The chipped plastic token for Bunk D-47 felt cold in Leo's hand. Around him, Bastion hummed with a tense, exhausted energy. Fires crackled in oil drums, casting flickering shadows on faces etched with trauma and wary suspicion. The air smelled of smoke, unwashed bodies, and the faint, metallic tang of the massive energy shield overhead, bathing everything in an unnatural cerulean glow. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, a relentless reminder of his plummeting SANITY: 59% and the terrifying new icon: ⌈ LIFESPAN REDUCTION: 1 YEAR ⌋. He felt hollow, scraped raw, yet wired with adrenaline and the fragile spark of hope ignited by Mia's cryptic status.
Focus. Stats. Points. Survival.
He found a relatively quiet corner near Shelter Block D, a long, low structure made from salvaged shipping containers stacked haphazardly. Leaning against the cool metal, he pulled up his interface. The Level Up notifications glowed invitingly:
⌈ LEVEL 2! STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 5 ⌋
⌈ SKILL POINTS AVAILABLE: 1 ⌋
Five precious points. One Skill Point. Choices that could mean life or death.
STR (4): Useless for him. He wasn't a brawler. Increasing it felt like wasting points.
AGI (5): Speed, evasion. Crucial for running, dodging. Tempting.
INT (8): His highest stat. Mental Processing +20%. The core fuel for [Reality Editor]. More INT meant potentially more complex edits, better control? Maybe less Sanity drain? It felt intrinsically linked to his only real weapon.
VIT (3): Stamina, HP. He was a glass cannon. One solid hit could end him. Boosting VIT was pure survival insurance. His current HP: 18/30 was a glaring vulnerability.
The Skill Point was simpler. ⌈ OBSERVE (COMMON LVL 1) ⌋ was useful, but basic. Leveling it up would increase range, detail, maybe let him see higher-level targets? Or he could save it, hoping to unlock a new skill soon.
His gaze kept returning to INT. [Reality Editor] was his edge, his cheat, his terrifying burden. Making it stronger, more efficient… that felt like the path to finding Mia, to surviving the Tower. But was it wise? More power meant greater temptation, higher potential cost. That Lifespan Reduction was a chilling warning. Yet, without it, he was just Level 2 Leo with Observe, cannon fodder.
Decision. He allocated:
INT: 8 → 10 (2 Points)
VIT: 3 → 6 (3 Points)
⌈ STATS UPDATED! ⌋
⌈ INT: 10 (GIFTED) - MENTAL PROCESSING +30%, SKILL EFFECTIVENESS +5% ⌋
⌈ VIT: 6 (AVERAGE) - STAMINA REGEN NORMALIZED, HP +60 → MAX HP: 90! ⌋
⌈ CURRENT HP: 48/90 ⌋ (The immediate boost partially healed his injuries)
A wave of clarity washed over him. The pounding headache lessened slightly, replaced by a sharp, focused awareness. The shimmering code underlying the world seemed slightly brighter, easier to parse at the edges of his perception. Simultaneously, warmth spread through his limbs, replacing the bone-deep fatigue with a steady, reliable strength. His breathing eased. The HP: 48/90 felt like a tangible shield. He saved the Skill Point for now.
Next: the ⌈ COMMON LOOT BOX (x1) ⌋. A simple, unadorned grey cube icon pulsed in his inventory. He focused, selecting *Open*.
⌈ LOOT BOX OPENED! ACQUIRED: ⌋
⌈ ENERGY BAR (x5) ⌋: Restores 25 HP & 10% Stamina over 30 seconds.
⌈ BASIC MEDKIT (x1) ⌋: Restores 50 HP. Cures Minor Bleeding/Burns.
⌈ WORN LEATHER JACKET ⌋: +2 VIT, +1 AGI. Armor: Light. Durability: 20/20.*
⌈ CRUDE IRON DAGGER ⌋: Damage: 5-8. Durability: 15/15. Effect: None.
⌈ MYSTERIOUS DATA FRAGMENT (x1) ⌋: Corrupted system data. Purpose unknown. (Quest Item?)
Not spectacular, but practical. The jacket materialized in his hands – worn brown leather, surprisingly supple. He shrugged it on over his hoodie. Immediately, he felt a slight increase in resilience and a touch more agility. VIT: 6 → 8. AGI: 5 → 6. HP: 48/90 → 68/110. The dagger was cold and heavy, a simple blade about the length of his forearm. He slipped it into a makeshift loop on his new jacket. The Energy Bars and Medkit went into his inventory. The ⌈ MYSTERIOUS DATA FRAGMENT ⌋ was a small, jagged shard of obsidian-like material that hummed faintly. ⌈ OBSERVE: DATA FRAGMENT - CORRUPTED. SOURCE: UNKNOWN. POTENTIAL SYSTEM KEY? ⌋System key? He tucked it carefully into an inner pocket.
He was about to look for Bunk 47 when a new, localized notification popped up, pulsing with Bastion's shield-blue color:
⌈ BASTION SETTLEMENT NOTICE: ⌋
ALL ABLE-BODIED RESIDENTS (LEVEL 2+) REPORT FOR DAWN WORK DETAIL ASSIGNMENTS. LOCATION: CENTRAL PLAZA. TIME: NOW. FAILURE TO COMPLY RESULTS IN RATION REDUCTION & POTENTIAL EXPULSION.
Dawn? Leo looked up. The absolute void outside the shield was lightening to a deep, oppressive indigo. Bastion's internal lights, powered by humming generators near the Militia section, brightened accordingly. The settlement was stirring.
He followed the flow of people towards a large open area near the center of the fortress. Makeshift stalls lined the edges, but the focus was on a raised platform where Commander Vance stood.
Vance wasn't physically imposing. Lean, late forties, with sharp grey eyes that missed nothing and short, salt-and-pepper hair. He wore practical, durable clothing, not military gear, but carried himself with undeniable authority. A simple blue shield pin was clasped on his collar. ⌈ OBSERVE: HUMAN (LVL 9) - NAME: COMMANDER ELIAS VANCE. AFFILIATION: BASTION COMMAND. HP: 180/180. THREAT: HIGH ⌋. Level 9. Leo felt a chill. This was the man Sergeant Brennan reported to.
"Listen up!" Vance's voice, amplified by a small device on his lapel, cut through the murmuring crowd. It was calm, firm, devoid of panic. "Night is over. The Cleansing Wave has passed. What lies beyond our shield is a blank slate. A dangerous one. We have six hours until the next Integration Pulse hits, drawing new threats to our location. Our priorities: Fortification. Resource Gathering. Information."
He gestured to a large, flickering holographic board beside him, displaying a map of Bastion and the immediate obsidian plain outside, marked with colored zones.
"Work details are assigned based on level, observed skills, and faction affiliation where applicable. Check the board. Find your assignment. Move out swiftly. Efficiency is survival." His sharp eyes scanned the crowd, lingering for a fraction of a second on Leo. "We are all that's left of Earth Prime on this floor. We work together, or we die alone. Dismissed."
The crowd surged towards the board. Leo pushed his way forward, heart pounding slightly under Vance's lingering gaze. He found the listings under "Unassigned / New Arrivals (Lvl 1-3)":
LEO CHEN (LVL 2): ASSIGNED - EXTERIOR SALVAGE TEAM 7 (ESCORTED). REPORT TO GATE WEST ALPHA. LEADER: SERGEANT BRENNAN.
Exterior? Outside the shield? So soon? Panic fluttered in his chest. The obsidian plain might be empty now, but Vance said threats would be drawn. And Brennan… the suspicious sergeant.
Swallowing his fear, Leo navigated towards the western section of the massive shield wall. Gate West Alpha was smaller than the main entrance, a reinforced airlock-like structure manned by Militia. Sergeant Brennan stood there, checking a list, his rifle prominent. A motley crew of about ten other low-level survivors (Levels 1-3) huddled nearby, looking nervous. Leo spotted the young girl he'd partially healed earlier, her leg still bandaged but she was standing (LVL 1 - HP: 30/30). She gave him a small, hesitant nod of recognition.
Brennan looked up as Leo approached. "Chen. Jacket's an improvement. Dagger too. Ready to earn your keep?" His tone was neutral, but his eyes were sharp, assessing.
"As ready as I can be, Sergeant," Leo replied, keeping his voice steady.
"Good. Listen up, Team 7!" Brennan barked, turning to the group. "The Wave cleansed everything, but sometimes useful junk gets fused into the obsidian crust near the shield boundary. Our job is to scout a half-klick perimeter west, identify any salvageable material – metal deposits, energy crystals, anything not pure void-glass. Militia scouts report no immediate hostiles, but stay sharp. The Integration Pulse isn't due for hours, but things… glitch. Stick together. No wandering. Chen, Miller," he pointed at Leo and a tall, skinny guy clutching a pipe (LVL 2), "you're on point with me. Rest of you, spread out but keep visual contact. Move!"
The heavy airlock doors cycled open with a hiss of pressurized air. Beyond lay the featureless obsidian plain, unnaturally smooth and dark, reflecting Bastion's blue shield-light like a black mirror. The air outside was cold and still, utterly silent. It felt like stepping onto an alien moon.
Brennan led the way, his rifle held ready. Leo and Miller followed, their footsteps unnaturally loud on the glassy surface. The rest of the team fanned out behind them, scanning the ground with nervous intensity.
⌈ OBSERVE: OBSIDIAN CRUST (TIER-1) ⌋
DESCRIPTION: Post-Cleansing Wave residue. Highly stable. Non-conductive. Low resource value.
Nothing. Just endless, perfect darkness. The oppressive silence pressed in. Leo kept [Reality Editor] on a low simmer, passively scanning the area. The underlying code here was… inert. Stable. Dead. Very different from the chaotic energy inside Bastion or the predatory aura of the monsters.
"See anything, kid?" Brennan asked quietly, not looking back.
"Just… black glass, Sergeant," Leo replied. "Nothing moving."
"Keep your eyes open. And not just your physical ones," Brennan added, a loaded hint in his voice.
Leo tensed. He knows. Or suspects. He focused harder on the passive scan. Still nothing. Just dead, stable code.
They walked for about fifteen minutes. Bastion shrank behind them, a glowing blue dome in an infinite black desert. The tension in the team was palpable. Miller jumped at his own shadow.
Then, Leo saw it. A faint shimmer in the code, about fifty meters ahead and slightly to the right. A localized instability. Not a monster. Something… embedded.
"Sergeant," Leo said, pointing. "There. The ground looks… different? Maybe a fracture?"
Brennan squinted, raising a hand to halt the team. "Miller, cover us. Chen, with me. Slow and careful."
They approached the spot. The obsidian was fractured – a spiderweb of cracks radiating from a central point where something metallic and jagged protruded. It looked like part of a vehicle's engine block, fused seamlessly into the glass.
⌈ OBSERVE: SALVAGEABLE DURASTEEL (TIER-1) ⌋
DESCRIPTION: High-strength alloy. Useful for construction/repair. Requires extraction.
"Jackpot," Brennan muttered, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. "Miller! Signal the team! We got work to do." He pulled a heavy pry-bar from his pack. "Chen, see if you can find weak points. Careful, this stuff can be sharp."
Leo knelt beside the fused metal. Using Observe, he could see stress points in the durasteel where it met the obsidian. The underlying code showed points of tension. He pointed. "Here, Sergeant. And here. The bond seems weakest."
"Good eye," Brennan grunted, positioning the pry-bar. "Now put some muscle into it. Or… whatever you use." He applied leverage. Leo grabbed another section, adding his STR 4 (effectively 6 with the jacket, but still pathetic) to the effort. The metal groaned, but held fast.
Could I…? [Reality Editor] flared. He saw the variable representing the molecular adhesion between the durasteel and the obsidian. CURRENT BOND STRENGTH: HIGH. He visualized it weakening. Just a little. Enough to help.
⌈ TARGET ACQUIRED: MATERIAL INTERFACE (DURASTEEL/OBSIDIAN). EDIT VARIABLE: ADHESION STRENGTH. CURRENT: 0.85. DESIRED: 0.65. CONFIRM EDIT? Y/N ⌋
The cost warning was minor compared to the Lurker edits. ⌈ ESTIMATED COST: SANITY -1% ⌋
Yes.
A subtle shift occurred, felt more in the code than the physical world. ⌈ EDIT SUCCESSFUL. COST: SANITY -1% ⌋. A tiny spike of headache. SANITY: 58%.
Brennan heaved again. This time, with a sharp crack, the durasteel chunk broke free, sending Brennan stumbling back. "Whoa! Must have been weaker than it looked. Nice call on the stress point, Chen." He hefted the heavy metal. "Miller! Get the cart over here!"
As the team hurried over with a small, wheeled cart, Leo felt a flicker of satisfaction. He'd helped, used his power subtly, and the cost was minimal. Maybe he could control it. He glanced at Brennan, but the sergeant was focused on loading the salvage, his earlier suspicion seemingly eased.
They worked for another hour, finding a few more small deposits of fused metal and a cluster of faintly glowing, violet crystals embedded nearby (⌈ OBSERVE: LOW-GRADE ENERGY SHARDS (TIER-1) ⌋). The tension eased slightly with tangible progress. Leo used [Reality Editor] subtly twice more to weaken bonds, costing another 2% Sanity (56%), but speeding up the work significantly, earning a few appreciative nods from the team.
As they turned back towards Bastion, the salvage cart half-full, Brennan clapped Leo on the shoulder, a surprisingly human gesture. "Not bad for a squishy Level 2 with just Observe, kid. You got a knack for finding the weak spots."
"Thanks, Sergeant," Leo said, forcing a smile, relief warring with the constant throb in his head.
"Just don't get cocky," Brennan added, his eyes scanning the horizon where the indigo was lightening towards a deep, bruised purple. "Integration Pulse in a few hours. Things get weird then. Let's move."
They were within 200 meters of Gate West Alpha when Leo felt it. A subtle wrongness in the passive code-scan. Not ahead, but below. Something shifting deep beneath the obsidian crust. He froze.
"Sergeant…" he started, but it was too late.
The ground heaved.
A section of obsidian ten meters across shattered upwards, exploding outwards in deadly black shrapnel. From the rupture erupted a nightmare. A segmented, worm-like body thicker than a man, covered in coarse, greyish hide that seemed to absorb light. No visible eyes, just a circular maw lined with rows of rotating, rock-grushing teeth. Dozens of short, clawed legs scrabbled against the glass.
⌈ BURROWER ANNIHILATOR - LVL 8 ⌋
HP: 350/350
DESCRIPTION: Subterranean predator drawn by seismic activity or concentrated energy signatures. Excavates through solid matter. Highly aggressive.
SKILL: Tremor Charge (Charges target, ignores partial armor, causes knockdown)
It let out a grinding shriek that vibrated Leo's bones and surged forward, not towards the group, but straight towards the cart laden with durasteel and energy shards.
"SCATTER!" Brennan roared, bringing his rifle up. "IT WANTS THE SHARDS! DEFENSIVE POSITIONS! AIM FOR THE MOUTH!"
Laser fire spat from Brennan's rifle, scoring the beast's hide but barely denting its HP bar. Miller screamed and swung his pipe uselessly. The rest of the team panicked, firing crude weapons or just running. The Burrower ignored them, focused on the energy-rich cart.
Leo's mind raced. Level 8. 350 HP. Tremor Charge. Against their pitiful group? They needed to run. But the cart… if it got the shards, would it become stronger? Brennan was standing his ground, laying down covering fire, trying to draw its attention away from the fleeing team members.
[Reality Editor] screamed for use. But what could he target? Its hide was thick, code dense. Its movement? Its Tremor Charge skill? The cost would be astronomical. He saw the variable for the charge cooldown… but altering it felt futile. Its HP? Impossible. The ground beneath it?
The Burrower gathered itself, claws digging in, preparing for a Tremor Charge – aimed directly at Sergeant Brennan, who was reloading.
No! Desperation overrode caution. Leo focused not on the monster, but on the obsidian crust directly beneath its clustered clawed feet. He saw the variable for FRICTION COEFFICIENT. CURRENT: 0.9 (HIGH). He visualized it dropping to near zero. Make it slip!
⌈ TARGET ACQUIRED: OBSIDIAN CRUST (LOCALIZED). EDIT VARIABLE: FRICTION COEFFICIENT. CURRENT: 0.9. DESIRED: 0.1. CONFIRM EDIT? Y/N ⌋
Cost warning: ⌈ ESTIMATED COST: SANITY -5% ⌋ – High for such a localized, temporary edit on inert material.
YES!
He pushed. ⌈ EDIT SUCCESSFUL! COST: SANITY -5% ⌋. SANITY: 51%. The world tilted, colors bleeding at the edges.
The Burrower launched its Tremor Charge. Its powerful legs pushed off… and found no purchase. Instead of a devastating lunge, its claws skidded wildly on the suddenly frictionless obsidian. Its massive body twisted awkwardly, momentum carrying it sideways in a clumsy, uncontrolled skid. Its grinding shriek turned into a surprised, off-balance roar. It slammed into the ground heavily, beside Brennan, not on top of him, its charge completely disrupted.
Brennan, stunned, didn't hesitate. He finished reloading and emptied his rifle's power cell point-blank into the beast's gaping, off-balance maw. ⌈ CRITICAL HIT! ⌋ ⌈ CRITICAL HIT! ⌋ The Burrower's HP plummeted. It thrashed, wounded and disoriented.
"NOW! EVERYONE! FOCUS FIRE ON THE MOUTH!" Brennan bellowed.
The team, seeing the beast vulnerable, rallied. Crude lasers, kinetic slugs from scavenged pistols, even thrown rocks rained down on the exposed maw. Miller, screaming a battle cry, jammed his pipe deep into the soft tissue inside the mouth. The Burrower convulsed, its HP hitting zero. It dissolved into streams of dark data, leaving behind only a few chunks of its hide and a single, larger ⌈ ENERGY SHARD (TIER-2) ⌋.
Silence descended, broken only by ragged breathing. The team stared at the spot where the Level 8 monster had been, then at each other, then at Sergeant Brennan, and finally, at Leo.
Brennan walked over to Leo, his face unreadable. He looked at the patch of obsidian where the Burrower had slipped, then back at Leo. "Friction coefficient, huh?" he said quietly, so only Leo could hear. "That's one hell of a lucky break, Chen. One hell of a specific lucky break." He picked up the Tier-2 Energy Shard. "Get the salvage back inside. Now. Pulse is imminent." He turned, his voice rising. "Move it, people! Double time!"
Leo followed, his heart hammering. The Sanity drain throbbed (51%), but the look in Brennan's eyes… it wasn't suspicion anymore. It was something colder. Calculation. And a flicker of something like… hunger.
As they cycled back through Gate West Alpha into the relative safety of Bastion, the bruised purple sky outside suddenly pulsed with a wave of iridescent light. The Integration Pulse. New threats were being seeded onto the cleansed Floor 1.
But Leo felt a different kind of threat much closer. He'd survived the Burrower. He'd saved Brennan. And he might have just traded one kind of danger for another.
He was almost at Shelter Block D when a figure detached itself from the shadows near the Disciples' chanting circle. The hooded man, Disciple Thorn (LVL 4), stepped into his path. Up close, Thorn was younger than Leo expected, with intense dark eyes and a serene, unsettling smile. The fractured eye symbol on his robe seemed to gleam.
"Leo Chen," Thorn said, his voice soft but carrying. "The one who walks with glitches in his step. The System whispers your name. And the name of the Lost One… Mia." Thorn tilted his head. "The Shattered Veil sees the anomalies. We see you. Come. Speak with us. Your sister's path… it intersects with truths the Commander fears."
Leo froze, the cryptic System message about Mia flashing in his mind: Flagged for Review. The Disciples knew her name. They knew he was glitched. The cost of his power was spiraling, and the predators weren't just outside the walls anymore. They were inside Bastion, wearing robes and offering forbidden truths.