The world had broken once, then again.

When the Simulation restarted, it snapped taut like a string pulled too tight after hanging slack for twelve thousand years. The laws of reality reasserted themselves, reverting to the structured, alien order of the Simulation. Modern technology, built on the unstable physics of the long crash, failed in an instant. Engines died, electronics burned out, and the scaffolding of civilization collapsed almost overnight.

In its wake came monsters, dungeons, and systems long dormant. Cities fell, survivors scattered, and humanity struggled to find footing inside a world that no longer played by the rules they remembered.

Out of the wreckage, small bastions of order had formed. Starlight Oasis, nothing more than a mega truck stop when the sky first blinked, had grown into one of the first functioning safe zones of the Midwest. It had food, walls, and leadership enough to endure the first waves of chaos. And now, through grit and no small measure of blood, it had something no other settlement possessed: two functioning steam locomotives.

Steel rails that had once carried the heartbeat of a continent were about to become a lifeline again. With two working locomotives at their command, the people of Starlight were preparing for their first expeditions along the rail lines. The plan was bold. They would attempt to reconnect with distant survivors, open trade between enclaves, and push outward into the ruins in search of other safe zones. For the first time since the restart, humanity stood on the edge of something larger than survival.

But even as the flames of progress stirred, shadows lengthened.

From Saint Joseph came scars. They were memories of gnoll armies, corrupt politicking, and the dangerous brilliance of Victor Stern, who had fled into the wasteland with his alchemy and ambition unchecked. Xander Kell, the burned-out project manager turned Crusader, had bled to carve a path through those trials. By his side stood Zoey, an archer hardened into steel by loss and necessity. And with him once more was Jo, the woman he had crossed hell to find.

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Yet, the reunion was not the end of their story. Both Xander and Jo had been broken and reforged by the reboot. They carried different scars, different memories, and different versions of themselves than the ones who had once planned weekend camping trips together and whispered about the future. Love remained, but what shape it might take in this ruined new world was something they would have to discover, one choice at a time. Worse still, Xander could sense Jo was holding back. She carried secrets about those first chaotic days after the reboot, truths she was not ready to share, even with him.

And humanity discovered they were not alone.

From another age stepped Thalindra, a woman out of time who had been preserved in stasis since before the Simulation collapsed, her knowledge stretching back to a world none of them could remember. Her awakening posed as many questions as answers. What had truly happened twelve millennia ago? Why had she been kept, and by whom?

Beyond her lay deeper, darker currents. The Cult of the Simulation, a mix of zealots, manipulators, and true believers, continued to spread through the ruins. Their motives were muddy, their loyalties hidden, but their ambition was certain. Whether through fear, faith, or subversion, they meant to bend the reborn world to their design.

And further still, older powers stirred. The AI engines themselves had begun to move again in quiet, subtle ways. They remembered the crash that had shattered reality, and they had not forgiven what lingered in its wake. Each had its own design, its own unfinished work, and humanity, for better or worse, had a role to play in cleaning up the wreckage of a disaster older than memory.

The rails stretched outward. Opportunity lay ahead. But so did danger.

The Grand Crusade was far from over.

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