It had been three days, and Josh still couldn't stop staring at his bandaged right hand.

The pain had at last faded to a reasonable level, it just hadn't really mattered. He still couldn't stop staring at the white bandage. Every time Darius changed the bandage, he saw the missing fingers. That vision was burned into him, right there every time he closed his eyes. The System message he had received just made it worse.

ALERT: You have suffered a crippling injury, perhaps due to overestimating your juggling skills, or simply doing something stupid like trying to block a knife with your bare hand. Minus 25% manual dexterity.

The System always got its most passive-aggressive in status ailment messages, he felt. As if it wanted to dig the knife in just a little deeper, to remind him that he had suffered this injury due to his own stupidity.

Going to Miriam Manganese was always a risk, and he had always known that. There was always the chance that a meeting with her would go bad. She had earned her place in the City's underworld by being fair and keeping to deals, true, but she was also famous for ruthlessly exploiting any advantage. Leaders of successful criminal organizations had to be, unless they wanted to become the leaders of unsuccessful criminal organizations.

He simply hadn't considered the influence of the world quest. He had thought that, between being Mary's aunt and already having more money than she knew what to do with, the quest wouldn't be an issue.

He had been an idiot. He had been an idiot, and it was a miracle that all he had lost were a few fingers in the bargain. They couldn't be regrown. Not any time soon, anyway. Even if they did have a Healer in the party, it would have taken a high level to regrow bone.

Darius stopped in the middle of the path, and the others stumbled behind him. While they had left the main thoroughfare almost a full day ago, there were still plenty of other roads. This one was wide enough for three people to walk down, though it was already in danger of being overtaken by the Jungle. Josh guessed that no one had maintained it for a week or two. Since the reset, maybe?

Now that he was paying attention, he realized that they were at a fork in the road. There were three directions to choose from: One descended deeper into the dark Jungle, tall trees overshadowing the path. One rose higher, towards a tall stone hill, the earliest foothills of the true mountains. The last was a straight path east, the most cleared of the options.

“Well?” Mary asked, impatient. “Do you know where we are?”

Darius pointed. “This one leads up to the mountains, as I'm sure you can guess. There are some outposts in that direction, but they are isolated. That could work to our benefit, but I'm not certain.” He pointed to the cleared path. “This one leads to Coyote Lake. It is the edge of City influence, officially.” He turned to the last path. “And this one leads to every town and village that decided to live outside the City's direct authority.”

“San Martin is next,” Josh said, trying to focus on anything besides his hand. “I think it is, at least.” He was mostly remembering pre-Fall maps, so he couldn't be completely sure, but it was a reasonable guess. Most of the new towns were named after the old ones.

Darius nodded. “Should just be down the road, I believe.” He started walking, and the rest of them followed.

“Y'know anything about this place?” Josh asked. He rolled his left arm, holding his sword. He'd managed to fight off a few monsters with it, but he still wasn't used to fighting with his left hand. And, of course, he didn't have any combat techniques or spells. His wooden armor, while nice, was not going to keep up forever.

Darius shook his head. “It's a map, not a travel guide. I'm sure that it's the same as any other town.”

Ruth nodded. “A strong wall and a small citystone.”

Mary turned to walk backwards so that she could give Ruth a raised eyebrow. “Surprised you'd know much about it, love. Didn't your dad keep you locked up all the time?”

Ruth smiled. “Father did keep me overly protected, but he also made sure to take me out on most of his trips! He insisted that I take the Mender class every year, and then he'd give me bodyguards who I could support.” She sighed, and it wasn't entirely unhappy. “I wish he'd let me take a different class, but it wasn't terrible.”

Josh pushed through some large fronds, winced as they pushed on his bandaged hand, and cut through with his sword. “So this is your first go-round with anything but a Healer class?”

Ruth gave an eager nod. “Yep! Even when I was able to advance my class before, it was always still in the Healer role. Let's see...” She started ticking them off on her fingers. “I've been a Priestess, a Shaman, a Lifeweaver a couple times... oh, and I even got to High Priest once!” She beamed. “That was a good year.”

Josh couldn't help but smile. Her good cheer was infectious. “Good to hear. Getting up a tier is hard. I remember one time I managed to get all the way to Arch-Swordsman, about two days before—” He pushed through another wide frond, and stopped.

They had found the town. Or rather, what was left of it.

It was immediately obvious that the town had fallen, because the tall wooden palisade that encircled the entire settlement had several large holes in it. Through the holes, Josh could see the Jungle already beginning to reclaim what was lost. Homes were overgrown, and the well in the center was choked by vines.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They walked inside, through the broken wall, wandering in a daze. It wasn't that the town had been demolished. For the most part, the town just looked abandoned. Yes, there were signs of violence, but they were buried under the signs of neglect and disrepair. It was easy to imagine that the broken wall was the result of natural decay, that the barracks had collapsed because no one had driven off the rot for a few weeks.

“What happened here?” Darius asked, voice thick.

“The reset,” Ruth said quietly. She clutched her enchanted club tightly to her chest, as if it was a teddy bear.

Josh grimaced. “One of the trapped critters got loose?”

She nodded. “That's a possibility, yes. One level 30 monster in a town like this, right after the reset... the walls would be a prison for the people.” She shuddered. “I've seen it before. Someone didn't tie up a monster enough, or they didn't act fast enough after the reset, or any of a hundred other mistakes.”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes. As if there was any chance of finding anything other than death. They walked past a home where the entire roof had collapsed. A tree was growing out of the rubble. It was already twenty feet tall and thick enough that Josh would have trouble wrapping his arms around it.

“This village was bigger than our outpost,” Mary said. It was the first time she had spoken since they entered the walls. “How many you think were here?”

Darius adjusted his glasses. “As few as a dozen or as many as fifty, depending on how cramped they were willing to be.” He waved his hand at a long building that Josh couldn't quite identify. A church? A school? A town hall? “Regardless of their current number, it is quite clear that they were preparing to expand.”

“And how often does this happen?” she asked. “How often do we lose towns during the reset?”

There was a long pause.

“A few,” Ruth said at last. She gave a shaky smile. “There's a reason founding a village requires explicit authorization.”

“It's been getting worse,” Darius added. “We've been losing more villages.”

Josh gave a bitter laugh. “It's always getting worse. It's inevitable. The monsters grow stronger, the people reset.” He shook his head. “It's the same muck from before the Fall. It's why the whole bleeding world got eaten.”

“How did they figure it out?” Mary asked. “I mean, I know they did something. They found some way around the reset, and got strong enough to finish off the Tower. Don't think I ever heard how.”

Ruth giggled. “What do they teach in school these days?”

“No, this is certainly taught in school,” Darius said, giving Mary a sideways look. “I suspect Miss Manganese had a slightly non-standard education.”

Mary shrugged. “Dad wanted me to learn the books, mum wanted me to learn the guns. That's about the shape of it.”

“It was the Mechanist.”

The others turned. Josh stood in front of a half-burned building, still smelling of acrid smoke. It looked small, about the size of a one-person home or perhaps a small store. Had a new Mage tried to defend themselves? Had they trapped monsters inside and burned them alive? Whatever they tried, it hadn't been enough.

“Josh?” Ruth asked gently. She stepped up beside him and took his hand. She held the bandage between her hands, and it felt less painful, just for a minute. He expected her to press for how he was feeling, but she smiled instead. “What was that about the Mechanist?”

He chuckled. “You don't know?”

“I do. Don't you want to explain?”

She was good at that. Knowing when to let someone else talk. Meanwhile, Darius looked like he was physically holding back the desire to rant about the exact history of the Mechanist and the way they had found a way around the reset.

“The Mechanist invented pods.”

Mary frowned. “Like the birth pods?”

Josh nodded. “The birth pods were decades before the Fall, though. They're impressive technology, but less impressive compared to what came next. These were hibernation pods, to keep someone safe for years or longer. The theory was that, if people were in the pods during the reset, they'd manage to dodge it.” He shrugged. “Short way is, it worked.”

Mary's eyes widened in realization.

Darius scoffed. “That is missing quite a bit of context.” He turned to Mary. “The Mechanist tried quite a few variations of the pods before he settled on the ones that worked. We actually have recovered a number of his earlier models, but they do not allow one to dodge the reset. None of them did, until he incorporated magic into his machines.”

Ruth brightened at that. “He got help from an Enchanter!”

“Technically, she was an Arch-Rune Architect.”

Josh rolled his eyes. “And technically the Mechanist was a Silverlight Mechanist of the Third Order. The class names get all flowery at higher tiers. No one cares.”

“The biggest problem,” Darius said, adjusting his glasses in a way that Josh suspected was to hide his embarrassment, “is that each hibernation pod can only be used once. That, of course, is a limit of magical items. There is always an end to the enchantment.”

Everyone nodded. It was why enchanted items were rare. They fed on the mana of the user, just a little, to work. If left alone for too long, they lost their power. Even if there had been other powerful items scattered around the world, they would all be useless by now.

“We have Crafters now,” Mary whispered. Josh wasn't sure if anyone else was meant to hear. She raised her voice. “Eventually we can start making up the difference. Create magic items, maybe even those hibernation pods again.”

Josh nodded. “We know it's possible now.”

Ruth grinned. “We'll get started once we find someplace to settle down. I know I've barely scratched the surface of what my runes can do, much less the ones I haven't discovered yet!”

Josh chuckled. “I think we might need to pace ourselves a bit. We don't have to solve all the world's problems in one go, yeah?”

“If we want to stop the dragon, we will need to do something,” Darius said. He walked away from the still-smoking ruin. “Come. The next town shouldn't be too much farther. I would prefer to make it before nightfall.”