Survival Interval: 448

A set of cement steps led up from the pier boardwalk to the top of the seawall. Michael made it to them quite easily after leaving Phil behind. He cautiously summited them and checked his tactical map. A dashed line delineated the boundary between the wharf district and the next. In front of him was the 3rd industrial district. Specifically, it was a large hydroelectric plant. The plant was situated along the Beaufort aqueduct. To either side of the plant were other industrial complexes.

Far to his left was a deeper harbor complete with thousands of shipping containers stacked upon one another. Large metal cranes soared into the air, and several massive ocean liner ships were still docked. The tactical map already showed it as the freight district. It made the wharf district look like just a small sliver along the coast. Same as the 3rd industrial district that surrounded the other three sides of the wharf district. It was clear that goods came in off ships. Perhaps the warehouses in the wharf district were just used for customs or to sort and store goods.

In front of him, the land sloped up allowing him to see several leagues. Past the 3rd industrial district were buildings leading into downtown. This area full of small high rises was classified as the 1st business district. Beyond that was the historical residential district, the garden district, and then downtown. Michael could not see beyond the downtown skyscrapers, but the city stretched on in all directions.

By the looks of things, there could easily be a good 40 or 50 districts in this one city. Afterall he had already identified 7 of them and that was only in this one sector of the city. The illuminated and grayed out area on his tactical map on the other hand was still just a dot compared to the overall picture. The overall map for the battle must be absolutely massive. However, Michael only dwelled on it for a few minutes.

So far he had only added an additional 3 stat points to his attributes. If Phil had told him the truth, then he had already doubled that. Michael had no reason to not believe the guy. In fact if anything, Michael assumed there were plenty of people out there who had increased their attributes by more than that. The wasp nettle bracer he had received would give him a significant advantage in fights against low tier enemies, but Michael was likely behind with his personal strength.

Michael moved forward. Pipes and storage tanks flanked him on both sides. It did not take Michael long to come across another squad of zombies.

[hydroelectric plant technician, tier 0, X 4]

Each zombie lurched forward. Their gray hands stretched out of long sleeve blue shirts. Yellow hard hats sat on top of each of their hands. Several even carried massive pipe wrenches. Zombies carrying weapons, that was new. Michael was immediately dragged into battle. The first zombie was bashed out of the way, but Michael then had to resort to dancing in and out and between the others. He had started the battle intent on not expending any bolts from his bracer, but that decision was immediately tested when another squad of 5 zombies rounded another bend a couple of hundred feet away. Michael was only able to down one more zombie before they joined the remaining two.

The issue was that unless he could devote a full power swing, he could not take down a tier 0 with one blow. The zombies that had weapons swung them ineffectually, but that put him more on the ropes. He quickly came to the conclusion that he would have to expend some bolts if he wanted to make it out.

A few minutes later, Michael finished off the last of the 9 zombies. He had kept it down to expending 3 bolts during the fight, leaving him with 24 around his wrist, but this time he would not leave the fight empty handed. Two gold discs had briefly appeared before streaking into his body, two crowns of in-game currency, but Michael was even more excited by the white ball that he was able to recover mid battle.

Michael found himself standing over the last of the 9 zombies hundreds of feet from where the fight had originated. His method of staying out of reach caused the battleground to shift as he went. It was fine, except for the potential of dragging zombies from other areas into the fight. If he got surrounded or found himself in a dead end he could wind up in some real trouble.

His SP had dropped down to 61, but it was already on the mend. Michael did not need to think about where to put the new stat point. He immediately added it into strength. He needed to be able to take down tier 0 zombies with a more casual strike. He could not afford to bat them away over and over, when a group of zombies was after him. After all when dealing with a group, he seldom had the time and ability to put all his might into a single strike. Likely, he would need to send the next few stat points that way as well.

Michael checked his status page. Strength and dexterity were both at 12, while the other four primary stats were at 10. The secondary attributes were all stuck locked away. Flipping to his home page, Michael saw that he now had 2 crowns. Outposts around the map would open in another 5 days. Until then the 2 crowns would not mean a whole lot, but he was glad that there was one more thing that he could start to acquire between the much less frequent drops.

Michael started to continue on, before something else occurred to him. Sure enough, he was able to acquire and add to his inventory 3 large pipe wrenches. Their quality was only average, and their reach was a good foot less than it was with the bat. But Michael could use them as backup weapons for the wooden bat that could break on him mid battle.

Michael continued to move through the plant farming until he had to take a break for lunch. He had only run into more tier 0 zombies, but had still managed to collect 3 more white drops and five times as many crowns. Overall, he was quite satisfied. His strength had been raised to 15 and he now had 17 crowns. Quite a good haul, considering it was only 1030 a little less than 5 hours since he had left his warehouse that morning, and he had done so without expending any more bolts from his bracer. Another 3 hours and it would be back up to 30.

Based on his progress there was no reason why he could not get another 10 or so today if all went well. Michael could only imagine, his strength had finally reached the point where he could one shot tier 0 zombies with most strikes, but he had noticed something else this morning. As feared his SP was generating at a slower rate than it had first thing this morning. At this point it would take nearly a half hour for his SP to recover if he were to bottom it out. Perhaps after a break for lunch his SP generation would recover.

Michael pulled out 3 cans of tuna for his early lunch, and was about to dig into them when he heard them. People, several of them, were approaching his position. Michael did not bother to rise. They would have to cross fifty feet of open ground to approach him. His bracer should give him an edge over most people he might cross at this point of time. If they did have ranged weapons, it would be a simple thing for him to duck behind a nearby tank. If not, and they decided to attack they would try to overwhelm him with numbers.

Three people appeared from around a bend, a tall blond woman and two men. The blonde was fair skinned, and appeared to dress more for comfort than practicality. She wore short khaki shorts and a white tank top. She also carried a wooden bat. One of the men was also fair skinned. He had the look of a business man with well kept hair brushed to the side. Other than movies, Michael had only seen the landlord types, from the bottom half of Steeple city sport such a look. The third man was slightly shorter than the other two, but he looked like an average guy. His skin was slightly darker than Michael’s own. His hair was black and curly, styled in a mullet like manner. Like the other man he carried a crowbar.

They immediately saw him and paused, but they did not hold back for long. The three of them approached him cautiously. Michael just waited. It was the female that led the approach.

“‘Pardon us, do you mind if the three of us join you? I am Michele, this is Vince, and the last one is Shen.” She indicated Shen as the shorter darker skinned man, and Vince as the suave looking man.

“Sure, go ahead,” Michael said, opening one of his can of tuna. They should not be able to pose a risk as long as he kept an eye on them, so it was a good opportunity to collect intel and add more people to his contact list.

“What is that? Tuna?” Vince asked and answered. “You must have come from the opposite direction. We came from the 1st business district. There they had cans of baked beans and a couple different varieties of soup.”

“Ewwww, I’m not a fish fan,” Michele said scrunching up her face. “We should go to one of the other districts next. I would do anything to find a chicken salad or something that is not canned.”

“Perhaps we should hear a bit more before we make decisions,” Vince said with an antagonistic tone. That little exchange showed that while grouped together, things were far from harmonious.

“If you were looking for salad, perhaps you should have gone the other way? I mean there is a district called the garden district after all,” Michael offered.

“We would love to,” Vince said scoffing.

“Sweetie, I would recommend trying out a different route if you have your heart set on going downtown. There are packs of dogs roaming the latter half of the business district. Presumably, they are coming from that direction. Before I met up with them, Vince and Shen saw a pack tearing some poor soul apart. The three of us went up against a couple of packs of them, and we only got through them with quite some difficulty.”

“Yeah, they were far more dangerous than the small teams of zombies that you likely have been going against,” Vince said mockingly. “If I had started off in an easier area, perhaps I could have gotten a green drop as well.” He glanced at Michael’s left hand and the several dead zombies Michael had dropped prior to his decision to break for lunch.

“Oh wow, to think we would run across one of the ten thousand contenders who got a green drop on the first day!” Michele exclaimed. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

“He could have just picked them up, Michele,” Vince smirked. “If Shen here wasn’t slowing us down, perhaps we would have ran across one this morning.” Shen stared straight and down at a can of beans he was eating.

“Shen’s been doing just fine. He is only a couple of white drops behind both of us,” Michele defended.

“Ha maybe behind me,” Vince laughed. “Hey kid, I don’t suppose you have gotten a yellow drop on top of the green one.” Michael shook his head. “Well blondie here, got one from just another tier 0 zombie. I assumed you know that a white will drop every 10 tier 0’s or so, but I guess there are rarer drops possible as well. Seems like every time I turn around she’s getting a drop or some coins.”

“Geez Vince, why don’t you just tell everyone,” Michele said, rolling her eyes. “Pardon him, he just has not been as lucky for one day out of the four hundred and forty eigggghhhtttt, and has been a stick in the mud about it. When things start going his way in a day or two, and he will catch right up to me.”

Vince scowled and set into his own food. Michele picked at her own food, but was more intent on finding out more from Michael. Michael did not mind telling them about what they could expect from the wharf district. He did not go into detail, nor did he mention Phil. He would hate to sell out the big guy. Unlike Michael, Phil could be an easy target for the trio. Not that Michael got that vibe from Michele or Shen. Michele was good natured. Shen was reserved. Vince on the other hand was one of those people who were more out for themselves.

After the brief exchanges that he observed, Michael did not think he would ever get along with the guy. Let alone trust him. Things were not quite working out the way the guy had anticipated and he was bitter about it. Not to mention he was jealous of others doing better than himself. Jealousy was not necessarily a bad thing. After all, even Michael was jealous that Michele had gotten so many drops. The difference was that Vince was seething in bitterness about the disparity between them. Right now it was sarcasm, but it could build to something bigger.

The trio on the other hand did not seem to have much else to offer, so when Michael was done eating he quickly added them to his contact list and set off. It had been a good use of his time. He learned about the dog packs that roamed further to the east and added three more contacts. All while knocking out an early lunch.

In truth he was a bit worried about the other two. Michele was apparently the strongest of the group, but she was not so strong that she could not be stabbed in the back. It seemed the three had teamed up out of necessity when dealing with the packs of dogs, but away from those threats they likely had just stuck together since they had already paired up.

In a split second decision, Michael decided to try out the direct message or DM feature.

[Michael: Michele, watch out for Vince. I did not get a good vibe from the guy. You should be strong enough to set out on your own.]

[Michele: Thanks sweetie, Vince is a bit jealous since I have been lucking out with the drops. He should stop being such a sour puss when things start going his way. Shen would not do well on his own, and we will all have to team up eventually. Besides, we all know my skills for taking out zombies is not the only reason a group of guys will want to keep me around. :)]

Michael laughed. It was true. The blond was good looking. Michael had definitely noticed that. Perhaps that was why she was traipsing around in short shorts and a tank top. A little less defense, but perhaps fewer people would try to kill her for a drop, or perhaps it was just to distract them if they tried.

Michael continued forward. Their white names faded slightly on his contact list, letting Michael know they were now out of range. Michael already knew that they could only talk to each other within a couple hundred feet based on what Phil had told him.

Michael chose to head north before continuing west since the trio had approached from the west, he doubted there would be a green drop up for grabs in that direction and the zombies were likely significantly thinned. Michael could not afford to go through a dry spell, while the drops on the map were fairly easy to obtain.

However, he hardly had been moving for another minute before he heard the sounds of fighting ahead. Michael increased his pace to see what was going on. A woman cried out in pain, and he further increased his speed. He quickly caught sight of the fight. A small women was standing amidst a group of dead zombies. She was wearing the same black tactical clothes that Michael had picked out, but one of the legs had been completely torn off revealing the white skin underneath. In front of her was an ordinary looking zombie that had bitten into her shoulder, while she held both of its arms at bay.

The two shifted back and forth as the taller zombie tried to push her down. After analyzing the zombie, Michael learned that the woman was not just struggling because she was weak. She was dealing with something at a higher tier.

[Hydroelectric plant supervisor, Tier 1]

Michael closed in quickly, slamming his bat against the zombies shoulder. The force dislodged the zombie, giving Michael the space for a full power strike right at the creature’s head. However, the zombie was only knocked back a couple of steps. At his current strength, Michael would likely have to deal several blows with the amount of force. Something that would be difficult against a stronger and faster zombie. The girl fell back, grabbing her shoulder.

The zombie refocused on Michael and charged back in. Michael just raised his left arm and sent a couple of bolts into the creature’s head. He only had to take a step back to prevent the zombie from falling on top of him. A gold coin with the number 3 flashed out of the body before streaking into him. A quick check showed that he had just received 3 crowns this time, bringing him up to 20 in total.

Michael’s focus then quickly shifted to the woman who was holding her shoulder and looking at him. It was clear that he had just saved her life, but she was still weary. However, Michael recognized this girl from the description. She had brunette hair and a face full of freckles. Not to mention the fact that she was tiny. Likely, being less than five feet tall. “Would you happen to be Becky?”