[Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead] Tales of the Apocalypse

[Marauder Moe]

New start.  Amazingly lucky find of empty farmhouse nearby.  Lots of clothes and containers.  Matches.  Water purification tablets.

Nice tools in neighboring shed.  Barn is all boarded up and something making noise inside.

Turns out noise is a cow and some dogs.  Two dead zombies too, trampled by the cow I guess.  More tools in the barn.  Consolidate the tools from the shed.  Fend off pesky wild dogs.  Feeling kind of slow lately.

Realize I don't have any pots or other cookware, so I use one of my water purification tablets.  Even though it's still day, I decide to go into the woods and scout out nearby mansion.  See zombies playing with local wildlife.  Watch coyotes kill some zombies.  Coyotes have taste for human flesh, come after me too.  Beat them up with crowbar.  Enter mansion.

Find fancy straw hat.  Mansion seems fairly empty, though see more zombies outside tangling with wild dogs and coyotes.  Grab choicest of loot.  Find antibiotics.  Find some interesting books.  Find a frying pan.  Decide not to push my luck and head back to the farm.  Boil some water and cook some dog meat.

Feeling good.  For first time this game have pretty much stable food and water source.

Night time now.  Not sleepy, so heading back to mansion for another loot raid.  Find more zombies.  Getting good and killing them.  Find a revolver.  Find some other goodies, but mostly cleaned the place out.

Do a little light reading in the morning.  Sleep most of the day.  Wake up feeling ugly, but otherwise healthy.  Bundle up and head off to scout nearby hospital.

Find mobile meth lab outside hospital.  Not sure if it runs, don't understand vehicle controls yet.  Grab some drugs and ammonia (mainly for the gallon jug).  See boomer.  Kill it with gun, takes 5 shots.  Lots of noise.  Run away.

Go off scouting elsewhere.  Find wreckage and some nice army pants.  Find a building, can't tell what it is but hear noise within.  Decide to leave it alone.  Find another building.  Think it's a science lab.  BOOO!  Leave it alone too.

Find an RV.  Try to drive it, fail miserably, attract zombies.  Get out and run away.  Decide to go home and see if that mobile meth lab can be snagged during the daytime.  Unfortunately, it's crawling with Z's.  I do find a bus (not operational) with a sweet baseball bat in it, though.

Find a town.  Go raiding a mansion at the edge of town.  Baseball bat very effective against standard zombies.  No longer fear them. 

Stop by that RV on the way back home.  Easier to figure out in the daylight, actually get it moving!  Drive all the way back home and park it in the barn!  WOOHOO!  It's just about out of gas, though.

Meanwhile, I've developed a very pronounced snout...

[Akaramu]

Congrats! I've never found a farm with living animals other than dogs. If you keep the cow fed (I think there is a recipe for cattle feed), you should be able to milk it regularly.

My mutant has (mostly) repaired her armored van and built a kitchen and minifridge, a bed, and some storage trunks into it. But I generated a new world to try out a new concept: a broken cyborg. Plus I decided I wanted to try playing with hordes enabled.

Brandon Head is literally a metal body with a human head. He woke up in a forest with snowflakes falling on his face, remembering little to nothing of his past life, though he has hazy recollection of a lab and experiments. His body is steel-plated, but what remains of his humanity has been crammed full of bionics that don't work and hinder him more than anything. One of the broken bionics keeps generating noise that the zombies are just going to love. Plus, his head was badly wounded and his starting intelligence has suffered (it's at 7 now).

On the plus side, he's largely immune to infection from zombie bites (as well as poison) and most common enemies won't make a dent in his steel limbs. He's tough and pain resistant and also starts with a number of fairly advanced skills (at 4), things he somehow knows, but doesn't remember learning. All of the skills required to remove and install bionics are already at 4. Handling bionics ALSO requires the kind of intelligence Brandon lacks, sooooo that could make things.... interesting. xD

Even though his own humanity is too far gone to ever be regained, Brandon will dedicate what remains of his life to finding and protecting any human survivors he can - basically, I'll try to do the quests of anyone I meet ASAP and try to get them together in a shelter I prepare for them. This is going to be tough because, well, Brandon isn't just a walking hunk of metal with a human head, he's also kind of... ugly. Most NPCs will dislike him from the start and it will take some effort to convince anyone to join him. Which is sad, because he really, really wants to protect anyone he can.

By the way, you can siphon gas from other vehicle tanks with a rubber hose. Try it 

[Pale Horse]

Juli was born in a lab.  Her mother a test-tube, her father a knife. 

She was told she was special, that she would help people through the things done to her.  They were painful and she didn't like them, but good girls didn't complain and always listened to the researchers so she kept her tears inside.  She would be good, she would help people and they would like her.

She never knew what changed her mind.  Maybe after one of the endless rounds of experiments performed on her.  Maybe while she recovered, floating in a cylinder of fluid and watching the television the staff brought in for her to pass the time and she witnessed the casual cruelties the people she was made to help did to one another.  She didn't know..and didn't care.  What she wanted, now, was out.

Her wish was fulfilled when the world ended.  The earth shook, the researchers panicked and fled save for one decent man who went through the lab and released the least dangerous of the experiments.  Juli was the last released and the two of them only made it part-way to the entrance before the power went out and trapped them in darkness with no visible way out...

14 days later, she has a humvee with an Atomic reactor, a trunk with a mobile kitchen and mini fridge waiting for installation, powerful solar panels, extra military-grade plating, the contents of several libraries and the life-saving toolbox she found in a home on her first night out of the lab.

She wields a katana given to her by the kind-hearted researcher who let her out after she found some antibiotics for a festering wound he took.  She's learned the basics of Judo, Fencing and Pankration.  She's stripped down to just a pair of boots, the tattered remains of a dress shirt and her ratty underwear but doesn't worry about modesty as she's absolutely covered in packs, duffel bags and pouches.  But the best thing she's collected, sitting in her trunk in all it's dented and zombie-filth covered glory, is a complete set of power armor.

Now..she just needs to find a place to call home.

[Marauder Moe]

Congrats! I've never found a farm with living animals other than dogs. If you keep the cow fed (I think there is a recipe for cattle feed), you should be able to milk it regularly.

I've actually lost the cow.  I thought I was good about keeping the barn door closed, but somehow it is gone.

By the way, you can siphon gas from other vehicle tanks with a rubber hose. Try it 

It's on my very long shopping list.   

Anyway... back to the apocalypse.  Slept in late.

Oh lord.  I'm definitely turning into some sort of cow-cat hybrid creature.

Never mind that, probably need to spend the rest of the day gathering firewood and doing other chores around the house. (LOL this game...)

In proper zombie apocalypse style, I upgrade the baseball bat:


With my new toy, time to go back to town.

Looted a few houses and a grocery store.  Finally got a cart.  Hit up hardware store and book store.  Got attacked by like 6 shady zombies, had to use new bottle of hydrogen peroxide.  Got attacked by necromancer.  Lucille to the face!  SPLAT!

Heading back home with my cart of goodies.  New nighttime danger: walking into a landmine field.  Fortunately I spotted a bunch and didn't step on any.  Made a note on my map.

Got home a bit after midnight, cold and unhappy.  Lit the stove and treated myself to a nice bowl of spaghetti and read books by the fire.

[Marauder Moe]

The last two loot runs were disastrously cut short by zombie encounters.  I'm pretty formidable with Lucille, but groups of 5 with specials included are probably too much.

Running low on food.  My metabolism seems higher than normal.  Fortunately, my wilderness survival books have shown me how to forage food from the forest right outside my house.  Very convenient.

Meanwhile, I continue to evolve into a bestial creature.  I have the face of a cow, ears like a wolf, and scales.  Not very pretty, and I stink to boot.  However, my smell seems to put mammals more at ease.  I can also see perfectly at night, which is good because sunlight is uncomfortable.

Day 10.  I'm reading a dry but informative book on archery when I hear some noise outside.  I peek out the door and it's a bear nosing around my barn!  It looks injured.  I think I can take it.  Just in case, I step back inside and grab my gun.  One bullet left, but this thing could possibly hurt me a lot.  I approach.  It doesn't react much, possibly thanks to me pheromones.  I take aim.... BLAM!  Right on target.

I get to butchering the animal, just like how the books showed me.  I get a lot of usable stuff.   Cook the meat and offal.  Cure the hide.  Gorged on bear, I become dead tired and go to bed.  Have dreams about running with a pack and killing wild game with my bare teeth.  Wake up.  Face feels decidedly less bovine. 

I eat some leftover bear.  Out of firewood.  Go chop some more.

Bear meat disappears quite fast.  Spend three days trying to build a bow.  Finally got it right.  Hunting time!

Stalk a deer.  Get close, start plinking arrows at it.  Not doing a lot of damage.  Took like 15 shots but I finally killed it.  I am a hunter!  Eat well tonight.  Sleep well too.  Woke up with face back in old shape, but somehow all the more terrifying.  Definitely my DNA has wolf-like tendencies.

Trying to decide what to do next.  I have enough books to teach me technology way above what my available materials can become.  Gather materials for leather tanning and make armor?  Raid a hospital for rubber tubes and see if I can get my RV rolling again?  Scout on foot for more tools and materials?

[Akaramu]

My new character poses the biggest challenge yet - mostly because of the parameters I used for world generation. Cities are large, but a factor of 8 (instead of the standard 4) apart. Meaning - it takes several restarts to even find a road, even more to find shelter from the cold. And to make things worse, poor Brandon is so plagued by faulty bionics that he can't even sleep. They keep waking him right back up, and he's unlikely to find the tools he needs to surgically remove his own bionics in a huge, freezing forest. Plus, being limited to one inventory space (because of the lack of starting gear such as clothes) is kind of crippling when there are no houses to loot anywhere in sight.

I haven't given up yet, but I think I might have to adjust my parameters at some point.

On the plus side, Brandon single-handedly scared a moose and two wolves off. With his bare, bionically altered hands.

[Marauder Moe]

Day 14.

Went off into the woods for a two-part mission.  Part 1, take the shopping cart to the old mansion and loot more thoroughly.  Part 2, go to nearby swamp and bring back a few gallons of salt water.

Dragging cart through the woods is a pain.  See some bears, but they are distracted playing with zombies.  Leave them be, still have lots of deer meat left.  Scour the mansion for goodies I left behind last time.  Have a revelation inside a kitchen that zombies smashed up last time: breaking apart larger appliances yields more high tech materials!  Fill shopping cart to the brim with pieces of sheet metal, copper, and rubber tubing.

Go off to nearby swamp.  Find a military backpack in the woods.  Filthy, but mostly intact. 

See the biggest bee I have ever seen.  Hear terrifying roar as well.  Hurry up and get my salt water.  High tail it out of there.

Go hunting and foraging on the way back, fill new backpack with food.  Get back home, realize swamp water isn't salty?  Ugh.  Well, book says hickory root can also be a source of salt.  Go out and look for hickory trees.  Come back with a bunch.  Make salt.  Make lots of delicious food!  Make a lot more preserved food.  Fall asleep gorged and happy.

Wake up.  Make more salt.  Start tanning hides.  Takes all day.  Feel more sluggish.  Grow claws.  Vegetables lose their appeal.  (Ugh.  Carnivore AGAIN?)  Go to sleep.

Wake up.  Argh, the sun, we hates it!  Out of firewood.  Go chop some down.  Ate the last of the meat.  Need to go hunt.

Hard to get close to game.  They're less docile around me.  See a moose.  Hungry enough to fight a moose.  Tough fight, but moose is no match for Lucille.  Take it home, cook up the offal.  Preserve the meat.  Cure the hide.  Tired again, but really need to get on nocturnal sleep cycle.

Stay up reading a book about trapping.  Informative stuff.  Dawn before I realize it.  Feel an innate empathy for animals, thought still want to eat them.  Also now covered in fur.  Hungry enough to, once again, eat the last of the meat. Seriously, in one day I ate an entire moose.  WTF.

Get ready for bed.  Annoying crow has gotten into my bedroom.  Try to shoot it with bow. Miss and break a window.  Crow flies away.  Window lets sun and draft in.  Sleep until late in the day.  Already very hungry and need to go hunt.  Being a high-metabolism carnivore sucks.

[Akaramu]

Yeah, getting carnivore kind of sucks.

You could try breaking into a lab and finding some purifier, then hope you get lucky with whatever trait(s) it removes.

[Marauder Moe]

I don't have time to break into a lab.  I have to spend all day hunting and cooking.

[Akaramu]

To be fair, you're probably wasting a lot of meat by not being very good at butchering. Once your survival goes up, you'll get way, WAY more meat from each carcass.

And I think foraged eggs count as meat.

[Marauder Moe]

How high do skills go?  I have survival 6.

[Akaramu]

Over 10, I think? 6 is good, though. You must be one hungry mutant!

You should be able to find some eggs and boil them. I THINK they count as meat. Fingers crossed.

There's also a chance that the carnivore mutation will just go away on its own.

[Hauwke]

Skills can go as high as 16 I think.

[Seeker]

Dani is a 13 year old near-sighted Girl Scout.  She is wearing her Scout Uniform today.  Even has the safety whistle she earned last year at camp from the Inter-Regional All Girl's Safety Patrol.

She was in a counselling session at school about whether she is to be going to an AP public High School or to continue in the local parochial system next year.  She was so excited and she had so many questions that the meeting was running long and her dad had to leave.  Outside the door of the counselor's office he was met by a pack of ravenous fifth through seventh grader zombie children and was torn into bloody bite-sized bits, screaming.

Dani peed her pants a little, then she dove through the second story window in a shower of glass shards.  She left her guidance counselor to her own grizzly fate.

Zombie-kinder poured out of the gym doors and charged towards her while she lay upon the grass until they came up hard against the protective fence surrounding the school recess yard.  Once there were about sixty snarling, snapping horrors pushing and piling up against it, that last protective barrier gave way.  Dani got up and ran.  Then she ran back to get her glasses.  Looking up with her glasses now in place, she shrieked at what she saw.  Her hands clenched in tight, hysterical fists, she ran again for all she was worth.


Dani is off to a rough start.  She was able to get nothing from the school at all. She as a little survival, first aid and cooking skill. She earned a public speaking merit badge.  She's a quick reader and pretty damn clever.  She has a bit of cash from her baby-sitting jobs but not much else.  Her skirt is already torn.  I don't see a happy ending to this story.

[Marauder Moe]

Another day(night) hunting.  Strangely, though, found a bunch of crates sitting out in a field full of military tech.  Most of it isn't immediately useful, but there is a mini nuke.  Went home to cook my kill.  Ate a giant rattlesnake and a few other critters.  So hungry.

Ranging pretty far from the farm.  No game.  Dragging my cart through the woods and suddenly I hear "Hello?"

Is it a person?  I haven't seen another living soul since this mess started!

Hear lots of alarmed talking.  Don't see anything yet, my night vision has deteriorated lately.

Stay quiet, get closer.  Hear beeping noises and possibly sounds of combat.  Closer still... uh oh.  They're not men.  Mi-go.  I turn around and head back.  Unfortunately, their night vision is at least as good as mine.  Fuck.  I grab Lucille and get ready for a fight.  I retreat further into the brush hoping for favorable terrain.  Then, somehow, I lose them.

Find a dog in the dark.  I've killed and eaten dogs before, usually in self defense.  This one isn't hostile, though, and I can't bring myself to attack.

Come across a spider nest.  Eat the eggs raw.  Attacked by a wolf.  Kill it but bleeding badly.  Use of two bandages to stop it.  Got meat now, though.  Spot a deer on the way back but it's too quick and escapes into the woods.

Get home, start cooking.  Ache all over.  Not sure if blood loss or illness.  Take medicines just in case.

Definitely have a fever.  Seeing things.  I strip off all my clothes but am covered in fur so can't get cool.  Consume the entire wolf, still very hungry.  Go to sleep.

Wake up.  Feel awful.  Start boiling bones because there's nothing else to eat.  Sleep on and off.  Drink bone broth.  A few days later, feeling better but still very hungry.

[Akaramu]

With a survival skill of 6, you should be able to find a good number of bird and lizard eggs in forest bushes. I've always found a bunch in spring and summer, they're decently filling if you boil them 

And yeah, certain creatures like Mi-Go learned how to imitate humans. Creepy. I'm glad you got away!

Did you turn NPCs (static and random) on during worldgen? If not, that could explain why you haven't seen another living person yet.

Also take multivitamins if you have any. Unless you turned simplified nutrition on, vitamin deficiency will affect you in various not so good ways (like, vitamin A deficiency affects eyesight)

[Akaramu]

Okay, so... playing anything other than fast running mutants is HARD. 

[Marauder Moe]

I never seem to get many eggs.  Mostly disgusting vegetables.

Anyway, went out hunting again.  Killed a giant spider.  Ate it's nest again.  Attacked by a pack of wild dogs and then coyotes.  They're all dinner now.  Hopefully it will last me a few days.

Feeling ill again, though.  Maybe I should stop eating raw spider eggs.  Still, manage to preserve a LOT of meat.

Wake up after sleeping all day.  Feel better aside from some stomach issues.  Maybe I need to be better about taking my multi-vitamin.  Tan hides all night.  Do some household chores in the morning.  Can't sleep, not sure what to do with myself.  Try to go raiding.  Attacked by coyotes instead.  They become dinner.  Manage to scatter some zombies out of the hospital, but it's still a bit too hot to raid.  Lots of boomers.  Scouted another nearby town but didn't approach since it was day.  Went back home to cook up the coyotes.

Have paws now. 

Read a book until morning, go to sleep.  Wake up.  Feel rough again.  Definitely need to stop eating spider eggs.  Well enough to go on a supply raid.  Start with doctors office.  Lots of good medicines.  Hear explosions nearby while looting.

Go across the street.  Fairly standard looking house.  Check out basement... is tunnel leading to... some sort of bunker?  Nice.  Guns.  A screwdriver!  Food, though mostly inedible vegetable matter.

Loot hardware store next door.  Power tools woo!  Hear more explosions towards the center of town.  Decide not to investigate.

Try to get into a gun store instead.  Set of alarm... oh shit.  RUNNING! 

No matter, has been a good raid regardless.

[Akaramu]

I've given up on trying to play a cyborg. I love the concept, but... this is ridiculous. You start with FOURTEEN (!!!) seriously awful broken bionics. One of them will randomly cause minor damage to all limbs and wake your character up when trying to sleep. Another causes irregular, sudden visual impairment and drops three stats by 4 (!), 2 and 1. Yet another can randomly knock you to the ground in mid combat. Then there's the one that causes loud noise when you just move around, attracting zombies.

I mean... seriously. 14 of these faulty bionics, and even if you invest a lot of your initial points into the skills needed to remove them, you can only remove one at a time and the failure chance is like 70%, causing severe damage. This is not even funny.

Add to this the fact that I dropped the item spawn rate by 50% during world gen...

I'll try a cyborg again at some point, but I'll modify it with the console so it's not completely unplayable. Maybe 4 faulty bionics instead of 14. Hell, the 'Really Bad Day' scenario is easier than this, and that one at least gives 8 bonus points... not 2. 

[Seeker]

Dani, amazingly, is still alive at day 7.  More than a bit traumatized, but still feisty and undeterred.

She found what appears to be research hospital next to a forest as her base of operations.  She forages in the woods for food and holes up in a bunkerized patient room piled up with down blankets and pillows at night.

She had two tremendous strokes of luck:  the hospital itself is very secure with only access at the front of the building.  No exterior windows.  It has been hard for her to clear out the Zed, but every section of the building she has cleared remains cleared.  She has a small stash of medical supplies including pain-killers, antibiotics, and first-aid gear.

The second stroke of luck actually came first:  An abandoned fire engine complete with fire-fighters' gear.  None of it fits properly on a thirteen-year old, but the helmet and turn-out coat are remarkably protective against zombie teeth!  She is clumping around in clothes five sizes too large, but it has saved her life more than once.  She has attached a homemade miner's light to her bright red helmet and painted colorful images of prancing mongooses about its shell.

She has done a few necessary raids at night.  To the library of course.  Dani is all about the books.  She is reading furiously. The second raid was to a local dojo on the outskirts of town.  Girl is learning how to kick!

Dani carries a Glock now, too.  She has a rainwater harvesting nook set up and she just disassembled an abandoned lawnmower and is in the process of turning its cutting blades into her next survival weapon.

She eats dogs, coyotes and takes her vitamins and runs away a LOT.
 

[Pale Horse]

Fleeing from battle is a time-honored and completely acceptable tactic.

[Akaramu]

So, Brandon Head MK 2.0 is finally getting somewhere. This time, he didn't come to in a forest - when he regained a semblance of senses, the metal-man found himself on the floor of a small house on the fringes of a large town, being dissected by a man in a lab coat. Or so Brandon thought. The NEXT time he woke up, most of his painful, cumbersome and completely disfunctional scrapmetal bionics had been removed and the wounds cleanly stitched back together.

Brandon has hazy recollections of fiddling with security terminals in a very deep, dark place - a laboratory of some sort - while his companion in the lab coat urged him on. Brandon could easily communicate with the security computers, but lab coat man - who later identified himself as Woodrow Roy - could not, and needed the cyborg's help to escape the lab.

Once the two of them reached a dark, cold forest, Roy told Brandon he knew of a place that was still somewhat safe - for now. He seemed afraid of the cyborg for some reason, but once again needed a bodyguard to reach his destination, so the two of them ended up on the outskirts of Athens. Not exactly a safe place, but when the curtains are drawn, the zombies stay out. Mostly. And because Brandon's faulty bionics kept overloading and generating noise, Roy agreed to remove as many of them as he could. Somehow, he seemed to know exactly what they were, and how they could be deactivated, though he kept an anxious eye on the cyborg the whole time. It's as if he's afraid Brandon will remember something... and kill him for it.

A good half dozen annoying, useless and cumbersome bionics remain. But the ones that turned Brandon into a walking time bomb with a pre-determined death sentence are gone.

So, the two of them never truly became 'friends' and Roy never agreed to travel with Brandon. But when the cyborg volunteered to search nearby buildings for supplies at night, Roy seemed happy enough to agree.

At first, the lack of clothing was the biggest challenge Brandon has been facing. The cold bites deeper than the zombies, and the ones he couldn't avoid ripped what little clothing he had right off him. The first couple runs involved grabbing sheets and down-filled blankets from nearby houses and carrying them back so at least the bed would be warm. The house is surrounded by pizza parlors, grocery stores and butcher's shops, so food isn't an issue for now. But Brandon has a feeling he and Roy can't stay in that place much longer. The zombie hordes, led by mysterious and frightening 'masters', keep growing and shuffling within close proximity of the house. There's an office tower to the northeast, a bit apart from the rest of the city. Maybe it will make a good new base?

Brandon has secured some basic clothing by now, and learned how to make a makeshift satchel to carry stuff in. Huzzah, the days of having 0 inventory space, and wielding every little thing that had to be moved are over!

[Marauder Moe]

It is getting late in the summer.  Have a few day's worth of preserved food, but still feel this lifestyle is not sustainable.  Decide I have to go back to the one place I never wanted to see the inside of again: the laboratory.  Maybe they have something there that can fix me.

Load up trusty shopping card with food, water, medical supplies, and explosives.  Strap a metal pot to my head as a crude helmet.  Look ridiculous.

Head down to the lab.  Find a pack of wolves at war with a pack of dogs.  Really don't want to get into a fight before the main event.  Stand back and watch.  Pack of coyotes join the fray.  Dogs win.  I scare off the survivors.

There is a lot of meat just laying around.  Decide that the meat will rot, the lab will not.  Get to work.  Half of the kills are already rotten, so don't end up with all that much meat.  Decide to stick around and go ahead with the plan.  Just waiting for night anyway.

Night falls.  Park the cart a bit away, get out the C-4.  Figure good stuff would be kept near the back of the building.  Set timer to 300.  Drop it next to the wall.  Run away.  Wait.  Not quite sure how long 300 is.

Turns out it's like half an hour.  Explosion much louder than I thought it would be.  Ears ring.  Wonder if any zombies heard it.

Creep up to check out the hole.  There is none.  What.  Very disappointed.  Decide to leave the scene before any zombies (or security?) show up.  Oh well, still have a load of meat to take home.


See an interesting car on the way back.  Solar-powered.  Only needs it's controls fixed and it should run.

Get home.  Cook up and eat the offal.  Preserve the meat as aspic.  Make lard and cracklins.  Read book about auto mechanics.  Go to sleep late in the morning.

Sleep a LONG time.  Wake up way early the NEXT morning.  Hard to get up.  Feel like I smell differently.  Also feel hungry enough to eat a zombie.  Eat some more food.  Some of the meat has spoiled.  Fee like eating it anyway.  Read more about mechanics.

Grab some tools, toss them in the cart, and then go off vehicle scavenging.  Attacked by more dogs on the way.  They become dinner.  They also distract and kill some zombies hanging around the bus I want to loot.  Kill some more dogs, pulp the zombies, and then get to work removing the control system.  Comes out pretty easily.

Take it back to the solar car.  Smash some zombies on the way.  Hmm, requires welding to install.  I think I have a book that will show me how to make a welder.  I leave the controls in the trunk of the car.  Go home and cook dinner.  Read about welding.

Feel the season change in my bones.  Feel extra sleepy.

Morning comes.  Go to my workshop and try to make a welder. out of a flashlight.  First attempt fails.  Damn.  Wonder if I have another flashlight.  I don't but I have a mess kit I don't really need.  Break that down.  Decide I should read up more carefully before trying again.  Get tired while reading, go to bed.

Wake up near midnight.  Feel sick again.  Huddle by the oven fire and read all night.  Back to the workshop in the morning.  Have another go at the welder.  Damn, messed it up again.  Need to find a source of copper wire.  Need to smash up some more stoves for heating elements too.

I head back to the old mansion in the woods.  Kill and butcher a cougar on the way.  With tools, I can be much smarter about scavenging.  I take apart all the computer terminals in the mansion as well as the last intact stove.  My cart is filled to the brim with electronic junk.

Get back.  Cook.  Go to workshop.  Damn, still need more heating elements.  Guess I'll have to go into town and raid the other mansion soon.  Read more about mechanics, then go to sleep.

[Akaramu]

Creep up to check out the hole.  There is none.  What.  Very disappointed.  Decide to leave the scene before any zombies (or security?) show up.  Oh well, still have a load of meat to take home.

That's odd, explosives tend to do the job in this game.  If you get more, maybe try it on the door instead?

[Pale Horse]

Subject Zeta spent three days exploring the confines of the lab she was kept in, gathering supplies and looking for the stairs that will lead her out.

Once she found the top floor, she didn't bother putting any of the few explosives she found to use.  She knew her strengths and she was never taught out to properly pitch.  The point was to survive, not die to a grenade she managed to bounce off a wall and back at herself.

Instead, she pulled out one of the two very strange and unsettling tools she found in a locked portion of the lab.  The scientists had called it a "teleporter," and it was time to see if it lived up to it's name.

She stood next to what she thought was the out-most wall and started pushing buttons on the thing.  She bipped out of existence..and bipped back into existence in a different room of the lab.  It took five tries to finally make it outside.

Freedom! ..Why does freedom taste like mushrooms, she thought?  No matter, she was out and she still had the ID card taken from the strange machine at the bottom of the facility.  She knew it would open science-y doors and one of the computers she'd accessed had given her a map of the immediate area above ground, showing a town and several more labs in the area.

The miles it took hiking across country gave her plenty of time to marvel at the outside world..and really understand what mushrooms tasted like.