Chapter 5: Party of Strays

The black shard did not weigh anything in Callum’s palm, but it dragged at him all the same.

It had no name, no item border, no tooltip when he focused on it until his eyes watered. To anyone else, it would have looked like nothing at all; maybe a trick of soot on his skin, maybe a smear of shadow caught between his fingers. But Callum felt the thing the way he felt a loose tooth, wrong and intimate, a black sliver of glass that drank the light of the ruined avenue around it.

It whispered without words.

Down.

The direction pulsed somewhere behind his eyes, tugging south-southwest through what had once been downtown Newark and was now a canyon of collapsed office towers, bone-white vines, and subway mouths breathing mist. Above, the blood-red moon hung low enough to scrape the broken antennae of the skyline. It painted every shard of glass, every puddle, every torn billboard in a wet crimson sheen.

Callum closed his fist around the shard.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “That doesn’t sound like a trap at all.”

The System didn’t answer. It never did, unless it wanted to hurt him.

He crouched behind the burnt-out skeleton of a city bus, its side half-melted by some monster’s acid, and watched the street through a jagged gap in the chassis. His health had crawled back to thirty-one percent after the elite fight. His left shoulder still burned where the Ripper Hound’s tusk had punched through muscle. Every breath tasted like copper and diesel ash.

The corpse of the elite lay three blocks behind him, already dissolving into motes of gray light. He’d killed it by abusing the way it locked onto targets—stepping in and out of a shattered storefront doorway until its pathfinding looped itself into lunging at a wall. A cheap win. A dirty win. The kind he used to get flamed for in competitive matches when he was seventeen and brilliant and too arrogant to care.

The difference was that in games, exploits got patched.

Here, exploits bled.

Status Fragment
Callum Vale — Level 3
Class: Glitchbound
HP: 31%
MP: ERROR
Condition: Lacerated, Exhausted, System Contamination: 4%
Active Skill: [Misinput Step] — Stability Unknown
Corrupted Passive: [Death Cache] — Dormant

He dismissed the window with a blink. It left afterimages like knife cuts.

The shard tugged again.

Down.

“Forbidden tutorial dungeon,” Callum said under his breath. “Because normal tutorials just weren’t lethal enough.”

A scream split the street.

Not a monster’s shriek. Human. Female. Close.

Callum froze.

Another voice followed, rough and laughing. “Hold her arms! Don’t let her put the shield up!”

Three thoughts fired through Callum’s head in a single tactical burst.

Raiders.

Healer.

Not my problem if I want to live.

His body moved before the third thought finished.

He slid along the bus, boots whispering over powdered glass. The avenue ahead widened into an intersection choked with wrecked cars and a toppled traffic light blinking uselessly red-red-red. A pharmacy occupied the corner, its green cross sign flickering with unnatural life. Someone had barricaded the doors with metal shelving and overturned counters.

Someone else had broken through.

Five men and one woman in mismatched armor crowded the pharmacy entrance. They looked like survivors only in the loosest sense. One wore a firefighter’s coat over a chainmail shirt. Another had hockey pads strapped over his limbs. A third carried a spear made from a street sign pole and a kitchen knife. Their eyes had that bright, hungry shine Callum had seen in endgame griefers—people who discovered rules existed and immediately started looking for the edges where cruelty became efficient.

Two of them held a woman against the cracked tile just inside the pharmacy. She was tall, maybe Callum’s age, with dark auburn hair hacked short at the jaw and blood smeared across one cheek. A round shield of pale gold light shimmered over her left forearm, but it flickered every time the raider woman kicked her ribs.

The healer—if that was what she was—spat red onto the floor.

“Third time,” she said, voice hoarse but steady. “Third time I’m telling you: I can’t transfer Class skills.”

The raider woman crouched and grabbed her by the hair. “And third time I’m telling you we don’t believe you, sweetheart.”

The man in the firefighter coat lifted a rusted machete. Above his head, a System label flickered into Callum’s vision.

Dane Kroft
Level 4 — Class: Brute

Callum’s jaw tightened.

Level 4. Higher than him. The others had labels ranging from Level 2 to Level 3. Together, they were trouble. In a fair fight, they’d carve him apart and take his shoes.

Luckily, Callum Vale had built an entire ruined career on making fair fights look stupid.

He scanned the intersection.

Resources: broken cars, spilled gasoline, flickering pharmacy sign, hanging power cable from the collapsed streetlamp, six hostiles clustered at a choke point, one allied unknown restrained on the ground. His cooldown on [Misinput Step] had maybe eleven seconds left. His MP read ERROR, which meant the skill might work, might fail, or might turn his kidneys into confetti.

He needed disruption first.

The sign above the pharmacy buzzed. Green light sputtered. A severed cable dangled from it, occasionally spitting sparks onto the metal awning.

Callum smiled without humor.

“Hey!” he shouted.

Six heads snapped toward him.

He stepped out from behind a taxi, lifted the Ripper Hound’s broken tusk like a dagger, and gave them the kind of grin that had once made tournament commentators call him insufferable.

“Which one of you is the healer?”

For half a second, no one moved.

The woman on the floor stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

Dane Kroft’s face darkened. He was broad, shaved bald, with a jaw like a brick wall and fresh blood on his knuckles. “Walk away.”

“I would,” Callum said. “But I’m terrible at following instructions.”

The spear guy laughed. “He’s Level 3.”

“Solo,” said the raider woman, eyeing him. “No party tags.”

Dane rolled his shoulders. “Then he’s loot.”

They came at him exactly like bad players came at a low-health target—fast, greedy, without checking the map.

Callum turned and ran.

“Oh, come on!” spear guy yelled. “Seriously?”

Callum sprinted across the intersection, boots splashing through a puddle of oil and rainwater. His injured shoulder screamed with every stride. Behind him, at least three raiders gave chase. Good. Not all six, but enough.

He hopped onto the hood of a crushed sedan, slid across it, and vaulted down beside the dangling traffic cable. Sparks spat blue-white from the frayed end. The cable lay half-submerged in the oily puddle.

He didn’t touch it. He hooked the Ripper tusk under the insulation and flipped it.

The cable slapped into the puddle just as spear guy’s boot came down.

The intersection exploded in light.

The raider shrieked, body locking rigid. Electricity crawled over his armor in snapping veins. The man behind him stumbled into his back and screamed too, smoke bursting from the straps of his hockey pads. The third skidded to a halt, arms pinwheeling, and Callum lunged forward with the tusk.

The weapon was crude. The motion wasn’t.

He drove the jagged point into the third raider’s thigh, angled upward, then ripped sideways. The man dropped with a howl. Callum kicked him in the chest, sending him onto the live puddle.

Improvised Hazard Triggered!
Environmental Damage: Electrical
Enemy Stunned x3
Combat EXP +18

“Still loot?” Callum gasped.

A roar answered him.

Dane Kroft barreled through the pharmacy doorway with the machete raised. The man was fast for his size, boots cracking tile, coat flaring behind him. A red aura crawled over his arms.

Enemy Skill Activated: Bonebreaker Rush

Callum’s stomach dropped.

He dove behind a delivery van.

Dane hit the vehicle like a wrecking ball. The van’s side caved inward, windows bursting. The impact lifted Callum off his feet and slammed him into the asphalt. Pain flashed white across his vision.

HP: 24%

He rolled before Dane’s machete chopped down where his neck had been. Sparks flew as the blade bit asphalt.

“You think tricks make you dangerous?” Dane snarled.

Callum scrambled backward on one hand and one knee. “Historically? Yes.”

Dane swung again. Callum triggered [Misinput Step].

The world stuttered.

For one breath, the street became wireframe and bloodlight. The swing’s arc hung in the air as a red prediction line. Callum’s body lurched sideways, not quite teleporting, not quite dodging. His right foot landed where his left should have been. His vision doubled.

[Misinput Step] executed incorrectly.
Position desync: 1.7 meters
Side Effect: Vertigo

The machete missed by a hair and took a chunk from the van instead. Callum vomited bile onto the pavement.

Dane grabbed him by the collar.

The man lifted him one-handed, eyes wide with the pleasure of finally getting a grip. “Got you.”

A golden shield smashed into Dane’s face.

The impact rang like a church bell.

Dane staggered, releasing Callum. Blood burst from his nose. The auburn-haired woman from the pharmacy stood behind him, swaying but upright, one arm wrapped around her ribs. Her shield was no longer flickering. It blazed, round and solid, its surface etched with a white tree and a serpent coiled around the trunk.

“Hands off my idiot distraction,” she said.

Callum hit the ground, coughed, and looked up. “Idiot?”

“I’m workshopping it.”

Dane bellowed and swung at her. She planted her feet and raised the shield.

The machete struck gold light. A shockwave rippled outward, rattling car alarms that had no batteries left. The woman slid back half a meter, boots scraping, but she held.

Mara Venn
Level 3 — Class: Aegis Paladin
Party: None

Callum blinked through the pain.

A Paladin. Not just a healer. A shield tank with medical utility.

Dane recovered faster than he should have. Brute stats. High Strength, probably low Intelligence, though Callum suspected that part predated the apocalypse.

“You’re both dead,” Dane spat.

Mara’s mouth curled. “Get in line.”

The raider woman appeared behind her with a hooked knife.

Callum saw it a fraction too late.

He snatched a loose hubcap from the ground and flung it. It spun wildly, clipping the raider woman’s wrist. The knife went wide, carving a shallow red line across Mara’s shoulder instead of her throat.

Mara hissed. Her shield arm dipped.

Dane seized the opening, shouldering into her guard. Mara hit the pharmacy doorframe hard enough to crack plaster. The shield flickered.

Callum’s mind snapped into cold clarity.

Two wounded allies. Six hostiles, three stunned but recovering. Live hazard to the left. Choke point at pharmacy entrance. Dane overextended. Raider woman flanking. Paladin has defensive skill, maybe taunt, maybe heal. Callum has corrupted movement and a black shard whispering like a cursed GPS.

He needed the party mechanic.

It was stupid. It was risky. It was the kind of thing the System wanted people to use because cooperation made better meat for monsters. But party tags shared experience, assisted targeting, maybe proximity bonuses. He’d avoided it because everyone he’d seen forming parties either died together or betrayed each other over potion drops.

Still.

“Mara!” he shouted.

She glanced at him, sweat and blood shining on her face. “Busy!”

“Party invite! Accept it!”

“You don’t even know me!”

“I’m saving your life!”

“You’re mostly making noise!”

Dane raised his machete for a killing blow.

Callum flicked open the interface with a thought so hard it hurt.

Party Invitation Sent: Mara Venn
Share EXP? Yes
Share Loot? Limited
Friendly Fire Reduction? 40%
Confirm?

He confirmed.

The invitation flashed near Mara’s shoulder, a blue window visible only as a glow in her eyes.

Dane swung.

Mara snarled, “Fine!”

Mara Venn has joined your party.
Party Size: 2/5
Synergy Calculating…

The world hiccupped.

Callum felt Mara enter his awareness like a second heartbeat. Not thoughts, not emotions—position, health, status effects, a pulsing outline through obstacles. Her HP hovered at 42%. Mana—or whatever Paladins used—burned gold at 19%. A debuff pulsed over her ribs: Cracked Bone.

Then his interface glitched.

ERROR: Class Compatibility Check Failed
Glitchbound party coefficient unstable.
Attempting recalculation…
Attempting recalculation…
Attempting recalculation…

A pressure built in Callum’s skull. Every System window around him stretched into black-edged static. Mara’s shield flared violently, sucking in red moonlight and spitting out gold sparks.

Dane’s machete came down.

Callum moved.

Not with [Misinput Step]. Not exactly.

For a single impossible instant, he saw the fight from above—the pharmacy, the cars, the live cable, the arcs of attack, Mara’s shield radius, Dane’s vulnerable knee, the raider woman’s knife hand. A tactical overlay bloomed across reality, ugly and beautiful, corrupted lines sketching routes no normal player interface would display.

Party Error Detected
Shared Threat Map created.
Skill Mutation Temporary: [Misinput Step] → [Misparty Step]

Callum vanished sideways.

He reappeared inside Mara’s shield guard.

The machete hit the golden barrier inches above his head. Mara’s eyes went wide.

“How did you—”

“Later!”

Callum drove the Ripper tusk into Dane’s knee.

The Brute screamed and buckled. Mara pivoted with soldier-like precision, shield slamming down on the back of his neck. Dane crashed face-first into the tile.

The raider woman lunged. Callum twisted, but his vertigo lagged behind him. The knife cut across his forearm.

HP: 19%

Mara’s free hand clamped around his wrist. Warm gold light poured from her fingers into the wound, knitting skin with a sting like hot needles.

Mara Venn used: Field Mend
HP Restored: +9%
Bleed Removed

Callum inhaled sharply as strength rushed back into his fingers.

“That’s useful,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Mara snapped.

The three stunned raiders recovered near the puddle. One had smoke rising from his hair. Spear guy staggered upright, teeth bared. “Kill the healer first!”

Mara’s face went cold.

Not frightened. Not angry in a loud way. Cold, like a door closing.

“They always say that,” she whispered.

She stepped forward and struck her shield against the floor.

Gold light rippled out in a circle, washing over broken glass, blood, and spilled pills. The symbol of the tree and serpent blazed.

Mara Venn used: Sanctuary Pulse
Allies within radius: Damage Resistance +12% for 8 seconds
Enemies within radius: Aggro Drawn

Every raider’s gaze snapped to her.

Callum felt it through the party link—a tug, like gravity redirecting violence toward Mara’s shield. A tank skill. A good one.

Dane pushed himself to one knee, face bloody, one leg dragging. “I’m going to sell your spine.”

“See?” Callum said. “That’s the kind of line that makes people root against you.”

Mara glanced at him. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“When I’m dead. Briefly.”

The shard in Callum’s pocket pulsed.

Down.

Not now.

Spear guy charged first, because spear guys always thought reach made them invincible. Callum feinted left. The shared threat map flickered, drawing a black route under the spearpoint, through the edge of Mara’s Sanctuary radius. He followed it, shoulder screaming, and ducked inside the thrust. Mara bashed the spear shaft with her shield. Wood cracked. Callum slashed the man’s wrist with the tusk.

Mara kicked the raider’s knee sideways. The man folded.

The hockey-pad raider came next, swinging a tire iron. Dane followed behind him, slower now but still dangerous, machete dragging sparks. The raider woman circled for Mara’s exposed side.

Callum’s overlay jittered. Too many vectors. Too much pain. The Glitchbound interface stuttered between clean tactical data and nonsense symbols.

WARNING: Party coefficient exceeding safe parameters.
EXP resonance detected.

A small number ticked near his vision.

Shared Combat EXP stored: 41… 46… 52…

Every action Mara took fed into him. Every hazard he triggered fed into her. Experience wasn’t waiting until the fight ended—it was circulating, amplifying, rubbing against his corrupted Class like a match against dry leaves.

Callum felt [Misparty Step] twitch, hungry.

“Mara,” he said. “Can you hold Dane for three seconds?”