Lucy didn’t exaggerate. Richard felt himself falling into a more exciting monotony of leaving with Savannah and Marcus to scavenge the forest, killing the smaller monsters there, then returning a little after lunch to help with farming. Richard was given a “Lucy Excusal” the second his cooldown finished to make soup for Dmitri. He learned how to make a lot of different soups in the following week.

  Elias glared at them the entire time they were within the walls of base two. When Richard left with Savannah and Marcus in the morning, he could almost feel Elias’s gaze boring holes into his skull until the gates shut. When they returned, he could feel Elias’s stare. But Savannah was right. She, Richard, and Marcus were a pretty good team. When they were gone longer and knew they’d miss lunch, Richard found it was almost peaceful eating out of his pack with Savannah, Marcus, and whatever guard they brought along for the day. Richard was getting very familiar with Reggie, Shrub, and Leylah. He was more than happy to have them along, especially since he did not want to activate his quantum immortality ability. It was a situation he felt immediately guilty about. More especially one day when Shrub sat next to him and Richard opened his mouth to ask about how Izzy was doing. It brought a twist in his gut, wondering if this would happen a lot. People coming and going. Would he ever really mourn death the same way? The idea that maybe if something bad were to happen, he could still see them in another timeline? Richard didn’t want to depend on it. It hurt, though, thinking about those who didn’t make it in this one. The one he spent the longest in so far.

  In the early morning, they had their packs in their inventory with their lunch. Richard was nervous because he was close to level seventeen. He was also much stronger than the last time he had made a trip to the lake, but he still could not forget how horrifying the last trip to the lake was. After a couple of months experiencing his power, it wouldn’t be a shock if it activated this time. He had also got over the shock of Dennison and Ike’s deaths. There had been many other horrifying experiences, that the memory of their scattered bones made him flinch, but he moved on.

  They reached the lake early. Savannah and Richard were to collect mudlings while Marcus and Shrub set up a fishing system for the glimmer eels.

  Richard tapped the mud before stabbing the mudlings as he looked again at the monster and the woman. Something had drawn him to this image before, and now he understood why. When he thought of frozen, he assumed ice. But this was a woman frozen in time. A woman who sacrificed herself for the good of the community. This was chronomancy through and through, even if he wasn’t in a fit state of mind to comprehend it the first time he was here. This woman must have been given the power of chronomancy to stop the apocalypse, and sacrificed herself to keep the creature below her from killing them all. But if she was supposed to stop the apocalypse, how the hell was the apocalypse still raging? And did Chaos expect Richard to have the same self-sacrificing attitude that this woman had? Because he wasn’t sure he had it.

  “Annika’s story is pretty inspiring, isn’t it?” Savannah asked.

  Richard paused, a frown deep on his face. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “Annika.” Savannah gestured toward the woman.

  Richard kept staring at Savannah, though his previous experience with the mudlings warned him to keep his eye on the mud, too.

  “Her name is Annika?”

  Savannah blinked a few times, concern flickering across her face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Savannah paused, then glanced around as though checking the surrounding area. “I haven’t heard of memory-altering monsters, but at this point in the apocalypse, I wouldn’t be surprised. That seems like a fresh hell Chaos would invent.”

  “Okay,” Richard said, a bit concerned. It was a lot of words Savannah said to not answer his question at all. “I... I don’t...”

  “Annika’s bravery. She heard about this creature, where situations were waking it up, so she went with a prayer in her heart to stop it. She was gifted a legendary gift from Order and froze time itself to keep it here.”

  Richard stared at her. That was a lot of detail that wasn’t known before. “How do you…?”

  Savannah kept staring at him. “How did you forget? It’s part of the set of newbie lectures. To help us know the dangers of the apocalypse but also the hope that Order brings.”

  First, Richard doubted Order was the one that gave Annika her legendary gift. And second, he still didn’t understand how anyone even knew this story. In a different timeline, it was a relic of the past. Now it was a well-known story with rich details, so what had changed that they now...

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  “Eddie.”

  Savannah’s entire face morphed into deep concern as Richard uttered the farmer’s name.

  “Okay, um... you keep doing this, I’m going to talk to Marcus and Shrub.”

  Richard watched her get up and scurry toward the other men. He finally glimpsed the absolute insanity of this fishing setup. Marcus was swimming in the lake, most of his clothes piled behind a tree. Shrub was up a tree with a harpoon, waiting until an eel made its way toward Marcus. Before the eel could even touch the scavenger leader, it was soon harpooned, and Marcus slid the loot into his inventory. Richard wasn’t sure if he could ever get strong enough to swim in this kind of lake with a million teeth below him. He did not trust Chaos at all. He wouldn’t put it past the personified being of Chaos to randomly reverse the power just because he felt like it. Because he was bored.

  Savannah ushered Marcus toward her, and Richard focused on his task at hand. His thoughts wandered, mostly about how he was not the first one who had been given chronomancy. He also realized just how vital Eddie was. That farmer was a wealth of knowledge that Richard hadn’t thought to tap into. Richard needed to go back to base camp now and ask Eddie more questions about Annika. A woman that Eddie had probably met. It never hurt to gain more knowledge.

  Richard was also struck with a deep desire to make it back alive. He realized how dangerous the power of quantum immortality was. If he died and the timeline shifted again, Eddie might not be there when he got back. It became more apparent when Marcus started swimming back to shore at Savannah’s request and vanished under the surface. Richard stood, panicked. Shrub dropped from the trees, holding his harpoon aloft. No one moved, which seemed like a bad idea because something had dragged Marcus under the surface.

  Marcus broke the surface again, slicking his hair back.

  “Damn, we might have to make a special trip out here to farm these eels. They’re overpopulated,” Marcus said as casually as if he were commenting on the weather. Richard remained frozen as Marcus walked up the bank, wringing water from his hair. Richard wasn’t sure if he could ever get over just how insane the apocalypse was. If Marcus had done that in front of farmers, they would all be freaking out and screaming for him.

  Shrub pulled out a blanket from his inventory. “You sure it’s overpopulation? Or are you just getting rusty?”

  “Ha ha,” Marcus said with little mirth. Marcus took the blanket and dried himself off before putting clothes back on. Savannah reported what happened with Richard.

  Richard walked over to join them, but did so slowly. He had nothing to add to this conversation, but knew he had to try not to look suspicious either. He remembered Marcus being suspicious about his memory when he first jumped timelines in the silos. Before timeline jumps were easier because it was just superficial things he needed to remember, like Claw’s name. But now whole people were here that shouldn’t be. They had a deep impact on this timeline, and he had no memory of it.

  Marcus had finished dressing and placed his hands on his hips as he listened to Savannah’s concerns. Marcus studied Richard as Savannah finished.

  “How are you feeling?” Marcus asked.

  “Uh, fine. I’m fine.” It wasn’t entirely true. He had a little existential crisis any time he thought too hard about this power. Was he killing his former self when he jumped timelines? He couldn’t be sure. Therefore, he didn’t want to think about it right now. He didn’t want to jinx himself with the possibility of death, not when he had a mission to pick apart Eddie’s brain.

  “How do you feel about all this, Richard?” Marcus asked.

  Richard glanced at his leader, then at everyone else. He tried to think of a reasonable response. “I’m… I feel okay. I’m trying to come to terms with gaps in my memories.”

  “Do you want to head back now? Or keep going for more loot?” Marcus asked.

  That was the question that gave Richard pause. If he didn’t want to raise suspicion, he needed to keep getting loot. But Eddie was now a top priority for him, and he didn’t want to risk dying and losing him.

  “How much more loot do we need?” Richard asked to buy some time.

  Marcus pulled out the scroll, running his finger through a few items. “Is your inventory full of mud?”

  Richard glanced at his slots. If he hadn’t upgraded his ability, he would be full. That being said, he had a stacked slot still empty.

  “Not yet.”

  Marcus nodded. “How do you feel going past the lake today?”

  That brought a cold chill to Richard’s gut. “Not today.” Not when he needed to survive long enough to talk to Eddie. Besides, his level bar was blinking at him, which meant he was ready to get another ability point.

  “Alright, then let’s get more mud and head back.”

  Richard was fine with this plan. He, Savannah, and Marcus knelt at the base of the muddy bank and killed enough mudlings to fill Richard’s inventory before heading back.

  Richard had traveled through the forest a lot in the few weeks he’d returned as a scavenger. He started recognizing some landmarks, like a huge rock mostly buried in the soil, or the trench they had to jump over. There was even a strange mound full of rusted metal that no one could loot. They crossed into the section of forest that had more crawlers than normal, but he didn’t dare breathe easily until he was out of the forest. And even then, he couldn’t fully relax until the gates closed behind him and he felt Elias’s glare in his chest. Since his cooldown for cooking was still a few hours away, he headed for the farmlands when Marcus grabbed his shoulder.

  “What do we have to do every time we return from the forest?”

  At first, Richard realized he should have gone to the orb first to get an ability point, but then he remembered what he actually needed to do. He sighed, closing his eyes. “Go see Lucy.”

  “Good. I’m glad you remembered.”

  From Marcus’s tone, he realized there was a far more terrifying reason Marcus checked with Richard about this. Were they now going to treat him like he would slowly lose chunks of his memory? He wasn’t sure if he liked this.