Kade left the Horizon Talon for Warehouse Seventeen the next morning with her chosen assault team. They'd started their journey shortly before first light, slipping through the ruins of Portland. Just quiet boots, shadows, and breath that steamed in the damp. The bridge across the bay was mostly in one piece, but something had made a mess of it over the course of the cataclysm. The cataclysm had overturned cars and riddled the road decking with holes, causing sections to fall into the bay. Rodentia nests had forced a detour near the old cannery, and something big was thrashing around near the grain silos, but they’d made it without drawing attention.
The rain had stopped hours ago, but it left behind a glistening film on the cracked pavement. Kade knelt behind the scorched hulk of a delivery truck, fingers splayed on rusted metal still cold from the night. Across the street, Warehouse Seventeen crouched like something half-drowned and spiteful. Rust streaked its walls like blood drawn slow. The steel doors warped, perhaps because of heat or pressure. It was hard to tell in the lightless calm of the pre-dawn gloom. Algae crawled on the blackened windows and dripped in the windless air. Below, the dock creaked. Wet wood and tired nails. The entire structure sagged over the bay like it knew it should’ve collapsed already but was too bitter to oblige.
Steve, the guide from the Tidebound Front, stood to her left, shifting his weight from foot to foot like he was in a hurry to get this over with. His sun-faded backpack held his rolled and strapped Tidebound Front flag. Kade frowned at it. The thing looked ceremonial, not tactical, and Steve didn’t strike her as the ceremonial type. But he wasn’t a fighter, and his eyes had that hollow edge common in people who’d seen too many friends die too close to home after a disaster. She filed it away, not for the first time. Something about it bugged her, but there was nothing to act upon. Just something to watch.
Myers and his squad were checking their gear for the assault. Cutlass belts, long knives, crossbows, the occasional soft click of vials being set into bandoliers. Myers finished tying off a bundle of lock picks and glanced toward her with that half-grin he wore like a spare weapon.
“Bit early for a warehouse raid,” he said.
“Early bird gets the ship repaired,” Kade replied, tone dry as the pavement wasn’t. She kept her eyes on the building, then zoomed in with her eyepatch. Vision sharpened, and color dropped away, a ghost-image crawling over her sightline. The edges of the main doors bent inward as if something heavy had pressed from the outside, sealing them. The side door was in better shape except for the dark smear at the threshold. It seemed something had tried to escape, and then someone dragged it back inside.
Then came the glow from the detect magic ability. The detect magic revealed a magic signature, but she couldn't identify its specific source. It was like trying to read a flare through smoke. It was as if spellwork had fogged the structure itself, and the patch's enchantment made the entire warehouse flicker.
She deactivated the patch and turned to Myers. “Doors are sealed, but something bled out near the side. Magic’s present, but the signature’s blurred. Like it doesn’t want to be found or the entire thing is magic. I can't tell which.”
Steve’s hands twitched near his flag strap, like they didn’t know where to rest when not carrying something heavier.
Myers nodded, his expression going flat. “Not sure if that's good for us in terms of loot or bad for us in terms of what is waiting for us inside.”
Kade didn’t answer. She motioned with her hand once. Myers’s squad fell into ready positions with silent precision. Marine patrol held the rear perimeter, eyes scanning the alleyway and broken shopfronts across the road.
“Briggs wanted this op,” she said. “Last night, during the staff debrief.”
Myers chuckled without smiling. “Yeah, he was still sulking this morning.”
“He'll probably be bench-pressing crates the rest of the morning until his mood improves. Lawson felt that this was going to need finesse instead of brute strength. So you're not here to be him. You're here to be you. Remember that.”
“Message received and understood, Ma'am,” Myers said with a bit of a flourish and over-dramatic hand wave.
"Maybe not that much you," Kade replied, then glanced at Steve. “You staying back?”
Steve’s nod was too fast. “This part’s not mine. I’ll come in once you've cleared the warehouse or report your deaths if you're gone too long.”
Kade studied him for a second longer than she needed to, then turned back toward the warehouse. Water rippled beneath the boardwalk under it, oily and still. The structure squatted like a predator in ambush.
“Let’s find out what eats a salvage team,” she said, “and leaves the lights off.”
Myers gave the signal, and they moved. Dashing across the street, keeping to blind spots, and staying clear of the warehouse’s windows. Boots stepped light across the water-streaked pavement, barely a splash in the silence.
The warehouse loomed silent as the team took position beside the side entrance, stacked tight against the rain-streaked metal. Kade crouched just left of the door, eyes watching the parking lot behind them one last time. Nothing moved. The only sounds were the occasional drip of water from the eaves and the faint clatter of gear shifting as the marines settled into place. One marine adjusted his grip on a crossbow, knuckles whitening with every breath.
A dried smear of blood arced inward from the doorway, the kind made by something being dragged back inside. A handprint marked the rusted frame just above the ground. The bloody handprint's placement confirmed to Kade that someone struggled as they were pulled back inside. She jerked her head toward the door while looking at Myers.
Myers inched forward and knelt at the frame, lips pressed in a flat line as he pulled his multi-tool from a side pouch. The lock was recessed, old-school mechanical, designed to lock on exit. No visible access panel. He studied it for a breath, then rolled out his pick kit and went to work, fingers moving with methodical care.
The mechanism clicked faintly. Then Myers stopped. His body went still, the way only trained killers managed when they didn’t like what they saw.
“Trap,” he said, voice low, pointing toward something at the bottom of the door.
Kade leaned in slightly. A thin, almost invisible wire ran from the base of the doorframe into the upper interior. Myers traced it with one gloved fingertip until his attention landed on a rigged beam nestled just above the inner frame.
“Finding it hard to believe you learned these skills in the army,” Kade said, tone neutral.
Myers smirked, not looking up. “You’ve clearly never had to scrounge for supplies while on deployment. I’m not saying they keep the freezers with the ice cream locked after mess, but I’m not not saying that either.”
He clipped the wire, disabled the catch, then gave a thumbs up to Kade. The trap wouldn’t trigger now.
The door creaked inward just enough to admit them. Myers went first, moving with the efficiency of someone who had spent years clearing rooms where hesitation got people killed. The others followed in practiced rhythm, weapons low and ready. The interior was worse than expected. Narrow crate aisles turned the floor plan into a maze. The air was thick with the smell of salt and something akin to mothballs.
Pools of water accumulated on the uneven floor, hiding in the shadows between slats of warped wood and broken pallet stacks. In some places, dust had settled thick, undisturbed. In others, it had been wiped clean by the passage of heavy boots and streaked with long smears that could have been sacks or something worse. Near the door, gear lay scattered. A dropped first-aid pack, a spear snapped in half, and assorted camping gear.
What stood out wasn’t the signs of a struggle, or the broken equipment, or even the claw marks scoring the support beams. It was what was missing, and that was bodies. There were no bodies, just lots of blood.
Thick streaks painted the floor, soaked into shredded fabric, pooled beneath empty crates like someone had forgotten to turn off the garden hose. There was too much of it for anyone to have walked out, even if they’d crawled.
They would not find survivors. Not with this much blood.
Moving deeper into the warehouse, Myers took point to guide the squad down a narrow path toward the staging area near the main warehouse doors. A massive beam had been jammed into place across the inner latch, too thick for one person to move without leverage or noise. Kade noted that. Someone had barricaded this from the inside.
The team fanned out, spacing themselves through the staging zone. Metal shelves rose overhead, stacked with rusted barrels, empty crates, and equipment to salvage. She motioned for a sweep when a loud rasping sound came from overhead moments before several shapes dropped from overhead.
[Analyze] Shellback Ravager | Level: 4 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast
[Analyze] Shellback Ravager | Level: 4 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast
[Analyze] Shellback Ravager | Level: 4 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
[Analyze] Shellback Ravager | Level: 5 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast
[Analyze] Shellback Ravager | Level: 5 | Status: Hostile | Class: Beast
The first one landed hard beside a marine, claws digging into the floor with a wet scrape. A second burst from an upper shelf, mouthparts clicking in a high-pitched rhythm that set Kade’s nerves on edge. Dog-sized, hard-shelled, and fast. Barnacles clung to their shells like tumors, and bristling ridges along their backs promised someone a bad day if they tried to ride one.
“Contact!” someone barked.
The nearest stalker lunged low at Kade, aiming to flank around the left edge of the squad. Kade stepped forward and pivoted, cutlass arcing in a tight slash that caught it mid-lunge. The blade bit deep into the softer joint just beneath its shell, and it spasmed, legs kicking wildly before collapsing into twitching silence.
Another marine screamed as one creature dropped from above, claws raking his thigh as he stumbled into a crate pile. He vanished beneath a rain of debris.
Myers didn’t hesitate. He was already in motion, blades flashing. His short sword struck clean through one ravager's eye cluster, his offhand knife twisting upward in a fluid arc that gutted a second along its undercarriage. He shouted orders as he moved, pushing the squad into a funnel to trap the remaining hostiles.
“Collapse left! Watch the top rail!”
Two more stalkers shrieked as they tried to retreat. One bolted up a support beam, the other skittered across a toppled drum, but neither made it far. Crossbow bolts and a well-placed axe finished the job.
"Medic!" Myers called as he checked over the injured Marine.
The injured Marine groaned but was already being pulled back and patched up by another Marine. It was a superficial wound. He’d live. Kade made sure the Marine was being taken care of before she flicked blood from the edge of her cutlass and motioned Myers over.
“If these were all low level. I'm not saying they weren't dangerous, but I would find it hard to believe that was what killed the previous two groups,” she said, voice low, “then something bigger’s still in here.”
“Good. I was worried this was going to be boring.” Myers said with a grin.
"I was expecting rodentia or brine stalkers. If it's just shellback ravagers, we may be in luck," Kade said, regretting the faux pas as soon as the words left her mouth.
"Now you've done it, boss." Myers replied.
"Yeah, that's my bad on that one."
The corridor narrowed as they advanced, the air thickening with the damp stink of rot and seawater the deeper they moved into the warehouse. Crates gave way to rusted bulk storage racks, some collapsed, others leaning on stress-fractured frames. Paint peeled from the support beams overhead, and a wet draft drifted through the warehouse like something exhaled from the dark below.
Kade paused as she entered an area where the floor had given out.
A ten-meter gap split the structure clean across. The collapse sheared straight through the principal support of the warehouse, which had been built on a pier. Rusted rebar jutted like teeth from broken concrete, and below, black water churned several meters below the space where floorboards had once been. Wooden decking floated in pieces, and a corpse drifted gently beneath the surface, caught in the tide.
The only way across was a conveyor bridge bolted to the ceiling supports and frozen in its raised position. It looked as if it hadn’t moved in years. By all appearances, maintenance hadn't been a priority for the piece of equipment in that amount of time, either.
“I see a manual winch up there,” Myers said, already moving before Kade could respond.
He crossed to the nearest support column, kicking aside a broken pallet, and began climbing with the ease of someone who’d scaled worse under fire. The structure moaned beneath his weight, but held together. Kade stayed back, keeping her eyes on the surrounding space, watching the water below, and the rusted ceiling above while Myers disappeared into the shadows of the upper rigging.
The bridge was still locked in place, the counterweights straining against rusted pulleys, and the air up there had the stale, iron-rich smell of long-settled dust disturbed by movement. She heard the soft grind of metal as Myers tested the crank arm, then the sudden pause. Her hand hovered near her cutlass out of habit, even though there wasn’t much she could do from the ground if something went wrong.
“Trap,” Myers called down. “It’s rigged.”
Kade said nothing, as nothing she could say would affect what Myers was dealing with. A few tense seconds passed before she caught the faint sound of him muttering above. She couldn't understand the words, but she perceived the tone as irritated, not panicked. Then came the scrape of metal on metal, the whisper of glass shifting in a wrapped bundle, and something small dropped from the shadows.
"Boss, catch!" Myers called.
She didn’t flinch. One hand shot up, catching the object mid-fall. It was a glass jar, roughly sealed with pitch and capped with a handmade striker. Copper wire coiled around the neck, and inside swirled a cloudy mix of resin, ash, and what looked like crushed bone. Kade recognized it immediately. She’d seen similar back at the Block Island Station when they’d fought with the pirates. Post-reboot explosive. Reliable enough to be dangerous, unpredictable enough not to be tossed around haphazardly.
Myers kept working the winch as she inspected the device, spinning it slowly in her palm, noting the way the striker was positioned on the device and the general crudity of the grenade. A striker positioned like this would’ve lit the moment Myers cranked the bridge loose. The resulting explosion would have dropped half the squad into the bay.
She looked up at the rafters where he was still cranking, and the bridge began its slow descent.
“I know that look,” he said, his voice drifting down as the bridge groaned into position. “That’s the 'you dropped a bomb on me' look.”
She tucked the jar into her belt pouch, still watching the bay below. “Next time, climb faster and toss slower.”
The bridge clanged into place with a final jolt that echoed off the warehouse walls. Chains trembled, rust flaking from the frame as the walkway stabilized. It didn’t look trustworthy, but it was the only path forward.
Myers dropped beside her, landing in a crouch. He dusted his hands off on his trousers and nodded at the bridge like it had been a casual repair job. “All yours, Lieutenant.”
Kade gave him a flat look, then signaled the squad forward.
One by one, they crossed. Each step echoed in the warehouse. The bridge trembled beneath them, every footfall triggering the metal to groan just enough to unsettle the nerves. Halfway across, a Marine froze. Below them, the drifting corpse had rolled over, one arm rising slightly with the motion of the tide.
Not a corpse. Its head lolled, revealing teeth that no human had ever owned. A drowned, but it looked like it had send better days as both of its legs were missing below the knee and its jaw was hinged wrong. There was more movement below the surface, just barely visible. This drowned may have friends, Kade thought.
“Move,” Kade said.
The squad picked up the pace, but one Marine slipped, foot skidding on a slick plate. He went down hard, leg over the edge.
Kade caught him before gravity could. Her deck fighter ability activated, giving her stability on the swaying surface. It seemed the ability considered the warehouse to be on water, thus triggering the ability. Kade would not look a gift horse in the mouth and overthink the situation. If the Simulation wanted to consider this waterborne terrain, she would accept it.
She dropped low, one hand on the support rail and the other hooked through his rigging, pivoting her stance to redistribute the momentum. His boots kicked inches above the waterline as a drowned surged upward, jaws snapping just shy of impact before it crashed back into the bay with a guttural groan.
The Marine scrambled up, regained his footing and continued across.
"Thanks, Ma'am," the Marine said once they were safely across.
"Wasn't the best time for a swim call, Marine," Kade said with a grin she didn't quite feel. She’d nearly missed the catch. That slip could’ve cost them both. She flexed her grip on the cutlass and reset her stance. No more close calls. Not today.
Beyond the gap, the warehouse stretched into deepening shadow. The natural light thinned with each step as they moved farther from the broken windows and the gaps in the roof. Overhead, the lighting rigs hung lifeless, long rows of industrial fixtures suspended from steel rafters, swaying slightly in the air. What illumination remained came in narrow, fractured shafts through grime-streaked glass and rusted seams in the walls, casting pale lines across twisted shelving and collapsed racking. The Marines stayed close, weapons sweeping each aisle with care, their eyes struggling to track shapes in the dark. Kade kept slightly ahead, moving with practiced ease. Her patch adjusted for the gloom, feeding contrast and detail into her vision. It gave her just enough of an edge to catch movement before the others, though she never said much about it.
It wasn’t far before Kade spotted the irregular silhouette tucked between collapsed shelving and the frame of a toppled storage unit. Crates had been stacked to form a crude perimeter, reinforced with sheet metal and shredded tarps now clinging in tatters. At first glance, it looked like storm debris, but the shape was intentional. Someone had tried to make this a defensible and camouflaged position.
She raised a fist, and the squad halted. Myers moved up without a word, crouching beside her as she took point. Together, they advanced through the wreckage, weaving past broken racking and a collapsed storage frame, the floor scattered with loose wire and splintered wood. The shelter came into view ahead. Kade slowed at the opening, eyes scanning the perimeter with the aid of her eyepatch. Whoever built it had done so quickly, with whatever was on hand, but they weren't here now.
Kade stepped in first.
The interior was barely large enough to crouch in. Nestled between the crates were the remains of a collapsed cot, a few empty ration pouches, and the rusted frame of a hurricane lantern. There was nobody. Just the lingering shape of where someone had huddled, trying to stay warm and hidden. Scraps of cloth clung to the edge of the cot, faded into salt-bleached white.
She spotted the notebook half-jammed beneath a storage container. The front cover was soft with moisture damage, corners curled in and blackened with mildew, but the inner pages had kept a few lines legible. Kade opened it slowly, careful not to tear the paper as the spine gave a tired crack.
The handwriting was rough, uneven. There were notes in the margins that made little sense, half equations or tally marks, maybe just a way to count the days. But near the center, one passage stood out. She read it twice to make sure. According to the entry, there was probably something else living in the back of the warehouse. Something big.
She closed the book and glanced up at Myers, who had been searching the perimeter, watching the squad as they fanned out around the shelter. One marine muttered something about the place feeling like a graveyard. He wasn’t wrong.
“Someone lived here,” she said. “Long enough to write about it.”
Myers took the notebook and skimmed the passage, jaw tightening just slightly. “Big enough to hear through the floor. Great.”
“Substructure’s flooded,” Kade said. “If it’s still down there, we’ve been walking over it.”
“Always wanted to be bait on a hook,” he replied, tone dry. "If it's big enough to hear us, maybe it's big enough to leave when we knock."
"Not likely, Sargent. On the plus side, we're almost to the end of the warehouse. That would make whatever this is the last monster we need to clear out," Kade said.
The squad regrouped just outside the shelter. Kade knelt, back against one of the more stable crates, and let herself breathe for the first time since they had entered the building hours ago. Not relaxed, but a moment to recenter herself before all hell broke loose.
The shelter had been someone's last line of defense. The barricade work was clean. Someone who had expected to wait a long time. Maybe they had. Maybe they were still here, scattered across the bay or caught in the ribcage of whatever beast had taken up residence. Kade glanced toward the ceiling, shaking the morbid thought from her mind.
She stood and slipped the notebook into her pack.
“Let’s get this done,” she said. “This place has too many stories, and none of them end well. We're going to correct that.”
The squad followed. Whatever waited in the dark still hadn’t made its move. But it would.
we’re currently ten chapters ahead over on Patreon both for Tides of Ruin and our other series, The Grand Crusade. You’ll also find a third ongoing exclusive called Tales from the Explorer’s Inn. All three stories are set in the Surviving the Simulation universe, exploring different corners of the world through unique lenses. Patreon directly supports my writting and any help is appreciate.
