Richard opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling of the “newbie’s barracks” as everyone called it. The room he would move from this morning, as he had now chosen his class. Once again, there was a whole ceremony to this that Richard played along with. His morning plans were to eat breakfast, then Marcus would show him around to his new bunk.

  Richard kept staring at the ceiling, surprised he had even woken up. He half expected Order to kill him in his sleep somehow. She definitely had that power. That he was still alive had to mean something. Even though he chose the class she didn’t want him to, perhaps she wasn’t so powerful as to strike him down with lightning right on the spot.

  He winced at the thought. He wasn’t sure what was at play right now, but he hated the fact that these higher beings were using him as a pawn. Richard chose the scavenger class because it made a lot more sense to him than the farmer class. Being a cook made the most sense if he wouldn’t be a scavenger, but after a night of tossing and turning, he came to peace with his decision. He still just wasn’t at peace with how Chaos and Order were treating him because of it. He didn’t like the feeling of constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t about to die. And he didn’t like the idea that Chaos wasn’t stopping this apocalypse himself. Richard had no idea why he needed to be responsible for that, and he wasn’t sure he enjoyed being given this powerful gift of chronomancy.

  Richard got out of bed, Fang still snoring softly next to him. He opened the door only to realize it wasn’t even dawn yet. Perhaps he was tossing and turning more than he thought. He didn’t like the idea of getting back into bed, so he went on a morning walk. Izzy and Timick were patrolling the wall, and Richard only waved when they waved first. He walked near the healers, his thoughts instantly going toward Leylah and all the people from Callro. It didn’t seem fair that they had such a hard time adjusting to another planet without even knowing why. He also hoped that she’d do well with her training, as they desperately needed more guards. She was so excited about becoming one.

  Honestly, they desperately needed more of everything. All the classes needed more people, and Richard realized that with his group’s classes done, they should expect another influx of people. Today, hopefully.

  The dawn light grew brighter as Richard kept walking, annoyed that he was lost in his thoughts. He was holding so many secrets. He was terrified of anyone finding out the true reason for them. Chaos painted a target on his back with this, and Richard needed to make sure no one could see it. Sometimes he really hated those higher beings. He didn’t actually need to listen to them, right?

  Richard clenched his jaw, doing his best to calm himself down. He went over the facts in his head. Order wanted him to be a farmer, with the specialized gift of cooking. He still had those two skill trees in his vision now. Chaos wanted him to do what he always felt he should—be a scavenger. And somehow also giving him a larger skill tree to compensate for the merging of both the class and the gift. He wondered what that would look like. Would he have more time-based scavenger abilities? Or was it scavenger class abilities and different time-based abilities, just in one skill tree instead of two?

  Richard pulled up his trees, ignoring his very first survivor one. The abilities in that tree were all filled in, and it was just a matter of working on them to level the abilities themselves up. Despite staring at the abilities during his tossing and turning last night, he pulled them up once again to look at them.

  Farmer Skill Tree

  Basic

  Fertilizer mixing (basic) (passive)

  (Makes fertilizer 10% more potent)

  Exhaustion Boost (basic) (passive)

  (10% effective against exhaustion)

  Water Sense (basic) (passive)

  (tell where clean water is, or needs to be with 10% accuracy)

  Order’s Gift Skill Tree

  Basic

  Food Instinct (basic) (passive)

  (Detect edible ingredients 10% of the time)

  Meal creation (basic) (passive)

  (Create meals that heals 10% of wounds and/or debuffs)

  Perfection (basic) (passive)

  (Meals are always made perfect 10% of the time)

  Chaos’s Gift Skill Tree

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  Basic

  Additional Inventory Slots (basic) (passive)

  (Adds (3) more inventory slots)

  Additional Loot (basic) (passive)

  (10% chance of getting loot)

  Resource/Monster Identifier (basic)(passive)

  (Shows health bar/accurately identify plants levels (5) or below)

  Richard kept looking at them in his vision. He had some points to spend on those abilities, but he was hesitant. Chaos’s warning rang in his head, that he should keep an ability point to himself for Chaos to spend. He didn’t know what that even meant, but Chaos made it sound like it was life or death. But could he really trust Chaos?

  Richard banished the thought from his head. Of course he couldn’t. No one could. But the fear was still there. Besides, Richard was planning on waiting for Marcus to show up to get his advice on what he should do. Only the first three abilities in each tree were unlocked. Richard didn’t know why he expected Chaos’s skill tree to have five, but that, too, followed the three basic rules. For the most part, Chaos’s gift looked exactly like someone would expect a scavenger to have. He was overwhelmed with all the choices to begin with. If he lived long enough, he could become one of the most powerful survivors in base two. It was just a matter of getting there. He didn’t think he would choose any of the options in the farmer skill class, but he couldn’t deny that exhaustion ability was super tempting. Water sense, too, had its uses. Granted, he thought of a lot more abilities he would get first, but maybe he shouldn’t discount the farmer class.

  He was a bit underwhelmed with Order’s skill tree. True, it was just the basic level right now, but they didn’t really speak to him that much. Detecting edible food? What kind of ability was that? Especially if he had chosen cook, he would always be in the base camp and not that far away from the silos. He could see that being useful if the base camp didn’t exist, and he was out in the wild, but unless something went really, really wrong, he felt like that would only be an ability he unlocked so he could unlock the advanced level of abilities for Order’s skill tree.

  Then again, maybe he just cursed himself with something to go wrong.

  Richard closed his eyes, then opened them again. He lost track of how many times he’d circled around base two.

  “There you are.”

  Richard turned to see Marcus fall in step with him. Richard stared ahead, trying to calm his thoughts.

  “Hi, Marcus.”

  “Nerves?” Marcus asked.

  “You could say that.”

  Marcus chuckled. “We’ve all been there.”

  “Do you have any advice on what abilities I should unlock first?” Richard asked.

  Marcus shrugged. “Whichever ones you want. You’re in a unique situation, since you and Leylah are a few levels ahead of everyone, but I’m sure you’ll still come back from the forest with another level. It’s not like you have a million options to choose from.”

  Richard tried to give an authentic chuckle. “Yeah.”

  “Let me guess. Loot, inventory, and levels?”

  It took Richard a moment to realize Marcus was talking about the scavengers’ abilities. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, those are my three basic ones.”

  Marcus nodded. “Let me know what you’ve chosen, because you’ve got to keep using it in order for it to level up. You’ll always use your looting and inventory slots as a scavenger, but we like to get them leveled up as fast as possible. You’ll be the first one to fill your inventory and the first to do looting until you’ve upgraded those abilities. It’s how we help each other out.”

  Richard glanced at his skill tree. He could technically choose all the basic abilities, but Chaos’s warning came back to him. Should he save one point just in case? It seemed like a good idea. The only problem was that Chaos was the one who suggested it.

  “Come on, let’s get you some breakfast. Also, scavengers are on dish duty for dinner, so stay after longer so we can all clean and dry them.”

  “Alright,” Richard said.

  This alone felt like he was finally, officially, part of base camp two. He wasn’t a newbie anymore.

  Richard followed Marcus through the line in the mess hall, taking a bowl of protein slurry from Kendra and a few picks of fruits and veggies from the tray. He then sat down next to Marcus and across from Savannah. Elias was nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m glad I’m not the newest one in the group anymore,” Savannah said.

  Richard made a noise that was somewhere between a chuckle and a dying animal. Savannah laughed.

  “I understand the feeling,” she said. “But you know, uh… it’s only been the paster, erm… three? Three months? That the apocalypse has taken a turn for the worse?”

  “Definitely in the last two,” Marcus said.

  “It’s kind of a pity you weren’t here during that time. Sure, we still had the random attacks and whatnot, but it could be downright lovely sometimes at night,” Savannah said.

  “When I first got here, some farmers learned to play instruments. We didn’t have to go on expeditions every day.” Marcus’s eyes almost glazed over. “Every so often we would have a big party with music and dancing.” Marcus picked up a spoon, swirling it in the protein slurry. “Maybe it’s better not to know what you’re missing.”

  “And you’ve been here six? Seven months?” Savannah asked.

  “Almost eight now, if you can believe it,” Marcus said.

  “I wonder what this place was like a few years ago.” Savannah glanced around at the many empty tables.

  “Dunno. Perhaps we, too, are better not knowing,” Marcus said.

  Richard said nothing, listening to the two of them talk about old times, like a few months before made that big of a difference. He tried to imagine what it was like to hear music in this dreary place. Even the thought made him nervous. They shouldn’t make any noise at all; it might alert the creatures.

  Richard noticed Fang and Amber joining the farmer’s table after they finished their breakfast duties. He felt a strange sort of forlornness as he saw them. They were now in different classes. Sure, they still had the same mission of protecting base two, but he had become friends with them both. He knew he’d still see them at mealtimes, but he was sad that they were going their separate ways now.

  He focused again on his skill tree. He had so many options, but then again, he was only interested in one ability in his farming tree. But he didn’t want to worry about that now. Instead, he mentally chose his loot ability and getting extra slots in his inventory. He was painfully aware that he could have chosen the final identifying leveler on his scavenger skill tree, but something stopped him. Perhaps this whole thing had shaken him, and he would wait. It was easier since he had three points to begin with. He would give it a week and reassess when he got to that point. Then again, judging from the previous week, he should consider just how long a week felt in an apocalypse.

  “Eat up, Richard. After this, Timick’s going to help you with your armor, then we have to go. The farmers need their fertilizer.”

  Richard tried to smile and took another bite of his slurry. Savannah and Marcus exchanged a glance, but Richard shook a spoon at them. “I’m not nervous. Just… anxious. To get going.”

  He was terribly nervous, of course, but it wasn’t what they were thinking. He wasn’t sure if he could ever tell anyone what had happened in the tent with Order and Chaos. Richard tried smiling again. “Can’t wait to get my armor.”

  Savannah and Marcus exchanged glances again as Richard bowed his head and worked on finishing his food. He wasn’t lying. He didn’t know it, but he’d been waiting almost two weeks for this.