There were definitely things moving around nearby. Peter hear a roar from somewhere on the other side of the ruins, so he loped across the street to get as far away from whatever it was as he could.

Which almost resulted in him crashing into another party of Raiders. He came up behind them from around a corner, and only just managed to leap back again before he walked right into their backs. He clutched the concrete of the building, holding his breath and waiting for a shout, but nothing came.

Friends of the two we just killed, I guess.

It seemed like his ghoul feet could move pretty quietly, so that was one thing in his favor.

It was nearly full night now, and he moved from one dark spot to another, keeping himself as hidden as he could and stopping to listen every few steps. It was exhausting work.

Twice he crossed the street to avoid a cluster of Snap Vines. They were Nexus plants, aliens essentially - carnivorous vines that trapped small animals. Or unwary noobs, for that matter. Peter didn’t trust that he was healthy enough to even tangle with a mean-spirited plant, so he gave them a wide berth.

As he moved past the second one there was a high-pitched squeak, and something small and fuzzy sped across the street in front of him, while a dark green vine made a feeble swipe at it.

Furby!

They were rare, but you did see them now and then - squeaky little nocturnal Nexus beasties, about four inches across. They were true neutral mobs - they didn’t have any obvious use as food or crafting materials, and they were cute, so people would catch them for fun. They couldn’t be domesticated, and would eventually manage to find their way outside and disappear into the night. He watched it vanish into a crack in a concrete wall.

He kept moving down the ruined streets towards the cluster of tall towers that Shrieker had pointed at. That was his one solid piece of information so far. There was another player over there. It sounded like she was experienced. All he needed to do was make nice with her and see if he could get some answers. And maybe even join up. He didn’t really need to be leader of some crappy ghoul clan, not for now at least.

Hopefully she was more mentally together than John had been.

He was still healing, but slowly.

Health: 37%

Listening for anything that might be a threat, he really missed his hearing buff. Thousand Yard Ear had given him the ability to pick out ghoul breath and chatter from outside of ruins, or the scraping rasp of a Biomorph dragging itself along the ground two blocks away.

But when the sound came, he didn’t need it.

It was a hissing growl. He’d heard it often enough as a regular player..

Barongs. Mutant Lions. Lore was they were radiated zoo escapees, though it didn’t really make a lot of sense. In real life any zoo animals that survived a nuke would probably have died of radiation poisoning or cancer if they even got out of their cages.

But here, they had turned into oversize predators that roamed in packs through the ruins. He’d seen dismembered ghoul corpses often enough to not have any doubt about what would happen if they found him.

One level 3 Raider at full health would have been too much for him. These things? Forget about it.

He padded quietly along, watching the road for bits of glass or anything else that might make a noise.

I need a hiding spot.

There was another growl. It was closer. He had a feeling it was right around the corner that was coming up.

He looked around desperately. The low building beside him was mostly intact, and a ragged hole in the wall led into a dark space beyond.

I don’t like the look of that one tiny bit. On the other hand I don’t think I have a choice.

He crept over to it as silently as he was able.

Health 40%

He ducked his head inside and still couldn’t see much. But there was a sound like claws scrabbling on pavement nearby, so he swung around inside and waited for his vision to adapt.

Which happened almost right away. Apparently ghoul eyesight was a bit better than player default. At least they had a few class bonuses.

It still wasn’t great, but there was a stairway leading up nearby. He wanted to put some distance between himself and that opening to the street. The main floor looked like a jumble of wreckage anyway.

He started creeping up the stairs on all fours.

Holy shit I’m doing the creep! This is a standard ghoul maneuver!

He could see why. He could move along like that very, very quietly.

He heard something big move in the room below. There was a sniffing sound. The thing definitely had his scent.

He decided to keep moving anyway. There was no point in just waiting for a big paw to drag him back down the stairs.

He reached the landing. There was a door there. He reached up, ever so slowly, and turned the knob.

It opened.

I’ve never been so happy to find a wooden door.

He started to creep into the room beyond as quickly as he could. The only thing on his mind was shutting that door again. Maybe even locking it.

But instead he froze solid as someone grabbed his shoulder with one hand and held a knife against his neck with the other.

“Kill him!” a voice hissed.

“Sshh!” whispered the voice with the knife.

“There’s a Barong downstairs,” Peter said quietly. “Maybe more than one.”

“We know. Stupid Raider open door!” whispered another voice.

“Can we close the door? I promise to be good.”

“He make noise if you kill him,” said the first voice.

The knife-wielder seemed to come to a decision.

“Get in,” it whispered. “Stay quiet, maybe we not kill you.”

Peter wasn’t sure he believed that, but he slithered into the room and someone quietly closed the door behind him.

It was pitch black in there. But after a few moments his ghoul eyes adapted even to that.

Credit where it’s due, ghouls have amazing night vision.

The room was a dim grey outline, but he could definitely make out three ghouls staring back at him. One of them held a knife at the ready.

There was a crunching sound on the stairs outside. Something heavy was on them.

“Barong smell stupid Raider,” Knife Ghoul whispered.

“I’m not a Raider,” Peter said as quietly as he could. “I’m just wearing their armor. Look at me…”

“Sssshh!”

There was another crunching sound, much closer to the door.

He wondered if a thin wooden door would hold up against a Barong’s claws. The things were like four hundred pounds. He doubted it.

Something pawed at the door. He heard claws scraping down the wood just inches from him. Then there was a chuffing sound, and the door shook as something smashed against it.

He looked at the ghouls. He was hoping they had enough experience with this kind of thing to know what to do. But they just stared at the door, looking terrified.

He looked around the room, searching for anything that might give them an advantage.

All he could see was another hole in the wall opposite the door. He started creeping towards it and Knife Ghoul growled and looked like he was getting ready to stab at Peter.

Peter held up his hand. Then pointed to the hole in the wall.

Knife Ghoul looked at the hole, then stared at Peter blankly.

He kept moving and looked out of the hole. He could see the junk and wreckage strewn around on the ground floor. The gap in the wall went all the way down.

Then the door shuddered again as whatever was on the other side smashed against it.

Peter looked around for something, anything he could use, but the room was empty.

He pulled out the bent piece of rebar that Shrieker had given him.

I hate to lose such a noble weapon, but…

He dropped it through the hole, and it clanged loudly against the floor below, then hit something made of glass, which shattered with a crash.

All three ghouls jerked with fear, but there was a snarl from outside the door, and a thumping boom as the creature pounded down the stairs and into the room below. Peter got a glimpse of a fur coat briefly as it sped past his field of view, and started to tear the ground floor apart looking for its prey.

That thing is huge!

He gestured to the three ghouls to stay calm. They all stared at him suspiciously, but none of them moved.

A status update rolled past.

Passive Skill Concealment +1 Now Level 4

Being sneaky continues to pay benefits. You’re getting sneakier. Mom would be proud.

REPUTATION HORDE REPUTATION +35% Now -15%; Suspicious

He motioned at them to stay still, but that was probably not necessary. They still looked mostly petrified.

Knife Ghoul was scrawny and haggard, but his eyes were alert and fixed on Peter. The HUD showed him as a Level 2.

Number two ghoul was much shorter, and might have been a female. Like every ghoul it had scraggly, patchy hair. But this one had longer, almost shoulder-length scraggly hair. She was a Level 1.

Barbie Ghoul.

Number three was the biggest and was literally staring at Peter with its mouth open, breathing slowly in and out through cracked lips. He was another Level 2.

Dumbo Ghoul, then.

It seemed important to at least have names for the people - or things - that were his new companions. For a little while, anyway.

The creature below wasn’t giving up easily. They could hear it pawing through the floor below, searching for its prey.

Peter wriggled around to make himself comfortable. It might eventually decide to come back upstairs, and there wasn’t a damn thing any of them could do about it if so. They had KG’s knife, but they’d lost the Bent Rebar Of Victory. Of course Peter still had the Raider’s knife in one pocket but he wanted to keep that a secret just in case it suddenly became important that he have a surprise for the three of them. In any case, if the mob decided to have another try at the door they were probably all screwed. Barbie Ghoul was obviously the lightest, so she’d probably be the one he could pick up and throw at the creature while he tried to escape.

Sorry, Barbie.

None of them were going anywhere for now, anyway.

This was probably a sensible time to upgrade his stats, just in case they were about to come in handy. None of the ghouls seemed to take any notice of it when he started flicking through his interface.

He brought up his stats.

Common Horde Level 2 (30/90) Name _ Primary Stats Strength 2 Vitality 1 Constitution 1 Dexterity 1 Perception 1 Intelligence 1 Willpower 1 Social 0 Luck 1 Base Skills Bare Knuckles 1 One-Handed (melee) 3 Two-Handed (melee) 1 Concealment 4 Acquired Skills Poison Resistance 10% Reduced DOT (Tier 5) T-Tech Accessibility 10

Just a nameless common ghoul, woe is me.

It wasn’t an impressive set of stats, and he only had two points to allocate. He barely qualified as a threat from a combat standpoint, though at least he had substantially better defense than your average cannon fodder ghoul, thanks to the Raider gear. The Transcendent Tech ability was a nice surprise too, not that it was likely to come in handy anytime soon. Being stronger would be good. Maybe immediately useful if he needed to claw his way past his new friends to get away from the big cat.

The problem was that he didn’t know what the skill tree for ghouls looked like. It was hard to plan intelligently in total darkness about what the effects of his choices were going to be. He flicked through to the Help menu, hoping there was something useful there.

Nope. It was a blank screen.

Naturally.

But it seemed like a reasonable expectation that intelligence was going to work normally and affect things like using more complex weapons and picking up skill points faster. Which would be really nice. On the other hand he wasn’t going to survive very long healing as slowly as he was. That had to be vitality.

Then again Social was zero, and getting other ghouls to cooperate or help him out had to be tied to that. But it’s not like they were famous for group strategies other than dogpiling on players.

It was frustrating to be making decisions totally in the dark

He sighed.

Well one thing we know is we’re totally useless in our current state and we should solve that problem first.

It wasn’t the most exciting choice but it was the right one. He put one point in Vitality and one in Strength.

But then he hesitated and dropped his strength back down and put the final point in Social.

I may regret that, but we need to take some chances, too.

He spent a few moments watching his health.

44%

He waited.

45%

Definitely going up faster! That was some good news. He wanted to give his shiny new social skills a try, but this wasn’t the time for it. The mob was rattling around down below, and it could still decide to give upstairs another go, so staying quiet and not giving it any ideas was the right move.

He checked the status on his support request. Nothing.

Fine, not a problem at all. Let’s keep going.

He tabbed to his inventory.

Inventory Weapons Steel Combat Knife 50 Damage (95%) Tier 2 Poison: 1 Charge Meds SPEED TIER 1 33% SKILLSPEED INCREASE 30 SECONDS

I’m travelling light, good idea. I don’t want to get tied down with material possessions right now anyway.

He doubled-checked his Reputation page, and there was nothing new there - Raiders were pretty much going to try to kill him on site, but ghouls were just wary now. Saving a few of them had some perks. The interesting one was the Biomorph buff. Only 5%, but as a regular player they were straight up hostile mobs, and since Shrieker had implied they had upgrades available, that was something he wanted to check out as soon as possible.

It was quiet downstairs. Of course the thing was basically a cat, and they were very patient. He could picture it sitting down there in the dark, waiting for them to decide that it was safe to come out.

He looked at Knife Ghoul - he got the impression it was the smartest one - and pointed down below, then cocked his head in a question.

Knife Ghoul shook his head, and made a jumping, grabbing motion.

That’s what I was afraid of.

Instead he decided to take a chance. As quietly as he could, he slipped off his raider jacket.

Once he was half naked he pointed at himself, and then at the three other ghouls.

Look guys, I’m one of you! Don’t kill me, okay?

Dumbo Ghoul stared at him without any obvious sign of understanding, and Barbie Ghoul just looked frightened, but Knife Ghoul grimaced and nodded, then let the knife rest in his lap, no longer pointing at Peter.

REPUTATION HORDE REPUTATION +10% Now -5%; Neutral

He would take neutral. That was better than getting stabbed in the face any day.

Suddenly there was a deep growling noise. It sounded like it came from out on the street. After a moment the mob below gave out a hissing growl in return. There was a series of thumps and crunches from downstairs. It sounded like it was leaving.

They can’t fake that, can they? I hope they’re not that smart.

They waited in silence for a long time, but there were no more sounds from below. Peter wanted to believe that his new friends had enough experience being hunted that they would know when it was safe.

But after a moment he realized they were all looking at him.

He recognized their expression. He’s seen it on enough newb faces. They wanted him to tell them what to do.

He slipped on his Raider jacket again, and waited to see if his status would drop. It didn’t.

“Okay,” he whispered. “I think we might be safe now.”

Barbie Ghoul looked relieved, and Dumbo Ghoul broke out into a big ugly smile.

“That good,” he said. “I was scared.”

But Knife Ghoul was still looking at him carefully.

“What’s on your mind?” he said to it.

“We have no nest,” it said. “Players kill everyone, we run. Hide. Need new nest.”

“Your clan leader?” Peter said.

“Dead,” said Knife Ghoul.

“He really dead,” said Dumbo Ghoul. “All over the place dead.”

“You strong and smart,” Knife Ghoul said. “You fool monster.”

Dumbo Ghoul nodded in agreement.

“Smart ghoul good,” he said. “Make us safe. Find new nest. Keep monsters away.”

Barbie Ghoul looked like she was afraid to say anything, but she was staring at him with big round eyes.

Peter sighed. Shrieker wasn’t kidding about them not being picky.

Of course they’re probably designed to gravitate to players as leaders.

It would make sense to have a party with him. If only because he could use them as meat shields while he found his way to the other player.

“Do you want me to be your new clan leader?”

They all just stared at him.

I guess that’s not the right approach.

He spoke a little louder.

“I am your new clan leader. Follow me and do what I say and you will be safe.”

They nodded slightly and seemed to be waiting for something more.

“Um… I am the strongest Horde here! Obey me or I’ll kill you!”

Knife Ghoul nodded happily, and Barbie Ghoul smiled. Dumbo Ghoul actually clapped his hands together like a little kid.

“That good!” he said.

Peter’s HUD instantly went nuts with status updates.

REPUTATION HORDE REPUTATION +100% Now +95%; Friendly ROLE STATUS CHANGE HORDE CLAN LEADER - Clan Leader Menu Now Available You're a leader now, so stop slouching and try not to get everyone killed. Receive 250XP LEVEL 3 UPGRADE Weapon and armor level cap +1 Now Level 4

LEVEL 4 UPGRADE Weapon and armor level cap +1 Now Level 5

Don't let it go to your head. Passive Skills One-Handed (Melee) +2 Now Level 5

Leaders need to be impressive at stabbing things. Enjoy.

Embolden Tier 1 10% 50 meters Your inspiring example is an inspiring example to everyone. Clan members receive 10% attack and defense bonus when you are within 50 meters. You have 4 character points to allocate.

Holy shit!

Peter stared around the room at his new clan mates.

“That’s great. Now give me a couple of minutes to think carefully about what we should do, okay?”

The all nodded very seriously, and sat silently, watching him.

It was a little unnerving.

But he wanted to get a look at that Clan Leader menu.

HORDE CLAN LEADER Tier 1 Clan (30/50) Clan 3 Common Horde Moral 40 (Low) Commands BUILD ROLES

Well that’s disappointing.

He had hoped for more options and details up front. The point distribution seemed to suggest that once he got two more members he’d go up to Tier 2. Presumably the menu would keep expanding as new skills, options, and tasks opened up.

He opened up the build menu.

BUILD Attack 1. Pile of bricks (Ranged) 2. Sharp Objects (Melee) Defence 1. Junk Pile Wall

Seriously. Well I guess it's about their level.

The AI on the ghouls must model the role of regular Guild members. That had to be the basic idea, or else how was he going make use of a clan at all?

The format of the menu closely resembled option trees with friendly NPCs like Merchants. Option menus for dealing with Merchants weren’t direct commands, they just indicated areas of dialog that were likely to be productive. Higher intelligence, quest flags, social rank, and a hundred other things could expand the list to surprise you with new options. It was still up to you to negotiate the AI to follow up on the items in the menu.

But it was definitely a start. Peter’s mind instantly went to the hole in the wall downstairs. If they could block that up, they might have a defensible position. Though they’d need to check the integrity of the rest of the building first.

Much as he wanted to just head straight out and find the other player, right now they were all obviously just a snack for anything that found them along the way. He needed to get stronger first, and having a safe base to work from would be a huge advantage.

He flicked the menu again.

ROLES 1. Scavenger (Food)

2. Scavenger (Materials)

3. Scavenger (Recruit)

And there it was. If he could send them out to recruit just two more ghouls, he’d level up to a Tier 2 Clan Leader. What he really wanted to see was whether he'd get a share of their XP.

But on the other hand I'd rather not start losing Clan points until I can afford it.

That would have to wait.

“Listen up!” he said sharply. All three of them perked up right away. They liked it when he was a little harsh with them. That was a kind of a nice change from real human players.

“I want to find out about this building we’re in. If it looks good I think we can make it into a safe place to stay.”

“You make nest?” Barbie Ghoul said. She sounded excited.

Peter nodded.

“I make… shit…”

He was staring at the status display that had appeared over her shoulder.

Barbie Ghoul Common; Lvl 2; 100%

He looked over at Dumbo Ghoul. He had a name now too. So did Knife Ghoul.

They all had the names he’d been thinking.

“Holy shit,” he said again.

He flicked his menu to check his own stats again.

“Raider Ghoul,” he said.

Knife Ghoul nodded.

“Good name. Sound strong.”

He stared at them, unsure of what to do next. He had been planning his next moves in context of the game.

But there was something else going on here. Something much stranger.

He flicked back through his menu to the support screen.

There was a message waiting too. He wondered how long it had been there.

HI PETER, NO DOUBT YOU’RE CONFUSED! DON’T WORRY, I’LL MEET YOU AT YOUR NEXT LOGOUT, WE CAN TALK. PAUL.

“Fuck you, Paul,” he muttered.

He flicked the menu to create another support ticket. Stared at the screen for a few moments. Then canceled it.

He needed time to think about this.