Chương 61: 2.20 Safe and Sound - Capital Cities (3:13)

CrushDaddyXx (Primary) That's what I'm fucking talking about!!! I'm so proud of you, Zeke. For real. This is the first time it feels like you've stopped reacting out of fear and started acting like the murder machine that I knew you could be. An entire district got smashed to pieces because you finally found your footing. That's growth. That's art. That's violence done right. SnowmanJunkie NGL, it feels like Crush's time as Primary finally got the story back on track.

Zeke's been floundering for a while now and I was getting tired of him just stumbling through situations. But now we've got a MC who can actually fight and just set up a killbox for a city-eater. It reminds me of that kid who played Robin Arryn in GoT. He went from a whiny, fragile kid to a teen heartthrob by the end of the series. That's the kind of glow-up that Zeke is having right now. GG DeadZoneEnjoyer ^ Snowman. You can feel the shift in the story.

Zeke is finally taking initiative instead of constantly being on the back foot and the Reclaimer couldn't keep up with that. Crush was RIGHT. Chaos is the optimal strategy. Zeke finally stopped playing it safe and look what happened. Bro turned a boss into a resource node. That's huge. Other than him getting the Rockstar class - which, obviously Zeke had his heart set on it from the beginning - this was the best growth arc so far. Zeke's so much more dangerous with a weapon and some glyphs.

Cringyusername That skill is going to be useful going forward. WilliamWickerness Now… he can spam low tier glyphs and grind it safely… ish. I have an idea, a glyph to amplify sonic frequencies and slap it into the guitar. Sonic Booms baby. TwoGirlsOneCuphead He already had that one sonic attack from before. But he hasn't used it lately. It's like Zeke's completely forgotten that it's in his arsenal and he's decided to pivot his way to glyph making.

Leaf To be fair, the only time he ever actually managed that sonic attack was in the Valley of Echoes. He's probably still too low level to do it with just his skills. WilliamWickerness Yup, at best, he pushes them slightly making them fall over for a bit which is good but still not a gamechanger. InnerMarrow Are you all reading the same story as me? Because I'm pretty sure we just watched him almost die… what, five different times? SpicyShoyu Yea, let's not get carried away here.

Zeke didn't suddenly become some combat god. He's still bad in a straight-up fight. Sure, he fought the splitmaws in the Crushed Skirt and that was cool and all. But right after that, dood nearly got wrecked by a scavenger crew at Bethashba Tower. Then he dropped a single glyph against the Hemocyte Swarm and almost passed out. And the Reclaimer fight was Milicent doing all the heavy lifting, and then he bailed the moment the scavengers came near.

You all are hyping this up like he went toe-to-toe with the Reclaimer and won. He didn't. He cheesed it. Good on him, it was the only way he could win the fight. But let's not forget that this is still the same guy who tripped all over himself the first time he swung a sword. DeadZoneEnjoyer Calling it "cheesing" is wild. He didn't exploit a glitch. He had a plan that used his team's strengths, and then he executed said plan. He did what he had to do.

And expecting him to fend off a mob of scavengers isn't fair on the lad. It's unrealistic. Bapping Honestly, I'm genuinely pissed how things turned out. True, Zeke did set up the dominos in the earlier chapters (scavenger envy, Holdfast greed, warnings of Pale Regiment shenanigans) but the fact that they got screwed by not being able to claim all the loot after all the stress from trying to salvage (pun not intended) a solution after all those other groups fucked things up?

I can really sympathize with Z3ke's frustration and anger with the forum. RedCarpetManiac Scavengers showing up like 🤑🤑🤑 → 💀💀💀 Zero My problem is that this feels like just the author not wanting to give too much to the MC. And I get it, otherwise it would be too big of a payday and remove some tension when you can pay to solve all your problems. But I'm annoyed by introducing a big score but never really planning to commit to it.

It's the constant need to keep the MC struggling so the story stays interesting that makes some storytelling feel like torture porn. Like "oh the MC did everything right and got treasure but he got robbed but got to keep one gold coin as a memento." I would rather that the treasure was one gold coin and that's it then the MC only getting a fraction of it.

HonoredBibliophile He might have been able to make a deal with either the Pale Regiment or Holdfast group and argue that there is no way they'd be able to carry all that loot to safety, and that they'd need his dimensional storage to actually profit. Still feels shitty that at least a good chunk of the loot would have been stolen by people who didn't help at all and just made things worse. Chopperstan | And expecting him to fend off a mob of scavengers isn't fair on the lad. | Why not?

If it were me, I would've gone after them. I would have rocked their faces and then claimed everything. Zeke's coming off as weak. The whole group put in work except for him. Daryl handled the combat. Jared handled the navigation. Milicent made the entire glyph plan viable. All Zeke did was hire them and let them carry him. | WastelandMath Really Chopper? You're really saying that you would have killed a dozen armed scavengers by yourself?

Also, Zeke's whole thing is that he either avoids fights or rigs them in his favor. That's honestly the smartest thing he can do. He ambushed those bandits on the train and stabbed them to death before they knew he was there. He used the rubber-band glyph to kill the Hemocyte Swarm. Then he used the sacrifice glyph to kill the Reclaimer without needing to put himself or his team in danger. Look at his track record when he does fight directly. He nearly gets killed by a Jackal Runner.

He nearly gets killed by echoes, skeletons, and a bone kaiju. He nearly gets killed by Corva. He nearly gets killed by a random mugger in The MIZ. He nearly gets killed by the scavengers in the Bethashba Tower. The pattern is pretty clear here: his strength isn't strength. It's cunning. NectarinoCumbopolus Cool cool. But what happens when he can't avoid a fight? At some point, that's going to catch up with him. He needs to actually train or get some combat skills.

CrushDaddyXx (Primary) | what happens when he can't avoid a fight? | Then he adapts or he dies. Either way, it's bound to be entertaining. StoryLeech I'm regretfully siding with the skeptics here. Zeke's been writing a gritty and more realistic take than most fanfics. And his character can't rely on tricks forever. If he really wants to survive, he needs to get stronger because eventually something is going to force him into a direct confrontation.

He needs to focus on shoring up that weakness of his, because right now he's not built for fighting. I'm not saying that Zeke needs to become a powerhouse overnight, but he does need to start training. SignalLoss But why? Why is everyone so obsessed with him fighting fair? That's not what he's building his character to be. He's going the more charismatic and talking approach rather than the combat goblin that Crush and others want. I kind of find it refreshing. Tenset Lotta Zeke hate on here.

Although, I guess it could be likened to watching that one journalist failing the Cuphead tutorial for nearly 5 minutes and screaming at your monitor that he just needs to jump. MushroomCleric Ew. Why would you remind me of that? I'd successfully wiped that from my brain, and now it's back. BabyBloos I think it's a good point though. Zeke does need to improve at combat. He can't rely on luck or planning or other people stepping in when things go wrong.

Peanuckle Learning how to be a combat specialist is gonna take a long time for Zeke. He's an over-socialized intellectual yuppie who's been dropped into post-apocalyptia. It's gonna take him a long time to get comfortable with the idea of combat, let alone killing people. Exploring the options of violence is a tertiary priority for him, if it even registers. HoodooVoodooIdo Yea. The problem with that is Zeke doesn't have a traditional combat class.

He needs to really push his class skills up past 7, and hope that Instrument Mastery is going to somehow make him able to fend off bandits and thugs. FaithInMuscles How is being a supernatural rockstar gonna help him out? He can probably eventually manipulate crowds and sound awesome, but so much conflict is violence. The gunslinger class can curve and ricochet bullets, how is he gonna defend himself against that? StoryLeech I guess he can just hang out in the Emberviel regions.

Guns don't work there, so that'll help him with the defense. Leaf Y'know, that line about the guitar feeling better in his hands when compared to regular weapons seems to imply that his instrument mastery and weapon skills are either working together or instrument mastery supplants it. Maybe whatever is higher? But still working as a weapon so that's neat. Hambone?? What are you talking about. What line about the guitar?

MushroomCleric I think Leaf is talking about when he was fighting the scavengers in the Bethashba Tower. And, yea Leaf, that stuck out to me too. I think that's why that guitar Riley gave him is going to turn out to be one of his best purchases. His melee skill is still only at 2, if I'm remembering correctly. But if he can get his Instrument Mastery up to 7, that might let him swing the guitar around like a battle axe. It would instantly give him more survivability.

ThatFedoraGuy It's funny to see Zeke fighting with a guitar, wonder if he'll end up fighting like Chai from Hi-Fi rush with fighting to a rhythm only he can hear and take advantage of, or just be a charismatic axe swinging maniac that also happens to play guitar, kinda like Eddie from Brutal Legend. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. IsntItIronical Can we take a second to acknowledge the MVP of this arc? My man Daryl.

Whenever shit started to go sideways, he was always the one holding the line. The plans that the forum gave Zeke are great and all, but plans don't mean shit if nobody's there to keep you alive long enough to execute them. Without Daryl, Zeke would have been ganked by that first scavenger crew. RustbucketHero Agree. Daryl was my favorite new character in this arc. He's not flashy and he's all quiet and everything. My man wasn't out here making dramatic speeches.

He just showed up and did the job and that's so much more valuable than anything Jared or Milicent or even Zeke brought to the table. DeadZoneEnjoyer Nah, I'm pushing back on that. Daryl was solid, but he was just muscle. Without Zeke, there was no plan. There was no team. There was no Reclaimer takedown. Daryl is just some faceless goon who is replaceable. Zeke is the protagonist and the forum stand-in. You could swap Daryl with any other competent bruiser and the arc still works.

StonehengePilots | Daryl is just some faceless goon who is replaceable. | Say that to his face. Zeke would have died soooo many times without him. Daryl is the reason that any of Zeke's plans didn't collapse the moment something went wrong. Put some respect on my man's name. K1LLPR1EST Seriously. People always undervalue characters like Daryl in these types of stories because he's not the POV.

But if you look at what is actually happening, he's the one who was taking care of the whole group while everyone else was just wandering around. Chopperstan Daryl's still just a hired gun. Let's not act like he's an irreplaceable legend. He's doing what he's paid to do. This is like Boba Fett all over again. Everyone was riding his dick in Return of the Jedi, but the dood did absolutely NOTHING. He just looked cool and got punted into the Sarlacc pit and a bunch of nerds creamed themselves over him.

ThreadGhost I'm with Bapping in that I'm disappointed with how this arc ended. There was a whole betting pool in one of the side threads, and NOTHING paid off. People were calling out all kinds of outcomes: Daryl making a last stand while Zeke escapes, Jared getting picked off somewhere on his way back from the research districts, and one of either Jared or Daryl dying in Zeke's arms for character development. My favorite bet was that Milicent would betray everyone at the last second and run off with the loot.

And what did we get? Everyone survived and there was no betrayal or emotional gut punch. After all that buildup, I kind of feel like we got robbed. RedCarpetManiac LMAO I was in that thread. I was fully bought into the Milicent betrayal theory. Like, I was just sitting there and waiting for the moment where she slips the knife in and dips with the loot. I'd already accepted it as canon in my head. Blazer66 Plenty of time for backstabbing now the fight's over.

BumblebeeTuna I'm kind of glad that it didn't go that route. Not every arc needs a dramatic betrayal or a major character death to feel meaningful. Sometimes things go wrong in smaller and more grounded ways - like getting your reward stolen by opportunistic scavengers. That actually felt more in line with how brutal and unfair the Fracture-verse is. Peanuckle Milicent must see Zeke as the golden goose. Hopefully she's smart enough to let him keep providing rather than kill him for a lump sum.

Pale Regiment might argue differently though, so keeping an eye on them is a must. Kelasgre I'd really like Zeke to come out of this quest with a real friend in Milicent. Sure, she acted like a greedy jerk at first, but I think anyone in her position would have done the same if a random drifter showed up with legitimate nuclear codes. Something tells me Milicent might admit to herself that she maybe screwed up a little. Sinnohan | a random drifter showed up with legitimate nuclear codes.

| More like the blueprints to a 500 megaton nuclear bomb written in orphan's blood on the fragmented skulls of the damned. THIS is exactly the kind of thing that the Pale Regiment would wipe out a city for. Then proceed to hunt down any and all survivors to ensure that glyph is never used again. Ash=Cinder Are we all just going to ignore the massive political nightmare that Zeke just created? A huge chunk of the Under-MIZ is gone now. The whole research district was wiped out.

Multiple scavenger teams just got killed, and the ones that are walking away have a bunch of loot. PLUS, Zeke probably just pissed off both the Holdfast AND the Pale Regiment. That's not a small problem. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) My boy's all grown up. He woke up and chose "start a faction war" as his daily objective. Couldn't be prouder. Bapping | Zeke probably just pissed off both the Holdfast AND the Pale Regiment. | That's just the cherry on the shit sunday Z3ke's being forced to swallow.

Between how rough the trip had been + less loot + more eyes on him, I can see him not willing to take any major risks. WastelandMath The economic fallout is going to be just as bad. Not every scavenger team that took on the Reclaimer got wiped out. I imagine that plenty of them made it out with pieces of the Reclaimer. That means a sudden flood of high-value materials hitting the market all at once. Prices are going to crash and Zeke might've just destroyed the value of his own reward.

The worst-case scenario is that he just nuked the value of the very loot that he risked everything to get. If ten groups are all trying to offload Reclaimer parts at the same time, buyers can just sit back and wait for desperation pricing. StoryLeech I know that Crush was joking about the faction war thing… but he might not be wrong. Think about it. A bunch of scavenger teams operating out of the Anchor Guild suddenly get rich.

They reinvest their money in gear, weapons, and manpower, and they start carving out their own bit of territory all throughout the Crushed Skirt. What happens when the Anchor Guild can't keep them contained? Then you've got the Holdfast soldiers who were weakened from diving into the research district and getting smashed by the Reclaimer. That means they've got less muscle to expand the Holdfast out to those villages the mayor was talking about.

They also can't control the monster populations out in the Flooded Neighborhood. Maybe those monsters start spilling over into nearby areas. And then you've got the Pale Regiment. Either they get angry at the scavengers up in the Crushed Skirt and try to crack down on them after they make a ton of money. Or they go to war with the Holdfast soldiers who fought them over the Reclaimer corpse. OR they head straight after Zeke because he pulled a bunch of glyphs out his ass to kill an end-game threat.

There's so much chaos that was caused by the end of that fight. 7Spirals This might be the best time for Zeke to book it out of The MIZ. He should sell whatever he can now, before the market fully tanks, and then head out to the Rift Scar and wait for everything to cool down. He can lay low while everyone else fights it out. SpicyShoyu Sell it to who, though? That's the real issue. Zeke doesn't even know what the Reclaimer body parts actually do, let alone what they're worth.

He's going to get ripped off six ways to Sunday if he isn't careful. He's an amateur walking into what is basically a high-stakes commodities market. Everyone else has experience, connections, pricing knowledge… PixelBaron Scammed or not, he needs to sell his stuff and reinvest. This is the biggest payout that he's had so far, even if it gets diluted. He needs to spend that money so he's not so undergeared. He needs better armor, better weapons, and anything else that can help him survive.

Chairman_Meow I don't think gear is his biggest problem. He needs skills more than anything. He should try to find someone to mentor him, or at least pick up some books to read. If he does end up dealing with the Pale Regiment, that might actually be his best shot at getting access to higher-tier equipment and instruction. Nanotrexs Bro really needs a break. Shukuen For his supplies, he needs to restock his first aid kit. Maybe look into getting a medical book to buff his healing skills.

If potions are available, he needs a few for emergencies if he or a party member are too grievously injured for basic aid. Equipment, he needs to upgrade the knife or invest in a multitool. The guitar is good for blunt force damage so he needs slashing and piercing. A better knife or multitool should cover that. SpicyShoyu Yea… good luck getting your hands on potions in Frontiers. If Zeke actually wants reliable healing consumables, he'd need to make the trip out to Emberveil for that.

Raviollius If he forgets to get boots again I will laugh. SignalLoss You guys do see where this is heading, right? There's really only one group in The MIZ with enough money to buy everything Zeke's carrying. And conveniently, they're also the ones with access to the kind of gear that he so desperately needs. The Pale Regiment. But the moment he meets up with them, he's basically painting a giant target on his back.

"Hey, look at me, I somehow took down a city-sized monster using glyphs that you've never seen before, and now I'm sitting on a stockpile of Reclaimer materials inside a dimensional storage space." WilliamWickerness | dimensional storage space. | Doesn't that trip another wire? If they found out that he has spacial inventory then, holy, they might actually capture him and torture him for information. Also, they definitely saw Zeke typing in his Slate far too much.

While it might be useless documentation and inventory management, it might also have held information. Might be tempting to… you know, take it. Amongus If I were the pale guys and some MF just had a Tech Slate with a shit ton of probably useless information… it is still information. ThreadGhost He's going to need a really good cover story if he doesn't want to get kidnapped.

It needs to be something that explains how he got access to all those glyphs without making it sound like he's some kind of mastermind sitting on a goldmine of forbidden information. Shootingblnks Too late for all that. They're probably already looking into him. Between the group he linked up with in the Fossilized Factory Belt, his involvement in taking down the Reclaimer, and the fact that he's using unknown glyphs, his name is absolutely floating around already.

DangerX I'm just waiting for him to say he pried the information from a very prideful cult-like group obsessed with glyphs, after making a deal that came at great cost to him or something. Dash-of-Salt Oh. Maybe he can point the Pale Regiment at the Eater cult in the Deadlands. Kerrowe He can blame the glens and those abominations from the beginning. 7Spiral Ha. Dash and Kerrowe landed on the exact same strategy. When in doubt, lie and let someone else take the heat.

Shukuen What's the capacity of his dimensional storage anyway? He said he stored a ton of materials, but was that literal or hyperbole? What prevented him from just storing the entire corpse, or at least what was in his visual range? ShivSays If he's following the game logic - and it really looks like he is - then his dimensional storage space has 100 slots.

Unlike the inventory management that you get from bags in Frontiers, the dimensional storage doesn't have weight limits and you don't need to fiddle with placement of the objects. It's just 100 slots. The catch is that he would actually need to physically pick up whatever he wants to store. So there's no way he was taking the entire corpse unless he could somehow move it all piece by piece. That said, I doubt he filled all 100 slots. He probably grabbed enough to fill up half the slots.

That's still a ton of loot though. PatchNotesOrDidntHappen Cool fight. But where's the lore? House of Seasons was how long ago? And we still don't know anything concrete about Corva. Like… are we just not doing that anymore? I'm starting to think that Zeke just invented all that stuff about Corva for his fic and it's not actually lore that he's uncovered. No one's been able to find anything strange about him. Lorehound77 That's where I'm at too. We keep getting bigger fights and higher stakes and more chaos…

but none of it is really answering any of the underlying questions that Zeke keeps posing. If anything, it just piles on more and more mysteries. At some point, I'd like at least one thread to start resolving. Tar ^ PatchNotes When is Zeke gonna break the game again? I mean, when is he going to give lore again? I want more of those moments please. 10161066 I think you're all expecting the wrong kind of progression here. Zeke didn't promise to hunt down fresh lore.

Sure, that's what got his fic big in the first place, but he's not an archaeologist digging up secrets of the world. His MC is a bartender barely keeping himself alive from one day to the next. Also, what's his History stat up to right now? Rank 1 still? You're all acting like he should be out there deciphering ancient texts and uncovering lost civilizations every week, but mechanically he's just not there yet. He is uncovering lore, but that takes some time to build up to.

Staniel Not everything needs an immediate payoff either. It seems more like Zeke is trying to get all of us invested in finding the lore, and he's just giving us breadcrumbs. If you want more Corva info, go out there and find it. PatchNotesOrDidntHappen I HAVE. I've searched everywhere, and so have a bunch of other people. And now we're waiting for a payoff that it feels isn't coming. At some point, Zeke has to throw the lore crowd a bone. Like Hastings said, the lore is what got Zeke's fic big in the first place.

If he doesn't focus on it and instead talks about how he's stumbling his way through The MIZ, he's going to bleed readers. Binary_Arcana | When is Zeke gonna break the game again? | When the Primary switches over from Crush to me, things are going to shift a bit. I'm not as combat focused as Crush is, and I've got a plan for Zeke moving forward. Yes, there will be more lore. A lot of it. It's something that I've been building up for a while now, and it should get everyone talking.

Zeke, if you're reading this, don't worry. I'm not sending you off to face an endgame monster. You will be heading back into the Crushed Skirt, but you're not going to be fighting anything. CrushDaddyXx (Primary) So basically… it's going to be a snoozefest. Like all your other attempts at writing up lore in this forum. Someone wake me for the primary after Binary. That should be more interesting. Z3ke (Original Poster) | Like all your other attempts at writing up lore in this forum. |?? What does that mean?

StoryLeech Before you popped in here and dropped the House of Seasons lore, Binary was known as the go-to lore delver on the forum. Unfortunately for him, he was only finding small pieces of stuff and he couldn't really get much of an audience for his stuff. He tried doing what you successfully did, which was to write a fanfic of a minor character discovering lore that nobody had found before. I think it only got like, 30 readers or something like that. VeneratedWitchHunter It was legit lore though.

Much better than most of the drivel that gets posted on the forum these days. AnywayHeresWonderwall Hey Zeke, have you sold all your goods yet? Because if not, you really need to get on that. Scroll up through the thread. A few people made good points about the pricing soon dropping if all those scavengers get back with their Reclaimer pieces. This would be a good time for Crush, Mushroom and 7 to make you a shopping list. They're technically still in charge until Grave hands things over to Binary.

Although, now that I think about it, that might be a terrible idea. Crush would absolutely convince you to spend half your credits on explosives so you can "creatively solve your problems." Z3ke (Original Poster) Nope. I haven't sold anything yet. I've mostly just been hanging out at the Roaring Drake with Patch, telling him everything that happened and taking a breather. Jared and Daryl have been getting shitfaced after everything that happened.

I ended up giving them the loot that we pulled out of Bethashba Tower, and they're more than happy. It was more than they earned from their last three delves. Patch stepped in and offered to handle selling the loot through his contacts and turning it all into credits. He's taking a cut, obviously, but they didn't even hesitate to lean on him. It's way easier than trying to figure out pricing for themselves. Now they're basically just camped out at the Roaring Drake and waiting for their credits.

Milicent dipped out to check in with her family, but she said that she'd be back soon to grab the glyph book I promised her. Patch told her that he had it stashed somewhere safe and that he'll retrieve it but it'll take him a day or two. So now we're just waiting for that handoff. As for the Reclaimer loot, Patch has been going through everything that I grabbed. He's talking to a few people that he trusts and trying to figure out all that it's worth and who he can sell it to.

He told me that, even with the cut he'll take from the loot, the amount I'm sitting on means that I probably won't even notice it. JabbaDabbaDo-theHutt We should all sit down and make a list of items that Zeke needs to stock up on. The only stuff I can think of is the standard DnD adventurer gear that you get at the beginning of the game: things like rope and grappling hooks and chalk. You should also look into getting a shield or a helmet too.

You're missing a lot of gear that would be useful, and you've got storage space so I don't know why you haven't bought entire stores for yourself. DataDatum Skills. Get stuff that'll raise your skills. SKills will make sure you survive. And goods can always be stolen. Skills last forever. Byte-Sized Hey Zeke, can you give us a list of your skills that you got right now? It might help us when thinking about your strengths and weaknesses, and where you should be focusing on coming up. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… sure.

Puzzle Intuition - Rank 1 You've begun to see the threads of life. Increased awareness of non-linear patterns. Simple Melee Weapons - Rank 2 You've learned basic, unrefined skills related to handheld weapons like batons, knives, and improvised weapons. First Aid - Rank 1 Basic emergency medical care. Stop bleeding, stabilize injuries, and reduce the chance of immediate death.

Athletics - Rank 2 (I earned my second rank in running from the research district to The MIZ) You can move in an athletic fashion Performance - Rank 3 (earned my 3rd rank yesterday with my update) You have learned how to weave music, speech, and spectacle into a force that works for you. Instrument Mastery - Rank 3 (uh… the second part of this wasn't in the original description. I guess Leaf was right.) You can play, maintain, and weaponize musical instruments - both as tools of expression and as unconventional implements in the field. Persona - Rank 3 You have learned to suppress visible signs of fear, pain, or hesitation. Your posture, expression, and body language present as controlled and intentional. History - Rank 1 You are starting to understand recorded events, cultural remnants, and the fragmented truths of the world. Glyph Writing - Rank 2 You have taken your first step into the art of glyph creation.

You may now activate basic glyphs.