Something was hitting him in the head; something was scraping roughly against his face. He seemed to be moving, and something seemed to have a hold of his legs. He awoke to these sensations, not understanding what they were; it was some time before he realized he was being dragged.
He was so dazed, however, that he found himself unable to do anything about it. What was happening? Where was he? His surroundings were so dark that he couldn't make anything out; the only light he could see was coming from a wavering flashlight beam, held by the person who was dragging him. The surface upon which he was being dragged was rough; it felt like gravel. Every once in a while his head hit a stone.
He started to say something, but then decided it might be wiser to keep his mouth shut until he understood what was going on. He might not have been able to speak anyway; his throat was on fire. Apparently his Regeneration skill had not finished repairing the damage Steckler had done to his neck. He only hoped that he hadn't been poisoned as well, as Virge had been.
He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened -- Steckler had transformed himself, somehow, into a weird spider-creature with eight limbs. Not only had he been incredibly fast, he had been incredibly strong; even with his enhanced strength (doubled, now, with the second level of Strong Arm) Stu had been unable to extricate himself from the monster's grip. He must have been a mutate, or some kind of new zombie that Stu had never encountered before.
The ICON system hadn't given him a designation, however; there had been no "Level 30 Mutate" descriptor or anything like that hanging over his head. That was puzzling.
The person who was dragging him seemed not to have noticed that he was awake. Stu squinted, trying to see the person better in the darkness...
And then, without warning, the ground seemed to open up beneath him, and suddenly he was falling, falling, for several seconds, tumbling head over heels into a black nothingness. He gasped at this sudden, vertiginous sensation...
...And crashed into a wall of water, striking it with such force that it very nearly knocked him out again. He started to sink -- this water was deep -- but somehow managed to float back up to the surface, sputtering in surprise. Looking up, he saw the flashlight shining down on him from above, and realized that he had fallen at least two hundred feet; he had been dragged and dropped through some kind of hole and into a deep, dark pit.
The light disappeared a moment later, leaving him totally blind. Concentrating, he brought up the ICON menu and activated his Night Vision skill, which immediately dispelled the darkness, allowing him to see his surroundings perfectly.
He was floating in some kind of small underground lake, situated within a large underground cavern of some kind. The walls of the cavern, which rose up all around him, did not appear to be made of stone, however -- they were completely smooth and featureless, very similar to the walls he had seen in the corridors of the alien starship.
The water, which had a weird, oily sheen to it, was stinging his eyes. Alarmed, he quickly swam to the edge of the lake and crawled out of it, dripping wet. He was now on solid ground...only it wasn't ground, but more of that smooth metal. Shaking the water off, and surveying his surroundings more carefully, he realized that the cavern wasn't really a cavern at all; at least, not a natural one. It must have been some interior portion of the spaceship, buried deep underground -- deep enough to have punctured the water table. They had dumped him in one of the unexplored sections of the ship the Desert King had mentioned.
He saw, too, that he wasn't the only one who had received this treatment -- there were several bloated corpses floating in the oily water. Disgusted by the fact that he had been in the water with them, he started to gag. This, apparently, was how Steckler disposed of his victims.
His eyes were still stinging. After a moment he realized that he recognized the scent of the oily, chemical substance in the water -- it was dynamo fluid. Had they been dumping dynamo fluid down here as well? But why would they do that?
He shook his head, trying to focus. He had to find a way out of this place as quickly as possible. He only had thirty minutes of Night Vision; as soon as it ran out, he was as good as dead down here, in this darkness.
There was a single tunnel leading out of the cavern-like space. It seemed to be the only way out, so he stumbled towards it, taking stock of himself as he did. He was still a little dazed, from his impact with the water, but his Regeneration skill seemed to have almost finished repairing his throat, and with every step he took, he felt stronger. The Night Vision countdown timer was hovering in the corner of his vision, along with the "Looking for Love: Berly" quest message that he still hadn't attended to. He left it there for now.
That strange feeling he had had earlier, of being watched or observed by some invisible force, was still present as well. He had no idea what to make of it.
The tunnel slanted upwards. The smooth floor, and the fact that his boots were still slick, caused him to slip and fall more than once, but he staggered onwards, sometimes even using his hands to crawl up the tunnel. Eventually, though, it leveled out somewhat, and he found himself in another big, open area, partially flooded with water and puddles of dynamo fluid. There were two corridors exiting this room, and he was trying to decide which one to follow when his Zombie Radar suddenly started buzzing.
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As he watched, a zombie -- an ordinary Level 3, according to the designation hanging over its head -- came stumbling out of one of the corridors. It was a barefoot female, wearing a tattered, mud-spattered white dress. Most of her face was missing.
And she wasn't alone. Another zombie emerged from the corridor, and then another, and another. ICON descriptors sprang to life above them: "Level 4 Zombie", "Level 1 Jumbo," "Level 2 Zombie," and, to his surprise, even a "Level 1 Mutate," which looked something like a giant salamander, walking upright.
Stu could see them, thanks to his Night Vision skill, but they were apparently unable to see him, because they made no move to attack him. They wandered around blindly, feeling their way forward.
Stu counted fourteen zombies total. He started to back away slowly.
The salamander-mutate stopped and turned its head in his direction. Like the others, it did not appear to see him, but it must have heard him, or smelled him, because it had obviously sensed his presence.
Stu froze. He activated his Silence skill, and then, for good measure, he activated the Artful Dodge skill as well. This was the skill that would allow him to slip past a crowd of zombies, and if there was ever a time to use it, it was now. He was in no condition to fight this many zombies. He had no weapons, and with his Night Vision timer ticking away the seconds, well, he couldn't afford to get hung up down here. If he could get past this horde, enter the tunnel, and make his way up through the ship...
Slowly, quietly, he began to work his way through the crowd of zombies, maneuvering around them, taking care not to get too close. Some of them lifted their heads up when he passed by, as though they could sense him, but that was all they did. His boots splashed through puddles of dynamo fluid, but Silent muffled the sound.
He was almost out of the room. Just a few more feet...
And then he saw an eerie green light shining out of the corridor, further ahead. The corridor curved to the right, so he couldn't see the source of it, at first, but he had seen this sort of sickly green light before. He swore under his breath as it came into view.
It was a glowie. Not only that, it was the biggest and brightest glowie he had ever seen. According to the ICON system it was a Level 9.
He quickly retreated from it, but it was too late; it had already seen him. It made a weird noise that sounded like barking, or maybe the revving of an engine, and it chased back into the big open chamber where the other zombies had gathered. The glowie's light filled the room, and suddenly every zombie could see him.
He swore again.
He had to get through this crowd; he had to escape. But there were over a dozen zombies here, blocking the exits, and now that they had seen him, they were determined to catch him and kill him. Some of them started screeching, their voices echoing through the cavernous room, while others bellowed and others made no sound at all, but merely attacked, racing towards him, splashing through puddles of dynamo fluid. He had no choice but to fight.
The first to reach him was a Level 2. Using his strength and speed, he maneuvered around it when it grabbed for him, seized it by the arm, and whirled it around into the two others who were just now coming his way. That gave him the room he needed to deal with the salamander-mutate, which had fallen onto its belly and started wriggling towards him, unnaturally quickly. Just as it was about to rear up on its hind legs, he kicked it in the head, sending it sprawling. It quickly righted itself, however; it had not been seriously injured.
Damn it! He needed a weapon. A machete, a club, a baseball bat, something. His eyes swept the room, but there was nothing in it but zombies.
A Level 3 lunged for him. This was a male zombie, shorter than others, but strong and stocky and built like a tank. He punched it in the nose, caving in its face and knocking it down, but the blow wasn't enough to kill it; like the salamander, it started climbing to its feet a moment later. In the meantime Stu was forced to contend with two more zombies, one of which was very badly decayed; its left arm was hanging by a ragged thread. Inspired, he allowed the zombie to approach him and, at the last second, ripped the arm completely out of its socket. He then proceeded to use the arm as a club, battering the other zombies with it, showering the air with silver-stained blood.
He managed to hit one zombie -- a Level 1 -- with such force that it fell over and broke its neck (he got a critical bonus out of it), but an arm made for a poor weapon and he was finally forced to discard it. By now he had carved a path back to the tunnel, however, and so, with the zombies in hot pursuit, he gave up the fight and ran into the tunnel. He had no idea where it might lead, but anywhere was better than here.
The tunnel ran for about a hundred and fifty feet. At the end of it was one of those sideways-sliding doors that he had seen in the upper portion of the ship. It was partially closed, but he managed to pry it open with his fingers and slip through it. Then, from the other side, he forced it closed again, or as closed as he could get it; the door must have been damaged, because it could not be completely shut. There was a gap of about four or five inches between the door and the wall.
This accomplished, he spun around and examined his new surroundings. He was in another large room, though not as large as the huge, cavernous rooms he had found himself in earlier; this one was about the size of a high school classroom. Unlike the other rooms he had seen so far, this one was not gray, empty, and featureless -- there were high-tech-looking controls, switches, and monitors built into the walls, and the floor was cluttered with unusual items. Some of these might have been tools; he spotted one item that sort of resembled a chainsaw.
But the room was a dead end. Desperate, he looked around for some kind of grate, escape hatch, or other means of egress, but there was nothing; the only way out of the room was through the door he had just forced shut.
Shit.
And the zombies had already made it to the door. Growling, snapping, snarling, hollering, they slipped their bony fingers through the gap in the door, trying to pry it open as Stu had done -- trying to get to him. He could see the green light of the Level 9 Glowie shining through it.
He was trapped. And once again, he had no choice but to fight.