Chapter 3.07 DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

Tenzin’s Lorien

4th Fireday of the Full Moon

Kyle waited for Paul and Kimberly to leave his MicroWorld and logged into Fantasy as soon as they were through their doors. Waking up on the couch he had logged off on, Flea got up and went into the basement to find Than’ro asleep. After waking the massive Dengre with the help of Bob, the three slowly made their way to the front door and outside, so Than’ro didn’t destroy anything on his way out.

“Alright, I don’t know about you, Bob, but I want to get as far away from this place as fast as we can. We can head straight north first, bring our yellow buddy home to his people, then head on over to Stuglegen.”

“Me, home, go?” Than’ro asked.

“Yes, buddy. We’ll bring you home. I don’t want anyone to harm you after I, umm, harmed you and saved you. Wouldn’t be proper,” said Flea.

“Thank you, Gnome.”

‘Ta-ting’

“What was that?” asked Flea.

“Um, not sure. That’s a new sound or notification,” replied Bob.

Bob looked at his bag for a few moments before deciding to pull out his Communication Book. The cat flipped through the book until he found the page marked ‘Zan’ at the top and found a new note inside it.

Bob & Flea, we all wish to thank you again for our rescue. Tenzin was kind enough to pay off the contracts of Ren, Gren, and Laral. Please tell Flea that I wish he had never given the Satyr candy, as he won’t shut up about it. We left late last night and are headed south-east in hopes of meeting Esalune soon.

Flea, the gift that Esalune gave you, I’m unsure how to say this. We are no longer Tanuki but are a new type of Weres. This is the real reason we have become players again, as we have changed into an existing player race. My species is now called Were-Mobula. Whatever causes the Werewolf’s transformation had the effect of changing us into Weres of the race we used to transform into when the Tanuki were still a player race. I do not know what this will do to you. If it does anything at all, please keep me in the loop.

I hope to see both of you again someday.

Bob showed Flea the message. The Gnome sat there for a few moments in thought.

“What are you thinking? I’m not inside your head in the game,” Bob said.

“I’m imagining what the hell a Werewolf Gnome would look like. I’m thinking right now of the shortest Werewolf in history,” replied Flea.

I should have guessed it by now.

Bob shrugged.

“Alright, Than’ro, do you have any idea where you’re from? Or where you’re home is?” asked Flea.

“Many colored mountains. New day, make them sparkle lots of colors. Than’ro fell one day, hurt legs. Than’ro would die. But Baron’s men find me and bring me here. Legs heal wrong, but Than’ro still strong. Guarded Baron for many cycles.”

“That explains why your legs broke and healed when I gave you the healing potion,” said Flea.

The Dengre whimpered at the memory.

“Ok, so we head north towards the Fringtel Mountains and find the ones that have lots of colors,” said Bob.

“Home,” Than’ro said as he looked north.

The three left the Lorien behind and began walking down the hill towards the road leading north, and as Flea thought happily, away from Dustgrove. An hour into their travels, Than’ro got annoyed when he had to keep stopping to let the Gnome and cat catch up. The Dengre picked them both up without warning and tossed them onto his shoulders.

“Two slow. I hate wait for catch up.”

A few hours later, after the trio traveled along the road cutting through nonstop rolling fields, Flea’s stomach grumbled.

“Woah, I actually feel hungry. Than’ro, can you stop to rest for a bit. I need to logout and return home for a few minutes.”

The Dengre placed the two back onto the ground and walked off the road to sit beside a rock. Flea and Bob both followed and did the same. Logging out completely, Kyle got up and went into the kitchen. He wolfed down two protein bars and washed them down with a bottle of water. After using the restroom, he went back to his bed and logged back into Fantasy.

“Alright, Let’s get going again.”

‘Gurgle.’

“I guess I’m hungry in the game, too,” Flea chuckled.

Flea removed four of the Titan Turtle Pies from his inventory, giving two to Than’ro and one to Bob. After finishing their meal, the two reclaimed their seats on the massive man’s shoulders, and the Dengre began traveling north again.

“How long do you think it’s going to take to reach the mountains at this rate, Bob?”

“With Than’ro being our literal yellow bus, it will probably take four or five days with us stopping each night so he can rest, and we log out to tend to the undead.”

“Than’ro hate undead things, leave me here.”

The Gnome and cat chuckled.

“Don’t worry, Than’ro. We won’t bring you near any undead,” said Flea.

The trio traveled in silence for a few more hours till they found a copse of trees to camp near. Bob found a hollowed-out trunk that Than’ro leaned against, while the Gnome and cat lay inside to log out.

Bob and Flea materialized outside the Fantasy monolith of Kyle’s MicroWorld pavilion. Flea walked inside, sat on the couch, and brought up his contacts. He sent a message to Kimberly and Shaun Sr. asking them to contact him once they logged in and figured things out. He needed to know where Kimberly's boyfriend, Paul spawned, and what Sr.’s plans were now that the group was a bust.

He got a response from Shaun almost right away, saying everyone would play a few days on their own to learn more before they planned to do anything else. Flea waited around for ten minutes after Outbreak’s servers went live for Kimberly or Paul to contact him but decided to login when he hadn’t heard anything.

Kyle awoke to find a hand covering his mouth. Opening his eyes, he looked up to see a very concerned Kimberly. She placed a finger over her mouth to silence him and, after a quick nod from him, removed her hand from his mouth.

“What…” Kyle whispered but stopped.

Kyle could hear scratching coming from the house’s side, almost like someone was clawing at the outside siding.

“Zombies?” Kyle mouthed.

Kimberly nodded her head, then slowly walked over to their gear and picked up the spear. Getting up, Kyle pulled one of the machetes from its holder at his side. The two slowly climbed the steps up to the second floor and into the front bedroom. The two looked down to see no less than ten Zombies around the street looking out a bedroom window. They aimlessly traveled along at various speeds and seemed to ignore one another.

“Why didn’t you guys log out and contact me?”

“Try and logout yourself.”

Kyle tried to mentally logout and got a prompt.

Do you wish to Logout?

Logging out will finish your play session for today, and you will not be able to log back in till tomorrow.

“Well shit, I guess it prevents people from giving info to others at the expense of their playtime.”

“Yep, We can find out where Paul is tomorrow and figure something out then. I don’t want to lose my playtime, and I bet he feels the same,” said Kimberly.

As slowly as Kyle could, he opened the window and was immediately assaulted by the stench of decay and rot. Both took a step back from the window and coughed at the assault of smells. Outside they could hear the groans of the Zombies stop, and then rage-filled grunts replaced the silent dusk night.

Kyle was first through the window, followed quickly by Kimberly. Slowly going to the edge of the first floor’s roof, Kyle looked down at six zombies clawing at the side of the house.

“Hand me your spear,” Kyle whispered to Kimberly.

Extending her spear to him, Kyle took it and scooted closer to the edge. Looking down, he thrust the tip of the spear into the skull of the closet Zombie. The blade slid off its noggin, causing a large tear of flesh and hair. Kyle resisted the gag coming and struck again. This time he heard a satisfying ‘crunch,’ and the Zombie fell where it had stood. The others seemed to notice as one when one of their own died and looked up in unison to see the teen with a spear in his hand.

Kyle found it easier to aim for the eyes and mouth of those looking up. After killing the rest of the group, Kyle stood up and looked around to see if there was any more. Not seeing anything else, he handed the spear back to Kim, then hung off the edge and dropped down. Being on the ground next to the bodies, Kyle could see a little wispy blue ball floating over each of them. Getting closer and touching each of them, he was prompted by a message.

Gained 6 Cores

6 Cores total.

Gained 6 AP

6 AP total.

Kyle watched as the six bodies began to dissolve and sink into the ground, leaving behind only their clothing. He went around picking up each article, checking to see if anything was hidden in any of the pockets, but nothing could be found.

“Looks like whoever loots the corpses gets an Authority Point and a Core. The Core doesn’t seem to be physical. I know a trader uses them as currency, but not sure what else the AP is for,” Kyle said.

Kimberly went back through the window and soon came out of the dwelling’s back door. Coming around the house, she hissed while looking over Kyle’s shoulder. Peeking down the street, she could see a horde of Zombies in the middle of the road about two city blocks away. They were making slow but steady progress towards them.

“We should retreat back into the house, let that group pass,” Kimberly said.

Just as Kyle was about to agree, they heard multiple ‘pop’ sounds coming from the horde’s direction. They both darted to the edge of the street, and using a large tree for cover, looked down the road. Scattered on the ground to one side of the horde were numerous fallen Zombies.

“There, on top of the two-story blue and white house,” Kyle said as he pointed.

Kimberly followed his finger to find a young girl with what looked like an assault rifle aiming down at the crowd of Zombies. She fired off a few shots. The flash of the muzzle gave away her position.

“How the hell do people have weapons already?” asked Kimberly.

“Their group probably survived and got the small weapon cache. That would be my bet.”

The two watched as the girl killed well over half the group before something seemed to happened to her. They heard a faint yelp, and then she was sliding down the roof. The rifle seemed to have been strapped around her because it never fell as she came to the edge and hung on.

“We got to help her,” Kimberly said before taking off.

“Well shit,” Kyle said to no one.

Kyle was fifteen or so feet behind Kim by the time he started running. When Kimberly got to the back of the remaining Zombies, she became a cyclone of movements. Her spear quickly pierced into a head or neck, then continued to the next enemy. At that moment, Kyle thought she really did look like a long-forgotten warrior princess. He, on the other hand, took out his two machetes and just began chopping away into the necks of the closest Zombies.

By the time Kyle had killed his second one, he had looked over to see Kimberly had mowed down five or six. Turning back to what was in front of him, he was almost too late to raise a machete to block the swipe of a Zombie. Before he could rear back and slice down with his other weapon, Kimberly’s spear busted through its neck.

“That’s all of them. You should probably find a way up top before she falls,” said Kimberly, huffing like she just finished a marathon.

Kyle looked up to see the dangling legs of the young girl.

“Shit!”

Kyle ran around to the house’s side and found a gate he could unlock. At the back, he conveniently found a tall ladder already leaning against the house and climbed up to the roof. Getting up, he slowly made his way across the tiles to the dangling teenager.

Laying flat and parallel with the edge, he looked over to see the surprised face of the teenage girl hanging there.

“Hey! Fancy meeting you here! Mind helping me?” she asked.

Kyle laughed as he grabbed her wrist and pulled. With the extra weight gone, the young woman was able to get her foot onto the gutter, then pull herself back up onto the roof. Seeing the teen now safe, Kyle crawled back to the peak of the house and sat down. Before he could speak to the woman, he heard shouting coming from the front.

“Hurry the hell up, Kyle! I can see another horde of them three or four blocks down.”

“That’s our cue to G.T.F.O.!” Kyle said to the other teenager.

The two climbed down back to the concrete backyard. Kyle eyed the ladder for a second, then collapsed it down to its twelve-foot form and tossed it on his shoulder.

“Let's get to safety first, then we can talk,” said Kyle.

Kyle could see Kimberly had looted all the Zombies at the front. The three quickly marched down the road back to Kyle and Kimberly’s house. Kyle set the ladder next to the garage, and they all entered through the back door.

“Hello, I’m Kimberly. This is Kyle. No, we're not dating; he’s single.”

The young teen blushed.

“What the hell?” Asked Kyle mockingly.

“I’m Kerry. Thank you for saving me. I really would have been pissed if I had died today.”

“Why did you fall in the first place?”

“Damn casing somehow bounced into the back of my hoodie and burnt me.”

“Ouch. Are you a part of a group close by? Is that how you got the rifle?”

Kerry took a step back and hugged the gun.

“I was part of a group, but the two guys in charge were dicks to everyone. So, as soon as I logged in, I took the gun and magazines from his backpack and ran away. I then left the group. I hope more people get the same idea and leave those dicks.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to join us. We’re going to loot the houses in the area today, and tomorrow we’re going to pick up her kinda-sorta boyfriend,” Said Kyle, jerking his thumb at Kimberly.

Now it was Kimberly’s turn to turn red.