I slammed the door shut behind me, just managing to turn the locks before collapsing to the floor. Somehow, I’d managed to make it all the way back to my original house without being seen by any more zombies. It wasn’t a very long distance—only a few houses down—but to my aching muscles it felt like miles.

As it turns out, a burning building provides for a solid distraction. During my retreat, I’d glimpsed several more zombies still approaching the house, even as parts of the home began collapsing under the flames. In additional to the schemer’s homing beacon, I suspected there was also some sort of hivemind-like or crowd psychology phenomenon that dictated the zombies' behavior.

Too exhausted to get back to my feet, I crawled the rest of the way to the living room and climbed up onto the couch. With the adrenaline wearing off and no immediate dangers to distract me, I finally felt the pain starting to settle in.

I let out a groan as I lay there, motionless. I knew I needed to eat, drink, get some nutrients in my body to counteract all that vomiting, but I just couldn’t be bothered. I felt like if I so much as moved a muscle, I’d be in too much pain to even have coherent thoughts. Of course, I was in agony either way.

How much left on that Mend cooldown? I shut my eyes, focusing on the state of my reservoir and the streams attached to it. Another ten minutes or so. I thought for sure more time than that had to have passed, but apparently not.

Ten more minutes. I didn’t feel like I could make it, not in this state. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to move, reaching into my pocket. Come on, come on... yes! It hadn't fallen out yet. I pulled out the bottle of painkillers and shook them out into my trembling hand. One, two, three... fuck it, give me four of the damn things. I popped the pills into my mouth one by one and swallowed them down. Oh, sweet, sweet relief...

---

Something rumbled in my throat. I tilted my head over the side of the sofa as greenish-brown and absolutely repugnant fluids burst out of my mouth and onto the previously very tidy carpet floor. I wanted to take a moment to internally apologize to whoever had last cleaned this place, but before I could that, I felt another wave of bile made making its way up my throat.

Alright, maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to take all those painkillers at once. Well, at least I didn’t feel like complete and utter shit anymore. Still terrible, mind you, but at least to a semi-tolerable degree. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to check the time.

11:52:16

Almost noon.

Hold on... what? That couldn’t be right. It shouldn’t have been more than, like, maybe ten o’clock at most. My head hurt. Well, everything hurt, but this was an internal pain. My eyelids were heavy. Drowsy... I was drowsy. Oh, shit, did I fall asleep? I blinked rapidly, slapping myself on the cheek to keep sleep at bay.

Then I threw up again.

When my stomach finally settled down, I tried to get my jumbled thoughts in order. First things first, Mend. The stream had fully recovered and I was free to push the energy through. At least there was one positive to blacking out for a couple hours.

I activated the ability, feeling the warmth course through me and alleviate the aches pains covering my body. It wasn’t going to heal me completely. I knew that instinctively—even without having to look at my Health. I just had too many injuries. Cuts, scratches, bruises, burn scars... not to mention my ears. I focused on them, felt a pop, then winced as sounds flooded into my brain again. There wasn’t much to hear aside from my own breathing, but my fresh ears were awfully sensitive.

Once my ears were fully recovered, the ability turned elsewhere. The pinky and ring finger of my left hand must have gotten broken at some point, judging from how purple and inflamed they were. The swelling died down as the healing focused on it, but the warmth faded away before they fully recovered. Really, though, I was just happy those were the only breaks I had.

My head, however, still hurt. While most of my injuries had alleviated at least to a degree, the throbbing in my brain hadn’t faded at all. Hoping to learn the cause, I pulled up my status and glanced at the afflictions.

Afflictions: Moderate Toxication (Toxicity)

Toxication... is that even a word? I tapped on it.

Affliction Type: Toxicity A result of consuming substances with toxic properties. Base Maximum Toxicity begins at 5 and increases by 2 for every point in Constitution. Toxicity Levels: Uninhibited: No symptoms. Mild: Can result in varying levels of nausea, dry mouth, dehydration, and other such effects. Moderate: In addition to previous symptoms, can result in varying levels of headaches, diarrhea, disorientation, blurred vision, hypotension, and muscle cramps. Severe: In addition to previous symptoms, can result in varying levels of respiratory distress, uncontrollable movements, seizures, and loss of consciousness. Lethal: In addition to previous symptoms, can result in acute organ failure, cardiac arrest, coma, and death. Note: Toxicity below 70% decreases naturally at a base rate of 1 every 30 minutes. Toxicity above 70% Increases by 1 every 30 minutes. Current Toxicity: 8/19 (42%)

That was... a close call. It looked like my toxicity had gone down some while I was passed out, but if I’d taken any more of those pills, I might have crossed that 70% threshold. Who would’ve ever suspected there might be consequences to stuffing yourself full of painkillers? In my defense, it is pretty hard to think rationally when every inch of your body is in blistering pain. As I was reading through the screen a second time, the current toxicity indicator ticked down from an 8 to a 7. Immediately, I felt my head clearing up. My stomach was still a bit nauseous, but it was at a far more manageable level than before.

Speaking of which, I was starving. My head was dizzy and my vision blurred as I stood up, but I managed to get to the kitchen without falling over. Then I remembered just where my hands had been over the last few hours. Any zombie bits had probably vanished away, but they were still covered in my dried blood. I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and forced myself upstairs to the bathroom for some soap. While I was at it, I also switched out my blood and sweat stained T-shirt for a new one, just to feel a bit fresher. Finally satisfied with my level of cleanliness, I came back down to the kitchen and threw some food together. As I ate, I checked over my phone. There were quite a few messages that had messages that had piled up waiting for me, so I hit the little box to let them pop up.

Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Brawler) slain: +5 XP Daily Quest II Progress: +25% (2/4) Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Screamer) slain: +12 XP Daily Quest II Progress: +25% (3/4) Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Sprinter) slain: +6 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Sprinter) slain: +5 XP Zombie (Creeper) slain: +1 XP Zombie (Spitter) slain: +9 XP Daily Quest II Progress: +25% (4/4) Daily Quest II complete. Reward: +25 XP or Daily Quest III unlock

Oof, that was a lot of zombies. And yet, still significantly less than it should’ve been. I was certain that more than just the number of zombies I counted here had attacked the house in total, and most—if not all—of them should have died in the flames. The only reasoning I could think of was that I must not be getting any XP from the ones I didn’t attack directly. That was unfortunate, but at least I got credit for the ones I’d killed using the superior—the spitter, I assume—like a turret.

What was really bothering me, though, was the fact that I was still only receiving 1 XP for the creeper kills rather than the 2 I’d been getting initially. Maybe there were diminishing returns to killing the same type of creature over and over again, or maybe there were some other factors involved. Either way, I suppose it really didn’t matter since there was nothing I could do about it. At least I still got a good amount of XP from all of the superiors. Speaking of which, it would probably be a good idea to read over their descriptions...

Creature: Zombie (Sprinter) Type: Humanoid, Undead (Tier I) Description: Superior Zombie variant. Capable of moving and climbing at greater speeds compared to most other Tier 0 and Tier I Zombie variants. Creature: Zombie (Brawler) Type: Humanoid, Undead (Tier I) Description: Superior Zombie variant. Possesses superior size and strength compared to most other Tier 0 and Tier I Zombie variants. Creature: Zombie (Screamer) Type: Humanoid, Undead (Tier 0 Elite) Description: Superior Zombie variant. Possesses no distinct physical characteristics to differentiate it from the routine Creeper variant, but is capable of unleashing a high-pitch vocal attack that deals Sound Damage and can cause various related Afflictions. Creature: Zombie (Spitter) Type: Humanoid, Undead (Tier 0 Elite) Description: Superior Zombie variant. Possesses a large, rotund physical appearance. Capable of unleashing the powerful acid in its stomach in a ranged attack that deals Physical (Corrosive) Damage.

That... really didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. A higher Intelligence might’ve yielded more information, but I couldn’t afford to spare any XP in that direction just yet. Still, maybe I could at least learn what this “elite” business was about.

Tier Modifier: Elite Creatures designated as Elites possess base characteristics mostly in-line with their given tier, but also one or more unique and/or exceptionally powerful characteristics that far exceed the expected for their given tier. In exchange, Elite Creatures also have a small probability of leaving behind drops that are one tier higher than their own (two tiers for Tier 0).

That made sense. The spitters had acid, the screamers the, well, scream, and the schemers their intelligence and command abilities. The sprinters and the brawlers, on the other hand, were just fast and strong.

Keen on obtaining as much information as I could, I spent the next half-hour or so browsing the XP Shop. I didn’t buy anything just yet; my goal was simply to understand as much as possible before making any decisions in that regard, and I’d say I learned quite a bit.

Firstly, regarding skills. There were very similar to abilities, except in that they worked passively, requiring no Stamina or any other active use cost. The downside was that they were far less potent compared to similar abilities of a similar type. For example, the only healing skill I found was one that increased Health regeneration by 25%. That sounded nice on the surface, but given that it would normally take me almost three days to recover a measly 1% Health, a 25% reduction to that time period didn’t really accomplish anything. Comparatively, Mend was infinitely more useful.

That wasn’t to say all skills were useless, however. In fact, there were quite a few I had my eye on, though I still wanted to wait on making any purchases. What I found especially interesting was that some skills actually contradicted each other in effect. For example:

Skill: Heft I Skill Type: Body Modification (Tier I) Requirement(s): Path of the Body I Effect: Increase Effective Body Weight by 5%. Price: 7 XP Skill: Grace I Skill Type: Body Modification (Tier I) Requirement(s): Path of the Body I Effect: Decrease Effective Body Weight by 5%. Price: 7 XP Measurement: Effective Body Weight The combined weight of the Practitioner and all of the Practitioner's Equipped items.

The way I saw it, neither of these skills could be considered inherently good or bad. Rather, their usefulness depended on what other complimentary skills and abilities I had that would synergize well with them. Depending on the style of combat I chose, some skills could even be a detriment compared to having nothing at all. I would need to make my purchases with such careful considerations in mind, instead of just willy-nilly buying whatever I could afford.

Following that, I looked into boons. These were basically afflictions, but in the positive. They included things like enhancing stats, increasing resistances, providing healing effects, boosting stamina regeneration, and so on. The catch with these was that their effects were temporary, and they came from consumable items that could only be used once. I didn’t much care for them, as I figured it would be a much better investment to use XP on permanent gains instead.

Next, I tried to find information on perks and talents, but that quickly proved fruitless. Whatever functions those two aspects had, they weren’t currently available in the XP Shop.

That brought me to the equippables. These were items that could be attached to one of the nine equipment slots I had available to provide effects similar to skills and boons. I say “attached” rather than “worn,” because I couldn’t tell how that whole process was supposed to work. A lot of the items I saw didn’t seem like they would be wearable, and many others I could easily wear multiples of. Rings, for example. I had ten fingers, but only one ring slot. What happened if I tried to put several of them on at once? I was curious, but not to the extent that I would risk buying several potentially useless rings just to find out.

By the time I finished with all that, my Mend cooldown had already ended. I activated the ability again, sighing in relief as it ebbed the last of my pains away. It was still almost unbelievable to me; I’d gone from being in desperate need of a hospital bed to essentially full health in a span of thirty minutes.

With the pain no longer a distraction, I sat down to address how I would spend the 48 XP I’d accumulated. I had to be resourceful, considering each of the zombies I’d encountered so far, but also take into account any newer zombie variants or possibly even other monsters I might encounter in the future.

First, the regular old creepers. I didn’t see much of an issue with them unless they came at me in numbers. In that case, makeshift explosives like the Molotovs were probably the best option, but it just wasn’t practical to be carrying them around all the time. I’d just need to get a good weapon to take care of them the old fashion way, and the same applied to the brawlers and sprinters.

That brought me to the real problem: the three elites. I actually managed to find something in the XP Shop to directly counter the screamers, so I wasn’t too worried about them. But the only defense against the spitter’s corrosive attacks seemed to be heavy armors, which were one, expensive, and two, not very practical since they would leave me very immobile. Luckily, the spitters’ size made them easy to spot and slow enough that it was very unlikely one might sneak up on me. I’d just have to be on the lookout for them every time I ran into a pack of zombies.

Now for the schemers... Obviously, these things made every other superior variant—and even the regular creepers—far more dangerous. If a second one had shown up during the attack on the house, there was no chance I would still be alive. Speaking of which, I was now almost entirely certain that it was the killing of that schemer that had lured all those zombies to the house. That meant if I ever encountered another one of those things, the only choice I’d really have would be to flee the location immediately.

The more I thought about it, the luckier I felt about the fact that I was still alive, and the bleaker I felt about my chances of remaining that way in the near future. I still had no clue as to the full extent of what was really out there. The zombies I'd encountered so far had been labeled tier 0 and tier I. That, of course, implied the existence of creatures tier II and higher, which led me to concluding that my earlier instinct of prioritizing escapeability was correct. If I ran into a giant monster or something, it would be far more practical to my survival chances to run away rather than to try and stand my ground to fight it.

With all of that in mind, I made the following purchases:

Item: Tactical Earmuffs Item Type: Equippable (Tier I) Equipment Slot: Head Effect: Increases Sound Resistance by 80%. Weight: .8 lb Durability: 5/5 Stock: 1/1 Price: 7 XP

This was my answer to the screamers. I’d also had the option of buying regular tier 0 noise cancelling headphones (which were slightly cheaper) but while they would block regular sound, I couldn’t be certain how effective they would be against sound damage. Given that the screamer had still managed to hurt me even after I'd completely lost my hearing, this seemed like the safer bet.

Item: Spring-Soled Shoes Item Type: Equippable (Tier I) Equipment Slot: Feet Effect: Increases maximum running speed by 5%. Increases maximum jump height by 25%. Weight: 1 lb Durability: 7/7 Stock: 1/1 Price: 10 XP

These were just too perfect to pass up. Both effects fell right in line with my priorities, and the jump boosting effect would have a nice synergy with Double-Jump.

Skill: Grace I Skill Type: Body Modification (Tier I) Requirement(s): Path of the Body I Effect: Decrease Effective Body Weight by 5%. Price: 7 XP

Again, I was going for synergy—reducing my weight to add to my running and jumping abilities. The 5% decrease might not sound like much, but reducing my weight by about eight pounds without losing any muscle mass would make a huge difference in my running speed and jumping ability. The downside was a slight loss of power in my attacks, but that effect was miniscule and could be easily mitigated by a proper weapon. Speaking of which...

Item: Zombie Hunter Axe Item Type: Equippable, Melee Weapon, Axe (Tier I) Equipment Slot: Main-Hand Effect: Deals 15% additional damage against Zombies. Zombies slain by this weapon have a 25% chance of granting double XP. Weight: 6 lb Durability: 8/8 Stock: 1/1 Price: 12 XP

This one took some deliberation. I would’ve obviously preferred something that could kill from range, but unless I figured out how to quickly and reliably use a crossbow or bow and arrow, that just wasn’t going to happen. Besides, the 25% chance of double XP was pretty enticing. The weapon itself strongly resembled an ordinary fireman’s axe in size, shape, and color. It was a bit larger and more cumbersome than I might have liked, but I had something to help with that, too.

Skill: Melee Weapons I Skill Type: Weapon Handling (Tier I) Requirement(s): Path of the Body I Effect: Increases Dexterity with Equipped Melee Weapons by 15%. Decreases the Wield Weight of Equipped Melee Weapons by 10%. Price: 9 XP

After all that, I was down to a measly 3 XP remaining. If I wanted to buy anything else, I’d first have to make the decision I’d been putting off until now.

Daily Quest II complete. Reward: +25 XP or Daily Quest III unlock

My first instinct was to cash out on the XP immediately. I certainly wasn’t averse to taking a risk or anything, but given the gap in difficulty between the first quest and the second, it was hard for me to project a third quest I’d be able to complete. More likely, I’d just be throwing my reward away. It was the obvious choice, wasn’t it?

And yet, as my finger hovered over the XP option, I couldn’t bring myself to tap it down. Why? Because it felt so... defeatist. Like I was giving up, surrendering myself to the powers that be in this world, or whatever it was that had gotten me in this situation to begin with. It didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t a notion based on any sort of objective reasoning. I just... didn’t like it.

Still, I couldn’t force myself to make a poor decision based on such an irrational argument. The reasonable and rebellious sides of my mind warred with one another as I weighed the pros and cons of each option. What finally tipped the scales, interestingly enough, was curiosity. No, curiosity wasn’t the right way to put it—it was the necessity for knowledge.

So far, each of the daily quests had provided me with an important point of information. The first quest had revealed the existence of zombies. Of course, I’d already gone outside before ever opening my quests tab, and I certainly wouldn’t have given the quest any credibility without having encountered a zombie first, but nonetheless, the information had been provided to me. Maybe if I’d seen it, I would’ve at least been wary enough to avoid getting bitten.

The second quest had told me about the superiors. Again, the information was a bit late to be helpful—I’d already faced the schemer before even finishing my first quest—but if I’d had that knowledge beforehand, I would have known to take more precautions and might’ve been able to avoid getting caught in that trap.

So, what would the third quest tell me? If it gave me a specific task, like killing a certain type of zombie, then I would learn of that zombie’s existence, and maybe develop some counter measures against it. If it assigned a creature other than a zombie, that would be an even more helpful bit of information. And if it so happened that the quest didn’t provide any new information, and it was simply something along the lines of “kill 20 zombies,” then it would be something I could actually do, in which case I’d just complete the quest as normal and receive the bonus XP.

Maybe it wasn’t the best reasoning in the world, but it was good enough for me. I tapped the “Daily Quest III” option.

Quest: Daily Quest III Task: Rescue A Survivor Progress: 0/1 (0%) Reward: +50 XP Select one of five Tier II Foundational Paths to unlock in the XP Shop. Additional Note(s): All Daily Quests must be completed before 0:00 of the following day.