Betrayal. Deceit. Cruelty. These were the traits that seemed to have twisted the minds of almost every player left wandering my sunburned country. I didn’t know if that was simply a coping mechanism taken up by the thousands of survivors or if people who were kind and empathetic were simply too gentle to live in this new world. Whatever the reason might be, I didn’t like it. I’d suffered enough mercilessness before I’d even had hair on my privates. I didn’t need it to be shoved down my throat all over again.

Seriously, I think I’d rather sit on a cactus and spin than continue on in a broken world of murder, mayhem, and monsters.

The bed springs squeaked over me, stabbing harder into my ass as the leader of the rebels rolled in his sleep. I bit my tongue to keep back the string of curses I wanted to let loose. I had considered leaving the relative safety of my sparkling hideout. The abundance of dust bunnies was beginning to make my nose twitch. I rethought that idea, though, when I considered what might lay on the other side of the door. Besides, there was something else I desperately wanted to do before I moved on.

I opened up my menu and eyed my stats, happy with how they had grown.

Health:

31/40 (7)

Magicka:

22/22

Fatigue:

40/40

Level:

30

Ability

Score

Agility:

15

Charisma:

10

Constitution:

14

Endurance:

10

Intelligence:

8

Perception:

15

Magic:

1

Strength:

7 (1)

I felt as though I needed to collect more accessories or outfits with ability bonuses. The enormous boost to my health was great and had probably saved me a time or two. Without the bonuses, though, I found the stat growth a little stunted. That, or maybe I was just impatient.

Anyway, that wasn’t really why I was playing in my menu. I navigated to the skill tree. It looked as it had before, with the four specialty classes branching off the singular point that was my thief class. From there, all the options that spread out from the Archer, Dual-wielder, and Shadow choices were greyed out. I tried to see past the fog on the icons to try and guess the skills there, but it was no good. I sighed and looked to the singular specialty class that was lit up like a beacon; Ranger.

From that specialty category were the three options I had had to choose from the last time I’d been gifted a skill point; Summon Familiar, Camouflage, and Identify. The two other icons that had lit up beyond my Identify skill were glowing, almost seducing me with their unknown rewards.

I focused on the first and read the description.

Blindsense

The Ranger has learned to use more senses than only their eyes. Blindsense allows the Ranger to navigate dark places with ease, sense friend or foe within a radius, and sense useful crafting material outside the range of Identify. The strength of Blindsense is dictated by player level and perception.

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Keen Gatherer

Passive skill. The Keen Gatherer has honed their pruning abilities to a fine-tuned skill. Harvesting plant-based crafting materials now yields between two and five items. Possible gains can be enhanced with luck bonuses but remain determined at random.

Both were exceptional in their own way but entirely different. With Keen Gatherer, I could raid the various growing rooms stationed through the Outsider's hideout and stockpile an enormous amount of ingredients for potions and poisons. The fact that ingredients were stacked in my inventory, limiting the amount of space they took up, was a bonus.

On the other hand, with the Blindsense skill, I would be less susceptible to surprise attacks. I found myself in the dark so much that having another sense to rely on other than my sight would be a huge relief. I could also achieve that with an item like the Ring of Glow that I once had. I didn’t have it with me right now, but I’m sure I could find another, just like it, somewhere. Being able to sense all manner of crafting materials, not just plant-based ones, would be helpful out in the wider world. I could collect a lot using that, even if it wasn’t as much as Keen Gatherer would give me.

Unsure what to do, I dropped down the skill tree again, looking at my other options. I didn’t have to continue down the Identify path simply because it was the highest skill I had reached. There were many other useful skills to obtain.

Summon Familiar would never be helpful for me. I seemed to collect animal sidekicks without even trying. The Tentarat currently wrapping its tentacles around my neck was proof enough of that. I have to tell you, the combination of slimy tentacle and velvety fur on such a sensitive area of my body was the absolute worst. There was no dislodging the little fella, though. He was much stronger than something so small should ever be.

Camouflage held my interest more than Summon Familiar did. With it, I could walk through the Outsider's sanctuary without being seen. I could just waltz on out there and find Theo, stick my blade through his chest, and walk on out without any issues. The only thing that stopped me from selecting it was its reliance on the Intelligence ability. I had dumped a few points into that ability to help with my thieving skills that required magicka, but it remained one of my lowest-scoring abilities.

I could always go back further and choose one of the fighting options, but for whatever reason, that didn’t appeal to me much. Perhaps it was because I was happy with being a Ranger. It seemed to gel with my playstyle more than the others did. Even Dual-wielder was less attractive than it had once been.

I sighed and rubbed at my hair, closing my eyes against the brightness of the menu that was beginning to give me a headache.

“What should I do,” I whispered to the Tentarat.

The only response it gave me was a slimy slap across the face with a sucker-lined tentacle. Not the most helpful answer it could have given me.

I opened my eyes again and focused back on the two options that branched off Identify. I clamped my teeth together as I made my choice, hoping it was the right one. One day, someone would look back on this skill tree and write a playthrough with the perfect thief build, and it would make mine look like trash. This kind of game mechanic was never intuitive to me. I relied much more on a gut feeling than on a well-thought-out strategy.

I closed out of my menu and shut my eyes, welcoming the darkness as I tested my new skill. Even without the benefit of sight, I could feel a strong pull outside the door. There were crafting materials not far away. Lots of them, in fact. I couldn’t tell what they were, but I knew they were there. It wasn’t just the materials I could sense, though. I could also feel the man standing right outside the door. He gave off a reddish aura that filled me with anxious energy. The man was a foe, not a friend.

I drew my focus back into the room with surprising ease. The reddish aura was replaced by a green one that was centered almost right on top of me. I frowned for a second, sure that it was Ryan, even though that made no sense at all until I remembered the Tentarat. He was my ally, not the brutish warrior sleeping above me. No, Ryan gave off a red aura much stronger than the man outside. In fact, it was such a deep shade of red that it was nearing on black. Definitely a formidable foe not to be messed with.

I opened my eyes, and when I did, the Blindsense faded to little more than a tickle at the back of my mind. It wasn’t a passive skill like Keen Gatherer was, so if I wanted to use it, I would have to focus on it. That might be a problem for me. I had had Identify for a long time now, but I often forgot to use it. It was a habit I had desperately been trying to instill in myself, and now I would have to do the same thing with Blindsense.

What was the old saying? Yeah, that’s right, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I was the old dog now.

Ryan shifted again and let out another thundering snore that made the entire bed shake. The sound was enough to turn my budding headache into a pounding one that wrapped around my head like a too-tight band.

I eyed the hatch that led back into the pipes but dismissed it as an escape plan. On the other side was nothing but Satan’s Butt Crack, and honestly, I didn’t want to even think about trying to climb up the sewerage-flooded waterslide. Going down had been bad enough.

I needed to get out of here, though. I couldn’t put up with the snoring anymore. Besides, even with the sparkles of safety, this was an incredibly dangerous place to be. It was time to turn on my charm.

It took a long time to dislodge the Tentarat from my neck. When I finally succeeded, the little creature slumped sadly on my hand, looking at me with those sickly sweet eyes.

“Do me a favor,” I whispered. “Get the guard outside to piss off.”

The little octopus rat monster tilted its head, sniffing at the air with its tiny pink nose. I lowered my hand to the floor and waited, but it did not move. I closed my eyes again, focusing on the red aura just outside the door. The man wasn’t moving. I guess it made sense for Ryan to have a guard stationed outside his door while he was sleeping, but damn, it was inconvenient.

The Tentarat slipped off my hand and squelched across the floor. Every time its suckers pulled off the ground, I flinched. Even with Ryan’s snoring, the rubbery pop made too much noise. Ryan didn’t seem to notice, though.

The Tentarat came up against the door, and I realized my mistake. Even if the little creature could distract the man, he couldn’t open a door. I had been proven wrong so many times that the creature's next move didn’t even surprise me. The Tentarat reached out with a long tentacle, wrapping it around the heavy lever that kept the door in place. The smile on my face dropped when the tentacle fell. It seemed that even with the disproportionate strength it had, the Tentarat couldn’t open the thing. Damn.

I reached out my hand and tried to quietly call the tiny monster back. It didn’t listen to me, though. Instead, it pressed up against the gap between the door and the floor, its body squishing down and somehow sliding under it.

You beauty!

I closed my eyes and focused on the auras. The man's red one was flailing about like some bizarre dance. I didn’t need to hear him shouting to know the Tentarat had scared the shit out of him. The green aura rushed off down the hall, and the red one followed.

My eyes flew open as I crawled from my hiding place and rushed to the door. With a little maneuvering, I managed to get the thing open a crack and peeked out. The hall was clear.

I slipped out of the room and closed the door behind me. I focused on my new Blindsense skill and followed the pull of crafting material to a door opposite Ryan’s. I ducked inside and rushed to a patch of shadows, looking around in a panic in case I had been seen.

If I was a smart man, I would have used the Blindsense more intensely to look for auras inside the room. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you are aware, I am not a smart man.

A woman yelped as she stood up straight from behind a strange-looking purple fern with ugly green spots. She was wearing a white coat and had bulky safety glasses strapped to her face like some kind of comical depiction of a scientist.

“What are you doing in here?” she cried.