As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about blowing myself up in the sewers by flicking on a lighter. I realized this only because I was attacked by one of the four eyed goblin things and fired about three shots into its chest before it went down. The Recycler Pistol was actually a fairly decent gun, and not having to worry about ammunition just made it even better.

The only hard part about travelling through the sewers other than the occasional monster that tried to sneak up on me was the fact that dead ends were consistent. I had to backtrack an uncountable number of times before I felt like I could come up for fresh air. I’d even gained a debuff that made me emit an awful stench by the time I thought I was back inside Bastion.

There had only been one other player in the sewers, and we both just looked at each other without a word, our expressions saying more than enough. Neither of us wanted to use this route, and we didn’t care for starting a fight down here.

When I finally made it back to the shed I found that AZTea and Jolly had logged off, while Hugh was off doing his own thing. I also realized I’d managed to stay up until three in the morning without realizing it. I logged out and my stomach rumbled upon my return to reality.

While chewing on a bagel I flipped a coin that would decide whether I would sleep or not. It landed on heads and I shrugged to myself before heading to my room to get a few hours in dreamland. My dreams turned to nightmares of flesh and gunfire, my body moving too slowly to put up much of a fight, though as with every nightmare that had come before, I didn’t stop fighting until either the dream monster died or until I did. Of course, I did.

I gasped awake, my back sore from an odd sleeping position, my left arm both numb and limp from having moved on top of it during the night. At least that explained why I lost all functionality of my arm in the middle of the nightmare.

On the bright side the sun was shining down through the window, its warm light bathing me in a comfortable heat. I grumbled a bit as I forced myself out of bed and into the shower, the hot water relaxing enough that I just sat there for an hour enjoying the warmth.

Eventually I logged back in and found myself standing in the storage shed. Looking through everything, I was thankful to find that we hadn’t lost anything since last night. While things had definitely gone totally wrong, I felt like our small group of four were the ones to come out on top from that fiasco.

Since I now had almost fifteen thousand credits I figured it was time to upgrade once more, but instead of a full fledged workshop, I decided having a safehouse would be far better. As it turned out, I hadn’t gotten away so cleanly, having to pay a fine of five hundred credits for the crime I had committed, though my property wasn’t being seized. Apparently it hadn’t been connected to the crime, so I didn’t have to worry about losing everything. The best part was that since I hadn’t killed any Bastion SWAT NPCs, I didn’t have to pay them what would’ve been an extra three thousand credit fine.

I grumbled a bit about the loss of money while searching for a suitable place to call home, a little mad that I had to pay them at all for something they'd gotten involved in. I found out that a building I’d previously thought to be meant for office work was actually a smaller megabuilding on the edge of the southeastern part of the city, nestled right up against the main road on the way to the east gate.

I was convinced enough to buy it by the time I found out that I could take what was essentially a tour of the place from the terminal itself. It had just enough rooms for the four of us, and it looked out over the forest and Ruined Zone alike, high enough that one could see the pine trees in the distance. There was even a balcony, though with my fear of heights I’d probably never use it. Maybe one of the others would do something with it.

The apartment cost twenty five hundred credits to rent for a week of real time, with a one time fee of two thousand more credits to fully furnish the place. There was even an option to add in a security door for another five thousand credits, though I decided furniture would be enough for the moment. I watched the credits drain from my account before getting a notification telling me that I now owned the property.

As it wasn’t far from here I hurried out of the building and down the main street, the memories of the first riot coming back to me here and there. There were dozens of players milling around, though nobody paid me any mind as I took an abrupt turn into the building, my hands in my pockets, my duffle bag of goodies gently bumping against my back.

I took an elevator up to my floor, trying not to look down through the glass door at how high up I was going. That was the easy part about the short trip upwards. The hard part was ignoring the occasional creaking coming from the machine itself, a metal floor all that separated me from a fatal freefall.

I got out of the insane box of potential death with all due haste before I took a deep breath to compose myself. The thick glass railing on the inside of the building was thankfully high enough that you had to be determined to get over it, or through it. That gave me some comfort as I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. There were NPCs all over the place, some of them chatting, others just wandering around. Overall, things seemed fairly relaxed here. I even saw a player operated restaurant across the way, a neon sign advertising multiple different types of food.

While I was interested in learning how food worked from a player’s perspective, I managed to tear myself away from the idea long enough to find my new home, the door secured via a handprint scanner. I placed my hand against the cold polymer device and watched as the door slid open with a swish, revealing a well lit interior.

The entryway was a bit small, but opened up into a fairly large living room, two couches surrounding a large circular ottoman, separate holo-screens being projected to show what I believed to be some sort of Bastion News Network. I was surprised for a moment, having not realized just how much that everything had invested into it. I’d been taking some serious liberties with what I expected from Dead on Arrival, but it had met my expectations every time, even exceeding them.

I found myself wondering just how far behind I’d fallen in terms of video games and their limits, that I would attempt to do everything I would in real life. I shook that thought off and got back to exploring. There was a fully equipped kitchen attached to the living room, four chairs situated in front of a counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. I even tried one of the oranges that was in a fruit bowl, detecting the pleasant taste of citrus.

The best part so far was the fact that it was warm. Not the kind of warmth that was vaguely uncomfortable, but the kind of warmth that you could find yourself napping in if you weren’t careful. It almost felt too good to be true.

I wandered through the rest of the apartment, checking each room. The bedrooms were fairly standard, but I chose to pick one of the three rooms with a window overlooking the city and beyond. The view seemed breathtaking from up here, enough that I could actually enjoy it without feeling like I was going to fall at any moment. While most could enjoy any regular view, I always needed something special in order to do so. In this case it was the pine trees that reminded me of both my family and my old home, the distant memories of camping and barbecues. The bed was close enough to the window that I sat down on it and leaned against the wall, looking out at everything and remembering better days.

Eventually the moment passed, and I set up a message for AZTea, Jolly, and Hugh, telling the three of them that there would be a surprise waiting for them when they logged on, directing them to the apartment. I took the opportunity to leave everything but my Recycler Pistol in my room, taking off the face mask and leaving it on the bed.

After making sure I had only the things I cared to keep on my person, I left the apartment and walked around to the player restaurant. Fortunately I wasn’t as big a story as I used to be, and I got to finally enjoy some anonymity again. Nobody even glanced at the pistol in its holster, which was something I was doubly thankful for. I guess nobody in this building cared.

The place was apparently owned and operated by an older man and his wife, both of whom were playing because of how well things were created. They’d actually owned a small diner two decades ago, but had to turn it over to their kids when they retired. I learned all this by reading the back of the menu after deciding to try the synthetic burger just to see what it was like.

As it turned out, synthetic burgers were not great. The saving grace were the condiments and seasonings that were used to deal with the near cardboard levels of taste. Most of the food seemed to be of a similar quality at the moment, with the people taking care of the place hoping to get better ingredients as the guilds got more resources for Bastion.

I was just walking out when I spotted Jolly walking toward the door to the apartment, and I jogged over, greeting him. “Figured I’d get us something practical but nice for the future, and as a little bit of a consolation for me killing you with a grenade. Sorry about that.” I said the last part a bit sheepishly while we walked inside, before letting him explore on his own.

“I like the space we’ve got. No offense, but hanging out in a storage shed like we do is kind of boring. This’ll be a nice place to log in and out of. No worrying about logging in to a raid or to the sound of machinery.” I leaned against the living room window while Jolly spoke, agreeing wholeheartedly with his assessment. “None taken. I know I’m going to enjoy having a place to fall back on if things go south. Speaking of which, I was thinking of going to see the information broker again. Might see if they’ve got anything else we can go after.”

Jolly waved me off at that. “AZTea and I talked about it and we’ve both been feeling a bit cooped up, even with the job we just pulled. We’re gonna take some time off to do some quests and explore a bit. We’ll join you for the big stuff, but for now we’re gonna take it easy. That mall stuff after hitting the warehouse was intense enough that we figured a break would be nice for a day or two.” He sat down on the couch with a sigh of relief, his bulk sinking into the padding slightly.

“So, how were the Bandit Lands? Did anything interesting happen while you were out there?” I held up a hand for him to wait and jogged to go get my new favorite weapon. When I came back out with the grenade launcher Jolly just shook his head, amused at my clear inclination toward explosives and the many forms they took. “Yeah, that shouldn’t surprise me with how many grenades we used last night, though I still think you're crazy.”

We chatted for a while longer, mostly talking about what we were going to be doing for the next few days. I’d forgotten to get the truck from the impound so that was going to be my next stop, and after that I’d see the information broker. Before Jolly and AZTea had logged off last night, they’d discovered a quest that he believed would take the two out into the Ruined Zone, and she was adamant that they follow it to completion.

I also made sure to toss Jolly his share of the money, around a thousand credits to help tide him over until I was sure how much I’d have to pay for information on the next big job. Jolly grinned at the credit stick before pocketing it, talking about getting a good set of armor he’d been eyeing at our local black market store behind the ramen shop. It supposedly had an extra set of ceramic plating to help deal with higher caliber weapons. I knew the armor he was talking about and I had to admit that having it would be nice, though I’d been doing just fine so far with everything I’d found or stolen.

We went our separate ways soon after, Jolly talking about claiming a room and me needing to get our truck back from the impound. I could almost feel my wallet crying out in agony.