Next was the garage, and then a quick run through the washing area to see if there was anything there that would be useful.
“I still want something with a hefty smack to it. Maybe a crowbar, or a tire iron of my own.” Useful weapons were best in her opinion. Guns, while great for range, also had a bad habit of jamming or running out of bullets in the middle of a firefight. Soldiers’ Sally was a game too realistic in that sense—she didn’t like checking the dryness of her guns every minute, in addition to spending every other minute scavenging for bullets. Another tester, ChonkAhoy, had saved her ass during one of the ambushes. Thinking of them made her wonder how people had been placed in this game. “Are we all a set distance apart, or is there a landing zone we share?”
Either way she wouldn’t mind finding them again. A woman could only be on watch so many hours before being forced to sleep.
The garage was dustier than the inside of the store, most likely because the door had been left open, and it dulled the color of everything. Ace ran a finger along the burnt pumpkin color of the vehicle to reveal a much more vibrant hue lurking underneath. The Jeep had its hood up, pointing to the outside as if it wanted its freedom back, and if it wasn’t for the evidence of people not having been inside for a long while, she could imagine that the staff were off on a coffee break. Instead, it had died a slow death between the blue bars of a lift.
She turned slowly in the room, taking in what she could identify around her. There was the air compressor, Jack stands, oil caddies, battery chargers, jumper cables, a press, and a red tool cabinet next to a workbench. Not a single weapon to be seen. Most of the items were useless. There was no way she could push around a battery charger, and she didn’t want to try. Some of the smaller tools though... those were worth their weight in gold. She pillaged the toolset.
*1 flat screwdriver, 1 Phillips screwdriver, 1 pair of needle-nose pliers, 1 pair of wire cutters, 1 pair of slip-joint pliers, 1 solar-powered flashlight, 1 small hammer, and 1 pair of safety glasses acquired*
“Next, a place to set up camp,” she said, hefting the backpack and slipping on the glasses. “I don’t want to carry all this for any longer than needed.”
A place to settle wouldn’t be here though. The gas station didn’t have the barriers she wanted since its door had been broken open, the garage door was probably rusted in place, and the unstable tower was straight out. On the other hand, if she could get inside the tower, then she’d be able to confirm if this was the direction she wanted.
With the garage down the only place left was the car wash area. Except for a few towels still sealed in their plastic, there wasn’t much of anything in the empty berth. That was fine. The water, food, and tools were more than enough to see her started.
*3 microfiber towels acquired*
“So long Skelly, and thanks for all the supplies,” she said, exiting the car wash. Giving the station a wave, she began heading toward the black tower. It had been satisfying for a first place, and it allowed her to know more about challenges in the game. Not all of them would be as easy as half-past noon, but she should try to find a book somewhere to make her own notes about the stranger things she came across. “Still not sure if using my eyes activated Perception or Opportunities, but it worked and that’s all I care about for the moment.”
Ace would keep this place in mind if there were cars to drive later, but so far the world’s physics were staying the same, and between oxidation and contamination she wasn’t holding her breath about fuel sources. She checked out the clouds again, swore under her breath, and started jogging to the tower. That storm was going to hit in the next hour or so. The day was dropping to a much cooler temperature and the storm clouds were taking on a green tint.
What greeted her was a twisted mess of rusting metal in the middle of a section squared off by thicker, taller beams. If the gas station had been the tutorial, then the leaning tower was quite a jump higher. She looked up, finding the hanging rung leading to the remaining half of the second-floor stairs. Literally.
“Easy way’s out,” was all she admitted, stepping over a piece of sheared edge sticking up. “Dammit. Is this one of those come back later places?”
Some games would do that, forcing a player to return at a higher level to grab special weapons or open doors that needed combinations not in the area. It was one of those good/bad things she liked. A little realism that nothing stayed in the same area combined with the annoyance of trying to keep track of all the places she needed to return to. Ace shaded her eyes and focused again, hoping to spark another idea, but nothing came to mind.
“Fair enough.” It would be too easy if she could depend on her skills to give her the answer every time. Like the retro clickers. She knew people that would click everything, going stone by stone in some platforms to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
She spent the time taking a closer look at the situation. The building of the tower looked stable enough from the bottom; there were no holes in the floor at any rate. Walking around the poles showed that all the walls were intact and that the windows, surprisingly, weren’t broken. The rock didn’t have any visible places for her to grip and it was too high up for her, though if she could get there then one more jump would put her at the bottom of the stairs. The rock itself was green on the side opposite the mountains, but black where not overtaken by moss. There were also several pieces of graffiti scratched in.
Mad Dan
fuck this shit
Kahu water -> food trade
I speak the voices in my head.
RUN
“I’m not sure what’s going to fuck me over first, the voices writer or needing to run.” Ace raised an eyebrow at the longest phrase written. “Could even be both.” Moss hadn’t grown back in those areas, but did that mean it was recent? And there were enough changes in the letters to suggest that different people had written what they’d felt to be important. An itching feeling grew between her shoulder blades and she glanced around her again. Nothing was moving, except for the storm clouds saying to choose now between the station or the tower.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The rock would get her to the stairs, but she needed something that would get her to the rock.
“Got it.” Laying her backpack down at the base of the moss, she took the opportunity to leave the flashlight out and charge it, if the solar part was still working. She turned and jogged back to the garage. The hood of the Jeep didn’t have a problem dropping, and the gear shift moved to neutral. The driver’s side door was left open as she positioned herself between the bumper and the lift’s bars. If the axle was broken, or if the wheel didn’t allow her to steer, then this wouldn’t work, but... the vehicle began to shift, rolling out of the garage. “Fuck yes!”
It covered the ground between the two places quicker than she thought it would, hitting the rock even though she jumped in and slammed on the brakes.
“Part one done.” Ace shouldered her bag again and climbed onto the hood, then the roof, and made it to the top of the rock. “From here it’s just a jump to the left.” She eyed the distance and the several feet leading to sharp, spiky, and painful metal remains below. “I don’t feel like testing the respawn mechanics at the moment. Not like this.”
Running back didn’t take long, but she felt several drops hit her on the way.
“Gotta hurry if I want to stay dry.” The cables she’d grabbed were long enough to use as rope, and threw out a loop to hook part of the handrails that were sticking up. The first throw missed, but she reeled the cables back in and tried again. “Third time’s the charm.” A quick tug checked to see if it would hold, and since it did she tested it again by leaning back and pulling away. That held as well, so she leaned out over the pit of slow and lingering death and pushed off gently.
Climbing up wasn’t easy, but thanks to the body she’d selected it was easier than if she had tried in her personal body. Dangling above the pit of metal was a great way to focus on not dying, and drove her to concentrate on hands moving above hands. Gusts of wind blew her about a little and rustled her clothes, but they weren’t enough to hamper her progress. She made it to the remainder of the stairs, where she tested the steps before allowing herself to trust them.
“Guess these things can come in handy.” It would be more weight to carry, but acceptable for the ideas she had in mind: pulling up or down any items that caught her eye, acting as a tripwire when her camp was finally set up, and replacing rope for the moment. She coiled them into a twist that would stay unknotted, then took a few seconds to put them in the backpack. Finally, she started climbing the stairs, keeping one hand gripping the railway the entire time. There wasn’t a top door, and so the stairs put her immediately into the middle of a small room.
Which looked as if a tornado had wrecked it. There were clothes strewn across the floor, plates that had smashed against the ground, and books with their spines broken, pages splayed and bent. There were windows all around the room, letting someone inside have a 360-degree view of the area around them. Currently, that view was hidden by black clouds tinged green and a sheet of heavy rain. Ace couldn’t even see where the gas station was from here. Yet, for all the violence she saw in the items around her, none of it had touched the windows and with the storm raging she was very happy for that.
She set her backpack down on a table and took out the flashlight. There was enough power for her to find the hurricane lamp under the table, and hopefully more than enough to set it up. She set the chimney aside to unscrew the burner unit. A plastic bottle of lamp oil had been there too, so she poured the liquid in, leaving about half an inch at the top and wiped the outside to make sure she hadn’t spilled it. Grabbing the burner, the wick was settled into the oil and it was re-screwed.
A boom of thunder shook the station. The wind whipped the rain at the windows, battering them without mercy.
“Should’ve had long enough to settle,” she told herself, looking around for the matches. They weren’t anywhere near the table and she finally found them on the countertop in the miniature kitchen. Several matches had previously been struck, leaving few to rattle around the box. She struck it and lit the lamp, turning the key and letting the light shine.
It wasn’t just the books that were telling tales about violence. It was the same story in the ripped sheets from the cot in the corner, the claw-like gouges in the wall, and a cabinet reduced to splinters.
“What the hell happened here?”
A streak of lightning cracked amid the dark clouds taking over, and another book shook the air.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere until that storm passes.”
It was tempting to take a nap since she wasn’t sure the next time she’d be able to sleep, but curiosity won out. She took the hurricane lamp with her and began to poke around the room.
It was fifteen steps from wall to wall, ignoring the entryway in the middle that led to the stairs. The faucet by the sink was a hand pump, bringing up cold water, and there was a shower made in the corner with a bucket hanging from a hook, with a chipped toilet in there as well. In front of the door leading to that, Ace found a dresser. Settling the lamp on top she opened the first drawer. Grey button-up shirts were folded on the right side and green slacks were folded on the left side.
“It’s a ranger’s station.” She took out a pair of pants.
*1 pair of ranger’s pants acquired*
The first two were made for a larger person, but under them there was one her size. She slipped out of her shorts and into the pants. Longer, they’d offer more protection, and it was always best to have something else to wear. A Nose for Trouble was a good example of that, with in-game pheromones sprayed on characters lasting until they changed clothing, or until werewolves ripped the player apart. Probably no worries about that here, but she didn’t know what the future held. The shorts she put back in the backpack, along with a shirt.
*1 ranger shirt acquired*
The books were beyond ruined. If the pages didn’t have mold growing on them, then the paper was slashed in such a way that reading wasn’t a possibility. The records were a better place to look. Inside plastic binders, they had mostly survived whatever occurred.
August 16th, 2121 Monday 14:21 DM
Sunny, a little cloudy over the northwestern area, so there should be some rain happening. No fires spotted, thankfully. The ones earlier this summer were bad enough. Laundry day today, and tomorrow a boy scout troop is coming.
She flipped to the next legible entry, a fused together stack of paper helping speed that along.
November 4th, 2121 Thursday 6:35 DM
I won’t be the only ranger here. Madeline Rogers has joined the team and asked to be placed in the fire lookout. I don’t think she’ll make it. It’s lonelier than people expect, even with the school kids and groups. I’ll tidy the place up before she gets me in trouble for letting it be a mess.
“Looks like whoever wrote this wasn’t paid by the word.” Ace flipped to the last entry.
February 6th, 2122 Friday 10:31 DM
Something strange is happening and Maddy agrees. All the birds took off this afternoon, winging toward the sea. Not a single one stayed or hung around. It’s quiet.
And that was it. DM hadn’t recorded anything else, and either Maddy hadn’t written anything or none of it had survived. She set the notebook back and felt a puff of warm air against the back of her neck. In a place where windows weren’t broken and the rain was cold. Fuck.
Ace spun around, her hand reaching out for the lamp beside her, but knocked it over and shattered the glass. She looked to make sure there was no fire and the moment cost her. A handful of claws wrapped around her neck and applied pressure at her jugular. She scratched. Kicked. And her reward was for her feet to leave the floor. A tiny thought wormed its way up through incoming blackness.
There hadn’t been any dust in the room.