Capítulo 244: Ruin
Once both are 'sure enough' that more of those green zombie things weren't going to start sprinting down the hallway, Afton took a closer look at the monster they had killed...
Its skin was green and bark-like, and spores seemed to constantly be created and emitted by the creature... Whether or not this was just it decomposing or a method of reproduction Afton couldn't tell.
On its back were spike-like protrusions that helped camouflage it while it was hiding in the foliage. They looked stiff, but Afton wasn't sure if they had any other functions.
What worried him the most was the fact that it had obviously BEEN human at one point. Meaning that the fungus could indeed infect humanity... Though he couldn't tell if that had been premortem or postmortem.
Other than its intimidating looking jagged teeth, the creature also had large sharp claws attached to each hand. It looked similar to a Deathclaws, but different.
Afton rubs his face and takes a couple samples from it, using some of the vials he'd received from Dr Hildern, and also acquired from Klaus's laboratory. With that done he takes a glance at his companion to see how she was doing, sure enough, Anja was sending him a look that meant, 'We should get out of here while we still can'...
"Thoughts on this Anja?" he asks.
She frowns, "Other than we should leave here immediately? I think this place is going to get worse and worse the closer we get to the bottom floor. How many residents do you think lived in this Vault?" she asks pointedly.
Afton shrugs, "Well, in order to prevent inbreeding over the course of two hundred years they'd need around a tho-sand... Ahh, shit..." he groans after realising what she was suggesting.
"And you want to fight a thousand of those things... Just for some caps?" she presses.
...
Afton sighs and shakes his head, "Unfortunately, I suspect leaving isn't really an option for me anymore..."
Anja raises a brow, "What do you mean?"
Afton simply points at the creature, "People don't just suddenly mutate into these things, there had to be a cause. The most likely suspect would be the spores in the air, spores that I accidentally breathed in at the entrance..."
"So both of us are fucked?" Anja asks, a scowl on her face.
Afton shakes his head, "Not completely, if I can my hands on this places research then I might be able to create a cure, or at least... Some sort of pesticide that targets the fungus. Either way, we are both already compromised." he states.
"I think I hate you... Sir."
Afton nods and reloads That Gun, "Funny, I'm starting to hate myself for coming here... Unless there's something else, we should get moving." he says, Anja nodding as he steps over the monster's corpse.
The duo continue onwards and almost immediately spots many places filled with thick foliage. No doubt there'd be more monsters hiding within them, so, as Anja gets ready Afton fires a warning shot into the plants.
The bullet whizzes through and connects with something fleshy, a spray of green blood coating the wall behind the plants as two of those humanoid creatures reveal their heads above the plants and turn in their direction.
Similarly to the last one the creatures move at almost inhuman speeds as they crawl up to the duo. Their movements are fluid, yet restricted in some way... As if their joints had been locked at certain angles for some reason. This caused the creatures to use their upper bodies to compensate for it, making aiming for their heads incredibly difficult.
As such, Anja sprays her 9mm Submachine gun at the right creature, stuffing as much lead into its chest and legs as possible. Unfortunately, they don't seem to feel pain, and Afton was somewhat sure their internal organs had been drastically altered by the fungus.
The only thing that stopped the creatures approach were the injuries Anja had caused to its legs, forcing it to use its front limbs to crawl.
Afton had used VATS to help predict the leftmost monster's movements, allowing him to eventually score a headshot, blowing most of its head clean off. He then turned his weapon to the monster that was almost upon Anja and finished it off as well.
[Challange progress, Abominable : kill 3/50 abominations]
He ignores the challenge notification that appears and double-taps the monsters' bodies just to make sure they wouldn't be getting up again. Thank you Zombieland survival rules.
Once done Afton peeks through the cloudy window on the left leading to the next room, squinting at a figure sitting inside? he wasn't sure to be honest...
Afton opens the door and backs up as a wave of spores wash through the area, he tries to ignore it and peeks inside the room, spotting the figure... Greasy black hair, stubble, and a thin build. They wore combat armour and had a plasma rifle propped up to the chair they were sitting in... "Mark Dowager?" he asks, not having expected the man to still be alive at this point.
Of course, even if he was alive, Mark probably wouldn't live for much longer. His skin had a green tint to it with black veins clearly visible on the surface, Afton could swear he saw that the veins were writhing in a rather disgusting manner under his skin.
"W-who is it? W-who's there?" the man gingerly asks.
Afton was confused, Mark's eyes were wide open and looking in his direction, yet he couldn't see him? "Mark it's me, Afton Parker... We met not long ago."
"Hhak! Hah! Haaak!" the man coughs loudly, a cloud of green spores being forced from his lungs, "Ah, the kid?... L-listen, you... You need to get out of here, it-it's too late for me already."
As much as Afton wanted to reassure the man, he was definitely infected. Even if Afton managed to create a cure, Mark would be long dead before its completion. "What happened to the rest of your group?"
Mark breaks into another coughing fit, it sounded incredibly painful but there was nothing Afton could really do about it. "The boys? Dead, all turned into monsters... We killed quite a lot of them, but hadn't realised we were getting infected. By the time we realised it was too late. I lost them on the lower floors... I tried to escape to the surface but, I don't have any strength left... Kid, you need to get out and warn everyone. The shit happening down here can't reach the surface!" he starts coughing again from overexerting himself.
Afton sighs, deciding not to answer the man, "Do you want to die a human, or a monster?" he asks simply, pressing the barrel of his weapon against the man's forehead.
"Human." Mark states, using the last of his strength to push against the cold metal.
Afton nods, "Very well."
*Bang!*
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES 
Niggross
Niggross Hope you bois like the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.
Capítulo 245: Armoured Monsters
Anja watches with morbid facination as Afton executes Mark Dowager, and then proceeds to strip him clean and start looting his body... "W-what are you doing?" she asks, not having expected Afton to disgrace the man's body immediately after death.
Afton raises a brow at her, "This is combat armour and a well-maintained plasma rifle... Of course I'm going to take them!" he exclaims as if she were stupid for asking.
"Do you not care about the man?"
Afton shrugs noncomittally, "We met in the past briefly, we weren't close enough for me to really care about his fate. He'd probably appreciate the fact we weren't letting his stuff go to waste, I'll kill a couple monsters with his rifle for him I guess?" he says, checking that its loaded before picking it up off of the floor and hefting it onto his shoulder with his single hand.
Anja just shakes her head and decides to not talk about it any longer, it was clear Afton had almost no remorse for the terrible thing he was forced to do.
Afton walks out of the room and they continue to search about the floor, occasionally running into creatures that sprint at them like demented demons. During this time Afton got a chance to test out Mark's Plasma rifle, finding that his [Uncivilized weapon] Perk caused most things hit by it to explode into glowing green goo.
He'd just finished off his fourth plant monster when his shoulder was starting to ache... Taking the kick from the weapon and its weight all on one arm was tiring him out fairly quickly. With a sigh he just straps it over his shoulder so it can sit next to his completely unused Anti-Material rifle.
Fortunately, most of the plant monsters didn't seem to be on this floor, if what Anja suspected was true then there'd be thousands of those plant creatures wandering around, all of which seemed to be way stronger than regular humans were.
They continue and head down the next floor, but halfway down the stairs Afton almost slips and falls when he starts randomly coughing. He holds a fist over his mouth as he weathers the storm, but notices a small spatter of blood on his hand... That's not good.
"I wonder if this is what it feels like to have asthma?" he quips while wiping the blood on his hand onto his side of his recon armour. He then glances at Anja, "I don't think Ghouls are susceptible to this..." he says after seeing her have literally no changes since coming here.
"We can still leave if you want... We can seek help from someone on the surface."
Afton shakes his head, "Trust me Anja, I'd know if anyone up there could heal this kind of affliction. No, if I'm going to avoid becoming one of those things I need to help myself." he says as he stands and continues down the stairs.
Anja sighs and intones the same thing that'd almost become habit at this point, "Yes sir."
Eventually, they make their way through to the next floor after fighting through more ravenous plant monsters and reach the overseer's office. Afton peeks inside the room to see what 'boss creature' might be inside, as usual his 'spidey senses' were correct as he spotted three plant monsters inside... However, these were different...
Instead of being completely naked, they were wearing combat armour... They must be Mark's infected men, this is confirmed when he spots the Dowager Mercenary Group logo on the chest of one of the armours.
Afton looks to Anja and whispers, "Their helmets'll be annoying to deal with but we don't have much other choice... I doubt any impact our bullets will have on the armour will affect them in the least. Aim for their faces and pray they aren't as fast as the others." he states as he points That Gun at the left-most target that was facing him and just standing there like a humanoid tree.
"Fire."
*Bang!* *Bang!Bang!Bang!*
It seems the duo were very lucky as two instantly go down, Afton fires at the third but they were facing the other way, causing the bullets to slam against the helmet and doing little to no damage.
The monster doesn't even need to turn its head as it leaps in his direction, smashing That Gun out of his hand as it tries to bite into his neck. Afton struggles and wrestles against it, doing what he can with his single arm.
Ah, he just realised! He quickly activates VATS and uses [Living Anatomy] on the creature. He'd almost forgotten about it since these creatures were noting more than monsters... But, if they were formerly human then his Perk would work.
[Spore Carrier]
Health : 90%
Stamina : --%
DT : 19
Strength : 8
Perception : 3
Endurance : 8
Charisma : 1
Intelligence : 1
Agility : 10
Luck : 1
Ailments :
[Beauveria mordicana] : Fungus that infects its victims via spores and rapidly mutates their body to suit its needs. Reduces Intelligence, Charisma and Luck to 1, reduces Perception by 4 and blinds the afflicted. Grant +3 Strength, Endurance, and Agility. Afflicted will seek to produce and spread spores to other organic creatures.
...
Is that it? No weaknesses, no glowing red 'shoot here' sign?... Well... Afton looks at the Spore Carrier that was snarling at him a few inches away from his face, he was wondering if he'd have to injure himself again to try and overpower it...
He readies himself and deactivates VATS, slamming his foot down at its knee as hard as humanly possible. His strength combined with his unarmed skill allows him to utterly destroy the creature's leg, it's knee bending backwards with a loud *Crack!*.
Now with room to move he unsheathes his knife and slams it into the crusted over eyesocket on its face, penetrating and stabbing into its brain.
Afton breathes a sigh of relief and slumps against the back wall, trying to calm his nerves against getting torn apart from that creature... He glances towards the frozen Anja and smirks, "Thanks for your help..."
She frowns before shaking her head, "You said to only shoot it in the face... I probably would have killed you..."
"Then why not help push that thing off of me?"
"I-err... Oh yeah... Sorry." she mutters, having gotten so invested in shooting she'd forgotten about that.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES
Niggross
Niggross
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
Estado de energía semanal
200+ Ranking de
Poder 
9 Piedra de
Poder 
Comentario de párrafo