In all the moments of his life, nothing inspired mixed feelings like a homecoming.

  North Highway provided the most gorgeous first impression of Cold Bay that a person could get. You rounded that last little stand of trees, and suddenly the world seemed to open up, showing you the glacier-carved bay in all its glory. Soft rolling mountains wore their evergreen forests like a fetching woman wore a shawl on her shoulders, all curves and textured hues of emerald and ash. The town had been built directly on those hillsides, each street like a terrace rising above the one in front of it. Reclaimed land made from rock fill had distorted the once graceful curve of the bay into something more scalloped, old piers reaching into grey waters like fingers.

  Shafts of sunlight stroked the buildings, and the steaming fog rising from the rain-drenched streets gave it an air of sleek mystery, covering up the imperfections of struggle. Once this place had thrived on resource industries; fishing and forestry. The increased environmental laws of decades ago had choked the logging, closing the camps on the nearby islands. The fish? They were still there, but the fisheries had moved north, and the fishermen had followed.

  Cold Bay was slowly rotting, kept alive by a cottage arts industry and tourism. It was crumbling under a slow and silent decay, and the locals largely liked it that way. They huddled in their preferred haunts, the elder generation in bars and the younger in coffee shops, watching the grey rainy days go by. Talking shit about strangers and the world beyond their narrow little window of it. It was a perfect pie slice of semi-small town America, isolated and evolving its own way of life on this cold northwestern coast. Ultimately, it was the sort of place that youth desperately fought to escape and then always ended up returning to, licking the wounds gained in far-off places.

  Brom had always felt like a dog on a leash to this place. No matter how many times he ran away, the chain would snap tight, and his collar would choke him. Then, slowly, hand over hand, Cold Bay would haul him back into its smothering embrace. He hated how small this place made him feel, and yet this was the only place that had ever resonated with his soul when the word 'home' was spoken. Now that he owned a house here, he'd probably never consider leaving it again. Even if the System hadn't made the prospect of travel as painful as pulling teeth.

  TJ pulled up short just before they rounded the last bend into town, glancing back at Brom. "Hey, remember to set your info to private. Otherwise, anyone who examines you is going to see your Class and level. Or are you just going to roll with it?"

  "Honestly, yeah, no. I don't want to explain either of them at the moment." Doing the math from his other exploits, Brom realized that level gains were incredibly slow. He'd had to kill a pile of goblins, goblin flesh mounds, skeletons, and, of course, Earl, plus completing both Tutorials to get to only level six. According to the knowledge base, there were a hundred levels, so eventually he'd have to stand on an actual mountain of corpses to reach the top of the level system. He wasn't looking forward to it.

  Right now, though? Level six might as well have been the moon. Most people were level two, with a few enterprising individuals reaching level three. Someone who was foregoing sleep and being fed final hits might have reached level four, but beyond that? Not a chance. Unless there were others with special circumstances like Brom's out there. But here in Cold Bay, his level would only raise questions and make a difficult day even more difficult.

  [Location: Cold Bay Discovered!]

  [You have entered a safe zone.]

  There were changes. Fewer than were expected, honestly, but Brom kept his wits about him and wondered how many things he was missing. Small and subtle things that escaped his vision and escaped his notice. The big palisade around the edge of town, the guard towers near the gates, and it was so much quieter. There were no cars driving on the roads, no boats motoring in the harbor. No float planes occasionally crossing in the skies. Mechanized travel was gone, and in town, there wasn't even a whiff of it.

  There was also the fact that where Last Pass Gas had stood, there was now some sort of what appeared to be a tack and feed store. Cold Bay hadn't had one of those before, it hadn't ever been the type of town for livestock. Too wet. Too cold. Too many large predators in the mountains. It was an apparently superfluous store in a town that could barely support a singular store of every type. One hardware store. One print shop. One gym. Well, unless you counted the rec center. One big box store. Two grocery stores, though. And so many coffee shops, cafes, and little art places. Those thrived almost as well as the moss did.

  Another surprise came not long after. Where once Rain City Radio had stood, there was now a tower of sigil-carved stone. They stared at it for a moment before TJ looked at him and mouthed 'Mage Tower' as if it was something unspeakable.

  Bus stations were gone, replaced with small iron bollards with glowing spheres floating over them. Considering the street lights were still in the usual places, it made no sense for these to be for illumination. After a moment, Brom went up and put a hand on one.

  [Cold Bay Travel Network: Choose your destination.]

  The map of Cold Bay opened in his menu, glowing pins where the bus stops used to be, mapping out the town with precision.

  "Well, I have to say that this is an improvement over taking the bus."

  TJ, seeing that his uncle hadn't been disintegrated or set off an alarm, followed suit. "Holy shit, fast travel! Oh, we can return to home point. Isn't there a bus stop near your place, Uncle?"

  "Yeah, just up the road on the end of Sunset. Or there's the one down by the beach, but that's a twenty-minute walk versus a five-minute one. Plus, the beach is full of sirens and who knows what else." Curious now, Brom went back to the map on its own and zoomed out. Aria Beach was an unlocked location for him. He'd probably discovered that location while he was in the trance and missed the notification. It was good to know he could fast-travel back there now. "Looks like I still have to unlock that stop, though."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Yeah, we'll have to do that after we pick up the siren hunting quest."

  "Groceries first. C'mon, fun as this was to discover, I'd rather walk town first and see what else has changed." Because clearly the System was doing its thing, removing buildings and replacing them. It seemed to be attempting to keep some sort of continuity, replacing things with equivalents. "Like the missing power poles and phone lines."

  TJ's head snapped up to notice that yes, those were indeed missing, Brom dragging him off to get moving again.

  Plenty of other people were out on the street. Some were testing out the fast travel. Others were heading into the various shops and cafes as they sought comfort in routine. Stepping into Bay-Mart, nothing seemed out of place. Brands were the same, although the materials had definitely changed. There were a whole lot more cardboard boxes, paper bags, and glass jars. Canned goods were still canned. Produce sat, fresh and gleaming, although the selection had become decidedly regional. "Huh, did we always have this many apple varieties? And strawberries are definitely not in season, but they're listed as local..."

  TJ had wandered off, spotting someone he knew in the uniform of a produce clerk. They stood together, heads bowed in conversation, voices low like they were swapping secret teenager intel.

  Brom shrugged and went back to wandering and looking for the produce essentials that, even now, he was struggling to remember. He should have made a shopping list. Ah, how the terrifying splendor of the apocalypse had faded. Wait, what was that price for eggs?! Gone were dollars and cents, instead there was simply a coinage picture. Copper coins, silver coins, and probably gold coins on more expensive items elsewhere in the store. RPG money. He was now remembering the free currency that had entered his bank account.

  "Hey, Uncle Brom, this is Jordan-"

  "Sup?"

  "-and apparently he still had to come to work today."

  Brom blinked, taking in the utterly devastated looking teenager in the uniform of a produce employee. Jordan's apron was wrinkled, and his nametag was crooked. There was a wild gleam in the teen's eyes, as though he was terrified of something.

  "Tell my Uncle what you told me." TJ gave his classmate a shoulder nudge.

  Slowly, with a furtive glance around, Jordan began to repeat himself. "So. I woke up, and there was a quest telling me I had to come to work. There was even a countdown clock to my shift. Annoying as hell, man. But the creepiest part is that some of the folks around here are like... meat robots. I don't know how to describe it, really." He looked around again, seemed to catch sight of something, and pointed. "There! That's Marco, the produce manager. Watch him. He'll do a loop of the same thing. If you go up and interrupt him, he only says the same few lines before you sorta exhaust what he can say, and then he loops back to the beginning again."

  Brom glanced over, watching a man who seemed to be in his early fifties whistle cheerfully as he freshened up the apple display. At first, there didn't seem to be anything wrong. Just a guy at work, having a good day, judging by the tune. Then it became obvious. Pick up an apple, shine twice, and set it back down. Pick up the next apple, shine twice, and set it down. The same repetitive motion over and over again until every apple in that section of the bin had been shined and sorted. Then he moved to the next bin and began those same precise movements again. The exact same. No deviation.

  "...he's an NPC?" TJ's voice was soft, trending upward a bit in semi-horrified tension.

  Jordan nodded. "Yup. Lots of folks I've seen today are like that. Not just him. A couple of the customers were like that, too. Older folks. They don't loop like he does. There's just always a handful of them looking like they're shopping, but they're not actually. Some have a list, and you'll see them do repetitive motions, checking it. Others don't, and you see them look puzzled in place over and over again. But the same motions, repeating like this every time. I guess maybe they have routines? Don't know if they're daily, weekly, or monthly. But seriously, I bet it's happening everywhere. They're just around to make things look populated."

  TJ made an uncomfortable noise. "It is what happened. In the Knowledge Base, if you look under General Information, it tells you that in order to connect to the System, you have to be between sixteen and forty-nine. Anyone under fifteen and under is too young to connect, and anyone fifty and up is too old."

  Brom read over his shoulder as TJ shared his screen with them, brows furrowing. This was more awful than they could have imagined. Middle-aged adults and elders didn't have enough life for the system to forge a long-term connection with so it could only connect, program them to act out a certain set of routines, and then leave them to carry out its will. Children were too young, their life not robust enough to survive the initial connection. In order to let them come of age, the system made them 'invulnerable to damage from players and other entities'. It did note that children were not immune to accidents, disease, or environmental damage, and thus still needed to be protected by parents and guardians.

  Marco smiled at them as he walked past, giving a friendly look to Jordan. "Hey Jordan, helping customers? Keep up the good work." The man seemed downright jovial if only Brom hadn't noticed the look in Marco's eyes.

  It was a look of hopeless horror.