They laughed at my embarrassment, but not in a mocking way, but in the sort of sense that they understood my tension and wanted to take at least a portion of it onto themself, to absolve me of my awkwardness. “My name’s Seren, by the way.” They extended a hand.

I shook with more clamminess than I had with Francis. “I wasn’t really staring, I just noticed you taking notes, and I figured that someone keeping track of the information we had would be very useful.”

They smiled and pulled out their notebook, examining it briefly before nodding. “I have a [Secretary] path. Not ideal, but it has some real effective efficiency boosts when helping to organize people.” They let out a soft sigh. “They had me keeping track of everyone’s activities back in town.”

I nodded slowly, having some inclination of what they had gone through, having seen the impact of living in that town on the people that had escaped. “You know you aren’t responsible for anything that happened there, right?”

They looked up sharply and pursed their lips, before looking away and nodding. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Tentatively, I moved a hand forward and rested it on their shoulder. Seren flinched and I pulled my hand away, but they grabbed a hold of it and returned to their shoulder, offering a fierce smile. “I know,” they said. “But I don’t feel it, not yet.”

I nodded at that and gave their shoulder a squeeze. “Do you want to change your path?”

They looked up again, meeting my gaze steadily for a moment, before shaking their head. “No, I don’t think I do. The organizing wasn’t the problem, the problem was the hierarchical power structure at play, especially considering the extremely high degree to which it was rooted in toxic masculinity.”

I laughed brightly and nodded. “God, those guys were real pieces of work.” My expression clouded for a moment and I glanced upward. “No idea what I’m- what we’re going to do with Hank up there. I have to believe that at least some of Chad’s followers were under similar pressures as you all, just in a different direction. If we can convince them to convert….” I trailed off, a faint frown furrowing over my features.

“If we can convince them to join up with us,” Seren continued for me, “then we gain while they lose, giving us a much larger net gain.”

“And we gain more defenders generally speaking. And we’re going to need a lot more defenders if we truly want to expand.” I sighed and leaned back, closing my eyes for a moment. “I don’t even know who all else is out there, but I do want to eventually be able to link up with all the survivors that I can.” I steadied myself then, straightening my posture and looking at Seren. “According to what I’ve learned, we have been set on the path to the world’s ending, and I’ve been given a mission to save us all.”

Seren laughed again until I sent a glare their direction, at which point they just smiled warmly. “It just seems like a lot to have on the shoulders of one person. Putting the saving of the world up to one person? That seems like it would end poorly, no matter who that person is.”

I nodded mutely, feeling that pressure building once more in my chest, the knowledge of these expectations, the weight of what I had to do, the sheer daunting enormity of saving the world. My breath quickened, until Seren punched me lightly in my good shoulder.

They beamed at me, and their eyes sparkled like the moon on a cloudless night, shining and brilliant and my whole world for just a moment.. “Good thing you’re not alone,” they said. Seren perched on the deck next to me and nudged my knee with theirs. “I’ll drop you in an instant if you turn out to be a raging asshole, but in the meanwhile, you seem like a pretty chill person. I’ll help. Everyone here will help.”

“I’m not sure if I want help.” I lifted a hand up as Seren started to argue. “I want to work with people, I don’t want them working for me. I want a situation where we can take part in this project together as equals.”

“That’s a kind of helping, you know. Just a more co-equal sort of helping.” Seren flashed a quick grin. “We all help each other and we all lift together.”

I let out a heavy breath, before nodding. “Okay. So. What do you think we need to do?”

“Well, the way I see it, we just need to keep information channels open,” Seren said. “It seems like we’re going to have three broad groups forming: the crafters, the farmers, and the defenders. We should have, at least for the time, nightly meetings with representatives from each group.”

“Yeah, that could work,” I said. “I would want these meetings to be open to everyone, though. None of us are any more important than anyone else.” I paused briefly. “Though, obviously if the kids show up, we should take into account the fact that they are children. Not to silence their voices, but to remember that.”

“Hey, kids can have some pretty out-of-the-box ideas.” Seren grinned at me again and I laughed, before conceding their point.

“That said, I would like a census.” I combed my fingers through my hair. “People’s names, what paths they’ve settled on, where they’re staying, and so on. That way we can help to maximize our ability to help each other.” I tapped a foot in consideration. “Maybe a board in the lobby for people to post things that they need.”

“You should get some rest.” Seren said gently. “You’ve had the shit kicked out of you, you’ve been on the road, and you’ve been managing all of this by yourself since this whole thing started.”

“I need to spend some time in the research lab.” I shook my head to the side then glanced off out of the corner of my eye. “And I have to clear these system notifications.”

“Fine, you do your thing, I for one am going to go take a shower.” Seren grinned again. “Maybe I’ll use yours, it’s probably unoccupied now.”

I managed to keep the stammering to a minimum before calling out to them. “Put a notice about group meetings when you have some time!” Seren called their agreement and soon enough it was just me left in the library.

The quiet came with a calm that settled over my bones, resting deep in me. My shoulders slumped and I flexed my right fist. It still hurt, but Marlene’s abilities were really quite impressive in accelerating the healing process. The system had always done a lot to change the ways our bodies worked, making us tougher and stronger, more capable of enduring the trials and tribulations of this world.

I mentally clicked on the system notifications and they flared into being in front of my eyes. The first set was just a selection of skill ups, nothing particularly noteworthy. My armor related skills had gotten the most boosts, understandably because of how heavily I had taken a beating during that fight. The combination of the evolved power armor proficiency and my new armor skills from The Forge That Walks had definitely proven their efficacy in battle. Also, it seemed that my armor counted as Medium Armor, since that was the skill that had leveled up.

My actual level hadn’t increased, though a meal might be enough to change that, maybe a couple really good ones. We really needed to get the food growing as quickly as possible. With all of those notifications cleared, I turned my attention to the last one, glowing faintly.

ERROR: CHOSEN

HIDDEN QUEST FOUND: Factory-Town (1/?)

HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: Factory Town (1/?)

Select one facility to activate:

Store

Cafeteria

Processing Bay

Gym

Pharmacy

Advanced Processing Center

Entertainment Center

Command Center

It is necessary that you not simply build up your resources and your allies, you must also strive to build a community. You’re ahead of our schedule on that mark though, which shows a gracious and accepting character. These are the people who you must work to save. Grow the town, grow the community, bring in the peoples of the world. This place shall be an ark.

The lack of a level up concerned me somewhat, but it made sense that my growth would eventually start to slow, perhaps that meal had just put me over, or maybe this quest didn’t contribute in the same way. Regardless, the options available were enough to fill out the remaining rooms, so I had a much better idea of what I was building towards. I didn’t know the difference between a Processing Bay and an Advanced Processing Center though. I put that at the top of my look-up in the help list.

In the meanwhile, I had to choose without any further research, and so it made sense to go with the one I had promised. The system accepted my decision and I heard a loud THUNK come from outside of the room, likely the door to the cafeteria unlocking.

Before going to investigate that, though, I puzzled for a moment over the note attached to the system message. While it was theoretically possible that whoever had created this Chosen path was watching and altering notes based on my actions, it made more sense that they had simply prepared a variety of contingencies. If someone was watching me, they wouldn’t have praised me so, they would realize how lost I was, how flailing I was, how everything was just random chance, rather than skilled action.

I could probably ask the Librarian for some clarity, but considering his limitations in what he could talk about, I didn’t feel particularly compelled to push at them. Besides, it would do me well to think about things myself, to not rely on external sources of knowledge when I had everything I needed already available.

Things would be much easier if I had some understanding of what the ending of the world would look like. At least the librarian had promised decades, enough time for me to grow into my position, enough time for me to learn to have even a base level of competence in what I was doing. As it was, I could only hope that I wouldn’t bring everyone down with me when I started drowning.

The exhaustion hit me as I stood, but I knew I couldn’t rest, not yet. If Chad’s men came now, we needed to be ready, we needed the sort of weaponry that only I could make in order to stop them. Once I had finished with designs and manufacturing and deployment, then I could get some sleep. First things first, though, I headed across the main chamber to find the door to the cafeteria now lit up.

Unfortunately, the cafeteria was lacking in any pre-existing food supplies, but it did have massive commercial ovens, griddles, refrigerators, deep-fryers, all a chef would need in order to turn the raw supplies that we gathered into something much more palatable. While the basic necessities of survival were important, having something higher to aspire to, something delicious to consume, that would help ease the burdens of our new life.

A yawn ripped its way out of me as I briefly examined the seating area, dominated by large tables and smaller booths tucked away in the corners. All in all, a decently sized space, and perhaps one even better suited for a meeting room than the library, though I suspected that the librarian enjoyed the company.

Satisfied with the new facility, I entered the research lab, prepared to get to work.