Aurelio scanned the earth like a mad man.

It was a flash of genius that compelled him to scan the perimeter of their hunting grounds. His observations of the first few moments of the fight and their surroundings confirmed that the world was following some of the rules of the game as he understood them.

And one of those rules, he thought with manic glee, was the rule on terrain set up.

When setting up the arena for the fight, there’d often be interactable pieces of terrain that scavengers could use to their advantage. Be it heat vents or distortion fields, there were all sorts of conditional elements applied to the board that scavengers could benefit from.

And here was no different.

Juan and him had done this fight so often that it was second nature to set up. One medium sized terrain piece and three small size terrain pieces.

He’d counted the fungal stalks, the hardened sludge, and the fireflies. One small terrain piece was unaccounted for. And since there wasn’t a scavenger corpse around to be easily identified, that left two other options.

|Exonaut draws one wound|

|Exonaut scored a CRITICAL HIT|

|Exonaut deals two wounds (DESTRUCTIVE 1)|

|Exonaut gained x1 Vile of Sludge Basic Resource|

Aurelio turned to look at the aftermath of the prompts. Elena was standing between the monster and a rising Kalani, her weapon in front of her to keep the distance between the two combatants.

He was happy that his investment was paying off in spades. The woman was aggressive and brutish but that sort of strength would help their group in the long run if it was properly cultivated.

The monster responded to the aggression in kind, lighting a manifested sword on fire to stab through Elena’s torso.

|Exonaut suffered two points of damage to CORE|

|INSPECT not unlocked|

That pesky mention of an INSPECT function grated at Aurelio’s nerves. It wasn’t a skill in the tabletop game and if he had to stab at a guess, he assumed it’d allow him to look at their character sheets in combat or something of that nature. It was the only behavior that made sense contextually.

“Fuck.” Aurelio muttered. Things weren’t supposed to get so bad.

He got back to his search, this time connecting with Cantwell through his private feed.

“I did what you asked but the commander didn’t get up.” Cantwell explained in his typical neutral tone.

“That’s alright. I was hoping it would but you might not have been in range.” Aurelio replied.

“Hm.”

A pause.

“Cantwell, you’ve been paying attention to the field. When Elena yelled at me through the main channel, she lit up, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, so there’s something only you can do and I need you to do it immediately. Go to Kalani and cast CONSTRUCT on her head.”

Another moment of silence.

“I don’t follow.” Cantwell replied matter-of-factly.

Of course he didn’t follow, you idiot. He doesn’t have a frame of reference like you do.

Aurelio shook out the derisive thought, “Okay, Cantwell. You’re going to reach into your gut and cast this, yeah? This ability will only manifest in full once you’re next to her so just walk up to her and focus on that feeling. If you don’t feel your body getting hotter or don’t see a tick on your gauge, you haven’t triggered your ability. It’s like reconstruction. You’re creating a functioning facsimile of what was once there.”

“Hmmmmm” Cantwell drew out his contemplative reply. “Alright. Anything else?”

“Nothing else from me, big guy. Get on it.” Aurelio replied and disconnected.

His searching efforts were rewarded when Aurelio spotted a faded rusted box half sunken into the dirt. There was a faint red light at its center that strobed every couple of seconds, a light he could only see if he squinted at the space.

“Oh thank fuck.” Aurelio muttered. The sinking sensation in his stomach didn’t go away, but it dissipated some upon the discovery of the Forgotten Cache terrain.

|Engineer used CONSTRUCT on Commander|

|Commander gained 1 point of armor to HEAD|

Within moments, the commander popped back into the feed as a communicant, her feed registered as present on the main line along with the others.

He entered the room.

“Aurelio, what are you doing?” Kalani asked in a disgruntled tone. She was unhappy but she hadn’t started the conversation by calling him back. He’d get them to understand after they were done with this mess.

“Finding something. Found something. Just… give me a sec.” Aurelio winced as he forcibly disconnected from the network again.

Aurelio shifted his attention back to the abandoned cache, his boon to turn the tides. ‘A forgotten lockbox with potential valuables’ was its game related text and nothing short of drawing Husks on a terrain gave him as much satisfaction as drawing this terrain on a board.

|Commander draws one wound|

|Commander deals one wound|

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|Exonaut and Commander used JOLT|

|Engineer suffered one point of damage to RIGHT LEG|

He needed to hurry up and get back to the crew. Aurelio hovered over the lock box and found the prompt he was looking for.

|?Let Fate Decide?|

“Time to play Schrodinger's box.” Aurelio whispered. He activated the fading prompt and rolled a six and a three.

Average. Above average, even. If he were more in shape, he’d consider opening the box then and there.

But this was not what he needed. Not by a long shot.

He held his breath and waited for a moment to see if the following prompt would appear but nothing had yet triggered. Which meant his budding hypothesis had born fruit.

He would not reap what was sown until he opened the box. Despite no prompt for it, at this moment in time he was capable of messing with the odds.

Aurelio was taking advantage of the window of opportunity between the dice roll and the result of that dice roll to contemplate whether it was worth it or not to use his Second Wind Die to cheat fate.

|Exonaut drew zero wounds|

An advantage he needed to take here and now. He placed his hand under the glowing blue three pip die and crushed it in his hand. The die reignited with darker, near violet hues, six necessary pips on the die’s face.

A pair of sixes. What were the odds!

He smirked.

Aurelio looked at the exterior of the box to discern if anything had changed and nothing seemed amiss. Discovering this ability was only the beginning, in his mind. Testing the boundaries of the ability and figuring out if his fellow scavengers also had the ability to re-roll their destiny was high on that list.

Now wasn’t the time to think of the future.

Aurelio unlatched the forgotten cache, whatever locking mechanism long since corroded away, and found his prize.

|You’ve Cheated the Fates|

|Claim What You Have Conquered|

Sitting in “pristine” condition was a compressed hunting rifle. The bronze body had signs of corrosion and faint runic lettering spiraling from barrel end to butt, a by-product of its origins as rusted weapon dressing on the various Vessels that walked along the planet.

He lifted it up and watched it go from its compact carrying size to its full length form. The barrel grew hotter and redder with each passing second. The core of the weapon sat behind the bolt-action mechanism. It hummed and churned like an engine, revving up for use.

The [Ember Lance] was now in his possession.

|Scavengers unaffected by ??? | Unlock {Archives} for more information|

He dismissed the prompt for now. {Archives} was already on the top of his list anyway. There was no need to be reminded of its importance.

He placed the butt of the rifle firmly in his shoulder pocket and lined up his shot with the triangular sight at the end of the barrel. He didn’t need fate for this move. Frankly he didn’t want it.

Aurelio wanted his first shot to be his own.

He needed to move in position if he was going to lay claim to the monster within the round.

The ember in his chest lit up and coursed across his legs, blue sparks radiating out of his body with a neon shine.

|Chosen used JOLT|

Aurelio kicked off from his position and ran as quickly and as far as his legs would allow, counting the tiles he was crossing on his cornered map up to his suggested movement speed.

He didn’t want to risk shenanigans involving his [Ember Lance] and its cumbersome tag.

He opened up his comms and chimed in, “Stand back.” He pulled the bolt-action lever back instinctively and watched the core feed its power into the chamber. The red glow of the barrel became white, the entire weapon shaking against the restrained force at his end of the thing.

He took a deep breath.

Aurelio pulled the trigger.

The shot roared out of his rifle and into the enemy with a flawless precision. The projectile streaked through the air with a visible orange trail behind it, a comet in the dark.

It penetrated through the dense armored folds of the Vessel’s chest and then some, leaving behind a thick glowing hole with slag and sludge.

|Chosen draws one wound|

|Chosen deals one wound|

“Elena! Finish it off!” Aurelio shouted.

Elena brought the [Carbon Cleaver] to her side and swung with all the fury she had, the comm lines blaring with the warcry she’d let out.

|Exonaut draws one wound|

|Exonaut deals two wounds (DESTRUCTIVE 1)|

The slab of sharpened iron caused the Vessel to crumble on its side, the weapon soundly cleaving through the creature's midsection. Black sludge and blue ooze erupted from the lower half of its body as the upper half slipped back.

The monster within reached out in vain, its viscous body quickly transitioning into a watery muck that receded into the earth.

Aurelio waited for something else to occur before taking a deep breath, “We won. We won!” He laughed and tackled Elena with a hug, “We won! It’s over! We did it!”

Elena shoved him off, “Don’t get touchy with me, fucker.”

He turned to Kalani, who pulled slightly away from him, “I’m glad that this thing is dead but you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” She eyed the rifle on his back with clear suspicion, a frown growing on her face.

“We need to scavenge this.” Cantwell pulled their attention towards the bisected monster but no one else moved to assist him in the effort.

He wanted to be upset at them for dampening the mood. They’d lived through the fight and all they could think about was his angle in all of this. They could sense something was off and the rock story had only bought him time.

Aurelio sighed, “Alright. I understand what you want. I’ll give you an explanation to my position in all of this to the best of my abilities when we get back. We’ve shed blood together and I think it’s only fair that I trust you all at least enough for the rest of you to drop your suspicions. I hate the feeling that you all are looking at me waiting for the second shoe to drop.”

Elena scoffed, “So you admit that your first story with the talking rock was all bunk? What makes your word worth anything if you didn’t give us your story the first time around?”

He took a deep breath, “No, the talking rock story was true. There’s just more involved and I’d like to handle this behind the safety of the Outpost walls instead of in the middle of a clearing.”

Elena motioned to say something but held her tongue, turning to Kalani for a final decision.

“You’re our only source of information for dealing with this place so I can’t rightfully send you off without screwing the rest of us over. But I need answers from you and I’ll take ‘em as soon as we get back.”

With the rest of their words shared, the crew scavenged materials off of the Vessel and trekked their way home.

YOU HAVE ACQUIRED