Return to the Fallen City

I cannot express enough how amazing and wonderful it was to be able to put on this game and have so many great players in it. You all made this 3-Day game one of the best we've ever had! Though the final mission was a catastrophic failure for Humans at 100% infection rate, our 15th anniversary celebration was a major success. Despite all the back end mod chaos that ended up happening, this was one of my favorite games I've ever written with a mod squad I'm very proud of.

In 2010 Meagan (the Assistant) had planned on continuing the storyline from the first few games (2 prequel games and 1 full weeklong), but ended up not being able to before leaving HvZ. And ever since I became a moderator in 2013, I thought how great would it be to eventually make a sequel to the very first game I played. So when we came up on our 15th anniversary I knew what we needed to do. We needed to return to the fallen city and try again.

This was a year long labor of love to write and build, and a gift to my real life best friend who helped start the game that's been such a gigantic part of my life. The tears I shed during briefings were very real, as strong and in character as I tried to be, but that's just a testament to how important the time I've spent in this game has been to me. HvZ brought me my best friends, my loves, and a whole lot of joy in my life I can't quantify.

When I was a freshman in fall of 2009, playing my very first game of this weird and wonderful new thing called Humans vs. Zombies, if you had told me then that I would spend the next 15 years of my life playing, creating, and nurturing this game and the people in it, I don't know what I would say to that.

Right now, though, I say thank you. Thank you for giving your time and energy to this thing I love so much. See you next time.

Brains! - Shannon

Devastating. Again. I forgot how deep the mourning goes after a catastrophic failure.

I felt so sure we'd do it this time, after so much prep, having so many willing recruits giving their all. I thought we had learned from our past mistakes. I'm trying to remind myself that every mission has the same potential to fail. It doesn't stop the hurt though. Losing just one recruit is too many, but to lose them all. I have a lot of people to ask for forgiveness.

Right from the beginning recruits started dropping and right from the beginning we were fighting him. The whole time we were in the infection zone the Lab was building another monster. They did create a new monarch: the Zombie King. They must have been working on him for a while. Unless they knew what was going to happen during this operation and expedited his creation with that air drop of mutagen. I thought I had covered my tracks, but maybe they knew my plan. We did screw up that first night with the cameras. To them, this was just more bodies to feed to the horde. And to us this was a devastating punishment.

The trek to the old Aerosolizer was tough, but we did well with all the manpower and firepower we had. The plan of attack we implemented was hunkering down in a main group while runner groups gathered what was needed to rebuild. It was easier than we thought to build it, but every runner group got picked off eventually. Then the main group fell one by one. In the end, we got the Aerosolizer half built before the main group crumbled and the cure destabilized.

Ultimately, we were caught by surprise by what the Zombie King was capable of. Where the Zombie Queen only communicated with the zeds, the King could resurrect them on a mass scale. With both the Medic and King using their mutations, we were overwhelmed with waves of them. In all the Lab trials I know of, I'd never seen this. The mutations seem to be getting more powerful, but I hope this is the peak of what we'll ever see from the Lab.

The survivor's guilt is heavy. I've been analyzing all the missions over and over in hopes that maybe this will never happen again. But we were the ones who were able to be evacuated, and we couldn't save anyone else. Neither of us spoke the entire way to the safehouse. Neither of us have left our beds much since. I could tell myself that continuing the fight against the Lab falls on us, it's our responsibility and we wouldn't wish that on anyone else. But that will never mean those that perished weren't important enough to live.

With this failure weighing on us, we'll have to go into hiding. The Lab will be after us. I had hoped a victory would put an end to them. We'd win support after curing the last infected zone and then expose the Lab's evils. But instead we led 71 people to their deaths. We'll probably have more than just the Lab looking for us.

There was one victory though, albeit a personal one. I did start my opening brief to the recruits with a declaration that I was there on a rescue mission. Rescue mission successful. My best friend is safe once again, but there are wholly different dangers to deal with now. I said she'd no longer have to run, which ended up being not true. But at least we can run together now. At least she's no longer alone.

[Operation: Return to the Fallen City Dates: 3/1 - 3/3/2024 Status: Mission Failure Deceased: 71 Alive: 2 End Operation]

March 2nd, 2024. 11:35pm

After 14 years of waiting, of heartbreak, convincing the Lab to trust me and finally getting myself back to the infected zone. All of that work. We succeeded. We found her and she is finally safe.

Heavy zed presence made it difficult to get to the bunkers (yes bunkersss) and I was right, that Traitor Medic did show his now zombified face. The lengths some people will go through for the Lab is disgusting, I'll never understand it. He gave up his entire humanity just for them, and for what? Glory? Power?

I was terrified that all hope was lost at one point, walking into that first bunker, finding that skeleton, desperately trying to figure out how it was that I was seeing activity from the Assistant all these years, but being met with human remains and a goodbye letter. I won't lie to the history books and say I didn't break down for a moment, but amazingly she left me a subtle clue letting me know that instead of Ruby Diamond, she could be found at Dodd. And we did find her, safe but tired. So tired from all those years of running.

But she won't have to run anymore. She won't have to hide. She can sleep safely now and leave the infected zone. She brought with her a finished cure after experimenting on herself for years, so we finally have a way out and way to save the last infected zone in the country. How we're going to do it, we only have a vague idea. She has schematics for the old Aerosolizer that we unfortunately destroyed when we evacuated the infected zone. It's most likely repairable, though it will be difficult after such a long time sitting in the elements. She has an old schematic so we should have what it takes to release this cure.

March 2nd, 2024. 3:46pm

We successfully pinpointed several locations that previously had activity from the Assistant and went to investigate, though they had been turned into zombie dens by the Lab. Most likely to drive her out of hiding with what could have been members of her original horde. I wonder if she still thinks of them as family, cause I'm sure that would hurt in a way.

We were also able to successfully remove the mutagen vials that they were feeding off of, so we should be able to better control the population.

We were unsuccessful at smoking out the Traitor after holding a trial. Transmissions I picked up after the mission said there was an air dropped "care package" to the Traitor that almost certainly means we'll have to deal with an even stronger enemy tonight. If I remember the results of the research trials, we'll be dealing with a Medic Zombie, able to revive single zeds.

March 1, 2024. 11:17pm

Tonight was a mixed success.

The recruits appear to have rallied together once I cut off the call with the Lab during briefing and gave them the real information on the mission. I'm confident we'll rescue my best friend in time...but the four cameras were not deactivated in the two minutes so the Lab knows we're up to something. I'm not sure what the retribution will be, so we'll have to keep our eyes and ears open.

I'm worried about what might happen tomorrow, there were more zombies tonight than expected. And a lot of unfortunate deaths. We established a connection with the assistant's lab, but we still need to parse the data tonight to find her bunker. So far the data shows several possible locations across the infected zone. We'll have to check them during our next mission tomorrow afternoon.

She knows we're out here, she's made contact. At least I hope it's her.