NOVEL NEXT 2 – Gaze of the Void
["Sometimes life is about risking everything for a dream no one can see but you."]
Gazing upon the Human before him with a gun pointed toward his body, Zeref wondered what would drive this human to do something so stupid when the being before him is clearly not a human.
The man looked around the store as if looking for someone before his eyes stopped upon my floating form.
"Why should I, human?" Zeref asked as his ethereal voice echoed out from his inhuman form as he floated down gently from his meditative pose until he was standing on the ground.
As Zeref gazed upon the robber, he watched as the man went from nervousness to confusion, to fear, upon hearing and seeing Zeref's form.
Receiving no response from the man, Zeref waved his hand and called forth one of the many spells in his repertoire, The Gaze of the Abyss. This relatively simple spell tore a hole in reality that revealed the abyss, the void where unimaginable horrors lurked and called home.
When the man gazed into the void, his body and scared expression froze in horror. Turning to look at the tear, Zeref noticed a great many eyes and faceless maws peering through the tear in hunger, wanting to tear through the dimensional membrane that kept the horrors from escaping into reality.
Incomprehensible whispers and mutterings flowed through the tear into the cafe, ridding the cafe of the silence.
Moments passed as I tried to understand the incomprehensible mutterings coming from the tear before Zeref shook his head and waved his hand, closing the portal.
Turning back to the man, Zeref could only see the man's back as he dashed out of the cafe in fear.
Standing still for several moments, Zeref shook his head and then returned to the Mental Realm to finish up his project and get to work on Fallout 2 as soon as possible.
Once Zeref was back in the mental realm, he got to work with the Pipboy, a large wrist-mounted computer that would allow the players to level up and keep track of quests, a detailed map, their inventory, and more.
Then came a conundrum, whether to use the old system from the First Fallout or one of the Systems used in the later games.
For example, in Fallout 4, each stat had ten perks under them. Depending on the player's stat, the Player could unlock a perk of the same stat level, such as a Strength of 10, allowing the unlocking of the 10th Strength Perk: Pain Train, but if the player did not have the strength requirement, they would not be able to purchase the perk. This system also completely removed Skills and Skill checks, making it different from all the other games. Each game before Fallout 4 had a somewhat similar system in which the players could level up, raise skills, and unlock perks.
After a few minutes of thinking about it, Zeref shook his head and decided to create a new system that combined all of the systems to make one system that has the best of all the systems.
Floating above the small town that would grow to become a Wasteland Superpower, Shady Sands, the town that would rise to become the New California Republic, or simply the NCR, Zeref tinkered over this new system.
This system would, upon starting the game, allow the player to choose two traits and three tag skills that would boost the skill by 15 points and their stats with five extra stat points to either raise one of their S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills to 10 or raise one of their stats past five, of course, the players could also lower one of their S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats from the default of five to lower to gain more points to distribute elsewhere. Still, these stats would have quite an impact on the body and minds of players.
[SPECIAL: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck]
There were 30 Skills in total that the player could raise.
For Combat or self-defense, there were: Bladed Weapons, Blunt Weapons, Throwing Weapons, Pole Arms, Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Unarmed, Stealth, and Guerrilla Tactics.
For technical skills, there were: Engineering, Robotics, Biology, Computers, Construction, Tailoring, First Aid, Surgery, Hacking, Lockpicking, Repair, Barter, and Persuasion.
As for survival skills, there were: Foraging, Butchering, Cooking, Trapping, Farming, and Husbandry.
To unlock the maximum level of every skill listed would cost 3,000 Skill Points, which would require 200 levels if a player earned 15 skill points for every level.
Every two levels, a player could unlock a perk. With each level, the health, stamina, and toughness of the player would increase, as well as the longer the player can go without needing to eat, drink, or sleep.
Once Zeref was done with setting up the foundation of the system, he got to work on Perks, Traits, Challenge Perks, and Quest Perks.
After adding what felt like hundreds of possible Perks and dozens of traits, Zeref still felt like the players should get a great amount of freedom when it comes to their lives and playstyles in the wasteland due to the wide array of choices they could make in regards to their perks.
As for challenge perks and quest perks, there were not many of them.
Challenge Perks required a goal or challenge to be completed before a player would be rewarded with a perk.
For example, the Challenge: Bug Stomper, which granted the Bug Stomper I, II, and III a perk that grants a small percentage of bonus damage against Mutated Insects.
And Quest Perks are much more specific, especially with how a player would go to completing the quest, and for the first two games, Zeref didn't plan on adding more than a few quest perks.
With a few more finishing touches, Zeref completed the last part of the game and, with the help of the mental realm, set up the possible endings so that the players could see the consequences of their actions.
Going over the game once again to make sure he didn't miss anything, Zeref saved the game and made it available on the computers of the cafe and left the mental realm, returning to the cafe.
Now, he only needed to set the price to actually play the game and set up a time acceleration inside the game to allow the players too many days inside the game before a single session would end.
After some thought, Zeref set the price of a session to $50 per hour and set the time acceleration inside the game to 100 days for every hour, plenty of time to experience the world of Fallout without completing the first game, that is, if the player doesn't die, however. If they were to die, they'd have two options before them, either restart or exit the game.
And if they were to run out of time, they'd be given the option to save what progress they have made and exit the game by force, if needed.
Once they resume their journey, however, they will not be able to use the save upon death.
Zeref had no intentions of going easy on the players. If they wanted to beat the game, then they required luck and skill. Else they will perish and have to start their journey over and try again.
Zeref wanted to give the players an incredibly realistic experience, and that includes the six senses, the feeling of pain, hunger, thirst, and most importantly, death.
Sure, this might seem sadistic for Zeref to do. Still, he felt that if someone wanted to become better through the use of his games and his cafe, then they would have to do it either the hard way using their blood, sweat, and tears or fork over their monetary possessions until they eventually go broke from how expensive some things in the store will be, and even then, Zeref is going to restrict the purchase of many things to only credits to prevent the rich from dominating those putting in the hard work to rise.
Although Zeref hasn't been in this world for long, he does have access to the internet and was easily able to tell that the world was a combination of two dangerous universes that, frankly, had way too many dangers for his liking, the Marvel and DC Universes.
As for which specific universe, Zeref has no idea.
It could be the Cinematic versions of the two universes or one of the many comic versions. Either way, it certainly will be entertaining for Zeref and dangerous.
Humming to himself in the Cafe, Zeref focused on the Cafe.
He currently only had a few items for sale in the Cafe, which the system also gifted him to help start off.
A few stimpacks(various kinds), Sierra Madre Martinis', Nuka Cola(various kinds), Battle Brew, Fallout Mystery Box, Blast Shards, Conduit Awakening Serum, and even a Ray Sphere, which Zeref immediately removed from the list of items available for purchase.
You could see a Ray Sphere as a weapon or tool to activate Conduits, people with a dormant Conduit gene, and lethally sicken everyone else, the Ray Sphere, if used by a Conduit strong enough, could cause a catastrophic event, killing all humans on the earth, leaving only those with the Conduit gene left on the planet, not to mention just one of these exploding in Infamous 1 caused all kinds of problems.
So, of course, Zeref did not want anyone or anything getting their hands on the Ray Sphere.
Zeref wonders why the system would even gift him such a thing. He'd much rather get a G.E.C.K. instead of the Ray Sphere, and once people found out what the G.E.C.K.S could do, then it would be completely possible for Humanity to start colonizing the Sol System and possibly fixing much of the planet.
Zeref assumed that if someone like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne obtained a G.E.C.K., they could eventually reverse engineer it and use the Terraforming technologies to do a lot more good.
However, if someone evil obtained a G.E.C.K. and didn't know how to use it properly...it would not be pretty. The G.E.C.K. could terraform the land into pretty much anything, given time, energy, data, the proper programming, and the proper biomatter to begin the process. Mess with any of these, and quite a few bad things can happen, such as destroying the GECK, completely destroying the ecosystem to the point nothing can inhabit it, or mutating the ecosystem to become so hostile aliens would probably just bomb it from orbit.
Leaving only the Fallout-related items for sale, Zeref removed the other items from the shelf and glass display case that makes up one side of his counter and stored them away in the system.
He won't add the items back to the shelves until he introduces the Infamous franchise to this world. Even then, he may still be hesitant to do so.
With nothing left to do, he entered the mental realm once again, this time to start on the creation of Fallout 2.
Zeref wonders when he'll ever get another customer again. Perhaps he should go outside?
...No, it's much more comfortable in the store. Besides, he'd rather not have to deal with Batman or any of the other kinds of heroes who have a fetish for either imprisoning foreign entities going on about their daily lives or trying to recruit them into their foolish 'Cause.'
And even if that didn't happen, he had no doubt they would try to make a move on his store once they find out about it.
Question is, will they even have the strength and power necessary to interfere with him and his Cafe?