The crack of dawn arrived and mandated slave labor beckoned. A detour brought me to Jeb’s place to pick up my brand new pipe and the model it was based on, then another sent me to Bob’s home, but he’d already left. I found him volunteering and returned it, along with a batch of tobacco. Mel immediately cornered me for my pen, although it would be switching hands again soon enough. Then she put me to work like the brutal taskmaster she was. My hopes for private gain were dashed, replaced by a sentence. Hard labor.

My primary of physical speed didn’t strike me as particularly construction-friendly, but reality proved me wrong again. Cutting wood into planks, beams and assorted necessities with floating magic swords was hyper-efficient and I ended up doing exactly that for two days, for twenty hours a day. The monotony of cut this, cut that, numbed me out of my mind. Three workdays in one now, just getting worse and worse.

Our village took a massive step forward. Multiple rows of residences were added and the smithing area got some walls to mitigate the perpetual draft. Major trades like cooking combined with alchemy, leatherworking and carpentry all got their designated buildings, mostly to escape the noise and crowding. Minor altercations had occasionally broken out and the draconian measures had not been enforced. Leadership probably understood that it was inevitable, we were a month into the post-Godstrike era but everyone still remembered how things used to be and craved those old world luxuries, however much in vain. Unfortunately housing allocations went by order of arrival, leaving me at the end of the queue. Mel informed me upon inquiry that payment was certainly an option to jump it. Fat chance, look at what happened to my last house.

A single aspect of good governance prevailed though, amenities. We had a pub now, and that was the only thing that mattered. It didn’t take long before the place filled up as the preferred destination after community service, even though they only served porridge and McMoonshine – whatever random alcohol people had made, mixed with coke and served in paper cups. We weren’t paying for more than coke with Barry having brought his own barreled booze.

Its inaugural evening started with a grand toast and one free drink on the house. The place was packed. A bar offered a long line of seats and tables with stools dotted the open room. Best of all, there were no rules against smoking indoors. Silver linings. We grabbed a table with four seats in a corner. There, my pipe made a never-ending circle while we aspired to get fucking hammered. The air took on a smoky sheen and eventually I excused myself from the table with Jeb, Vik and B. once they started getting tipsy. It was getting harder and harder to understand them and sloshing green cubes around in my cup quickly lost its appeal.

A few hours had gone by and our watering hole remained lively, even if many had already gone home. Partaking wasn’t particularly cheap for those who hadn’t brought their own booze, the fools. My timing turned out to be impeccable, as two of Jen’s friends left her alone at the bar while she yelled "Byeee C-C!". My buddies lamented the loss of the smoking tool, then forgot about it and me about three seconds later when the world lurched after I stood up and made my way over to Jen.

“Heya, this seat taken?” I gestured at the high stool next to her, graciously avoiding a stumble.

“Yeah, fuck off,” she deadpanned, and then her serious expression broke into a smile. “Nah, I’m kidding. You can have it if you buy me a drink. Don’t think they’ll let you take it home though.” She pulled it back a bit.

Good, might’ve made a fool of myself otherwise. “Think they can stop me? Let them try. I’ll take the chairs, the booze, everything. Make a club out of the bar and throw you over my shoulder, stride over to my cave and pass out in my own puke, like a real man.” My proclamation of manhood was followed by a double order. Jen perked up when she caught mention of Barry’s barrel.

A heavy gulp and strained expressions stole her wit. “Bet you were disappointed at class selection.” She blinked a few times.

“Yeah, dumb-fuck barbarian wasn’t an option, but I won’t let that stop me. You wouldn’t know of any good caves nearby? Maybe with a bear or two to wrestle? Hard to follow through before I find those.”

“Yeah, because that’s what’s stopping you,” she made another face, “Fuck, I miss gin. Looks like your nighttime plans are accurate at least.” She eyed my pipe like a mad animal when I pulled it out.

“No shit, I liked my whiskey smooth and soft. Pretty sure this piss would be poison without the alcohol. You smoke?”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Whenever I can, which has been never lately.”

“Yeah, involuntary quitting sucks. Here, have at it.”

Her chin rose in the air proportionally to the length of her drag and she blew great rings out towards the ceiling. We settled into a comfortable rhythm of making fun of others interrupted by increasingly strenuous efforts to hold down the swill, and then trading stories. “How’d they get away with cooping a barrel if metal was being rationed anyway?”

She laughed before continuing and slapped the table once, nearly bouncing our drinks. “Hah! You should’ve seen Mel when she found out. Stormed up to Jeb like she’d finally found out who put that stick up her arse.”

I laughed too much and too loudly, then collected myself. “Oh shit, did she pull it out and beat him with it?”

She chuckled even though it wasn’t that funny “Barely. She and Kris had a ten minute talk about it, couldn’t catch what they said but there was a shout or two.”

“Well, town’s lively at least. Shame she put the stick back in.” A swig ended my sentence.

And started hers. “Think she just needs to relax a little more and it won’t be so bad.”

“You gonna tell her that? I fucking won’t, she hates my guts already.”

Everything became slurred and blurred, we randomly changed topics until Jen, the lightweight, decided to settle down for the night. The goodbye’s lasted far longer than they should have. Once she was gone, I spotted a group of five playing a drinking game, there wasn’t much else going on.

“Helloes, saw you guys were at a game, mind if I join in?” The table seated five in total, excluding me. Only one of them looked up, like some kind of designated speaker. Another coughed when he spotted my lit pipe, never mind that the entire bar had taken on the tell-tale blue haze of contained chain smoking hours ago.

Their rep was somehow both short and lanky with an overgrown five-o-clock shadow that covered half his face like a mask and without any looks to write home about. What he lacked in build he made up for with enthusiasm. “Oh. I understand why you would think that. But we’re doing something different. We’re talking and using it to lay out our skill descriptions so we can compare. Not very efficient, but it’s fun. We take turns talking and if the right word comes up you slap the table and have a shot. Over time we piece together the descriptions.” Ah, the nerds.

“Aw a shame, I’m too drunk to keep up with that, man. Say, you guys uncover anything interesting so far?” I said, in an attempt to derail their efforts towards something a little less boring.

The talky one didn’t seem to care. “Most of it is still very vague, but we have some reasonable estimates. Did you have anything specific in mind?” Hadn’t thought that far ahead, in my experience drinking and thinking didn’t mix. Then again, the same could be said of prison wine and coke. And look at us now.

“Nope, maybe something that you thought was interesting?” A quick signal had the barkeep bring us a refill, hopefully smoothing out my rough arrival with the cadre.

“Oh. I think the skills are fascinating. Almost everyone picked different ones, but even when they have a shared one, we’re seeing completely different things within the same classes, yet they’re balanced out in the end. The tags are all over the place, but people always end up with a solid, well rounded set. Of course, for the pures it’s different because they already start well-rounded. The dichotomy of specialized abilities being rounded out with skills and general abilities being rounded out with specialized skills – that’s with regard to function by the way, usually offence, defense, mobility or denial thereof - combined with the crafting synergies we’re barely beginning to discover and how stats both signal potential and fill in some of the blanks all support our hypothesis that…”

I tuned out, only half of it made sense anyway. Nods and smiles were my only answers to his unending rants. The dude just droned on and on, earning him a personal nickname: Breathless. He finally finished, giving me a chance to escape.

“Huh, that is interesting. Bit much for me to handle though, but it sounds like you guys are making great strides. Uhh, I’ve kept you all for far too long already and I’m getting tired. Have a good one guys and gal, cheers.”

It wasn’t a bad topic, but the cliff notes version would be even better. Even his friends were bored and went back to their game instead, probably a while ago. Shit, too slow.

He opened his mouth again. “Oh it’s no bother. Come by and ask anytime if you want to know more. Honestly, we’re a bit surprised almost no one cares about figuring out what’s happening under the hood. It’s going to be important going forward-”

I just nodded and walked away with a salute. Pretty sure Breathless would keep me for another half hour otherwise, or maybe forever. I almost forgot to settle my tab. It was a weird vibe for end of night at a bar, the lack of folks hooking up stood out. Would’ve expected people to pair off and whatnot but there was only one brand new same-sex couple from the looks of it. Good for them. It took me far too long to process, but the lack of condoms and pills was probably behind that. The post-apocalypse was no place to have a baby.

After throwing up somewhere on the way, then getting lost twice, and falling off the ladder, my stumbling journey brought me to home sweet home. My evening had turned into a bit of a blur at some point and I didn’t quite remember everything, but there was nothing unusual about that. Then the realization hit me. Painkillers didn’t exist anymore, the hangover would be brutal and long. Worse yet, Jeb had my pillow as part of the work order. As if that wasn’t enough, the world spun wildly.

Tomorrow was going to be grim indeed.