Time had passed since Warren and Wren had crossed paths in the dark corners of the ruined world. Days had once blurred together, scavenging, surviving, adapting. But lately, something had shifted. The hideout was no longer just shelter. It was a home.
The cracked tile had been cleaned, swept into neat corners. Rain barrels fed into a filtering line Styll helped cobble together with repurposed vent tubing. She grunted and pawed at the parts like a little kid helping lift a couch. There was just no way she could actually help, but she tried anyway, and Warren let her.
Wren had stitched fabric into drapes, real drapes, for the upper cracks in the wall, patching the worst of the drafts. One corner of the room now held crates filled not just with food and tools, but with books, thread, paper, a half-mended jacket. Things they didn't strictly need. Luxuries. Comforts.
There was a wire rack strung with strips of dried meat and painted clay mugs, each one stolen or salvaged because someone liked the color. A wax stub burned near the burner plate, casting soft light. On the far wall, Warren had carved anchor lines deeper into the support beam, not just for alignment, but to mark the days they'd lasted. Survived. Thrived.
He'd even allowed a rug. It wasn't his, and it didn't serve a tactical purpose. Styll had dragged it home on her back like it was treasure, tail high, nose twitching. She'd pulled it out of a tipped bin behind a looted decor stall, half-soaked and badly rolled. Warren had cleaned it the best he could, scrubbed and left it near the vent's heat until it was passable. It still had a weird stink to it, faint but persistent. He left it anyway. He still didn't know why Styll loved it.
They had a real bed now. Not just padding and a frame, but a sealed, undamaged water bed pulled from a flooded goods depot and heat-patched until it held true. It creaked and shifted beneath them, and Warren hated how much he'd come to rely on its quiet warmth. Wren loved it. Styll nested in its center like she belonged there. Somehow, she always woke up between them.
the kitchen had a stovetop humming quietly against the wall. It vented into an overhead shaft Wren had spent two days clearing. Real cookware hung from scrap hooks: pans, a kettle, a pot deep enough to boil. Tin containers lined one shelf, neatly labeled in Warren's sharp block print: salt, moss spice, ground tuber, blackroot bark. A kitchen. A real one.
Cold hadn't come yet, but it would. Warren had strung a line across the entryway with coats: thick ones, layered and sealed. One of them was a bright yellow winter-grade parka, padded and reinforced, made for the depths of winter. Wren had found it at the bottom of a sealed shipment crate and held it up wordlessly with both arms, smirking like she'd just caught him flinching. It matched his coat almost perfectly. He hadn't said anything. Just took it from her and hung it. A bin below held insulated gloves, boots, and dried bundles of wrapped synthetic wool. They wouldn't be caught unprepared.
And now the lights stayed on, humming from the power routed through the waterwheel generator. It used to be a backup, only for emergencies, never long. But he let it run now. Not just for heat, but for light. For comfort. He wasn't hiding anymore. He didn't flinch at every flicker of brightness that might give away their position. They had power. They used it. That mattered.
Now, he laid back on it, the woven threads scratching his shoulders through the shirt. Wren was sprawled over him, her warmth pressing against his chest, but his focus wasn't on the physical closeness. His mind was far away, looking at the flashing screen in front of him.
Warren Smith — Level 5
Class: Scavenger
Alignment: Aberrant
Unallocated Stat Points: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 8
Perception: 11
Intelligence: 12
Dexterity: 10
Endurance: 8
Resolve: 11
He had leveled up after the fight in the courtyard.
He had successfully integrated his class shard.
It hadn't been quiet. It hadn't been clean.
Warren didn't do it alone. Wren was with him.
He laid down a tarp to catch the blood, double-folded plastic scored from a med salvage kit. The ground beneath was already stained, but this was different. Intentional. He pressed the shard against the chip embedded in his spine, the edges biting cold against the scarred skin.
Wren sat just behind him, hands clenched, jaw tight, breath shallow. She had offered to help. Had knelt beside him with bandages, gloves, anything. But he had only said one thing:
"Just stay with me. Don't let go."
When the integration started, he bit down on leather to keep from screaming. Not out of pride, but necessity. Screaming drew attention. But it didn't stop the sound from tearing up his throat, raw and low. His jaw trembled against the strap, veins bulging in his neck as the shard forced itself into the chip, and through it, into him.
Wren held onto him the whole time. Her arms locked around his shoulders, her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, her breath hitching every time his body bucked. "I've got you. I've got you. I've got you," she whispered, over and over, like she could push the pain back with repetition alone. Her fingers dug in to anchor him, trembling with the effort of staying calm.
He twisted once so violently she nearly lost her grip. She didn't. She climbed back into the space behind him and wrapped her legs around his waist, bracing them both. His back arched and slammed into her, but she didn't flinch. She just whispered his name again. Quiet. Fierce.
Then a small shape nudged in at his side. Claws scrabbled lightly at his shirt. Styll. She wormed into the space between his ribs and elbow, curling there. She let out a strange, trilling whine and pressed her head against his ribs. One paw tapped at his arm again and again, like she was trying to reset a heartbeat she didn't understand.
His muscles seized in waves. His vision tore open and stitched shut with every pulse. The Nanites screamed through his nervous system. He felt it burn across his spine, down his legs, up into the roots of his teeth. He tasted copper and bile. His ears rang like a detuned radio.
Wren cupped the side of his head as he shuddered in her lap. "You're here. You're here. I know it hurts. Just hold on. Just one more second. You've got this. I've got you."
He couldn't speak. Could barely see. But he clung to the rhythm of her voice and the faint tap of Styll's paw, anchoring him like hands on a lifeline through a flood.
The pain was a full-body invasion. Not fire, not blades. Something deeper. Like every nerve had been threaded with wire and pulled taut. His muscles seized. His vision split. The Nanites pulsed, rewriting his blood one vein at a time.
He vomited. Seized. His teeth cracked the leather.
He thought it would kill him. Maybe it almost did.
But he didn't black out. He didn't break. He let it burn through him, let it carve something new. He counted his breaths through the blur. One. Two. Three hundred. Three hundred seventy eight.
When the screen finally stabilized, his vision cleared enough to see his hands shaking. Blood pooled under him, his own. But the shard had fused. The System accepted him. Not just as a user, but as something new.
For Warren, the pain wasn't something to avoid. It was a price he had to pay. And it had shaped him further.
But when it stopped, when the screen steadied and the burn finally receded, he didn't feel victorious. He felt hollow. Scorched out from the inside. His muscles twitched beneath his skin like they still expected more agony. His breath came in tight, staggered pulls. He hadn't even realized he was crying until he tasted the salt.
Wren didn't speak right away. She just slumped forward, arms still around him, face pressed to his shoulder like she didn't trust the moment to be real. Her breath came out in a sharp, silent exhale, half a sob, half relief. Then she pushed herself back and looked him over, scanning his face, his eyes, his pulse. "You're okay," she whispered, as if saying it too loud might undo it. "You're okay. You did it."
He met her eyes for just a second. There was something raw there. Not gratitude. Not pride. Just recognition. That she'd seen him at his weakest. That she'd stayed.
Styll didn't move for a long time. She stayed pressed against his side, tail wrapped tight, body stiff. When he finally shifted and groaned, she chirped once. Then she buried her face in his arm and refused to look at anyone. A moment later she started licking at the blood on his fingers with tiny, insistent swipes.
Warren didn't push her off. Didn't say anything. He just lowered his head and let it happen. Let them both stay close.
None of them let go for a long time. And for the first time in a long while, Warren didn't want to.
Now, with his stats updated and his skills available for selection, Warren had decisions to make. Two skills could be chosen. Each one would shape his future, just as his class shard had changed his path.
He thought about how he had changed in the weeks since meeting Wren. Before them, his path had been sharper, narrower. Defined by control and solitude. The hunt had been enough. The silence, the precision, the kill. But that had shifted. If it weren't for Wren and Styll, he might have stayed that way, honed into something deadly and alone.
But they'd disrupted that path.
Wren had challenged him just by staying. She hadn't run. She hadn't broken. She asked questions he didn't always want to answer. She stitched comfort into the cold and found warmth in places he'd stopped looking.
And now she had a map. A real one. Inked on tough fiber, frayed but clear: a vault buried somewhere in the Red. She'd kept it hidden, even from him, until she was sure. She had been looking for a guide. Someone who could take her through that kind of hell and bring her back out. But now, she wasn't looking anymore. She had chosen.
She needed him.
And whether he admitted it or not, he needed her too.
Styll was chaotic. Curious. Impossible to predict. She had brought movement and noise where there used to be stillness. She climbed over his plans, wedged into the tight spaces between his intentions, and somehow made them better.
Now, he realized he couldn't build alone. He didn't want to. It wasn't just about survival anymore. It was about shaping the world around him, about creating something from the ashes instead of just picking through them.
And for the first time he felt like he deserved to let himself believe Mara would have been proud. He could almost hear her. Low voice. Even tone. Sharp with certainty. "Took you long enough." Not mocking. Not cold. Just honest. The kind of honesty that had always cut cleaner than cruelty. She would've walked the edges of what he'd built, poked at its weak spots, tested the seams. Then she would've nodded. Not because it was perfect, but because it was his. Because he made something that mattered.
Not because he was strong, or smart, or brutal enough to carve his way through the ruins. But because he had built something soft in a world that worshipped hard edges. Something steady. Something bright. He had made a place where warmth didn't mean weakness. Where people stayed, not because they were trapped, but because they wanted to.
He had something worth waking up for.
And in a world that never stopped taking, that meant everything.
He would need them. Not as followers. As part of the foundation. As something real.
He had to build a world for those who choose him.
Warren's gaze fell on Scavenger's Eye. He wasn't just picking it because it would allow him to gather more efficiently. He could have chosen something else. Something more primal. Hardwired Instincts. A skill that would have sharpened his senses, drawn out the beast in him. Let him operate on reflex, prediction, danger. It would've built on the heart of who he already was.
If he were still alone, he would've taken it.
That skill made sense for someone with nothing left to lose. No one to build for. It would have made him a better killer, a more efficient hunter, a ghost in motion. But that path wasn't closed to him. It never had been. Instinct was in his blood. It was how he survived this long. He didn't need a skill to tell him how to sense a threat, or when to strike, or where danger hid. He already knew.
And deep down, some part of him recoiled at the idea of letting the System rewrite that. Of dulling something raw and earned by letting it be rewritten. Trusting his instincts had kept him alive. Depending on the system might weaken what was already perfect.
So he left it. Left that power on the table. Not because he couldn't use it, but because he didn't need to.
He wasn't alone anymore and he didn't want to be ever again.
Choosing Scavenger's Eye meant choosing the future. Not instinct. Not blood. Not the beast.
He would building something better than that.
Scavenger's Eye was a builder's skill. A planner's tool. It wouldn't make him faster in a fight, wouldn't keep him alive in a sprint. But it would let him shape the future with precision. See what others missed. Recover what mattered. Turn old-world garbage into weapons, defenses, warmth.
He was the one who had the experience to sort through the trash of the old world. He could read the wear patterns on a fuse cap and know what had burned. He could smell copper and name the circuit it came from. This skill wasn't just a tool. It was a lens. A way to accelerate his plans, to move forward faster, and to avoid wasting time searching for things that would otherwise take too long to find.
It meant thinking like a builder instead of a weapon.
He chose it without hesitation.
But even so, he wasn't fooling himself. Wren and Styll brought more to the table than he ever could alone. Wren's medical ability wasn't just useful. It was surgical. Precise. Life-saving. She knew where to cut, when to sew, and how to stop a body from breaking when the world pushed too hard. That was its own kind of warfare. She carried knowledge like a blade, clean and exact. She had turned pain into practice. Turned helplessness into hands that could hold someone together. He'd watched her close a wound with thread scavenged from a sealed medkit and the last of their burn gel, sweat running down her neck, never once shaking. She didn't hesitate. She didn't flinch. Not when it mattered.
The first time he'd seen her go further. They weren't alone in that ruin. Another scav, broken-legged and half-pinned beneath a fallen beam, had tried to hide instead of call out. Wren had found him anyway. She could've walked away. They both could've. But she didn't.
She threw off her pack. Barked orders like she'd trained for it. Forced Warren to help lift the slab. Styll scrambled to the scav's chest and chittered until she was pushed away. It wasn't tactical. It wasn't necessary.
It was just who she was.
The light that burned in her face as she worked. That sharp, determined shine. It reminded him of something he thought he'd buried. Mara's last smile. Not a soft one. Not gentle. But alive. Fierce.
He had seen that light again. In Wren.
And it hurt in a way that made him grateful to feel it.
Later, after the scav limped away still breathing, rumors had already begun to ripple. People in the ruins called her an angel. A mercy come walking. They gave her a name she didn't ask for: The Last Kindness. Wren had only rolled her eyes and shrugged it off, but Warren had seen the flush behind her ears, the way she looked at the ground like the weight of the title might stick.
To him, it already had.
And then there was Styll. Smaller. Quieter. But no less essential.
Styll didn't just warn them of threats. She sensed intention. Movement. Mood. She caught tension before it sparked. Shifts in wind before footsteps followed. She read the world like scent. Like pressure. Her head would snap up a full three seconds before anything stirred. Eyes locked on something not yet visible. Once, she led them away from a ruin Warren had already cleared twice. Hours later, the whole front collapsed in a chain reaction from a buried fuel cell no one could have known was still active. No one except her. She kept them alive in the cracks between perception and danger. Between what could be seen and what hadn't happened yet.
She was also adorable. Unreasonably so. Wren might have been feeding her too much. But so was he. It was hard to look at that bundle of warmth and mischief and not give in. One tilted head. One soft trill. One paw tapping at his ankle like it was owed something. He was a hardened killer. And she was the hardest thing in the world to say no to.
Scavenger's Eye wasn't about cutting them out. It was about making their time count. It freed him to focus on the future. On building. Forging. Preparing. On taking what they found and turning it into something more. Something stable. Something sharp.
They would still hunt and gather as a team. But now, their work wouldn't just feed them. It would move them forward. He would build a world for them. Not just shelter. Not just defense. Something more. A place to come back to. A reason to wake up.
Next, he selected Crafting. His truncheon was gone. Pipe had treated him well. Reliable. Balanced. Brutal when it had to be. But it wasn't the same. That weapon had been more than metal. It had been a partner. A part of him. Losing it hadn't just left him exposed. It had left him incomplete.
Crafting was the solution. Not just to rebuild. To reclaim a piece of himself. To start again. Not in mourning. In design. He could make new tools. New weapons. Not just replacements, but evolutions. Things with thought behind them. Precision. Intent. His adaptability had always been his strength. But this wasn't about survival anymore. This was how he would change the world with his own hands.
He'd already made a few new toys. They came together fast. They worked. They were fun. Brutal. Clever in ways he hadn't realized he craved. Function forged through instinct. Design shaped by memory.
It excited him in a way almost nothing else did. Almost.
Wren. Styll. And the hunt. Those were still core. But this? This was close. A different kind of thrill. Quieter. Deeper. It came from the act of shaping the world instead of just being a part of it.
In the back of his mind, he wasn't just thinking of weapons. He was thinking of the shelter. Of walls that blocked more than wind. Of protection that didn't just hold. They welcomed. Quietly. Without question. He already had a forge that burned low through the night. Not just for weapons. For warmth. And he still wanted more. A filtered air loop for the hotter seasons. Insulated storage to keep medicine and meals stable. A real signal repeater that could catch system drifts instead of scavenger noise. A heated floor rig. A reinforced basin that could function as a bath. Systems layered onto systems. All woven into the bones of what they'd already built. Defenses that gave them time to move. Not just reasons to strike. Triggers. Signals. Failsafes. They had more than most. But in his mind, it was still only the start. The sketch of a life he was building. He had almost everything. And still, he wanted more for them.
They had done a lot of work already to achieve that dream.
A room for her gear. Hooks for her coat. Bins meticulously labeled. Not by her. By him. She had tried once to sort things her way. He'd let her. Then re-did it the next morning before she woke. There was a system. There had to be. A trunk she locked anyway, even though he had offered her three better ones. A space that smelled like antiseptic. Solder. Tea.
And beyond that, the front of the pharmacy had changed. Where busted shelves and rotting signage had once sat in ruin, he'd cleared the space. Reinforced the walls. Rewired the door. It was open now. Clean. Lit. The shelves held med supplies and basic diagnostics. Sorted. Stacked. A place of healing again.
He hadn't said it out loud. But it was for her. So she could be the Surgeon the world never let her become. A real place. A purpose worth stepping into. Not just survival. Something bigger.
A place for her warmth.
And for Styll. She had claimed it all. The vents. The shelves. The padded corner of the bench near the heat coils. She left little things in little places. Scraps. Buttons. The shiny things she stole and forgot. She had even dragged in a strip of blanket so big she could swim in it. It was hers now. All of it.
He hadn't just made room for them. He'd shaped the space around them. The home wasn't an accident.
He had made it for them.
He wasn't just building weapons. He was building a life. One bolt. One weld. One vicious little machine at a time.
He would get his friend back. Better. Stronger. Meaner. Built for what was coming.
Built to outlast it.
Built for him.
Built for them.
Warren also thought about Wren's situation. How she had no chip. No System connection. He had seen the potential danger of that. If he wanted to help her, giving her a chip might make her a vulnerability. Not just to the world. But to the System. It could track him through her. That was a risk he had to acknowledge. But despite that, it was also about practicality. If giving her a chip meant she'd survive longer. Meant she could help him more effectively. Then it was a decision he'd make.
He didn't know exactly why it mattered to him. But there was something about her presence. About her smile. That made the thought of her being left exposed feel wrong. Even if it came with a risk to himself. Keeping her alive felt like something he needed to do. And in a world like this, survival itself—for the three of them—was what mattered most.
He looked down at Wren. Still asleep. Her head resting on his chest. The warmth he felt from her presence. Comfort and fear. Mixed in his chest. These were emotions he wasn't used to. Emotions he hadn't known he could still feel. But there they were.
Wren stirred. Shifted. Her eyes locked with his, and she kissed his cheek softly. She didn't speak at first. Just watched him with that intensity of hers. It made him feel vulnerable. Like she could read him without trying.
"What's wrong?" she asked softly. Voice thick with concern.
Warren froze. He wasn't used to being seen like this. Being read so easily. He tried to push the feelings down. Tried to make it seem like everything was fine.
"Nothing," he muttered. But the word felt hollow.
Wren studied him for a moment. Then cupped his face gently in her hands. There was no pressure in her touch. Just presence. She wasn't asking for answers. Just offering to stay.
"What's the plan?"
That helped. Practical. Tactical. Something he could hold onto.
"It's time we get some upgrades," Warren said as he sat up. His voice steadied. "We'll do some trading. We've got enough fragments to get what we need."
Wren gave him a slight smile. "Upgrades?" she echoed. Stretching as she stood. "Sounds like a plan."
He nodded. Purpose returned. Familiar. Necessary. It was time to move again. But this time, it wasn't just about surviving.
He had built a forge. Lit the storefront. Rewired power and redefined the space. Made a place where Styll had her nest and Wren had her clinic. A home hidden inside the old pharmacy, shaped with his hands, his mind, his control.
And still. He wanted more.
He would give them more.
The next phase of their journey had just begun. This time, it wasn't just about enduring. It was about changing the world around Them.
Warren Smith — Level 5
Class: Scavenger
Alignment: Aberrant
Unallocated Stat Points: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 8
Perception: 11
Intelligence: 12
Dexterity: 10
Endurance: 8
Resolve: 11
Skills:
Examine (Passive)
Description: Allows visual inspection of system-integrated objects. Reveals basic stats such as Rarity, Durability, Weight, Material, Balance Rating, Modification History, System Integration, Origin, and Value.
Effect: Can evaluate the properties of items, fragments, and weapons, giving him insight into their potential value, strength, and usability.
Scavenger's Eye (Passive)
Description: Detects salvageable items rapidly in a given environment.
Effect: Highlights objects with functional or modifiable components based on user knowledge and recognition patterns. Activates an internal system overlay.
Quick Reflexes (Passive)
Description: Heightened Dexterity allows the user to react quickly to threats and dodge incoming attacks.
Effect: Increases evasion and reaction speed in combat, allowing the user to avoid attacks more effectively.
Crafting (Active)
Description: Can repurpose materials and fragments to craft weapons, tools, and other useful items.
Effect: The crafting process is influenced by both Perception (for the precision required in delicate tasks) and Intelligence (for understanding the functionality and possible combinations). Can craft or upgrade tools and weapons, enhancing the ability to adapt and survive in the world.