Warren returned to camp with three new fragments and a limp in his step. Blood dried across the side of his coat, the pain dulled but persistent. He didn't speak as he crossed the room, just collapsed to the floor beside the emergency stash, pipe still in one hand.
Wren didn't flinch. She didn't back away. She watched.
Styll slinked from his coat and circled once before settling again in the corner, unbothered.
Wren studied the blood, the stiff way Warren moved, and the battered edge of the rusted pipe.
"You survived," she said quietly.
Warren didn't smile.
"That's the point," he replied.
He didn't expect her to come closer. But she did.
"Wasp." She said his name like it had always belonged to him. "Do you want help?"
He said nothing. Just stared.
"I've got some medi-salvage. Nothing great. Better than bleeding out on the floor."
Styll watched them both.
Warren hesitated. He didn't protest. He was hurt worse than he'd let on, and she was already reaching into her pack.
She worked quickly, with surprising precision. The salvaged strips stuck and peeled like they didn't want to do their job. Her frown said everything about their poor quality.
"You've done this before," he muttered.
"Too many times," she said, pressing down hard enough to make him wince.
"Thanks, Wren."
She didn't look at him. "That's not my name."
"It is now."
A pause. Then, quieter, "You picked it. Not me."
He didn't argue.
"But you like calling me Wasp?"
She gave the faintest shrug. "That one fits."
She looked at the pipe still in his hand. "What happened out there?"
He didn't answer right away. He just stared at it.
"Things went wrong. I got excited. Played too fast and loose."
She nodded like she understood, but didn't pretend to know more than she did.
"That pipe saved you?"
"It held. That's more than I can say for anything else."
"You name it yet?"
Warren raised an eyebrow. "It's a pipe."
"It's yours now. Might as well mean something."
"It's a pipe."
"Come on, just something simple. Old Iron. Or Bruiser. Maybe Spite."
"It's a pipe."
"What about 'Whisper'? Like, ironic. Because it's loud."
"Still a pipe."
She leaned forward. "Naming it makes it yours."
"It's mine because I own it. That's enough."
"What if we both named it? Compromise."
"It's a pipe."
"I could call it Stick. Just Stick. Like, ironically weak."
Warren gave her a deadpan look. "You do that and I swear I'll hit you with it."
She grinned. "See? That's the spirit."
"Pipe," he muttered again, turning away. "It's just a gods damn pipe."
She laughed, light and sharp, like the tinkle of bells
"You always come back like this?"
"No. Sometimes I don't come back at all."
She gave him a flat look, then went back to cleaning a strip of cloth. "You make a lot of jokes for someone who doesn't smile."
"I don't joke."
"That makes it worse."
They sat for a while without speaking. Then she asked, "Why Wren?"
"You move fast. You strike when you have to. You don't need to be big to be dangerous."
"That's a lot to read from a name you made up."
"It wasn't just that. It's how you move. How you read a room. How you treated my wound like it mattered more than the blood. Calculated. No waste."
She looked at him for a long time. "You've been watching me."
"You stayed in my shelter. Of course I watched."
She nodded slowly. "Fair."
"Why'd you patch me up?"
"You looked worse than me. And I do kinda sorta maybe still need a guide."
He gave a dry, almost-smile at that. "Pragmatism. Good motive."
"And you let me. That surprised me more."
"I was tired."
"No, you made a decision. You're not the type to do anything by accident."
He didn't reply. Just watched her wrap another strip and set it aside.
She offered him one. "For next time."
"Planning ahead?"
"Call it a habit."
"Good one."
They shared a cold bite of synth-grain and a slice of vacuum-sealed root meat. The grain was stale, slightly sour, and the root meat had the strange rubbery texture of old protein reconstituted one too many times. Still, they ate like it meant something. Wren tore small bites with her fingers. Warren cut his portions with a jagged fragment of scrap.
Styll circled the edge of their sitting space, sniffing each morsel, occasionally nosing Wren's hand for approval. She smirked.
"You gonna feed her or make her beg?" Warren asked.
"She's working for it."
She held up a corner of root meat and tapped twice on the ground. Styll paused, ears flicking. Then he mimicked the tap with one paw.
"Smart little thing," she said, handing it over.
Warren blinked. "You taught her that just now?"
"Kind of. She's picking it up."
Warren pulled another shred from his portion, held it between two fingers. "Let's see if she can learn the old relay sign." He twisted his hand twice, a quick flick and curl.
Styll tilted her head. Then, slowly, she mirrored it with her forelimb more flail than form, but close enough.
Wren laughed softly. "That's cheating."
"Improvising," Warren corrected.
They sat like that for a while, feeding Styll in pieces. She rolled onto her side and made a slow half-turn when Wren told her to "play dead," then tried it again for Warren, flopping in a spiral that looked almost smug.
"You're gonna spoil her," Warren said.
"She's already spoiled. She picked her own survivor."
Warren didn't answer that.
They didn't talk about themselves. Instead, they traded stories. Fragments of memory and myth.
"Someone told me there's a house up in the northwest sector. From the outside it looks like nothing: sagging roof, caved porch. But every night at the same time, the upstairs window glows blue. No one ever goes in. No one ever comes out."
Warren tilted his head. "Could be a really old gen. Could be bait. Could be someone watching."
"Exactly."
Warren offered one: "Saw a sign once. Said REST STOP. But the R was missing. Just EST STOP. Place was full of mannequins. Clean ones."
"Creepy."
"They were all facing the same direction. Like they'd been moved."
Wren shivered. "That's worse than the glass ocean."
Warren narrowed his eyes slightly. "What the hell are the glass ocean?"
Wren looked at him like she wasn't sure if he was joking. "You've never heard?"
"I've heard the name. Never the story."
"They say it used to be a suburbs. Whole stretches of it. Then something hit it, maybe a pressure wave, maybe something else. Whatever it was, it flattened everything. Fused the ground into one sheet of reflective glass. Like someone poured a mirror over the earth."
Warren didn't respond right away.
"They say the glass hums when you walk on it," she continued. "Like it remembers."
He stared at her, skeptical. "That's not how glass works."
Wren shrugged. "Still. No one builds there. No one scavenges. People go quiet talking about it."
Warren filed the name deeper into memory. "I'll go see it myself."
She raised an eyebrow. "Of course you will." hate it when things are too clean."
He nodded. "Clean means polished."
"I heard about an outpost built entirely underground. They never came up. Fed on hydroponics and hope. Someone said they went blind from lack of sun. Grew gills."
"Probably a lie."
"Probably. But a good one."
Wren leaned back, chewing slower now. "It's strange. Sitting like this. Like it's not survival. Just... normal."
"It won't last," Warren said.
"I know. Doesn't mean I won't take it."
"I heard once there was a dome out west," Wren said. "Still had weather. Still had light. Probably a lie."
"Probably," Warren agreed.
She turned to him.
"You get what you needed while you were out there?"
He paused. "Yeah."
He stood slowly, carefully, and walked to the far wall. His hand moved to a loose panel, pried it free, and exposed a hidden terminal beneath. A small, cracked interface barely holding a charge.
Wren leaned forward, expression tightening.
Warren retrieved the six fragments from their separate cloth wraps and placed them one by one into the system's recessed ports.
She inhaled sharply.
"You have six," she said. "Why do you have six of them?"
Warren didn't look at her. "I've been planning this for a while. I'm making a class."
She blinked. "Why? You hit level five. The System gives you one automatically."
"That's the problem," he said. "Most people wait to be assigned. I want to craft mine. True to myself. Something chosen."
His tone was quiet. There was steel in it. "Every choice matters.""
The screen flickered, old code spooling up like a heartbeat rediscovering its rhythm.
CLASS INTERFACE UNLOCKED
AUTHORIZED FRAGMENT INPUT DETECTED
CLASS CHIP CONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS
Wren knelt beside him, more curious than cautious now.
The class selection menu bloomed across the screen. Six glowing icons. Basic, but powerful.
Warren scrolled slowly. One by one, the descriptions unfolded across the screen in clean, flickering code.
SOLDIER — Strength. Discipline. Endurance.
Attribute Focus
Strength, Endurance, Resolve
Per Level Bonus
+1 Strength, +1 Endurance, +1 Resolve
Description: Soldiers are the hammer the System forged for survival. Their world is direct. Pain is a tool, fear a delay. Soldiers don't question the cost. They press forward. Break through. Hold ground.
They are tanks, brutes, guardians able to shrug off damage and hit back harder than they were hit. Every strike is calculated. Every movement deliberate. They carry the weight others cannot.
Passive Skills:
Kinetic Conditioning – Reduces stagger and knockback from hits. Pain Threshold – Severe injuries cause less mechanical impact. Loadout Familiarity – Bonus efficiency with heavy and reinforced gear.
Active Skills:
Overdrive Strike – Charge attack that deals massive damage with knockback. Cover Maneuver – Short-distance dive behind cover or object. Adrenal Lock – Temporarily reduces pain feedback; negates status effects for 10 seconds.
SCIENTIST — Knowledge. Craft. Repair.
Attribute Focus
Intelligence, Dexterity, Perception
Per Level Bonus
+1 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity, +1 Perception
Description: Scientist are the minds that refused to forget. They remember how the old world worked and how to make it work again. While others fight over scraps, Tinkers make them into tools. They rebuild. Repurpose. Improve.
Scientists modify gear faster than others can break it. A dead drone? A sentry. A burnt-out lance? They're not fighters but they never walk into battle unarmed.
Passive Skills:
System Insight – Enhances Examine; reveals encrypted system data and rarity class tags. Precision Calibration – Crafted gear suffers less degradation and offers better performance. Tool Savant – Temporarily improves damaged tech when used in sequence.
Active Skills:
Crafting – Allows creation, upgrade, or adaptation of tech-based items and tools. Field Diagnostic – Scans a target (living or mechanical) for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Override Spike – Sends a corruption pulse to a nearby system-integrated object or enemy, potentially disabling it.
SURGEON — Healing. Resistance. Stability.
Attribute Focus
Intelligence, Endurance, Resolve
Per Level Bonus
+1 Intelligence, +1 Endurance, +1 Resolve
Description: When everything else fails, Surgeons don't. In a world where pain is a constant, a Surgeon's presence is often the only difference between surviving and becoming just another corpse. They don't just stop bleeding they stabilize, repair, and reset the human body like a broken program.
Their skills are precise, sometimes brutal, always effective. Some call them saviors. Others call them cruel. But they save more than they lose and in this world, that matters.
Passive Skills:
Vitals Monitor – Constantly assesses health data on nearby allies or known targets. Anatomical Memory – Treats known injuries with increasing speed and success. Pharma Optimization – Doubles effectiveness of all healing-related items and tech.
Active Skills:
Field Recovery – Stops bleeding, stabilizes fractured limbs, and removes status ailments. Bio stim Injector – Grants rapid regeneration and speed boost for a short time. Surgical Override – Can revive or stabilize a subject at critical condition with heavy resource cost.
SCOUT — Speed. Stealth. Recon.
Attribute Focus
Dexterity, Perception, Resolve
Per Level Bonus
+1 Dexterity, +1 Perception, +1 Resolve
Description: Scouts are the eyes and knives of the ruined world. They don't fight wars they end them before they start. Light on their feet, ghosts in the static, they move like glitches in the system, marking threats and vanishing before the danger even knows they were there.
Scouts rely on information, positioning, and timing. In a world this broken, being the first to move is everything.
Passive Skills:
Low Profile – Reduces detection range by enemies and tracking systems while crouched or moving slowly. Combat Reflex – Grants a high chance to automatically dodge the first incoming attack in combat. Environmental Awareness – Highlights unstable terrain, traps, ambush points, and hidden movement routes.
Active Skills:
Threat Map – Reveals enemy line-of-sight, movement patterns, and sensor sweeps. Quiet Protocol – Temporarily silences the user's movement, audio, and thermal signature. Mark Pattern – Tags a hostile target for tracking, increasing efficiency and awareness for all allies.
SCAVENGER — Survival. Adaptation. Precision.
Attribute Focus
Resolve, Intelligence, Perception
Per Level Bonus
+1 Resolve, +1 Intelligence, +1 Perception
Description: Survivors of the end. Scavengers are built to adapt, endure, and exploit the ruins of the old world. Part combatant, part tech-user, part tracker never the best at one thing, but always among the last standing.
Scavengers thrive in uncertainty, repurposing wreckage and instinct alike. They read situations like maps, spot patterns others miss, and endure long after stronger classes falter.
Passive Skills:
Scavenger's Eye – detect salvageable items rapidly. Adds An internal system overlay to display usability of known goods Hardwired Instinct – Alerts the user to subtle environmental threats, movement patterns, or dangerous behavior before detection. Data Familiarity – Enhances Examine functionality, especially with degraded or encrypted system-integrated items.
Active Skills:
Crafting – Converts found components into weapons, traps, or tools. Precision scales with perception and Intelligence Quick Patch – Temporarily stabilizes damaged equipment or minor injuries to prevent failure or blood loss. Signal Spoof – Emits false system signals to confuse enemy targeting, delay hostile engagement, or escape pursuit.
SURVIVALIST — Endurance. Awareness. Tenacity.
Attribute Focus
Endurance, Resolve, Perception
Per Level Bonus
+1 Endurance, +1 Resolve, +1 Perception
Description: Built for attrition, Survivalists thrive where others break. They endure, adapt, and persist whether by grit, terrain mastery, or sheer refusal to die. Survivalists are not front-liners by design, but they're the ones who walk out when the rest are gone.
Masters of condition resistance, terrain control, and natural recovery, Survivalists turn exposure into advantage. They see danger early, absorb punishment, and maintain functionality under collapse conditions.
.
Passive Skills:
Slow Burn – Reduces stamina and resource drain over time. Extends function under exhaustion, hunger, or sustained conflict. Situational Resistance – Grants adaptive resistances based on environmental exposure: heat, cold, toxins, radiation, etc. Triage Awareness – Highlights injuries, structural weaknesses, and vulnerable points in others or surroundings. Enhances field prioritization.
Active Skills:
Emergency Fortify – Temporarily increases defense and damage resistance. Buff stacks with proximity to cover or environmental stability. Primal Surge – Activates an adrenaline spike for burst healing and temporary stat boost. Unlocked only under high-stress thresholds. Outlast – Forces a status reset on bleed, poison, burn, or fatigue timers. Can be triggered reflexively at low health.
Warren focused on the Scavenger icon as its expanded description finished rendering. Wren glanced at him.
"There are scavengers," Warren said quietly, "and then there are Scavengers."
She looked at him. "That the one you're picking?"
He nodded once.
"It fits."
"And if I could… I'd pick Surgeon," she said.
He looked at her for a long moment. He didn't say it aloud, but the pieces kept clicking into place. He was starting to understand her. Not a predator. Not like him. But still dangerous, in her own way.
The terminal beeped as the chip finished forming.
A small diamond of hard tech, black as coal and veined with glowing blue circuits, lifted from the socket and settled in the retrieval tray.
They both stared at it.
Warren triggered Examine.
[Examine]
Type: Class Shard Scavenger
Stability: 69.3%
Malfunction Risk:
19.7% Chance: Neurological Instability
11% Chance: Random Base Class Assignment
Embedded Skill: Quick Reflexes (Passive)
Skill Unlocks: +2 Class-Based Skill Options on Integration
Origin: Fragment Fusion, Manual Integration Terminal
Notes: User-defined class optimization detected. Risk of failure present but within accepted tolerance.
Warren stared at the numbers longer than Wren expected. His eyes didn't blink. Didn't move.
"That's not what Mara's manual said," he murmured.
Wren tilted her head. "What?"
He didn't answer immediately. Just tapped the readout with one finger.
"She wrote that the failure risk was lower. Ten percent chance of death. Thirty percent chance of being locked into a random class. Manual shard fusion wasn't something you just did. It was something you prepared for."
Wren studied him. "So you're saying this is deadly than it should be?"
He nodded slowly. "yeah."
"You think the system's wrong?"
"I think something changed it. Either in the fragments. Or she was wrong"
Wren moved closer to the screen. "Or in the terminal?"
"It's old. But stable."
She traced one finger through the air, stopping just short of touching the glass. "So what happens if it's true?"
"Then I'm either dead. Or assigned something I can't live with."
She didn't flinch. "But you're still going to use it."
He looked at her. Quiet. Clear.
"Yes."
Warren pocketed it.
Not yet.
Not tonight.
But soon.
Wren didn't say anything, but he felt her eyes on him.
She was watching differently now.
Not like prey.
Not like an equal either.
Like someone trying to figure out what came next and whether they were going there with him.
Warren sat, pressing his back against the damp, cracked wall of the ruined pharmacy, the pain starting to crawl through his body. It began as a burn behind his eyes and in the base of his neck, like static gathering under skin.
The night had fallen, but the distant hum of the System still buzzed in his skull. It felt like pressure behind his teeth. A frequency too high to block. He could almost taste copper.
He glanced over at Wren, who had positioned herself in the far corner, eyes flicking between him and the dim surroundings. She was quiet. It was the way she always was, calculating, watching. Survival instincts sharper than most. She wasn't afraid of him, but she understood the rules of the world.
He didn't know why he did it. Maybe to test her. Maybe to test himself. He would never quite be sure. All that mattered was that he did.
The pain jumped again. This time it threaded through his jaw, stiffening the hinge, locking his molars. A crack rang through his inner ear as something shifted. A tendon, or a bone, clicking into a new configuration.
His hands twitched. His skin had begun to throb in patches, like something was unthreading the nerves and laying them back in place differently. Thicker. Hotter. Wrong.
Wren watched, wide-eyed now. Not out of fear. Curiosity. The kind that tracked movement, measured tension, and catalogued pain.
Beneath Warren's skin, something moved. The light caught it. A ripple down his left forearm. A twitch in the muscles around his neck. The skin crawled unnaturally. Tight, then loose, then tight again.
It wasn't sweat. It was heat rising from under the surface, like steam escaping through micro-fractures. She could see it warping the air.
Then she heard it. A grind like teeth on glass. Not just one sound. A series. As if something inside him was clicking into new shape. Subdermal bone adjustment. Too regular to be a spasm. Too sharp to be natural.
His breath caught. A single hitch. His ribs flexed outward, not from effort, but from internal shift. Something in his spine corrected. The alignment spread through his shoulders, one vertebra at a time.
The pain returned with weight. Not a jolt. Not a stab. A blanket. Full body. Dense. Wren saw his hand dig into the concrete, fingers tensing, then dragging back until the nails cracked. She didn't hear a scream. But she saw his throat tighten like one wanted out.
His back arched slightly. His teeth were clenched so hard it looked like they might splinter. Every tendon in his arms stood out. A pressure just below the skin as if something wanted to erupt but hadn't earned permission.
The concrete under him dusted from the tension. His boot scraped against the floor without sound. Only pressure. As if he was grinding into the foundation itself.
Wren had seen a lot of pain. This wasn't just pain. It was transformation. A body adapting faster than it should. She leaned forward an inch, not to help, but to remember. To see it all.
Still, he didn't scream. That was the part that stayed with her the most.
Whatever it was doing to him, he took it. All of it. Quiet. Cold. Controlled.
And still breathing.
"You're one of them, aren't you?" Wren's voice was quieter now. More observant. As if she had finally come to that realization. She paused. Then asked the question that had been hanging in the air. "How are you still sane?"
Warren's chest heaved as the pain hit its peak. His muscles clenched. Tendons along his neck stood out like wire. There was something wrong with the way his shoulders set. Something that hadn't been there before.
But his focus never wavered. He wasn't about to show any weakness. Not now. Not to her.
"I'm not sure I am," he said, his voice steady. "I just keep moving forward till I can't move anymore."
Wren's eyes narrowed. Her gaze flickering over his face. She seemed to process this for a moment. Then replied softly. "I didn't think anyone could live like that."
Warren didn't answer immediately. The truth was, he had learned to survive by the very thing that others might see as a weakness. The pain was necessary for growth. For gaining strength. In this world, pain meant that you were still alive. Still moving. Still evolving.
"You learn to live with it. Or you don't. The world moves on without you," Warren replied, his voice calm despite the raw ache now coiled under every inch of his skin. He looked at Wren. His expression hardening. "I'm not letting it stop me."
Wren remained silent for a while. Processing. The tension in the air was palpable. But she never backed away. Never showed fear. She didn't react the way others might have. There was no disgust. No pity. Just quiet understanding. Warren found it unsettling in its own way. But he didn't let it distract him.
"You're still standing," Wren observed quietly, breaking the silence.
Warren's lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. "Yeah."
Wren met his gaze. Her curiosity piqued. For a brief moment, he wondered if she saw something more in him than just a survivor. But he didn't want to think about that. Not now. Not when there were plans to make.
There was a long pause before Wren suddenly spoke again, almost as if the thought had just occurred to her.
"My name's Azolde."
Warren turned his head slightly, surprised. "Azolde?" he repeated, still processing it.
She shrugged, indifferent. "That's my name."
Warren paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing. "Well, Wren, my name is Warren."
Wren shot him a half-smile, a slight teasing glint in her eyes. "Stupid wasp," she muttered, clearly not one to take things too seriously.
Warren stared at her for a second, then shook his head, a small smirk forming despite himself. "Stupid, huh?" he muttered. "Maybe. But at least it's memorable."
She laughed softly, something about her expression softening a little. "If you say so, wasp."
Warren nodded, more to himself than anyone else. She wasn't like him, but maybe that was okay. Maybe that's exactly what he needed right now. Someone who wasn't scared of him, who didn't shy away from the brokenness.
"Stay close. Don't get in the way. And maybe try not to die."
She raised an eyebrow but didn't argue. She just nodded, as if they'd reached an understanding.
As Warren looked over the class mod, he felt a sense of purpose surge through him. He wasn't just surviving. He was making a choice to break the chains that had bound him to the System's expectations.
The road ahead wasn't clear, but Warren had always thrived in uncertainty. It was time to refine his skills, test his new abilities, and push his limits.
Wren raised her eyebrows slightly. "What's the plan?"
Warren turned to her, his face serious but with a hint of calculation in his eyes.
"We're going fishing."
Wren blinked. "Fishing?"
"Yeah," Warren replied, his gaze shifting back to the door. "And you're the bait."
Wren stared at him, a mix of confusion and disbelief crossing her face, but she didn't argue. She might have been a survivor, but she wasn't about to challenge Warren's plans, at least, not right now.
Warren Smith — Level 4
Class: Unclassified
Alignment: Aberrant
Title: None
Unallocated Stat Points: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 7
Perception: 10
Intelligence: 11
Dexterity: 10
Endurance: 7
Resolve: 10
Skill:
Examine (Passive): Allows close, precise inspection of physical items. Identifies structural materials, mechanical condition, origin markers, manufacturing details, and utility potential. Does not reveal hidden properties.