Chương 113: 4.3 Soldier, Poet, King - The Oh Hellos (2:45)

Z3ke (Original Poster) Hey everyone. It's been a few days since I last checked in so I figured I should give you all an update. And that update is that nothing has happened. No one's attacked us and we haven't seen any signs of the Eaters or Black Teeth or Shard Choir. Haynes and Vicks have been organizing everyone, putting people on the watchtowers to keep an eye out because we have no idea what happened on the battlefield after we booked it. We've got less people than what we left Devro with.

A ton of the Pale Regiment were killed during our escape and the battle. This base we're in is absolutely massive. It's much larger than Devro was, so everyone is trying to put it back together and man the walls with a small force. Haynes has people stationed on the walls and in the watchtowers and all the rest of the Pale Regiment - the mechanics and supply clerks and others - are busy taking inventory and clearing out the buildings and trying to understand what supplies we've still got.

Some of the mechanics got the communications equipment working again and we were able to get in touch with the main Pale Regiment group back in The MIZ. Vicks explained what happened down here and they assured him they were sending reinforcements so now we're all just sitting around and waiting for them to get here. As for me, I've been reading. I think it was a month ago that Mushroom suggested I use some of the cash I got from the whole Reclaimer thing to buy some books.

They were supposed to be an easy and quick way to improve some of my skills. Then I got even more from the Pale Regiment when I sold them my loot. I was meaning to sit down and read all them but… life happened. The books were in my storage when I got kidnapped and stuffed in a cell and had to escape the Chapel Pit and then fled into the Janus Storm and all the chaos and misery that happened after that. I never got the chance to just sit down and read.

Now that things are slightly less hectic, I've finally picked through them. There were three books that Mushroom recommended to help me with my Puzzle Intuition. Normally I prefer reading newspapers or stuff from my phone and I'm not really a puzzle guy, but I found that there's something rewarding about reading now. It's so much more than just a good story. When I get a skill rank up and I see the notification and realize that I'm getting a little bit more capable… it's got me cracking open the next book.

I'm going to start working on the history and lore books soon. Maybe. I don't know. I'm a little wary because after spending the last couple days throwing myself at the puzzle books I got my Puzzle Intuition up to Rank 3 and I'm mostly feeling good about it. But there's also some lingering apprehension. I didn't suddenly become a genius overnight or anything like that. With Rank 3 in Puzzle Intuition, it's more that I can look at a puzzle and when I'm completely stuck, something sorta clicks in the back of my head.

I notice a pattern or my attention is naturally drawn to a certain section and everything just seems a bit easier than it was before. On one hand it's pretty awesome because I think I'm good at sudoku now. But on the other hand it's shit because… what is happening to me when I'm ranking up my skills? Am I learning things, or has something changed the way my brain works? I know I've talked about all my hang-ups surrounding Persona and Performance and whether they're warping who I am as a person.

And I know that most of you are going to say who cares about that, you're a better survivor now. I get all that. And Puzzle Intuition doesn't really seem as invasive a change as everything else, but it still begs the question of who exactly I am and what exactly I'm becoming. Whenever I raise a skill I end up a little more capable and a little more competent and a little bit safer and a little less certain that I'm entirely me. But whatever with the whole existential crisis stuff.

Jackie and Elnor are bugging me about getting out of here and getting back to The MIZ. I don't think either wants to become a permanent traveling companion or anything like that. We haven't really broached the subject, but if I were a betting man they both seem much more interested in heading back to civilization than in staying with me. I was talking with Jackie the other day and she told me that she'd never been this far into the Deadlands and was definitely ready to head back home.

Elnor's already packed up and is ready to go. Admittedly there wasn't much he needed to pack. He's been ready to leave for a few days now. So that's why I'm checking with you guys. What's the plan? Assuming nothing bad happens between now and tomorrow, we're gonna get in the jeep and drive back to The MIZ. I'm gonna check in with Patch and see how he's getting on and check how the bar is coming. Then I'll spend some time in the city and go from there. That's where you all come into play.

I haven't checked in for a while now and I figure that I've probably got a new primary and they have some idea for where I should be going and what I should be doing. So what's the plan? And how does that plan get me home? TVEye Yo Zeke, I'm not your primary so this is going to be unsolicited advice from some rando on the internet. But I think you should head to Null Protocol. You already understand technology and cars and computers and everything else from modern life.

It's a setting where you don't need to bother learning a whole bunch of new rules. You can get yourself a better tech slate and some new equipment and you don't need to worry about vampires or fairies or werewolves. Heading to a tech-heavy setting is going to be MUCH easier than heading into a world filled with a bunch of strange magical entities who all want to kill you. StreetSamurai86 Nah. The obvious choice is Tech Reign.

You're going to get a bunch of people complaining about how dangerous it is for you, but it's only dangerous if you insist on getting involved with the gangs and criminals. As long as you keep your head down and live like a normal person you should be good. Plenty of people survive in Tech Reign. Plus, it would give you the chance to pick up some gun-fu. Need I say more? CrushDaddyXx I hate that I'm about to say this because I would love to read a Tech Reign arc.

Can you imagine Zeke beating a bunch of nameless goons to death while doves fly through the air in an abandoned apartment building? Null Protocol sounds amazing too because I can see Zeke meandering his way through a cyberpunk city while accidentally dismantling criminal organizations. But both of those are way too dangerous for him right now. Remember when Null gave him advice when he first got to The MIZ?

He laid out all the dangerous organizations he should avoid, and he used it as a checklist for who he should piss off. Keeping his head down is something that Zeke is entirely incapable of doing. My man instantly beelined to the Deadlands and fought a Bone Kaiju and then outplayed a body-hopper and then killed a second Fracture and also pissed off all the people he was supposed to avoid. The universe isn't going to let him stay uninvolved when he goes anywhere.

Whenever he tries minding his own business, things inevitably go wrong and he is dropped into danger. So no, Zeke isn't going to keep his head down. Nor should he. He is a ROCKSTAR!!! Every step he takes rocks the foundations of power. Sending him to Tech Reign sounds awesome, and I'm sure there would be plenty of combat, but he should probably head somewhere safer first. VeneratedWitchHunter My recommendation for the next arc hasn't changed and I think it's the best thing for him. SHARDS OF TIME.

Zeke, everyone is going to try to sell you on their favorite games. They're all going to make good points and bring up how strong you can get. But they're all arguing about places where you can have the coolest adventure. Remember your priority of getting back home? Shards will get you there. It's the setting with the most people who can help you. There are historians, chronomancers, archivists, professors, and researchers, and they're all obsessed with unusual phenomena.

When this whole thing started you said that you'd been isekai'd into the Fracture-verse. That means you were the victim of dimensional travel. If anything like that has happened before, and if anyone has studied worlds beyond this one, and if anyone has developed a theory about how someone might cross realities, then you'll find those people and those records and those theories in Shards. StoryLeech … Venerated made a surprisingly good point, but I have the perfect counter to it.

Shards is bad and he should feel bad about liking it. He's also skipping an important step in the process. Zeke, before you start interviewing all those magical researchers and dimensional scholars, you probably need to understand the basics of magic well enough to actually follow the conversation. Remember your first time sitting through a lecture on magic? It was your fist day in the MIZ and you ended up falling asleep and snoring through the whole thing.

You should head to Emberveil so that you can build a foundational understanding of magic. Then you can go and find the people that Venerated is talking about. StealthieGurl101 Zeke, can I ask something and you don't bite my head off? Why are you so determined to go home? CrumhatB I've been wondering the same thing. You've got friends now. You've got people who care about whether you live or die, which isn't something you could say for your life back in New York.

You've accomplished more in the last few months than all your years back on Earth. I know that you're against talking about your depression and everything. You said you weren't going to mention it anymore. But it just seems like, from the outside looking in, that your life is moving in a better direction. Maybe I'm completely off-base, and please tell me if I am, but it just seems as if you're doing better now.

Z3ke (Original Poster) I get your point and I know none of you are trying to be dicks about it, but better? Different, sure. More exciting? If you want to call nearly dying every week exciting, then yes. But better? I'm not convinced. I did talk about my depression and I know you're all thinking that New York wasn't helping me. I've told you about how I've drifted away from everyone in my life and my future wasn't exactly looking good. But you know what else wasn't happening? Nobody was trying to kill me.

Nobody was chasing me across a desert in armed buses. Nobody was expecting me to solve a supernatural apocalypse. Nobody was mugging me or locking me in a cell or leaving me in a ditch to die. My biggest problem was paying rent and deciding what to eat for dinner. Z3ke (Original Poster) I get what you're all saying, and if I was in your shoes I'd probably argue for me to stay here too. But you're all still looking at this like it's a game. You all know about the Fracture-verse.

You know where the dangerous areas are. You know where the monsters worth fighting are. You know which quests are traps and which level you're supposed to be before heading into a dungeon. But living in this world and playing the games are completely different prospects. I don't have quest markers or a minimap. I don't get to reload a save when I've made a bad decision. I understand you all would be much happier if you were stuck in this world, but I'm not.

Maybe if I got dropped into something like Star Trek I'd be feeling differently. I would have checked with the forum on my first night and when I found out you lot were dickish, I would have turned off the computer and just hung out on a holodeck and ate replicated pizzas and made sure to stay far away from the Borg and Klingon and everyone else. But this is a setting where there are literal apocalypses happening.

How many of you have had to look into the faces of people trapped in a wall, desperate to escape, going insane over having been sucked into a lovecraftian horror? Because I have. If someone came up to me right now and said, "hey, here's a guaranteed trip back to Earth where you're never going to be more than just an ordinary bartender," I would kiss their feet and thank them. JimothyTheBarber | Nobody was trying to kill me. | Well… other than yourself you mean. Malv0lio (Primary) ZEKE!!!

I don't really know how to introduce myself, so maybe I'll take a page from the book of others and say: It is I, your new primary. We haven't really talked much. I think the only think you'll remember me from is when I told you, a few updates ago, about how Emberveil was my favorite game. Well, I'm here to make my pitch to get you there. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I've been doing research and I've already put together a travel itinerary I think you'll like.

BUT, instead of just telling you to head to Emberveil because magic is cool and it's the best setting in the verse, I'm going to sell you on my vision. This is why I think it's the best place to take your story: One of the criticisms leveled at you by this forum is that you're a pisspoor fighter. You've got a dagger and you shot a gun when the Black Teeth were chasing you, but none of your skills are really all that great and every fight you've been in you've been mostly useless.

You have relied on luck and capable people to help you survive. But unlike everyone else on this forum, I'm not going to criticize you too hard about that. Instead, I'm going to point out that you should be leaning even harder into what you've been doing. The Rockstar class is a support class. You're never going to make CrushDaddy or any of the other combat goblins happy, because your role in a fight is to be in the backlines buffing everyone else. So why try fighting like a front-line fighter?

You should be committing to the support-class archetype. And the best way to do that is to actually figure out how to use your class. Every other setting in the Fracture-verse treats magic as either a single tool among many or they barely acknowledge it at all. Emberveil is different because the entire setting revolves around magic. If you want teachers, magical libraries, ritualists, and people who can explain your class to you, then you can find them in Emberveil.

Furthermore, there's tons of cool stuff to do in Emberveil. You can watch a play or you can interact with dozens of magical creatures. When you first got to the Fracture-verse, you were dumped into the absolute worst setting. Frontiers is Mad Max combined with Fallout with a bit of Lovecraft thrown in for good measure. The whole place is obsessed with apocalyptic cults and sand and dirt and dismay. But Emberveil has unicorns. It's got fairies and magic and amazing sights.

Now, I will admit that getting you to Emberveil is going to be a little bit tricky. Right now the plan is to have you head back to The MIZ and then you've got to head north until you reach the city of Cliffhaven. There you can find a boat and book passage to the port city of Brightharbor. After that, you can start learning the magical side of things instead of stumbling around in a post-apocalyptic Australia. The only practical problem you're facing is money.

Ships aren't free, and if you're short on cash you're going to have to earn your passage the old-fashioned way. That means spending days loading and unloading cargo or cleaning the deck or signing on as a temporary crew member to a captain headed to Brightharbor. Z3ke (Original Poster) | and if you're short on cash you're going to have to earn your passage | I'm not short on cash. The Pale Regiment paid well for all the Reclaimer parts I sold them and I haven't really spent that money yet.

Between that and what I had from before, I should have enough cash to buy a ticket without too much trouble. Depending on how expensive tickets are. Malv0lio (Primary) Wunderbar! Everything became so much easier. You can head straight to Cliffhaven and find a reputable captain and be on your way. The crossing itself is still going to be dangerous because the ocean around Emberveil is a little rough.

But as long as you pick a well-armed merchant vessel instead of the cheapest boat in the harbor, I think your odds are actually pretty decent. From what I have worked out, it should take about two days for you to head back to The MIZ. Maybe less. Then you spend two days there making sure everything is settled and buying some more supplies. Then it is roughly three days north before you hit Cliffhaven.

Spend a day looking around town, then a day to recover after climbing the approximately 80 million stairs in the city. After that you can buy a ticket on a boat and it'll take four or five days of travel before you're in Brightharbor. 10161066 | I don't think I'm doing too badly there. | Hmmm. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Pale Regiment paid you in credits, right? Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh. Yea. Why? 10161066 Well… money in the Fracture-verse might not be universal.

If you take Syndicate's Wake into account, then yes. Players could travel across regions and they would be able to pay for things all in the same currency. But that was most likely done more for convenience on the part of the developers. Think about what you're headed into. We don't know if you're going to easily be able to move between regions right now. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. But assuming that you can get to Emberveil, that is a completely different region from The MIZ.

If you're really treating this whole thing like it is realistic, then you need to be aware that the money you earn in one region is going to be completely useless in the next. The credits in The MIZ have value because the people there collectively agree that they've got value. A shopkeeper in The MIZ takes a look at a credit and says "you can buy x amount of goods for this." But what about Emberveil?

Chances are you are going to walk into Brightharbor, put a handful of MIZ credits on the counter, and the innkeeper is going to be all confused. You're not in The MIZ anymore at that point. You're in a different region with a different government and a different set of a rules and a different monetary system. Before we send you half-way across the world… we should probably figure that bit out. DataDatum Oooo. Zeke. You're about to be the absolute best merchant to ever merchant in the Fracture-verse.

You've got dimensional storage space, meaning that you can gather up as much stuff as you want without needing people to haul it for you or guard it for you. Instead of having all your MIZ credits, you should talk with Patch and have him help you buy a bunch of trade goods that you can sell in Emberveil. Maybe he knows what you can get for cheap in The MIZ and sell for a bunch out in Brightharbor.

Normally I would just suggest something like gold or silver because everyone likes it for being all shiny and you can get money that way. But you should definitely check with Patch first. StoryLeech | I would just suggest something like gold or silver | That would be for the best. Even if Patch says you should buy some trade goods, you should still have gold and silver. It's fungible and everyone likes it.

What happens if you use up all your MIZ credits buying trade goods for Brightharbor but something goes wrong on the passage and you end up somewhere like Fracture: the Fall? Then you're absolutely screwed. Malv0lio (Primary) Wait, I haven't finished my sales pitch. I do agree with both Hastings and Story that you should convert all your credits into trade goods before you leave. That's just good planning, and once you're back in The MIZ we can decide exactly what you should buy.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. You haven't yet agreed to go to Emberveil, so let me keep cooking. I told you that you should lean into being a support class character, but there is another reason that you should head to Emberveil and it's got absolutely nothing to do with combat. It's actually the antithesis to that. I want you to head to Emberveil because I think it would be a good vacation spot. Ever since you dropped into the world you've been racing from one dangerous situation to the next.

You've become inured to danger and death, and that's not healthy. Frontiers is dangerous. It's a truly ship setting that you've been dropped into. Emberveil is NOT dangerous. At least, not as dangerous as many of the other places in the world. There are cities and towns and villages there where nothing bad happens. There are places built around universities of magic where the most deadly thing they face is a bad grade.

There are artists and musicians and historians who have never swung a sword or shot a gun or stabbed a bandit on a train. You DON'T need to fight in Emberveil to survive. Let me tell you about the Crystal Caverns - which is the very first place I would suggest you visit once you get your feet under you. It's this enormous underground biome that is made up entirely of crystals. The walls and ground and ceiling are covered in them.

What's more, each and every crystal lets out a different pitch and tone whenever someone brushes up against it. One crystal will let out a b flat and the crystal next to it will play a c sharp. There are entire passages in the caverns that sing out just because a group of travelers is heading through them. The place is a gigantic natural instrument. Most players treat the Crystal Caverns as a puzzle dungeon because there are a ton of hidden passages that only open up when a correct melody is played.

They sprint through the whole place and try to solve the musical riddles as quickly as possible. But you are, as Crush so eloquently put it, a ROCKSTAR!! If there is anywhere in the Fracture-verse where you are most likely to stumble across something extraordinary, it would probably be the place where the landscape itself makes music. Imagine what you can discover there with your performance and instrument mastery skills being as high as they are. But wait, there's more!

There's this place called the Infinite Library and it's a place of scholarly learning. I know what you're thinking. Mal, why would I care about a library? I've got the Library of Reclaimed Thought back in The MIZ. Well Zeke, this isn't a normal library. It is the one place that I would beeline my way towards if I was ever lucky enough to get isekai'd into Emberveil. It is a library filled with books that rewrite themselves while you're reading them. There are books that only appear after sunset.

There are books that are written in languages that nobody has spoken in centuries. And then there are the Storybooks. I desperately want you to write an update about the Storybooks. They are pieces of magic where, when you open the book and press your forehead against a page, teleport you somewhere else. The world around you dissolves and you become part of the story. Maybe you're a wandering knight. Maybe you're the apprentice to a genius alchemist. Maybe you're just some dood watching a really good play.

When the story ends you wake up back in the library holding the book that you had opened. Some people use them for entertainment and some people use them to study history. Your history skill is rank 3 or 4, right? Imagine what you can get it up to with one pass through the Infinite Library. That's what I'm trying to tell you. When people say Emberveil most players think of liches and enchanted forests and giant magical catastrophes.

Those things do exist and I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't love fighting my way through them in the game. But we can help you avoid the worst of it. Don't let the danger of the setting - which is much less than most places - detract from its beauty. There are scholars chasing questions, artists carving impossible works of art, and musicians spending their lives studying songs that literally shape magic. Let me rewrite that last bit again. STUDYING SONGS THAT LITERALLY SHAPE MAGIC.

Where else would you be able to boost your Rockstar class than in Emberveil? I know some people will come here and say that your story is going to get boring and stale if you just spend the next six months reading books, learning music, and probing what your class can do. But I would disagree with them. I think this story definitely needs a training arc and there is only one setting which would make it work for you. Z3ke (Original Poster) That kinda sounds fun.

I like the idea of heading somewhere where I'm not getting hunted every hour of every day. But before I can go anywhere I need to head back to The MIZ. I already said that I'm going to check in with Patch. But yea, Emberveil is looking pretty likely at this point. TrapG00blin Oooo. Zeke, when you get back to The MIZ you should give Patch a tech slate. That would solve so many of your problems.

He can stay in contact with you no matter where you end up, and he's got pathfinding 11 and you don't know how effective that can really be. Plus, imagine Patch reading this forum. We could hear his side of things and he can answer so many questions about what everyday life is like in The MIZ. We can give him advice too, meaning that by the time you eventually come back to The MIZ he'd be running everything. MushroomCleric I'm imagining Patch making his own forum account.

He'd spend so much of his day correcting all our lore mistakes and roasting people who are obsessed with obscure bits of trivia. I need this to happen. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh, I'm not sure that's a good idea. You're acting like I'd just be handing him a tech slate and everything would be good, but what I'd actually be doing is handing him a window into a conversation where thousands of people casually discuss his life as if it's part of a video game. Think of this from Patch's perspective.

I already told him about the forum and he kinda brushed it off slightly. I don't know if it's because it was information he didn't believe or if it was a way of coping, but he said something like he knows he's not an NPC and then just left it at that. But he's got Pathfinding 11 and that lets him notice things that nobody should reasonably be able to notice. He's probably already thinking there's a bunch of weird stuff going on with me.

He knows that I'm not from this world, but that's not all that weird because there are other people in the Fracture-verse that come from elsewhere too. I mean, one of the first things he said to me was that I was an outsider. But knowing I'm from a different world and knowing that there are a bunch of people on this forum is a whole different thing from me giving him a tech slate and him opening it up to see all you saying things like "oh yea, Patch gives you that quest where x and y happens."

Or, "here's the dialogue he says during this section of the game." I don't know if you all have his dialogue written down somewhere, but it wouldn't surprise me if you did. And if you guys do have his dialogue… what do you think that's going to do to the man? How is he gonna process that? Imagine waking up tomorrow and you check on your phone and there are a bunch of people who know intimate details of your life because your entire existence is just entertainment in another universe.

You've got a whole website filled with strangers discussing your personality and your friends and all the decisions that you've ever made. Hell, just think of everything that I went through so far with this forum. At first, none of you really believed that I'd been isekai'd here. Obviously, you guys still don't believe but you're willing to pretend like you do because I'm feeding you a story.

Are you all going to say that there aren't assholes on this forum who would mess with Patch and try to make him have an existential breakdown? Would you all be okay after learning that you're just an NPC in a video game? I don't think I would be. UnhelpfullyHelpful Mmm. I don't know. Part of me thinks Patch deserves to know the truth. He's already proven to be incredibly helpful to you, and if anyone in The MIZ can handle having their worldview shattered, it's probably him.

Keeping him in the dark because you're afraid of his reaction feels kind of patronizing. Craaazzzzy Nope. I'm with Zeke on this. Some truths don't make your life better. Ignorance is bliss and all that. If Patch spends the rest of his life wondering whether every choice he's ever made was predetermined by people behind a computer screen, then what exactly have you accomplished other than messing with the man's life? Once you tell him something like that, you don't get to untell him.

Patch never asked to have the foundations of reality ripped out from under him. If Zeke tells him, he's making that decision on Patch's behalf and that's kind of messed up when you stop and think about it. StoryLeech Well, I don't believe that Patch is nearly as ignorant as everyone is assuming. Pathfinding 11 is one of the strangest abilities in the setting. We honestly don't know what he's capable of right now.

Maybe he doesn't know that he's living in a game, but I'd be shocked if he didn't know that something unusual was happening with Zeke. Z3ke (Original Poster) Yea… I don't know. Thanks a lot guys. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with Patch. Do I leave him in blissful ignorance and just say goodbye? Or do I try and convince a native of this world that a bunch of people see his entire life as a video game?