fandomhigh | Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Thursday, Per 3

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survive the zombie apocalypse

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Thursday, Per 3

Class had been instructed to meet in the Danger Shop for the remainder of the semester, though when they walked in, they'd see it was set to the 'standard classroom' configuration. In fact, Liliana had no plans that required the Danger Shop at all today, but her planned classes included a mix of lectures and practical 'experiences.' And since it would be very obvious what type of class she had planned if they only ever met in the Danger Shop on practical days, they'd be meeting in the Danger Shop regardless of what type of class was on the agenda.

"Welcome back," Liliana said once class had begun. "We deviated from tradition last week by not having introductions--" which she generally considered a waste of class time anyway "--because it would have done us no good to attempt to affix names to faces when we all looked like ponies. Which means we're doing them this week. Please state your name, a useful skill set you believe you would bring to a post-apocalyptic community, and at least one way that either media or your own experience has taught you to kill, avoid, or fend off zombies. As I will then be explaining whether or not that course of action would be effective, at least against my types of ghouls, I would highly encourage you all to listen to one another's introductions. I'll give you this one for free, though: shooting a zombie in the brain? Isn't going to stop a single one."

Once that fun little round robin of class interaction was over, Liliana continued her lecture. "Today, we're going to be discussing the structure of the class. As was mentioned last week, this class is going to be more of a hands-on approach to surviving a post-apocalyptic scenario, one that involved an uprising of the undead. In it, you will be given different scenarios and objectives, and then it will be up to your various skills, tactics, and planning to survive. Hopefully, through these classes, you will either develop or further hone your ability to think quickly, to be decisive, to adapt, to communicate, and to cooperate. As this is a post-zombie apocalypse, zombies will likely be present as an environmental hazard if nothing else, adding additional obstacles and time pressures. That being said, the focus of the class is primarily "how can I and possibly others survive?" not "how can I fix this whole scenario?" I'm not saying you won't have opportunities to end the zombie menace, at least for the duration of a class period, but I would advise you not to expect them." But it did sometimes make for an important friction point: attempt the sure thing that will increase your odds of survival, or attempt the very risky thing that may solve everything...or may leave you in an even more precarious position than you were in before.

"Now, a note about powers. Some of you have them. Some of you have powers that are particularly useful for this type of class even, even. I am not going to forbid you from using them. I am however, going to institute a rule that you are not allowed to use your powers on behalf of anybody else. Your powers can serve you and you alone. If what you're going to do will directly benefit anybody beyond yourself, do not do it. I am not intending to hamstring teamwork, but I want you all to get a better idea of what you, personally, are capable of.

"Honestly, if this were a real post-apocalyptic scenario, the smartest thing to do would be to have Summer use her portal gun to get you off the island, or, say, have Illyana teleport necessary supplies back to survivors. And, if there is a real emergency and you don't take the fastest option to remove yourself to safety and die to stupid heroics instead, I will be very cross with you and will give genuine consideration to raising you back up long enough to blister your ears with a lecture." Was she looking very hard at one Mr. Jonathan Sims at that? If he was present, then yes she absolutely was.

"But, as tactically sound as those options are, they don't actually teach anything. We are simulating dangerous situations now so that if you find yourself in real danger in the future, you have better odds of surviving, even if you don't have access to helpful magics or advanced technology. It is for that reason that I'm also suggesting people with powers minimize usage even on their own behalf, at least if you are trained and confident in them. Again, that isn't something I will be enforcing, nor will it have an effect on your grade, but this is an opportunity to learn, which means trying things you are not already proficient at. I will be much less impressed by someone who can breeze through a scenario because they have the right combination of gadgets, powers, and/or technology than by someone who failed it, but demonstrated creativity, effort, or learning. Any questions?"

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Jon...wasn't sure about that compliment, but he supposed he would take it.

He listened avidly as Liliana described the rest, and was actually disappointed when she stopped.

He nodded. "If it collapses, then it's likely either feral, from a less competent necromancer, or from a necromancer who doesn't care as much about it. Which means...I suppose it means the best tactic for the time being is to take on the zombies on their own. If it keeps coming after me, then..." He huffed. "Well, first it means I need to run faster. But apart from that, it means there's a competent necromancer behind this who knows what they're doing, which means that apart from staying out of the way, the priority becomes trying to take out the necromancer."

Well, he could always ask--no. He could always inform her about his curiosity; Liliana needed very little prodding to continue discussing the intricacies of ghoulcalling.

See? And now Liliana was beaming at him. "Precisely," she said, not even qualifying that. "Excellently answered, darling."

Jon smiled back, honestly relieved that he'd done well.

"I'm curious - you said snakes can sometimes produce venom, and I'd like to know if there's a reason why only sometimes. If there are things that make it more likely."

"My best guess - and, to be clear, this isn't something I've really looked into since my Witherbloom days, so my information is easily a hundred fifty years out of date - but there are two potential reasons. The first, is that snakes that are older, bigger, and smarter, are more likely to also retain their venom-producing capabilities. So there may genuinely be some kind of self-identification at play. A snake that has used its venom more often may trigger the mana to also return its venom glands to semi-working order. Also, it takes time and energy for living snakes to produce venom, it takes even more time and energy and magic to create venom. Venom creation is a very complicated chemical process and most of the complicated processes aren't ignored in creatures being brought back as undead. So, without enough mana to not only bring the snake back as a zombie but also to stimulate venom production, it just won't. Sort of how a ship in space that loses power will immediately turn life support back on, and will only focus on other things once they know they have enough energy to sustain life support."

Jon nodded. "So it has to do with both the snake's...self-image, for lack of a better term, and the skill and power level of the necromancer. Now I'm curious about beings that have powers and how being brought back affects them in these scenarios. Like, erm..." he looked around the room and grabbed the example nearest to hand, "if Illyana was made into a zombie." He winced apologetically at her.

"Oh yes," Liliana nodded. "If Illyana died, she could be raised back up as either a powerless zombie or one that retains access to some percent of her powers, as determined by the necromancer. Though, I've found that to keep using their powers, most zombies must keep a at least a fraction of their formal selves. Unless, of course," a smug little smile played over her mouth, "your necromancer is very, very good indeed."

Edited 2025-09-15 01:10 (UTC)

"Because if they don't understand their powers and how to use them, they wouldn't be able to, unless the necromancer knew that and could substitute their own will and knowledge for the zombie's. If I have that right."

She grinned at him. "You do."

A moment, so that he could bask in being correct before she continued. "So, for example, I would need to keep at least a bit of Illyana because I don't have the faintest notion of how her powers work, but if I were to ghoul a diviner or a wizard from my own Multiverse, I could raise clean slates if I wished. I may not be a diviner or a wizard or know their spells, but I know how their mana works and that's enough."

Jon was absolutely basking.

He nodded. "Now I'm curious if they can access their own mana once dead, or if they use yours and somehow convert it. I'm guessing the former." Though the latter was intriguing.

~~Trying to translate Magic mechanics is hard~~

"Both actually," Liliana said. "To continue the Illyana analogy, if I raise her as herself, she will retain an understanding of how to access mana. Otherwise, they use mine. Mana distribution and using it effectively is incredibly important to winning any battle, especially early on."

Jon perked up. "So if you raised a red mana wizard just enough to be there but not to have their knowledge, they could do things they normally would, but they would be somehow converting your black mana into red mana, or...or mimicking the things the red mana would do with the black." He hastily changed that into a statement rather than a question. He was getting excited, but some lessons he tried never to forget.

Wise, Jon. There were some lessons she only taught once.

"They wouldn't be able to access any of their red mana spells unless I also provided red mana to them," Liliana explained. "So even if my zombie wizard had the ability to cast fireballs, he'd just be another zombie rending tooth and nail unless I could supply him red."

Jon frowned. "I thought you could only access black."

Liliana waggled her hand. "Technically any spellcaster can tap any color mana, but they can't use it to cast spells if they're not the right color. What good is a boatload of green mana for me, if I only have black spells? And, if I've used a great deal of magic and then end up somewhere that has no black mana, I will start feeling the effects of mana drain. So it's easier shorthand to say, 'I can only use black mana' because, functionally, that's true. However, in a Rakdos Carnarium, black and red mana is so intertwined, you end up drawing on both when you tap into it. So I could use the black for my own spells and shunt the red to my wizard, I could use red in addition to black to cast other spells if they have any general mana requirements not specifically associated with a color, or if I had a spell that required both red and black, or I could let it dissipate harmlessly into the aether, unused."

She gave a rueful smile. " It wasn't always harmless. There was a phenomenon called mana burning, where if you tapped into more mana than you could properly use at once, any mana remaining ~~during your end step~~ would harm you.

"That makes sense," Jon said. "Though it sounds like you're saying that's not the case anymore."

Liliana shook her head. "About sixty years ago, my Multiverse underwent something called the Mending that rewrote some of the fundamental flaws of the universe. Mana burn was one of them."

And she was totally normal and fine about the Mending. Totally.

"Huh. I'm curious if you know what caused it."

Don't suppose you could rewrite his universe with it?

She crooked a smile at him. "Would you like to take a guess at one of the contributing factors?"

C'mon, Jon, you could guess.

"Urza," Jon guessed.

"Correct," Liliana said. "The tears that he and some few others ripped in time started unraveling reality, at least on Dominaria. As Dominaria was, at that point, the Multiversal Nexus, that unraveling would have extended out to the rest of the Multiverse. So a group of do-gooder Planeswalkers got together and sacrificed their lives or their sparks to close the time rifts, stop the mana drain and save the Multiverse. And the result was the Mending."

"So Dominaria was like the Fandom of your multiverse," Jon observed. "That...that's a bit worrying, given all the portals we use around here."

"Mmm, in a way," Liliana said. "Because we didn't get visitors from other times--" except via the time rifts "--or planes--" except Planeswalkers "--the way Fandom does, though what happens on Dominaria can influence other planes. It's still relatively hypothetical how a Nexus operates, but we think it's probably connected with a large amount of leylines flowing into it from other planes. That lets it quickly regenerate its supplies of mana, which was why Dominaria didn't collapse entirely, and most likely is how it affects other planes. We are fairly certain that the collapse of the Nexus would result in a catastrophic collapse of the timestream."

She hummed. "I don't know if we've discovered where the new Nexus is located." Probably because the old Planeswalkers who paid attention to that kind of thing had died at some point during or after the Mending. "But I do not that there are planes older than Dominaria, which means the Nexus was once somewhere else, too. Equilor, possibly?"

Jon had no input on that, unfortunately. "I'm curious if there are studies about how the energy flows between planes, and if you've noticed the same sorts of phenomena here."

For no reason at all. Just natural curiosity on how things moved from one world to another.

No such luck, Jon.

"I'm presuming leylines that cross through the Blind Eternities the way that they do on physical planes, but that's the extent of my knowledge. You're outside my area of expertise, darling."

Jon sighed in disappointment, but he gave her a small smile. "I'm surprised there's a limit. Even if it did take a while to find it."

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Thursday, Per 3

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