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One slip-up. Just one.
She'd been tailing one of the newer killers--Guest 666--when she'd stepped on one twig. Guest's roar split the foliage and drew the attention of the one eye she didn't want seeing her.
Just like that, Jane was forsaken.
In the end, all she was left with was the hatchet harnessed to her side and the clothes on her back.
And her bag, though she very nearly lost that when she was taken.
She was dropped unceremoniously near the campfire, lucky enough to have been in the middle of a round -- which meant very few people were around to risk seeing her, even if she'd ducked into the cover of the trees as soon as she could move. She didn't stop to catch her surroundings until the campfire's warm glow was shielded by the fronds at the edge of the forest, and only then did she realize.
None of her research survived. There were fresh embers from the fire, the last pages she'd managed to latch onto being eagerly devoured by the flames. One last spit in the face from the Spectre.
Not only that, but her bag felt lighter. Being dragged through those portals must've let some items fall out.
She pushed her coat aside to swing her bag onto her front, tossing the flap open. She still had bottled up shards of corruption code, which was--useful. Very useful. Though it would definitely mean she'd have to set aside her other projects to complete how the code on the shards could be manipulated to benefit. Not that she could even work on those other projects when what was left of her research had just been turned into kindling.
Safe house, first.
She walked the borders of the camp. The woods were not an unfamiliar thing, and this time she kept a special eye out for crackle-prone leaves and fragile twigs. She'd spent months learning how to erase her traces, and even if the people in this campground were wary, there was a complacency in having an assured area the killers had never successfully breached.
That was part of the reason she'd been using the location the survivors are spawned to as an outpost for a while--this was a decision made with great scrutiny, as she didn't want to be discovered by anything, including the others. But beggars couldn't be choosers, and anywhere else in the woods was amply watched and was often traversed by the Killers.
She'd learned their own 'safe house' was much less safe. They had to fend for themselves, and they definitely didn't get along. Infighting was constant, which was good for Jane as it allowed her to grab plenty of corruption shards for her research. But she never enjoyed seeing her husband brutalize and get brutalized for something as small as walking next to someone.
Jane waited until the coast was clear to unlock and slip into the basement. Easy as it was to keep to shadow, the doors to the basement were in a small clearing. Too open for her liking, but some things just couldn't be helped. She had learned early to make the best of what she had.
The hatch doors were heavy, but she kept their hinges well-oiled to avoid drawing attention.
It was easier to let the survivors think it was just a part of the map that wasn't meant to be opened.
In a way, it was a stroke of luck that the Spectre made her a survivor. Though Jane had another outpost she kept most of her notes in, the books she kept here weren't anything to sneeze at.
This was where she was researching the corruption code, though not much of anything else. Which was fine! It was fine.
The corruption code was her priority now anyways.
Having a weapon would mean, should she join a round, it would be among the fighters. The protectors, though she'd need a mean swing for that.
Or... to weaken the killers.
The corruption code had a few directives--all of which needed to be handled extremely delicately, as this code worked like a virus. Jane was able to crack some of it, mimicking its language to port in new directives. Its severity wouldn't inherently be a problem so long as it proved beneficial as opposed to harmful.
So far, she's managed to make it reinforce the body.
She discovered this months ago, and it's been invaluable since. It's augmented her, in a way. The code's wormed its way into her own.
A concerning thing, on one end, if it wasn't nearly entirely reinvented in her experimentation, but it's made her stronger. Resilient in a way that had saved her life in the chance encounters she's had with killers while researching (an unavoidable risk when tracking down killers in dense woods to study them).
She didn't need to risk the others by reforming their code, she just needed that temporary boost. Enough to have these shards matter, and to help the others in facing the killers.
It'd saved her plenty of times. Maybe it could even save the others from an early death in a round?
Whatever it could be, she needed to be certain of what it could do before she tried it. Play it safe. Builderman forbid it incidentally create another Corrupted robloxian, similar to John.
Jane drew together all her books in the shelter.
John used to tease her over all her overthinking, but that kind of mindset is exactly what will help her create contingencies for her contingencies, and hopefully save a few lives instead of ruining them. If things go well enough, maybe she'll find a way to reverse the corruption entirely, like this project was meant to.
Either way, the Spectre pulled her in. There was no turning back now.
The only thing she could do now is make it regret making her a survivor.