And then you get a cold and there goes half your preteen Strength.
And then you get a cold and there goes half your preteen Strength.[/quote]
Or not. I have like 200 vitamins + a gallon jug’s worth of cough syrup.
(inb4 I get a cold now that I’ve said that)
And then you get a cold and there goes half your preteen Strength.[/quote]
Or not. I have like 200 vitamins + a gallon jug’s worth of cough syrup.
(inb4 I get a cold now that I’ve said that)[/quote]
Your not the ten year old wearing a gasmask all the time?
The sucky thing is that cough syrup stops the choking coughs and removes the Dexterity and Perception penalty, but doesn’t do shit about the ginormous Strength penalty. 
last time i checked it reduced the penalty from -4 to -2? Has this been changed or is my memory failing.
In my experience in the experimentals, the Strength penalty for colds is a static -3 regardless of cough syrup consumption. Or maybe I’m full of shit.
Well i am not sure at all anymore xD. But i think the caugh sirup did lessen the str debuff somewhat but i totaly forgot the numbers.
I guess i would have to do a testing run… hm lets see can i debug in a cold? xD /totaly tries.
I can’t remember, but I’m sort of sure the strength penalty stays the same. The thing that cough syrup alleviates one or two points does seem like it could be a thing that I’ve forgotten though…
I DON’T KNOW UGH but hey, I’m still sort of healthy with my daily vitamin pillz. Worth it for that 300 or so morale!
So, Amelia met a boy today. His name is Joey, and he was surviving in a shelter nestled into the south-western corner of the city. He’s a little bit older than her, and stronger, but he’s not the highest-energy wavelength of light in the spectrum. Amy gave him one of her spare radios so that they can keep in touch. There’s a lot of fungus creatures wandering around in that part of the city, though… so he might end up being another short-lived friend.
After that encounter, all attention was turned towards scouring the city for any more books and supplies she could get her hands on. The first stop was a nearby library, which didn’t yield much in the way of new reading material save for a couple new romance novels and book of essays. The library was right next door to a public pool, which meant there were quite a lot of swimmer-zombies in the area… but Amy’s silenced, laser-sighted, double-capacity (and extra-magazine) Desert Eagle made short work of the threat. Her aim has improved quite a lot over the last four or five days, though whether that’s because of all the fancy gizmos on her gun or some measurable increase in skill… she doesn’t know for sure.
The building just beyond the pool turned out to be just the kind of fancy electronics store that she’s been looking for. More importantly, with her acetylene torch, she managed to break in through the back and get into the showroom where… AHA! CBMs in each of the front cases! One quick smash 'n grab later, and Amelia had exactly the bionic implants she’d been looking for! Among those she found was an Ethanol Burner, a solar panel mod, a joint torsion mod, a battery power unit, a second power-storage mod, and even a mini-flamethrower. Up until now, the only bionics she’s had were a couple of passive implants for telling time and preventing glare and blindness. She had one power-storage mod, but her chain lightning has been completely useless on account of her having no ability to recharge. Now she’s got multiple methods!
With an army of zombies banging on the front glass, Amelia slipped back out the way she’d come in and darted down the street to the library where she’d left her truck. Safely inside, she installed the ethanol burner first. Excited to test it out, she fired up the engine and headed back across town towards the closest liquor store to home. There, she proceeded to drink an entire bottle of whiskey and another bottle of Wild Apple before staggering her way back into the bathroom and blacking out whilst puking her guts up.
Morning rolled around, and sure enough… her power cells were charged up. Her head also felt like a zombie brute had tried to twist it off, her eyes were too blurry and bloodshot to see, and her favorite outfit was completely ruined by an altogether unmentionable combination of contaminants. All-in-all, she felt like death. Everything ached and trembled as she limped her way back out to the truck. Amy drove the rest of the way back to the shelter at 9 Mph. Upon reaching it, she spent another half an hour retching in the woods before she dared to go inside.
When she did finally head in, Amelia immediately stripped down out of her filthy clothes, bundled herself up in a pair of electric long-underwear, burned the soiled outfit in the wood-stove, and collapsed onto her rollmat with the kind of agonized groan a dying elk makes after being shot by a hunter. Exhausted from her ordeal, she proceeded to spend the next three days doing nothing but reading, sleeping, and occasionally crawling out of her mass of blankets and pillows to nibble on a package of graham crackers.
If this is the price to pay for power overwhelming… she’s not quite as gung-ho as she was about it before. Alcohol was a big mysterious thing that adults could have before… she’d only ever seen the tipsy, giggly, fun-looking side when her family got together for big sporting events and reunions. Power overwhelming might have to come in the form of solar panels and whatever the hell a ‘joint-torsion ratchet’ is.
After my last Survivor met an untimely end I am giving a whirl again with a recent experimental. Currently roaming around a 7 setting city density world wearing head to toe bone armour and wielding a knife spear murdering and looting as I go. Set up a basement as my new base on the outskirts and ransacked several blocks of shops and housing. 91 day seasons as usual , so there is a lot of spring to go yet. Thankfully was able to loot a lot of salt off one npc corpse and made enough emergency jerky that will last me a few weeks if I become ill or unable to fight for a long period. A local garage had a vehicle welding rig sitting ready to use. Immediately dragged it back and am looking for libraries, prepper houses and hardware stores for a copy of under the hood so I can get mechanics up. Also 3 Acetylene torches, a welder , metal tanks and goggles in same garage. It was a beauty to find. I also found 2 pools a block or two further in which solves water issues for foreseeable future.
Slowly grinding my way through the cities zombie press. Gathering a nice collection of CBMs once I have the right skills. Mostly utility ones but handy! Also got a few safes in the local bank vault and a gunsafe in 2 houses needing picked. no hospitals so far found. But both doctors offices were nearly bare when I checked them that I have found so far. My post apocalyptic spearman decked in bone armour now alternates between making jerky, hunting triffids in the local woods for food and clearing this packed urban area to the north of zombies and looting. I have culled a good dozen npcs so far and have a small collection of flame-throwers. The bone armour is nice and durable and easily replaceable when it does get destroyed on those rare occasions I can’t escape before it breaks. Got tossed about by two brutes and a shocker. Still managed to kill them and 30 other zombies, lost my bone armour barring gloves and helm. But By then I had so much piercing weapon skill and health left I was able to shrug it off and slay the rest. Craft more bone armour from the mountain of ensuing corpses. Then loot and head home for a deserved meal of nachos and cheese and a sports drink from my looted food stash.
Just need to find more books. And I can work on getting an electric generator set up in my underground base. Two gas stations and copious cars to loot for fuel that should keep me topped off nicely.
You know what you must do. Hope you’ve got antifungals, molotovs, and plenty of ammo.
You know what you must do. Hope you’ve got antifungals, molotovs, and plenty of ammo.[/quote]
Tons. Anti-fungal drugs seem to be quite common in pharmacies… although Amelia is a bit confused as to why she found a stick of dynamite on the shelf in back alongside the aspirin and vitamins. And since her bionics now run on booze, she’s got enough liquor stocked up that she can probably whip up some molotovs.
Picked the’ big eater ’ penalty. Accidentally ate raw meat. Got gut aching parasites.
I think I will reroll a new character, to get static NPCs, but on the flip side, I ate a moose. A whole one. In one sitting.
Nom.
Plans changed. but my spearman clad in bone has made it to day 72/91 of his first spring. On one hunting trip into the city he found an RV with only a broken battery needing fixed. After finding some mechanic and fabrication books and read them. I headed back to get it running, brought back to base and immediately added a small extension cab to the rear with a forge and welder rig. Decked it all out in hard plating and added a row of heavy frame to the front with spiked plating. Field tests have worked out marvellously and my post apocalyptic RV has been merrily used to mulch many foes. Survivor and monster alike.
Now packed up with all my gear from the basement stowed. Got over two bouts of cold in quick succession of each other. Added 6 upgraded solar panels , storage batteries and an electric engine to make it into an armoured hybrid killing machine. Now heading out of the city to fill the pair of minifridges with fresh meat to get supplies up so i don’t keep dipping into MREs and non perishable reserves. I also know how to smith metal armour now. once I have enough fresh food handy I think I am going to smith a suit of Gothic plate to replace this bone suit.
I am skating around the streets throwing my 20 throwing knives while wearing my skates, chest rig, rucksack…and not much else. This is gana be a fun summer
also my feet are warm, but those skates ain’t coming off for nothing!
I saw two zombie soldiers that were able to heavily injure a chicken walker.
finished a quest killing a basement of 67 black widows since it was near the npcs outdoor computer terminal. Then finished the quest, NPC kept yelling for me to get out of the doorway, when I did he hoped in my cart and rode for a while untill I got outside. Then he ran off to fight a bear with only a combat knife, died and the bear still at like 3/4 health let a fungloid spore insta kill it. That was an interesting day. Think it was the 3rd day of summer of my first year.
It was now day 31 of spring. (You have no idea how excited I was to find out that I’m not alone in the 91 day seasons thing) Today was Amelia’s birthday. Her brother, Kevin, left the shelter a few days ago and has yet to return… it was beginning to look like she’d be spending the big day alone. To fend off the depression and loneliness, she huddled herself up in her bedroll with her radio, a mountain of alcohol, and a pile of books. Most of them were trashy romance novels, but somehow this magazine with a naked lady on the cover made it into the pile. Her brother must have brought that one back, because Amelia certainly didn’t remember finding any naked-lady magazines while looting the library. She found herself wondering if the lady on the cover really did have boobs that big or if they were somehow digitally enhanced. Her mom used to joke about the insane lengths some people would go in magazines to make themselves look better… and how futile it was, since everyone always knew that you didn’t really look like that. Amelia didn’t get it. She hadn’t seen herself clearly in a mirror since arriving at the shelter, but she had always been quite proud of her looks.
Amelia flipped through the pages of the magazine for a little while, indulging her curiosity, until eventually she came to a full-page advertisement for a familiar looking oblong plastic tube. The one in the picture was blue and silver, where-as the one she’d found at the electronics store was green and black, but it was definitely the same: ‘Joy-Land™ Ecstasy-VI’. The instructions the advertisement provided for proper usage of the Ecstasy-VI certainly made it seem innocent enough… but the opposite side of the page made it abundantly clear what it was -actually- intended for. Amelia blushed furiously, despite the fact that she was completely alone in the shelter. Why? Who was going to see her looking at such a thing? Quickly, she tossed the magazine back onto the pile of books and hopped up to her feet. By that point, her stomach was growling. Now was as good a time as any to get started on her birthday breakfast.
Amelia’s Super Awesome Birthday Breakfast consisted of a mountain of blueberry pancakes, bacon, a can of fried SPAM, and a nice big hot cup of coffee. She spent the rest of the morning on the radio with Joey, the boy from the shelter across town, talking about all the interesting books she was reading. Joey wasn’t much of a reader, but he seemed to genuinely enjoy it when Amelia read to him. Even out of the big, university textbooks! Maybe Joey was smarter than she thought, but his parents hadn’t taught him to love learning like hers had. So, maybe he wasn’t a genius… but he was quite sincere. Whenever she’d start feeling down about something, he’d share a little bit about his own story. His mom died when he was young, his dad was a police officer. He was almost never home, and when he did come home he was too tired to function. He also drank, a lot. He wasn’t the abusive kind of drunk, though… at least… not the violent sort. He was just the depressed, slowly-drinking-himself-to-death kind of drunk. Joey did his best to take care of him, but there wasn’t much he could do when the Cataclysm began. He just came downstairs one morning to find his father a snarling, dead-eyed monster. Amelia didn’t want to hear the rest, but she didn’t really need to either. She could tell where the story was going. She hoped never to see her own parents in such a state… even if they were zombies now. Despite having killed so many of the monsters since learning how to fire a gun, she just didn’t think she had it in her to shoot her own parents. Kevin, maybe… he could be a real jerk sometimes… but not her mom and dad.
Right around the time she was finished eating, Joey excused himself. Apparently food at the other shelter was running low, and the guy that he was holed up with refused to set foot outside. Amelia suddenly felt a pang of guilt. She’d not only stockpiled tons of food and medicine and weapons in her own shelter, but half of the upstairs had been converted into a full-on kitchen and metal workshop. She was in the process of hauling the parts downstairs to build a generator. She’d found more than enough gasoline to keep the thing running… if she could just get it built. Maybe once it was done, and she’d set up some beds, she would invite Joey to come stay at the shelter with her. It was much safer up there, even with the mall so close by.
It was starting to get dark by the time she managed to haul the engine and gasoline tank down into the basement. Every muscle in her body ached from lugging the massive hunk of metal, but it was going to be worth it. At least, she was pretty sure it was going to be worth it. That is, until she inevitably remembered that engines emit exhaust. Well, crap…
XD is this going to turn into a Literotica story? cuz… Im pretty sure that would be better posted on Literotica with a link here, not the other way around. 
Kevin LePine found himself in a sticky situation. Amy had made a mark on his map where a couple of mostly-working RVs were parked, and he had set out that very night to go locate the parts they required in order to make both of them usable. He’d originally planned to surprise her by bringing them back on her birthday, but the more he searched around the city for wheels and sheet metal and things, the further to the south-east he was forced to wander. Thanks to a little help from Amy, his bionics now slowly recharged with every step he took. This made it possible for him to run his infra-red night-vision biomod much… much longer than before. Under the cover of night, he pressed on further into the city in the hopes of finding a mechanic’s shop he’d marked off on the map during a drive-through. It wasn’t too far from an un-looted pharmacy, meaning he might be able to kill two birds with one stone and bring back a few more inhalers for his sister.
It was also nestled squarely in the middle of a sector they hadn’t cleared yet, and he didn’t have much in the way of ammunition.
It was tense, for a while there. Kevin watched as the zombies bumbled around blindly in the dark, occasionally hearing his footsteps and reacting… only to lose track of him moments later and totter off in another random direction. He began to exploit this by throwing rocks at cars and windows across the street. Suddenly the path was completely clear, and there was nothing to stand between him and those great big beautiful metal doors to the garage! He darted over quickly hoisted open the door, closing it immediately behind him. This place wasn’t just an auto-shop… someone had holed up here! The windows in the back were boarded up and armor-reinforced. The garage area itself had a welding cart, a solar-powered recharging station, and a half-constructed diesel-electric generator. Tools lay strewn about on the floor, as if simply dropped there in the heat of the moment and forgotten.
The fine layer of dust settled over everything was telling. Whoever had lived here, they’d been gone for a while now. Kevin poked his nose into the waiting area, but all the lockers were empty and the computer terminal was long-dead. The back room, fitted with a heavy metal door, stood open. Without setting a foot inside, he could already tell what he was going to find. Two more lockers stood against the wall. The one on the left hung open, and was filled with an assortment of ragged-looking clothes and armored leather straps. The one on the right was loaded up with guns and ammo. At first he was quite excited about that, but a few minutes of searching through the pile revealed that none of the cartridges matched the guns!
The previous owner had apparently grabbed only what he or she knew could be useful before closing up shop… but the real question was ‘how’? How the hell had anyone survived here at all, when just outside there was a swarm of walking corpses? Kevin glanced over at the cot against the opposite wall, pulled the metal door to the back room shut, and flopped down onto the bedding. It was almost comfortable, really, save for whatever it was under the blanket that was jabbing him in the hip. He hopped up and pulled the blankets back, revealing the small chrome box that had been left lying on the bed.
Inside the box was an e-Ink Tablet, its faintly glowing screen displaying a brief word document:
“If you’re reading this, then I’ve decided to take my chances outside. The batteries on these things are shit, so who knows… maybe this is pointless. Whatever. My name is Lucas Finley, and this place has been my home since my old man opened shop way back when the world still made sense. I don’t know what the hell is going on. Maybe I never will. I might take five steps out there and get my face chewed off just like Tibbs and Rhonda… but I can’t stand living like this anymore. Everyone’s gone. I keep waiting for somebody to show up and tell me that this nightmare is over… but those things just keep coming back, no matter how many of them I put down. What’s the point, anymore? They’ll just keep coming 'round and pounding til the damn walls cave in. This place is beginning to feel like a coffin. I’m gonna head north… out of town… and I’m not expecting to come back 'round this way again. Feel free to keep anything you find here. Hell, feel free to make this your own personal tomb if you like. It’s all the same to me. The generator’s almost done… just missing a few parts. There’s a can of fuel just outside the back door, too, if you can get to it. Food’s pretty scarce down on this end of town, too… make sure you stock up while you still can. Or just burn the damn place down and save yourself. Your call.”