S1E14 - Practice

A few days have passed since I woke up. While I've been injured, I've helped out around the camp. Mainly moving things around, bringing the laundry back up, setting out plates, stuff like that. Every morning and night I redo my bandages and put some neosporin on the wounds to keep bacteria out. Especially with me having to bathe in a lake.

One big thing I've noticed is how everyone is slightly off from how their TV characters look. Amy is slightly younger, 19 years old, and Andrea is about 30. Carl and Sophia are 10 and 11 respectively. Dale seems to be a little younger, 57. Daryl is 31 and Merle is 46. Glenn is only 22 which is the same as in the script, but he really looks it. All their faces look slightly off. Like really good impersonators are playing them.

My stats haven't grown on account of me being injured. I haven't really had the chance to exercise. I did find something out, however. If I use a revolver, I'm able to take out the used cartridges and reload them using my inventory. It doesn't work on guns that use magazines because of the spring that pushes the bullets up. I'd still have to reload the magazine. But when that mag is in my inventory, I can fill it up without actually doing each individual bullet.

Another thing I've found is that I can't store things that aren't directly mine. I was gonna store a thing of clothing to make the trip up the hill easier, but that didn't work. I'm guessing that the inventory has some sort of way to determine what does and doesn't count as mine. I wonder if it's to make it so I can get caught stealing stuff… I dunno.

I do know that my skills have been improving. I may not have been able to do strength training, but I have been practicing my knife skills. I'd basically shadow box with an imaginary walker. In fact that's what I'm doing right now.

I moved a little bit away from camp to keep away any prying eyes, and took out my new knife. The Cyclone dagger is a dagger with three blades that all spin towards the tip. It's sturdy, and kinda heavy. Definitely feels made for stabbing walker brains. As it enters my hand, I feel the familiarity with it kick in.

I hold it in an ice pick grip in my right hand with the knife out in front of me. I pretend there's a walker coming straight at me and hold the knife above my head. As it gets close to me, just within arms reach, I slam the knife down, piercing into the top of the walker's skull. I yank the blade back up and push the walker down as a second one comes up right after. I hurriedly bring my hand down to my left shoulder with the tip facing out and swing my arm, piercing the walker's temple. As another one comes up, I switch my grip and drive the knife up into the skull from down below.

As I finish with my practice, a blue screen pops up,

[Knife Fighting 1 leveled up!]

Instantly, a wave of knowledge assaults me, correcting some of the faults with my technique and helping with edge alignments when slashing. Another blue screen pops up,

[Shadow Fighting - You are able to visualize your opponents in the real world. When Shadow Fighting, your techniques level up twice as fast.]

Nice! That's exactly what I needed! I get back into position to start again, when I hear Glenn's voice from behind me,

"Oh, hi!"

I flip around and put the knife away,

"What's up?"

He adjusts his ball cap and say,

"Uhm, just wondering how your wounds are doing."

I stretch out to the side, stretching the wound. It hurts slightly but not nearly as much as before,

"Not 100% just yet, but I'm doing a lot better than before. Pretty sure I'll be good as new in a few days, minus some new scars."

Glenn nods his head,

"You think you're up for a quick Atlanta run? We'll stop by a clothing store as well so you can pick up some new stuff."

I nod my head,

"Yeah, sure! Do you mind if we stop by the place you found me? I still got some stuff there I wanna grab."

Glenn nods,

"Yeah, sure! No problem! I'll let the others know!"

I follow behind him back to camp and see the group. T-dog, Andrea, Morales, Merle, and the other lady (really don't know why she even came). I decide to joke around a little bit,

"Well, aren't we just a band of misfits?"

Andrea snorts, and T-dog nods his head, saying,

"Yeah. True. You sure you up for this?"

I nod my head,

"Yeah. As long as I'm not carrying anything too heavy I should be good."

Merle speaks next,

"Well I ain't gonna babysit you, girlie. I already got my hands full enough with this band of morons."

Everyone collectively rolls their eyes. Unfortunately, despite his blatant racism and sexism, Merle is necessary for this stuff. He's the only one here besides me that's killed more than five walkers without a gun.

"I'm a bit old for a babysitter. Besides, I got a feeling having you babysitting me would get me addicted to meth or something."

Merle chuckles,

"Heheheh. True, true."

Merle hops on his motorcycle and says,

"Well? Let's go."

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