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On a floating city where civic work is turned into quests, patchrunner Kade Okoye faces a catastrophic water crisis. With a new Flow Whisperer skill and a motley crew, he battles a guardian, thwarts a guild’s power grab, and forms an open faction to keep water—and rewards—fair.
Dawn rolled over Lattice Nine with a glare like polished steel. The floating city creaked and sighed, tether lines humming where the swell tugged at them. Kade Okoye pushed his skiff along the service canal, paddle clacking against barnacled aluminum. Salt stuck to his lips. His AR lens booted with a soft chime, and the world stacked with neon prompts.
[Welcome back, Kade Okoye]
[Class: Patchrunner]
[Level: 7]
[HP: 110/110 | Stamina: 83/120]
[Skills: Rivet Gun 3, Sealant Mix 4, Ropework 2, Scavenge 3]
[Perks: Salty Lungs, Steady Hands]
He blinked and the Heads-Up overwrote the rusted railings with glossy outlines. Every leak shimmered as a pale ring. Every safe path pulsed green. Gull drones skimmed low, cameras clicking. A fishmonger shouted over the chop, voice swallowed by the squeal of a failing pump.
“You’re late,” the market called, even if no one said it. The crowd moved like tidewater: push, then pull. Kade tied off at the ladder and climbed. Boots left wet prints on the decking.
Home sat above a soup of sea and shadows: a cube of scrap, a solar flag that had seen too many squalls, a door that never closed right. Sefi had painted a yellow sun on the corrugated wall and drawn a smiling face beneath it. She was fourteen, thin as a pole, with eyes that tracked every notification that ever crossed his lens.
“Kade!” She leaned out from the doorway, curly hair in a scarf. “Your phone buzzed like a nest. Are they paying extra?”
He shook off water and leaned the paddle beside the doorway. The lens offered news in a cascade he didn’t ask for: a pump flagged critical, a set of microleaks near the aquifer intake, a daily quest blinking.
[Daily: Patch Three Microleaks — Reward: 85 credits, 75 XP]
[Bonus: Complete under 20 minutes for Performance Stipend +10%]
“Welcome to the morning,” he said. “You drink already?”
She lifted the ration bottle. “Half of mine. You?”
He took a swig. Warm plastic, flat water, metal aftertaste. He forced a grin. “Not dying.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not the goal.” She pointed at the lens-framed world he saw and didn’t. “Go get XP. Bring back something crunchy.”
“Crunchy is rare,” Kade said, but he ruffled her scarf and stepped out. The walkway quivered under his step, somewhere below a sluice coughed, and his quest triangulated with a gentle ping. The Layer knew him too well—where he’d cut corners, where he’d slow.
He passed a kid doing flips on a broken buoy, two merchants arguing over a printer spool, and Auntie Wen stirring a vat of noodles with a wooden oar the size of her arm. The air smelled like hot oil, ozone, and fish scales. The Layer drew arrows near his feet—bright, optimistic streaks that didn’t see the rust.