The RV rolled down over the terrain, the roads growing smoother and smoother as we drove closer to town. I was busy reviewing reports from the factory, with Seren sitting next to me, their gaze intent on me, or at least on my shoulders. We sat in the living section and I was busy drinking a cup of coffee, one of our more recent additions to our stockpile of consumables. Gathering II was already showing its benefits, allowing for herbs to be transformed in the process of harvesting into a new, known, form of plant of the same general category. It seemed that coffee beans were close enough to mint under the system.

Well, that nearness was less a matter of the system and more a matter of the erg in the materials. Though the details remained unclear, a long discussion with the librarian as well as my own experiments had yielded some interesting revelations regarding the nature of perks and skills.

The last ten weeks had mostly been about study and some limited experiments. Even now, my erg levels weren’t back to normal. A quick glance at my status showed that my capacity was still stuck at 16, despite the work of repeated erg boosting meals and the continual cycling of energy through my body with the aid of the manual condenser. Still, it could have been much worse.

That I had reports to look over was the result of one of my last inventions before leaving. by combining the comms units, my Remote Access perk, and some truly arcane knowledge I had acquired before integration, I had been able to make a [Fax Machine]. The data used by the fax machines was propagated through the erg fields of the planet, making it more viable than older, wired, transmission systems. It wasn’t as good as a chat program, but that sort of instantaneous text-based conversation seemed beyond what we were capable of at the moment.

Still, the schema for the [Fax Machine] had been spread, and whenever anyone was planning for a long term expedition, it was easy enough to provide that team with one of the machines. The latest report had come from Artemis, who was still away from the factory with Jen. Apparently they had come across a group of refugees from Seattle, and according to them the situation in Seattle was declining rather rapidly. After finishing their current dungeon, Jen and Artemis would be escorting the refugees back to the factory. Seattle would almost certainly require some degree of intervention, but we weren’t ready for that yet.

The town had grown over the course of the last ten weeks, other refugees fleeing from the approach of the new second phase monsters, clearing out former safe spaces and sending people fleeing for whatever security that they could find. Ty’s short-range teleportation abilities allowed him to act as a scout and a first contact specialist, helping to bring more people to the ever-expanding walls of the factory-town. This also had delayed the process of my current plans, but at least things were largely settled down now. I had firmly requested that Seren remain behind, to help act as a bureaucratic glue for the growing community. They had just as firmly disagreed with my request.

They were right though. I looked over to them, and offered a smile, before flipping over to the next report. The combat threats awaiting for us were likely significant, but it was even more likely that the emotional dangers of reuniting with my peers or (worse) finding them dead would be a weight that I couldn’t handle alone. For the more violent threats, well, that’s what we had brought Brian along for.

Brian wasn’t that intimidating to look at, with a round face and large, youthful looking eyes, and a build that was on the skinny side of average. That said, he had a defensive path that he had honed over his time in service of Chad and later during the training sessions that the combat pathers had taken part in, not to mention the occasional rescue operation where he had proven instrumental in saving dozens of lives. Now, he could do more than just protect himself, he could also project shields over those he was in battle with, both to protect and to remove enemies from the battle. He was driving at the moment, having pulled this shift when we broke up the trip before leaving.

Everything was continuing to go smoothly back at the town, thankfully. The opening of the Pharmacy had greatly increased the quality of life of the refugees - allowing them to get back on their feet rapidly - and helped to heal up those who were still recovering from the trauma of what we were now calling the Time of Chad. In addition, while most disabilities no longer required medical treatment, the pharmacy provided whatever necessary for people to continue to become their most ideal selves. Plus, the nutrition supplements greatly increased training efficacy.

With the growth of the town’s borders, we also received a fresh boost to ore income, and the factory floor was almost entirely full of smelters to handle the incoming excess. Perhaps when I got home I’d re-order the structure of the floor, but for now, well, I turned my gaze up to look out the window, seeing landscape that was just familiar enough for me to realize that it was wrong. The forest had cleared out into rolling hills on the path towards the university that I had called home for so long. Yet, the details were slightly off, a hill’s angle dented here, a sunken pit there, small things that added up.

Four years into the program, and enough failed courses that I had at least two more to go. A flurry of relationships (platonic and otherwise) that had also seen more than my fair share of failures. Substance abuse. Insomnia. A thousand other flaws that had torn at my bearing over those seemingly short four years. My hand found Seren’s and I squeezed, my eyes shutting tight in a doomed effort to banish those concerns.

“Hey, you should get a look at this.” Brian’s voice came from the front of the RV and I scrambled between the seats to sit next to him up front.

Ahead, the campus loomed, larger in my chest than in my eyes, but again, the differences between the reality and the memory was clear, and that difference was enough to pull me directly into the present. “What the hell.”

The campus was in ruins, most of the buildings torn down into piles of rubble, only a handful remaining standing, with smoke billowing up from here and there. We were still too far away to see all of the details, but the side facing the highway had suffered massive damage. I remembered the campus being surrounded by a small forest to help keep the outside world at bay, but there was no sign of those trees, leaving everything exposed.

“I’ll take us in,” I said. “Get ready to shield us if needed.” Brian nodded and we switched seats. With my hands on the wheel, I felt my erg connect with the variety of machinery built in the vehicle. In addition to several next generation autorifles, I had installed several erg batteries, a mobile condenser, and some other combat equipment to help assure that we could hold our own, regardless of the circumstances.

Brian, of course, would also be a force multiplier. He had just recently hit level 43, not enough for his first parth evolution, but enough to assure that he had a lot of power to bring to bear. All of my path points since the fight with Chad had been sunk into utility perks, which would hopefully prove their value before too long but wouldn’t be much direct assistance in battle..

I turned off of the main street onto the campus proper and as I crossed that barrier, I felt an electric tingle over my body. The threshold felt significant in some way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, even as my stomach flipped in memory of previous returns to the campus, of coming back from whatever place would call me home to the familiar pathways and places.

The map that we had drawn up from Survey Chamber data showed three major clusters of people on campus. One was over in the dorms on the north side of campus, one was set in the main academic cafeteria pretty close to the center of campus, and the third was established in the labs clustered in the south-east. From the patterns of rubble blocking the roads through the campus, the cafeteria seemed the easiest location to arrive at, so I set my route correspondingly.

A large pile of rubble forced me to take a detour, but I knew that I’d be able to cut back relatively soon and arrive at the large commons set out behind the cafeteria, where students would often eat their meals when the weather was nice. Flashes of memory hit me with every moment, half-formed visions of my past melting back into themselves with every occurrence of a new thought, none ever resolving into solidity, but forming into a stormy slurry of recollection that gnawed at my innermost self.

My hands tightened on the wheel and I forced myself to remain present, despite the pressure of the past threatening to pull me down, to pull me into that unceasing current of my failures, of the harm that I had done to those around me, to the terrible things that I sought absolution from every day. I took a sharp turn around the library and the commons came into view.

The open green was set with buildings on three sides. On the south was the library, on the west was the cafeteria, and on the north was the English department’s main building. The road I drove in on was on the east side, leaving us somewhat exposed as we came into sight of the large group camped on the green.

Six ten-foot diameter sea urchins were lined up in two rows, one near the northern edge of the commons, one near the southern edge of the commons. In between, six figures sat upon their mounts, attention fully on the cafeteria. These giant lobster-mounts stood at ill-ease, their twelve-foot long bodies covered in a deep blue carapace and a layer of crystalline barnacles. Their pincers stood at the ready, practically vibrating at the desire to smash and break.

Flanking the riders were four vibrantly colored crustaceans. At first glance, they resembled lobsters but after a moment I realized that strange coloration and their elongated eye stalks meant that they were likely based on mantis shrimp, at least if I remembered that Oatmeal comic correctly. They were much smaller than the mounts, too, closer to the size of a large dog, and instead of pincers, their front legs were lifted up and fused into a cannon-like bore.

Most bizarre, though, were the riders. They were roughly humanoid in shape, but were covered in coral, with particularly dense patches forming into the shape of breastplate and morion. Their faces, though, their faces had an almost stone-like appearance. Upon closer inspection, I realized that they simply had an exo-skeletal mask, though one that had an armored appearance as well. Separate plates covered their cheeks, their upper jaws, their lower jaws, and there were even circular disks of bone over their eyes. Their teeth jutted from those jaw plates: a long line of razor sharp incisors on the bottom jaw and a pair of crushing fangs on their upper.

The six riders were arranged in a V, the point facing the cafeteria, and they hadn’t seemed to notice us yet. Indeed, their attention was fully on the cafeteria. Looking carefully in that direction as I slowly brought the RV to a stop, I saw people -humans- gathered inside of the building, looking out with expressions that were unreadable at this distance, but I could nevertheless feel a palpable terror washing over from the building.

The rider at the front of the V called out in a voice that was strangely human, but also raspier than I was expecting. “O, ye heathens who cluster and cower, who hide amongst the broken edifices of your peoples. O, ye weak ones who deny the power of The Tide Ashore. O, ye who seek mercy and absolution. Join with us, worship the True God Oceanus, and you shall know our glory.”

The rider lifted a hand and the cannon-shrimps scuttled forward. “Otherwise, face ye doom here and now!”