I tapped my foot, looking at the still woods expectantly, hoping for another regiment to show up. We spent two days scouting all the way to another river-crossing, finding precisely zero stray errant in the forest except for the occasional frozen rodent. At one point a single bigger patrol of fifty or so centaurs challenged us and met the same fate as the others before it. In truth, the aftermath left me incredibly numb, antsy and most of all, bored. Jen alleviated the tedium by calling me cart-side.

“Not feeling so great, are you?” she said.

“Honestly, it’s fucking uncanny how you read me. But yeah, I admit giving in was a mistake, even if it worked out.”

“What’s fucking uncanny is how you pretend not to realize what’s going on. You rush, and then you crash. Then you rush harder, and you crash harder. It’s only going to get worse, you know that right?” She had a point.

I sighed. “Well, it’s hard to ignore now. I just… didn’t really know what else to do. There’s all this shit going on and we’re powerless to stop it. It pisses me off and I wanted to blow off some steam, feel in control.”

“I feel you Gabe, I really do. I’m not trying to be a bitch here. We all need an outlet. I’m crippled and still convince people to carry me around so I can kill. Hell, it’s literally healing me. The world is fucked up now. But I like this, us. I don’t want to lose you to some bullshit before we even really get started, y’know? What I’m saying is, do what you need to do, but make sure you come back, yeah?” She put her hand on mine, still too damaged to initiate a hug but I gave her one anyway.

“Fuck, you’re sweet. You also made me feel a lot better, and you’re right. Trading lack of control for a different lack of control isn’t going to do anything besides make things worse. I mean, I already knew it. But I like this too, and I do want to come back and see where it goes.”

“Thanks, that’s all I ask.”

“You got it.”

“Last word?”

“Screw you.”

“You wish.”

“So do you.”

“Do I now?”

“Goddamnit, you win.”

“Of course.”

I left the cart with a smile on my face, somehow.

It took about half a day to dismantle the makeshift bridge and we were well under way reassembling the last remains into a cart. I was pretty sure only Elias had fun during the wait. His job involved shooting apart the little scooting Errant scampering around us at a distance, pretending to be real animals as if the ice didn’t give the game away. Scouts, probably. Heed us not, oh violent icy strangers - we are but passing through, also fuck you.

Victor walked towards me. “Mel say they are ready to move.”

“Alright, thanks.” I raised my voice, “Team Search & Destroy, kill the rest of those squirrels then keep position on the land-side. Team Firebase, stay with the caravan and watch the lake. We’re not camping until we’ve passed the second crossing.”

“You like to give command, yes?” Vik said.

“Maybe, I dunno, not really I guess. Just gotta fake it till I make it. You miss being in charge?”

“Before, was nice. Now? Is different. More danger. But no problem for you, you are crazy, hah hah.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have the look, when you fight. I see it in prisoners. They never last long, always very violent.” What was this, an intervention?

“No shit? It’s a recent development. Wasn’t like this before.”

“I date therapist long ago. She say it come from bad past. First fight to survive. Later fight to feel alive.”

“Well, you’re probably not wrong. Pretty much word-for-word what we’ve gone through here.”

“But you are not child. Not work like that.”

“Nothing works like it used to.”

He nodded at that.

“Hey Vik, one more thing. About the look… Keep it to yourself if you can, yeah?”

“I will, but everyone already know. Not from me.”

“Thanks, Vik.”

Well, the cat wasn’t going back into the bag from the looks of it, kind of ironic considering my talk with Jen earlier. Work towards fixing something and boom, it hits you in the face just as you get started. The caravan was getting underway. Our original thoughts had been to get as far away from the dragon as possible. However, some quick reminders it could fly tore the illusion away. While physics had thoroughly gone out the window, it likely had an effective range too far to run from. Plenty of other monsters to flee though.

The lakeside travels proceeded easily, nothing from the water messed with us and neither did the citadel spit out new war bands. This zone, if it even was a zone, spanned about a week at our current pace. The games had come and gone. Same as any game, no one had seen a real animal for months.

Our remaining nerds theorized they were all dead. They had a lot of theories lately. It happened when you let scientists sit around and think too much. It was necessary to distract them with experiments if you didn’t want a possible explanation for everything under the sun. Alas, the research budget currently amounted to zero, so they talked. I didn’t mind, especially because Breathless was putting the finishing touches on my schematic.

Not that I bothered to listen, even if I’d be back for the cliff notes version. At least there weren’t any delays. The axles didn’t break, the burdened beasts didn’t tire. Our people did though and sleeping happened on the move, in the carts. Muddy patch? Those with physical power pushed ‘n’ pulled. Trees in the way? Not if the mages had anything to say about it. The sheer nonchalance of it felt empowering in a way, or it would’ve if we hadn’t been fleeing with our tails between our legs.

The crossing of the second river proved even more uneventful than the first. There was no need for pacification this time. We took a day off for setting up camp, getting around to things like washing and rest. The smell seeped into us, wafted around us, and drove us fucking crazy. Everyone turned into an expert in different kinds of sweat.

There was the ‘haven’t showered for a week but still spent the whole day walking’ type, it just lingered and spread. Then there was the ‘Oh dear god I’m almost dying’, a feverish and sharp smell. There were also several variations of ‘I’ve been carving wooden animals for the last 70 hours and it’s driving me insane’, all of those went together with tense jawlines, faces fixed with a mild wild look. Other weirdness abounded, at least one endurance fighter spent the last 300 or so hours awake and everyone sighed in relief when he stopped talking and went to sleep, armor and all.

So everyone was on edge, yet work waited for no one. Team S&D reconnoitered in force again, looking for congregations of Errant to wipe the floor with, although now we enforced a strict ‘do not approach buildings’ policy. We eventually split the group in two, and finally we sent the true slow movers back while the rest of us spread out far and wide. Upon our return the next day, we celebrated.

There were no armies to meet us, nor any environmental Errant to complicate the path. We only found a bunch of widely distributed singular Errant of various kinds - zone principles were in play again - with none of them being particularly dangerous. The lake-filled bowl continued all around, it seemed. The terrain on this side remained predominantly flat, with the usual gentle rising slope towards the mountains cradling it, along with some patches of pine here and there and increasingly rocky, jagged ground the higher up we looked. Same old, same old.

Then again, we were all close to or level 100 and each of us held enough crystalline fuel in reserve to fight off a large patrol. Recent efforts and aggregated experience meant we knew how to effectively use our energy too.

Even team Firebase figured out how to bait the Errant in the lake and frequently went ‘fishing’ as they put it. The fireworks were good for morale so their shenanigans continued, even if they were a little wasteful. We couldn’t recover the corpses, the lake edge was a sheer cliff and everything sank into the endless abyssal depths, we even shot down some flares and quickly lost sight of them.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Losing the loot annoyed the shit out of the nerds, who tried everything from harpoons mundane and magical to freezing a plateau underwater. The first gave the Errant ideas, who were somehow capable of tugging harder than we were. The last proved impractical – for now. According to Breathless, the lake sported a magical endurance somewhere around the 200 mark.

“You alright, Breathless? Consider what you just said. Pretty sure the lake doesn’t have a System.”

He responded after looking at the lake, then at the other nerds ahead of the caravan who were still at it. “No, no… I think I need a nap.” That may have been the shortest sentence he ever uttered.

“Make it a long one, maybe.”

“Yes… yes.” Or not.

“How long have you been awake, anyway?”

“Two days? Three, maybe? Or was it four? Oh, that’s a long time… the days are 30 now, right, right. I should sleep.” No shit, Sherlock. He dumped himself in a cart, snoring loudly after about three seconds passed.

The lingering tension finally dropped and the mood brightened visibly as a result. Not mine though, even if the jitters stayed away for now, maybe because of my talk with Jen. Mel had relieved me of command, thank the System. During the trek further south along the water’s edge, she appropriated my team and put Jen in charge of piecing together the reports while she sent them all over the place. She was after any and all information; types of Errant, materials, stairwells, landmarks, fortresses, and probably a bunch of other shit I couldn’t think of. She’d given me a mission too, right after I woke up no less, which soured my disposition. No rest for the wicked.

I packed my provisions and looked at the endless tundra plain ahead. At least some extremely minor hills broke the monotony. Like being home again. My gaze shifted to the crumpled wrapper with written orders littering the pristine, barely grassy mud. Bitch gave me a note, “Just in case,” she said.

‘Avoid Errant and run south for two days. Then come back and report.’

My endurance should last just about long enough to complete the expedition. I slowly warmed to the idea, a hike sounded nice, refreshing. Before long, my journey crossed over into a new zone, after which the Errant remained the same throughout my trip.

I coined these ones a resource type, because they were literal grey bricks, the size of cars, and did nothing at all. Resilient though, it took a full minute to push one of my swords all the way in and another dozen for it to die to the sizzling of infinitesimally tiny, creeping, white circuits. The spread fascinated me, vision ever clearer thanks to increased stats. This one was a 10/10. How the hell do these things even kill each other? It dropped magic stone.

I found a variant too, of course it nearly killed me. I walked right up to it and had been taken completely off-guard when smaller brick shaped sections moved out of the way of my leaning stab and proceeded to envelop me, all while violating some principle of space since the moving sections overlapped freely. The jump scare caused me to back step like a madman and keep running. The brick sprouted and chased me with a dozen brick legs, at surprising speed no less. Not that it could keep pace. Watching it run gave me a decent estimate of how quickly the mini-bricks moved.

I got tired of messing around and shot the fucker, dumping a hundred energy into it - was nearly full anyway. Apparently, it had a solid extra shiny brick dead center, emitting eerie black light. Had. My duo-deca-launch reduced ‘the core’ to dust scattered among a pile of small blocks. I refused to lug around a bunch of extra-magical stone, the variant sat at 43/100. Weird, thought it would be full. No further misadventures graced me with their presence, mostly because I stuck to the mission from then on. I even went above and beyond.

For one, I found out how brick battles worked. Near midnight they started glowing until they resembled molten metal. Once charged or whatever, they fired off a stretch of black beam at long range. Most were aimed at me but the darklight lasers were slow, by my standards, so I just stepped out of the way. It felt incredibly stupid. They put on a decent lightshow, all-in-all. Some of them still murdered each other, seemed like a one-shot-one-kill affair. I wasn’t up for any experimentation and never checked how powerful the brick-ray was.

Should ask Jen about the dude who tanked the vinesnap, maybe he’ll be up for it. Then again, this looks like magic, maybe Kim?

I also spotted rising smoke in the distance, across the southern, thankfully low, rocky peaks, and decided to go over and have a peek. There were no Errant in the immediate vicinity of the mountain slope. Eventually a black, vaguely baroque gate popped into existence. The doorway was damn near horizontal with how it followed the gentle slope. The circular stairwell was upside down and slightly diagonal so this was essentially either the worst or the best slide in existence, jury was still out. I wondered whether it twisted and evened out at some point, or if there was a flipped labyrinth beneath me.

I stared after making it over the ridge, down a nearly vertical cliff, at the bottom of which was an honest-to-god city. A big one too, at least by post-apocalyptic standards. There were three layers to it, the first consisted of a fuck-off sized castle close, or maybe even built in, to the cliff edge - it had to be a stairwell. A clearly man-made semicircle of stone wall closed it in at some distance, although the multitude of wooden rafters all over stood out more to the eye – none of it appeared magical either. By far the largest part of the city was covered by… I wanted to call it a slum but the word felt far too generous.

It looked like Redhead had graced them with a courtesy call as well. There was battle damage everywhere, including huge linear swaths, obviously pieces of the city burned down to the ground. A little interesting, dragon fire didn’t so much spread as that it consumed whatever it touched. Did someone pull an Emperor Nero?

Job done, I ran back and submitted my formal report by yelling ‘land ahoy’ as soon as the caravan entered earshot. After first Jen, then Mel, finished interrogating me, I had a well-deserved rest and deferred any descriptions under rule of ‘you’ve got to see it for yourself’, much to their chagrin.

It took fucking ages for the caravan to reach, especially because Mel called stops during glowbrick hour. Two antimages winked the beams out of existence at a distance, one mentioned there were other options on the table but we chose safe over sorry. Once we arrived, the chain of carts formed into a circle and started construction of camp. Of course, plenty of others ran ahead to have a look-see for themselves and the rumors started making the rounds, almost spoiling the surprise.

The two of us leaned against the rocks and spent a good while peering down. Finally, Mel spoke.

“Goddamnit.”

“See? You wouldn’t have believed me if I told you.”

“It really is a shithole.”

“I know, right? I mean look at what they’re wearing, they have an entire industry dedicated to making clothes out of wrappers. And they’re crap. It’s just one giant plastic-cup-sheet favela with an inner gated community of rich people.”

“That’s what caught your eye? Not the giant burned scars? Oh, I bet you missed the party.”

“Saw those the first time around, besides they’re already being built over. What? Where?”

“It’s right in the middle of the main and only square…”

“Holy, what the fuck is going on down there. Why are they chained, are those slaves?”

“Almost certainly. They’ve probably monopolized the underway entrance there, I doubt they built the castle, and followed through by exploiting the populace. Some seem to have carved out something for themselves, I’m assuming they go out and hunt in the surrounding lands. Still, the economics don’t add up… How deep are they really delving? There are at least a few thousand people down there.”

“So, you still want to join with these idiots?”

“No, of course not, we’ll have to rethink things.”

“Can I have a try then? I’m thinking the big guy on the throne.”

“It’s… Not a terrible idea. Can you hit?”

“Sure.” I had no idea, probably not.

“You know he’s probably Ascendant, right?”

“Eh. It worked on the dragon. How much range can he have anyway? Pretty sure I win any exchanges from here, can’t go all-out that way though.” My skill wasn’t flashy but it sure was lethal – Redhead notwithstanding. May your knee hurt, then explode.

“Didn’t you miss…? Never mind, not yet. But probably later.”

“Neat.”

The utter collapse of society had some benefits. No rule of law forced jail-time on me for the unlawful murder of subhuman parasites, for one. As if I’d ever have considered something like that before. Offing big Bacchus over there seemed like a net good so why sweat the ethical quandary? We had a big discussion after everyone had a proper gander. The rumors had done some of the prep-work already. As such, no one felt particularly excited about scaling the cliff face to join the micro-dystopia. There was no outrunning the Greatbeast either so we could either keep going or follow Mel’s idea.

Since people had already gotten tired of walking and were similarly warmed up to not dealing too directly with the banana republic down there, well, the debate died quickly. No, we were not joining them. No, we were not traveling even further south. Yes, we should settle here. The details remained in the air until Mel whipped out her, no doubt long-prepared, plan.

Settlement location was a no-brainer. Apparently we had various locations suitable for Farm 2.0’s, an abundance of respawning high quality building materials and a stairwell right next to us. The mountains obscured us visually from the failed urban development program while the verticality wouldn’t stop us from interacting with them on our own terms, and it provided leverage to boot. Springs and streams saddled the mountains, so water wasn’t an issue either. If we wanted to, building shelters into the mountain was an option and this spiral staircase was well suited as a rapid access bunker.

Not to mention the two other stairwells, found on the way here. The prognosis even looked manageable for any repeats of the eclipse. So far we hadn’t come across any Errant which could pose a true threat even if massed and organized. Some uncharted territory still needed exploring but overall she talked about our locale like we’d hit the jackpot. Too good a story to pass up, nice. Nods and affirmations showed all around and signaled the next, real item of business – how do we organize? Communism was all well and good for ease of travel yet not particularly interesting as a long term prospect.

Instead we settled on a hybrid model. It sounded an awful lot like an excuse for sky-high taxation to me. Regardless, I was in the inner circle nowadays and so not against it. In fact, everyone present comprised the inner circle. We’d have to recruit at some point and chose to retain our military bent due to an overwhelming need for self-defense. Eventually we could produce goods and such, fleecing the folks below for some extra income and an export market. I joked about us becoming a live-in corporation, somehow everyone took it seriously and agreed. We also defined our diplomatic policy - us first.

Only one voice of dissent broke the chorus of affirmation. Jerry wasn’t having it, not due to any disagreements with the setup itself. He pondered during the trek and resolved to leave and wander, soul searching or some shit. We loaded him with whatever he wanted and needed, after which he left the very same night. He started by scaling down the wall no less, although even he wasn’t interested in visiting the ultra-slum. I wasn’t going to miss the asshole. Some others played out the mandatory bittersweet farewell part and gave him a proper send-off at least, even he deserved that much.

Still, good riddance. Why do I even hate the guy? Something about him reminds me of… Damn, I can’t place it. Probably nothing, sorry dude but I just think you’re a prick.

Now it was time to get to work.