Secret Quest Complete
Nurse Phillip has been searching for the recipe “Stim Injectors” and will reward you highly. Or you may read it and learn it yourself.
Without hesitation, she slid it into her pack. Heading for the intersection, she paused mid step. “Goo, can I set a loot filter?” she asked, already tired of sifting junk.
“Yes, Mav.” “Good. Only show water, food, 9mm bullets for now, and anything Class C or higher.”
“Done.”
When she opened the loot window, the pared-down list brought a smile:
- Water bottles, unpurified - 2
- Can of ravioli – 1
- Box of 9mm hollow points – 1×50
- 9mm bullets – 18
“Perfect.” She took the food and bullets, leaving the dubious water. Hunger and thirst crept in, the thirst sharper. Another cartoon of her holding an empty canteen up and shaking it had faded into existence in her HUD making her laugh. She drained a bottle in long pulls, tucked it away, and set off again at an easy jog, the cartoon giving her a thumbs up and disappearing. A quick compass check, then left at the intersection.
Four more zombies down and two miles later, she ran through the silence of an emptied world. The sheer realism of it caught her, wind through distant trees, faint surf beyond the horizon, the whisper of unseen wildlife. All the hums and clatters of civilization stripped away.
A roadside sign: Hydelage Port – 1.5 miles. She stopped, body heavy now, muscles tight, hunger pressing in. A quick glance at her HUD and she understood, ‘No wonder I’m cooked.’
Two cartoons of her, one pointing at its mouth like a cartoon cat and the other dragging it’s feel and holding a blanket.
Survival Debuff - Extreme Hunger - Your stomach has entered negotiations. You are losing. Don’t be Hangry. 15% reduction in movement speed. -50% to Presence, Reason and Fortitude.
Survival Debuff - Exhaustion - Congratulations. You outpaced your biology. Action speed 15% slower. -25% Fortitude, Brawn, Grace, Quickness, Insight, Reason and Presence.
She then checked her in-game clock and saw why she may be spent.
PGT 2:45:19 / ERWT 0:16:52 / GT 7:48:15AM.
She climbed onto the roof of a Tesla Y, dropped her pack beside her, and rolled her shoulders. A few hip twists, side bends, then she called up her inventory and pulled the MRE with chili mac & cheese.
The packet yielded two sleeves of crackers, peanut butter, the main course, and a small implement kit. The heater pouch got a quick dismissal, too much work. Crackers and peanut butter went back in inventory; spork in hand, she tore open the chili mac. ‘Exactly like Kraft mac with Hormel chili,’ she thought after the first bite. ‘Not gourmet, not terrible just filling.’
She finished the pouch, drank half a water bottle, and felt the energy creep back in, muscles loose, body alert. ‘Nice subtle mechanic, game.’ The habit to look for a trash can made her laugh at herself. With nowhere else, she tucked the empty pouch under a wiper blade, slung her pack, and tightened the straps.
The two debuff cartoons disappeared and were replaced with a very contented versions of herself. One with a food baby the other looking bright and smiling.
Food Buff - Field Ration (MRE) - Approved by logistics and disowned by cuisine Hunger paused for 30 minutes. Energy regeneration x2.
“Ready to go, Goo?”
“Always,” he chirped, lifting off and looping her once before streaking forward on recon.
Keeping to a brisk walk, ‘no reason to test in-game cramps after eating,’ she covered ground fast, the cranes and glinting sea ahead. Twenty minutes, a score of new corpses, and one car pileup later, she spotted an Ace Hardware just off the exit. The parking lot was dominated by a huge crater, a bright yellow piece of heavy equipment lying on its side inside.
“Aha,” she said to Goo, “I’m betting that’s the front-end loader Dr. Sophie mentioned. What do you think?”
“I believe it is. It is a model CAT1955M Auto Loader. It would fit the description,” Goo replied, tone precise.
Mav adjusted her grip on the spear and angled off the exit ramp. “Send me a scan of the lot. I’m betting resistance,” she muttered, already moving to cover. The heads-up display bloomed with color red, blue, and a single green silhouette flashing across her vision like a holiday light show gone wrong. ‘Pretty… if it wasn’t a death map.’
“Are they all in the parking lot?” she asked, ducking behind a shrink wrapped pallet of mulch. She leaned just enough to peek.
“For those in range, yes. Fifteen Mundanes, seven Normals, and one Extra class. They’re circling something on top of a pallet. I believe it is a canine.” Goo’s voice softened, almost curious.
Her brow furrowed. “A dog? Gimme a visual.” A window snapped open in her HUD: medium sized, black faced, white and red/tan legs, tail tucked, pressed low against the pallet as if willing itself invisible. At the edges of the image, the mulch stack shuddered under the push of undead bodies.
“Motherfuckers have that poor pup trapped,” she growled, heat rising in her chest. A flicker of memory from her real world dogs punched through, warm fur, trusting eyes. It made her jaw set harder.
The overturned loader, twenty feet away, would have to be her stronghold. She sprint crouched from cover to the massive wheel, heart thudding in her ears. The bucket’s raised angle formed a V against the cab, perfect choke point. She leaned her spear nearby and drew her H&K, only to curse under her breath. ‘Noob mistake… didn’t reload.’
She willed the box of 9mm bullets from her inventory. With fumbling fingers she jammed rounds into the mag, jittery from adrenaline. The mulch stack rocked harder in her peripheral. She quietly slid the full mag home, chambered a round. She then loaded the second clip and placed both the clip and her H&K in front of her on the tire and willed the rest of the ammo back in her inventory.
Pulling the new .22 from her inventory she rested her elbows on the rubber and sighted down the barrel. Her .22 barked once, one zombie down. Three more fell before the pack turned toward her like a single organism. Willing the .22 into her inventory she swapped to the H&K, aiming at the flanks to funnel them into the V. Seven more dropped in rapid succession, blood misting the air. She performed a quick mag swap. Ten more shots tore through rotting skulls.
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Eight left. Spear in hand, she took the first four as they squeezed into the bucket gap. The green outlined Extra flanked high, ‘smart cookie aren’t you, fucker...’ She thought with a growl, her spear flicking out and into the head of the leading zombie.
Three more stabs and all she had left was the Extra that was now circling around the back tire of the loader and into her view. It was small framed, female, long black hair, thin arms with clawlike hands. There was something in its eyes, sharp, assessing before its mouth opened, not in a snarl, but almost like… a greeting.
Then the sound hit. It was a weapon in itself, fire alarm shriek, freight train roar, the teeth grating wail of an angry diva, slamming into her skull like icepicks. Fear short circuited her thoughts, buckling her knees. Tears blurred her vision; bile burned the back of her throat.
Sound Debuff – She’s a screamer! Paralyzed for 10 seconds. Bonus: You can still feel, everything, this is gonna suck!
The green outline closed fast. Just as the claws reached for her shoulders, the zombie jerked violently upward, shaken side to side before being tossed away like a rag doll. Her vision cleared enough to find the rescuer, bright brown eyes, intelligent, fixed on her. The dog.
Instinct moved her hand to the spear. Falling sideways, she drove the point clean through the Extra’s open mouth and out the back of the skull. The body stilled, hissing out its last breath like a punctured tire.
Two paws filled her vision, a blur of fur and sunlight, the dog had planted itself protectively over her prone form. Mav blinked hard, the world still tilting from the blast, her hearing returning in a slow, underwater rush. She pushed herself upright, first to an elbow, then to her knees breath shaky, equilibrium not quite found.
A warm flank brushed her hand. She reached out, tentative, and laid her fingers against the dog’s side. Bright eyes met hers, wide, intelligent, steady. A pink tongue lolled from a muzzle that looked suspiciously like a grin. The dog pivoted, sat squarely before her, and stared up as if waiting for her to catch up.
“Um… good dog?” she managed. The dog leaned in and licked her face, a big, unapologetic swipe that said ‘Yes. Very good dog.’ Mav let out a startled laugh and gently pushed the furry missile back, the absurdity hitting only after the fact. This creature had been biting a zombie a few seconds ago.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” she murmured, rubbing its neck, fingers disappearing into thick fur above the sturdy harness. God, it felt real, the heat, the texture, the weight.
Goo swooped down in a lazy arc, hovering inches from the dog’s nose. “Wonder who it belongs to?” he mused, voice soft in her ear.
The dog didn’t snap at him, didn’t even flinch, just tracked his movement with curious, patient eyes. That was… unusual. The boys had told her that most creatures in Umbra treated AVAs the way cats treated laser pointers.
‘Maybe it’s an NPC companion,’ Mav thought. ‘Or part of some hidden quest line.’
“No clue, Goo,” she said aloud, still petting the dog. “But I’m damn sure I’m glad it was here. That would’ve gone… very differently.” She tipped her chin toward the drone. “And thanks for the data dump. You helped save this dog’s life. Good job.”
Goo bobbed in the air, an awkward little weave, almost bashful. If he had feet, he’d be scuffing them. Mav turned her attention back to the harness. Sturdy stitching. Reinforced grip handle. Pouches and pockets strapped to either side, useful gear, not decorative. She ran a thumb along the top handle and brushed across raised lettering burned into the leather was one word, SHADOW.
Looking into the dog's eyes she said, “Shadow?” The name made the dog’s eyes brighten. A paw landed gently on her shoulder, and a soft whine followed.
“Shadow it is.” Mav smiled and pushed to her feet, planting one boot on the zombie’s skull to yank her spear free. “And no,” she added to Goo with a quick glance at his camera lens, “Arthur doesn’t hear about almost getting Havoc’d by a goth cheerleader knockoff.”
Shadow tilted her head, then nosed Mav’s hand like she agreed to keep it between them. “Sorry, boy or well shoot, girl. Ok, Shadow” she said, smiling as she realized she didn’t yet know the gender of the pooch. “I don’t have anything that would be good for...” She stopped with a thought and then called the packet of peanut butter from her inventory
The packet of peanut butter made Shadow’s ears snap forward. Mav spread the contents on her hand and knelt, palm flat. She laughed at the voracity the dog devoured the sticky treat with small grunts coming in between as a flurry of licks, Shadow cleaned her hand with surgical focus. When the snack was gone, Shadow lowered its nose and bumped its black head into her chest, rubbing back and forth with small sounds of pleasure.
She rested both hands on its back and buried her face into the soft fur of its neck. They stayed there for a long second then the dog ducked out of her embrace and trotted around her to look at ground, close to where she had stood to take on the small horde of zombies. Watching it stand there she wondered what was going on then followed the animal's gaze. Laying on the ground was her second clip where she had let it drop in the middle of the fight.
“Shadow, you genius.” She scooped it up, ruffled fur, and reloaded with deliberate care this time. ‘Seems I'm stuck with this g... wait,’ she paused her thought and leaned back to look. ‘This girl for a while. I’ll ask Samuel what to do when I get back to Tomsville.’ She decided and then started to walk towards the hardware store.
The Ace Hardware’s front door was wedged open by a broken cinderblock. Paw prints and one set of boots tracked through the dust. Inside, Shadow moved to a makeshift cross behind the counter:
LeeTech. Time until despawn: 11:18.
The dog gave a soft, wounded whine and padded over to the scattered gear. With heartbreaking gentleness, Shadow curled herself around the pile and lowered her head onto the toes of the abandoned boots. Her ears sagged. Her whole posture dimmed and seemed to say, I’m staying. I’m waiting. This is my player. The message was unmistakable.
Mav’s chest tightened. “Oh, honey…” she whispered, because leaving this dog, digital or not felt like abandoning something loyal and painfully real. Shadow wasn’t just programmed obedience; there was intention in her movements, grief in her stillness, hope in the way she watched the gear like it might stand up and walk on its own. She couldn’t walk away. She wouldn’t.
Mav’s chest tightened. ‘How the hell do I keep this stuff from despawning?’ she wondered, chewing her lip as she eyed the timer ticking down in her HUD. She remembered Jim’s offhand survival advice, stash gear in a shelter before you die, respawn ready. Arthur had called it reckless. Bobby had laughed. But right now, it could save this player’s loadout.
Slipping down into the store’s dim interior, Mav picked her way across a minefield of toppled displays and broken packaging. Like the Costco, this place had been gutted by panic, aisles choked with debris, shelves half-collapsed, detritus scattered in chaotic drifts. She moved carefully, testing each step, eyes flicking up to the faded aisle markers overhead. When she spotted the one labeled SECURITY, she angled toward it, pulse lifting.
Halfway down the row, exactly where she hoped it might be, a small metal codelock sat abandoned on a lopsided shelf. She snatched it quickly and slipped it into her inventory with a grin.
Back at the front aisle marker, she scanned the signage again until her eyes landed on SEASONAL. She crossed her fingers, muttering a quiet, “come on…” and slipped inside.
‘Jackpot.’ She celebrated inwardly. A folded tarp lay crushed between two overturned bins. She hauled it free, then made a quick sweep through adjacent aisles until she located duct tape and a bundle of thin wooden dowels, cheap craft supplies, but perfect for what she needed.
Returning to the entry counter, she opened her inventory and pulled everything out. Kneeling, she began taping the dowels together into a crude triangular frame, reinforcing each corner, then draped the tarp over it, cinching edges tight with more tape. As she pressed the last strip down, a bright notification flared in her HUD:
Congratulations
You have learned the recipe: Makeshift Shelter - Skill: Survival
A grin cracked her dusty face. She opened the local inventory tied to the shelter and exhaled when she saw it, enough space to store the entire pile of gear. Quickly, she transferred every piece inside, watching the despawn timer vanish from her HUD.
Shadow observed the whole process with solemn attentiveness, ears perking each time an item flickered from the ground into the shelter’s inventory. When the last of it vanished, the dog padded forward, nose twitching, then slipped into the front of the lean-to and curled up with a weary sigh, as if she finally had a place to guard.
Mav eased down beside the front counter, spine aching, and rested a hand on Shadow’s warm head. The dog’s steady breaths vibrated through her fingers, grounding her.
“Goo,” she murmured, eyelids drooping, “wake me if anything comes. I’m just… resting my eyes.”
“Of course, Mav,” Goo replied, his voice a soft electronic hum of loyalty. He settled on the counter above her, rotors quieting, a tiny antenna rising from his dome like a periscope. “I’ll watch over you and the canine.”
The weight of the morning, the running, the fighting, the adrenaline hit her all at once. Shadow’s steady breathing, the whisper of tarp shifting in the breeze, and Goo’s faint hovering hum tugged at her consciousness. Mav exhaled, the last of her tension slipping away and drifted into sleep.