Monkey Blood

This article contains massive spoilers for a critical Plotline in Story Mode that must be completed to get the "good" ending in Vancouver. Do not read any further if you do not want to read spoilers.

Introduction

The sample of Monkey Blood is one of the three necessary components for the true zombieism cure (the other two being the Agbayani research from Wentachee and the European datadump from Penticton). If you, as the player, are missing any of these three components in Vancouver, then the only three possible endings for the Story Mode campaign are variations of "You're doomed": surrender to the Government and become Senator Davis' superzombie army, detonate a nuclear warhead and kill everyone in Vancouver, or kill the Government then lose your minds and run rampant throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Obtaining the Monkey Blood sample involves several stages that must all be completed in the same city. Transitioning from one city to another city before finishing the plotline completely will erase all progress in the plotline, forcing you to start over.

Some reports indicate that completing this plotline in a non-Story-Mode game will grant credit for it in Story Mode.

When You Begin a New City

You cannot complete this plotline in Abbotsford, Vancouver, Hope, or Snoqualmie. It is also not advised to try this in Castlegar since Gustav will leave that city in early stages.

In addition, you will need the following:

• A Cricket Bat. It can be found while scavenging, brought over from another city, trade with a faction (St. Michaels has a 10% higher chance to have Cricket Bats for sale, according to the code), or obtained in a random event (see below).
• An unreclaimed Mall or Mega Mall with any kind of loot. (You can lay a Zombie Trap on it to avoid zombies massing there.)
• A Motel that is NOT part of your fort (but can be part of another faction's fort!)
• Some undefeated faction on the map with you. (Tested with Saint Michael's, the Dahlias, the Luddies, the Riffs, the Church of the Chosen Ones, the Rotten and the Government. Not known to work with all factions.)
• A City Hall.
• At least five Schools.
• A survivor to sacrifice. Any survivor will do.

The 8-12 Mart

Its possible to obtain a Cricket Bat from a rare random event. It can occasionally happen that someone will show up at your fortress asking for ice cream. If you have an 8-12 Mart, then you can give the person ice cream and the person will give you a Cricket Bat. If you are trying to obtain a Cricket Bat, claiming an 8-12 Mart before this event occurs should be a priority.

Recruiting Gretchen: First-stage Events

The following four events (and the Signposts Research) can be completed in any order, but the last two must be completed within a span of 40 days. We thus recommend doing them in the following order.

Or you can postpone the research of Signposts and take your time finishing the four events in whatever sequence and time span you like. Just remember to research signpost after finishing all four events. (Do take into consider that this method has the negative effect of banning the signpost-related techs before you complete the missions.)

Trashy Romance Novel

This requires five Schools and a City Hall. When meeting with a faction, there is a low probability that your interlocutor will notice that you have 5 Schools and offer to help you stock them with books. Choose the Fiction books. This can take a very long time, so be patient with it.

Like all Meet with... missions, this mission can only be obtained from a non-allied faction.

Translation from Dutch: Quarrel with Ruben. Hendrik will soon return from Haiti. it's time we told him, but Ruben doesn't want that.

Newspaper

Send a group of survivors on a mission to a tile that is next to a zombie mob (and that, in your judgment, is in the path of the zombie mob; this won’t work if the zombie mob goes in a different direction). The group of survivors must include at least one active Engineer; your alter ego will not suffice and active Soldiers with skill levels in Engineering and the MacGyver Perk may not suffice. Remember generally that survivors other than your alter-ego may only have one active skill and that changing the active skill of a survivor requires training them in a School.

This requires that a zombie mob have spawned at least 2 tiles away from your fortress. (Supposedly roamers work too though)

If you need to control the timing of this event, then be aware that Zombie mobs can be diverted by nearby Zombie Bait. So, if you have researched (in a Laboratory) and crafted (in a Workshop) Zombie Bait, you can place the Zombie Bait somewhere to draw the Zombie Mob away from your fortress. When the Mob reaches the Bait, the mob will stay there for a short while before moving on to a new target (usually your fortress, again). At this point, you can place another Zombie Bait elsewhere to keep the mob in a holding pattern in the city until you're ready for it.

Reminder: if you complete any two events and have the Signposts research completed, then Gretchen will arrive soon after this and you will be under a time limitation. The clock is now ticking (as long as you don't have the game paused). Finish the last two events as soon as possible. This is why a particular order for the events is recommended, even though it's not required.

Sell Cricket Bat to Gustav

Start a Trade mission with Gustav and sell the Cricket Bat to him. It's suspected that sending anyone with the Negotiation perk can break this event. In any case, you will know that it worked if the after-trade text has Gustav talking about "ze game of ze gentle men". To be safe, save your game before the Trade mission completes; if the event text does not have Gustav talking a lot about the Cricket Bat, then assume it didn't work, load your game from the earlier point, and try to adjust (such as just selling the Cricket Bat and not buying anything).

This event should be done third because Gustav does show up on a regular basis, but isn't around all the time. If you're using Zombie Bait (as described above), then you can keep the mob in a holding pattern until Gustav shows up again, and then complete both events at once.

Mall Pet Store

Reclaim a tile next to a Mall or Mega Mall that has loot and has not yet been claimed. (Allmart's don't work) You should now scavenge the mall with loot using a survivor that has at least Level 10 in Scavenging, which may be reached with weapons and items such as a Fire Axe and Backpack. (That is, the requirement is NOT that the survivor's pre-bonuses Scavenging Level is 10 or higher.) This was tested with an active Scavenger, but not tested with a survivor who has a different active class and merely has 10 or higher in Scavenging. (tested- will work with any survivor of level 10 scavenging.)

The event text will say that the scavenger finished the mission early and has time to do something else. Choose to go to the Pet Store.

This event is recommended last because you can trigger this event on-demand, provided that you prepared ahead of time and set aside a mall next to your fortress for this purpose.

Once You Have Gretchen

If (1)at least two of the above first-stage events (not counting the 8-12 Mart; it's selling the Cricket Bat that counts and the Cricket Bat can be acquired in ways that do not involve the 8-12 Mart), (2)the Signposts research has been completed, and (2) there is room in your fortress for another survivor, a female engineer named "Gretchen" ( she has blond hair & a white dustmask over her mouth) will join your fortress. She always starts with the Downer perk, so grouping her with other survivors is not recommended. For clarity, this is Isa Gretchen van Nooten; you will not interact with any other "van Nooten".

It should be noted that it is necessary to complete ALL FOUR of the First-stage Events, listed above. Gretchen has appeared in instances where the player has completed only two or three of the First-stage Events. However, without completing all four events, Gretchen will leave without triggering the plotline.

Injure a Survivor

You will need an injured survivor in your fortress. If you have multiple injured survivors in your fortress, then when it comes time, one will be selected randomly. If you don't have any injured survivors, then you'll need to send out a survivor that you're willing to permanently sacrifice on a dangerous mission to get him or her injured; try to keep the Danger level of the mission in the red.(Often such survivors will die, so be sure to prepare multiple expendable survivors.) While the survivor is recovering, there will be an event where Gretchen, specifically, wakes you to inform you that the injured survivor has come down with zombieism; this will kill the survivor.

It is possible that the injured survivor will recover without Gretchen waking you up to tell you that the survivor has zombieism. In this case, you will need to injure the survivor again, or injure someone else. You can send people to do guard duty in all hospitals, increasing the time needed for recovery.

Gretchen's Departure

After some time (the first contributor to this article reports 40 in-game days), Gretchen will get into a fight with a random survivor in your fortress. (The text says that Gretchen and the survivor were cleaning a storeroom, the survivor killed a rat, and Gretchen went berserk.) If you have a Level 7 Leader, you can try talking to Gretchen, otherwise you can only ask her to leave. No matter which you choose, Gretchen will leave the fortress (and the statistics will register her as a killed survivor).

This event will occur some time after Gretchen's arrival, regardless of whether or not all of the other above events have occurred. This is why you are under a time limit the moment Gretchen arrives in the fortress.

The Home Stretch

If all of the above has occurred (though not necessarily in the order described), then you should now interact with the motel that you set aside (scavenge, scout, kill zombies, or meet/trade on it). Again, the motel must not be in your fortress. It can be adjacent to your fortress, it can be surrounded by your fortress, but you must NOT have completed a Reclaim mission on the motel.

Upon exploring the motel, you will be directed to a mission in a random Hospital outside your fortress. If no such Hospital exists, then the game will alter the map and create a Hospital for the mission on the edge of the city. The event options for the hospital just have you searching through the rooms that had an I.G.v.N.

Once the Hospital mission is complete, you will then be directed to a mission in a random School outside your fortress. If no such school exists, then the game will alter the map and create a School for the mission on the edge of the city. Regardless of what dialog options you choose, you will obtain the vial of Monkey Blood. It is unknown whether or not letting Gretchen kill herself has any follow-on effects further along in Story Mode.

If you managed to get to this point in-game, then congratulations. Again, make sure that you also obtained Agbayani's Research from Wentachee and the European Datadump from Penticton.

(Also a little fun fact is that when you finish this, gretchen's status changes from 'left the fort' to 'went mad')

Sources

Monkey blood - crowd source to find it ( spoilers ) - solved - Steam Discussion

Contributors to this wiki article