Am I still alive?
(This is my third character, so still on the learning curve, and discovering new content all the time. This is also my first character with an NPC follower. When I say, below, that something is new, I may be using her voice, but the new experience is mine. This is a very different character. I found kiting too dangerous - she would get grabbed and was too weak to break away. I had to find another way.)
My name is Katharyn. I ended up at an evac shelter wearing nothing more than a towel, still clutching a bar of soap from the shower! I’m 53 years old and not particularly strong, but with knowledge of Eskrima. I met a friend here, Micha, who isn’t any stronger, but I admire her seeming invulnerability to the debilitating effects of these hot summer days. Micha has been teaching me how to shoot handguns, but we don’t even think about using them out there. The noise would surely attract more attention than our scarce ammunition could handle, but Micha did shoot down a zomb I was running to attack once. One shot. Done. I was actually angry with her for shooting it, until I realized I was running to attack a zombie with nothing more than a shirt on my back and a backpack in my hands. That’s when I started to trust her.
Micha is a pacifist at heart, yet she’s proven herself very able to wade into seemingly overwhelming situations. Too able, actually. After we had whittled down our first true horde, in front of our little town’s local hotel, we ventured up to the building itself just as night fell. I thought, “cover of darkness”, but Micha went on a bit of a rampage. When I finally managed to pull her away, she was badly injured. Only when we were a safe distance away and I tried to bandage her wounds, only then did she have a panic attack. Since then we have learned to stay close when scavenging together. We have learned to rely on stealth, wits, and when need be, melee. Her skill with a fire ax has complemented well my growing Eskrima skills with a combat knife.
I would have been dead many times if it wasn’t for her. That is an absolute truth. Only recently have I been confident enough in my own abilities, and the ability of the armor I craft to not fall apart, to step out from Micha’s safety net.
There is a mine entrance near our evac shelter. We found it’s inhabitants quite easy to handle. I wasn’t able to hack the mining company’s computers though, so we suspect there is more to that place. We had spotted a second mine entrance from the roof of our hotel and recently, while Micha was sleeping, I decided to take our newly discovered electric car out to that second mine. Alone. I left Micha the new chitin body armor I’d made, choosing to take the survivor suit instead. It overheats faster, but its better coverage seemed a good idea.
It actually took me 3 trips. My first trip took me past a quarry, inhabited by friendly, or at least not unfriendly, Exodii (neither of my first 2 characters had met them). I spent some time exploring their mountainous fortress before remembering my goal was the mine. I have to go back, to see how high it goes, to find out how much of the surrounding landscape I can see from there.
I never made it to the mine that day. I limped the car home in the dark with gaping holes shot into its front end at a police roadblock between the Exodii and the mine. I discovered their weapons were much less effective on me than the car, and spent some humorous moments fighting the effects of their stun rounds as I struggled to walk up to the roadblock. Micha and I spent the next day repairing the car, including the basic frame and body work that I hadn’t taken the time to do before.
The second trip I limped home almost dead, my torso looking worse than the car had before. I took a northern route this time, to visit another evac shelter we’d seen from our hotel tower. I wanted any protein packs and first aid kits there. I think Micha just wanted me to find soap. I reached the mine and, as expected, had no problems with the zombie miners. The same, to my relief, for an entire herd of overly aggressive woodland wights there too. I also manage to hack the mining company computer there, and got the elevators working! Unfortunately, when I went out to get the car, to empty out my folding shopping cart before entering the mine proper, I discovered 5 police eyebots waiting. A little over aggressiveness of my own ended the day.
I was nervous about the third trip. The unknown, right? Sure, the Exodii and police roadblocks were unknowns (my first character never encountered a roadblock, and my second character didn’t approach one until after it had expended its ammo on the locals), but the mine is different. Dark, enclosed, and I was pretty sure something would be down there.
I arrived at the mine in the early morning hours, just before sunrise. I quickly took the elevator down, unfolded my little cart and set out my gear. As I went about the business of clearing the miners covered by darkness and light amplification goggles, I soon discovered a huge blunder. I’d loaned my firefighter’s mask to Micha, and never got it back. I recovered from the gas, mostly, but still had a raging headache when I decided to press on. I sneaked past the other gas clouds and went down. I found a computer monitor, where I read the mining company logs about a strange vertical fault, and continued on, down again.
Another computer. Another successful login … I think? Explosions. A strange glowing wall, the fault! I went to the wall … examined it … decided to back away … couldn’t … ?
Three creatures appeared around me. Big! Horrors! Not zombies, so maybe they won’t attack if I don’t? I know, they were definitely aggressive, and they are called Horrors for goodness sake! Mark it up to negative panic. I gave them the first strike, and they took it. But Eskrima is not a defensive skill. It’s offensive. It relies on rapid stunning attacks to overwhelm one’s opponent. My instincts kicked in. If I was going down then I was going to inflict as much pain on my tormentors as I could on the way down. One fell! One actually fell! Then a second! One more, but it was away from the wall, and I couldn’t reach away from the wall! I slide across the wall, and the last one follows! Within reach! It falls!
In the aftermath, I take the time to look around me. The wall was no longer glowing. I bandaged my badly injured head. Almost all the damage was to my head. Interesting. Apparently the chitin helmet offered less protection than the survivor suit? The armor itself was undamaged. I examine the 3 bodies. Each had been carrying a strange item. That’s for later. Strange. I return to the computer console. Had I actually logged in?
Big mistake. BIG mistake. It was happening again! This time I did not approach the wall. Fool me once, right? BIG MISTAKE! This time FIVE of them appeared, all around me! My fatalistic attitude had returned with a vengeance! But more careful this time, more methodical. Picking my targets, sliding down the wall to keep drawing them close, because I can’t hit what I can’t reach. Five up, five down! I won! My head was critical, but still attached! Again, each one dropped another strange item. Home!
I returned to my electric car. I dropped my overburdened body into the driver’s seat - didn’t even bother to drop my bag or my folded shopping cart - backed over another eyebot but didn’t wait for its help to arrive, and our fully repaired vehicle wasn’t even scratched!
I spent the next day checking out the strange objects, discovering their properties. Only then did I go to the wiki and check out that place. I only have one question. How am I alive? How can a character, with 5 strength and 7 intelligence, in pain, 3 melee, 3 bashing, 4 piercing, 2 dodge, a combat knife and Eskrima, a survival suit and chitin helmet, take on 3 Amigara horrors, followed immediately by 5 more, and come out alive?
You know what? I don’t care. It could be my chitin helmet offered some natural mental protection I don’t know about. It could be my tactic of keeping them close prevented them from using their ranged attack efficiently. It could be dumb luck. It could even be a bug. I don’t care. The entire 3-day adventure was perfect. The battles were glorious!
I also ended up with 2 copies of the same artifact. I wonder what the Exodii would give me for that!
