fandomhigh | Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Thursday, Per 3

Class met at the Danger Shop, but rather than the standard classroom sim, they were standing on Loon Drive, right outside of the school walls, next to the junkyard. Waiting patiently were several rickshaws, bicycles, and other non-vehicular means of conveyance. Look, Liliana didn't want to walk around the island, she wouldn't blame her students for not wanting to, either.

"Congratulations, class," she said. "Most of you survived last week's onslaught, and several of you came up with creative means to do so, or used skills you were not used to. Today's assignment is a bit different. It's time for you to find a place to hole up. In most circumstances, you would be limited to whichever building you were either in or could get to when the zombies began attacking. Perhaps, by being very quiet or clever or lucky, you would be able to sneak somewhere else and better fortified. Today, however, you will have the chance to explore the entire island uninterrupted by zombies. Your task, then, is to find the best place to build a base in, the worst place to build a camp in, why you have decided on both of those options, and at least two safety concerns your potential base comes with and how you plan to mitigate them. You are free to explore on your own, or buddy up. There are, however, some caveats."

None of you had thought it was going to be that easy, right?

"There are a few changes to the usual places on the island. There are no sanctuary spells anywhere. Neither the dorms nor Caritas are magically protected, and neither is anywhere else, which includes the school, the school library, and the boarding house." Also anywhere else that there had been magic that she hadn't known about, because when she'd been putting things into the sim, she hadn't included magic for any of it. "Furthermore, special technologies have been disabled. Luke's no longer has a freezer large enough to require a tram service. The junkyard no longer has spaceships. The Danger Shop in the school, the Holoscene, and any other similar rooms no longer work. And, of course, neither my home or my shop exist on this version of the island. 'Go to the necromancer's house' is an excellent idea, assuming that said necromancer is not behind the invasion in the first place, but I am not in the mood for guests."

The Causeway was also disabled, but Liliana didn't mention that.

"Several important notes. The first is that there are zombies in the preserve and on the school grounds, so simply shutting the school gates and waiting for them to go away will not work. You're still welcome to potentially set up camp in any of the school locations, I just wanted to be clear that it wouldn't be so simple as that. Second is to pay attention to numbers. Some of you may find places suitable for just one person to hide. Some of you may want to take over the largest area you can find. Both extremes carry their own benefits and dangers, including the possibility that you might end up gaining or losing people, and that could seriously affect the safety and integrity of your chosen spots. Keep flexibility in mind, as well as your own basic needs, and, of course, safety from a threat that does not tire or give up."

She pointed to the park, where there was already a charming little picnic set up. "You all have forty-five minutes to explore. Please return to the park when you're ready to discuss what you've found."

And with that, she was heading towards the picnic to settle down and see what her class discovered.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The school is the highest point on the island," Erasmus said, "plus it's a castle, which is usually designed to be defensible. But it's too big for one person to defend alone, and it's been modified to be used as a school. It has multiple entrances and exits, stuff like that. So it wouldn't be a great safehouse for one person, but if I was with a group it might be a good choice."

"How big a group?" Liliana asked, interested in hearing what Erasmus could do now that he was able to concentrate. "And how do you intend to keep the multiple points of ingress and egress safe?"

"You'd want to block most of them off," Erasmus said. "Maybe with the bookcases from the library. Actually, if there's a ladder that can reach the second floor windows in the janitor's closet or something, I'd block off all of the doors and windows on the first floor, and plan to go out from the second floor if necessary. If not, I'd leave one window on each side of the building easier to unbarricade than the others.

"You'd need at least three or four people to keep watch shifts. If you're alone you can't be constantly checking out all the windows of the higher floors to see if there's a bunch of zombies coming your way. The lighthouse is probably better if you're alone, but if there's a bunch of people trying to get to the lighthouse it's going to exceed capacity fast. The school has the food in the cafeteria kitchen, too." ~~Guess who looked at the map and learned anew that we have a cafeteria?~~

~~Guess who learned today we have a map!~~

"The availability of food is important," Liliana agreed. "And only gets moreso the more people you have and the longer you survive. So..." she pulled up a rough schematic of the school, because obviously she had that to reference. "Show me your plan. How would you organize a camp if you were in charge?

"I'd mostly stay on the second floor," Erasmus said as he studied the floorplan. "There's probably something like couches or something in the teacher's lounge, and maybe the TA lounge, so I would try to move those upstairs for sleeping. Assuming the Home Ec room has refrigeration and we still have power, I would move everything from the kitchen up there. If we have a way to get out through the second floor I would barricade off the staircases. And I'm not sure why the fourth floor is inaccessible, but ideally we could gain access to it. The higher up you can get, the better you can see what's happening on the rest of the island."

Liliana nodded, those were good thoughts. "And if you knew that you'd lose electricity and water in a week, what would you do to prepare that for that?"

"Start saving water in anything you could, first off," Erasmus said. "Second...I don't know. If the stoves are gas, I know you can still light them with a match if you don't have electricity, but then maybe you lose gas. Or maybe I don't have matches." It wasn't like they were among the plethora of small items he usually had in his pockets, at any rate. "Definitely you'd have to prioritize eating the perishable food first. Like after a hurricane." Gulf Coast boy.

Maybe he should add them! Never knew when there might be a zombie apocalypse!

Unfortunately, Liliana also didn't know how gas stoves interfaced with electricity (though she was making a mental note to ask Ignis later). "Anything else you would prioritize in the little time before you fully retreated to the above floors?"

"Books," Erasmus said. "And weapons, if there are any to be found. There's bound to be useful information in some of the books, like how we can make weapons out of the stuff in the chemistry lab. Or how to collect rainwater, if it comes to that. I don't know that it should come to that. This is a small island. Unless we're importing zombies from somewhere there are..." Hang on, he was doing addition in his head. "[Precise, handwavey number] of bodies currently on the island." After a moment's thought he added, "And that might include some cremains, I don't know. Even if you add most of the population to that, it's not an endless horde. Hopefully it can be cut down before things get really dire."

(Hey, guess who just discovered she never posted this comment?)

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Thursday, Per 3

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