07 unexpected dev elopme.., p.1
07. Unexpected Dev-elopments, page 1
part #7 of Apocalypse Gates Series
Apocalypse Gates
Book 7:
Unexpected Dev-elopments
Daniel Schinhofen
Copyright © 2020 Daniel J. Schinhofen
No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews – without the written permission from the publisher.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2020 Daniel J. Schinhofen
All rights reserved.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter One
Alvin took a deep breath as he looked at the notification for his weekly quest.
Weekly Quest: Visit a new settlement and buy an item worth 1,000 XP.
This is a mandatory quest and cannot be declined. Failure to complete the quest will result in the loss of a life.
“Fun,” Alvin muttered. “Mandatory buy things quest? Sammi, this is dumb.”
“I didn’t like it, either,” Sammi said from behind him. “Forcing people to spend XP just to do a quest is asinine.”
“Agreed.”
“You just had to get a Bradley, didn’t you?” Sammi asked with a sigh. “You’re breaking every curve we had in place for players.”
“Just doing what I do. It’s not like I’m trying to fuck people over. I did have a request for the dev team, though.”
“Oh? This I have to hear,” Sammi smirked as she leaned against the wall.
Alvin hooked a thumb at the kiosk behind him. “We’ve been nice. Intentionally not breaking things for you. Keep that in mind.”
Sammi glanced to the kiosk, her smirk losing its luster. “Okay…?”
“We’d like to get a joint XP account.”
“Huh?”
“Similar to a joint bank account for married couples. We’d like to pool our XP as a single entity.”
“No. Nope. No way. Not going to happen.”
“Because of my discount, right?” Alvin asked. “If we wanted to, we could stay as we are and they’d just transfer all their XP to me. We’d take the hit on the transfer cost so I could use my discount for us. Think about all the millions we spent after the raid boss. Replay the conversation if you want. This is what I’m talking about.”
“That’s broken, too,” Sammi grumbled. “Fuck.”
“So, my idea was a joint account,” Alvin said. “Hang on,” he held up a hand to cut off her objection, “let me finish. In return, we’d lower the discount from what I get now to ten percent instead, and we’d all get that.”
Sammi frowned, though she was clearly thinking it through.
“Hero?” Gothy asked, poking her head in the door to the kiosk area. “Oh, hey, Sammi. Did we break something again, or are you just wanting to spend some quality time with Hero?”
Sammi didn’t react, and Gothy blinked.
“She’s thinking about an idea I just gave her. Apparently, she latches on and focuses,” Alvin said.
“What idea?” Gothy asked as she came into the room, followed by Mousie.
Alvin gave them the rundown while the three of them waited for Sammi to snap out of it.
“I was wondering if we were going to abuse the system or not. Goodness knows we’ve waited long enough,” Gothy said.
“Okay. It makes a lot of sense from our standpoint,” Sammi said, looking up. “When did you all get here?”
“While you were thinking,” Gothy replied. “I think I could’ve had some fun with you, as focused as you were.”
Sammi coughed, her cheeks pinking. “Yeah, I’ve always done that... Anyway. I’ll bring it to the team, but doing what you suggested would save us in the long run. Why, though?”
“Why what?” Alvin asked.
“It’ll cost you more XP over time, so why even bring it to our attention?”
“Because we like you,” Alvin shrugged. “You’ve been good to us and Jarvis, and have asked us repeatedly, but nicely, to not just break shit. Consider this us repaying that.”
“Oh. This was to help me?” Sammi asked, clearly at a loss.
“We do like our kinky computer geek,” Gothy purred, giving Sammi a wink.
Sammi blushed deeper and looked away. “Yeah, that’s a trap. I need to get going.”
“Can’t stay for breakfast?” Mousie asked. “Desiree is improving rapidly.”
“Did you try to push it as quality control?” Alvin asked.
“I did ask, but no. They consider it fraternization, and think I’m already favoring you.”
“Idiots,” Gothy sighed. “The offer is open, if you want to join us.”
Sammi’s brow furrowed. “You mean for breakfast, right?”
“To start with,” Gothy smirked.
Sammi went scarlet and vanished.
Alvin laughed. “Mean, but funny.”
“She’s so fun to play with. Besides, I’m sure she’d fit right in with our style of fun,” Gothy said.
Alvin snagged Gothy around the waist with one arm and Mousie with his other. “Let’s go have some breakfast. Our wife has been working hard on it.”
“What quest did you get?” Mousie asked.
“A dumb as shit one,” Alvin sighed. “That’s actually what brought Sammi here to start with.”
“Breakfast,” Jarvis said when they entered the room. “Desiree just finished.”
Alvin gave the well-built Dwarven woman a smile. “Taking good care of us, Desiree?”
“Yes,” Desiree smiled back. “I think I’m getting used to this.”
“What was the quest?” Mousie asked again.
“Visit a new settlement and spend a thousand XP.”
“What? How dumb is that?” Gothy snorted.
“Exactly what I said,” Alvin said. “Sammi agreed, but she doesn’t get the last say on shit, so it is what it is. It’ll be easy to do, but needing to spend XP is the dumb part.”
“Well, it’s nice to see them staying consistent,” Gothy snarked. “Stupid quests is what devs do, after all, in every game ever.”
“What did you make for us, Desiree?” Mousie asked.
“A country scramble,” Desiree said, bringing their plates over to the table and kissing Mousie’s pointed ear. “Enjoy.”
Mousie shivered. “Tease.”
“She’s learned from the best,” Alvin chuckled.
“What are your plans, sir?” Jarvis asked.
“We’ll be spending a couple of days in the training room,” Alvin said. “Need to work on a few things before we really go anywhere. I needed to know what the weekly quest was so I could figure out if we’d have time to train without trouble.”
“Which you now know,” Jarvis said.
“Yeah.”
“Working on clearing buildings and driving and gunning the Bradley?” Gothy asked between bites.
“Yes. Four days of training. We’ll rotate the positions in the Bradley so we all have a full session driving, gunning, commanding, or being in the back,” Alvin said. “I’ve gotten the upgrades started for the Bradley.”
“What runes did you put on it?” Mousie asked.
“The Bradley had the Fuel rune when we got it, and I put a Tire rune on it so we won’t have problems with the tracks.”
“Thank you,” Gothy said. “David used to complain about track problems when he played video games. I shudder to think what that might’ve been like for us.”
“Agreed. I also slapped a one hundred percent Durability rune on it, and an eighty percent Silence rune.”
Gothy snorted. “Really? A Silence rune?”
“Should be a lot quieter now. Probably sounds like a small car,” Alvin laughed. “We’ll find out after breakfast.”
“What else?” Desiree asked.
“The seats are like the ones in the Humvee,” Alvin answered before taking another bite.
“Good. Those were uncomfortable,” Mousie said.
“Yes, they were unpleasant after the Turtle,” Desiree agreed.
“I added a heating and air conditioning system to it and the Humvee,” Alvin smiled.
“Not that we’ve needed them,” Gothy said, “but it’ll be a nice addition if we have a passenger.”
“That was my thinking. It came with the radio already, thankfully, so I didn’t need to add that, but I did add an entertainment system to the back.”
Gothy started laughing. “So we aren’t bored?”
“Nothing to see or do back there,” Alvin said. “Didn’t see the harm in adding it in. Already made sure it’s stocked with things we’ll enjoy, too.”
“He spoils us,” Mousie smiled.
“We’ll spoil him back later,” Desiree said.
“With interest,” Gothy smirked, “but go ahead and finish, Hero.”
“The Bushmaster got a one hundred percent Durability rune, a one hundred percent Armor Buster rune, a three-second Reload rune, and a sixty percent Silence rune.”
“The big gun is going to sound like a rifle?” Gothy snorted. “A compact car with a rifle. People are going to be terribly confused.”
“For the auxiliary gun, I put on a Phantom rune, along with a one hundred percent Bloody rune, a three-second Reload rune, and a fifty percent Durability rune,” Alvin said.
“Phantom?” Desiree asked.
“Deals a quarter of its damage to things that don’t have bodies.”
“Ghosts and anything else similar,” Gothy nodded. “Not a bad idea to have a mix. I’m curious— does the damage from the Armor Buster rune and the ammo for the Bushmaster get added or multiplied together?”
“Added, I’m sure,” Alvin said. “We’ll test it in a bit.”
“After breakfast,” Desiree added. “How is it?”
Everyone was quick to assure her that it was very good, and Desiree smiled widely.
~*~*~
They’d finished breakfast, but before they went into the training room, Alvin detoured to the medical bay. Checking the DNA Modifications Vat, Alvin was happy to see it had finished processing their DNA.
“We can start modifying our DNA if we want,” Alvin told them, “or I can feed the terror worm DNA into it. It’ll take it time to pull apart the different aspects.”
“What if we did want to mod ours?” Gothy asked. “What does that mean?”
“Depends on what you’re adding and how different it is,” Alvin said. “Adding a little of Mousie’s DNA to you would be fine if you wanted to have a higher max on Nimbleness, for instance. Desiree’s could raise the cap on Hardiness. There are side effects, though, which depend on how much other DNA you’re adding and how far removed yours is from the new sample.”
“Can we see it ahead of time?” Desiree asked.
“Hmm, let’s see...” Alvin started fiddling with the control station. “Yes, we can run a few simulations. Who wants to be the guinea pig?”
“Me!” Gothy said first. “What if we add enough to raise my Nimbleness and Hardiness by two?”
“A mix of both of them,” Alvin said, playing with the touch screen. “Okay, since you’re doing stats, it’ll take twelve hours per increase... and you’d look like this.” Alvin touched a button and a holographic projection appeared in one of the tanks.
Gothy floated in the tank, completely nude and slowly rotating. Her body was a little shorter and a touch more slender in the hips and chest.
“Interesting,” Gothy said, looking at her double. “What about Desiree?”
Alvin input information into the machine for a few moments, and in the second tank, a naked Desiree appeared. “That’s if we gave her four Nimbleness from Mousie’s DNA.”
Everyone looked at the dusky-skinned dwarf floating in the tank. It was obvious that the DNA was changing her physically. The copy was a few inches taller, her skin was a deep tan, and her body had narrowed.
“It’s not just stats, then. It changes our appearance,” Desiree said, eyeing her hologram.
“Does appear that way,” Alvin said. “Since we’re not using anything exotic— like the terror worm— it isn’t warning us of anything going wrong.”
“Give it the DNA,” Gothy said. “I wonder if we can get a further resistance to mental influence that way.”
“Oh, that would be good... unless it gave us tentacles,” Mousie said.
Alvin shuddered at the idea. “I’d pass on that happening to any of us.”
Gothy snickered. “Ooh, I found something else you’re not interested in. I’ll skip the tentacle-monster women for our harem.”
“Thank you,” Alvin said. “Let me just add this to the machine, and then we’re off to the training room. Who wants what positions to start with?”
“I’ll take kneeling,” Gothy smirked.
“We know,” the other three said in unison, before laughing.
Gothy joined their laughter. “Okay, so I might be a little predictable about what I enjoy.”
“Now, seriously, who wants to start as gunner, driver, commander, and passenger? We’ll be rotating for the next four days, and the passenger gets to set the obstacles for the crew,” Alvin said.
Chapter Two
Four days came and went quickly for them. Between training and their other, more pleasurable activities, their mini-vacation was coming to an end.
“Well, that was a few good days, but now it’s time to get this stupid quest completed,” Alvin sighed.
“Are we taking the Bradley?” Gothy asked. “It’s slower going than the Humvee.”
“True, but it’s not like we’re racing anywhere,” Alvin replied.
“If we take the Bradley, how’re we going to divvy up the positions?” Desiree asked.
“While you and Mousie can drive, it’s still not the best spot for either of you,” Alvin said. “That leaves driving to Gothy and me. But if we get into a big fight, it’s best if Gothy can switch out gunner with Mousie.”
“Leaving you as the driver,” Gothy said.
“Pretty much. If we want to be able to deal with any big surprises, it’s better if you two are free to switch out on the gun, since you both have the damage cooldowns. However, if we let the three of you switch out as needed, that means Desiree can take the gun, as well, and switch for one of you when we see a big beastie.”
The ladies all exchanged glances, and Gothy spoke up, “Hero, don’t you want to be gunner, too?”
“It’d be fun, but I’d rather we be able to have the best we can bring to bear at any given time. If I take the back, Desiree will have to be the driver.”
“I don’t mind that, Hero. Since we’re still close to the military base, maybe I can drive? It’s unlikely anything bad will happen today.”
