Chương 57: 2.16 An Ending (Ascent) - Brian Eno (4:18)

PRIVATE MESSAGES From: FopperyandWhim To: FarFieldVanishes Subject: field notes Hey Farfield. Sorry to bother you out of nowhere, but I had a quick question and figured that you were the best person to ask. I've been lurking through a bunch of forum threads lately and I keep seeing people posting about field notes. From what I can tell, they're basically breakdowns of lore interpretations and weird little discoveries. The problem is that I've got no idea how people are actually supposed to write those.

I went back and looked at the notes you posted when you found Zeke's House of Seasons stuff, and they seem a lot more organized than the rambling messes that I've been drafting. Is there some kind of format that people follow, or do you just wing it? From: FarFieldVanishes To: FopperyandWhim Subject: re: field notes You must truly be desperate if you've come to me for advice on organization. I absolutely winged all of that. But before we get into that… how are you liking Frontiers so far?

Last I remember, you were talking about doing a Zeke-run before the rest of us bullied you into giving vanilla a try first. From: FopperyandWhim To: FarFieldVanishes Subject: re: re: field notes Funny story about that. I actually haven't started Frontiers yet. I was chatting with a buddy and he tricked me into giving Shards of Time a go. In hindsight, I'm 90% sure that he knew I'd hate it and just wanted to watch the train wreck. From: FarFieldVanishes To: FopperyandWhim Subject: poor you HAAA. You got conned.

Absolutely, 100% conned. Shards is terrible. It's basically the redheaded stepchild of the entire Fracture-verse series. Most people skipped it because the mechanics are weird, the story pacing is all over the place, and the devs clearly didn't know what they wanted the game to be.

The best description I've ever heard of it is that it's like if Terraria and Assassin's Creed had a weird VR baby with an action JRPG, and then someone dropped that baby into a barrel of radioactive sludge which morphed the baby into the main character of Toxic Avenger. It's just… horrible. From: FopperyandWhim To: FarFieldVanishes Subject: lore Yea, it's… not great. But that actually brings up another question I've got. When I search the forum for anything about Shards, I only get like three posts total.

What's up with that? From: FarFieldVanishes To: FopperyandWhim Subject: re: lore Like I said, it's the redheaded stepchild. There's probably a ton of lore discoveries that are buried in Shards, but when you go poking around you're going to run into two problems. First: almost nobody plays the game long enough to care about it. The movement and the talents you get and the poor VR optimization makes it so you can only play around 20-30 minutes before you want to vomit.

Second: because the game is so buggy and it's all heavily procedurally generated, it's really hard to prove anything that you find. Those two things make it so that most of the lore enthusiasts and theorycrafters just stay away. As for your original question about how to post field notes, you can write them however you want. No one's ever built a proper documentation format for Shards because a community just never formed around it.

The Frontiers and Emberveil crowds have their own preferred way of writing up field notes, but there's nothing set in stone for Shards. You've basically got free rein here. If you find something weird, just write up what you saw, where you found it, and what you think it means. That's how most discovery threads start anyway. Half the fun is other people arguing about your conclusions. Just don't expect a huge audience. You're probably only going to get two people replying because, well, you're playing Shards.

From: FopperyandWhim To: FarFieldVanishes Subject: re: re: lore Okay. That's a lot less intimidating than I was making it out to be. I thought there was some kind of official field note style guide that everyone followed. From: FarFieldVanishes To: FopperyandWhim Subject: re: re: re: lore Nope. Just a bunch of nerds yelling about lore on the internet. You'll fit right in. So… have you found anything good yet? From: FopperyandWhim To: FarFieldVanishes Subject: not that easy Ha. You'll just have to wait and see.

You weren't joking about the game being a buggy mess. I'm still trying to replicate it and I've been stuck on the same problem for a few days now. But if it works the way I think it does… it could be pretty big. From: FarFieldVanishes To: FopperyandWhim Subject: sure sure sure From Shards? Doubtful.

Z3ke (Original Poster) So we survived. The stamping chamber had turned into a scrapyard after the fight ended. Broken Hemocyte Swarm units were scattered everywhere. Some were split open and others were crushed flat and there were a few that had gotten twisted together into tangled heaps where the rubber-band glyph had been snapping them backwards into the storm behind them. The floor was coated with machine parts.

Jared and Daryl moved through the wreckage methodically, finishing off anything that was still twitching. Every so often I heard the sharp crack of Daryl's shotgun or the dull metallic clang of Jared smashing another of the swarm units to pieces with his club. Milicent walked over to me and gave me a once over, probably making sure that I was still standing. My body felt completely wrung out after the battle and I didn't even really do anything.

After she saw that I was still standing, she nodded to herself and then walked straight into the middle of the swarm. At first I thought she was just helping Jared and Daryl kill off the surviving machines, but she didn't even look at them. Instead, she just pushed broken swarm units aside and dragged chunks of metal out of the way until she reached the center of the room, right where the glyphs were. Both of them were still active.

Heat shimmered faintly in the air above my glyph, and the chalk lines of Milicent's rubber-band glyph were glowing softly against the metal floor. She crouched down beside them and immediately started wiping them away. She dragged her sleeve across sections of the chalk lines and scuffed others with the heel of her boot, deliberately breaking the shapes and connections that held the glyph together. Within seconds the glow from her glyph faded.

Then she went to work on my glyph and the heat shimmer disappeared soon after. Whatever energy had been trapped inside the glyphs bled harmlessly back into the air. I walked over while she was working and she glanced up at me when I got close.

"You should always dismantle your glyphs when you're finished with them," she said.

"If you leave them sitting around too long, they start to destabilize. The energy breaks down and it does…unpredictable things."

"How unpredictable?" I asked.

"Best case? The glyph just fizzles out," she said as she wiped away another section of chalk.

"The worst case is that it does something violent."

"Wait, why…why didn't the machines just smear the glyphs to break them? If they'd messed up the lines they could've gotten free." She gave me a look that made me feel like an idiot, then seemed to remember that I wasn't a glyphwright and thus didn't know much about this stuff. Then she sighed.

"Because when they're powered, glyphs don't work like chalk drawings anymore. You need glyphwriting skills to interfere with them. The higher your skill level, the more control you get over them. You got a notification about that, right?" I nodded.

"That means you just learned the skill. If you tried to dismantle my glyph, you probably wouldn't have been able to. Or it would take so long that you'd risk destabilizing it. Or you would have screwed it all up and the whole thing would have reacted to you."

"And that would have…"

"Boom." I stared down at the place where her glyph had been and gulped nervously. Magical landmines. That was basically what the glyphs were. I know that there are gonna be a bunch of you on the forum talking about getting me to learn more about the glyphs and using them in combat or exploration or whatever. And the smart move would be to have you all design glyphs for me. But… magical landmines. I think that needs to be said again. I'm not really someone who enjoys messing with something that could explode on me.

You're all basically trying to get me to be a bomb tech, and I really don't want that kind of life. It would be better to just leave that stuff up to Milicent and I figure out my own skills and try not to change myself completely. While MIlicent finished scuffing away the last traces of chalk, I looked around the room and just tried to process what had happened. It was one thing to plan a fight like what we just had, but it was another thing entirely to watch a mechanical swarm get turned into scrap metal by it.

After a few minutes, and realizing that I wasn't going to come to any groundbreaking conclusion about my role in this world, I wandered over to one of the Hemocyte units that hadn't been completely smashed apart. The machine was lying on its side. Its sensor stalk had been snapped off during the fight, but the lens cluster at the top was still mostly intact. Stolen novel; please report. I pulled out my knife from my dimensional storage and started prying at it.

It took a bit of effort, but eventually I wedged the blade under the housing and popped the sensor cluster free with a sharp crack. Inside were dozens of tiny optical lenses and delicate sensor components. They gloewed faintly for a few seconds after I removed them, no doubt caused by some kind of residual power, and then they dimmed. I turned the piece over in my hand. It looked expensive, and I wondered how much it would fetch in The MIZ or the Holdfast.

At the very least, it seemed like something that someone could use for parts. So I opened my dimensional storage space and dropped it inside. The thing got me thinking about Frontiers and what you all said about the game. You all talked about it like it was a survival-style game, which meant that there had to be some kind of crafting component to it. And if that was true, then ripping valuable parts out of hostile machines felt exactly like what I should be doing.

I was still crouched down next to a wrecked Hemocyte unit when the leader of the Pale Regiment walked over. He didn't say anything at first, he just hovered behind me and stood there silently watching as I continued dismantling the unit. After a few minutes of work, the leader cleared his throat. It wasn't loud, but it was enough to make me realize that I'd been completely ignoring the guy while digging through robot corpses like a raccoon rummaging through a dumpster.

I pushed myself to my feet and turned around to face him. The porcelain mask he was wearing still creeped me out. It was smooth and pale and shaped like a blank human face with only the smallest nose, mouth, and eye indentations. It showed no emotions and no expressions, just a polished, lifeless surface staring back at me, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking. Behind him, the rest of the Pale Regiment had spread out across the stamping chamber.

A few of them were walking around and checking out the swarm units, but most had settled down to get a break after the fight. One guy lounged on a chunk of crushed machinery while another leaned against a pile of destroyed swarm units. They all looked tired and it was obvious that the fight had taken a lot out of everyone. The leader folded his hands behind his back and tilted his head slightly towards me.

"Where are you headed next?" he asked. I glanced past him towards the far end of the chamber. Jared and Daryl were finishing up their sweep of the room. Jared was nudging a damaged swarm unit with his boot while Daryl stood nearby with his shotgun ready just in case it wasn't completely dead yet.

"We're headed deeper into the Under-MIZ. Past the factory." The leader was quiet for a moment, just staring at me. Or at least, he was facing in my direction. With his mask it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Finally he spoke again.

"You and your companions fought well. You adapted to the situation quickly. That is uncommon." I wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that so I just gave a small shrug. He waited to see whether I would elaborate, but when I didn't he continued.

"My unit has been tasked with surveying the Factory. We are mapping pathways, cataloging hazards, and establishing safe routes for future expeditions." He gestured vaguely around the room at the wreckage of the swarm.

"Your presence has proven useful." There was a pause and a little knot of nervousness started forming in my stomach.

"It may be beneficial for both of us if we continue together." Off to the side, Milicent was still crouched on the floor, wiping away the last faint traces of chalk from the glyphs. The leader's masked face turned slightly in her direction.

"A glyphwright," he added. There was a small note of interest in his voice now, which was weird because it was coming through a modulator or something that made everything he said sound flat.

"That is a rare asset. One that would be welcome among us." Milicent didn't look up but I could practically feel her attention snap in our direction from across the room. Her shoulders straightened a little and I could see her lips purse. I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. The offer sounded reasonable. The Pale Regiment clearly was used to delving through dangerous areas. They were organized and experienced and clearly knew their way through the Fossilized Factory Belt.

If we ran into another swarm, or worse, then having them around would make everything a whole lot safer. But I also remembered everything you guys warned me about and how you all called them "contentious." And I remembered Milicent's anger with them, or maybe it was disgust. I knew that if we got mixed up with the Pale Regiment, it would be incredibly difficult to disentangle ourselves later.

They were skilled and effective, and we worked well with them, but they were also creepy as hell and I really didn't want to draw more attention from them than necessary. I shook my head no.

"I appreciate the offer. I really do. But I think we're gonna keep doing our own thing." The porcelain mask tilted slightly.

"I've heard from some friends that there are research labs deeper in the Under-MIZ. It's supposed to be old corporate facilities and stuff like that. That's where we're headed." The leader didn't say anything and for a long moment he just stood there. The silence stretched enough that I started wondering if I'd just offended the guy somehow and we were about to be in a fight with these dudes. I tried to think of a subtle way to motion for Daryl to get ready, but finally the leader spoke.

"That is an extremely dangerous destination. Most individuals who reach the research districts do not return." I let out a quiet sight before I could stop myself. The leader stepped a little closer and lowered his voice.

"The region beyond the Factory has become a migration point. Creatures have been displaced from the Flooded Neighborhoods and end up there. Others are driven there by something deeper inside the research facilities."

"Driven by what?" I asked, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"By each other," he said simply.

"Or by something worse. The ecosystem beyond the factory is unstable. Predators expand their territory while others are forced to flee. Many are forced into the Factory and find this area much safer." His mask turned slightly towards the pile of broken Hemocyte units scattered across the floor.

"You have already encountered one of the automated defenses that guard this place. There are far worse things waiting beyond." At that point I silently cursed Crush and the rest of you for convincing me to come down to this hellhole in the first place. For a brief moment I seriously considered just turning around and heading back to The MIZ or hiding out in the Holdfast. The leader watched as I had a quiet internal breakdown, and then he straightened and continued.

"However, the decision is yours. If you survive the research districts, perhaps our paths will cross again." Something about the way he said it made it sound less like a possibility and more like a certainty. Behind him, Jared suddenly waved at me from across the chamber.

"Hey Zeke. Last one's down." Daryl gave me a thumbs-up from beside him, and I turned back to the Pale Regiment leader.

"Well…I guess that means we should get moving. The porcelain mask dipped into a small nod.

"Good luck." Then he turned back and walked back to his soldiers, leaving me there and wondering if the Pale Regiment would try and dig into me and who I was, and asking myself if it meant I needed to get away from The MIZ for a while. We left the chambers not long after that. The Pale Regiment stayed behind to finish cataloging the area or doing whatever else they needed to do in the Factory. I didn't ask too many questions because I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

The Fossilized Factory belt swallowed us almost immediately. Earlier, when we'd first run through the place, the factory had been full of noise. There was the sound of the swarms skittering after us, weapons firing, machines running, and the ever-present shriek of old conveyor belts struggling as they carried heavy metal throughout the place. But once we got a few corridors away from the chamber, everything grew eerily quiet. Jared was at the front of our group with the map spread out in his hands.

Every so often he'd slow down, squint at the scribbled lines, and then point down another corridor. We followed wherever he led us and the sections of the factory we walked through were completely different than the ones we'd run through earlier. The machinery all around us was so much older now and more worn down. It was… deader. Is that a word? Probably not, but it feels accurate. The conveyor belts that ran along the corridors were rusted solid, their rollers locked in place beneath layers of dust and grime.

Some of them stretched off into darkness that was so deep that none of us could see through it. Others had partially collapsed, their frames twisted and sagging. Every now and then we passed enormous industrial machines whose purpose I couldn't even begin to guess. There were giant presses and fabrication rigs and massive molds and casting frames. I didn't know the proper names for half the things we were walking past. All I knew was that they were massive and probably expensive and all of it was dead now.

I found myself staring up at the machines as we walked, my head tilted up to look at the massive steel things. The scale of the Fossilized Factory Belt was hard to wrap my head around. It felt more like a city than a factory. There were miles of corridors and endless assembly lines. There were towers of production equipment that disappeared into the darkness overhead. All of it was designed to produce… something. What that something had been, I had no clue.

The closest thing that I could compare it to from my old life was a shipping port that I'd once visited. It was one of those gigantic industrial yards that had cranes and shipping containers that stretched out. Except here there were no workers or trucks or movements. It was just a big space that had once been built for work and now wasn't doing anything.

"Try not to wander," Jared muttered without looking back at me. I realized that I'd slowed down again as I gaped up at the towering machinery.

"Sorry," I said as I picked up the pace and fell in-line. We walked for what felt like hours. There weren't any swarms attacking us or monsters pouring from the walls. The only thing I could hear was the creaking of old metal and the faint echoes of our own footsteps bouncing down the empty corridors. Eventually the factory began to change again. The corridors widened and the machinery grew less dense and the conveyor system began to thin out and the heat from the Factory started to fade away.

We passed through a massive loading bay where dozens of crates were packed together like abandoned railroad cars. Beyond that, the factory changed. The heavy industrial plating gave way to reinforced concrete. A few minutes later we reached a massive rupture in the factory wall. It look like some giant thing had punched straight through the structure, tearing away an entire section of the reinforced metal and concrete.

The gap was easily fifty feet across and the jagged edges of it framed a dark open space outside the factory. Jared stepped through the gap first and the rest of us followed. And just like that, the Fossilized Factory Belt disappeared. We found ourselves in an area just beyond the factory. The ground leveled out into wide paved streets that were cracked and weathered with age. Tall buildings rose up on either side. They were sleek corporate structures that had been made from steel and glass.

Some of the buildings were only a few stories tall while the rest rose high into the air. One of the buildings had a massive observation deck near the top - a ring of glass panels that wrapped around the building like a crown. Most of the panels had been shattered. The research district was surrounded by a large security fence that stretched out into the distance. Security floodlights were mounted along the perimeter, but they'd all gone dark.

The whole place looked like an abandoned corporate campus and it all felt… wrong. Back in the Flooded Neighborhoods, the place had always felt alive. I could always feel the life around me, no matter how terrifying it was. Creatures moved through the dark waters and strange sounds could be heard in the distance and I got the feeling that there was always something watching us just out of sight. The Factory had its own kind of life too.

The Hemocyte Swarm crawling through the infrastructure of it gave off the feeling that there was something out there. But here, just outside the research facilities, there was nothing but silence and empty buildings that stared down at us with dark windows. Milicent wrapped her arms around herself and she looked out across the district.

"I've heard stories about this place," she said quietly.

"Good stories?" I asked hopefully.

"Stories about tons of loot and how safe it is?" She slowly turned her head and gave me a completely flat look before looking back out at the empty streets. Jared stared down at the map in his hands, slowly turning in place as he tried to match the map to the surrounding buildings.

"This says there's a small security building nearby. The Pale Regiment uses it when they come down here. It's some kind of guard station."

"Lead the way," I ordered, hoping to get somewhere safe where the feeling of dread wasn't so prevalent. We moved carefully through the research district, our footsteps echoing strangely as we walked. There were a few abandoned vehicles scattered about along the road. Some had their doors hanging open while others were half-buried beneath the dirt. A few minutes later Jared guided us to a small structure that sat near the perimeter fence.

It was a guard shack, looking like every other guard shack at the entrance to a corporate parking lot. It was a squat concrete building with cracked windows and a metal door that hung off its hinges. It wasn't at all impressive, but it had walls and a roof and it was better than sleeping outside. A small desk was pushed up against one wall and on the other side was a wall of dead security monitors. The screens were all dark and coated with dust.

Daryl cleared a space in the middle of the room and Jared went back outside to find a few pieces of broken wood or some debris that was flammable. Before long we had a small fire going and I passed around a few ration packs while we all settled in. It wasn't the most comfortable campsite. I immediately thought back to Corva and the march through the Deadlands and how every night he would cook a meal and we'd sit around talking. The man was a murderous dick… but he was a pretty good cook.

All I had were ration packs for us. No one said much at first. We were all tired after racing away from the swarm and then fighting. Eventually, Milicent broke the silence. She was sitting with her back against the wall, her ration pack half-finished in her hands.

"We shouldn't be here," she said, drawing everyone's attention.

"I've heard about this place before. People make it through the Fossilized Factory Belt sometimes. It's not often, but it happens. And those people start thinking they're unbeatable. They push their luck and they try to explore the research sites. That's usually the last anyone hears of them." She looked up at me and noticed she had my full attention.

"Zeke…you already know that I thought you were a rookie and this was your first delve. Surviving the Fossilized Factory Belt is already a huge accomplishment. Most people never make it this far." She gestured vaguely back to where we'd come from.

"We've got a map of the place now. A good one. And we pulled a lot of valuable salvage so far in this delve. This is already a profitable expedition. We should head back to The MIZ tomorrow." She wasn't panicking. At least, I don't think she was. It wasn't like she was refusing to go deeper into the research districts. She was being pragmatic. We'd made a bunch of money, I'd proven myself, and I could no doubt build a large scavenger team just from what I'd accomplished so far. Jared shook his head.

"You're thinking too small." Milicent narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh, am I?"

"Yes. You are." He leaned forward, suddenly a lot more animated than he'd been a minute ago.

"We are in the middle of a pre-Fracture research district. Those labs could be filled with tech, equipment, and prototypes. Things nobody's ever seen." Milicent opened her mouth to respond, but Jared talked over her.

"And don't forget who we're traveling with. Zeke here has already found two stashes of goods that other teams have completely overlooked. You know the saying. Third time pays for all." I snorted a little at that and a bit of fear crept into me. If they were relying on me to find our way through the district, we were screwed.

"One good find down here and we're set for life," he continued. Milicent frowned at that.

"We already have something valuable. The map." Jared shrugged.

"Sure. We could sell it. The Anchor Guild would buy it. But how much do you really think we'd get?" I shot him an inquisitive look.

"What do you mean?"

"Not a lot of people go past the Holdfast. Even fewer make it into the Factory Belt. The market for this map might not be great. But if you can guide us to a lab with intact pre-Fracture tech?" He grinned a little.

"It would be stupid not to check the place out." The room went quiet. Jared and Milicent looked at each other and then at me, clearly having formed groups and left the decision on our future in my hands. I looked over at Daryl to get his input. He finished chewing the last of his food and then wiped his hands on his pants and shrugged.

"I'm good with whatever," he said simply.

"That's it?" Milicent huffed. Daryl nodded.

"I've done worse jobs than this. If we explore, I'll fight. If we head back now, I won't complain." Everyone slowly turned towards me. I mean, I was the guy who dragged them down here in the first place. I finished my ration pack and tossed the empty wrapper into the fire and leaned back against the wall.

"I don't know if we should be looting the labs," I said and I saw MIlicent perk up. I held up my hands to stop Jared from arguing.

"We're not here for the labs. We're here to hunt something."

"What kind of something?" asked Milicent.

"It's called the Reclaimer," I said. Milicent's expression immediately tightened. The name obviously meant something to her.

"I've been working on a plan to kill it."

"Kill the Reclaimer?" she said with exasperation. I nodded.

"Yep. It's why I needed a glyphwright. There's so much more about glyphs than people have figured out…and a few friends of mine have come up with some ideas that should help us easily take down the thing without fighting it." At the mention of glyphs, Milicent leaned back. The rubber-band glyph that I'd given her had proven its worth, and she knew how much information the book of glyphs I had.

"Look, the short version is this: if we pull this off, we walk out of here rich. You'd all be able to retire after this. You could live like kings. And this plan will work." The room went quiet. Jared looked excited while Milicent looked like she was mentally calculating all the ways that this could go wrong. Daryl just leaned back against the wall, waiting to see where the conversation went next.

"We spend the next few days scouting out the research facilities around here. We try and find the Reclaimer. And then we kill it. It'll be easy." Milicent gave me a long look.

"You know this is how people disappear, right?"

"Nah. We'll be fine," I said. Now…I don't really believe that. I'm seriously reconsidering this plan and fighting the Reclaimer and staying down here for longer. I mean, we're here now, but…I don't know. I know Crush is going to push me to kill the Reclaimer, but Milicent does bring up some good points. It might be easier and better for all of us to just make our way back through the Fossilized Factory Belt and head back to The MIZ. So what do you all think?