Glitch

Fluffles hissed at the oncoming monsters, "What are these things?" Her claws scratched at one of the creature's eyes, causing a blind effect as she kicked it back into another one, knocking them both over.

"I dunno if they're dead, but call them zombies. Easier to remember and less confusing," Detrix stabbed through one of them, slashing out the side of its chest as she brought the sword up and cleaved off the arms of one trying to grab her.

Ashfire lobbed a couple of grenades into the dark rooms, hoping to clear out anything else that might be hiding. The explosions hit something as moans or cries of pain were heard. "Now we know where the scientists were."

"Are we sure humans are the good guys in urban?" Cynthes asked, shooting lightning at the creatures. "If I was a higher level, I could have better electric spells than this simple bolt spell."

One of the zombies managed to close in on Doctor0 as she pulled out her scalpel and hit a button on the side of it. The handle extended, making it as long as a spear, while the blade started to glow green, powered by steampunk tech, and slew the approaching zombie.

"What the hell is that thing," Cynthes asked, looking at the weird weapon in Doctor0's hand.

"Apparently, it's called a scalpear," Doctor0 uses one of the needles on herself, buffing her attack to support Fluffles and Detrix better.

One of Ashfire's grenades accidentally blew the zombie's top half towards her. The zombie's fingers became sharp claws as the creature latched onto her arm. "Watch out their claws are poisonous!"

Fluffles' knee smashed into the zombie's back, causing the paralysis effect of the back attack to occur. With the zombie paralyzed, Ashfire managed to shake the creature off and crush its head under her boot. Doctor0 rushed over and inject an antidote into Ashfire to prevent hazardous effects from the zombie's poison.

Cynthes grabbed an approaching zombie, electrifying it in her hands before throwing it at the others and zapping them all at once, "I believe that's the last of them."

"I sure hope so," Fluffles got up and stretched.

"What does the quest say now?" Ashfire asked. They could help with the quest, gain exp, and money as if they took it themselves. However, any information stayed with the player who took the quest.

"Make contact with headquarters is the next step, which means we're gonna get ambushed once we try to leave the building," Detrix answered as she shook her head. "After these experiments, I guess humans aren't the good guys in this world."

"Are there ever good guys in Urban?" Doctor0 joked.

The group headed over to the elevator and reluctantly hit the button to summon the elevator. "It's not opening automatically," Detrix noticed.

"I don't know zombies could use elevators," Cynthes said with a sigh.

As the elevator opened, Ashfire threw a cluster of grenades into it. The group was certain that the elevator wouldn't get destroyed, or they would be soft locked underground. They finished off the weakened zombies, and as they expected, the elevator was fine.

"G, Ground floor, come on, work!" Fluffles demanded, constantly hitting the button as it wouldn't light up, and soon moved past the floor, "where are we going?"

"Probably the roof, the most thematic place," Detrix guessed.

The door opened once it reached the roof, and as everyone got off, the elevator closed, heading back down. "I guess now I contact our quest giver, but," Fluffles took out a phone, dangling it between her claws. "They never told me how this thing works."

"Here," Detrix took the phone and dialled the number, "talk through this end, listen through the other."

"Ohh, cool." Fluffles held it to her ear, "I hear a ringing, and it's annoying."

"Hello, what news, news, news do you have of the lab?" The quest giver asked.

"Huh? Oh right, everyone turned to monsters, and we obtained a weird green glowing object that doesn't seem to be from this world," Fluffles responded, noticing the odd repeating words.

"Please bring it back immediately. We'll send, send, send a helicopter to extract you ASAP." The quest giver announced before the call ended.

"What is going on with the repeat words?" Fluffles asked her allies.

"Repeating words? I don't like what it means," Ashfire stated.

"We have problems," Cynthes announced, standing near the edge, "we have a problem?"

"That the zombies are coming up using the elevator again and probably the emergency stairs?" Ashfire asked.

"Well, that, and they're climbing up the side of the building," Cynthes announced, looking at multiple zombies running out of the houses and heading towards the building.

"What!" Fluffles ran to the edge, looking down at them. "This isn't fair."

The zombie's claws were strong enough to pierce the side of the building, allowing them to scale it. Ashfire and Cynthem started launching attacks from the roof onto the zombies below, hoping to slow their ascent. Ashfire was dropping cluster grenades down, blowing the monsters off the side of the building as they crashed onto the ground, only to be crushed underfoot by the hordes.

As Cynthes used lightning to strike the zombies, she wasn't much more than a nuisance to the monsters. She lacked the level to learn the AOE spells needed to fight off such hordes, there was one spell at her disposal, but since this game didn't have a mana system, so to balance the destruction mages could cause, powerful spells had a usage limit per quest. She wanted to save her area of attack spell for the right moment.

Fluffles and Detrix fought off any zombies climbing up the stairs. Utilizing the two orbs of Flame and Thunder, they managed to hold off the zombies with Doctor0's buffs and heals. Since bodies disappeared when killed, Fluffles injured them instead, blinding them by slashing out their eyes and knocking them back down the stairs, colliding with more enemies and temporarily halting their advance. When the inured zombies continued their adance, Detrix cut them down.

Despite the overwhelming numbers, things were going well for the group, but when the elevator came up with more monsters on it, Ashfire threw a grenade over, hoping to slow the new group of enemies down. However, more zombies were climbing the building as they started to reach the top.

Fluffles ran from the stairs to the side of the building, leaping over to kick one of the zombies off the edge. Another zombie made a swipe at her, but she side-stepped around it and sabbed the back of its neck.

Cynthes was getting pushed back as her spells couldn't hold back the hordes. As more zombies reached the top of the building, she started casting her only AOE spell. Eldritch Call was a skill unique to Eldritch magic casters. It was the second spell they learned and had only one use with its damage based on the user's level.

A portal opened up in front of the zombies with two red eyes looking from the darkness. Tentacles shot out, grabbing and thrashing about, destroying anything they could reach. It was spectacular animation, but the damage wasn't substantial. The reason Cynthes saved this spell was when the tentacles receded, the creature within the portal let out a ghastly wail, causing a knockback effect. However, the knockback effect never happened.

As Flufles got ready to dodge another attack, the enemy stopped moving. The monsters still made a groaning noise but nothing else. Even her allies stopped moving.

"What's going on?" Fluffles asked, walking around when suddenly her health dropped as she was surrounded by zombies, "Hissss, What the!"

"LAG!" Ashfire shouted, the lag causing the grenade to stay in her hand as it blasted her off the skyscraper, instantly killing her character.

Cynthes' spell did go off, knocking more zombies off the edge than expected, but it didn't matter now since the zombies had already swarmed her character, and in another moment, she was slain.

Doctor0's character was already dead as the zombies from the elevator had gotten up and swarmed her character, killing the healer. Only Detrix and Fluffles were left to fight off the horde.

"To be killed by lag, I'm complaining when this is over," Detrix seethed, rushing to assist Fluffles.

"What is lag?" Fluffles asked as Detrix and herself were surrounded.

"Tell you after," Detrix replied as she poured holy water on her blade, hoping to deal some more damage, but as she feared, these monsters weren't actually dead. The creatures had mutated and only looked like zombies without being them. Fluffles charged with Detrix, her claws slashing away as they prepared to go down fighting.

As they fought, Fluffles could hear the extraction helicopter, bringing the mission to an end. However, when they rushed to the extraction point to board the chopper, Fluffles and Detrix found themselves teleported back into the middle of the zombies, becoming overwhelmed as the mission had failed.