Ted grit his teeth as he poured peroxide over his wound. He had put this off long enough. He let out a VERY pained grunt as the antiseptic did its work. After a moment, Ted let out a ragged sigh and began rewrapping his arm. It had been a day since he had gotten bit. So far, he didn't feel substantially worse, though that may have been the painkillers work. At the very least, he doubted these zombies spread by bite, which was reassuring.

Unless the incubation period was a matter of days and not hours, but Ted didn't feel like dwelling on that idea. Instead, he dwelled on what he had accomplished since yesterday.

First, he had moved his couch to prevent any unwanted intrusions during the night.

Through strenuous physical activity, you've gained 2 STR and 1 END and the skill Manual Labour!

Manual Labour (Ubiquitous) Rank 1 - The ability governing strenuous physical activity. At this rank, you tire slightly slower and can lift slightly more.

A helpful gain, and one that also proved that leveling wasn't neccesary to improve stats. Then there was the manufacture of Ted's "armor".

Carpeting Recycled! 20% XP to scrounger level! You've crafted Carpet-Hide Armor! Junk-Crafting level up! 40% progress to Scrounger level!

Carpet Armor

Black

LV 1 Junk-Armor

Assembled from duct tape, glue, cords, and carpet, this armor isn’t fancy, but its effective at preventing bites.

+Blunt Resist, +Penetration Resist, ++Scratch Resist, +++Bite Resist. ENHANCEMENT: +Dodge.

It was...Well, better than nothing, especially since it provided him resistance against biting. The biggest revelation was that ranking up skills related to the utility class increased the progression of said utility class.

Other than that, there were no real things of note beyond a first aid increase. The bite had scabbed over, Ted was feeling less light-headed, and Ted still hurt.

Right. Things to do today. Explore another apartment. Kill a few zombies. Work on clearing out the corridor and setting up some barricades. Nothing complex.

...Ted sighed. Why had he thought that? It was Ted: if the universe could find a way to roll him, it would. It was like a metaphysical law of existence. The only joy to be found in the world was in his pet rabbit, who, in turn, was a little shit. Ted glanced at the rabbit, who was hopping around its cage. Yesterday had unsettled Tortoise heavily, and as a result the bunny was rather insistent on not staying still. Not that Ted could blame them, considering. If Ted was locked in a tiny cage while monsters ran around, he'd be anxious as well.

Oh wait. He WAS in a cage.

He quickly looked over his information screen again, pausing at the perks. Next to each was a plus sign. He briefly recalled seeing something about having a perk point to spend. Well. Nothing to it then. He put it into Looter. After all, if he was going to be doing some exploring, it would be best to find better things to scavenge. Really, it was only a choice between that and DIY.

Perks

Wyld

Rank 1

Increased Green Mana affinity, ???, ???, ???.

Office Drone

Rank 3

Years of working in an office under terrible conditions has blackened your heart. At this rank, you have +2 Black Mana affinity, moderate resistance to tedium and despair, and +5 CHA when dealing with office politics or close analogues.

Educated

Rank 2

You’re well educated, having attained a degree in college. At this rank, skills rank up faster, you gain +5 INT in Academic settings, and you have +1 Blue Mana affinity.

Oath of Care

Rank 1

You’ve dedicated yourself to caring for a particular creature. At this rank, +1 to all stats when acting in the defence of another.

Blackcloak

Rank 1

Darkness is your ally, the people who dwell in shadows, your kin. At this rank, you enjoy +5 CHA when dealing with criminals and ne'er-do-wells.

Looter

Rank 2

You're a master at lucky finds, to the point where some might think you can smell treasure. At this rank, much better chance of finding better items and resources, and all treasure caches have more loot.

DIY

Rank 1

You're the crafty sort, literally. Items you make are just plain BETTER than they reasonably should be. At this rank, items you create will have a bonus enhancement. Further, you gain the ability to see the status of items you create.

...'Treasure Caches'?

Ted sighed. Seems like he made a bad investment, since he doubted he'd be finding any repositories of wealth any time soon. Especially since he was fairly certain most normal treasure such as gems or gold was PROBABLY worthless now.

Ah well. No use crying about sour grapes. He double checked his bandages, slipped on his backpack, pocketed his gun (for emergencies, Ted wasn't really the type of person to obsess over firearms or use them as a first resort), and made sure to stock one if his first aid kits and a flashlight. After that, he picked up his pan, holding it in his good hand. In the other, he held the switchblade he found.

With that, he peeked out of his front door, and gave a sigh of frustration. Yup. Great. Even more of the things out here than yesterday. Lets see, six to start with, killed one, now there were seven. That meant two had made their way up to the fifth story. Vunderbar. Amazing.

Ted let out a sigh once more, and crept out. His goal was simple. Kill all the ghouls in the corridor. Easy-peasy. He crept up to one, one of the new ones, and, quickly, shoved the switchblade behind the base of its skull. The result was instant, with the thing collapsed.

Shambler slain! 10 XP! Gained skill Shiv!

Shiv (Common) Rank 1 - The skill that governs stabbing. At this rank, you do slightly more damage when utilizing small stabbing objects.

Of course, Ted didn't pick this ghoul at random. Because next to them was a perfectly functional light switch. Ted reached over and flipped it off, shrouding the corridor in darkness.

This, however, seemed to have alerted the various ghouls and monsters, who all began to let out growling and howling noises as they began to shuffle about.

Ted stilled, closed his eyes, and listened. Right. None of them were close to his location. Yet. His grip tightened on the frying pan, and he waited. After a moment, one of the growling noises got closer. Ted raised his pan, and swung it into the spot where the noise was coming from.

THUNK.

Shambler slain! 20 XP! Sneak Attack rank up! Stealth rank up!

Wait, why did that one give twenty-

Y'know what, no, Ted wasn't gonna dwell on it. Especially since that thunk was loud enough to give away his position, judging by the growling noises all moving on his location. Carefully moving in the pitch darkness, Ted crept away, moving on one of the few lone growlers. Once he got in range, he raised his pan, and slammed it on where he thought the head should be.

Shambler slain! 20 XP!

THUNK. Again, the shamblers started moving. Right. Time to retreat for now. Ted crept to the wall and began walking alongside it, until he found a door. Opening it up, he stepped inside and shut the door. Okay. Scavenging time. Then he'd return and start killing some more zombies.

Ted looked the place over. Total mancave. TV, DVD's, pool table. He stepped over and looked at the cues. If he sharpened them they could probably be made into decent spears. Right, take them.

Otherwise, there was a severe dearth of useful things. Some duct tape, a few bottles of alcohol, a lighter, a stereo player which seemed to contain the collective works of Queen, David Bowie and...

Hannah Montana? Ted shrugged. Well. There was worse things to listen to, and really, who was he to judge? Still, if he was going to be trapped for any amount of time, morale was important, and few things raised morale like the tunes of Mr. Bad Guy himself.

He awkwardly stuffed the thing into his backpack, and continued canvassing the apartment, finding, to his delight, a large package of batteries. Stuffing them into his backpack, he was interrupted by another red box.

Scavenge rank up! 50% XP to Scrounger level!

...Neat. Ted kept looking around, dismissing the box. Once he was satisfied that he found everything, he quickly visited the bathroom, found it empty, and took a moment to fill the tub.

After that, the bedroom. If the living room was a mancave, the bedroom was a shag pad: heart shaped bed, leopard print covers, discoball.

Ted began to seriously wonder what was up with his neighbors. First he had a family that dealt coke on one side, and on the other, he had...whatever this person was. Was there something in the water, or was his apartment just cursed?

Probably both. Both was good. Checking the room over, Ted didn't find much of interest beyond a set of golf-clubs in the closet. He'd have to retrieve them later. Right. Exiting the room, Ted walked over to the pool cues, setting his pan down and pulling out his knife. Time to do some sharpening.

Junk-Crafting rank up! 90% XP to Scrounger level!

Several pool cues later, Ted had managed to raise DIY a few ranks. It appeared that each time he ranked up a skill related to his utility class, he got a certain percentage to increasing its level. Recycling the carpet earlier to get materials for his carpet armor had raised it by 20%, actually making the armor another 20%, raising scavenging only did 10%, and after that the Junk Crafting rank ups had only contributed 10% each. Some sort of diminishing return function?

Still, it was handy. Ted was about one rank up from getting the next level of scrounger. Grabbing the cues under his arm, Ted peeked out the door. Still dark. Crud. Setting the cues down, Ted grabbed a flashlight and shined it in the hall.

This was a mistake. The once silent hall was again filled with growling as every creature in it saw the bright light, and Ted saw to his dismay through the light of his flashlight them shambling towards him.

Crud. Crud crud cruddly crud crud! Teds mind raced. Right, they knew where he was, and he was trapped, and he doubted the door would block them for long. What to do, what to d-

The pool cues! The narrow entrance of the apartment created a natural chokepoint, he could use the pool cue spears to stab them as they entered! Ted gave a humorless grin and picked up one of the cues and waited. Time to make with the stabbity!

As the first ghoul stepped into the room, Ted slammed the cue-spear into its chest, noting, to his dismay, that doing so required a fair bit of strength.

Still, it appeared that unlike the movies, headshots weren't required here, as the thing dropped fairly quickly. With a sickening squelch, Ted yanked the spear out and prepared for the next one. There had been seven to begin with, he had dropped two earlier, he had just killed one now, so he had only four more to go!

Shambler killed! 20 XP! Gained skill Spears!

Spears (Uncommon) Rank 1- The skill that governs spearing things. At this rank, you deal slightly more damage with spears!

The next two came in a pair, stumbling past each other in their bid to reach Ted, who responded in the only way he knew how: stabbing one in the chest. To his dismay, however, this didn't manage to kill the creature, who continued pushing forward, further impaling itself on the cue-spear.

Crackerjacks! Ted let go of the spear and quickly grabbed another one, backing up before again slamming the spear into the shamblers chest. At this point, his arms were begining to ache.

The second spear also failed to do anything. Growling, Ted quickly enacted a change of pan. Grabbing his pan from the floor and another spear, he held the cue-spear in front of him, using it to keep one of the zombies back, specifically the one without the spears in its chest, while the other got closer.

THUNK.

Shambler slain! 20 XP!

Aaaand down. Now for the other. Once more, he let it get close, before swinging his pan with a crunch.

Shambler slain! 20 XP!

One more left. Ted carefully watched as it stepped into the door, before slamming a spear into it.

Shambler slain! 10 XP! Floor cleared! 50 XP! Level up! +3 AGI, +1 PER, +2 Free Stat Points! Shiv rank up! Stealth rank up! Gained skill Grapple! Gained skill Lockpick! Blackcloak Rank Up!

Summoning Floor Boss.

Victory Conditions: Survive 5 minutes.

Secondary Conditions:

Slay the Boss.

Remain Uninjured.

Use (1) Red Mana Spell.

It was at that moment Ted heard a horrible screaching noise.

End Chapter 1.4