Aurelio sat across from his younger brother as the man poured into their core rule book for something. The table they were playing on was a mess, with painted miniatures littering the Dying Ignition battle map alongside a box of pizza, drinks, and paperwork that Aurelio was really meaning to get to before the end of the weekend.

“See, here,” his younger brother pointed to an obscure blurb within a description of a surveying event, “They’re earning the technique because of the sacrifice. That’s all that matters.” He shut the book closed and rummaged through his character sheets to note the changes.

“Pero mijo, you’re not getting what I’m saying here,” Aurelio shook his head, waiting for his brother to finish with his check-marking to pay attention to his argument, “I don’t care about the technique points. I care about why they even have to sacrifice the scavenger in the first place. What’s the purpose of it?”

He grabbed a slice of pizza and watched his brother frown and consider the implications of his statement.

“Well those are the options that the game presents. Sacrifice a scavenger to gain plus one technique for the rest of the outpost or retain all scavengers and lose all heart this solar cycle. The former’s a more efficient choice.”

Aurelio sighed, “But that’s the issue, yeah? All these scavenger’s have are each other, their hope fueled by the victories they gather. If the scavenger gave themselves up for the outpost, I guess I could buy it, but the way it’s written, it doesn’t feel like the designers are viewing them as people. They’re just stat points to them.”

“That’s not true. We have the stuff with the character vignettes and the side stuff.”

“But that’s all side stuff. As far as I’m concerned, I think it's bad form to have all of your best stuff squirreled away in blurbs and side stories.” Aurelio chewed into the crust of his slice. “And I say that as someone who likes that shit.”

His brother furrowed his brow, “But that’s not what the game’s about.”

Aurelio rolled his eyes, “You’re treating it like that’s not what the game’s about. You're too deep in the weeds of the thing to have perspective on what the wider community thinks, mister project coordinator.”

His brother chuckled, “And you’re saying you have a pulse on the community?”

Aurelio doubled down, “I’d say so, yeah. I’m not a super fan like you are but I’ve played the game enough with and without you to know that the community is searching for ways to keep their scavengers safe. They’re like pets, Juan. People get attached to their pets.”

Juan crossed his arms and shook his head, “Well I think that’s dumb.”

Aurelio laughed, “And they think you’re dumb. The world continues to spin. I’m telling you the Lodestar community update is something you should look into at the very least, yeah? Don’t know the numbers like you well enough to see what is and isn’t egregious at a glance but I guarantee it’s gonna be up your alley. You love fiddling with that shit. See what they’ve touched up. What they’ve left alone.”

Juan sat stock still for a moment before he gave Aurelio a slow nod.

“Whatever.”

“Could be good material to laugh at in the office.” He added.

Closest to a consideration he’d get.

“I’m still keeping the points though.”

Aurelio laughed with the full weight of his gut, trying desperately not to get grease and pizza chunks on his students papers.

---

The regrouping process for Aurelio was surprisingly pleasant, all things considered.

The numerous fungal stalks in the immediate area had some sort of effect on the ground beneath him, the squelching sinking feeling of soft earth replaced by firm ground. It made traversal easier on his legs which was much appreciated.

The peaceful silence gave him time to reflect on his past and the ache in his heart for dumb conversations with his younger brother over a box of pizza and a couple of beers weighed him down more than anything else the world had thrown at him thus far.

It hadn’t thrown much yet but the game had rarely held its punches, their limited uses of Second Wind being the only safety net for truly atrocious rolls and tactical mistakes.

Second Wind was on his diagnostics sheet the last time he checked, and yet the world hadn’t offered him a prompt towards using it. What could and could not be utilized and through what activation method functioned off an esoteric rule system that Aurelio was attempting to navigate around.

His exploration did sway him in the battle of first innovations, with {Archives} beating {Decryption} quite easily. That was a silver lining he was consoled by.

The conclusion he came to was quite simple: he just didn’t know enough. A limited omnipotent knowledge of the games systems and upgrades were great in a vacuum but the amount of differences he was confronting meant he was having difficulty contextualizing his knowledge with the world's behavior.

The {Archives} were described as a repository of knowledge from the colonies of scavengers past that acquired blessings from the various eldritch titans around.

Bits and pieces of information from the game were shifting through his head with no lasting sticking power. What he’d found peculiar then within the tabletop game as he did now-

“Come in! Aurelio, come in! Do you copy?” Aurelio’s communicator screeched to life, Kalani’s concerned voice carrying through the crackling speaker in his helmet. Her voice was coming through Cantwell’s comms.

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He winced, “Yeah, I’m here. I’m safe. I can see you guys on the map.”

“We can’t see you.” Cantwell chimed in.

“How far away are you? Are you hurt? Did you face off against whatever that thing was in the stalks?” Kalani asked in a procedural manner.

“I’m about two or three tiles out from where you all are. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt. My mind started to get woozy and I started hearing things but I found something that pushed all that away. Whatever was out there didn’t make itself known to me directly. Might have been hoping I’d get too disoriented to fight back and shoot its shot then.”

There was a long amount of radio silence after his statement.

“Make yourself known to us when you’re nearby.” Kalani requested before Cantwell dropped the line. Elena dropped from his feed immediately after.

The fungal stalks around him started to space out as he got closer to the crew. He had to keep his eyes to the ground to avoid the caps of budding mushrooms beginning to emerge from below the earth.

The last one he kicked by accident ripped open with a slurry of sludge and chrome colored worms. He couldn’t avoid thinking of maggots and the unbearable stench from that aftermath made his skin green and his stomach churn.

He inspected the horizon beyond him and found the silhouettes of his crewmates standing around with Elena at the forefront.

“That’s far enough Aurelio.” Kalani yelled out.

“What’s the issue, commander?” Aurelio asked.

A chime registered a connection between his open comms and Elena’s.

“I brought up a good point and the commander is taking my lead on things.” Elena replied with an atypical coldness. She’d been fiery and hot-blooded in her hatred of him but now each syllable was delivered with a measured and calculated contempt.

“And what’s the point you brought up?”

Elena brandished her [Carbon Cleaver] in a two handed stance, “That we need to be sure you are who you say you are.”

He sighed. Her instincts were in the right place. Dying Ignition was well known for its body snatching horror and someone as paranoid as Elena had reasonably come up with the possibility.

Just a pain in the ass that she’d thought about that situation now.

He sighed, “What do you want to do then? I doubt the commander has given you permission to cut me down.” He’d hoped anyway. “And I can’t exactly suggest methods of finding if I’m me so what do you want to do?”

“You could pull out that thing that Phin was talking about. The box.” Cantwell suggested.

Aurelio bit his lip. That wasn’t a good idea. Nothing bred ‘suspicious’ more than having one’s species identified with an error message.

“I get a different box while I’m in the suit. And before you ask, I’m not taking the suit off while we’re out here.”

“Huh.” Cantwell replied, his answer being irrelevant to the man’s personal curiosities.

“Then we do as Elena suggested. She’s gonna walk slowly up to you and nick you with her blade. If you bleed red, you should be fine.” Kalani yelled.

“And-” He stopped himself from-

“Go on,” Elena laughed vindictively, “You were gonna ask how come bleeding red’s an indicator of being safe. You would ask that kind of question, you cock gobbling fuckwit.”

The more he interacted with her, the lower Aurelio’s opinion became of her abrasive attitude. It was one thing to read about it in the side stories but being on the receiving end of her ire was making him reconsider his previous assessments of her.

“No no, the idea is sound,” He admitted through grit teeth, “I can see how you’d come to that conclusion.”

The game had precedent for scavenger testing, although her method was much less costly than two innovation spaces, one innovation point, and the potential risk of losing said character to the thing attempting to assimilate their body.

Aurelio took a deep breath and raised his exposed arm.

“Take a good look.”

He held his [Metal Spike] tight as he slowly cut open two horizontal lines on his forearm. Hot red blood ran down his arm in rivulets, past his elbows and onto the insides of the rest of the suit.

After a moment the rest of the crew confirmed his humanity and brought him into the fold with open arms.

He didn’t bother looking at Elena. If he was going to get nicked, he’d do it himself. At least take away the satisfaction she’d get from cutting into him.

Her written portrayal wouldn’t have gone so far as to fabricate an ‘unfortunate accident’ but the way she’d glare at him made Aurelio cautious about giving that woman any opportunity to come up close with a lethal weapon.

In silence, the group continued their march towards the monster.

---

Their traversal through the Mire had seen them suffer from another sludge related ambush, with Cantwell being the unlucky one to experience their crawling and shredding on skin and muscles.

He’d lost the armor on his other arm. Kalani lost plating on her left leg. Elena had lost all the plating on one side of her body.

The same lapse in time had occurred. He’d been focused and attentive to a sign or a threshold. Something to indicate a transition from one event into another and he hadn’t discovered it. It didn’t sit right with him to lose contact with reality like that.

He pushed the discomfort aside. They were on a monster event card now. It was now a matter of identifying which event they’d landed on.

“Good work back there,” Kalani said in a hushed tone, “You handled that situation as best as you could.”

Aurelio was pulled away from his train of thought and into the current conversation.

“Huh? Oh, that, yeah.” His mood soured with a recollection of the pain still stinging his arm. “Whatever. It was the smart thing to do considering the circumstances but the glee she had in her eyes rubbed me the wrong way.”

Kalani sighed, “Elena can be difficult but I trust her. We’ve been through too much for me to let her current suspicions of you tarnish what she’s done for the lot of us in the past.”

“I know,” Aurelio admitted, “I don’t entirely blame her.”

She was just being a pain in the ass about her suspicions.

Kalani laughed, “Well aren’t you a team player, Lio. If things continue to go well from here, I’m gonna be glad to have someone else on the crew that isn’t such a headache all the time.”

Before he could respond, he glanced at the map and stopped.

“Everyone,” Aurelio called out, “We need to stop moving right now and focus on the ground.”

Kalani entered into an alert stance, “What happened?” What was the shift?”

Cantwell called from behind, “The monster's signal is nearby. There’s interference on the grid so we can’t pinpoint its direct location.”

Aurelio kneeled down to the ground and placed his palm on the slushy muck.

His palm came out coated in a smooth blue sludge.

The world had given him a lucky break.