Broken Interface - Sprout: Post Apocalyptic Zombie LITrpg Progression Fantasy, page 1
Broken Interface
Book 2: Sprout
Author: Alex Kozlowski
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 Alex Kozlowski
All rights reserved.
Contents
Copyright
Log Report 5 - Entry 11
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Log Report 5 - Entry 12
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Log Report 5 - Entry 13
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Log Report 5 - Entry 14
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Log Report 5 - Entry 15
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Log report 5–Entry 16
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Author’s Note
Biography
LitRPG Groups
Log Report 5 - Entry 11
If your co-wobub won’t take proper conditioning, then the obvious solution is to adopt his natural tendencies to manipulate him. If he wants to save little bipeds and there is an entire floor full of them out there, then you might as well use them.
If he does the right things for the wrong reasons, that’s okay; the right thing is still getting done.
Simple concepts that I’m applying religiously.
For a moment, I think it is worthwhile to summarise what I’ve achieved during the early stages of the event.
First, a massive mana storm resulted in Daniel (the biped next to Ivey, my host) suffering sapient deconstruction. Against the standard advice, I got my host to turn him into a co-wobub. With the benefit of hindsight, that was a brilliant decision – like every other one I make.
For the pet (Daniel), not much has changed.
He remained a biped. (I know; I feel for him, too.)
Kept his internal computational engine.
Did not regress through sapient deconstruction, so is not a feral.
I guess that was important for him, even if he never said thanks.
He also manifested some extra powers. In my foresight, I gifted him with the beast whisper class. It was a masterful choice that should have propelled his powers to new heights. From the mana storm, there were going to be lots of giant monsters around with big teeth just waiting there for him to bond with. The sort of creature that could kill the strongest of the deconstructed sapients with a single bite. All he had to do was to beat one of them senseless and force the bond; then he would have a faithful, deadly sidekick that with a few levels might grow to be a battle mount, which would have countered the pet’s primary disability, namely being a biped.
It was a spectacular class with so much potential I could taste it.
Then the idiotic co-wobub forgot the giant bit, and the lots of teeth, and somehow the terrifying qualifier, basically all the good stuff.
It’s so shameful, I don’t want to write it down but, the pet bonded with the smallest thing he could find, with the only bit of wisdom shown being that it was a quadruped.
He called it Prissy or something like that, which from the culture pack means fussily and excessively respectable.
Ridiculous.
Anyway, that’s what the co-wobub got from the arrangement. Heaps and heaps even if it wasted the bonus.
I was supposed to get the ability to influence his behaviour. Although, the review board will probably claim that it’s not in the spirit of the rules and only allowed on a technicality… but guess what! Permissible on a technicality means that it is Allowed! Tribunal board, you won’t get me on that. You have no teeth like Prissy.
Yes, I’m a little bitter about that.
My primary focus was encouraging him to protect Ivey, but the only mechanism I have available unfortunately does not work very well. I’m very disappointed with that. Within half a day, the co-wobub forgot its conditioning and started acting with its own agency.
I am sure the meddling overseers are happy with that, but I have to admit it’s damn annoying.
That was not at all what I wanted.
Biologicals, right?
As they say: too primitive to stay brainwashed.
Anyway, after establishing contact with my colleagues, there were clearly larger problems to deal with. Primarily a class two lizard that will eventually treat all of our hosts as convenient farmed animals. Being kept in a larder as a handy snack is probably no one’s idea of a satisfactory outcome of the apocalypse. There was some background trickery to open communication channels, by promoting Morse code, which will probably yield benefits in the long run, but at least for now, it is each biped for themselves.
Ivey and pet swept through all the nearby floors, slaying the deconstructed sapients. (The co-wobub amusingly calls them zombies, some made-up concept I’ve never heard of before. Living undead, it’s an idea completely divorced from reality.) Most of the battles were won with the pet’s plant traps, but before the end, the extra skills I got into the co-wobub made a difference, at least from an entertainment perspective. Everyone loves watching a big lightning bolt smash into a monster’s face.
Anyway, they killed lots of ferals, saved lots of other humans, and killed off all the major threats in the top half of the tower. My host has got a nice team around her. There’s Tamara, a general spell caster; Dave, an actual wobub (*or in the pet’s terminology a Zombie, haha*); Luke, an emerging tank; Ingrid, an archer; and various others, including several “waste of space” little bipeds.
Having killed the magic octopod at the top of the tower, my host will get her pet biped to go down and kill the deconstructed sapients below and hopefully save the surrounding bipeds and eventually escape that constant threat, of becoming monster food.
Unless, of course, that illusionist does something.
*Haha*
Though if she does manage something, that would be… some *slimy material with a shell around it on my face? * Imagine an illusionist being your big hero. So funny. My colleagues should be moonlighting as comedians. Of course, I haven’t met her, but do I need to? They think she might make a difference, but we all know it’s going to come down to my host’s pet.
Now for my final topic of conversation.
Falls.
I’m no longer officially counting them, but for the record, in that last fight, the bipeds were like bowling pins. My host still has not had an opportunity to use the skill that is officially called ‘Something accidentally attacked me, and I responded with claws of shredding blackness and boiled them alive, oops.’
My host insists on naming the skill ‘Emergency Blast’ instead, which is frankly boring and not very descriptive. Anyway, the fact she had not used it yet, as disappointing as that is, represents a big tick mark against my performance, as it means she’s been safe.
The bipeds are super-duper lucky that I’m here to save them.
Chapter 1
Daniel sat with the empty plate next to him, wondering what to do about Jayden. There was no way he could ignore it, but the question was whether he was evil, in which case a violent solution was best, or if he was doing it accidentally.
Could he be doing it accidentally? Was it possible to use mind control on someone by mistake? Could it be that he had no idea that he had gained that ability? Daniel shut his eyes in anger. He could not separate his feelings from the problem. Why couldn’t life just be smashing skulls?
Ivey came over to him and nuzzled up against him.
Maybe smashing skulls and some other activities, he corrected in his internal monologue. “How are you?” he asked.
“Excited.”
He looked at her in surprise.
One look told him she was not talking about having successfully killed the octopod.
She stood and pulled him up, or at least helped him slightly. Then she hesitated. “Where should we go?”
“Down,” he told her. There was the ghost of B
She linked arms with him and leaned into him. A ball of light floated out front, illuminating their passage. The sun had set over an hour ago, and without electricity, there was almost no light in the hotel corridors.
It was nice, but he was still disturbed by the Jayden problem. The ex-actor could clearly influence other people’s minds, and Daniel knew he had to take definitive action. Mind control was unacceptable.
Later, he thought to himself finally. For now, he was here with Ivey and that was wonderful. They reached the stairwell. Floors Twenty-four and twenty-five were linked, but all the others were still closed off by his internal barriers. In the future, Daniel planned on leaving these open; but for now, they provided a sense of security for all the survivors he had managed to gather up.
“Before we get to our room, I have a present for you.” She passed him a large stone. It was too big to swallow.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the octopod core. You can use it safely. I checked.”
Daniel hefted it doubtfully. “There’s no way I can swallow it.”
“Put it in your mouth and grind it. It will be unpleasant, but it will let you absorb it and develop the telekinesis skill that you’re after.”
He tossed it up in the air. It was heavy.
“Don’t,” Ivey warned. “You don’t want to break it.”
“What do you think eating it is going to do?”
“Point.”
“I’m not sure about non-feral cores. My body reacts poorly to them.”
“It’ll probably be better than electricity bugs.”
“Probably?”
A hesitation. “That was a slip of the tongue. It will be easier, no probability about it.”
Daniel was not convinced that she was being fully honest. Ivey was not averse to twisting the truth to get things done.
“And I grabbed it because it looked like you wanted it.”
“I do. Telekinesis will take me to the next level.” In his mind, he could imagine moving traps or pushing enemies into them. If he stopped relying on static traps…
“You want to throw people around with your mind,” she teased.
“I can think of other uses.” He ran a hand over her bum and squeezed. She jumped.
“Hey!” She playfully tried to slap his hand. “I can’t see how telekinesis will help with that. But I guess you’ve proved yourself to be creative.”
“We’ll find out if I get the ability, but I was more imagining moving traps.”
He felt her half-step in response. “Yes, that would be a huge upgrade.” She stopped walking and hugged him fiercely. “Thank you. I’m happy I’m here with you.”
Standing between the two community floors, they kissed. There was no threat from above; they had killed them all, apart from levels twenty-six and twenty-seven, and the zombies trapped there were too weak to break out and threaten them.
As for below. There was no way for any of the monsters to reach them, thanks to the moths blocking the stairwells.
They were winning.
They were beating this nightmare.
And for the first time in days, they could afford to relax.
She broke away. Smiling and holding his hand, they kept walking down to level twenty-one. They poked their heads into three rooms before finding one that was freshly made up from five days ago.
Animal Sense flared out.
“A perfect getaway,” he told her. “No one followed us. We have privacy.”
“Apart from the mouse,” she said, the glowing ball of light highlighting Priscilla sitting on his shoulder.
He plucked Priscilla off. “Shoo,” he ordered, and she ran to the door without protest. There was a brief green glow as she changed the wood to squeeze under it.
“What a day,” Daniel said sadly, sitting down. “You almost died, then we all almost died, and now we have to worry about the penthouse guys.” He deliberately did not mention Jayden, nor the kids that Tamara had talked about.
“Don’t be down,” she said, bonking him gently on the nose. “We eliminated a threat to our existence, and then there was that chest.”
“What was that?” he asked curiously.
“Loot chest.” Ivey clapped her hands in excitement.
“What does that mean?”
“Weapons, armour, spells,” Ivey said. “I don’t know. The message I received was that it was a minor loot chest that had been partially customised to the group that had killed the Octopod. I figured we should control its distribution.”
“Yeah, but what does that actually mean?”
She kissed him. “Exactly what I said. It gives us the loot and equipment we need. Tomorrow, we’ll distribute it to those who need it most.” She grinned. “And if there’s any really good stuff, we’ll get first choice.”
“Who are you thinking?”
“Depends on the gear; but hopefully, we’ll have enough to upgrade everyone on the front lines… and if there is any good stuff, make sure Jayden gets a piece or two.”
“Jayden? Why?” Daniel suddenly shivered, remembering what the man had said earlier, what he had been suggesting and how, till Priscilla had interfered, he had just been accepting the man’s word. The mind-controller had advocated that they abandon everyone else.
“Well, first, so Tamara does not have to worry about him and second, because he is important to the community.”
“What does he actually do?”
“He’s the glue,” Ivey said simply.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“He keeps us together.” Her eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about Jayden. It’s Tamara, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s Jayden. How does he contribute more than Chua, Alisha, or the cook?”
“Morale,” Ivey responded instantly. “Leadership matters.”
“Bullshit.”
“I can’t believe this,” Ivey blew up suddenly. “You want Tamara. I bring you down here, and you are pining over another woman.”
“What?!”
“She’s not even that pretty. Good tits I guess, but…”
“What?!”
“We’re not doing anything.” Ivey said defiantly. “Unbelievable.”
“This was not about Tamara.”
“Stop talking about her, then.”
Daniel bit his disbelief off before it expressed himself.
“Don’t you like me?” Ivey asked, waving at herself.
“I find you very attractive.”
“It’s because of that bloody connection, isn’t it.”
“No.”
“I don’t get it. We click on so many levels, but whenever we get alone, this happens.” She threw her hands up in the air in frustration.
“Umm, we could still try.”
“The mood’s gone.”
“We can try to recapture it,” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss. She avoided it easily.
“No, that discussion pissed me off. What’s your problem with Jayden?”
Daniel hesitated, knowing he was treading on eggshells – and pre-alpha ones, at that. “I don’t trust anyone not visibly contributing to the community.”
“There is more to life than growing food.”
He knew what she thought about farmers or tradespeople, but he did not expect her to express it like that. How was he supposed to answer that?
She saw his expression. “What I mean is some contributions can’t be quantified. Like how a scientist might spend ten years creating a cure for cancer. Was he useless for the first nine when he had no visible results?”
“And Jayden is like that?”
“Yes.” Her voice was frosty.
“Do you want me to go?”
“No,” she grabbed his hand. “Stay, I want to be held. I don’t want to be alone. Please.”
“Fine.”
The light vanished, and there was the noise of Ivey getting into bed. After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, and from the tiny bit of moonlight coming in. he could see a lot.
What just happened? He asked himself. They had snuck down here to do much more than chat, but then everything had spiralled out of control. Priscilla had even left, and it had been him alone with Ivey; and yet somehow, it had all fallen apart, anyway.
“I think I’ll go.”
“Please don’t.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you want me to beg?” He stopped, his brain almost freezing because of the contradictory signals he was receiving. He understood absolutely nothing about what she was saying. “I don’t want to be alone,” she confided.
