I’m a terrible shot at first; I have a hard time hitting the arranged targets. The gun just doesn’t seem to want to stay still as I hold it.
Nancy suggests remembering the acronym B.R.A.S.S. or Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze the trigger, and Squeeze more for follow-through. Since breathing affects aim, when you’re ready to shoot, draw a deep breath and exhale about half of it. The aim then relaxes and hold your breath as you squeeze the trigger. Squeeze the trigger slowly, don’t jerk your finger. Squeeze the trigger through its full motion, called follow through.
To my surprise, remembering the acronym helps. Not only do I get to level 1 in Rifle and Handgun, but I also find that I get skills in Firearm and Ranged Combat. According to their descriptions, the Ranged Combat skill increases accuracy for ranged combat. The Firearm skill gives a percent bonus to damage for all firearms and increases the chance of crafting firearms. Both the Rifle and Handgun skills increase both damage and accuracy for those types of weapons.
After an hour practicing, I raise those skills to level 2 and find that I’m a bit more accurate shooting. However, I can’t spend more time on this skill. I still have to finish creating traps and placing them around the walls of the community.
The rest of the day is spent making, testing, and placing traps around the walls of the community. In addition to the other traps, I also come up with razor blade tripwire. Using my level 2 Gadget and Weapon Design skills, I’m also able to make corrosive gas grenades.
I enlist Frank and a few survivors help in placing all the traps, and by the time the last tripwire is correctly laid, night has fallen. There’s a very tense moment where we all realize that it’s too dark to see all the traps we placed. Thankfully, Nancy and the other survivors shine some lights from the wall to illuminate a path back inside.
There’s a communal dinner, and then everyone heads to the fully furnished homes to get a good night's sleep.
Chapter 26
The next morning is full of tension as everyone makes the final preparations for the zombie attack. A few more traps are laid out, weapons and ammunition distributed, and the makeshift medical center double-checked for supplies.
Everyone takes their positions on the shooting platforms. I look around and see that Nancy, Frank, and Joe are all on the same platform to my left. With me are Suzy and her husband, Thomas. Everyone waits anxiously for the last seconds of the timer countdown.
5…4…3…2…1
The sound of not one but multiple Howlers breaks the morning silence. Zombies start to pour out from the forest and make their way towards Safe Haven. 250 Zombie Shamblers and 4 Howlers make their way slowly towards the walls that protect us. As soon as the zombies appear, everyone starts to shoot. Unfortunately, only Nancy, Frank, and Joe are decent at shooting moving targets at this range. Everyone else just seems to hit the ground more than they hit the zombies. When they hit one of the zombie’s bodies, a red 15 floats away from it and a red 30 when someone gets a headshot.
As the zombies get within 100 yards of the walls, they start to hit the floor spikes and slow down even more. Each step on the spikes only causes one point of damage to the Shamblers, but they slowed down enough for the survivors to pick off more than a few with their rifles.
Only about half the zombies make it to the next set of traps. Lines of razor wire stakes into the ground cause the zombies to trip and impale themselves onto the floor spikes. Another third of the already damaged zombies die, leaving about 80. I expect these to meet their end until the Howlers start to yell. The Shamblers seem to understand some order and begin to line up behind each other as they move forward. The zombies in the front trip, fall and die. But the ones behind them use their corpses as a bridge to walk over the razor wire.
Nancy gives the order to focus shooting on the Howlers giving orders. The four Howlers die quickly, but the damage is already done. Over 70 zombies make it past the razor wire. Thankfully, we have one more set of traps. As the remaining zombies approach the wall, they step on pressure plates that trigger the wall traps. Nails shoot out at over 90 miles per hour, impaling themselves into the rotting undead flesh. Several zombies take headshots and immediately drop to the ground. The rest continue forward, only to be shredded by the nail projectiles. Each nail seems to do about 8-10 points of damage. Between the survivors increased accuracy at this range and the traps, no more zombies are standing.
A cheer goes up as the last zombie falls. Not a single one even touched Safe Haven’s walls.
A new blue screen appears before, me tallying up my contribution, experience points earned, and the time till the next wave hits.
Congratulations you’ve survived the 1st wave of zombies.
Contribution
Trap kills52
Personal kills13
Total XP earned1625
Time to next wave: 01:00:00
Seeing the amount of experience I earned is amazing. I had no idea that damage done by the traps I built would be credited to me. I feel even better when a white light bursts from me, showing that I earned enough experience points to get to level 7. Woot, woot! That means more stat skill points.
Anthony Tinoco
Level 7
Unspent stat points: 4
Unspent skill points: 47
Health 160
Mana270
TP250
Strength8
Dexterity12
Constitution9
Intelligence20
Wisdom18
Charisma9
I focus on my level and see that it’ll take 5985 more experience points to get to level 8. If things go well for the rest of this dungeon run, I may even make it to level 9. No wonder people pay to run this User Dungeon.
Looking at my character sheet, I decide not to waste too much time figuring out the perfect stat to increase. I drop all four stat points into Wisdom to increase my TP pool as much as possible. That brings my Wisdom up to 22 and increases my TP to 290. With less than an hour till the next wave, I have to start using Absorb as quickly as possible to get all the monster abilities I can. The area outside the walls, already littered with corpses, and I have to run to get to them.
Using the excuse that I need to reset some of the traps and clear away bodies, I run outside the gates and start to use Absorb as quickly as possible. Because the zombie Shamblers are lower level than me, it only takes absorbing 23 of them to get all of their abilities leaving me with just 135 TP. Bite only costs 2 TP and takes a portion of the victim's health and transfers it to the biter. However, I’m not sure I’d want to use it in a fight. It seems like a gross way to heal yourself. The ability Iron Grip is used by the zombies to keep hold of their prey while they devour them. I don’t know how I’d use that in a fight, but it’s a free ability.
I don’t get any abilities from the corpses of the four Howlers, but that’s not a big deal. The only ability they have that’s different from the Shamblers is that howl ability. I don’t think my neighbors would appreciate me getting that one anyways.