We set out the morning after, we didn't have a map but I don't think we need one. Most of the major settlements would likely still be there. His shoes clomped on the cracked roads as we walked directly down the middle. I did bring my gas mask but so far I've only needed to give myself a break once.

Even if we fail here all increases to my tolerance would be well worth it, granted I couldn't find many flaws with our plan before which means I'm either stupid or it's not too badly designed. Likely both.

We walked past an old church. Things such as religion barely existed anymore. The existence of the 3 invalidates nearly all of what was worshipped before, they either stopped their belief or in sporadic cases switched to one of the 3 as "Their god." People who worshipped any of them were typically looked down on pretty heavily.

We don't entirely know why they did this to earth, but we know a little bit. This place is a joint project between all 3 of them to produce, something. The most popular theory claims it's to create a dimension filled with exuberant amounts of mana to fuel The Weave, but a theory still isn't an explanation.

Things like faith all fade when the gods are responsible for your hell.

we continued our steady walk for about 10 minutes before I made a note. The buildings were changing to offices and more industrial-like buildings. We had officially crossed the line from the border to the Smolder, we intend to settle in an Ignited zone. A dangerous presence of people for sure but also far more customers, but not like Blaze areas where you can live the authentic American dream of getting shot when you walk outside.

At least Michigan is not a particularly hot state. All the running for your life you'll be doing should be a little easier.

As we rounded a corner I came face to face with another person.

Like a deer in headlights, we all froze and stared at one another. I put my hands up and calmly spoke.

"Howdy, just passing through."

The woman piped up.

"Where."

"Igniting."

"Are you an idiot or a fool?"

"Probably both."

She pulled her hand away from the gun off her holster.

"If you are telling the truth then I'd keep going down this road for about an hour."

"Why?"

"You should get some heavier firepower if that's your plan. Forgive me for being rude but you look far too unprepared."

"And why do you care?"

She scoffed.

"Your friends jingling like a gnome, your loaded, go to the settlement down the road and buy some shit."

And with that, she turned away and headed down an alley.

"What, just happened?"

"Someone who either wants our money or is a good samaritan, likely the former. You probably don't think about it the right way so let me enlighten you real quick. She lives there, and the more money circulating in the economy the more expensive things will be. She probably owns a store there and wants to use the increased wealth as an excuse to up her prices."

Isiah looked me dead in the eye for about 10 seconds.

"Maybe next time I just won't ask."

"No, you'll need to understand their mannerisms if you want to do business with them, ask more."

I decided I'd listen to her because that was a stark reminder that Isiah did not own a gun. Now that we'll be seeing people now and then I pulled all my skeletons out and equipped them.

"People in Smolder tend to be chill we were always gonna be fine. Even if she was one of the rarer ones with bad intentions she was outnumbered, only a fool would've made a move. As we get deeper it's best if you understand now rather than later. In Ignited the people are pretty 50/50. They either want to kill you or avoid you at all costs. Once you get to Blaze shoot first ask later."

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"That's wonderful but I have no idea what that means, when is something "Ignited" or whatever."

"It's real simple," I said as I kicked a rock into an old scrapped car.

"The higher up the Inferno the more dangerous the people are, it's as simple as that."

"Uh-huh."

We continued down the road with an escort of dead friends until we reached a lapse in the mist.

It wasn't anything special or of note, other than I found another Berreta M9 so I bought that, and Isiah grabbed one too.

I could raid the dungeon here but I'd rather get to our destination as quickly as possible.

With that, we continued down the roads for 5 more hours before we took any large breaks.

Thus ensued informing Isiah what he could and couldn't do with his new handgun, at least generally. I felt somewhat hypocritical telling him what he should or shouldn't do when I wasn't particularly knowledgeable either, but something is better than nothing.

Whilst he familiarized himself I contemplated the big problem with our whole plan, Skeletons. I'm rather certain that the only thing I can do is stop putting lv into any other skill than BoneWorks, so I guess that's what I'll do.

Ossuary was far less convenient than I thought it'd be, having them all out was just, better. I wouldn't say it's terrible but not nearly as helpful as I thought it'd be. It was helpful in settlements where attracting attention tended to be a foolish endeavor, so it'd be far more useful when we found our new location but for now, it was pretty worthless.

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We walked, we ate, we drank, we slept, we walked. For the next 4 days that was all we did. Eventually, we reached the Ignited zone. And now began the annoying part, we spent time wandering about until we found a settlement. And then we started searching the immediate area for what could be a good setup.

And it took a while but we found something with a fair bit of promise. It was an old abandoned grocery store.

With my skeletons ready we walked in and headed in a bit till we stopped in an aisle. Isiah whispered to me.

"Why are we stopping?"

"Shhh."

I strained my ears listening as hard as I could. After a minute of tense silence, I heard it again, some barely audible voices.

I waited for 2 minutes listening to the sounds grow louder, it sounded like they were at the back of the store and were heading toward us. My skeleton's bony feet made quite audible clacks when they moved so I kept them all still as we moved to a register 2 aisles down to the left and ducked behind it.

Once I could hear them with a little bit of clarity I had my skeletons start walking about the Isle. Nearly instantly the noises of the others stopped. It was getting to him, Isiah was shaking.

"Are we just gonna wait for them to find us or are we gonna fucking do anything!"

When I heard those panicky words I knew that I needed to tell him before he does anything foolish, even if it does increase the odds my plan fails.

"If they don't want to start anything they'll turn around and head out through another entrance, if they want blood this'll do nicely. Walking directly into someone is a great way to die so they'll walk around the other shelves to try to catch us by surprise. If they decide to leave then that's fine by me, if not they'll be pretty surprised when we ambush their ambush."

Apparently, that didn't seem to work well at all to calm him down at all. My skeletons stopped moving.

"We're going to kill them, oh my god we're gonna kill them, why don't we just fucking leave man we don't have to do it. There's another way, no one has to die."

"Are you an idiot? I need skeletons, we need skeletons. This is our plan, we came all this way I'm not giving up because avoiding a little blood gives you some sort of moral fuzzies. How the hell did you think I was gonna get skeletons, unless the nearby settlement dungeon had a dead man in it which isn't very likely this is how it's gonna happen. Don't judge me because you didn't think this through hard enough. And it's their fault if they decide to try to drop us, if I hadn't noticed and they snuck up on us we would be dead, never forget that."

That seemed to do the trick as we both sat there in silence and drew our handguns, I kept my 63 loaded at all times, and the only noise I made was a little click as I flicked the safety off. Isiah and his shaky hand were worrying me something fierce though. He'd never even had the opportunity to practice, and incompetence combined with panic was a recipe for disaster, I'd just have to hope he could manage.

I heard the sound of cloth rubbing ever so slightly against something.

"Now."

We stood up till we could just see over, I saw 3 people slowly peaking out from the shelf just next to the one my skeletons were at, we rose to full height before we both aimed.

"3.. 2.. 1.. 0"

I felt my finger push down on the trigger but Isiah was frozen.

"Isiah, shoot, I said fu-"

All of a sudden, he fired, and I joined in as soon as swiftly as I could as screams echoed throughout the grocery store. They ran backward down the aisle to escape us and we sat still.

I got up and ran after emptying my mag down the aisle. My skeletons sprinted down to corner them at the end. I waited for a minute but my skeletons didn't make any noise so I assumed they never made it to the end, I had them push down the aisle and they made it to me without issue.

Following the blood led me to 3 people, 1 remained unmoving but the man and the woman still seemed to retain life, the man was curled up with his hand over his mouth trying to hide his sobs as he leaked blood all over the aisle. The woman was a ghastly white and it didn't take me long to see why, her neck had a wide laceration across the side, and she'd wrapped what looked to be a scarf around her neck and was nearly choking herself with it to stop the blood loss to moderate success.

I'm guessing by the slathered blood on the old rusty shelf beside her she tripped and cut her throat open.

With a clatter, my mag hit the floor and I loaded a new one in, and that got the man's attention.

"Ple-please we-'re sor-ry W-."

My handgun didn't care much about his pleading as it splattered his brains against the floor. The woman's hands had fallen and now with the pressure gone, she leaked like a fountain. As I stared at the corpses around me, I got up and went back to Isiah.

He was huddled shivering behind a counter,

"Are they?"

"Yeah."

He covered his mouth and looked at the ceiling.

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+48 xp!

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"Hey"

he took his hands off his mouth and swallowed hard.

"Y-Yeah."

"I just got xp."

Then he emptied his stomach all over the floor.

I must admit I wasn't feeling too well either, my stomach was twisting and turning in all sorts of ways. But I wasn't bothered as badly as him. it's not like this was the first time or anything.