Chương 51: 2.10 Them Bones - Alice in Chains (2:30)

MoronicMnemonic This just clicked for me. Z3ke's actual strongest skill isn't Persona and it's not Instrument Mastery. It's luck. Like, stupidly absurd amounts of luck. He was on his back with a scavenger hovering over him, literally about to knife him to death, and then a freak updraft turned the tower into a wind cannon and punted the guy out a window. What's the saying? God takes care of fools and children. How old are you again Zeke? FaradayIsWaifu That's only the half of it.

Zeke has now run into three different people using firearms in the Deadlands. That alone is statistically insane. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… why is the gun thing weird? I get that they're not super common out here. Neither Cole nor Corva had one, and Milicent is just walking around with a big ass machete. But guns are effective. I mean, historically the country with the most guns wins the most wars. So why wouldn't adventurers use them? BlackSumpActivist You're missing the infrastructure context of Frontiers.

Yes, guns still exist in the game. Pre-Fracture weapons didn't just magically disappear when the Fracture hit. But the supply chain that made guns practical collapsed. Most guns that you find out in the Deadlands or The MIZ are all messed up. Remember when you went to that shooting range? You said the guns there were all rusted and poorly maintained. That's true for most guns out there. But it's not even the gun that's the problem. It's the ammo.

Even with The MIZ still having factories, ammunition is a nightmare to mass-produce out in the Deadlands. Smokeless powder isn't something that you can just improvise with scrap metal. You need very specific chemicals and a clean processing environment. Sourcing all that in a desert hellscape is… ambitious. StoryLeech There are some black powder weapons you can find out in Frontiers, but they're absolute shit. Black powder fouls weapons and they're inconsistent.

Plus it's so much more dangerous to store black powder. Smokeless powder is so much better, but making it reliably is basically artisanal-level chemistry in post-apocalyptic conditions. Which means that every single bullet that Daryl, Wren, or Pell fired was ridiculously expensive. HecateTeaCozy | Black powder fouls weapons and they're inconsistent. | I was a boy scout, back in the day, and we got to fire a black powder musket. I tried shooting it at a playing card about ten feet away, and I missed entirely.

Can you imagine trying to fend off Black Teeth with a smoothbore musket? They'd eat you faster than you could reload. MoronicMnemonic Which circles back to Zeke's strongest talent of luck. Somehow, Zeke got to work with multiple gun users who were a) not immediately hostile and b) competent enough to keep their weapons functioning. Most scavenger teams don't waste bullets unless things are about to turn catastrophic. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay… none of this makes sense. I've seen automatons in The MIZ.

There are straight up fully functional metal people just wandering around up there. The MIZ has trams and factories and all that stuff. How does a place that can maintain all that, and create metal people, not have reliable access to smokeless powder? StoryLeech From what I understand - and I'm not claiming to be an expert here - smokeless powder requires a bunch of stuff that isn't easy to source or refine in The MIZ or the Deadlands.

You would need a bunch of different types of acid PLUS you would need something like wood pulp or cotton to stabilize the mix. Have you seen many forests in the Deadlands? Cotton exists, but it's a cash crop. Nobody in the Deadlands is going to burn their limited fertile land on making cotton when they could be growing potatoes, corn, or carrots so people don't starve. You can keep a tram running with salvage and maintenance. You can create those automatons with scrap metal. But you can't really cheat at chemistry.

TVEye Before everyone gets into logistics and supply chains and chemistry and a bunch of stuff that I'm not interested in but that would make the Deadlands a little more intricate… Zeke, what did you actually find at the top of Bethashba Tower? Did you find the mystery up there? And what did you think about it? Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… I think I found the mystery. Are you talking about the Fracture stuff? I got a history rank for reading a bunch of files.

But at the same time, I'm not sure I understand what the hell is going on there and I'm pretty sure I missed something and y'all are gonna be pissed at me. The fight was over, but it seemed the wind didn't really care about that. It was still screaming through the upper floors of the Bethashba Tower, howling at me loud enough to drown out the sound of my heart beating through my chest. Every few seconds another gust of wind rocked the place and made the tower sway under my feet.

I sat on the ground, staring out through the shattered window where the scavenger had just vanished. My brain was lagging and I was replaying the last few seconds on a loop, watching the guy get picked up and tossed outside over and over again. It took me a minute to catch up and wonder if the fighting was still going on and we were still getting attacked, but a quick glance around told me everything was fine. Daryl was off to one side, reloading his sawed-off shotgun.

His expression was flat as he cracked open the barrel, slid two shells in, snapped it shut, and then did a slow scan of the floor like he was looking for more enemies. Jared was crouched over one of the bodies, rifling through the guy's pockets. The way he moved made me think that he'd done that before. He checked the pockets and seams and inner linings for anything valuable. Milicent, meanwhile, was a few steps away wiping down her machete with a strip of cloth.

She paused, frowned at a nick in the blade, and then went back to cleaning it. None of them were looking my way and that felt… weird. I couldn't help but think back to the Deadlands and my first few fights in this world. Cole and Pell and Corva and Wren had all been experienced adventurers. They were used to all the violence and chaos of this world. When they pushed me into combat, they were trying to toughen me up, but at the same time they were keeping an eye on me.

I don't think I realized it at the time, but they were always ready to step in if things got too hairy. There was always a moment at the end of the fight, when things were settled and less chaotic, when one of them would check in on me. They'd come over and put a hand on my shoulder and ask you good? Need a second? It was like they were making space for the aftermath of the battle, when I could gather my wits and digest everything that happened. But with this new crew? Not so much.

I had just kicked a guy and watched him get snatched up by the wind and tossed out a window. They were all treating it like it was another day at the office. Maybe to them it was. None of them glanced my way. None of them asked any questions. I was just… there. Another member of the crew. Another person they expected to handle his own shit. That's probably on me. Persona has been doing some heavy lifting lately, making it seem like I've got my shit together.

Add in the forum feeding me paths through the Under-MIZ where we could loot caches that most expedition teams would never stumble across, and from the outside I probably look competent. I give off the feeling of a seasoned adventure, and not at all like a guy who was freaked by the fact that a guy just plummeted to his death in front of me. Whatever. I'll unpack all that later. I don't really expect any of you to have a psychology degree to help me out here.

Instead of fussing over me, we all got down to scavenging. The team that attacked us was very quickly stripped. Daryl and Jared tore through their packets and pockets and gear, tossing aside junk and flagging anything useful. Everything valuable went into my dimensional storage space, with quick notes in my journal about who claimed what. When they were all done, Jared jerked his chin to the opening in the wall.

"Up there," he said. We left the bodies where they were and stepped through the opening. The stairwell beyond was enclosed and oddly quiet. The sudden drop in noise was almost disorienting. For the first time since climbing up to that floor, I was able to hear myself think. The higher we climbed, the cleaner everything around us became. There weren't any spray painted scavenger tags or messages written on the wall. There weren't any firepits or makeshit camps.

The walls were bare and the floors were mostly intact and nothing had been touched in decades. At the top, the doors opened into a wide office space with polished stone floors and reinforced glass walls. Beyond them, an observation desk wrapped around the exterior, offering a panoramic view of the city. Well… what was left of it. I was able to see collapsed towers and crumbling buildings and the rest of the old city stretching out below me. The loot in the office was… fine.

There were some cabinets with a bit of valuables stashed away. Some of the personal effects in the office would probably fetch a good price with the right buyer. It was worth the climb, probably, but it was nowhere near as valuable as what we got from the Halcyon Records Annex. While the rest of my team started scavenging through the office, prying open cabinets and pulling out drawers and arguing about who got what, I ended up just sitting down. There was a massive desk situated in front of the observation window.

It was made out of real wood and was so large that it had probably taken a team of people to install it. The chair behind the desk was pristine. It didn't have any rips or scorch marks or graffiti carved into the back of it. I dropped into the chair and started rifling through the contents of the desk. Behind me, Jared and Daryl were bickering over the loot.

"You don't even know what it does."

"Which is why I want it. Collectors'll pay." Milicent chimed in a moment later, pulling out a lockbox she found in a cabinet and telling Jared to try and open the thing. I ignored them and found files in the desk that I started reading through. Most of the files were incredibly boring. There were a few expense reports and some internal memos complaining about staffing issues. I skipped past those as well as the compliance audits that threatened to put me to sleep.

Then I found a folder that was different from the rest. INCIDENT PREPARATION - ECOLOGICAL MODELING (RESTRICTED) That got my attention. I opened it and started reading through everything. It's important enough that I figured I'd copy down the relevant parts here as best I can. Maybe some of you would be interested in it. The formatting is all mine, but I copied everything else from the files.

BETHASHBA CORPORATE INCIDENT REPORT Department: Predictive Systems and Modeling Clearance: Executive / Black Tier This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. SUMMARY: Predictive models confirm a cascading structural event (hereafter known as "the Fracture") with a >92% probability of occurrence within the next two weeks. Event will cause several ecological destabilization across the Modular Industrial Zone and surrounding regions.

DETAILS Structural collapse of subterranean infrastructure is expected to redirect groundwater into low-lying districts. Multiple neighborhoods projected to be wiped out due to flooding and ecological damages. Furthermore, collapsed drainage and warped terrain topology will result in a mass exodus of workers from The Modular Industrial Zone population. Contamination risk is EXTREME.

Industrial runoff, chemical storage breaches, and thaumic residue interaction will render water sources toxic and biologically unstable. Local flora and fauna projected to undergo rapid mutation within weeks of exposure. RECOMMENDATIONS (INTERNAL): Evacuate essential personnel immediately. Secure executive facilities and data assets. Initiate sealed-tower protocol for Bethashba Tower upper floors. Do NOT release ecological projections to public or municipal authorities at this time.

CONCLUSIONS: Public disclosure of reports will cause mass panic, infrastructure overload, and economic destabilization. Bethashba's continued operation and data preservation takes priority. The damage radius that includes the Modular Industrial Zone is unavoidable. Long-term survival will favor controlled populations capable of adaptation. This is statistically acceptable. That last line stuck with me. I stopped reading and just leaned back in the chair as it all washed over me. Statistically acceptable.

Bathashba knew. They somehow knew about the Fracture. They didn't suspect it or worry about it as if it were some kind of environmental disaster that would take place years in the future. They knew it was coming. They knew entire neighborhoods would be wiped out and that the water would turn poisonous and that civilization would crumble. And they chose to do nothing. There were more files after that and I read through them all.

There were confirmation reports and internal discussions about which executives would relocate and which assets were worth saving. Behind me, something clattered to the floor.

"If you weren't fast enough to grab it, it's not yours," said Daryl.

"You shoved me," Jared shot back. Milicent sighed at their bickering.

"Children." I ignored them and leaned back in the chair and stared out over the city. From there, I was able to see the entirety of the old MIZ. I saw the scars from the Fracture, and how the city dipped and sunk, and where entire blocks had been left to crumble into dust. Bethashba knew about the Fracture. They knew what was coming. There was probably an executive in this very room, maybe even in this very chair, who decided that warning people wasn't worth the risk to their bottom line.

Thoughts rolled through my head and I tried sorting them out. How did they know? From what you all have said about the Fracture in the games, it was a sudden thing. It was an apocalyptic event that blindsided everyone and irreversibly changed the world. So how the hell did this one company get an advanced warning? And why didn't they do anything?

I stored the files away in my dimensional storage, along with everything that my team looted, and then we started back down to the lobby on our way to the Flooded Neighborhoods. Oh, yea, and after reading everything I got a History rank up. Rank 2 which… doesn't really feel like much. It's not one of those magical skills that makes me stronger or faster. So, what the hell? Can you all explain it to me? What is going on? And more important, does any of this have to do with the Reclaimer?

Is knowing about this stuff going to help me kill that damn thing? Or did I just dig up something for the lore nerds to talk about while I go and wade into toxic water in the Flooded Neighborhoods? 7Spirals Everyone, you're all welcome. I'll be taking my thanks in follows for my fic that you can find <here. > I don't want any of you complaining that I never contributed anything useful to the forum. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uhhhhhh…. what? What just happened? Did you paint a target on my back or something?

MushroomCleric Relax, Zeke. You're fine. 7 was just giving a gift to all the lore addicts in the forum. He basically had you "stumble" across one of the oldest and messiest mysteries in the Fracture-verse. The best case in his view was that it gives you an excuse to write about it and then the community would post a bunch about it in the lore threads. The alternate best case scenario is that you're secretly a dev and you could leak some info that blows the whole thing open. Z3ke (Original Poster) Cool…

but you all still haven't given me any answers. What is the Bethashba Tower? How did they know about the Fracture before everyone else? And what does all that mean? PixelBaron | How did they know about the Fracture before everyone else? | That's the question. Z3ke (Original Poster) Oh holy shit, yes it's my question. Now can someone fucking answer it? StoryLeech Zeke, since you just dumped a bunch of stuff on us, let me return the favor. Take a breath. Don't get banned again.

Like Mushroom said, the Bethashba Tower is related to one of the mysteries in the Fracture-verse. And it's a mystery that transcends any individual game. You're right in that the Fracture is supposed to be this sudden, unpredictable, world-ending thing. The Fracture happens and civilization breaks. But if you look closely in the games, there are easy-to-miss breadcrumbs that suggest that a handful of organizations in each of the games had advanced notice that the Fracture was coming. Bethashba was one of them.

Now, here's where it gets weird. The Fracture doesn't look the same in every game. Due to that, most players assume that they're unrelated events. In Frontiers, the Fracture was caused by this alien impact that tore through the Deadlands and created the Rift Scar. Reality broke, biology started mutating, and physics went haywire and the ecosystem never recovered. In Null Protocol, the Fracture was technological in nature.

A megacorp was dicking around underground, they found an ancient machine buried under the planet's crust, and they flipped the switch. Overnight, everything turned to shit. Global systems collapsed, AI went feral, and all the world's infrastructure fell. In Emberveil, the Fracture was magical. Magic didn't exist… and then it suddenly did. All at once. It was like all the magic had been dammed up for millenia and then just released in a single catastrophic surge.

Despite how different all these Fractures looked, they all shared two similarities. The first is in the aftermath. There is a mass civilization collapse with the population being displaced and survivors forced to adapt to a new world. The second is the fact that there is a small subset of people in the world who were warned that the Fracture was going to happen. That raises so many questions that the games never truly answered. Who told them? Why only tell a select few people?

If the Fracture could be predicted, why couldn't it be stopped? And most importantly, what does this imply about the Fractures? If Bethashba was warned about the Fracture… are these things even random? Or are they planned? My personal take on it is that the Fractures are inevitable. They can't be prevented and they can't be redirected. At best, all you can do is brace for impact. But what this means for the wider Fracture-verse… I don't have a fuckin' clue.

It's actually one of the mysteries of the game that I'm not particularly interested in. It felt like something that the devs kinda just tossed in and were like "meh, we'll figure out what it means later on." So, yea, all this means is that you found a bunch of lore that everyone is gonna talk about. You didn't discover anything groundbreaking, like when you dropped the House of Seasons stuff. It's just that 7Spirals and others are now hoping that you'll address that mystery and shine some light on it.

As for if any of this helps you kill the Reclaimer… not at all. Z3ke (Original Poster) Not a dev. Not a fanfic. Don't actively have info about this world that you guys haven't already shared with me. Don't expect me to know anything more, because if you do that's gonna end up with me in a dangerous situation that I don't want to be in. I really want to focus on this point, so you all don't think I'm some kinda superhero know-it-all, but let me get our descent into the Flooded Neighborhoods down first.

We didn't stay long at the top of Bethashba Tower. Whatever answers were up there, I figured I'd just leave them up to all y'all. Jared took point and led us back down through the tower, past all the floors and the lobby, and then out into the Under-MIZ once again. From there, he guided us towards one of the descent points into the Flooded Neighborhoods. Daryl kept an eye out for any other scavenger team that was following us from the Anchor Guild, and we descended deeper into the Under-MIZ.

The deeper we went, the worse the air got. It was wet and heavy and had this sharp, chemical bite that hit the back of my throat. We hit the edge of the Flooded Neighborhoods and I've gotta say that they're kinda poorly named. They're not entirely underwater. It's more like they're half-drowned, like a city sunk into the earth but is still desperately trying to stay afloat. The lower floors of the buildings are all submerged completely, and the upper floors are still intact.

The streets are all gone and the water is… wrong. A thick, oily sheen floats across the surface, catching what little light there is and breaks it into rainbow smears. In some places on the water there are patches of bioluminescent contamination that pulses in green and blue hues. Fog rolls constantly over the water and it makes it hard to tell where to step. Milicent caught me staring out over the Flooded Neighborhoods the moment we got a clear view of them.

She shook her head and said flatly, "Don't touch the water. If you're not acclimated to it, it'll burn your skin off. That means no swimming and no wading." We moved along narrow, raised wooden platforms that had clearly been built after the Fracture. The planks had probably come from some of the buildings around us and they bowed slightly under our weight and creaked in ways that freaked me out.

The walkways zigzagged between half-submerged buildings and connected rooftops and upper floors that now functioned as streets. Below us, the water rippled constantly. I think I mentioned this before, but I've got a serious case of thalassophobia. That means that large bodies of water creeped me the fuck out. I hate not knowing what's underneath me, and always think that any water holds sharks and whales and giant squid. If it lives in the dark water, I want nothing to do with it.

So, the Flooded Neighborhoods were basically my personal hell. I was already on edge when something surfaced in the water. It happened quietly with a subtle displacement of water. I froze and my eyes locked onto it before I had a chance to completely freak out. The creature's eyes broke the surface first. They were large and bulbous and unblinking and perfectly adapted for low light, catching what little illumination there was and reflecting it back with a dull shine.

Its skin was translucent and stretched tight over corded muscle. I could see the bones and organs and strange sacs that pulsed faintly beneath its skin. Whatever it was, it just stared at us. None of us spoke, we just took in this strange creature. Daryl shifted and brought his sawed-off up just enough to cover the waterline. Jared made a hand signal and we moved a bit faster. The creature didn't follow us, it just sank beneath the surface.

But I could feel it watching us as we left and the fog swallowed the flooded street behind us. After seeing what lived in the water, none of us were interested in just strolling along. Jared pushed us hard and we took the fastest route to the Holdfast. When it finally came into view, I felt a strange mixture of relief and unease. I know a bunch of you reading this enjoy me describing these locations. I don't really understand it, but I guess you all like reading about places that your characters visited.

You like hearing me talk about cities and towns that you know intimately. But I gotta say that, there is no way my descriptions can do this place justice. I was expecting something like Gary, Indiana - a dead city that is bleak and hollow and abandoned and somewhere I spent a grand total of thirty seconds in before realizing I needed to get the hell out. Instead, the Holdfast was oddly beautiful. It was, to me, more interesting and comfortable than The MIZ with its wide avenues and sun-drenched streets.

The Holdfast was built into what used to be a massive freeway interchange, with layers and layers of concrete ramps stacked on top of each other. The lowest levels of it vanished into the toxic water, while the upper levels formed a rough skeleton that the settlement had grown around. Wooden walls had been hammered into place between concrete supports. In some spots the wood looked swollen and dark, clearly soaked with years of too much moisture.

In others, it was patched together with scavenged metal plates and old road signs and chunks of rusted-out vehicles. It should have looked awful, and yea, parts of it did. But there was something about it that worked. Raised roads led up into the Holdfast proper, creeping above the waterline like narrow fingers. They were just wide enough for foot traffic and handcarts.

And above all that was the freeway; thick slabs of concrete that blocked out what little light crept in from above, casting a permanent twilight over the city. Water dripped down from cracks overhead, tapping against metal and pooling in random places. The noise of the city was relentless. There was dripping and the low murmur of voices and, underneath it all, the constant hum of the filtration rigs. As we got closer to the Holdfast, I could see them there, bolted into the sides of buildings.

They were industrial-looking machines that were wrapped in pipes and hoses that plunged straight down into the water below. Some of them glowed and some of them rattled and shook like they were trying to tear themselves apart. Every single one was running and making a racket and pumping water up from below to be cleaned. The guards spotted us long before we got to the outer wall of the city.

They were on elevated platforms that were half-hidden behind makeshift panels that had clearly been scavenged from somewhere else. The gear and weapons they had were all old. Not worn. Jared and Daryl and Milicent had worn gear. No. These guards were carrying old gear. It was gear that probably belonged in a museum somewhere. It was gear that had obviously been passed down from father to son and repaired and re-repaired and patched so many times that the original manufacturer wouldn't have recognized it.

Their eyes tracked our group as we moved along the raised road, and I felt that same crawling sensation between my shoulders that I got when I saw the creepy creature back at the outskirts of the Flooded Neighborhood. It was obvious these guards were evaluating us. Up close, they all looked wrong, for lack of a better word. They were all incredibly pale, like they hadn't seen real sunlight in years. I mean, I guess they hadn't. What with being a subterranean society and everything.

They were lean and had muscles that were built from constant labor rather than training. Even the kids standing guard - some of them couldn't have been older than thirteen or fourteen - looked dangerous enough that it made me a little uneasy.

"Why are they looking at us like that?" I asked quietly. Jared didn't answer right away, instead keeping his eyes fixed forward. Then, just loud enough for me to hear, he said, "Because we're surface. Because we don't belong here." We passed the first wooden wall and finally entered the city proper, and the scale of the Holdfast became clearer. Walkways spiraled upwards and inwards, connecting different levels of the city with the freeway.

People hauled crates and netted bundles towards processing areas, and no one stopped to gawk but plenty of them looked our way. It felt kinda like walking into a small town where everyone knew each other and we were outsiders, looked on with suspicion. There was a smell that permeated everything. It was fungus and damp wood and ozone from the filtration rigs. And underneath it all was a faint chemical tang that never quite went away.

"Don't touch anything," Milicent warned.

"And don't drink anything unless they tell you it's safe." The Holdfast wasn't as large as The MIZ. It didn't have endless corridors or wide avenues or open plazas. Instead, everything was tightly layered and efficient. We reached an inner gate where the raised road widened just enough to form a checkpoint. There were two guards standing there and when they saw us approach one stepped forward and waved us over.

"State your business." Jared glanced at me, giving me a look that said it's your show, boss. I turned to the guard and answered.

"Trade. Maps. Passage." The guard's gaze lingered on me before flicking to the rest of my crew.

"Follow," he grunted and then turned without waiting to see if we complied. He led us deeper into the city until we came across a structure built around a freeway support pillar. Have you ever played Fallout? I mean, I'm guessing that the people on this forum have played it. My buddy was obsessed with it back in the day and he showed me how you could build up small cities and settlements out of scrap metal and warped wood. Yea, that's what this place looked like. It was ramshackled and broken but functional.

There were mismatched tables out front and the metal walls had been rusted through in places and mixed with slabs of wood. A woman stood from one of the tables and studied us as the guard brought us over.

"You will stay here," the guard said once we came to a stop.

"You will wait for the mayor." Then he left and the woman motioned us inside. I'm pretty sure this is the Holdfast's version of a hotel. So that's where we're at now. We made it inside the Holdfast and we're waiting on this "mayor" person, and I'm hoping that we can make some kind of agreement with them to figure out a way through the Flooded Neighborhoods and into the Fossilized Factory Belt. There's no way I want to stay here for longer than we have to.

Water freaks me out, and I'm pretty sure the guards here don't want us hanging around. And as interesting as the Holdfast looks, I don't think I want us here for too long. I'm a smoker, or at least I was a smoker, which means that I'm used to bringing poisonous air into my lungs. But even with all that, the air in this place is not something I want to be breathing in. So… where do I go from here? Does anyone have anything that would help me here in this place? Oh shit. Uh…

remember that one guy John a couple days back. I think he was telling me he wanted me to perform like a damn monkey for him. Well, I hate that using the speech-to-text function on my Tech Slate actually led to something here. Performance - Rank 2