Colin POV

The ground rumbled beneath our feet.

"We're under attack," Gambler warned, as though I couldn't tell. I ordered our units back to the base as Sage prepared for war and Rok'gar started pulling gear out of his inventory and distributing it to our units. He was able to equip all of the spearmen with leather cuirasses and gave the archers quivers.

"That should increase the number of shots before they have to reload by 50%," he told me.

“I’m on it,” Sage said, ordering the units into a defensive formation. I stared all around, wondering where the attack would come from.

The earth shook again, and then I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, a streak of orange across the sky heading for us.

"Get down!" I yelled and yanked Sage to the ground as the orange meteor slammed into the ground nearby. The earth shook even more violently. That must have been what caused the last few earthquakes.

Out of the cloud of dust and flame came a pack of slavering beasts, like long-necked wolves done up in giraffe spots with saber teeth. They raced forward. Our spearmen arrayed in a line and began stabbing as the archers shot a volley of arrows over the spearmen's heads and into the beasts.

One fell, a pool of dark orange blood spreading out from its corpse. It dissolved into a puddle of black goo that slid along the top of the orange blood. Seconds later, three more slightly smaller versions of the giraffe wolf appeared.

I cursed. We needed defensive structures, but I hadn't yet been able to get any online. I raced over to our headquarters building and checked out its menu. There was a new tab here attached to the controller unit we had just harvested from the shattered fragment. Its passive said, "Enables defensive structures."

I activated it and turned to my build menu. I had two types of towers available to me now: air and ground. I selected ground, then used my brand-new skill to configure it to shoot out ice with a slowing debuff. I set the turret building and raced across, past the edge of the battle line that Sage was directing, to the other side of our camp where I placed a second turret.

By now, my first was online. It zapped the nearest pair of giraffe wolves with a blast of cold, giving it a Slowred debuff.

My second turret was a lightning turret. As soon as it finished, it zapped the closest giraffe wolf. The bolt set its hair on end and gave it a temporary Stunned status. The archers took that one out as my spearmen killed one of the frozen wolves.

The frozen wolves began the respawning process, but much more slowly than the first wolf had done, while the lightning-stunned wolf crumbled to ash before blowing away.

"They're vulnerable to lightning damage," I shouted, and began creating another tower. Each of them took three units of ethereum to build, but if I voluntarily dismantled them, I could get all of that ethereum back. If the towers were destroyed, the ethereum would be lost. I needed to play this smart.

Two of our spearmen were dead. I ordered up another pair at the barracks. Rok’gar was busy crafting something. He ran out of the booth labeled "Crafter's Hall" a minute later, hands full of arrows, which he handed to both of our archers and now they shot lightning bolts into the creatures.

The ice tower slowed them. The lightning kept them dead. We cleaned up the invasion wave. It was trivial once we’d gotten our combination online. I made a mental note to create a lot more defensive turrets as soon as I could. On the other hand, being able to adapt my damage type for the scenario at hand was important. I’d need to strike a balance.

There were two more small earthquakes in the time it took us to dispense with the wave.

"What's happening?" I asked Gambler.

"It's an attack from a higher-powered fragment," he reported. "One strong enough that normally I wouldn't even make a good snack, but it appears this fragment is trying to clean up all of the small fry in our area. Two of the larger sentient fragments to our north are heavily under siege."

“Right,” I said. "How far away from headquarters can I craft these towers?"

"There does not seem to be a limit," Gambler told me.

"Rok'gar, we need as many lightning arrows as we can. Sage?"

"Tame worked just fine on those beasts," she told me. I hadn't noticed myself, but was glad to know now.

I nodded. "Gambler, you're going to direct us to the nearest of the fragments under seige.”

"What are you thinking, Colin?" Sage asked.

"That it's time to make some allies," I said. "Let's move out." Before I did, I carefully erected a better defensive line, building a circle of lightning towers around our base. It would have been nice to have real walls, but we didn't have that yet. I left two spearmen and an archer on patrol and told Coyote to yelp if we saw any problems. Then Rok'gar, Sage, and I raced off to the north.

We found the fragment in pretty bad shape. Unlike the shatters, this fragment was represented by a building, a small hut made of straw. I yelled as we got closer, "Emissaries from your neighbor, Gambler! We're here to help."

A face appeared at the one window. Round, pinkish, with a nose in the center. Sage burst out laughing. "I thought this world didn't call on our Earth myths, but if that's not one of the three little pigs, I’ll eat Shad’s hat.”

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I shared her laugh as I set down a pair of lightning towers.

“Who are the three little pigs?” Rok’gar asked. “Legendary warriors?”

“I’ll explain later,” Sage called over her shoulder as she led our small army into battle. She tamed the nearest giraffe wolf and set it on its fellows while our units fought another.

As soon as my towers were done, I toggled them off while I approached the pig. He was still watching out his window. “We're here to make a deal."

"Go away. I would rather deal with the scavengers."

"That's not going to work,” I said. "They'll just tear you to pieces. I'd rather have you whole. Thing is, I'm looking for an alliance of minds that can coexist and form a partnership."

"And you expect me to believe that?"

"It's true," I said. "We have experience with fragments like you guys. Good experiences. One of my best friends is a fragment."

Sage was whooping it up as she ordered her minions to attack. The pig seemed to hesitate.

"What is it you want?"

"Your ethereum's a good start, but if you join up with us, that'll give us more minion slots and will, which is what I really need. So how about you join the Gambler Alliance?"

The pig gave me a withering glare. "Join with a dirty Experiencer? Never."

I looked over the hut, noting the intricately woven patterns around the window. "I'm guessing you're a creative?”

The pig nodded. “So?”

“We happen to be some of the most creative people you're ever going to meet. My whole job is built around finding creative ways to break things nobody else thought of. Right now, that includes this entire Reality Engine exploit."

The pig's eyes widened. "Is that so?"

"Yes, it is. If you want to see some of the craziest shit you've ever thought of, you should join up with us. What have you got to lose?" I added, "aside from not being torn to pieces by these whatever-they-ares."

"Arthuribas," the pig said. "They were a species of vermin that made their lives on our spaceships for a large chunk of our history. I've always despised them. They do nothing but destroy."

"Then come see how creatively I can destroy them." I held up my hand. After a moment, the pig extended one trotter, and we shook.

A moment later, the hut dissolved in a series of purple sparks. My HUD updated. [Ethereum reserve: 184. Willpower density increased by 5%.]

I went ahead and had Gambler add a line to willpower for percent density increase over base so I could see how that changed. It was a little confusing having two percentages, but raw Will would stay at 100% unless we were attacked by another fragment, at which point it would tick down, while Density measured just how great a will differential Gambler could stand up against. More importantly, the minion slot expanded to 8, with 6 of them now occupied. I guessed that the pig counted as one of those. I was itching to get back and see what the pig had added, but there were two more fragments under attack nearby.

When we got to the second, I saw it was as I had suspected. This second little pig lived in a house made of sticks. Now I was certain that the rogue engine, or some of its fragments, had gotten their hands on a bunch of human knowledge. I wanted very much to find out where and how.

We had gathered enough skill seed fragments to create a skill seed. When I had analyzed it, it revealed an option too good not to give Sage. Her Tame could now affect enemy units, up to 8 at a time. It looked like that would expand with time. As a bonus, the units she captured would be ours permanently if they survived, and we could reverse engineer them at the barracks. That was incredibly OP.

She learned the skill immediately, and as I approached the second little pig to begin negotiations, she raced into battle against the arthuribas, blasting a couple of them to goo that quickly reformed.

The new Tame upgrade was called [Siren Song], and it seemed to target the weakest units first because we got all of the respawns and only one of the originals. They turned on their former allies, ripping them to shreds as I spoke with the second little pig.

“So, your neighbor already cut a deal with us.”

"I saw," the little pig said gloomily.

"How about it? Are you a Creative too?"

"I am," it said. "I suppose there's no point in arguing. I don't really want to be torn to shreds, and I don't have the resources to field my own army."

I felt a rush of elation as he joined up in the Gambler Alliance, and our Minion cap expanded to 7/10.

We cleaned up the invasion and raced toward the last fragment. The giraffe wolves were nipping and biting at the edge of the brick house of the third little pig. It had turrets on the roof, and the turrets were zapping them with electricity. The wolves were already in pretty bad shape.

"Hold up," I told Sage and Rok'gar, and I approached. The third pig glared out the window at me.

"I will not be joining your misbegotten alliance," he shouted. "I don't need your aid, and I will not turn over my treasures for anyone."

"It could benefit all of us," I suggested.

"Go away. I'm not interested."

"You wanna see some really creative shit? Because I can come up with—"

"Pah," the pig said, sneering. "I'm not a dilettante like those other two. I'm an Inheritor, and you are not my children."

Now I was twice as interested. I had a grasp by now on the Creative and Experiencer factions, but the Inheritors I had yet to speak with. My time with Kronos had exposed me to that philosophy. Kronos was by and large an Inheritor himself, eager to pass down the knowledge and wealth of aeons to those he considered his rightful successors. But from what I'd gathered from Coyote, the Inheritors faction largely hadn't gone into reality engines, having instead pursued their mission of repopulating worlds from the ground up.

"You don't have any descendants left,” I pointed out. "This world was scoured of life decades ago."

"That is unfortunately true," the third pig said.

"Ever considered adoption?"

The pig looked taken aback. It scratched its head with one trotter. "Adoption?"

I shrugged. "Sure. It's when you have a child with no parents and need someone to take care of him."

The pig blinked. "How should a child have no designated carers? Who could bring such a being into the world?"

I realized there was a yawning cultural gap there. From what I knew of it, Progenitor society had been largely free of physical wants. Death had been a choice, not an accident. Of course, there would have been few situations that could have left a child in need of parents and care.

"You need to think like primitives," I said. "Sometimes things are beyond our control.”

“But to claim one with no true connection as my offspring…”

“I mean, that's what your people did, isn't it? They created the rudimentaries of life and some guiding algorithms on various possible worlds and let new species take your place. The dinosaur creatures that lived here weren't really your descendants.”

“In the ways that counted, they were. You are from another world."

"Sure, but we're pretty interesting people," I said.

"I see your species is persuasive. And resourceful.” The pig frowned. "I would like to see some of your young. Are you and the other one of your species a mated pair?"

I nearly choked. "No, and also, this would be a terrible place to raise children."

"You may be right," the pig sighed.

Meanwhile, Sage and Rok'gar were dealing with what remained of the giraffe wolves. The pig's shoulders slumped.

"It seems my choices are to join with you, to allow myself to be devoured by someone more powerful, or to wait until your friendly offer becomes one that I am not actually able to say no to. I will join up with you."

A smile spread across my face as we gained even more resources.

"Any more incursions, Gambler?"

"I don't detect any nearby."

"Right." I turned to the others. Rok'gar was still looting the giraffe wolf corpses. "Let's get back to the base and see what new abilities we've unlocked."