ShivSays

  How do you manage to screw up Spine and Flood? I’m genuinely asking. It’s not like a normal casino game like blackjack or poker or roulette where you need to carry around an excel spreadsheet with all the odds. It’s literally “wait until the marker hits Tier 4 and then bet on Rise.” That’s it. That’s all there is to it. It’s got to be the simplest gambling game in Frontiers. You could teach it to an ADHD-stricken child and they’d walk out of the casino having made a profit.

  RedRumRedRum

  I know, right? It’s one of the easiest grinds in the Holdfast. Whenever I play Frontiers and make it to the Under-MIZ, I immediately farm the game and walk away with enough credits to pay for whatever equipment I want.

  AnywayHeresWonderwall

  Zeke is the anti-Rain Man. He’s well adjusted, can fly on planes, doesn’t care about jeopardy, and sucks so hard at gambling that he faceplants the second he steps into a casino.

  SpicyShoyu

  Bro bet on a solved game and still lost. How is that even possible?

  BabyBloos

  If he didn’t play it wrong (and I’m not saying I believe that) then why didn’t he call out the mayor’s cheating?

  He straight up said that he caught the dealer cheating. He noticed him doing some sleight-of-hand stuff, and he didn’t say anything. He just sat there and smiled. So, why let the mayor cheat and allow himself to be made into a delivery boy? That’s what’s bothering me.

  Hambone

  What did you want him to do? You want him to stand up in the middle of the gambling hall and call out the dealer? He’s in the Holdfast, surrounded by guards and people who hate surface dwellers, and he’s next to the most politically connected guy in the entire city.

  Zeke already mentioned that he was nervous about getting disappeared when he was invited to dinner with the mayor. The Holdfast doesn’t like people who are just visiting. You think that if Zeke told everyone that the mayor was cheating he’d just get a refund and an apology? Hells nah. Dood would have been quietly vanished.

  Commode-oDragon

  Zeke is ignoring the advice of the forum and that’s going to get his character killed. He let emotions take over in the gambling hall, and that’s after reading the pdf that told him specifically not to do that.

  How else can you explain him losing so quickly? The next thing you know, he’s going to stop listening to the Primaries when they tell him what to do. And when it all goes wrong, he’s going to log back on and blame all of us.

  GravellyVoice1

  Yea, I don’t like that he’s not listening to us. Mushroom and 7 specifically told him to stay away from the Flooded Neighborhoods because they’re so dangerous, and now he’s headed out there. If you want to delve into the Under-MIZ (which I was iffy about in the first place) then just say you want to go there. Don’t contrive some scheme that gets you into the Flooded Neighborhoods.

  He’s probably trying to appeal to the more action-oriented readers, like Crush.

  CrimsonProphecy88

  Everyone needs to just calm down. It was obvious that Zeke was going to head to the Flooded Neighborhoods. His loss in the gambling hall was entirely scripted. It’s a narrative setup. He’s clearly positioning himself to drop some hidden lore from that region, and the loss at the tables gives him a reason to go out there without looking reckless.

  The fact is that you don’t accidentally bungle Spine and Flood unless you’re steering the story somewhere. He’s going to be dropping lore in his next update. Just you watch.

  VeneratedWitchHunter

  Holy hell…what lore?!? Seriously, what hidden lore do you think he’s going to be dropping?

  Zeke uncovered ONE confirmed secret that everyone missed: the House of Seasons. That’s it. Just one. Singular. Everything else is just speculation and people filling the gap because they want this fic to be more than it actually is. It’s all a bunch of copium.

  I’m not saying that the House of Seasons wasn’t legit. It absolutely was. And he’s clearly a fan of the series because he pulled cut content from Shards and gave it to his character. That’s cool and all and it earns him some credit with me.

  But can we all stop pretending that he’s some kind of oracle uncovering layers of hidden secrets? He’s not writing a dev diary and he’s not someone who used to work for Severance Systems giving us hints about all the content we all missed. He read some obscure wiki pages, got lucky with a SINGLE hidden secret, and then parlayed it all into a self-insert fanfic that grew popular.

  Good for him. I mean it. But the constant talk about “he’s losing on purpose,” and “he’s got a master plan,” and ‘it’s so obvious that Corva is a murderer, how could we be so blind?” is getting exhausting.

  Sometimes people make bad calls. Sometimes they gamble badly. Sometimes they write plot holes in their carefully crafted story, or they try to move the story along but can’t quite manage to make it flow smoothly. That’s all this is.

  10161066

  And sometimes people should listen when three Primaries tell them not to head into the Flooded Neighborhoods because they’ll get gutted like a trout.

  Saltmines

  Either Zeke is playing the game wrong, or he wanted an excuse to do something stupid. We’re not going to know which until he updates more. So how about we all stop arguing about it until we get more info?

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Okay, I’m trying not to curse anyone out because I don’t want Grave banning me for another two days. Let me just say this:

  I read the entire Spine and Flood pdf. Someone earlier in the forum complained about me not wanting to read 93 pages about magic, or all the books that you guys sent my way, or whatever else you suggested I read. And there’s a reason for that. It’s all written in an academic style and it’s chock full of acronyms that you all never explain. I don’t want to read a doctoral thesis about random shit when I can have you all explain it to me much clearer.

  But I did read the pdf. I didn’t skim it or glance at it or think about reading it. I read it. The whole thing. Cover to cover. And then I followed the instructions exactly. I didn’t bet early and I didn’t chase losses and I didn’t let emotion drive me at the table. I waited until the marker hit Tier 4 and then I bet. I did everything that I was told to do.

  How am I supposed to win a game that’s rigged? How do I beat a dealer who’s got their finger on the scale? And more than that, if there was a chance that I could be cheated out of my money, why the hell didn’t any of you let me know? Why did you all push me to play the game? Why wasn’t I warned that the dealer had a sticky hand and the mayor wouldn’t play fair?

  DuellodelaRiga

  Because you can’t cheat at Spine and Flood in Frontiers. That’s the problem with your last update. You added something that doesn’t exist in the game.

  KnuckleStarter

  ^ Duello

  Spine and Flood is a math problem. It doesn’t allow for dealer manipulation. Tokens are returned to the basin every round and there’s no weighted draw mechanic. There’s simply no way to cheat in the game.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  I know what I saw, and I saw the dude messing with the tokens.

  Allergic2Stupid

  There could be a simple answer to all this. Zeke is claiming that he’s been isekai’d to a REAL world. This forum is assuming that the real world is running off the same logic as the game. Which…that’s shaky ground at best.

  In the real world, it’s entirely possible for a dealer to manipulate a table game in a casino. That means we’ve all collectively dropped the ball in having Zeke go all in on the Spine and Flood.

  ShivSays

  It’s not shaky ground. It’s literally the premise of his entire story. If the rules of the game don’t apply to his world, then none of the advice that we give him matters and it’s all pointless. You can’t selectively decide when the world is real and when it runs off videogame logic.

  Liminal_Archivist

  There are games where cheating exists and it’s a valid strategy. Did any of you play Red Dead Redemption?

  It’s got a poker minigame in it and, if I can remember correctly, you could pocket cards or peek at hands or something. The game let you cheat at cards, and if you got caught then it would trigger a gunfight.

  It wasn’t the best way to play, but it was a legitimate strategy. So the idea that cheating doesn’t exist in games isn’t entirely true.

  SpicyShoyu

  Why the hell are you bringing up Red Dead? That’s not a Fracture-verse game. And cheating at cards was explicitly a game mechanic. It was something that players could do. Frontiers didn’t have that. You couldn’t cheat at Spine and Flood.

  There’s a huge difference between a game allowing the players to cheat, and NPCs secretly cheating without the system acknowledging it. Frontiers doesn’t do either.

  8a8yaga

  You know…that’s a good idea. I might add a cheating mod to the Zeke-runs. Oo, it could even check whether the NPC dealer or someone around them has a social or persuasion talent. That would make the world feel so much more real.

  StoryLeech

  Setting aside Zeke’s horrible gambling skills, there’s another issue here that no one is really addressing: there is no mayor of the Holdfast. At least, he doesn’t exist in Frontiers or Syndicate’s.

  There are a bunch of named NPCs in the Holdfast, but they’re all quest givers, faction reps, and vendors. None of them are labeled as the mayor, and none of them hang around the Spine and Flood board in the gambling hall.

  RedRumRedRum

  Yea, okay, but it’s obvious that Zeke created Omar Nadir for the fic. So what? Daryl, Jared, and Milicent are also wholly made-up. Are we really going to say that this is the line where we suddenly demand lore obedience from Zeke?

  Or are you just saying that Zeke invented a character and is now mad that his character isn’t following game rules?

  VeneratedWitchHunter

  I think Story is just trying to get ahead of Zeke’s complaints. This is a fanfic. Zeke added a mayor to the city, and he added cheating and stakes to the Spine and Flood game and none of that exists in Frontiers. Story is saying that Zeke can’t do all that and then turn around and complain that we didn’t warn him.

  Warn you about what? Your own additions? Zeke, you can’t have one foot in the “this is real world” and the other in “everyone give me info and canon” and then complain. Pick a lane.

  MushroomCleric

  Man Zeke…that’s rough. Getting cheated and then getting strong-armed into a Flooded Neighborhoods run is pretty much the worst-case scenario of you betting in the gambling hall.

  How’s the rest of the team taking it? You guys were getting some momentum and pulling decent loot, and now you’re headed into one of the nastier parts of the Under-MIZ without a payout.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Yea…they’re not thrilled. They’re especially not happy with this because I got hustled into taking the job. When I told them that the dealer cheated, they all just looked at me like I’m a moron. It was very much a “of course he cheated. You put working for the mayor on the line,” kind of look.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Jared didn’t say anything. He just gave me a look that told me he was disappointed in me. Daryl shrugged and that was it. And Milicent straight up told me that “you should never have made the bet in the first place. You definitely shouldn’t have been betting against the mayor.”

  That said, we’re not totally doing this for nothing. The mayor did say that if we deliver the supplies we get the map. It’ll point us straight to the Fossilized Factory Belt instead of us just wandering around down here burning time and resources.

  So yea, it’s a bad deal but it’s not absolutely horrible. They’re pissed, but not mutinous. Right now we’re just lounging around. The mayor’s guards took us to this factory where all the supplies are being held, and we’re waiting for everything to be checked in and for the guards to show up, and then we’ll head out. I don’t know if I’ll be able to update you for a while.

  AshCanDan

  Ahhh, there it is. Zeke is going to slow down his updates while he writes out what happens in the Flooded Neighborhoods.

  I’m calling it now. Either one of his crew gets ganked and dies in his arms, and then he follows that up with three updates where he mopes about it and talks about how dangerous the Under-MIZ is.

  OR

  His crew realizes that they’re working for free, gets pissed, and decides that Zeke owes them a lot more than what he’s paying.

  RedRumRedRum

  I’m low-key worried about that too. If I were on his team and kept hearing “trust me, there’s probably a hidden cache here,” I’d start wondering where Zeke was getting his info. He’s always fiddling with his Tech Slate, and so that would be my first guess.

  I’d be thinking that he’s got a bunch of sites written down on that thing. At some point, someone’s going to ask “if we get that slate, what do we even need Zeke for?”

  Commode-oDragon

  Victim of his own success. Mushroom and 7 keep nudging him to hidden stashes and secret locations, he keeps finding loot, and now that’s the baseline expectation. Every run is supposed to pay off, and when it doesn’t it’ll breed resentment.

  Byte-Sized

  I don’t know. When Zeke was first talking about going into the Under-MIZ, I was worried about the kind of people that he’d be able to hire. He’s not exactly drowning in credits, which means he couldn’t really buy loyalty.

  But so far, his crew has been surprisingly solid. Milicent is definitely the wildcard. Back when they were at the Anchor Guild and she was pressing him over his background, I got the feeling that she was deciding whether killing him would get her what she wanted. But I don’t think anyone is going to screw him over yet.

  RidiculouslyAverageGuy

  I see two possible issues here. The first is if the crew gets greedy and tries to take his tablet or something to find more locations. The second, possibly worse, is if they start trusting him implicitly to know what he’s doing and then the metaknowledge fails.

  Jpvo99

  I’m betting Zeke is gonna get kidnapped by one of those three.

  Energy

  I bet he gets kidnapped by all three and escapes while they all fight over him.

  RidiculouslyAverageGuy

  I raise your bet that it happens during the Reclaimer part of the expedition and he survives by the skin of his teeth while they get schlorped by the giant magitech carp.

  DataDatum

  | and then the metaknowledge fails. |

  We literally just saw that with the Spine and Flood. Now imagine it happens somewhere actually lethal. Bye bye Jared and Daryl. They’d be the first ones killed. Then Zeke would post about it and complain to the forum and spiral. He’d probably use it as an excuse to not post for a week. And that week-long vacation would suspiciously line up with planning for the next arc.

  Ooo. You think he’s tired? He has been updating pretty regularly. I’d be willing to give him a week’s-long break.

  SignalLoss

  If anyone is going to betray him, it’ll be Milicent. Jared and Daryl just want to get paid, and with Patch looming in the background, they’re going to stay honest. But Milicent has a whole family backing her. And the glyph info that Zeke is dangling has got to be worth soooo many credits. It’s probably worth enough to risk Patch’s anger.

  Peanuckle

  That’s true. It’s essentially a semi-complete codex of information that probably doesn’t exist in-setting, due to the disparate places involved. It’s basically a worldwide effort spanning years of investigation, and he’s got it all right there.

  K1LLPR1EST

  Zeke said it himself when he explained that the knowledge in that book is built on people kamikaze’ing their characters to test theories about glyph magic. Can you imagine how many character deaths went into that thing? That makes the book incredibly valuable. You can’t get that much info without killing a ton of people.

  Some_guy_161

  I guarantee that at some point, either Milicent or another experienced Glyphwright will read it and cotton on to just how exactly the insights in the book would’ve been made. Considering how dozens of monsters, merc NPCs, and players died figuring out every aspect of Glyphs, those future readers will realize that every word of this manual is metaphorically dripping with blood.

  Josh183rd

  I’m more worried about what happens after Milicent gets it.

  I love the idea of just giving the magical equivalent of nuclear launch codes dipped in the blood of innocents to some random. This can not back fire whatsoever.

  LuckyKP

  You’re all insane. Zeke tells us he’s just a weak, lost bartender from New York, but Milicent sees him as a mysterious stranger with pull and connections and strange knowledge.

  MoronicMnemonic

  Someone is eventually going to call him on his stories. Zeke can’t bluff forever. He can’t keep lying his way to safety. His Persona skill isn’t that good.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  What the shit?! Nobody is getting kidnapped. None of the people I hired have shown any interest in stabbing in me the back. Patch is looking out for me, and Milicent thinks that the glyph book is still with him. She’s not going to do anything that jeopardizes her getting access to it.

  JimothyTheBarber

  Oh Zeke, don’t you understand the power of narrative structure? The moment you said “nobody is getting kidnapped,” you basically ensured that there’s going to be a future kidnapping. That’s just how stories work.

  Also, and I cannot stress this enough, it’s very good that you’re not dumb enough to keep that glyph pdf on your Tech Slate. Because if you had, all Milicent would need to do is steal your slate and she’d be set for life. Right, Zeke? You don’t have that pdf on your Tech Slate, just sitting there for anyone to steal. Right?

  BooksReader

  I hope no one ties him down, pinning his hand to a tablet, just to use the forum.

  StoryLeech

  | just to use the forum. |

  Oh. Oh no. Oh shit. I didn’t think about that angle. Zeke…did you ever show Patch or Cole your Tech Slate in detail? I know you did a presentation to them, but did they see the forum or anything? Because if they realize that you have access to something that can basically answer any technical or historical question…yea, they’d kill you instantly. I mean, if they knew that you wouldn’t make it a day without a knife in your back.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  No. They know that I’ve got the Tech Slate and that’s it. I’ve been telling everyone that I’m using it to take notes and track supplies. Nobody has seen the forum and nobody has watched me login and nobody knows that it can do anything beyond what a normal tablet could do. I’m not an idiot.

  HandsWithoutArms

  What about the times you didn’t log into the forum through the Tech Slate. You used the computer in the Glens and a computer in the Library of Reclaimed Thought. Did you wipe your login credentials afterward, or did you just walk away?

  7Spirals

  Holy shit Story…good catch. Zeke, speaking as one your primaries here, this is important. When you’re finished with the Under-MIZ you need to head back to the library and wipe your login credentials from whatever terminal you used there.

  ShivSays

  I’d just like to remind everyone that a while back, Zeke said he was never heading back to the Glens. And I pointed out that that meant he was obviously going to head back to the Glens.

  I just want it on record that I was right.

  Zeke, you’re going to have to go back to the Glens and wipe your login info from the computer there too. If the Eaters ever got access to that computer and if they find this forum…holy hell. Do you really want them reading all this? Every exploit, every argument, and every theory that has ever been posted on here?

  EnidCheated

  New horror unlocked: the Eaters scrolling through years of shitposts, tier lists, and arguments about who the best Fracture waifu is.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Okay everyone, take a deep breath. When I’m finished here I’ll visit the Library in The MIZ and wipe out my login credentials and everything. But I’m telling you right now that I’m not going back to the Glens. I’m done with that place.

  Also, nobody had used that library in ages. The whole place was coated in a layer of dust. The computers hadn’t been booted up. And the only time anyone was in the Glens, they were just walking around all weird and shit, and sacrificing their eyeballs to the church there.

  I’m going to be out of touch for a while. The mayor finally got everything moving and there’s a guy here who is ordering me to pick up all the supplies. The guards have finally all gathered, my team is ready, and we’re going to be setting out for the village in a bit. I’ll let you know what happened later.

  TVEye

  I feel like Zeke isn’t taking the idea of the forum falling into the wrong hands seriously enough. But you know what, when he gets kidnapped by the Eaters, we all get to say “I told you so.”

  MushroomCleric

  Arguing whether Zeke is going to get kidnapped or betrayed isn’t helping him right now. He’s hauling goods through the Flooded Neighborhoods and the best thing we can do is provide him with some info on what’s out there.

  CrushDaddyXx (Primary)

  You’re looking at this all the wrong way Mushroom.

  Hey Zeke, we’re all going to compile a hit list for you. If you manage to kill everything on the list, I’ll do something incredibly special for you. I don’t know what, but you’ll get an IOU from me. Anything you want that’s within my power to give.

  Take it away Mushroom. Let’s see that list.

  MushroomCleric

  Gee…thanks

  Okay Zeke, if you’re moving through the Flooded Neighborhoods there are three things that you need to be aware of. Let’s start with the Deca-Mire, also called the Ten-Eyed MIrelurker.

  Picture a swamp octopus, and then add a whole bunch of horror-inducing nightmares to it. Most of its body stays just under the surface of the water, flattened into the mud. If you’re lucky, you’ll notice that it’s there when you see its eyes. There are ten of them and they’re all asymmetrical, which means they don’t blink together and they all track movement independently. Seriously, this thing is one of the creepiest looking creatures in the Flooded Neighborhoods. It's got these tentacles that are long, pale limbs that end in bladed, hook-like grips that latch onto victims. Once a tentacle gets hold of you, it starts ripping and grabbing you and forcing you deeper into the swamp.

  Fun fact: Deca-Mires might not be purely carnivorous. If you head up to the Library in The MIZ, you can find old dissection reports that talk about a bunch of mineral buildup in their beaks. I’m talking about rust and rebar and scrap. Deca-Mires eat everything in the Flooded Neighborhood.

  Second up is the Udinnik. It’s hard to picture unless you’ve seen one, and you definitely don’t want to see one. It’s basically like a gorilla, but even weirder. It’s got five limbs total; four thick, powerful legs and one grotesquely overdeveloped forelimb that works like a hybrid club, shield, and grappling arm. They stay low to the ground and they charge at anything they think they can kill.

  Their skulls are dense too. Hitting the head doesn’t really do much. And their mouths are these massive things with alligator teeth that are designed to shear and tear. When they latch onto you, they’ll shake you to death and tear away your skin and bones. The good thing is that they aren’t fast over long distances, but they are terrifying in short bursts. They’ll charge you, stop to listen, and then charge again.

  There’s an old diary that you can find in the Flooded Neighborhoods that talks about how Udinnik can vocalize through the water. It’s something like a low-frequency pulse that travels through flooded structures…kind of like sonar. In short, they can track you through the environment.

  The good news is that if you’re traveling with a bunch of guards from the Holdfast, that should scare them off. They’re cautious and they’ve learned what large groups of soldiers can do. But if the guards get complacent, or you’re forced to split up because of the terrain, then the Udinnik will attack.

  The third and final creature - and my own personal nightmare - are Gravetide Skitters. They’re insect carrion-creatures that are bloated and with wings. Individually, they’re nothing special. They mainly just hang around corpses of creatures and fallen adventurers and they’ll lay their corpses in the bodies. It’s when they find something alive that they’re most dangerous.

  They’ll swarm you and blanket you and then vomit clusters of larvae directly onto your skin. The larvae will then burrow into your body and you’re overcome with shock and infection. Think of them like insect piranha that vomit-attack you. They’re terrifying.

  Bright light discourages them. Fire works too. If you find a corpse that looks boated and wrong, don’t touch it. Just run the other way.

  CrushDaddyXx (Primary)

  Don’t walk away Zeke. KILL IT. KILL IT WITH FIRE!

  ***

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Well…shit. Thanks, Mushroom. I appreciate you handing me enough nightmare fuel to last the rest of my life. Ten-eyed swamp octopus, sonar gorilla, and vomiting corpse beetles. Fantastic.

  But nothing happened. We made it to the village without incident. I didn’t see a Deca-Mire or an Udinnik or a skitter thing. The water didn’t do anything creepy. The guard escort was massive, and whatever is out there in the Flooded Neighborhoods either stayed hidden or it decided that we weren’t worth the trouble.

  The supplies have been delivered and we’re bedding down for the night. We’ll head back tomorrow.

  CrushDaddyXx (Primary)

  What the shit Zeke. You can’t just blue ball us like that. Tell us what happened!

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Nothing happened. At least, nothing that I could see.

  I was with my team and told to haul a bunch of equipment. We were guided to this warehouse where there were crates of equipment and medical supplies and machine parts. Every item was catalogued by a clerk with a Tech Slate, and when they were finished it all disappeared into my dimensional storage.

  Then I was surrounded by guards. There had to have been at least twenty of them. They had rifles and some of them carried flamethrowers and others were decked out in so many blades. I was placed dead-center with my team flanking me and the guards forming a loose moving wall around us.

  We left the Holdfast and I was told where to go. The guards had their own scouts leading the way, so all I did was walk where I was told. Whenever something moved - which I didn’t see because I was hemmed in by a bunch of people with guns - all the guards reacted instantly. They fired into the swamps and something would scream and then keel over.

  The escort never slowed down and it never investigated the corpses or check for loot. All they did was identify a threat, erase it, and then continue on. If there were Deca-Mires watching us, they stayed hidden. If the Udinnik were following us, they never came near. And if those vomit things were around, they were deleted by the guards carrying flamethrowers.

  The whole trip was boring as hell. Which was fine by me, honestly. All I did was walk and occasionally flinch when the guards opened fire. Persona kept me leveled and my team stayed close. Jared murmured under his breath and Daryl did keep a lookout, but we didn’t really have anything to do.

  After about three hours of steady movement, the village came into view. It wasn’t much. It was just a bunch of raised platforms that kept everything out of the dirt and muck. There were a few people there, but that was it. When we crossed the perimeter and entered the village properly, all the guards took up positions around us and the expedition leader finally introduced himself.

  “Marcus Jackson,” he greeted. “You can drop the equipment here. We’ll stay the night and move on at first light.”

  So I did exactly that. I started unloading the supplies while one of his people, a thin, weedy looking guy with a tech slate, materialized at my side. He checked everything against the manifest as it came out of storage. And shockingly, everything matched. I’m not stupid enough to try and steal supplies when I’m surrounded by guards who can casually stroll through sections of the Under-MIZ that you all treat as a death sentence.

  Once all that work was done, my team and I grabbed spots near one of the communal fires. It was a burn barrel with some scavenged chairs, and we were given some rations for dinner. The village was quiet and we all got to work heating up our dinner.

  Marcus eventually wandered over and we talked for a bit. It was small stuff at first. We talked about the Flooded Neighborhoods and the Holdfast and his job. Eventually, he asked why I took this gig and I told him the truth.

  “I lost a bet with the mayor.”

  He stared at me like I was an idiot, the same as the rest of my team.

  “What the hell made you think gambling against the mayor was a good idea?” he asked. “The man doesn’t lose.”

  I snorted. “Yea. Well. I needed a map and he had one.”

  That at least got him to nod. “Fair. He’s got a lot of stuff tucked away for rainy days.” Then he hesitated and glanced around before lowering his voice. “But going up against someone with a high-ranking social skill? That’s just looking for trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know the exact rank he’s got it up to. But it’s high. Eight or nine, at least. And I’m not even sure what the skill is. All I know is that it smooths things around him. I makes people more…amenible to his requests. From what I’ve seen, it almost makes the outcomes feel inevitable. And it makes him right, all the time.”

  That sounded like a weird skill and I filed it away, already planning to ask you all what kind of skill could do something like that. Then Marcus sighed and kept going.

  “We grew up together, you know. He wasn’t always the mayor. And he wasn’t always…like how he is. When the skill leveled, he changed. Then it leveled again, and again. And somewhere along the way, he changed.”

  “Changed how?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer right away. He just stared into the fire. “I don’t know. He’s still my friend. But sometimes I wonder if the guy I grew up with is still in there, or if he’s gone, or if he’s something else now.”

  He seemed to realize that he’d said too much and he looked around, embarrassed. Then he cleared his throat and glanced over at me like he’d forgotten that we’re basically strangers. I had absolutely no idea what to say to that. Thankfully, Milicent jumped in before I had to stumble my way through an awkward conversation.

  “That tracks,” she said. “I’ve heard that high-tier social skills reshape priorities and reinforce behaviors. They’re often said to evolve people. It’s one of the reasons a lot of folks avoid pushing social skills too far.”

  That kind of killed the conversation. Marcus nodded and then muttered something about an early morning before heading off. My team split up to go and grab some beds, and I was left staring into the fire with that word bouncing around in my head.

  Evolve.

  Milicent said that it evolves people. So…what was Marcus talking about? What’s happening to the mayor? He’s evolving?

  SignalLoss

  This was a whole big argument on the forum a long time ago. There was a discussion about whether skills - especially social ones - could fundamentally change a person at higher levels.

  One camp said that it was inevitable and that skills affected how the world responded to you, so it would naturally feed back into your psychology. The other camp said it was all nonsense and that a charisma skill wouldn’t “evolve” you. It would just amplify who you already are.

  Needless to say, the argument never really ended and you’ll still find lore threads arguing one way or another.

  SomeOneElse007

  I do agree that charisma skills mess with one’s head. Generally in a beneficial way, but it is easy to see a scenario where a skill could give someone confidence they shouldn’t have, or encourage lines of thinking they otherwise may not have considered.

  Z3ke (Original Poster)

  Wait…you’re saying my Persona skill might be changing me? What the shit? Why wouldn’t you say something earlier? WHAT THE SHIT!