Saki went downstairs to the game room with a sleepy yawn, still groggy after only recently waking up from her nap. As she stepped into the room, her drowsiness vanished when she immediately recognized one of the people inside.
Sam B. from the first Dead Island game.
"And here is the other immune person we have living here," Emma said to Sam with an irritated huff.
"A teenage Japanese girl," Sam said flatly, clearly unimpressed.
"Oi, shithead. That teenage Japanese girl has killed more zombies in the last twenty-four hours than most people have in their whole life," Dani snapped, immediately stepping in to defend Saki.
"Yeah, well, whatever. Back to the topic at hand. Trying to throw your lot in with the C.D.C. is a waste of time. We can stick it out here just fine," Sam said casually, completely relaxed.
"I'm still going," Dani said plainly, her tone firm and unwavering.
"Fine, but at least let me teach you some shit first. Follow me," Sam said, already turning and leading them upstairs toward a cluttered workbench.
What followed was an hour-long crash course on how to craft weapons from random junk. Sam walked them through techniques, materials, and practical tricks with practiced ease. When it was finally over, Saki felt a familiar sensation wash over her.
[Crafting Acquired]
Curious, Saki decided to mess around with some scrap metal, a blowtorch, a grinder, and some cloth. After about another hour of focused work, she had managed to make ten throwing knives and a set of lock picks.
"That's all you made? I've got a fecking taser machete, and you stuck with throwing knives?" Dani said, staring at the results with clear confusion.
Saki just smiled quietly as she watched her crafting level jump up five whole times at once. A moment later, she heard the familiar chanting from Skyrim echo in her mind as she hit level two.
"Well, whatever. Saki, I want you to stay here while I go check the Halperin Hotel for any survivors," Dani said, already preparing to leave.
"That's cool. While I don't like letting you go on your own, I've got a few things here I want to sort out. Keep in touch on the radio," Saki responded calmly.
"Will do, love. See you in a few hours," Dani said before taking off.
"So, Sam, I was thinking you and I could hit the streets and start pushing the zombies back, and some of the others could follow behind from a distance and start building temporary fences. We keep doing this daily till we've taken all of Bel-Air," Saki said, stretching her arms above her head.
"Shit, that's actually not a bad idea, kid," Sam said, standing up and grabbing his hammer. "Anyone here know shit about construction?"
"I do, but I need a hand," Carlos said from across the room.
"Great. Grab anyone else willing to work and let's get started. If you see a zombie coming for you, don't be a hero. Fall back to safety. Let's move, people," Sam shouted, already marching out the door.
Saki giggled softly at the man's antics before opening her menu. She selected her stamina upgrade, boosting it to one hundred and ten. Next, she chose the novice crafting perk, granting her basic knowledge on crafting which included construction and smithing any cold weapon she could think of. It sounded a little too impressive until she remembered it only applied at the most basic level, meaning anything she made would still break after five or six kills at best.
Besides, Saki had no intention of abandoning Karasu. Why would you ever give up an indestructible odachi?
She placed the throwing knives into her inventory and paused, suddenly curious whether her weapons had stats. She checked the knives.
[Simple Throwing Knives x10
Atk: 150]
Saki nodded to herself, pleased. She then opened her settings and looked around for a moment before finding a toggle for enemy health bars.
"Seriously, why wasn't all of this enabled at the beginning?" Saki muttered in mild frustration.
She headed outside to join Sam.
"How you want to do this? I take one house, you take the other?" Sam asked.
"Sounds good. I'll take this one on the left," Saki said with a nod.
"Alright, but let's make it interesting. You kill more zombies than me, I'll give you my pistol. I don't use it much anyhow. I kill more, you gotta be my hype girl and talk me up to Emma every chance you get," Sam said with a smirk.
"But I've already got a pistol, and that's a really embarrassing condition," Saki said, frowning slightly.
Sam wordlessly pulled out his gun.
"Meet the One Hit Wonder. Specially modified for high penetration and high accuracy," Sam said proudly, brandishing the gold-plated pistol with intricate carvings along its frame.
Looking it over carefully, Saki nodded once. "Test run or no deal."
"Fair enough," Sam said, passing the gun over.
[New Quest Added:]
Title: Murder, Death, Kill
Conditions: Rack up a higher kill count than Sam
Reward: Sam's One Hit Wonder
Penalty: Public Humiliation
Saki quickly checked the pistol's stats.
[One Hit Wonder
Atk: 350
Special Effect: The final bullet in each clip does double the weapon's base damage]
Satisfied, Saki nodded and started walking down the street. She hadn't gone far when she heard a voice.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
She spotted a speaker mounted next to a gate and pressed the button.
"Yeah, I'm here. Are you in trouble?" Saki said quickly.
"I'm having a little get-together, but my guests just don't want to leave, I'm afraid. Could you be a dear and come help an old man out?" the voice said as the gate buzzed and slowly opened.
Inside was a massive mansion with a parking garage beside it, several empty cars scattered across the grounds, and even more zombies shambling about.
Saki focused on the first zombie and saw a red health bar appear above its head. Since there was no numerical value displayed, she decided to test it. She tossed a throwing knife straight into its skull and watched as the health bar instantly emptied and the zombie collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
"Yeah… probably shouldn't have used the head as a test," Saki said, realizing her mistake.
She selected another zombie and threw a knife into its shoulder instead, watching a large chunk of its health disappear. Nodding in satisfaction, she retrieved her first knife, drew Karasu, and cleanly lopped off the zombie's head. She collected her other knife as well.
After killing a couple more stragglers, she made her way around to the front of the mansion to find.
A large group of zombies were being picked off one by one by an old man sitting on a balcony, calmly taking shots with a high powered rifle. Each pull of the trigger was followed by another corpse hitting the concrete below.
"Hey kid, lend me a hand would you these party crashers have overstayed their welcome," the old man called out with a wide, fearless grin, working the bolt with practiced ease.
Saki pulled out Karasu, and began savagely cutting her way through the cluster of bodies. Limbs and intestines went flying everywhere as the undead uselessly flailed at her, their rotting hands grasping at empty air while she cut them to pieces with swift, efficient strikes. She ducked under snapping jaws, spun past clawing fingers, and drove her sword through ribs and skulls alike until finally the last one fell twitching at her feet.
"That's all of them. Do me a favor and see if you can get the power back on the damn stairs got taken out and now the only way down is my godforsaken chair lift. The name's Curtis Sinclair by the way," Curtis shouted from the balcony, resting the rifle over his shoulder.
"Name's Saki and sure no problem," Saki shouted back, wiping gore from her cheek with the back of her hand as she ran toward the shed to go fool with the electrical system.
She checked her bloodlust bar and saw that it was thirty percent full. "Huh not so bad now does it increase with kills or with the amount of time I'm fighting oh well I'll deal with that later," Saki muttered to herself as she knelt by the exposed wiring. After a few tense minutes of reconnecting cables and restoring the flow of power to the house, the lights flickered back on.
Surprisingly her crafting skill tree helped get through the process. "I guess electricity falls under construction neat," Saki said with a satisfied nod as she jogged inside the mansion's main entrance to meet up with Curtis, who had just climbed into his chair lift.
"There you are kiddo give me a minute I'll be right down," Curtis called as the lift slowly moved along the track with an agonizing creak.
But while Saki waited, the three doors around her started pounding violently, wood splintering under repeated impacts. She pulled out Karasu and prepared to fight just as the doors collapsed inward and out came the zombies.
"Oh shit hang on kid I'll try to support you from here don't die," Curtis shouted in alarm as he began quickly loading his rifle.
Saki backflipped out of the first zombie's reach. She swung Karasu upwards in a clean arc immediately after landing sending the first zombie's head flying across the foyer. She then spun on her heels and slashed through the one next to her, cleaving it down the middle. A loud bang echoed behind her and she glanced back just in time to see another zombie drop as Curtis chambered another round with a sharp click.
She jumped forward and cut through two more in a blur of steel, then skewered the last one through the chest and was about to land the killing strike.
"Wait I'd appreciate it if you let me kill that one it's my piece of shit nephew he fed my favorite maid to those things to save his own ass," Curtis said, in anger as the chair lift finally reached the bottom.
Saki smirked, pulled her sword out of the zombie, and lifted it over her head, keeping it balanced as it thrashed and snapped weakly.
Curtis grinned and said, "Pull."
Saki tossed the zombie into the air and Curtis took aim and fired, popping his former nephew's head like a balloon in a burst of red mist.
"Hahahaha I like you kid you know how to have fun," Curtis said as he stepped out of his chair lift, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.
"Well I'm gathering survivors and taking them over to Emma Jaunt's mansion we're using it as base and pushing the zombies back while building defenses around the neighborhood," Saki said as she cleaned the blood off Karasu with a cloth and sheathed it with a soft click.
"So the neighbors were alive the whole time great I'll make my way over I assume the way is clear," Curtis said with a relieved smile.
"Yeah killed everything that way myself and I'm about to press forward," Saki said with a lazy stretch, rolling her shoulders.
"Oh if you're going that way could you pick up a couple things for me at a place called the Goat Pen just some wine and cigars I'll make it worth your while kid I promise," Curtis said with a wink and a flash of white teeth.
[New Quest Added]
Creature Comforts: Bring Curtis Sinclair a vintage bottle of wine and premium cigars
Reward:?????
Enhanced strength has leveled up from 1 to 10
Level increased to 3
"I guess I could," Saki said with a casual shrug, already turning toward the street.
With that, she headed out toward the next part of the neighborhood, blade at her hip and the distant groans of the undead echoing between the houses.
(Authors Note: Sorry for the hiatus this story is back now and more updates are being worked on as we speak in fact I think I'll probably go for a mass release sometime this week )