Alright, I admit it. I wimped out. Bite me.
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<em>Ha ha, see what I did there?</em><br />
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OK, so let me start from the beginning. Day two of HvZ promised more missions, more zombies, and even a scarier breed of zombie: the wraith has been released, a zombie that can make use of socks the same way humans do, making them all the more dangerous. The good news is I haven’t had to deal with this guy yet. The bad news is there are still three days left, and things are only going to get worse from here.<br />
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Before I get into tonight’s main mission, let me give a very basic summary of the plot of the game so far: ZombCorp is the corporation behind this apocalypse, and based on asking teammates as many questions as I could last night without being annoying, the “zombies” are really mind-control slaves that ZombCorp brought about. The humans are basically acting as a resistance group to bring ZombCorp down, led by a small group of rebels co-ordinating the remaining humans. Tonight, our goal was to bring down ZombCorp’s security, in the hopes of making it easier to take them down later in the week.<br />
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So how are we supposed to take out the security system of a fictional mega-corporation? Well first of all, use suspension of disbelief, you cynical bastard. Anyways, tonight’s human mission actually told us exactly where we had to go – that wasn’t the hard part. The main locations were MC, EIT and RCH. However, once you got inside the building, there were a bunch of puzzles to be solved (two puzzles per floor, on the first two floors of each building, for a total of 12 puzzles) Find the puzzles, solve them, and win. Easy, right?<br />
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Well it would be, if it weren’t for all the zombies swarming the area. On top of that, both sides had to deal with ZombCorp guards. These guards are there to handle zombie and human intruders alike – they stun zombies themselves, but take a more delicate approach with humans by kicking them out of the building. There were five-foot barriers around the actual puzzles which made humans safe from guards while they’re solving the puzzle, but while trying to find them, guards are a serious concern.
So at the very beginning of the mission, I grabbed my survival-horror partner Madzia and went straight for MC. Before we had even taken a step into the building, we knew we were in over our heads. Two rookies versus an unknown (but probably quite large) amount of zombies AND a ZombCorp guard? The odds of us surviving the night were pretty slim, but dammit, we were going to try.<br />
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Our first foray into MC lasted about 30 seconds before we ran into the guard and got kicked out. Our second try, we snuck in through the back entrance, hid as the guard passed, and then snuck away in the other direction… right into a dead end. Too bad neither of us have classes in MC!<br />
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Things went from bad to worse when we tried to sneak into the nearby stairwell, only for someone else to pop out. At first, I was relieved; it was the same guy who was leading our team last night! Clearly a lot can happen in a day,though, because in a moment of shock and a little bit of sadness, I realized he was now one of the zombies.<br />
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“Come on, try to get past!” he taunted. “I’d keep an eye on that elevator behind you, though.”<br />
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It was an obvious bluff – if any zombies were taking the elevator, we’d hear it pull up and open way before we’d need to worry about it. Still, the task of getting past the zombie and to the exit seemed daunting enough as it is.<br />
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Fortunately, after a few tense moments, the guard showed up and chased after the zombie. We took our chance and ran. On the way out, we ran into another zombie, and we actually stunned it! Well, Madzia stunned it. But I didn’t die!<br />
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This time we went for the third entrance, and voila! Third time’s the charm. After scanning the hallway, we came across the first puzzle, and promptly realized we had no pencils to write the answer on. After a brief intermission of running away, getting pens, and then running back, I managed to avoid any run-ins with zombies or the guard and solved the puzzle! Unfortunately, as we decided to look around for another puzzle, two more zombies showed up and we ran away like cowards.<br />
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Realizing that we had made a sizable contribution for two human rookies, Madzia and I decided to call it quits for today and not further risk our status as humans. Does that make us total cowards? Probably. But we’re both still learning, so what the heck. Baby steps.<br />
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Tomorrow I’m going to fully commit to the mission, whether I can find a solid group or not. Wednesday is the mid-way point of the week and two days is a lot longer than I figured I would last, so now I'm going all out. if I’m going down, I intend for it to be in a blaze of glory.<br />
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Odds are I’ll get bitten by some zombie who didn’t have to even try hard because I wasn’t paying attention, but what the heck, a man can dream.
