Gaming Life: Return to War of the Dead Finale

The other night we had our final game of the War of the Dead campaign. It’s rare that we finish a campaign, so this was a particular treat.

We pick up with our heroes deep inside the Center for Disease Control Headquarters in Atlanta. They had just escaped the main control room for the self-destruct system before it was overrun with the living dead after fighting with soldiers intent on setting it off. It had been armed just as the elevator doors, but the zombies had also just overtaken the room, so the heroes hoped that they might have taken out the soldiers as well.

Safe in the elevator, they push the button for Level 5, where they had left their allies in control of the main security operations centre. When the door opens, a security guard lies on the ground in front of them in a pool of blood, bite marks evident on his neck, another’s head and shoulders can be seen sprawled halfway out of the door to the ops control room. It is all quiet otherwise and no zombies can be seen.

Immediately, the cat burglar fires a burst into the chest of the guard in front of her. The others spread out, two moving quietly up toward the control room, the others flanking around the side corridor while the kid stays back at the elevator.

The other guard pops up when the burglar approaches and strikes at her. Already strained from almost being zombie lunch in the previous session, she’s slow and almost gets bit, but the mother moves up and deftly slips in behind the dead guard and slams her knife deep into its chest, puncturing its heart and spraying blood over the burglar. The zombie drops to the ground.

The lounge singer, held up by his daughter, peer around the corner in the hall and notice one of the lab techs who had just arrived a few minutes before them and was just as puzzled as them about what has happened. The only hint was the faint sound of keyboard strokes coming from the control room and now sounds of someone moving around in the room.

Suddenly, the floor is filled with the booming sound of alarms, “Self-destruct system initiated, 10 minutes to self-destruct. All personnel evacuate immediately. All personnel evacuate immediately.” Lights flash and klaxons sound. The nuke has been activated.

Peering around the corner, the burglar and wife notice feet vanish from a hole in the ceiling tiles above in the control room. Also, their FBI contact lies in a pool of blood on the floor and the CDC security commander is clearly dead, her neck snapped lying at an odd angle.

The burglar again moves in and fires off rounds into the commander’s body, ensuring she stays down. The FBI agent croaks out, “It’s Khan, get him!” They look at the screens and see that he has activated the self-destruct system and the monitors show hordes of the living dead pouring over the walls outside, overrunning the camps and the soldiers vainly trying to hold them back.

The technician moves over to the computer terminal and begins trying to cancel the self-destruct system, but keeps being locked out. Finally, he manages to add 10 minutes to the count-down, buying them more time.

As they investigate further, the kid by the elevator watches on and is surprised by someone dropping down on him from the ceiling. The kid rolls out of the way and looks up to see a strange face. Oddly rotted and wearing patient’s robes, but with an intelligence behind his eyes he snarls, “There’s a new evolution that is taking place, either you are part of it or you are part of the past. The last threat to it will die with this place along with you. As for me, my servants have cleared a path for me to leave, so I will say goodbye.” It’s Khan! Patient Zero for the plague, a former BioTech executive who had stolen a virus from the lab to sell to unknown parties. The heroes knew him originally as an elderly wheelchair bound man on the cruise ship, but learned that was his disguise and last saw him on an island after the cruise ship sank, having apparently recovered from the sickness and with superhuman strength and strange determination.

He steps back into the elevator and pushes the door close button.

The burglar, hearing this, sprints back to the elevator and slides in as the door is about to close. The kid grabs a wrench from his backpack and lodges it in the doorway.

Slamming into the back to the elevator, she pulls up her carbine and unloads on full automatic, riddling Khan’s body with bullets. But, he keeps coming, leaping on her, biting with a fury. The kid opens fire blasting the killer’s head, dropping him to the ground.

The klaxon continues to sound. The heroes regroup and the technician tells them that Dr. Oppenheimer has found a cure. They descend in the elevator to the Secure Labs, leaving Khan’s crumpled body in the corner.

They arrive to find Oppenheimer alive and well. She explains that she believes she has found the cure, but needs to test it. The burglar, burning up with fever already and covered in zombie bites, volunteers immediately. Oppenheimer points what looks like a modified cell phone at her and activates it. The burglar drops to the ground with spasms, convulsing and blood spilling out from every orifice.

The others look at the Doctor and ask, is this what’s supposed to happen? The doctor looks excited. She says, yes, that’s what I expected. The virus is shutting down and is trying to take her with it. Will she live, they ask? Probably not, the Doctor replies.

Meanwhile, the kid has stayed back by the elevator and is startled by an unnerving bang on the roof of the elevator. Then, Khan rises up and lunges toward the kid, biting at him. The kid dodges out of the way and races away. Just then, a zombie drops from the ceiling of the elevator, picks itself up and shambles toward the nearby group.

The herbalist turns and unleashes a full auto burst on Khan again, this time blasting his heart apart and ending him for good (they hope!). The zombie shambles forward just as another bang is heard in the elevator. They quickly dispatch them and try to close up the elevator ceiling access door.

Looking at their friend who had received the cure lying limp, they ask the doctor about the cure (good to ask after getting it!). She explains that the virus is in fact a nano-virus – microscopic robots with the ability to self-replicate. BioTech had created it trying to find a path to immortality. The nanites were designed to not only repair damage to the body (hence the zombie’s ability to regenerate), but improve it. Unfortunately, the project was not a total success at the time Khan stole it (the technicians had hidden information about it from the VPs).

In infecting a body, the fever caused brain damage that the nanites weren’t able to repair and led to the body returning to life with a reptilian brain focused on feeding and spreading the virus. Only a very, very small percentage kept their faculties intact (such as Khan). The nanites were very determined though and would regenerate any body that had an intact heart. And even that could be repaired given enough time (weeks), so the only way to permanently destroy a zombie is to burn it entirely.

The cure is simple, a microwave sending instructions to the nanites to shut down. She explains that since the zombies need the nanites to keep going, anyone fully infected will die once they receive the cure, but those who have not yet succumbed might survive, depending on how infected they are.

Further, she says, this cure could be spread throughout the world through satellites still functioning, they only have to transmit it and instructions to retransmit across the globe using the satellite uplink on the roof of the building.

The group pulls together and regroups in the elevator, heading up to the first floor (the highest this elevator goes to). The burglar comes conscious and the group sighs relief that she has survived. The doctor is fascinated.

The elevator door opens to the main floor and zombies fill the area. The kid races across the hall toward the stairs, finding more walking dead inside.

The burglar pushes forward, unleashing her carbine, taking a few of the closest down. The next second though, more move in and pull her down, tearing her to pieces.

The group pushes on, unleashing torrents of bullets clearing a path to the stairs and up them. As  they climb the stairs, the klaxon continues to sound. Even with the time they bought, they are now down to five minutes to self destruct.

One of the players asks, Hey, even if we get the cure out, aren’t we going to trapped in this building and all killed by the nuke? Good question. I had wondered how long until they realized this.

On the top floor, they emerge from the staircase and find only a couple zombies stumbling about.

The wife moves forward and quickly dispatches one of them, but is suddenly surprised as someone grabs her from behind and points a large pistol at her heard. It is Hell Furrie, a gang member they had encountered earlier and who has been hunting the lounge singer for a long-past betrayal of his gang. “I told you you would pay, and now you’re going to watch your wife die in front of your eyes before I kill you,” he calls out.

Before he can pull the trigger though, the kid gets a lucky shot off, killing Hell instantly. They easily take out the remaining zombie and arrive at the roof, only to find a helicopter there sitting on a landing pad.

There is only three minutes before the self-destruct goes off. The technician goes to work uploading the cure instructions and the rest pile into the helicopter, trying to get it started. They manage with seconds to go and the cure is uploaded. The technician loads into the helicopter which they have gotten going and lurch off the roof as hordes of zombies continue to mass below them.

The nuke goes off just as they make it outside the main blast radius, but the shock wave hits them and the rookie pilot can’t keep it in the air, the helicopter slams into the ground.

The next day, four survivors awaken and pull themselves from the wreck to find a strangely silent world, cured of the plague that had wreaked such destruction.

Here are the four who lived:

The Kid: Grandson of “The Cuke”, a retired firefighter who had died on the island confronting Khan.

Laura: Daughter of the lounge singer.

CDC Technician: Transmitter of the cure.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Creator of the cure.

None of the original PCs survived, but they succeeded overall and two of their family members survived. A brutal, but exciting end to the War of the Dead campaign.