Original Post
So, here is a tale of how I ended up crawling with, for the second time in my entire time playing Cataclysm, a 300+ pain score, and, equally for the first time, all four limbs broken as I nearly bleed to death.
My present character, as some forum frequenting folks might be aware, is an unarmed-only character. That means no throwing (within reason) or ranged weapons. Perception stat is set to 4, and all of those points went to brawn. The entire challenge revolves around defeating everything that is Cataclysm in its current state with nothing but fists and old fashioned knuckles.
This character has developed to the point where they can clench their fists and tear down Juggernauts with furious blows. To understand how I clawed my way to safety with a combined total of 50 hp in my head and torso, let me start from the beginning…
Just another morning coming and going, reading a war novel as I play the Sax to my buddy the Bone Collector in my mega rig outside of a new city. The day before, a wandering AI tank was slaughtering a bunch of zombies in the middle of town while rolling through windows. In my, personally, sound judgement, my character spun upon their heal and walked back to the car to turn zombo meat into blobs for 15 hours and to let the tank suicide itself upon the acid zombos, brutes, necromancer, and a juggernaut. Surely, my flawless logic said, a single shooty mini-tank wouldn’t be able to kill the nearly 100 zombos that had the thing surrounded in a Strip Club.
So, after about fifteen hours of smooth jaz, a 9 hour nap, and some morning pemmican, I decided to stroll into town when, in the corner of my eye (map with binocs) I notice a fleshy tower in the distance. Veteran DDA players may start to wince at the notion of charing into a Migo tower with your bare hands, but I grinned at the challenge of suicidally trying to destroy the tower with nothing but my fists and stubborn amounts of Regeneration mutation being applied directly to the forehead.
Jokes aside, I equipped a full-body of Chitan armor. I had to purify my HUGE mutation back to Large after discovering the, presently, lacking XL armor variety, much, much, MUCH, to my sorrow. Now, I had a quick peak into one of these towers nearly 280 days prior, and was nearly killed by ONE brain blasty bastard. My character, without doubt, had both a bone to grind and PTSD from having a psychic brain pealing, so I opened up my box of toys. I strapped two grenades and an EMP to my belt, traded my codine for Oxy, prepared a syringe of addrenaline, brewed a 1L jug of Meth Cola, and picked up a baggy of crack I took from the clutches of an OD’d druggy on the side of the road before clanking my fisted knuckles together and jumping off my doommobile. Now, lessons had already been learned, and I carry not just one, but TWO extra sets of knuckles, more on that later. My character tapped themselves down, making sure the Kevlar and Leather patches were nicely tucked into my leather cloak and clothes under my Chitan ensamble. A .50 blast from a turret in this suit did at max 30-odd damage and I could soak quite a few of those blasts with a natural strength stat of 22, that’s just over 150 hp for each limb. Extremely strong + naturally high STR + Large mutation equals one very swole survivor girl. I made sure to charge my internal batbox up to 750 power and popped two caffeine pills and started chewing some caffeine gum as I walked over.
Now, I don’t underestimate any AOE or Aura-based enemies that inflict serious pain, and I popped a single Codine pill before I even jackhammered my way in through the back of this tower. My decision to make THAT much noise will come into the picture later, look forward to that shortly because things pick up FAST. I pause the Jacking at 89%, pre-stim with my drug cocktail of Adr, meth, and crack before finishing my hacking through the wall. The very instant I get through the wall, I’m blasted by the Migo screams and lose stamina. The fools, I thought, I have Adr and stims beyond my wildest RP dreams, have you SEEN my health stat tomorrow being -200? I have! With that thought, I surged my bionic muscles into action, and with them combined, brought the raw fury of 47 STR to bare sprinting straight into the face of the first Migo horror I saw right behind the wall. With a critical drawn from my 11 Unarmed skill of many battles and over 3,000 confirmed kills, the foe was knocked a tile back with over 100 damage, sending it into a stun. Still sprinting, I move one tile into the building and start feeling that heat in the room, and the fact I have 3 layers of clothing, instantly, just as I see a room filled with Migo. My real life words were as I quote: “Oh.”
In my inventory, I activate the first Grenade, fully realizing that this was not the 3 Migos I saw in my first door-kicking adventure with a Migo tower. There was a party here, so, dropping the nade in the newly torn hole into this fleshy exterior, I took my now pain-induced body from lack of stamina and ducked around a corner just before the nade went off. There were enough brain blasts hitting me that the stamina and regen of the Adr did not last long, and soon I found myself punching the backdoor of liquor store with six or seven very, very angry Migos coming to collect the fine for forcefully entering a newly made back door in their fleshy structure.
By this point, the pain score had likely blown past 150 but was well hidden under the Adr shot. Speaking of, it was likely 25-30% burnt by the time I managed to flee into the building. That nade seemed to only stir the hive with how many angry little citters crawled out, and a guest but, again, more on that SHORTLY.
Now, my stamina was not good enough to escape these guys before the shot ran out and I suffered the full effect of the pain stat and lost my 110 speed score. So, I drank the last of my cola, likely going to start going blind and suffering horrible OD issues around the time that I run out of Adr, but so be it. Rushing into the main lobby, prepared to use this chance to run the hell away and just run these guys over with the death mobile rather than trying to punch down 6-8 pain beams at once, I hear “KABOOM” and subsequently think, again, “Oh, right.”
A tank grenade shell had just obliterated the brute trying to break down the door to eat my face, and the lovely rover decided to come over and invite me to a fire fest. Riiiight, and this is one of two reasons why I carry an EMP nade, I thought as two more shells dropped the front lobby down (Partially collapsed already) into rubble. Ducking into the backroo, with the Migos right next door, I have to choose between rushing a tank with an active EMP nade, or a horde of Migo-death to my back.
I chose the Migos, since if I stayed to punch the tank to death the Migo’s would be on me whilst I was on rubble and there was no certainty I could finish rover off before my stun chain ran out and he pumped me full of turret ammo point blank whilst the Migos were trying to burn my brain. Charging around the corner with my gas genny pouring power to my muscles as they burned with the fury of over 40 STR, I splatter two of the Migos in a single turn before the blasts drain my stamina. Knuckles, break, wield second pair, three and four die within perhaps 10-odd turns through a flury of good-luck criticals. Then a shiny thing turns the corner, fires a shell, and the next thing I see is my vision covered in rubble. I was smothered in rock for but a moment, but my heart rate was likely 140 at this point as I clawed my way out of a collapsed roof. Right next to the tank who was teaching the last three living migos a lesson in discipline. So, what is an unarmed warrior to do when you have a beagle tank to your northwest tile, and slavers to all three of your east tiles?
You pull the EMP nade’s cord first, take a shot from the tank and a few clubbings from the slavers that breaks your leg, then pull your last nade’s cord, get shot three times in the torso bringing you down to 40hp on your very, very vital area, toss the nade which manages to hit one of the only remaining walls left in the building just 2 tiles away (Thanks perception 4!!!) and get shot and beaten even more, then punch the tank with your full might, breaking your second pair of knuckles and stunning the mobile nuke machine, and getting beaten by more strikes of the Migos. The EMP goes off, stunning the tank as it’s on my person, my power bank dies with it and my muscles get substantially less swole. The second grenade goes off right next to me in a squal of explosive pain, taking two of the migos out with it along with my other leg and an arm that were in the danger zone already. My Chitin armor is severely damaged and my gauntlets have been shattered clean destroyed. I punch the last Migo one last time, Adrenaline shot runs out, pain of around 307, speed 25 and cost to move in the 300s. The migo doesn’t die, and begins to pumble me for every punch. That EMP won’t last long.jpg
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Fourteen more punches on the beagle, the greatest threat, later kills the beast as the last Migo does everything it can to try to can-opener me from my armor. A single punch to it’s face brings it near death, but in response, it grabs and snaps my last arm over it’s leg with an evil grin.
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The run is over one obviously thinks, I have less than 80 health left, am bleeding, and can’t attack any more.
But you forget one final thing of the survivor’s handbook, these big bastards are as Clumsy as they are cowardly. That last strike managed to get the netherborn fearful of the bleeding out corpse on the rubble and it turns to run away. Two tiles of navigating rubble later, it stubs its toe on a rebar and dies.
I spend the next hour doing micro-crunches with my torso to crawl back to the mega rig, after bandaging myself with broken limbs, applied XL splints, that I crafted beforehand just in case, and proceeded to spend the better part of a month with -200 (and less) health from my adventures. Did I also mention that, after popping an Oxy during the fight I started to go blind for a period and had to climb into the mega-rig as I was going in and out of consciousness? Did that too.
All in all?
The Migo Tower + Beagle Tank may just be the truely greatest challenge I have thus far faced in the Cataclysm.
The moral of this story? Drugs are good for you and explosives are your friends. Always bring as many of them as you can into public at all times so that you can murder tentacle monsters and metal dogs in the ruins of a destroyed bar.
To anyone that is new to Cataclysm passing by, I offer these words,
“Welcome to the Cataclysm, the Grim Reaper can be found in a graveyard to your right, your own mistakes on your left, a hell gate pouring out netherspawn straight ahead as aliens invade the world, dark abominations out of Lovecraft consume the populace, and normal animals mutate into horrific apex predators, may we take your order?”
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