Chương 116: 4.6 The Sixth Station - Joe Hisaishi (3:38)

Z3ke (last online: 3 days ago) MushroomCleric Zeke!!! I summon thee! Come on, man. You disappear for three days without a word or a be back soon. Haven't you learned that we demand you be available 24/7 for our entertainment? Footballish That's not how his story works. You don't just summon Zeke. You wait patiently for him to remember that we exist and/or beg for our help extricating himself from a dangerous situation. I'm honestly not expecting him to sign back in for another couple days.

The guy literally just got back to The MIZ after surviving all that horror out in the Deadlands. Dood is probably eating, drinking, and spending his time saying goodbye to people, buying his tradegoods, and finding a caravan headed up north. I'm guessing we get an update in a few days as he makes his way to Cliffhaven. Z3ke (Original Poster) Yo. Whoever told me to head to Cliffhaven can go straight to hell. You're all a bunch of torturous dicks. Footballish DAMMIT ZEKE!!

Why'd you have to choose that exact moment to pop back up online? You couldn't wait a day? MushroomCleric Holy hell, that worked?!?! I have the POWAAA! SomePeopleCallMe_Maurice Jeezus, you were only offline for three days. How'd you run into a problem already? More importantly, how'd you run into problems on your way to Cliffhaven? That road is one of the most traveled ones and its filled with adventurers and mercs. There shouldn't be any bandits or monsters around. What attacked you?

After everything you just went through, my brain immediately skipped past bandits as a possibility and now I'm thinking you ran into a third Fracture. Staniel It could be pirates. Cliffhaven is a port city which means a pirate attack would make sense. I can definitely picture Zeke boarding a ship and then it gets taken over before he even has a chance to unpack. CrushDaddyXx LET'S GOOOO Pirate arc. Zeke, if it's pirates you're going to need to steal a captain's hat.

You also need one of their coats and you're going to need to buy a monkey or a parrot. Commit to the bit early on and everything will be so much smoother. Go full pirate cosplay and become lord of the seas. Malv0lio (Primary) Zeke. If you're in trouble we need more to go on than just telling us we're all dicks. StoryLeech I don't think it's pirates. If he got attacked by anyone I'm betting it was the Shard Choir. They know who is he and probably heard that he was headed north.

They could have easily gathered a ton of followers to sack the city and wait for him there. They've already proven to be fanatically devoted to killing and/or worshipping him because he killed their god. They are pissed and/or rapturous and believe that he is a heathen and/or divine entity. So swarming the largest port in the region to hunt him down sounds totally in-character for them. SlothTurtle I was thinking it would be the Black Teeth. They know that he escaped the Chapel Pit and started a civil war there.

They know he managed to elude a hit squad out in the Dead Corridor. There was that gang that is working with them out in The MIZ - the ones who bundled him up and tossed him in a portal to the Chapel Pit. The road to Cliffhaven is the obvious spot to intercept someone trying to leave the Deadlands. We should have told him to spend a bunch of money on guards to protect him. I bet he got ambushed not far from the city. DuckDetective13 | I was thinking it would be the Black Teeth. | Ooo.

Elnor was talking about hunting down that one gang in the city. Remember when they were talking on the drive through the Deadlands, and they were saying what they hoped to do when they got back to The MIZ? I bet Zeke joined up with Elnor for one last adventure before riding off into the sunset. Then things went sideways and he's going to come here and beg for help. I can definitely picture Zeke getting dragged into a bunch of craziness we all failed to tell him to avoid.

Saltmines I'm laughing because it could be ANY of those. Zeke's got the unique ability to accidentally himself into everyone's problems. The guy heads out to get lunch and a week later he's pissed off a criminal empire, adopted an orphan, and insulted an ancient god hellbent on destroying humanity. JimothyTheBarber Lock in your votes now.

What happened with Zeke: Third Fracture Black Teeth revenge tour Playing his guitar and accidentally turned Cliffhaven sentient Somehow the Eaters again He just dropped his breakfast in the dirt and wants to complain about it. MushroomCleric ZEKE. ANSWER. THE. QUESTION. Z3ke (Original Poster) What? No. What? It wasn't any of that. Nobody attacked me and I wasn't ambushed. There aren't any pirates or cultists or Black Teeth running around. At least, none that I've seen.

I'm annoyed because you all told me to come to Cliffhaven and this entire city is nothing but stairs. Seriously, who looked at two massive cliffs and thought, "you know what people love? Walking everywhere vertically." The whole place is stairs. Stairs going up and stairs going down and stairs connecting to even more stairs. There are stairs that only exist so you can reach an even less convenient staircase. Every street turns into stairs and every building is somehow both above AND below every other building.

This entire city is one big staircase and I would have appreciated the heads up before I got here. MapHackJunkie Man… this dude had me convinced he was about to get assassinated or he'd stumbled across another lovecraftian horror. Instead, he's complaining about urban planning. K1LLPR1EST Sounds like you need to work on your cardio Zeke. You never know when you're going to get chased. Cliffhaven's good for you.

You spend a week there and the next time you'll be able to outrun the Black Teeth without needing to stick around the Pale Bois. PineconePrinceton Hmmm. Zeke, has anyone ever told you that you're kind of whiny? I'm not saying I'm gonna quit reading your story, but whenever we point you somewhere or tell you to do something, you inevitably complain about it. You complain, then you do it and survive, thrive and come away with a fortune. But then you come back here and leave us all a one-star review.

C0daCreator ^Pinecone. I feel like Zeke is too unreasonable at times. I feel like Zeke ought to be more assertive, or at least doing his own decisions. It just feels like Zeke asks for help, then almost whines about every answer. CrabBucket Five out of five outcome. One out of five journey. That's the reality of the Zeke experience. Ch3micalBurst93 Like with the whole money thing heading into Emberveil.

We all gave him a bunch of good ideas about gemstones and metals and he shot everything down, telling us that we don't know what we're talking about. Dood, it's free advice. Take it or leave it. I feel like Bricktop from Snatch.

"If I throw a dog a bone, I don't care about whether it tastes good." BrightSky18 Tbf, gems are more speculative compared to silver or gold which are more fungible. You may get scammed with gems, but with silver or gold there's going to be a standard exchange rate you can check somewhere like a bank. HecateTeaCozy | it just feels like Zeke asks for help, then almost whines about every answer. | In his defense, our recommendations usually come out to: this is the best decision you can make.

It also has an 80% chance of getting you horribly maimed. Good luck. That's a pretty reasonable thing to complain about. DuckDetective13 ^Hecate. The Reclaimer is probably the best example of that. Killing it was the biggest win Zeke's had since getting isekai'd into the world. He made a fortune, grabbed a ton of gear including that knife and the skill potion that boosted his musical abilities, and made some decent allies along the way. But at the same time, it's got to have been an absolute nightmare scenario.

He had to survive the Under-MIZ, crawl through that abandoned factory with the Hemocyte Swarm on his ass, and then kill one of the strongest monsters in the setting which had the knock-on effect of potentially dooming everyone in the Deadlands AND having all the important factions in the region knowing his name. Looking back it was the right call, but I'd complain in his place too. UnhelpfullyHelpful When you put it like that, even our good advice sounds batshit insane. I blame the setting.

If this were The Sims, I'd tell him to stay home and paint until he became a millionaire. But with the Fracture-verse, telling him to head into the underground nightmare filled with monsters because there's a legendary creature down there that needs killing IS the best advice. It was objectively correct and also objectively awful. GravellyVoice1 Exactly. We gave him the right answer. He followed it, killed the Reclaimer, got rich, and became one of the most important people in the region.

Maybe he should stop complaining and instead start thanking us. UnhelpfullyHelpful Not really where I was going with that… but okay. Inkwell We didn't give him the best advice. We gave him "gamer" advice. Admit it, most everyone on this forum has spent years playing games where the optimal strategy is cheesing a difficult dungeon to get the best gear. We naturally optimize for outcomes instead of comfort.

I remember playing Elden Ring and running all throughout the setting to get that one sword that lets you use fire and arcane magic, and then boosting it so I could wipe a bunch of the harder bosses. If one option is safe and another has a 20% chance of horrible death BUT it solves some problems and strengthens Zeke, we're all going to recommend the second path without thinking twice about it. And to be fair, we've been right more often than we've been wrong.

The only horrible advice that any gave was from Binary, and he was openly trying to get Zeke killed. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay… this convo took a weird turn. I'm not actually mad at you guys. It's more like helping a friend move. You spend all day carrying furniture and afterwards you complain about how sore your back is. That doesn't mean you're pissed at your friend. You're just venting because the experience sucked. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

That's what I'm doing. I haven't really been in this city long enough to have much of an opinion about it, other than the fact that I absolutely loathe stairs. For all I know, this could end up being one of my favorite cities in this world. It kinda already had a pretty good effect on me. The place is absolutely gorgeous. When our caravan came over the last hill before reaching the city, it was early morning and the sun had just come up.

The sky was clear and everything around was green - which, in the Deadlands, was a surprise. Okay, I'm gonna tell you all something and I know that I'm risking you all being dicks about it… but whatever. Back when I was around 19 or 20 I got a passport and I flew out to Europe for about a month. I was gonna do the whole backpacking thing. I landed in Iceland and then went through Scotland and England and France and a bunch of other countries and I ended up in Italy.

The train let me out in Venice and I had a couple hours to kill before I was hopping back on another train that would pull into Rome. I figured I would only need an hour or two to get to one of the big plazas that are dotted around Venice. It was early morning, like 5 am or something like that, and I picked a direction and set off on my way. And if you've never been to Venice before, let me tell you that it's a garbage city. Every street ends in a dead end or in water.

So I'm walking through the street and come up to a dead-end and then I backtrack and come up to a dead-end and then I take another street and end up at a canal. I was walking for about three hours and it's cold and the sun isn't even out. European history is filled with a ton of wars, and I'm pretty sure it's because there is no sun in that continent. Finally, about five hours of getting turned around and lost I end up throwing in the towel and just deciding to head back to the train station.

Another hour of getting lost and I start looking for those canal boats and paying someone to take me out of that godforsaken city. Then finally, it's about noon and I turn the corner and I'm in a palazzo. The place was stunning. People were taking pictures and there were smiling tourists everywhere and the architecture was being all renaissance and gorgeous and, for the first time since I landed in Europe, the sun finally came out from behind all its clouds. And I fucking teared up.

I don't know if it was the frustration at having gotten so lost in Venice and finally ended up where I wanted to go, or if I was in Italy and that was something that I'd dreamed about as a child… but I still think of that as one of my top ten memories. Just, weepy-eyed me standing in the middle of Venice. I had that same moment outside Cliffhaven. Ever since getting sucked into this world I've had some pretty shitty experiences, but this was the first time that I was seeing this world through all your eyes.

I've said it before and I'm pretty sure I'll say it again, you all would absolutely love being isekai'd into this world but for me it's been one long nightmare. Except now, standing outside the walls and looking up at the dual cliffs of Cliffhaven, with the sun out and some green grass and the whole city covered in sun and shadows… I kinda get it. I get why you all love this setting. MushroomCleric Zeke. WTF man?

I love that you finally are getting to see some of the better aspects of the world, but you're skipping over everything. You disappeared for three days, came back, and now you're talking about a completely new city. What happened back in The MIZ? Did you buy everything that we told you about? More importantly, did you say your goodbyes to everyone? How did Patch take it? What about Milicent? Did you talk to Jackie before you left? And what about Elnor? Did you try convincing him to travel with you?

Frankly, psychometry sounds ridiculously useful in a traveling companion. He did help out tons while you were out in the Deadlands. And he kept his head during the Chapel Pit and the Black Teeth fights. He was deleting people with that shotgun. Is he traveling with you? Craaazzzzy | psychometry sounds ridiculously useful in a traveling companion. | Half of Zeke's adventures are filled with him asking "what happened here?" Elnor by his side would give him so many answers. StoryLeech Yea… this feels weirdly abridged.

Normally we get a play-by-play of everything that happened but you just skipped all over it. I want to hear how you wrapped everything up before you left. CrumhatB I'm less interested in the shopping and more interested in whether everyone knew you were leaving or if you just did the ol' Irish Goodbye. Whatever you said to Patch, that had to be rough. Z3ke (Original Poster) I tried writing this next bit a couple times and I don't think I'm getting it right.

Don't take this the wrong way but I think we need to do a soft reset on our relationship. I'm not trying to be withholding but… I think we need to talk about what I tell you all and what I keep to myself. There are some things that belong on this forum because it's useful. If I run into a new monster or find a dangerous location or stumble across something that I need everyone's help with, then I'm going to post about it.

As dickish as some of you are, you've more than proven yourself when it comes to helping me out. But there are parts of my life where I'm not sure I really want to talk about. I know a bunch of you will complain and say that I talked about my depression and I occasionally drop tidbits of who I was before I met all of you. But that doesn't mean I want to just share everything. I bought some gold and silver before I left.

I think it was 10161066 who said that it was the best way to carry wealth around without depending entirely on the local currency. And yea, I said goodbye to Patch. A lot of people I'd gotten to know ended up coming by Patch's new bar in the Under-MIZ before I left and we spent the evening talking, eating, and saying goodbye. It was a good night and I'm glad I got it before heading north. But that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm not trying to be all mysterious here.

I just don't feel comfortable turning every personal conversation I have into content for the forum. What I said to Patch and Milicent and Jackie and Elnor, those were conversations between friends and it would feel weird to hash it all out here. I get that there are some of you who would enjoy reading that. Not everyone is like Crush, obsessed with the fights and the death and the blood and the gore. But I'm still going to keep those moments to myself. Maybe not all of them.

I might add in a convo or two here and there, but you all have to start getting used to the idea that I'm going to keep some of those conversations personal. It's already kinda strange that a bunch of people on a forum know more about me than most of the people I knew back home ever did. The more I think about that, the odder it becomes. So I think I need a little bit of separation between my life and what I post here.

I'll tell you all about the adventures and the places I visit and the people trying to kill me and the mistakes that I make. If I learn something useful or if you all can help me with something, you'll hear about it. But some things I'm going to keep to myself, and I hope you're all okay with that. Gormommie I won't pretend I'm not curious, because I am, but I do think it's probably healthier if you draw a line somewhere. I'm with you Zeke.

We've gotten used to hearing about your life as it's happening, but that doesn't mean we're entitled to every part of it. Presperosity Disagree. I read Fracture-verse fanfics because of the romance and the relationships. Those are the best parts. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of "I went here and killed this monster and earned this loot." StoryLeech I can take it or leave it. For what it's worth, I don't think we're all asking because we think we're owed these conversations.

At least, the more reasonable part of the fandom doesn't believe it's owed anything. It's more that we've been following your story for months now, so when you say that you said goodbye to everyone, the natural reaction is to wonder how it went. There's a difference between being interested and expecting you to share everything. Hambones So then what about the trip north to Cliffhaven? How'd you get up there?

Z3ke (Original Poster) Well, I said my goodbyes and packed everything up in my storage space and found a trade caravan heading north. It wasn't anything fancy, I just wanted to travel with other people instead of wandering through the Deadlands by myself. That seemed the best decision. The caravan was a mixed bunch.

There were merchants hauling goods up to Cliffhaven, professional guards keeping everyone alive, teamsters driving the jeeps/buses/wagon thingies, and a handful of travelers like myself who paid to tag along. I ended up hiring on as an extra guard and pair of hands because it felt weird just sitting around while everyone else was working. The trip itself was peaceful. Crush would say it was disappointingly normal. Nobody attacked us and no bandits showed up.

Nobody even had a good horror story to tell around the campfire. That's what happens when you travel with such a well-armed group. We were on the road for two days and the farther north we traveled the more the Deadlands changed. The grey, lifeless stretches of dirt that I'd come to known as the Deadlands slowly disappeared and they were replaced with green. Not all at once, obviously.

It started with small bits of shrubbery here and there, but by the end of the second day there were actual fields and healthy trees and I was able to remember what the color green looked like. The roads became smoother, a few towns appeared here and there, and all in all it was strange. I'd gotten so used to dead earth and constantly worrying about my own safety that I'd forgotten what an ordinary road trip felt like. Seeing the peace of the north was a little surreal, frankly.

Everyone started relaxing a little as we made our way north. The guards still kept watch, but they weren't constantly scanning the horizon anymore. All the tension that people were keeping inside was slowly melting off them and a few of the merchants even started joking with each other and talking about the weather and what they hoped to buy. Then we reached Cliffhaven. I don't think anything could have prepared me for seeing it in person.

The road curved around a hill and suddenly there were these two enormous cliffs rising up out of the ground. They were walls of stone that stretched so high I had to crane my neck to take them in. Between them was this massive gap where an enormous waterfall poured down into a lake below. Even from where we were, a few miles outside the city, I could hear it. The whole area was filled with mist and the morning sun caught it all just right and everything seemed to glow.

I know you all played the games so you know what Cliffhaven looks like, but there's gotta be a disconnect between what you saw on a screen and what I saw standing in front of it. I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it justice, but I'll try. The whole city is carved directly into the stone, like it grew up out of it. The homes and warehouses and taverns and workshops all blend in with the stone.

If your eyes start at the bottom and follow the cliff upwards, at some point rough rock quietly becomes walls and balconies without a clear line between the two. The shift is so subtle that it takes you a few glances to notice it. Cliffhaven feels less like construction and more like a sculpture. I'm gonna admit that the whole place was so beautiful that I honestly forgot to breathe for a moment. I'd never seen anything that beautiful before, and beautiful isn't even a word that does the city justice.

There are places in the world where you can understand why people are willing to travel halfway around the world to just look at them, and I've gotta say that Cliffhaven definitely fits the bill. Then we got into the actual city and all my happiness and good feelings about the place turned sour. The first thing I saw was a staircase. It was this narrow wooden thing that was close by the front gate and I didn't think much of it. The city is built into a cliff so of course there are gonna be stairs.

That's just common sense. Then I reached the top of the stairs and found another staircase waiting for me. And another. And another. And another. Slowly it dawned on me that the entire city of Cliffhaven is stacked vertically, and the place is nothing but stairs and neighborhoods sitting on top of each other, and getting anywhere means climbing what felt like an endless series of wooden and stone staircases.

I kept waiting for the part of the city where the streets leveled out and everyone could just walk from one place to another like normal human beings, but it never came because this city is straight bullshit. The really infuriating part is that nobody in the city seems to notice that they live in a garbage area. Workers carrying heavy crates marched past me without breaking stride. There was this old woman with a basket filled with groceries and she overtook me on a staircase without even looking slightly winded.

The worst were the kids though. They were treating the whole place like a playground and I was forced to watch as a group of them ran uphill while I kept stopping every few minutes, pretending that I was admiring the view instead of struggling to not pass out. Climbing all those stairs reminded me of something that you all brought up a while back.

I can't remember who, but someone pointed out that I haven't smoked a cigarette since I first escaped the Eaters, and the theory was that they'd stolen a bit of weight from me, specifically my addiction to nicotine. I tried not to think about that too much because it kinda freaks me out. There's probably gonna be a bunch of you that say smoking is a terrible habit and I'm better off having quit, but I legit loved smoking. It wasn't just the nicotine, it was the ritual of it all.

I'd take a couple minutes and step outside and light a cigarette and let my brain just relax. It was five minutes of my life where nothing was going wrong and I could just turn off and sit there and hit the pause button. I'd stand there with a cigarette in my hand, watch the smoke drift away, and for a little while the rest of the world could wait. It probably helped me with my depression too. When your whole life is shit and you can just take five minutes to tune out and not think about anything… it helps.

Then the Eaters reached into me and took that from me without asking, and I didn't even notice that it was gone until someone here pointed it out. That's the part that is bothering me. It's not that I want to start smoking again. I kinda do but… it's not that. It's that something so personal could be taken from me without my knowledge which makes me question how much of me is still… me. This kinda took a weird turn.

What I'm trying to say is that I haven't had a cigarette in a long ass time and, my first time in Cliffhaven I was actually grateful that I haven't smoked for a while because I don't think my lungs would've survived it. My legs were jelly and every flight of stairs felt steeper than the last. My lungs were bellows and I was cursing all of you and the designers of Cliffhaven and gravity itself. Then I saw the elevators.

Built into the cliffsides were these enormous wooden elevators that were suspended from massive cables. They moved slowly up and down the rock face carrying huge loads between different levels of the city. I watched crates and barrels and lumber and machinery and even livestock disappear effortlessly up the sides of the city. For one glorious moment I thought that the designers of the city had realized how shit it was that they had infinite steps and no way up except through physical exertion. But nope.

They're freight elevators. Apparently cargo deserves a more comfortable journey than people. So I got to stand there and watch an entire wagonload of supplies glide gracefully up the cliff while I continued hauling my exhausted and broken body up another endless staircase, wondering what kind of person designs a city built on the side of the mountain.

By the time I reached the next landing I was completely convinced that the founders of Cliffhaven either hated tourists or they believed that anyone who didn't want to spend three hours climbing stairs hadn't earned the right to see the upper districts. Anyways… I eventually made it to the upper part of the city. I do want to tell you all about it, but honestly I'm still a little pissed about everything that it took to get me up here.

I'm sure there's some interesting neighborhoods and some landmarks and food and whatnot out there, and you all want me to go exploring, but right now I am just hating stairs and my body and my lack of stamina. Patch had recommended an inn to me before I left The MIZ. He said he knew a few people in Cliffhaven who suggested that he stay there if business brought him north. He said that a bunch of sailors use it because the place is clean, cheap, and close enough to the waterfront that I can quickly walk around it.

I trusted his recommendation and quickly found the place and I've gotta say that it's not bad. The room is tiny, and this is coming from someone who lived in an apartment in New York where I couldn't open the door all the way because the fridge blocked it. There's just enough space in the room for a bed, a tiny table shoved against one wall, and a narrow window overlooking the docks.

If I lean through the window enough I can see some ships coming and going, and every now and then I catch the sound of gulls mixed in with the harbor bells. It would be nice to be staying in a mansion or five-star hotel, but honestly the room is good enough for me. The bed is real. The sheets are clean. The place isn't leaking anything. And as far as I can tell, nobody is trying to murder me. It really goes to show how far my standards have fallen since popping up in this world.

I was hoping to take a shower as soon as I got here because spending two days on the road and then a few hours climbing all those stairs meant I was all sweaty and dusty and gross. But right now my legs are pissed at me and I'm thinking that if I stand up I'm gonna need to keep standing, but if I stay lying down right here I don't have to climb anything. As soon as I got into the room I just crumpled onto the bed and then pulled out my Tech Slate and updated all of you.

I'm probably gonna pass out before I finish reading all your replies. I'll go exploring in the city tomorrow after a good rest. Patch did recommend at least one place worth seeing in this city. Apparently there's this spot outside the city where the cliffs have been carved in an unusual way. He didn't know what the palace was called, but he said that the designers of the city had cut small openings in the rock face so that whenever the wind blows through them they start to whistle.

He said that it lets out this haunting tone that carries across the harbor, and it sounds like the cliffs themselves are singing. It sounds like one of those places in a city where the locals stop noticing because they've lived with it their entire lives, but visitors make a point of going out there at least once. Assuming that I can actually get out of bed tomorrow, that's probably where I'm going to start. I'll let you all know what it's like.

And I'll try to do a better job of explaining it because I don't know if the effect of it can translate well in a video game.