight, Joshua kept dumping Pestilence into the knife whenever he was recharged.

  Chapter 5

  “Filth…simultaneously one of the most dangerous of the Old Gods, and also the easiest to work with. He is nigh omnipresent throughout the Omniverse, with some dredges or servants found on nearly every inhabited planet we have encountered. Despite this, not a single planet has ever fallen to his worshippers, even when they were more than capable of taking it. It seems like Filth has no actual interest in conquest, only perpetual suffering and destruction. Thankfully for both us and him, that means never actually conquering anything, but just keeping it in a constant state of war. If he tried any differently, I would probably have to get personally involved…and no one wants that. – On The Old Gods, from the Chronicles of The Founder

  ◆◆◆

  After nearly three hours, Joshua finally held a completed knife in his hands. The weapon itself wasn’t too impressive, looking strangely like a large kitchen knife, but it was exactly what he needed in this situation. It even came with its own stats.

  Pestilence Knife

  Soul-Bound Weapon

  Damage Potential: 30 Blunt/200 Sharp

  Pestilence Towards Next Upgrade: 0/100

  -A weapon made of pure, undiluted Pestilence energy. It is tied to its creator and will apply a weak poison to any others who try to use it. Can be upgraded by infusing with more Pestilence, gaining a higher damage potential and extra effects.

  Congratulations on attaining your first Soul-Bound item! Soul-Bound items are special and can grow infinitely stronger as their user pours more energy into them. In Macrocosm, unlike in other games, Soul-Bound items can be stolen and used by others but will apply a constant damage over time effect to anyone but their creator.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than anything Joshua had hoped for. The damage potential seemed downright absurd. Figuring he should probably try and learn more about what damage potential meant, now that he knew weapons could break, Joshua attempted to inspect the number on the weapon’s status box.

  Damage Potential – The most damage that a weapon is meant to be able to deal in a single attack. Dealing damage above a weapon’s potential will slowly wear it down. Too much damage can break the weapon entirely. Damage potential is split up into dozens of different categories, and weapons can have multiple different potentials for different types of damage. Attempting to bash something with a knife or stab something with a club will quickly break t
he weapon.

  So, this new knife could deal up to 200 damage in a single attack before wearing down. That was a significant improvement, especially since stabbing something probably did a lot more damage than just beating it with a chair leg. A good stab to a vital spot, like the zombie’s necks and heads, could probably deal well over 100 damage.

  Determined to test this new theory, Joshua opened the door and let the two Sleeper Zombies out to play. They had been bunched up against the door, pressing against it but not smart enough to open it themselves. They collapsed out into the hallway, and Joshua wasted no time. He pinned one to the ground and stabbed it in the neck.

  Critical Hit! Neck Stabbed! Sleeper Zombie has taken 150 damage!

  Level 3 Sleeper Zombie had died!

  Zandrius Gains 5 EXP

  An instant kill, just like he had hoped. Joshua quickly did the same to the other Sleeper before it could react.

  Critical Hit! Neck Stabbed! Sleeper Zombie has taken 125 damage!

  Level 2 Sleeper Zombie had died!

  Zandrius Gains 4 EXP

  Even though he had killed three zombies, he had only gained 15 EXP. It wasn’t a lot, but it was so much easier than before that he had barely broken a sweat. Joshua didn’t waste another moment before moving to the next door, repeating the process.

  This room had two Walkers in it. They both rushed towards Joshua the moment he opened the door, but neither of them was much of a threat. The first went down with a single stab in its neck, barely putting up a fight. The second took a bit longer, managing a stumbled dodge that caused Joshua’s first stab to hit its shoulder. Even with this little bit of luck, it only prolonged the zombie’s life by a few seconds before Joshua stabbed it again, finishing the monster off.

  With another room cleared, Joshua kept moving down the hallway. Each room he entered had a similar sight, and each room only took a few stabs to clear. Joshua left a trail of corpses behind him as he pushed forward.

  Along the way, he made sure to absorb the Pestilence from every zombie that he killed. They seemed to have a lot less than the Defaced Moaner did, with it often taking five or more kills to gain a single point. Once his Pestilence reached 11, Joshua noticed a change.

  Pestilence: 11/11 Regen: 2/min

  His regen had doubled, significantly increasing how much he could spend. Curiosity peaked, Joshua inspected the regen number to learn more.

  Pestilence Regeneration: The total amount of Pestilence gained passively per minute. Amount regenerated is approximately 10% of total Pestilence supply rounded up.

  At the very least, this meant that he wouldn’t have to worry about finding a way to regenerate faster. The rounding, while probably not that important at later levels, was a significant boon this early into the game. It meant that he could pour twice as much energy into his new weapon!

  It took nearly twenty minutes to reach the end of the hallway, clearing out dozens of zombies in the process. Along the way, Joshua’s total Pestilence reached 15, and he even managed to level up. Unfortunately, that level came with a stark realization.

  The EXP requirement was now increasing in increments of 100 instead of 10, greatly slowing down his leveling speed. If leveling was this slow as a race that was supposed to level up super-fast, Joshua couldn’t imagine how slow it would probably start for a more traditional race like humans. On the other hand, they probably started off significantly stronger and with other people, so it was a fair trade.

  When he finished mulling over his current situation, Joshua continued to clear the rest of the floor. It turned out that the main hallway actually took up most of the floor, leaving only a few scattered conference rooms with even fewer zombies to occupy the rest.

  It was in one of these conference rooms that Joshua found his first real fight since starting Macrocosm. A single Defaced stood on top of the conference room table, facing towards the door. The moment Joshua opened it, expected to find a few zombies on the other side, it leaped towards him.

  The skinless monster flew through the air, surprising and crashing into Joshua, sending them both tumbling out into the hallway. The Defaced, sitting on his chest, started stabbing its 5-inch dagger-like claws into his chest.

  You have taken 43 damage.

  Remaining HP: 357/500

  Joshua, coming to his senses following the horrifying monster attacking him out of nowhere, shoved the Defaced off of his chest and tried to stand up. By the time he got to his feet, the monster was already rushing towards him again.

  Joshua brought his knife to bare, holding it out towards the Defaced. To his surprise, it actually stopped its charge towards him. It may not have been smart, but it knew better than to throw itself straight into a waiting knife. Forced to close the gap himself, Joshua lunged towards the monster.

  The Defaced started to back away, apparently surprised that Joshua had actually fought back. Thinking back to the Defaced Moaner’s description, the Defaced normally acted more as scavengers and ambushers than actual fighters. It made some sense, given that even with an ambush this Defaced had only dealt 43 damage.

  It took a bit of maneuvering, but after a few minutes, Joshua managed to force the Defaced into a corner. With no room left for it to escape, he started to make small slashes towards it to test its reactions.

  Defaced has taken 22 damage

  Defaced has taken 19 damage

  Defaced has taken 27 damage

  Remaining HP: 232/300

  The cuts were shallow, but they started to add up. Even with attacks as weak as these were, Joshua was still dealing several times the damage that his old weapon had. He kept the assault up, quickly draining away the monsters HP. Once its total HP dropped below 100, it panicked.

  Trapped in a corner and slowly worn down, the Defaced was left with no other choice but an all-out assault. It lashed out, catching Joshua with its claws and leaving large gouges in his arms. Panicking, Joshua stabbed the knife deep into the monster’s chest.

  You have taken 31 damage

  Remaining HP: 326/500

  Critical hit! Internal Organs Ruptured! Defaced has taken 132 damage!

  Level 3 Defaced has died!

  Zandrius gains 40 EXP

  The stab had been enough to finish the Defaced off, though the reward was unfortunately lackluster. The EXP gain was nice, significantly larger than individual zombies, but the extra effort and risk of damage didn’t seem to be worth it. At least, not until Joshua found a reliable source of healing. The Defaced had dealt over 70 damage and, while that wasn’t really dangerous, multiple encounters could quickly turn deadly.

  With the floor now cleared out, Joshua stopped to think about his next actions. He had originally planned to keep fighting his way to the top floor, but that wasn’t really necessary now that he could fight the Defaced. Sure, the one on the first floor was higher level, but that should just mean one or two more stabs to kill.

  The outside, on the other hand, was an unknown. It had been safe when he first spawned, but could easily have just been Macrocosm giving him a fair chance instead of killing him off right away.

  Considering that, Joshua decided the top floor would be his best course of action. There had been no indication that this building was any sort of dungeon or special place, but the monsters still seemed to increase in level as he climbed higher. There was no reason for him to think the 4th floor would be any different, and he needed to grow as strong as possible before risking the outside.

  Joshua found the staircase once again and kept climbing up. On the landing between the 3rd and 4th floors, there was something that gave him pause. A zombie corpse laid on the landing. That itself was nothing special, given the dozens he had killed himself, but this one was different from the others for two reasons. Firstly, because it was on the staircase. This meant that the stairs weren’t the safe zone he had thought, and he had probably just been lucky that nothing was in them.

  Second, it meant something on the 4th floor was hunting zombies too.

>   While the thought scared Joshua at first, he overcame the fear and kept climbing. Whatever had killed the zombie was most likely just another Defaced, as the last one had proven more than strong enough. A regular zombie caught in a similar ambush would be torn apart, and the gouges on the zombie corpse’s body confirmed this.

  When Joshua reached the 4th-floor landing, the door opened up into a small lobby. There were a few chairs, a couch, and another receptionist’s desk. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like a smaller version of the first floor, right down to a door to the right of the desk. The only difference was the two Defaced.

  One was crouching in a corner, and the other was lying down behind the receptionist’s desk. The first was easy to notice, loudly crunching on something. Joshua almost didn’t notice the second one, with only its feet sticking out beyond the desk giving away its location.

  Fighting two Defaced at once was a little too risky for Joshua to just rush in there, but he was already forming a plan. If he didn’t want to fight them both, then he just needed to kill one before the other could react. The one crouching would be the best target since the other would likely take several seconds to get up and respond. If he tried to attack the one lying down first, the one crouching could immediately leap and attack him.

  Plan half-formed, Joshua crossed the distance between himself and the Defaced as quickly as he could while not making any sound. He was just a few feet away from the crouching Defaced when things started to go wrong.