The other thing we needed was better armor. I’d discounted illness before since none of our many wounds had gotten infected, but wasn’t so sure anymore.

  Robeep had essentially nothing besides some ruined clothes, which only emphasized his already fragile state. Ruza dressed in the same old combination of rags and lab coat she’d worn in the slave pit. My leather shirt didn’t afford much protection to begin with and the cloth strips which covered my arms had been diluted from all the makeshift bandaging, acid rain and general wear and tear.

  Moreover, my current setup only protected my upper chest with two metal plates, leaving everything else exposed and my stomach in particular. The random bone plates and hornlike protrusions across my body helped a little, but not much. If I’d had them from birth and gotten used to them over time, things might have been different but for now leveraging them for defense felt unrealistic.

  Fortunately, our abandoned surroundings provided plenty of potential avenues towards improving our gear. I focused my first round trip towards picking out the most promising locations and marking them with little piles of junk in front of the entryways. Nevertheless, a few good ones went unnoted since the musty stench and what must have been decades of mold accumulation proved too much even for my greed. The multitude of alternatives afforded me some standards.

  Two small shacks were filled to the brim with metal odds and ends, so they joined the prospecting list. One shop had a second floor which warranted exploring. I’d just have to get rid of a giant metal workbench blocking the stairway. The most intact tower on the far side of the lake appealed, it sported a large locked metal security door. Plank easily chipped away at the adobe walls, which meant I’d eventually get in, if the whole thing didn’t come crashing down at least. Should try to pick the lock first.

  My lockpick broke almost immediately, which prompted me to get a few more from Robeep. Upon my return, he was reaching inside Ruza’s mouth.

  I rushed over and almost dragged him away. “Robeep, what the hell are you doing? Leave her alone.”

  He waved me off. “I am curing her. She appears to be suffering from a pulmonary obstruction and it requires removal.”

  Closer inspection revealed he was slowly pulling out something red and fleshy. “Gross, you’re not extracting her lungs or something, right?”

  “No, foolish Susawa. Can you not see the color is wrong? It is clearly a foreign object. The growth escaped her mouth and raised my suspicions.”

  Ruza coughed weakly all the while. Robeep pulled harder and within moments an entire chunk came loose with wet, squishy noises. He threw it on the ground next to her. The growth was absolutely disgusting. It looked like a bundle of red veins in the shape of a small tree branch, like a cast shaped by the mold of her lungs. Another one joined it a few minutes later. They pulsed and throbbed for a few seconds, as if alive. Ruza seemed to breathe much easier however.

  “Holy shit, what are these?”

  “Unknown.”

  I retreated out and away, careful to cover my face with a dirty rag just in case. “Yeah, I’m not touching that stuff. Do me a favor and burn them in the fire, make sure you get all of it.”

  “Do not worry, Susawa. I am tempted to seed a patch of soil with the ashes of her assailant so we may grow a tree to commemorate this glorious victory. And then we shall cut the tree and burn it again, trapping their very building blocks in an eternal cycle of doomed rebirth. Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “That’s the spirit. Keep unkilling Ruza while I look around.”

  “Unkilling? But I am destined to kill. A conundrum most weighty…”

  Robeep happily muttered about the virtues of recursive death while I returned to my scavenging. Having some way to help clearly improved his mood, and mine too. Hanging around felt like a bad idea in case whatever affected her was contagious and my hasty departure left me without any lockpicks. Brute force it is. But first, my tour took me to the two sheds full of crap.

  Emptying them out took a fair while. The first one contained nothing of interest, but the second fared better. Most of the stuff had decayed to the point it became a semi-slushy mix of rotten wood and moldy rags, but an unlocked chest at the bottom remained mostly intact. It had been treated with wax or something, which thankfully preserved the contents. Opening it up sparked the greatest of joys. There were two piles of absolute necessity within, beige-brown pants and similar underwear, both of various sizes. Jackpot.

  Instead of rummaging through, I lifted the whole chest and sauntered over to our hideout. Even the squeaking of my leg couldn’t overcome the satisfied tune whistling off my lips. Mounting joy peaked into pure bliss and the chest was forgotten, landing on my feet. I didn’t care, because Ruza sat upright and was chatting about something with Robeep. Instead of approaching her like a normal person, I dove and enveloped her in a tight hug.

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  “For a moment there,” I said, “I thought we’d lose you.”

  “Can’t… breathe…”

  Whoops. “Sorry, got a little too excited there.”

  She coughed, pounded her chest a few times and then reached into her own mouth, pulling out a long red tendril. A flick of her wrist sent it into the fire in the corner of the room. “Finally, that one was stubborn. More importantly, what are you being so dramatic about?”

  “Huh? You collapsed out of nowhere and looked like you were dying.”

  The skin above her right eye went up, raising an eyebrow she didn’t have. “You’ve never seen a Nightlander shed before? Were you raised under a rock?”

  “Not that far off. So, this is normal…?”

  She let out an exasperated sigh, followed by another plucking. “It doesn’t usually progress so quickly. I thought we’d have several days at least, if it even got that far. There must have been something particularly vile in the machine god’s lair…”

  “Now that you are awake,” Robeep interjected, “we must review your performance. It has come to my attention that your statistics are below baseline. Do you even understand the consequences of your actions? Life creates life, Ruza. With each one spared due to a lack of efficiency, our task grows. Fortunately, Susawa has brought the remedy and together with my planning, you will quickly regain your competence. You must travel the wasteland and poison every well you can find. The peoples need for a stable existence shall be their undoing! Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  Ruza eyed the bowl of purple liquid and needle fragments next to Robeep, and then turned her gaze to me. “The moment I’m not around you immediately turn towards wholesale genocide? Please tell me I am misinterpreting things. For that matter, where are we?”

  I explained the long and short of it while Ruza clued me into how her people functioned. Apparently my kind was immune to most toxins and diseases, but hers wasn’t. Instead they had a very particular immune response. When an organ was overloaded with harmful buildup, they shed it. Supposedly this worked with hearts, kidneys, livers, whatever. Those were a lot more gruesome, but lungs turned out to be the easiest and quickest to ditch. Thus, we’d been worried about nothing. She still needed time to regain her full strength though.

  Pointing out the change of clothes made her stand up with a spring in her step regardless, but she wobbled for a few unsteady steps and then told me to give her some privacy. Happy to oblige, my next trip brought me to the shop with a closed off second floor. A large overturned metal desk barred the stairs. More crap weighed it further down, since the thing wouldn’t budge at my first few attempts. It took everything to move it a quarter inch at a time. Eventually, I used Plank as a wedge to create an opening and shimmied my way through.

  Thin slits let in natural light from the outside, illuminating a dilapidated workshop. My rearranging of the furniture scattered enough particles to make the sunrays appear solid. As usual, everything was covered in dust. The various benches and boxes had once served a purpose but now even a dump yard would have rejected them. Blowing my nose ejected a chunk of black goo. And then my eyes wandered to a corner, where multiple humanlike skeletons huddled closely together.

  It was the first real hint of what happened here. Some monstrosity or other had clearly paid the city a visit and the occupants preferred starving to death over facing it. Hopefully it’s long gone by now. Rummaging around failed to produce anything useful, until I opened an unusual pressing machine. A sheet of chainmail sparkled in the dim light, completely untouched. It was about five feet by five feet and unworked, but some day it would make a fine piece of armor.

  Tracing a loom led me to another wax coated box filled with dark liquid. I used a piece of scrap to fish around and was rewarded with a dyed black turtleneck. This was going to be my gift to Ruza since it was way too small for me. The fabric was quite stretchy and the collar appeared meant to be drawn over ones face like a reverse ski mask, especially because the edge was tighter than the rest. Unfortunately, nothing else remained intact within the workshop. Fading light urged me to call it for the day anyway.

  Ruza and Robeep were discussing something and I couldn’t resist the urge to eavesdrop, hugging the wall right outside our makeshift residence.

  “While I understand the need for violence and don’t disagree, there is such a thing as going too far,” Ruza said.

  “Does not compute. All paths are valid so long as they lead to the complete extermination of all sentient species, followed by those which remain.”

  “I’m not saying to give up killing, it’s impossible to survive in the wasteland otherwise. But the torture… It’s unsettling, and if you continue to do it then I’m afraid we must part ways soon.”

  Makes sense, she’s never been as gung ho about maiming and slaughter as he’s been, or me for that matter. Robeep stayed quiet for a dozen seconds before responding, “Very well. I have compiled all data and will cease my research into slow death. While enjoyable, the efficacy is lacking and recent events have opened my meatbag eyes towards more interesting avenues regardless.”

  “That’s all I’m asking for. Thank you.”

  I chose that moment to announce my presence by knocking on the wall and walking in on them. “Hey there, heard you chatting. Sorry about the whole spying on you thing. Just so you know, I’ll go easy on the sadism too.”

  Explaining the truth is likely to backfire here. Yeah, I needed to plink someone to unlock the crossbow skill so I can see how good you really are. By the by, I have some rather invasive information about you both, at all times. She’s just going to think I’m making stuff up.

  “I was still upset about having my leg eaten back then,” I said, “but I’m over it now. Won’t be shooting crawlers anymore.”

  Ruza let out a deep breath and then a hard cough. “Ugh, I hate the lining the most.” She wiped mahogany bits off her hand against the floor. “Well, I suspected as much but I’m glad to hear you say it. For my share, I don’t want to leave and I’m happy we can reach agreements like this. Despite everything, you two are the best companions I’ve had.”

  “Well then, you’ll be delighted to hear I’ve brought a gift for you…”

  We chatted the rest of the evening away before falling away into contented slumber while Robeep kept watch.

  Getting thrown into this world sucks, but it’s not all bad I guess.