The building he had been in upon arriving in stage 3 of the nightmare tutorial turned out to be an apartment block of sorts. As for the wider settlement, it was a colossal underground fortress-city that dwarfed the one that stage 2 had been set in. The architecture and layout was similar, though. Everything was made of white metal and built for efficiency.

Unlike in stage 2, Ronan didn't have a helpful and overly concerned spiritual leader to show him around. He was fumbling in the dark. Not literally, because the huge fluorescent lights built into the ceiling bathed everything in an unnatural luminescence, but metaphorically.

He had the names of all the people the gorzerk had replaced as well as the status of said gorzerks, but unfortunately didn't know where to find those people. It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out, though.

From the journal he knew that he himself was supposed to be a security guard of some kind. Unfortunately he also had no idea where he was meant to work. If he had a shift today then he was likely already going to be late. Let's see how powerful all this charisma can be.

He had passed the occasional group of people while exploring. Most of them went on their way with a smile and a nod. A few said hi and he reciprocated, but it was tough to judge how friendly to be when he had no idea who any of them were. Eventually he decided to just stop one of the groups and ask them a few things. If charisma worked how he believed it should, they wouldn't be suspicious about someone who was meant to be a security guard not knowing about his own damned job.

"Hey, I seem to have woken up with some memory loss. I bumped my head pretty bad last night. Directions aren't—" Ronan waved his hands in the air. "—Computing. Where's the security headquarters?"

The one on the right snorted with laughter while the other adopted a concerned expression. "They should be a five minute walk that way." The woman pointed behind them, in the direction Ronan had been walking. "You should probably go to the med-bay first, though. Head injuries are dangerous. Especially for security."

Ronan nodded. He put on a sheepish expression. "You forgot where that is too, huh? Go that way for like ten minutes, dude. You should hurry, that head injury seems pretty bad if you forgot where everything is."

The woman elbowed the man after he poked fun at Ronan. "Ignore him, he's an ass. I hope everything's okay. Have a nice day."

"Yeah, cheers, you too." Ronan waved as he made his way towards the med-bay. He wasn't actually going to go there, but he didn't want to garner any suspicion.

The conversation had gone well. Neither of them had suspected anything was wrong, as strange as they might have found his falsified circumstances. The guy seemed more interested in laughing at him, while the woman was simply concerned for his health. It painted a pleasant picture of the environment, though.

People caring for one another and being in high spirits despite having to live underground with a nuclear winter outside the doors was a stellar example of the human spirit. Ronan hoped his own world could emerge in a similar way after they handled the integration. Minus the nuclear winter, though. That would be fucked up.

Once he had left the two helpful people behind he made his way towards where they'd mentioned the security headquarters were. He was hoping he could blag his way in and just go with the flow. Realistically he didn't have to rush to complete stage 3. His first priority was ensuring that the bastard shapeshifters didn't unseal the bunker and let the freezing outside in.

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The security headquarters was pretty indistinguishable from all the other white metal boxes around it. The only reason Ronan figured out which building to go into was he saw a guy with a baton at his hip and body armour walking inside. The equipment seemed a bit intense, but he supposed if this particular bunker was directly connected to the outside world through a single wall it made sense that it would be heavily guarded.

He stepped inside and barely had a moment to look around before someone shouted at him. "Davy, what the hell are you doing here? Your shift doesn't start for another four hours. Get some sleep, you damned fool." A short and stumpy man waddled up to him, looking him up and down while squinting.

It took Ronan a few seconds to realise he was being spoken to, given that he wasn't used to being called Davy. He did know it was 'his' name thanks to the journal, but that was different to slipping into the role. "Ah yeah, I hit my head pretty hard. Memory issues. The doc said it should be fine by the end of the day."

The short man scoffed. "Clumsy idiot. Well, if you've got head problems you should probably skip the day. Can't be having you releasing the inner gate by accident, eh?" A gentle chuckle went around the other guards in the room, with a few jeering at Ronan.

"Bah, he'll be fine, chief. The outer gate won't open without three cleared techs approving it. One dumb guard won't doom us all." The blonde winked at Ronan after pleading his case.

She'd also given him some crucial information. The short stubby guy was the security chief. Not anymore, though. Fucker's another elite gorzerk. Can't just take him out with all these guards watching.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Doc said so. Besides, I'd be bored out of my mind at home." A few others agreed with his statement.

The chief sighed and waved a hand. "Alright, fuck off then. You can start early if you're that desperate. You won't get to finish early, though."

Ronan nodded. "Sure thing, chief."

He cast his gaze around the room one last time before leaving out the door. He knew there were more guards compromised than just the chief, but asking everyone for their names when he was supposed to be one of their colleagues would have raised suspicion, no matter how much charisma he had.

He certainly noticed the effects of a few hundred points, though. Conversation wasn't normally that easy. People tended to be a bit wary of Ronan, but no one he'd encountered today had that suspicion, apart from the chief. That was mostly because he'd turned up early.

The gate was a short walk from the security building. That was great news for Ronan, given that he would have needed to ask and embarrass himself further if it wasn't within visual distance. There were two guards standing by the smaller, person-sized door in the middle of the colossal metal wall. Both seemed surprised to see him.

"You're early!" The guard on the left hissed.

The one on the right gave that guard a sideways glare, before turning the piercing gaze on Ronan. "Long live Gorz'Arak." The sudden use of the gorzerk salutation threw Ronan off. He stopped in his tracks.

"What the fuck are you talking about, James? You need to stop reading those weird books, man." The guard on the left shook his head.

Ronan ignored him, eyes locked with the other guard. The guard who was clearly a fucking gorzerk.

Ronan didn't waste time. He conjured a small hammer and swung it at the gorzerk guard. He had been too slow to move, though. His lack of a reply to the salutation brought immediate suspicion and the monster sidestepped the hammer swing. "Shit, he must be one of the bodystealers! James, get him, he's trying to kill us."

Before he had to start fighting the innocent dude, Ronan swung his arm backwards while lunging at the gorzerk. This time his blow connected. A crack sounded out as the weapon smashed the monster's jaw. Seeing that its life was in danger it stopped pretending to be human. The pink skin peeled back to reveal the grey shapeshifter. Its mouth was lopsided, but it still leapt at Ronan with a screech.

Then the unthinkable happened. As it rushed him, the gorzerk stepped on something and slipped, falling flat on its face. Before it could even realise what had gone wrong Ronan stomped on its head three times and finished the job.

"Dirty fucking shapeshifters. Are you alright, James?" Ronan turned to the other guard who was pale and had a slack jaw. He let the conjured hammer dissipate and held up his hands. "It's me, Davy. Glad I came early to the job, eh. You might be a monster by now." James was too shocked to respond. Ronan sighed and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Let's take you back inside."

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