I turn back to Juan and apologize for yelling. He nods understandingly and tells me, “That’s ok. I appreciate that you care about our group. You’ve already helped us get here. Are you willing to help us make this place our home?”
On cue, a new quest notification pops up.
Save the Survivors - Part 3
The group has decided to stay in Safe haven. Unfortunately, a massive horde of zombies is on the way. Will you help them survive?
Conditions: At least one member of the group must survive the three zombie attacks.
Reward: 3000 XP
Do you accept?
Woah, that’s a lot of XP. That’s enough to get me to level 7 and well on my way to level 8. I quickly accept the quest and see Frank, Joe, and Nancy all do the same.
As soon as I hit accept, a new window pops up.
Time to first zombie attack: 24:00:00
As I look at the window, the numbers start to count down, and it’s clear that we have 24 hours to do whatever we can to get this place into shape before they attack.
When we ask Juan what we can do to help out, a new blue screen pops up.
Optional Tasks
Rebuild wall.
Create defense installations.
Create hospital/medical center.
Find/create weapons.
Create and install traps.
Train survivors.
Looking at our options, we agree that fixing that huge hole in the wall and building better defenses should come first. When we ask Juan about it, a new interface opens up that allows for virtual construction.
This new interface is similar to one found in games that give players the freedom to build structures. On the interface are pictures of objects that can be put together to create larger structures. For example, by tapping on the picture of a wall, a small red transparent 4x4 square appears in the air. The square stays red until placed somewhere a wall can be constructed. When I put the square on the ground, it turns blue, and an accept button appears. Each object that you want to build costs a certain amount of construction material. Tapping the accept button causes the resources to be taken, and the square of wall starts building. Then I can place another square of the wall on top of that one to make the wall taller. Or I can place another wall square to the left or right of it to make the wall wider or build in a particular direction.
Other objects can be built and attached to each other to create more massive structures. Tapping on the picture of a floor in the interface produces a square of flooring that can be placed on the ground. Placing this floor tile on top of a wall tile turns that floor tile into a ceiling tile. Placing four wall tiles and two-floor tiles make a simple building. Want a two-story building? Just add a stair tile to the outside of the building, and now you can add four more walls and another ceiling. I can also add things like doors, windows, doorbells, and other objects to add functionality and change the look of structures.
Honestly, it’s all a little too complicated to me. But Little Joe goes to town with the System. He starts to play around with it and creates outlines for five-story buildings made of marble with pools and mine shafts. His sister has to stop him from playing around with it too much since we’re short on time. Joe not only creates outlines to repair the wall surrounding the community but also designs platforms and stairs that line the walls. The structures will let people shoot at zombies from up high while still being protected by the wall.
While the repairs to the wall start immediately, building the other stairs and platforms hits a snag. According to the interface, we don’t have enough resources to build everything.
Little Joe stomps his feet and complains, “Darn, we can only build three platforms.”
“Maybe we can search for more resources?”
We puzzle over the problem. Just having three platforms to shoot from isn’t going to help us much. We need enough to let everyone defend the walls.
As I’m considering the problem, my eyes wander over to the empty houses in Safe Haven and something clicks. There are our extra resources. There’s no way that the survivors can use all of these homes, so why not use those construction materials to defend the place?
I test out the option by taking the construction interface over to one of the empty homes. I think about deconstruction, and the whole building turns blue and the interface tells me exactly how many resources we’d gain if I deconstruct the structure.
“Here we go, folks. We’re in business. We have all the resources we need right here.”
I explain to the other Users how we can get more construction resources and Little Joe’s face lights up. He starts to deconstruct most of the homes, leaving just enough for the small group of survivors to have a place to live. With the new resources added to the construction pool, he starts building the blue, transparent outlines of enough platforms to line the walls.
The actual repairing the walls and constructing of new platforms is completed by the survivors and is automated for the most part. It will take time, and there’s not anything else for us to do unless we want to aid direction in the construction effort. Instead, the four of us return to Juan to try to complete the rest of the optional tasks.
Create hospital/medical center.
Find/create weapons.
Create and install traps.
Train survivors.
Nancy takes the task of organizing the community medical center. She orders Little Joe to search for weapons or materials to build them. Frank is on zombie clearing duty. He’s to go through each building and kill any zombies that wandered into Safe Haven through the hole in the wall.
I am intrigued by the idea of trap building. I talk to Juan about it, and he leads me to a workshop he found. There I see one of the survivors, John Brown, who knows these tasks. Mr. Brown is a thin man with a wiry dark hair and a large bulbous nose. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him much during our journey here, but I know that he used to be some kind of detective before the world changed.
When I walk into the workshop, Mr. Brown greets me warmly. “So, you’ve come to learn how to make gadgets and traps? Good, I thought I’d be all alone doing this job.”
He then introduces me to the crafting bench. I vaguely recall reading something about crafting in The Idiot’s Guide to the System. Vol. 1, but I wasn’t too interested in it at the time. It turns out it’s a kind of mini-game. As long as I have the materials available, I can try to combine them to build different types of traps that can then be laid out like large floor tiles. I empty out my inventory of all the items I salvaged from the stores in Blumkin, and Mr. Brown shows me a simple example. Combining nails and a wooden board makes a floor trap that damages and slows down someone when they walk over it.
It’s fun mixing different seemingly useless items together and seeing if a new type of trap pops up on the crafting bench interface. However, when I try to build some of the traps, only the simplest of them are made.
Mr. Brown points out a small detail I’ve overlooked. In the corner of the interface is a percentage number that shows the chance I have to build the trap. Simple traps have a high probability of being made, but as the traps get more complicated, the chance that I can make them go down.
I pull up the Skills window and search for options related to Trap Making. Sure enough, there are several skills related to the topic. Of course, there’s Trap Making, a skill that increases the success rate of making traps. However, there’s also Scavenging, which lets someone breakdown ordinary objects into components that can be used in crafting. Additionally, there are related skills that increase the chances of creating specific types of traps. Want to make a laser trap? Well, it turns out it’s a good idea to have a skill related to laser technology. Want a magic trap? Having skills related to magic increase the chances and options of creating those kinds of traps.