Chương 25: Apocalypse - Cigarettes After Sex (4:50)

Z3ke (Original Poster) So there you all go. That's my update of what happened to me and why I disappeared for a while. It's been a couple hours and I'm still trying to process everything. I earned my second skill, and it's a melee one this time. It's kinda weird, honestly. After checking the notification, I realized that my grip on the hand-axe and the dagger were a little wonky. It felt almost like a whole bunch of muscle memory had just been downloaded into my head and it told me that my grip was wrong.

It's not perfect by any means, but I was able to know that my stance was off and I knew that I had openings that an opponent could take advantage of. I knew that the way I was holding the axe was limiting my reach and reaction speed. I'll probably poke around with the skill later on and figure out what it means to suddenly have all this knowledge about how to use a weapon that I'd been fumbling around with just minutes earlier. Corva was beyond thrilled with me after the fight.

I'm still pissed at him and probably will be for a long time, but he immediately zeroed in on the fact that I'd just unlocked a skill. He started pestering me about it. When I tried to circle back to the whole "leaving me to die" thing that he and the others did, he just sort of waved me off like it was all inconsequential.

"If I'd stepped in and killed that thing for you, you'd start depending on me for your survival. Out here, depending on people is basically a death sentence." He didn't say that in a harsh way. It was more gentle-like, kinda like how you'd explain an uncomfortable truth to a child. I could imagine him telling me that "no, your dog didn't die. He just went to live on a farm upstate where he can run around and play with all the other dogs." It was that tone of voice.

The worst part about everything is that, after explaining why he did it, the rest of the group just nodded along with him. They were all agreeing with him like it was all just common sense. None of them offered me any sort of apology and none of them offered me any assurance that they would have stepped in if things had gotten out of hand. Instead, there was just a quiet agreement among them that letting me struggle on my own was the right call. That's when it clicked for me.

In their minds, backing off and letting me test myself against that jackal was being supportive. This was their messed up version of caring about me. Sure, they didn't protect the newbie from the half-starved murder-jackal, but that was because they believed - honestly believed - that stepping in would hurt me in the long run. In their view, letting someone bleed a little stopped them from bleeding a lot later on. That's some bullshit logic frankly. But… I kinda get it. This is an incredibly dangerous world.

Everything that I've experienced so far tells me that. So if me fighting that murder-jackal could save me some pain later on… then that would be a good thing. Right? That understanding took a little bit of the heat out of my anger. Not all of it, but enough that I could breathe again. And I can also admit something here that I absolutely wouldn't say to them: the fight felt good. It's not my proudest moment. And I'm not saying that the fight felt morally good or superhero good. No.

It was more that raw, animal, "I didn't die" kind of good. It was an electric jolt of adrenaline that came to me because I'd survived something that I shouldn't have. With the House of Seasons I basically just stumbled around in the dark and barely kept my head above water. With the raiders on the train, all that feels like a dream or a blur of adrenaline that I still haven't come to terms with.

I keep pushing the effects of that fight to the back of my mind and refuse to think about it, hoping that the feelings that have emerged from that fight will slowly go away. But this fight? The jackal running at me and chomping away and me fending it off? The sound of its claws skidding in the dirt and the shriek of its intimidating call? The panic, the swing, the moment where I realized that I'd won? That was real. That was mine. I'd survived. Nobody had stepped in. Nobody had saved me.

And I didn't crumble to pieces when shit got real. It also helped that it was against a dangerous creature that was trying to bite my head off and not some human with hopes and dreams and wants and desires. That has allowed me to square the fight with everything that came after. It's an admittedly small triumph in the grand scheme of things. I'm still basically a toddler who is taking his first shaky steps into this world.

And everything is kinda buried under a messy pile of resentment and frustration and anger and caution and a bunch of other feelings that have started to bubble up whenever I think about the rest of the people in this expedition. But still… it's something. It's something that I did on my own. It's an accomplishment that I can own. With the fight over and nothing else on the horizon, we packed up and went back to marching.

A few more hours of walking through the Deadlands, the sun beating down on us, and Corva called for a halt. We set up camp and built a fire and started making dinner. Watching Corva cook was a little surreal. The man is a machine, all sure motion and fast hands and he explained everything that he was doing to me. He looked like a cooking show host speeding through a segment.

It felt like he was trying to guide me to unlocking the cooking skill or something, or maybe he was just trying to calm the remnants of my anger at him. By the time he finished dinner, I'd calmed a bit from my earlier anger. We all gathered around the campfire and Corva suggested that I shouldn't race towards picking up a class.

"Focus on your skills first," he said.

"Strengthen your foundation. Unlock a few skills. Only once you've got several skills up to level three should you even consider taking a class. And even then, don't accept anything without talking it over with me or the group. The wrong class can get you killed out here if you're not careful." I sat there chewing on some kind of flatbread meat dish, trying not to show how conflicted I was with his advice. I mean, sure, he might mean well. But he's not really acting with perfect knowledge of my situation.

I haven't told him anything about being unanchored, or about the ticking clock that is hovering over me and that might erase me from existence in a matter of weeks if I don't get a class. I mean, how exactly do you casually drop something like that into a conversation?

"Oh, by the way, I'm not from this world. I basically glitched into your reality. Also, you all exist in a video game franchise with lore that I can look up online." Yea… not gonna happen. That's not something I'm ready to explain to anyone, especially not to people who'd just watched me nearly die in order to teach me a lesson. So that's where things stand right now. I'm still pissed at everyone, but also weirdly proud of myself. I'm exhausted. I'm confused. And Corva is… complicated.

I kind of hate him, but I also understand what he's trying to do for me. And for the first time, I'm starting to see what it's going to take to actually survive in this world. Anyway, that's my update. If any of you have advice on how to not get mauled in the future, or how to level skills a bit faster without nearly dying, or what skills I should focus on, or anything about classes, I'm all ears. InnerMarrow I'm just gonna say it, Zeke nailed Corva's whole vibe with his fic.

When he first dropped Corva into the story, I was kinda iffy about the whole thing because he's such a major NPC to suddenly wheel in. But credit where it's due: his mannerisms feel right. The whole mentor-vibe, the quiet confidence thing, the "suffer for educational purposes" tone. It's all pretty on-brand. VeneratedWitchHunter It's still some straight-up bosheet. Not a fan of Corva being alive here at all. Dude died in canon. He's canonically dead. He is no more. He has ceased to be. He is an EX-CORVA.

Bringing him back to life for a fanfic cheapens his story. It's just resurrecting a character because the author misses him and thinks he's cool. It doesn't do anything to add to Corva's story, and it doesn't really add anything to this one either. Still, I agree with Inner. If Zeke insists on using Corva, at least he's staying consistent with the whole mentor aspects that were in his early iterations of the character. I'll give him that much. xXCrushDaddyXx Eh…

I'm more disappointed that Zeke only killed one creature. Kinda lame. Like, sure, baby steps. Whatever. But if you're gonna be heading out into the Deadlands and trying to survive out there, you gotta start grinding. Work on your melee skills. Get a ranged weapon. Go after something that'll teach you right. Corva's right - you're too weak right now. And yea, I'm aware this makes me sound like a sociopath. A bunch of y'all are gonna complain that you like the slow burn and aren't in it for the combat.

But most of us care about the action and fighting. StoryLeech Counterpoint: not everyone needs to turn into a murderhobo the second they cross into the Deadlands. I personally love the lore drops in this fic. The House of Seasons arc popped off and it's got people doing fresh Frontiers playthroughs and pacing themselves with Z3ke's post. None of them are crying out for more combat or boss fights. Since we're all focused on Corva right now and what he means, I wanna talk about the advice that he gave for Zeke.

The whole 'don't rush a class' thing sounds like good advice. On paper. But I agree with what Zeke said in that Corva's not working with all the facts. Sure, unlock a few skills and explore your potential and meditate on what you could turn into. That's beautiful and holistic and very zen. But at the same time… Zeke could disappear tomorrow. He could just bampf out of existence because he didn't pick up a class in time. How is working on skills gonna help him then?

I'm not saying he's gotta jump on the first class offered, but he also can't just wait around and hope that the universe hands him the perfect class while he turns himself into some kind of multi-skilled renaissance adventurer. BrokenKing42 Gotta agree with the crowd here. Corva's not wrong… but he's not right either. Z3ke: don't just wait for the perfect class setup. Worst-case scenario isn't that you pick up a suboptimal class. Worst-case scenario is that you pick nothing and vanish.

Also, Corva's whole don't rely on people is very much a Deadlands survival thing. That entire biome is the definition of "every man for himself." Good advice for Corva, probably not great advice for you. The second you step outside the Deadlands, things are gonna change fast. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Tech Reign was a game that was big on teamwork.

If you go in solo, you're gonna be outgunned and outmanned and the enemies are gonna walk all over you. So take what Corva is saying with a huge grain of salt, especially if you're gonna push your fic into other regions and not just stick around in Frontiers territory. Furious_Ferret Something that stood out to me was when he completed the House he got the puzzle intuition skill notice, but after killing those two scavengers nothing seemed to show up. What's up with that? StoryLeech Yea…

it might have just taken more action with the fight for him to unlock the skill. Like, killing the scavengers started the process of unlocking the skill and it completely unlocked with the Jackal Runner. I do think that Zeke missed a beat with it though. Can you imagine the dagger to the gut that would have been for his character? He just killed the two scavengers and he's obviously struggling with the implication of what that means and at the same time a bunch of adrenaline is still coursing through his body.

Then BOOM! Skill unlocked. He could have ended the chapter right then and there. Bet he's kicking himself for not doing that. Could've read like: Simple Melee Weapons: Rank 1 I stared at the notification, letting me know my gains from the fight. And then I vomited everything. Or something like that… I'm not a writer. Everyone shut up. Staniel Hey Z3ke, quick OOC question. You mind stepping out of kayfabe for a sec? Do you already know what class you're aiming for here?

Like, as a writer, do you have a long-term plan and the class picked out already? Or are you leaving it open to see where the narrative leads you? OR, and this is honestly the more fun option, are you planning on letting us all vote your character into a class? Like, you're already doing the whole forum-guided progression thing. Is it going to be more intricate in future chapters? We tell you what skills to work on and you steer the narrative towards whatever class we collectively shove you into.

Just give us a hint. Not the class name if you don't feel like it, just the general vibe you're going for. Combat class? Crafting? Support? Some weird niche thing? You turned away from the bartender class, are you gonna try and get something in that same neighborhood or something totally new? MushroomCleric | You mind stepping out of kayfabe for a sec? | HAAA. First time? StoryLeech Yeaaaa… not that kind of story. He's not dropping author notes or behind-the-scenes commentary. Dude is committed.

10161066 Z3ke: not a fanfic Rest of the Forum: Okay but… what if it was though? PaperSnakes Oooo… theory time. What if Corva is intentionally steering him away from picking a class because he's gonna train him to become a Drifter? If Z3ke is really going all in on the whole "real-world" thing, the mentor-mentee angle actually lines up perfectly for giving Zeke a class. Drifter is literally the class built for adaptability and survival in hostile regions.

And Corva could one hundred percent take him under his wing and guide him. StoryLeech Drifter wouldn't be the worst class he could pick up. In the games it was always slept on because you can't min-max anything with it. It's too broad and flexible and everyone wants to boost things to ridiculous degrees. But in a grounded, realistic narrative? A class that lets you learn anything faster? A class that keeps you competent in anything? That might actually be the smartest choice for him.

Z3ke (Original Poster) What exactly is the Drifter class? Based on what Story and Paper just posted, I'm guessing that Corva is a drifter. But I've got no idea what that actually means. What does he do? He's in a leadership role with this current group, and he held his own in combat, but what are his strengths? I know the whole tank/DPS/healer dynamic that a lot of RPGs use, so where does Drifter land in that? MushroomCleric You guessed right in that Corva is aDrifter. And don't feel bad about asking what it is.

Half the playerbase only vaguely knows about the class, and the other half never really cared about it because it's not the meta. Think of Drifter as being the ultimate jack-of-all-trades class. It is terrifyingly competent in everything, especially in a realistic situation. It also might be an interesting choice for you. Nobody ever chose it in the games because everybody wants numbers to go up and we all min-max everything and you can't really do that with the drifter class.

You already know about how skills work in the Fracture-verse. Most people will top out their skills at 7. That's peak human. Shooting 7 = John Wick wiping out club security like they're nobodies. Sneaking 7 = Solid Snake with a cardboard box. Athletics 7 = Ezio jumping all over Renaissance Italy and divebombing carts filled with hay. Now, classes exist so people can break through that peak human ceiling.

If you can get your shooting beyond the Human limits - 8, 9, 10 - that's when physics starts to politely step aside. Shooting 8 = Angelina Jolie from Wanted, curving bullets around corners. Shooting 9 = Pull the trigger, walk away, the bullet hits three minutes later. Shooting 10 = sniping someone while standing in another zip code. When you get your skills up that high, it's not technically magic. But it's basically magic. But Drifter is all about breadth of skills, not depth.

A Drifter can pick up ANY skill and level it crazy fast. Much faster than any other class. They can hit peak human (7) in a truly absurd number of skills. Combat, cooking, navigation, medicine, crafting, wilderness survival. If it exists, a Drifter can learn it and master it to the human limit. Here's the catch: a Drifter is hard-capped at 7 in ALL their skills. Forever. They never go superhuman. No crazy powers or anime protagonist or superhero skills. They're like Batman.

Really talented but not as superhumanly impressive as the rest of the Justice League. That's why players never picked the class in any of the games. In real-world scenarios, the class would be brokenly good. But it's not a sexy class. You're not gonna disappear in a puff of smoke, or curve bullets to hit your target, or leap over tall buildings with pure strength. Everyone who plays a game in the Fracture-verse wants to be a demigod, and the Drifter class doesn't really lend itself well to that. It's useful.

It's good. But it's not sexy. In a realistic fanfic, like the one you're writing, Drifter would be nuts. Corva can fight competently, track like a bloodhound, shoot well enough to defend himself, stitch up a wound, make traps, identify edible plants, barter, cook a meal, and a whole host of other things. He's wildly skilled, incredibly adaptable, but not superhuman. If you pick a focused class over Drifter, you'll eventually be able to surpass Corva at one to three different skills.

You could become something way beyond peak human. But he's still going to outmatch you in adaptability. TL; DR: Drifter Learns every skill super fast Masters every skill up to peak human NEVER goes superhuman Amazing survival odds Terrible protagonist for a power fantasy It's a great class for a mentor-type who needs to train someone in a bunch of skills. If you're treating this fic like a real survival situation, Drifter isn't a bad option at all. It just means that you won't be Superman.

But Batman's not a bad consolation prize. NullSigil (Primary) Tapping in here. Zeke, I've been catching up on your posts and instead of rehashing the whole "Corva = good/bad" I'm gonna zoom out a bit and focus on the more practical aspects you're facing right now. Stanial actually asked a solid question: do you already have a class picked out that you want your OC to take? (Not that I expect you to break kayfabe and tell us.) NullSigil (Primary) Oh snap. Just saw my new flair. Shoutout to Grave.

That's pretty awesome. GravemindLegacy (MOD) I have given you the PRIMARY flair because you are the current primary advice giver for Z3ke at the moment. When we move on to the next primary, they will get the flair. Z3ke (Original Poster) I never played this game and so I don't have a class in mind. Also, a lot of you have dropped class names in the forum and I can't tell you what any of them do. So far I've heard things about a Gutter Snipe or a Blood Courier or Rune… something-or-other.

I think someone talked about a Gunwitch and I don't have any idea what that entails other than… I guess hexes and bullets? NullSigil (Primary) Okay, cool. I can work with that. Let's start with something simple: don't turn down a class just because Corva suggested that you focus on your skills first. The guy means well, I'm sure, but doesn't know the peculiarities of your situation. The guy doesn't know that you're unanchored. He doesn't know that you've got a timer running in the background that is like a bomb.

He doesn't know that you're essentially just a tourist in this world working on borrowed time. He's giving you a bunch of advice that would work for someone in his situation and his circumstances. But you aren't him. I get that you're really committed to the bit and RPing someone who got isekai'd and, honestly, that's half the reason people are loving this fic. But the downside of that is that you're stuck playing the long game for narrative purposes.

You might want to slowly guide your OC towards a specific class, but we've already warned you that you've only got a short period of time to do it in. That's not the worst thing going for you. The worst thing is that you're currently classless in a region of the Fracture-verse where it's possibly the worst place to be classless. You are in the Deadlands. You didn't wake up in a nice peaceful forest, or in a city, or even in a bandit lair. You woke up in the Dead. Lands.

It's one of the most dangerous places in all the games. I've already laid out the many ways that you could get killed, and you just had a run-in with Jackal Runners and found out that there's a ton of creatures out there that I didn't tell you about. Corva telling you to delay picking up a class means he's thinking that you're gonna be traveling with him for months and that he can protect you against the absolute worst that the Deadlands has to offer.

The Jackal Runners can be killed by a classless random, as you've found out, but most of what's out there would be way too much for you to handle alone. I'm sure he would have stepped in and helped you out if things got way too dangerous. That being said, he's probably thinking that the only danger to you right now is Jackal Runners and bandits. He doesn't know that you're unanchored. And it doesn't sound like you told him what your end goal is. You mentioned that you want to go home.

That's how I'm guessing this whole fanfic is going to end, with you winding up back in NYC. It's a good goal. An admirable goal. A lot of isekai protagonists instantly forget about their family or their pets or everything else they leave behind when they wake up in a new world. That always sat odd with me. So for you to say that you want to head home and not be stuck in a world with a bunch of magic and future tech, that's pretty admirable.

But, and I say this gently and with love, you're not getting home in the next two weeks. Hell, I'd argue that you're not going to find your way home in the next two months unless you somehow luck your way into meeting some hermit in the Deadlands whose hobby is tearing open portals to distant worlds. And even then, you're going to risk getting turned into a bizarre lab experiment or getting accidentally aged ninety years because his math was off.

Before you can even think about making your way home, there are three giant questions you gotta answer. How'd you get isekai'd in the first place? Was it a magical accident? A botched ritual? A cosmic joke? An action taken by a malicious entity? These all have wildly different solutions, and you're not learning the answer to this question if you die to some pack of Jackal Runners. What kind of mechanism actually brought you to this world? Was it tech? Spellcraft? Divine intervention? Something else?

You're not going to know until you investigate it. And you're not going to investigate it if you die to some pack of Jackal Runners. How do you recreate that method without blowing yourself up? Let's say you figure out how you got isekai'd into the Fracture-verse. You're going to need to reverse-engineer that to have it send you back. To do that you're gonna need time, connections, safety, knowledge, resources, and probably more than one high-level specialist.

And you're not gonna get any of that if you die to some pack of Jackal Runners. I've come up with a simple plan to answer all three of those questions. Survive Long enough. To do steps two through a thousand. You don't survive in the Deadlands by being a classless noob. So, don't get precious about the class you pick. Sure, be thoughtful. Weigh your options. Don't instantly grab "ditch digger" because it's the only option that pops up.

But don't reject a viable class just because Corva told you that you need to "find yourself." You're unanchored which means you don't have the luxury of a self-discovery arc. You're already burning your time right now and you risk blinking out of the universe before you even begin to figure out how to get back home. Pick something that keeps you alive. Pick a class that is scalable. Pick a class that can carry you through the Deadlands and keep you alive long enough to answer those three questions.

Now, I WON'T tell you which class to chase. Some of the people on this forum will want to puppet-master you into a hyper-specific build, but that might just hamper your creative juices. They'd have you wandering out into the desert and fighting people with a halberd so you can become a lancer, or they'll try and force you to become an artificer and build a dieselpunk Ironman suit. I'm not gonna get involved in all of that.

All I'm gonna say is that you gotta choose something that fits your survival needs, not the forum's entertainment cravings. Just… don't wait too long. If a class comes up and it's not garbage (and you can ask the forum about it) then you should seriously consider taking it. Z3ke (Original Poster) I get that you don't wanna force me into a class, but… kinda would like a little bit more guidance.

PaperSnakes said that Corva might be training me to pick up the Drifter class, and a few other people have said that it's not a really bad class. If Corva is guiding me towards that… should I take it? Is there a better class out there? Is there some secret legendary class that would be incredibly powerful and will help me survive? NullSigil (Primary) I think that Drifter is a good class. Sure, it's not all that sexy, but in a realistic setting it can help you out.

People are gonna pile on here and say you should go magic build or focus on tech or lead you down a bunch of different paths. Everyone wants to read a fanfic about their favorite class, and the moment you choose a class you're gonna get a bunch of people arguing that you did it wrong. But there isn't really an uber OP class in the Fracture-verse. In Mass Effect the best class was biotics because you could just toss everyone around.

In Skyrim people would naturally gravitate towards a sneaky archer because crits were overpowered. The good thing about this game series is that you can make any class work for you. My advice is to see what comes from this little adventure you've got going, and if Corva is guiding you towards the Drifter class, it might be good to jump on it. Just remember my advice of finding a class sooner rather than later or you're gonna be dead in the water.