Vote will be closing in about an hour.
Edit: vote has closed.
Edit: vote has closed.
Last edited:
You are Patient Zero
- Thread starter notbirdofprey
- Start date
- Original Modern Horror
-
- Tags
- zombie
Turn 6: Zombie Marching Practice
You do not need to know who you were, except that the knowledge will be useful to you today. That is your sole and only concern. "Knowledge is not power, but it is leverage," a dry voice says in your memory. That's what you need, to make your tiny horde into something that can destroy cities without bringing fire and ruin down upon you.
The thought brings something to mind, an old memory from before. You stood outside a city and watched fire pour from the sky, fire in a thousand forms. And then after the fire came plague, and after the plague you came to destroy what had been left. You had been…not a soldier, that wasn't the right word, soldiers did things for different reasons. But something about the memory tickles the back of your mind. It's a clue of some kind. Every piece of fire and plague and everything you had was marked with a symbol: three vertical exes in an oval. You did not know what it meant, but you knew to look for it.
Progress for Goal: Learn more about your origins. +2d20 Mind points
+38 Mind Points
That might be useful, but you discard it for the moment and see that your horde is safely secured. Fortunately there is absolutely no trouble with that. You pick a small house with broken windows and a large hole in the roof, carefully leading your fellow zombies inside. The house is empty of habitation except for a few large rodents, but someone has left broken glass bottles in the front room at some point. Other than that, the house is empty. Even the inner doors are stolen or destroyed. Seeking the most hidden place in the house, you lead them down a set of creaking, swollen wooden stores into a half-flooded basement. Now you have some measure of peace and safety. You can feed on the rodents if you grow hungry and hide here indefinitely, but that would not help you.
But safety can be used to grow, to learn. And you are unused to commanding your horde the way you do, sending orders along the strings back and forth. You will need to practice, you will need to gain knowledge. That is what is important for you to learn in here and now.
You spend hours practicing, commanding all of them together, commanding one individual at a time. You make them march in coordinated formations around you, every limb moving in the exact same fashion, arms snapping up to their foreheads whenever they pass the staircase. You make the strongest ones go down on all fours while the others stand on top. You try making one pass on orders to the others, but it doesn't work, there is something missing. You close your eyes and stop your ears and your nose and try to find things in the basement using only their senses. It doesn't work, the information you get is dull and confused.
Still, you learn a great deal from these endless exercises. First, you are not the only one with a worm. The others have them too, although yours is the largest and the one with the most branches. All the other worms are practically identical.
Second, you find yourself gaining greater skill in understanding the information that comes from your horde. It is still not as good as your own senses, but it is an improvement.
Senses levels up! Progress made on Goal: Make your horde stronger. +4d20 Control Points
+31 Points
Over the next week you decide to focus on… (Pick 4)
[] Growing your horde
[] Staving off hunger
[] Developing your body
[] Working through your memories
[] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
[] Improving your own mind
[] Write-in
And you also allow the worm to make more changes
[] Upgrades
Please vote in plan format.
3 Mind, 1 Memory, 1 Intelligence. 5d20
4 Successes
4 Successes
The thought brings something to mind, an old memory from before. You stood outside a city and watched fire pour from the sky, fire in a thousand forms. And then after the fire came plague, and after the plague you came to destroy what had been left. You had been…not a soldier, that wasn't the right word, soldiers did things for different reasons. But something about the memory tickles the back of your mind. It's a clue of some kind. Every piece of fire and plague and everything you had was marked with a symbol: three vertical exes in an oval. You did not know what it meant, but you knew to look for it.
Progress for Goal: Learn more about your origins. +2d20 Mind points
+38 Mind Points
That might be useful, but you discard it for the moment and see that your horde is safely secured. Fortunately there is absolutely no trouble with that. You pick a small house with broken windows and a large hole in the roof, carefully leading your fellow zombies inside. The house is empty of habitation except for a few large rodents, but someone has left broken glass bottles in the front room at some point. Other than that, the house is empty. Even the inner doors are stolen or destroyed. Seeking the most hidden place in the house, you lead them down a set of creaking, swollen wooden stores into a half-flooded basement. Now you have some measure of peace and safety. You can feed on the rodents if you grow hungry and hide here indefinitely, but that would not help you.
But safety can be used to grow, to learn. And you are unused to commanding your horde the way you do, sending orders along the strings back and forth. You will need to practice, you will need to gain knowledge. That is what is important for you to learn in here and now.
7 from Control. 7d20
6 Successes
6 Successes
You spend hours practicing, commanding all of them together, commanding one individual at a time. You make them march in coordinated formations around you, every limb moving in the exact same fashion, arms snapping up to their foreheads whenever they pass the staircase. You make the strongest ones go down on all fours while the others stand on top. You try making one pass on orders to the others, but it doesn't work, there is something missing. You close your eyes and stop your ears and your nose and try to find things in the basement using only their senses. It doesn't work, the information you get is dull and confused.
Still, you learn a great deal from these endless exercises. First, you are not the only one with a worm. The others have them too, although yours is the largest and the one with the most branches. All the other worms are practically identical.
Second, you find yourself gaining greater skill in understanding the information that comes from your horde. It is still not as good as your own senses, but it is an improvement.
Senses levels up! Progress made on Goal: Make your horde stronger. +4d20 Control Points
+31 Points
Over the next week you decide to focus on… (Pick 4)
[] Growing your horde
[] Staving off hunger
[] Developing your body
[] Working through your memories
[] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
[] Improving your own mind
[] Write-in
And you also allow the worm to make more changes
[] Upgrades
Please vote in plan format.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Food for thought
-[X] Working through your memories
-[X] Staving off hunger
-[X] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
-[X] Improving your own mind
Right now, a bigger horde is a bigger problem. Anonymity is a strength that won't be possible to regain.
So focusing on advancing this past questline is important, while we have time for it.
But I'd also don't want to experience hunger debuffs. That's when we are driven to indiscreet feeding.
No upgrades yet- assuming Informational is up to date, we don't have enough Mind Points for Intelligence or Memories, which I think are important.
-[X] Working through your memories
-[X] Staving off hunger
-[X] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
-[X] Improving your own mind
Right now, a bigger horde is a bigger problem. Anonymity is a strength that won't be possible to regain.
So focusing on advancing this past questline is important, while we have time for it.
But I'd also don't want to experience hunger debuffs. That's when we are driven to indiscreet feeding.
No upgrades yet- assuming Informational is up to date, we don't have enough Mind Points for Intelligence or Memories, which I think are important.
Last edited:
[X] Plan Food for thought
[X] Plan Food for thought
- Location
- ?????????
[X] Plan Food for thought
- Location
- Nottinghamshire, England
[X] Plan Food for thought
I agree. Once we've refined ourselves, both mentally and physically, to the limit, sorted out our memories, mastered controlling the others and come to comprehend the worm as completely as possible, then we can start expanding.
I agree. Once we've refined ourselves, both mentally and physically, to the limit, sorted out our memories, mastered controlling the others and come to comprehend the worm as completely as possible, then we can start expanding.
Seems like a good plan!
[X] Plan Food for thought
[X] Plan Food for thought
Closing vote in 2 hours.
Twisted Mind
ADHD Man!
- Location
- The Walled Commune (Florida)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Food for thought
Vote is closed, writing will begin shortly.
Edir: That took way to long, writing has begun though.
Edir: That took way to long, writing has begun though.
Last edited:
Turn 7: Zombie Rat Hunting
The first thing you must do, you decide, is gain a greater understanding of the world around you. To that end, you must strengthen your own mind, but you almost go through your memories as well. You clearly were someone skilled in dealing death, maybe you will be able to recall how to wield those terrible weapons you have seen. You also need to understand the worm, to try and figure out how that works, even if a part of you shies away from the thought. Something in you is still disgusted by the idea of rooting around inside yourself. Fortunately, the others have worms you can study as well. But all that will come to nothing if you are driven mad by hunger the way you were when you were first awakened. And you can already feel the urge gnawing away at the edge of your mind, the urge to eat and consume…
First, there is food already present in the house. You must catch it.
There are many more of the small rodents in your home then you thought at first. There are at least…twenty of them, counting higher than that is hard given how quickly they move and how similar they all look to you, scrawny, with dirty brown fur and twisting whiskers. None are larger than your hands, making you wonder if it is worth the effort to catch them, but you make the attempts nonetheless.
First you try hunting them by yourself, chasing them down. It doesn't go great. They are quicker than you, and hard to grab, and when you get close they vanish into the walls. That gives you an idea though…a voice in your head whispers "when your prey goes to ground, leave no ground to go to," and you start tearing away at the wall, slamming your hands through the rotting walls and ripping away panels of the material, revealing their homes to you. They squeak and squeal and run about in blind terror, but they have nowhere to go now and you devour six, ripping their bodies apart with your teeth. You can feel your horde surge with hunger behind you.
There are still more of the creatures in the building, and so you command your horde to help. Working together, the seven of you can herd the squeaking creatures about, driving them to and fro. You have them do that for several minutes, amusing yourself, then you command them to eat the ones they caught. You think you have learned a few things from these efforts.
+15 Body points, +20 Control points
You repeat these exercises a few more times throughout the week, but other than that you do not leave the basement. Instead you labor time and again to see what has come before, to order and control your mind.
There is nothing you can learn. Your mind is a chaotic swirl of impulses and desires and broken fragments. You will not be able to make any sort of progress on this until you restore whatever order you can, by force if need be.
With that avenue failed, you turn to the worm, hoping to learn more. First, you decide to see what it looks like inside one of your zombies. You pick the woman, the first one you ever turned, ordering her to take off her coat, and then you reach inside her and pull. The worm comes loose, sort of. It has woven itself into every part of her flesh. Touching it tells you things about the condition she is in – bones are not quite connected right, but not enough to degrade function – and that it is mostly concentrated in the head. Everything else, it could shrug off. But damage to the head would destroy it. You also learn that there is a sign on the worm, a sign you have seen before. On every millimeter of it, three exes inside an oval are seared into it on the most basic building blocks. You are about to start studying more when something interrupts you. A man comes in, his steps heavy. You can hear the sounds he is making. "Drucker isn't here, at least he's not on the first floor. Someone was here recently though, multiple someones. They damaged a wall. I don't think they are here right now."
Do you…
[] Stay still and hope he goes away
[] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
[] Attack him now
+5 Mind, Body, Control points
First, there is food already present in the house. You must catch it.
2 Successes, passed, 5 Successes, passed, 17 Successes, passed, 1d100 = 86, 1d100 = 12, 1d100 = 36,
There are many more of the small rodents in your home then you thought at first. There are at least…twenty of them, counting higher than that is hard given how quickly they move and how similar they all look to you, scrawny, with dirty brown fur and twisting whiskers. None are larger than your hands, making you wonder if it is worth the effort to catch them, but you make the attempts nonetheless.
First you try hunting them by yourself, chasing them down. It doesn't go great. They are quicker than you, and hard to grab, and when you get close they vanish into the walls. That gives you an idea though…a voice in your head whispers "when your prey goes to ground, leave no ground to go to," and you start tearing away at the wall, slamming your hands through the rotting walls and ripping away panels of the material, revealing their homes to you. They squeak and squeal and run about in blind terror, but they have nowhere to go now and you devour six, ripping their bodies apart with your teeth. You can feel your horde surge with hunger behind you.
There are still more of the creatures in the building, and so you command your horde to help. Working together, the seven of you can herd the squeaking creatures about, driving them to and fro. You have them do that for several minutes, amusing yourself, then you command them to eat the ones they caught. You think you have learned a few things from these efforts.
+15 Body points, +20 Control points
You repeat these exercises a few more times throughout the week, but other than that you do not leave the basement. Instead you labor time and again to see what has come before, to order and control your mind.
1 Success, failure, 0 Successes, failure, 4 Successes, passed
There is nothing you can learn. Your mind is a chaotic swirl of impulses and desires and broken fragments. You will not be able to make any sort of progress on this until you restore whatever order you can, by force if need be.
With that avenue failed, you turn to the worm, hoping to learn more. First, you decide to see what it looks like inside one of your zombies. You pick the woman, the first one you ever turned, ordering her to take off her coat, and then you reach inside her and pull. The worm comes loose, sort of. It has woven itself into every part of her flesh. Touching it tells you things about the condition she is in – bones are not quite connected right, but not enough to degrade function – and that it is mostly concentrated in the head. Everything else, it could shrug off. But damage to the head would destroy it. You also learn that there is a sign on the worm, a sign you have seen before. On every millimeter of it, three exes inside an oval are seared into it on the most basic building blocks. You are about to start studying more when something interrupts you. A man comes in, his steps heavy. You can hear the sounds he is making. "Drucker isn't here, at least he's not on the first floor. Someone was here recently though, multiple someones. They damaged a wall. I don't think they are here right now."
Do you…
[] Stay still and hope he goes away
[] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
[] Attack him now
+5 Mind, Body, Control points
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
AKA [HIGHER STATS NEEDED]
... DNA? Or something similar to it.
Probably needs more upgrades to fully unlock then, maybe new strain upgrades, to compare different worm strains?
[X] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
Risk, but worst case is they run away.
[X] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
you know when we get to an average human intelligence we should find a cure for this virus I rather be the cure factor for this
you know when we get to an average human intelligence we should find a cure for this virus I rather be the cure factor for this
[X] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
[X] Prepare an ambush, risking the noise
The less subtle option ("Attack NOW") tempts me, but let's try an ambush; we may exercise more skills that way.
The less subtle option ("Attack NOW") tempts me, but let's try an ambush; we may exercise more skills that way.
Vote will be closed in an hour or two. I don't think any vote has been contested so far.
Vote has been closed.
Vote has been closed.
Last edited:
Turn 8: Cop vs. Zombie
It is a risk you will have to take. If he comes down, you will need to kill him quickly and quietly or he will bring a storm down upon your head. Carefully, you command your horde, sending them into a loose semicircle around the stairs. It's dark enough that hopefully, he won't be able to see anything.
After a minute of standing silently, you realize that zombies seem to be dead to someone who doesn't know what they are. Which makes hiding much easier. Your horde collapses onto the ground, lying perfectly still. And you wait, and wait, until finally the choice is taken from you.
You are officer Sergeant Steven Williams, and you are sick and tired of this shit. You have lived all your life in Belon Bay, in the shadow of what was and what could have been. You joined the police, because it had been an option and maybe a tiny part of you thought you could make things better. That part had long been crushed under the weight of corruption and crime. You were on the take, same as half the force, working for one boss or another. But that doesn't matter. The bosses want Drucker in, same as anyone and everyone sane.
"The whole street is clean, Steve. Check the damn basement and be done with it," dispatch tells you. Everyone might want Drucker caught, but not everyone cares enough to do things properly. Still, he has a point. You point the gun down the stairs, the flickering flashlight nearly going out. You think you see something that might just be a dead body. Carefully, you step down, trying not to make things creak. At the bottom, you see them. There are seven bodies, lying in a rough semi-circle around the stairs. You raise your hand to your radio, ready to call it in…
He doesn't get too. He feels something hit his legs from behind, and he goes down, just in time to see the corpse in front of him spring up with impossible speed. Something in his mind protests, something else gibbers in raw terror, but no matter how lackluster his training or how many bribes he takes or how little he gives a damn about anything or anyone, something in him remembers his boyhood desire to make things better, to fight the evil that stains his city. His finger slides onto the trigger of his gun. And then it is torn off, yellowed teeth closing around it. His uniform provides no protection from grasping hands or gnashing mouths.
He goes for something at his waist but a zombie gets there first, while another rips his ear off. He disappears under the pile of squirming, chewing flesh. You don't bother stopping them, instead gathering the rifle and the radio, which is squawking indignantly. "Steve, what happens," a scared voice says. You do not reply, simply holding onto it.
Silently you command your horde to abandon their feast. Little enough flesh is left behind. It can't move, it can't walk. You lift your foot and stomp on the skull, feeling a connection that was barely there cease to exist. You will find another building in a different neighborhood.
The radio keeps squawking as you walk. There are other police around, but none approach you. You find another empty basement to hide in, to plan the next week's activity from here. The radio tells you of searches for "Drucker" and for you, although they think you some mad cult. None come anywhere close to you. For the next week you will…
Over the next week you decide to focus on… (Pick 4)
[] Growing your horde
[] Staving off hunger
[] Developing your body
[] Working through your memories
[] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
[] Improving your own mind
[] Get new batteries for the radio
[] Write-in
And you also allow the worm to make more changes
[] Upgrades
5d20, 3 successes
You are officer Sergeant Steven Williams, and you are sick and tired of this shit. You have lived all your life in Belon Bay, in the shadow of what was and what could have been. You joined the police, because it had been an option and maybe a tiny part of you thought you could make things better. That part had long been crushed under the weight of corruption and crime. You were on the take, same as half the force, working for one boss or another. But that doesn't matter. The bosses want Drucker in, same as anyone and everyone sane.
"The whole street is clean, Steve. Check the damn basement and be done with it," dispatch tells you. Everyone might want Drucker caught, but not everyone cares enough to do things properly. Still, he has a point. You point the gun down the stairs, the flickering flashlight nearly going out. You think you see something that might just be a dead body. Carefully, you step down, trying not to make things creak. At the bottom, you see them. There are seven bodies, lying in a rough semi-circle around the stairs. You raise your hand to your radio, ready to call it in…
Zombies: 17 dice from Body, 30 dice from Strength, 14 from Agility, 37 from Toughness, 7 from Speed, 18 from Surprise
Lone Cop: 4 dice from Body, 4 from Strength, 4 from Agility, 4 from Toughness, 3 from Speed, 4 from Accuracy, 2 from Melee Skill, 12 from Bad Rifle, 1 from Cop Uniform
Zombies Attack: 19 Successes
Cop Evades: 5 Successes
Zombies Damage: 13 Successes
Cop Absorbs: -1 Successes
Lone Cop: 4 dice from Body, 4 from Strength, 4 from Agility, 4 from Toughness, 3 from Speed, 4 from Accuracy, 2 from Melee Skill, 12 from Bad Rifle, 1 from Cop Uniform
Zombies Attack: 19 Successes
Cop Evades: 5 Successes
Zombies Damage: 13 Successes
Cop Absorbs: -1 Successes
He doesn't get too. He feels something hit his legs from behind, and he goes down, just in time to see the corpse in front of him spring up with impossible speed. Something in his mind protests, something else gibbers in raw terror, but no matter how lackluster his training or how many bribes he takes or how little he gives a damn about anything or anyone, something in him remembers his boyhood desire to make things better, to fight the evil that stains his city. His finger slides onto the trigger of his gun. And then it is torn off, yellowed teeth closing around it. His uniform provides no protection from grasping hands or gnashing mouths.
He goes for something at his waist but a zombie gets there first, while another rips his ear off. He disappears under the pile of squirming, chewing flesh. You don't bother stopping them, instead gathering the rifle and the radio, which is squawking indignantly. "Steve, what happens," a scared voice says. You do not reply, simply holding onto it.
Silently you command your horde to abandon their feast. Little enough flesh is left behind. It can't move, it can't walk. You lift your foot and stomp on the skull, feeling a connection that was barely there cease to exist. You will find another building in a different neighborhood.
The radio keeps squawking as you walk. There are other police around, but none approach you. You find another empty basement to hide in, to plan the next week's activity from here. The radio tells you of searches for "Drucker" and for you, although they think you some mad cult. None come anywhere close to you. For the next week you will…
Over the next week you decide to focus on… (Pick 4)
[] Growing your horde
[] Staving off hunger
[] Developing your body
[] Working through your memories
[] Gaining a greater understanding of the worms
[] Improving your own mind
[] Get new batteries for the radio
[] Write-in
And you also allow the worm to make more changes
[] Upgrades