Chương 54: 2.13 Du Hast - Rammstein (3:55)

Z3ke (Original Poster) I'm really struggling with whether or not to post this, but you guys are all I have to talk to, so here we go. It's night here and most everyone is asleep. Jared, Daryl and Milicent turned in hours ago. The guards in the village threw together a ramshackle little barracks and most of the expedition is crammed inside. Calling it a building is being generous. It's more like a box made from old wood and scavenged planks that haven't been completely rotted through yet.

The only people still awake are me and a handful of Holdfast guards pulling watch. I'm sitting by the fire with my Tech Slate, typing this out while the guards slowly circle the perimeter of the village. We're surrounded by this thin, flimsy wooden wall made up of warped boards that have been nailed together. Some of the planks are so warped and rotted that it looks like you could push a finger straight through them.

Beyond the wall is the water of the Flooded Neighborhoods, and it's filled with all those nightmares you all warned me about earlier. I honestly can't understand how everyone is asleep. But the creatures aren't why I'm still awake. I keep replaying my conversation with Marcus and what he said about the mayor and high-tier social skills and how they change people. And then I keep remembering what you all said earlier about charisma builds and how it's a long-running argument on the forum about them.

You all said that a full charisma build would change someone. It would affect them and warp them and slowly turn them into someone different from who they used to be. I've been trying to tell myself that I'm just overthinking things and it's all just stress. I'm in a new world with a bunch of monsters and constant danger, of course I'm stressed and spiraling. But the thing is… I've started noticing those changes in myself. It's little things.

Maybe it's that I've got more confidence or maybe it's that people listen to me more and that conversations seem to slide my way. I honestly don't know. And I know I should be happy about that. To a degree. It'll help me survive and navigate this strange world. It'll help me not get dragged into the swamp by a nightmare octopus or eaten by mutant gorillas or dissolved by corpse flies vomiting larva at me. It should feel good and empowering. But instead, it just makes my skin crawl. So, this is the desperate part.

This is where I ask all you for help to give me some perspective or reassurance or… something. I know how stupid that sounds. Trust me, I'm fully aware how this is going to end. Asking the internet for guidance, empathy, or civility is basically begging people to tell you to nut up, stop whining, and just deal with it. And maybe you're all right. Maybe I should just deal with it. But I'm freaking out right now. I'm scared of dying in a ditch or getting dragged under water and chewed on by something.

But that's not the part that's really getting to me. What scares me the most is the idea that I'll wake up one day and realize that I'm not the same person who got dumped into this world in the first place. I'm scared that I'm going to change and turn into someone else to the point that if the people I grew up with saw me, they wouldn't recognize me. If Persona is changing how I think, how I talk, and how people react to me… what do I do about that? Is that something I'm always going to have to fight against?

Or is the real answer just that change is inevitable and I'm kidding myself if I think I'm exempt? I don't have a mentor out here. The last one turned into an asshole and tried to kill me. I don't have a therapist or anyone who even remotely understands what I'm dealing with. All I've got is you guys. So yea, I'm turning to the forum. Tell me I'm overreacting. Tell me everything is going to be okay. Tell me how you'd all keep yourselves intact if you were in my place. Just…

don't tell me to shut up and deal with it. StoryLeech The idea that charisma builds would fundamentally change how someone interacts with the world has been argued to death, resurrected, and beaten again. It's all old drama, Zeke. Here's my advice. If you don't like that angle, then don't write it into your fanfic. You're not obligated to explore every philosophical implication in the Fracture-verse just because it exists. You can handwave it away, downplay it, or ignore it entirely. Plenty of good fanfics do that.

BabyBloos He's already writing about it though. You don't get to include scenes about conversations going too smoothly for him and then introduce a mayor with a level-9 social skill manipulating everyone around him, and then act all shocked when people start bringing up the topic of social skills changing people. At this point, Zeke already introduced the idea and we're going to mention it. It's his way of bringing up the argument and seeing what we all think. EmergencyKlein This arc is dragging.

I'm not a fan of all the emotions and feelings stuff. I get that Zeke is spiraling, and sure, that's interesting for a bit. But most of his fic is him in his head. We've got so many chapters of introspection and philosophy and nothing exploding. I'm not saying that Zeke has to turn this into a murderhobo simulator. I'm not Crush. I don't need him punching every monster in the Under-MIZ. But in the immortal words of Elvis Presley: a little less conversation, a little more action please.

CrushDaddyXx (Primary) For the record, punching monsters is a valid form of self-discovery. Byte-Sized If you're playing a charisma build and you're surprised it's affecting your personality, then that's on you. That's like rolling a strength build and being surprise you solve problems by lifting heavy things. Charisma is literally about identity, presentation, and how you carry yourself. Of course it would bleed into who you are. That's the whole point.

SignalLoss Zeke, I think you're overstating how dramatic all this is. You didn't become a completely different person overnight. You're still anxious and you're still second-guessing yourself. You're still posting on the forum at 3AM from a dangerous area, asking for validation from all of us. Whatever Persona is doing to you, it hasn't replaced that. DataDatum This is basically the Ship of Theseus argument, but with stats. If you replace one plank of a ship, it's still the same ship.

But then you replace another and another and another. At what point does your ship stop being the original ship? That depends on who you ask. Zeke, you're changing regardless of what your stats say. You're in a new world with new pressures and new responsibilities. Even if you didn't have Persona, you wouldn't be the same person you were when you started this story. Hell, in the real world, every seven years your atoms are basically all replaced.

That means you aren't even physically the same person you were a decade ago. Yet you still answer to the same name. So stop overthinking it. SignalLoss ^Data. Also, if Persona really was taking you over, you wouldn't be this worried about it. The fact that you're scared of losing yourself proves that you haven't yet. Commode-oDragon From a pacing standpoint, this reads like the calm before the storm.

You're sitting in a guarded village with people on night watch and some creeping dread living out in the waters, and you've got all this unresolved anxiety about power and identity. Something is absolutely about to go wrong and the introspection is just the calm bits. TVEye Yea, and the second something lunges out of the water at Zeke, all this philosophizing is going straight out the window because he'll be too busy trying not to die. Speaking as a reader, I'm very ready for that. EmergencyKlein Same.

Less forum therapy, more Flooded Neighborhoods trying to murder him. We can circle back to the existential crisis after the action scene. Z3ke (Original Poster) Gee… thanks. NullSigil Relax Zeke, I've got you. This exact existential spiral has been written about before. In fact, it's been workshopped, beta-read, and archived. Lucky for you, I know all about it. There's this little-known, extremely obscure web serial that you've probably never heard of. It's called Mother of Learning. Real underground stuff.

Very niche. It's only been read by approximately everyone. Z3ke (Original Poster) I know I'm gonna get flak for this, especially with how you describe it, but I've never heard of it. What's it about. NullSigil … I'm sorry, what? Okay. WTF mate? You can't be a fan of the Fracture-verse, hang out on forums like this, and write isekai fanfiction while somehow miss reading Mother of Learning. What is wrong with you? You know what… it's not relevant.

What is relevant is that there's a scene that is literally your problem, just with better prose and fewer swamp monsters. The main character in the book is this studious, socially awkward guy named Zorian. Early in the story he's prickly, impatient, and low-key kind of an asshole to everyone. He hates people and always assumes the worst of them and is constantly on edge.

Then some stuff happens - time loops, magical trauma, constantly dying - and he gets hit with this soul magic that he's worried has messed with him. Fast forward a bit and Zorian becomes calmer, more patient, and less angry. He's not snapping at people and he's even begun hanging out with his little sister. He goes, wait a minute, my soul got all mangled. Am I still me? Or did the soul attack turn him into someone completely different from old Zorian.

He finds a priest who listens, checks him out, and then says: Yes. Of course you're different. But Zorian didn't change because of the soul magic. He changed because his life had been violently yanked off its original trajectory and shoved onto a completely different path. He was forced to grow in ways he never would have otherwise. He faced challenges and had to adapt or break.

All that would inevitably change someone, not because the soul magic replaced him but because the circumstances he found himself in were rebuilding him. It's the same deal here. Zeke, you didn't wake up in the Deadlands and suddenly stop being yourself. You just started being rebuilt under a different set of rules. You talked about the Frontiers world being incredibly dangerous. It is, and you're being pressure-forged by it.

Persona didn't sneak into your room at night and steal your identity like some kind of tooth-fairy that… steals identities? I don't know where I was going with that sentence. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. You're not losing yourself. You're adapting. You gained some tools that work better in your new environment. Yes, tools shape how they're used. But here's the important part, and what you're missing while you spiral at 3AM. You still get a say.

You get to notice the changes you're undergoing and you get to push back on them when you don't like them. You get to decide the person you're becoming. So, yes. You're changing. Is that terrifying? You bet it is. Is that unavoidable? Of course it is. But is it the same as being disappeared and turned into someone else that you'll never recognize? Not even close. Now please, for the love of god, read Mother of Learning when you survive this current arc. Z3ke (Original Poster) That… weirdly helped. Thank you.

Z3ke (Original Poster) It's been a couple hours since I last checked in with all you and… shit kinda turned. I'm gonna need all your help, and this time it's due to something that most of you all are going to enjoy. I only got a couple hours of sleep last night. After talking with all of you I eventually wandered off to the barracks, found an empty patch of floor, and then passed out. It felt like five minutes later when the barracks was filled up with noise.

People were muttering and packing up what little gear they'd spread out around them. My team came together and we were handed cold breakfast by the guards. I couldn't tell you what it was except it looked kinda like oatmeal and tasted horrible. Nobody complained though. We just ate, geared up, and got ready to move out again. The guards formed up around us, same as yesterday, and we quickly put the village behind us. All told, the trip through the Flooded Neighborhoods was a lot calmer than yesterday.

If I had to guess, I'd say that all the creatures in the area knew that an armed patrol was going to be traipsing through their territory, so they gave us some space. When we finally made it back to the Holdfast, most of the guards went one way and Marcus led me and my team to the mayor's office. He was already there, waiting for us. He clapped me on the shoulder and said, "Glad to have you back," like we were old friends. Then he crossed his office, opened his safe, and pulled out a sealed map case.

"No hard feelings," he said, smiling as he handed it over. I didn't say anything. I just nodded and passed the map straight to Jared. Jared seemingly picked up on the fact that I wanted to get out of the Holdfast as quickly as possible. He cracked open the case, spread the map out, and then hyper-focused on it. Daryl leaned over his shoulder to get a better look, Milicent hovered close, and I watched as Jared traced a route from the Holdfast to a descent point leading into the Fossilized Factory Belt.

After a few moments he nodded and said, "Yep, this works." Then he folded the map back up and slid it into his jacket pocket. I turned to leave, and that's when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back and found the mayor there, smiling at me again. Then he made his pitch. He said that we could stay and work for the Holdfast. It would be the same job that we'd just done - escorting supplies out to the village they were building - and we'd see a ton of credits.

"More credits than you'd get from scavenging, that's for sure." All four of us would get housing and supplies and safety from the creatures out in the Flooded Neighborhoods. And once the village was fully established, the mayor promised to outfit us properly with weapons and ammo and gear. All we had to do was stick around and be useful. Two thoughts popped into my head at the same time. The first was that this had been his plan all along. Everything we'd done since entering the Holdfast had been leading here.

He was showing us how easy everything could be. We'd have armed escorts and regular pay and a clean, predictable life. All we needed to do was head out to the village and drop off supplies. The second thought was: I am deeply uncomfortable right now. I can't really explain my thinking without sounding incredibly paranoid, but the more the mayor talked, the more uncomfortable I felt.

It was like his arguments were all sliding into place a little too easily and that agreeing to work for him would be the simplest thing in the world. And once I did make that agreement… that would be it. It would consume my life. I wouldn't head deeper into the Under-MIZ. I wouldn't face off against the Reclaimer. And I wouldn't ever have a chance to find my way back home. I shook my head and politely thanked him for his hospitality and told him that, unfortunately, we had plans that we couldn't put off.

He took my refusal… okay. I guess. He didn't argue or push us. Instead he just smiled and wished us luck and let us go. We left the Holdfast shortly after that. I think my team picked up on how tense I was, because nobody tried to talk me into reconsidering the mayor's proposition. Milicent wouldn't have taken the deal anyway. She's got a family that she runs back in The MIZ and she's only with me for that glyph notebook. Jared and Daryl might have been tempted, but they didn't say anything.

I'm incredibly grateful for that. We left the Holdfast and this time we didn't have any guards or a safety net, so it took a little longer to get where we were going. Jared led us to an access corridor marked on the map. It was an old route that descended into the Fossilized Factory Belt. Obviously you've all seen the Fossilized Factory Belt in the games. But being here is something else entirely.

The best way I can describe it is that it feels like I've been shrunk down to the size of a housecat and then dropped in the middle of an industrial complex that was built by giants. Everything around us is oversized to the point that your brain kind of gives up trying to measure it. There are production halls that stretch so far in either direction that the walls vanish into a heat haze. Assembly lines are frozen mid-process.

A bunch of half-built machines sit where they were abandoned, and there are tons of shattered molds and tools that are still clamped in place. I've seen a lot of ruin and decay since popping into this world, but the Fossilized Factory Belt is more like a museum exhibit of entropy. The whole place is a graveyard of industry. Running through it all is a conveyor system that is so massive it's hard to wrap your head around it.

Each belt is about the width of a highway, stretching across open space and vanishing into distant structures. Underneath the conveyor belts are drops that plunge straight down into pits filled with scrap metal, collapsed machinery, and shadows. Some of the belts are dead, locked in place by rust. Others are still running. Every once in a while I can hear machinery grind to life somewhere deeper in the factory. I don't know what's going on, but it's deeply unsettling.

Like there's still a civilization down here working in this abandoned hellhole. The worst part about the factory is the heat. I wasn't ready for it. It's unbearable and dry and metallic and oppressive. It feels like I'm standing in a convection oven. Every breath that I take tastes wrong, and I figured out that it's because of the amount of rust in the air. I preferred it when I didn't know that rust had a taste. Flakes of it drift down on us like ash and settle on us like a thin layer of snow.

Ten minutes into our time in the factory and we were covered in it. The ground beneath our feet never stops vibrating. It's this constant hum that tells us that something, somewhere, is still operating. The whole place is failing, but it's failing slowly. As soon as we hit the factory floor, Jared took point. The map that Omar handed over wasn't a miracle solution. It didn't show us everything.

What we did have were small sections marked out where the Holdfast's scouts had passed through and labeled as "not immediately lethal." Jared stuck to those routes as best he could, guiding us towards a relatively stable zone where we could cool off, regroup, and figure out what came next. Getting to the safe area wasn't easy. We crossed active conveyor belts and had to time our steps so we didn't get dragged somewhere. We crept across catwalks that swayed under our weight and threatened to give way at any moment.

We ducked under machinery that was still operating. At one point, Daryl misjudged a step. He staggered and slipped and accidentally sent a chunk of debris skittering over the edge of the platform that vanished into the darkness below. We all froze and listened, and it took several long seconds before we heard it hit the ground. We kept moving. That was the rule that Jared set when we started marching through the factory: don't stop moving unless you absolutely have to, and don't linger anywhere.

Everything here is dangerous. Even the places that look safe, aren't. Despite Jared saying that the place was dangerous, it didn't feel hostile. At least, not in the same way as the Flooded Neighborhoods. Out there, I was always expecting something to leap out of the water and drag us under. The danger was obvious. There were creatures there and they were just waiting for us to slip up. But the factory felt different. It was eerie.

I've probably used that word before, but this is the first time that I've ever really understood it. Eerie. It's the best way to describe the factory. Walking through the place felt like we were ants crawling through the ribs of a dead giant. The scale and the silence and the sense that the environment was out to get us… it all pressed down on us and freaked me out. The catwalks and conveyor belts guided us along. They were these long skeletal bridges that were bolted into the walls.

The conveyor belts ran alongside us or below us. The ones that still moved gave me chills. It was a reminder that the factory wasn't completely dead. Daryl was the first of us to spot movement. He raised a fist and brought us to a halt, which I could tell annoyed Jared. Still, we stopped. I followed his gaze through a break in the catwalk railing. Far below us, on a lower conveyor system, shapes moved in the shadows.

At first, I thought they were just the remnants of broken machines that were still trying to do their jobs. Then I saw one of the shapes pause. Then another. They moved wrong for machines. They were too fluid.

"I see them," I whispered.

"A scavenger team?" I really didn't want a repeat of the Bethashba Tower down here.

"Maybe," Daryl replied, not offering anything more. After a second of watching the shadows move, Jared waves us onward and kept us moving until we transitioned to another conveyor system that funneled us deeper into the facility. Every so often, I saw Jared pause and clench his jaw and I could tell his skill was fighting him. Whatever skill allowed him to guide us through the Crushed Skirt and the Flooded Neighborhoods was struggling here. After looking around for a bit, I realized why.

The factory was alive in a way that the rest of the Under-MIZ wasn't. Platforms rose and sank, production arms shifted, and conveyor belts rerouted themselves, redirecting scrap along paths that hadn't existed minutes earlier. Jared's skill fought against the chaos, trying to keep up and help him recalculate routes on the fly, but it had to be like predicting water in a flood. The strain was evident. Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead and every pause he took lasted a little bit longer than the last one.

"You good?" I asked quietly.

"The factory isn't random. It's…a pain in the ass."

"That's comforting," I mumbled. We pressed on and kept a steady pace. Every so often I thought I caught movement below us. There were flickers of motion on the lower conveyor belts that vanished the moment I tried to focus on them. Whoever, or whatever, it was was keeping pace with us. Eventually, the narrow catwalk we were on widened onto a maintenance platform that was all grated flooring and rusted railings. And that's where we ran into them.

For a half a second, both groups froze in perfect mirror-image surprise. None of us reached for a weapon, and none of us shifted our stances to be more threatening. The scavenger crew was decked out in pale armor that caught the dull factory lights. It was scuffed and stained with soot, and I instantly wondered what they'd run into down here. It looked ceremonial, like something you'd see in a parade or something. And then there were the masks. They were smooth, expressionless faces with hollow eyes.

Subtle curves suggested emotions, and they reminded me instantly of Noh masks that I'd seen years ago. I'd dated this chick once, and she had dragged me out to see an amateur Noh performance in Queens because she wanted some culture. I remember standing in the theater, because of course the production was so amateurish that they couldn't afford seats. I just nodded along and pretended to understand all the symbolism of the play while my date whispered explanations about everything in my ear.

All the while, those Noh masks stared out at me and promised to visit me in my nightmares. They creeped me out back then, and it was so much worse right now. Thankfully, the shared shock of running into another group stopped violence from breaking out immediately. Weapons stayed holstered and nobody made any threatening moves. We all just stood there, staring at each other across the platform. The silence stretched.

Somewhere in the distance, a conveyor belt clattered and shifted direction and the sound echoed through the vast spaces of the factory. I could feel the tension in the air getting thicker. One wrong move would lead to so much death, and this was the worst possible place to start a fight. I knew that one stray shot and the entire structure would come down on top of us. A guy I took to be the leader of their group stepped forward. It was a single, careful step.

He raised his hands to show he wasn't trying anything and then he tilted his masked face towards me.

"You're in charge," he said. It wasn't a question. I don't know how he knew, but something in his tone told me that lying would only make everything worse.

"Yea. I am."

"Didn't expect to find anyone else this deep."

"Likewise," I replied.

"We're just passing through."

"Same." For one brief moment I let myself believe that everything would work out. We'd trade warnings and information, we'd mark safe routes on each other's maps, and then we'd go our separate ways without bloodshed. It was obvious that neither group wanted trouble here. Then the conveyor belt beside us screamed. Metal shrieked against metal as the belt seized and groaned and ground to a violent halt. The sound was deafening, like the entire factory was calling out in pain.

The platform we were on lurched and I stumbled, barely managing to keep my feet as the whole structure shuddered. I caught a glimpse through the gaps in the catwalk and noticed something moving below us. At first my brain labeled it as a massive machine that was waking up and lurching back into motion. The vibrations of the factory grew stronger, rolling up through the metal under our feet and rattling my teeth. But then I was able to focus and I realized it wasn't one big creature, it was many. There were dozens.

Hundreds. Thousands. Metallic creatures poured out of the lower levels, swarming over the conveyor belts and scaling the walls with a horrifying speed. They were multi-limbed things with segmented bodies, and their optics flared to life as they locked onto us. They moved like a living flood, flowing around obstacles as they raced towards us.

"Run!" someone shouted. And everyone bolted. The scavenger crew moved first, sprinting towards an access corridor on the far side of the platform. We fell in behind them without question. I risked a glance back and instantly regretted it. The machines were fast. They leapt gaps that none of us could have jumped, and tore through catwalks like they were made of wet paper. They flowed across the factory floor in a writhing, metallic mass.

One of them vaulted up onto the platform we'd just left, its claws screeching against the metal just feet behind us. We slammed through the doors of an old factory building that was past the access corridor. Someone hit controls on the wall and reinforced doors came crashing shut behind us just as something slammed into them. The impact boomed through the factory and dust rained down from the ceiling.

"Keep going," someone screamed. So we did. The masked scavengers led the way through the twisting corridors, down stairwells, and into maintenance shafts that were barely wide enough to fit a person. We ran and stumbled and shoved each other forward. It was a desperate retreat from the creatures coming after us, but it felt like it wasn't enough. Behind us, metal screamed. Something slammed into the reinforced doors again and again.

I heard a high-pitched screech that made my stomach drop but I didn't dare to look back. I just ran until my lungs burned. Finally, we burst into a wide, empty room. The last person through slammed the doors shut and hit a control panel on the side. Heavy bars swung into place and internal locks on the doors engaged with a deep, mechanical thunk that echoed through the chamber. We all stood by the door, gasping for air as we listened to the sound coming from behind the doors.

The room filled with the sound of breathing - ours and theirs - and it was ragged and loud in the sudden quiet. The pale-armored leader turned, his face mask making him unreadable, and he studied us for a long moment. Then he nodded once and moved to secure the far entrance to the room. I gathered my team in the corner, my heart still hammering in my chest, and we just sat down heavily. None of us spoke. After a few seconds, I pulled out my Tech Slate with shaking hands and logged onto the forum.

Which is where we're at. Now I've got a question that is incredibly important and I'd love for you all to answer it. And that is: what the shit, man?