Caleb kept the rebar club balanced on his shoulder as he pushed north through the narrow alley. He'd stop noticing the bodysuit by now. The cold mist clung to it like it had his old gear. Different fabric, same miserable weather.
An archive shack two blocks and some loot drops was all Harlan had told him to complete. But he refused to treat it like a fetch quest, no matter what.
He stopped at the first pile of debris ten meters in. A twisted mess of guardrail and shattered signage. His new overlay painted it faint orange. Low yield fetching only eight percent essence density. He walked past it, deciding it wasn't worth it.
Instead he planted his feet and brought the club down in a short controlled arc. The rebar head connected with a dull crack that echoed off the walls. Weak scrap exploded outward.
He watched the overlay update. The environment had refreshed itself. A fresh chunk of reinforced rebar now glowed a shade brighter. Higher grade stuff. The only things in The World he should be farming. He harvested it, the essence threads coiled into his palm in warm spirals.
He repeated the process at every junction. Another pile. Another chance for higher grade materials.
Inspect. Smash. Reroll. The rhythm felt like work he actually wanted to do.
The awning itself was a jackpot. A massive ferrocrete overhang from what used to be an elevated walkway. Half of it had pancaked into the street. The other half still clung to rusted support beams like a broken wing hanging on for too long. His overlay lit it up solid orange with flecks of deeper red. Premium material.
Caleb circled it once. It had high structural integrity, which meant strong essence saturation. He set the club down and dragged loose chunks into position as anchors. No wasted motion. The haptic suit made his shoulders burn. The rain dripped down the back of his neck. Cold and distant. He activated the skill.
[Ruinforge: Iron Bastion Shard (Lv. 1)]
Essence poured out of him in thick ropes. It wrapped the awning like molten rebar lattice. He swung the invisible hammer in steady rhythm. Swing. Temper. Bind. The ferrocrete groaned and lifted. Support beams straightened with metallic shrieks.
Cracks sealed themselves in glowing orange seams. In ninety seconds the wreckage had become a clean ten-meter reinforced wall. Straight. Solid. Edges sharpened like fresh welds. It sealed off the alley mouth behind him and curved slightly to create a protected pocket.
[Ruinforge: Iron Bastion Shard complete.]
[Structure: Reinforced Wall Segment (Uncommon)]
Passive: +5 % stamina regen to everything behind it.
Active: Once per hour reflect 25 % of incoming damage as essence shrapnel.
Caleb stepped behind the wall to test it. His stamina bar sat at 68% after the manual labor. He watched it rise faster than the normal stamina regeneration. He pulled up his personal status window and stared at the regen stat. It had increased by five percent while he stood in the wall's shadow. He looked at it again. The number had not changed, not by a single digit.
[Territory Linkage: The land and the builder are not separate things anymore]
Caleb decided he would figure out territory linkage later. He hadn't expected a wall to help him breathe easier. But it did. He didn't have time to theorycraft any further, his personal doomsday counter was at 89 days and was only going to continue to shrink.
The plaza trembled.
Three small shapes burst from a collapsed stairwell twenty meters away.
[Ashcrawler drone (Lv. 12)] the HUD flagged the three figures for Caleb.
They were fast, but they had low health as a tradeoff. They looked like large spiders that had taken a bath in chrome paint and learned to fly after being mutated. From their undersides shot acid that was corroding any metal it was in contact with.
They skittered across the wet ferrocrete in perfect flanking formation. No warning growl. Just the wet hiss of pressurized acid chambers priming.
Caleb did not panic. He had already marked the wall as bait the second it finished forming.
The first drone spat, firing a glob of green acid arcing straight at the newly developed wall, striking it dead center.
[Perfect Reflect Triggered]
The shrapnel turned orange as it was exploded from the debris, flinging away in all directions. A single burst took off one of the drone's legs and half its health bar as a result. The drone was momentarily staggered and unable to move. Caleb was already on it, moving before its AI repositioned itself.
Caleb charged toward the second drone, sprinting as fast as his character could go. He swung the rebar club overhead in a full arc, crushing the head of the drone into the top half with a loud crunch.
Stacking his [Ruin Fracture] triggered additional effects and slowed down the drone's retreat by an additional 8%. The third drone attempted to flank Caleb. he pivoted toward the flank and baited the third drone toward the dead-end created by the new wall and the alley's lip, and the drone fell the bait. A burst of acid spit from the drone missed its target. Caleb pressed inside his range of attack and swung the club upward.
The final charge struck under the drone's jaw and pushed through the ferrocrete. The drone exploded into scrap metal and glowing essence shards.
[Ashcrawler Drone defeated. x3]
[Essence harvested: +4 Low-Grade]
[Total Essence: 11 / 50]
At last there was quiet. No faint buzzing sounds the drones left or the exploding sounds from his structures that will likely cave his ears in one day. Just the sound of rain falling on his newly built wall. Everything beyond it settled back into its state of decay.
He took a deep breath, and he felt normal again. He didn't lose any health and hadn't needed to dodge at all. He didn't get any experience points, but it felt like he had learned more from this one fight than any self-contained tutorial would teach him. His club felt so much lighter in his hands now than before, it was as if it was fine-tuned and alive.
That was worth more than any level up screen could give.
Caleb opened the in-game browser while he waited for his stamina to increase, hiding behind a wall. His browser was still open on the same page as he left it, the original post left by someone named "RiftBreaker83" from six years ago. Now, it was active. At the bottom it said 47 people were currently viewing the post with several new comments left under it since saw it last.
RiftBreaker83 (original post, 6 years ago): "Hi Guys, I just got the game and I spawned in this place. Is it normal? There's level 100+ Ruinwardens EVERYWHERE. I tried logging out and back in, still the same place. Self killing didn't work either, I'm stuck and can't progress."
New replies:
"Wait this is the same spawn zone as the new guy?? Is he still in there??"
"Lmao someone actually lasted more than an hour? Pics or it's staged."
"Dev account farming views. Unfollow and move on."
"Hollows has been dead content for years. If he's alive he's cheating or it's a bug. Report and move on."
The tone was amused disbelief. But something bothered him more.
"How did they know I spawned here," Caleb said trying to make sense of it all. "Fucking weird people getting off on people that spawn here."
Still. He laughed at the commenters that thought this was all staged. He wished he could speak with whatever developer decided to program Vesper into the game.
He was still reading the last comment when the new system message appeared unprompted. White text on black. No fanfare. Not part of Harlan's quest.
[TERRITORY SEED DETECTED AT CURRENT COORDINATES]
[ANCHOR POINT FORMING: 0.3%]
[NOTE: THIS PROCESS IS NOT PLAYER-INITIATED]
Caleb read it twice; the numbers were constant. He dismissively flicked the window away in his mind. No explanation, and no tutorial meant that this was just another thing that he would learn what it meant eventually. He saved the screen shot internally along with the stamina-regen observation and decided he would check on them later.
Rolling his shoulders, he glanced north. He could see the outline of the Archive Shack in the distance. If he delivered five shards, the quest would open the skill tree. More tools meant more things he could do in The World.
He picked up the rebar club, with the Iron Bastion Shard solidly secured at his back, the debris from the drones in a pile around him, then he continued walking. The Hollows had paid him once. He intended to make sure it kept doing that.
The 89 days counter in the corner of his vision clicked over.
[88 DAYS]
The mist thickened ahead of Caleb, and a rumble from somewhere deeper into the ruins echoed off the wall.
One problem at a time. The shack wasn't going anywhere.