Welcome to the true start of the Choose Your Apocalypse Apology Tutorial:
You have all selected the ‘Initial Tutorial Opponents’ of slow, shambling zombies.
As such, your first scenario will be the survival of a zombie apocalypse outbreak upon a planet that is not your own.
The citizens of the planet will be System created and cease to exist at the end of the scenario, regardless of what you do for the duration.
That said, rewards can be affected, both positively and negatively, by the state of those citizens, depending on the quests you receive.
Alex groaned. He had specifically wanted to go into a place where zombies were already established.
There were some similar sounds from others but not from everyone.
A few people chuckled at the prompt—or the unified sounds—and some even made noises of relief.
He sighed. Great…
As soon as everyone seemed to have read through the information, more was provided.
Choice:
A choice lies before you.
Each of you can either opt to work together or alone.
Quest Choice:
Quest [Prepare]:
Stand with other Initiates or act alone.
Reward:
Should you choose to stand alone, your rewards for the main quests will be given at a factor of 1.5.
If you choose to stand with others, each surviving Initiate will receive rewards for the main quests to the factor of 0.5x the number of Initiates surviving in your group.
System Addendum:
Killing other Initiates gains nothing within the Apology Tutorial.
Purposely sabotaging other Initiates will be grounds for extreme penalties.
No matter what you choose, there will be other Initiates within your scenario, outside your initial group.
Alex let out a little laugh. “Well, that makes the decision incredibly easy, right?”
He looked around excitedly but only found a few who obviously agreed with him.
He sighed again. Then, without much thought, he simply stepped into the standard role within meetings that he had filled for his job, “If we can’t attack or sabotage each other, we have nothing to fear from each other. If we all choose to work together, that is a reward factor of 7.5. That is five times better than working alone, plus, you know, we won’t be alone for whatever challenges there will be.”
A few people frowned, leaning back, shaking their heads.
One older man scoffed outright. “Why would I add my reward to yours?”
Alex shook his head in turn. He knew this type of character. He was being contrary to try to gain concessions. “Because if even three people agree with me, our reward will be better than yours, even without you.”
“Ahh, but that is the main quests. Anyone who has played games knows that the side quests are where most of the good rewards are found. In fact, if you play it correctly, by the time the main quest comes around, the side quests have rendered you so powerful that the main story is essentially meaningless.”
That… was a good point.
Alex frowned.
Would working together somehow dilute the available rewards from secondary quests?
Did he care?
Alex found that he didn’t. If it lowered his rewards by a bit, he’d still prefer to be in a position to help others. He finally shook his head. “No. I don’t believe that is the case, but I could be wrong. What do you think? And I didn’t catch your name.”
He pointed to the older woman who had spoken before.
She wasn’t old by any means, just early forties, so five to ten years older than Alex himself.
She responded with surprise. “Me?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “What was your name?”
“Natasha.”
“Good to meet you, Natasha. What do you think about all this?”
She shrugged, her accent barely noticeable as she spoke, “I picked zombies in this crazy selection because at least normal people can fight those in the stories. Having people to fight beside me would be… ideal. I’d rather not be here at all.”
That got some nervous chuckles of agreement.
“But I am here, so I’ll work with others.”
Alex nodded, still smiling. “Thank you, Natasha. I appreciate your perspective.”
The older man rolled his eyes and sighed, “You can make your own choice, Alex. I’ll make mine.”
That irritated Alex, and he was about to open his mouth again, but as he looked around, he noticed something that he’d seen dozens of times in meetings in the past.
Many of those present already agreed with him, and they hadn’t been swayed by the other man’s words. Even so, if he began to argue, he would make his own position seem less certain and end up driving people away.
He sighed, again. He hated politics.
Some things never change.
Still, he put on a convivial smile and shrugged. “You’re right. For me this is my choice.”
Alex reached out to the system window and indicated that he wanted to work in a group.
As soon as he hit the button, he was highlighted in a beautiful, dark green.
The other man frowned, becoming orange.
Alex tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes.
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Choice:
A choice lies before you.
Five other Initiates have indicated their desire to work with you; will you work with these others?
He looked around immediately noticing the five other initiates who had lit up green, including Natasha and the young man who had thrown a knife at him.
James.
Alex smiled at James, and James smiled back. He then exchanged nods of acknowledgement with the others who now bore his color, accepting each in turn.
Well, he really hoped that it wasn’t actually his color. He didn’t particularly want to lead. He just wanted to make sure that what the leader chose to do actually got done… and that the leader chose to do things that were reasonable…
He contained a groan as he closed his eyes for a brief moment. …he was going to end up leading, wasn’t he… I can probably pawn it off on someone, right?
When he opened his eyes, Alex did not smile at the older man.
Alex already knew the play the man had been going for.
He’d wanted Alex to ‘convince’ him to work with others, then he’d have used that to try to finagle concessions somehow.
People are strange, and sometimes a person reluctantly converted to an idea was seen as wiser and of better judgment than the person who had held the accepted view the whole time.
It was a silly tactic, but it might have worked.
In fact, Alex had seen it work more times than not.
It had backfired on that other man this time.
I so hate corporate culture… He felt himself smile at that.
It seemed there were some things that he was quite glad to see the last of… though some vestiges remained.
As the rest of the Initiates made choices, no one else lit up orange or green. There were three other colors, one with four people.
In the end, Alex was in a group of six, there was the group of four, one group of three, one girl who opted to be alone, and the older man also by himself.
Choice:
A choice lies before you.
Do you wish to change your selection at this time?
No one changed color after that.
The older man was visibly irritated, but his color still didn’t change. Instead, he seemed to have changed his selection to go it alone.
Alex was actually glad that he’d been given the option to change, otherwise he might have been stuck with a piddly reward and no help.
Choices Made:
Your choice has been made.
Pray you made the right one.
Decision Rating:
Well Reasoned with the information at hand.
Without further warning, the world disappeared around Alex, and he found himself sitting at a desk in an office cubicle.
Oh, no. No. NO! I will not be in a death trap like this when—
A series of System windows interrupted his internal, panicked tirade.
Group Quest [Prepare]:
You have chosen to stand with others.
You have less than twenty-four hours to prepare for the coming outbreak.
Find a base of operations from which you can survive the end of the world.
Reward:
Determined based upon results and surviving Initiates after the quest timer ends.
Prepayment:
You have been granted false memories of this world so that you may navigate it as you prepare.
You have been granted Temporary Skills:
Inventory, Temp with which you can acquire supplies more efficiently
Team Sense, Temp to save time on coordination
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Quest alteration due to unforeseen factors.
This is your warning that the time to the outbreak is less than six hours.
Don’t dawdle.
Individual Quest [Prepare]:
Get at least one ‘friend’ from your false memories to join you in your base of operations.
Reward:
Determined based upon results and surviving ‘friends’ when the group quest timer ends.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Real friends are forever.
Fake friends depend on you.
Inventory, Temp
Carrying things is annoying for everyone. Now, you can carry things without having to actually carry them.
Aren’t you special?
You have been given access to a 10ft cube of extra-dimensional storage on a temporary basis. You instinctively know how to place things within this space, how to draw them out, and what is inside. Anything beyond that is up to you.
Any items still within the space when you lose this skill will be destroyed and then the remnants will be forcefully ejected into your dimension from within your heart.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Empty your beloved and useful storage before the time runs out.
Team Sense, Temp
Teammates are wonderful, so long as they are where they should be. Now you’ll know if they aren’t! Sense the vague location and status of anyone considered on your team for this section of the Apology Tutorial.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
This Skill will expire after the first Group Quest is complete.
Plan accordingly.
Alex suppressed a groan as a splitting headache rolled through him for a moment, leaving memories of this new world that felt similar to those of a cherished movie or book.
He could easily tell what was real and what wasn’t, but he very clearly also had a lot of information.
Beyond that, he had a vague sense of the other Initiates who’d opted to group up with him.
He stood and the motion felt incredibly awkward, even with the new clothes that the System had seen fit to change him into.
But he was getting distracted. As he’d stood, he had moved as he always used to move, and it felt… wrong.
He hadn’t felt the oddity in the meeting room with the other initiates, but that was likely because he’d still been in the mindset of the System - of combat. He’d been balancing on his toes, ready for a fight.
But here?
In the modern labyrinth?
He had deeply ingrained patterns of movement, and they were wrong.
He changed his posture and stance just slightly, following the intuitive sense from Advanced Kinesthetics.
He couldn’t get it perfect—something told him that he didn’t have a high enough mastery to achieve perfect form even just standing in place—but he did make it better.
That fixed, he was about to leave his cubicle, when he remembered his new ‘Inventory.’
Interestingly, his dadao was already in his inventory, likely so he wouldn’t have to try to hide it in the city before the apocalypse.
He instinctively knew how it worked, and he swept his hand across everything he could within the small space, each item vanishing as if it had never been.
Thankfully, the set of drawers came as a unit.
In the end, he had a sense of what was in his Inventory. Nothing stood out as amazing, but he might find uses for some of it down the line.
I need to understand the foundation I’m starting from. In that vein, he pulled up his Character Sheet.
Character Sheet:
Alex Johnson
Life-Aspected Human (Rare), F, Level 2
Class: NA
HP: 360
SP: 360
Physical Stats:
Power: 17
Agility: 25
Fortitude: 18
Mental Stats:
Power: 15
Agility: 25
Fortitude: 18
Magical Stats:
NA - Mana not unlocked
Unused Points: 0
Attributes:
Blood:
Life Finds a Way (Unique)
Temporary:
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition -
Acquire Skills organically with vastly reduced requirements until a Class is Selected
Skills:
Great-Blades Basics - Dadao (Common)
Advanced Kinesthetics (Common)
Intercept Projectiles (Common)
Inventory, Temp
Team Sense, Temp
It looked pretty good to his rather ignorant inspection. Regardless, he felt like he had a good foundation to build upon.
He wasn’t sure how stats scaled, but even so, he had higher stats than any non-System human across the board.
Alright. I can work with this.
That done, he walked down the aisle between the cubicles, coming to the massive glass wall looking out on the street below and the buildings across from them.
It looked like a modern American city… which now that he thought about it wasn’t actually that standard of a motif.
Every city he’d seen had a bit of a personality, a difference in the surroundings.
This was much the same.
There were rolling hills, causing even the few buildings he could see to start at somewhat different heights.
He couldn’t see far enough to see much else, but he had memories of this city being on a peninsula, a bit like New York, if the movies were any indication. He’d never been.
And now I never will… No. Now was not the time for that. He had to focus. I have a moment to think. Then I can actually consider the end of the world.
Back to the matter at hand, he and all his fellow Initiates seemed to be on the same floor of this building, and they also seemed to be moving in his direction, thankfully.
They would need to plan… fast.
Even so, he found himself staring out at the mass of humanity below and around him as he considered.
We’re on the eighteenth floor of an office building… He pulled from his ‘memories.’ This building has seventy stories total. We’re in the middle of a major city… We are in so much trouble…