File under: many mutations, crunchy LitRPG, and settlement building

Testing games is Jinn's job. She's gone through everything at this point, from Seafoam (a slow-paced underwater simulation) to Admiral Kickass (friends-to-enemies pirate raiding) to Scrying in Space (spaceships with magic). Her newest assignment is to spend about two weeks in Our Mutual Ruins, a post-apocalyptic setting which is rumored to be based more on rebuilding civilization than survival in a harsh world.

Scavenging and checking nitty-gritty details for thirteen days sounds like fun after Pew Pew Purgatory (how someone can make a bullet hell boring is beyond her). And it is. Until she wakes up on the fourteenth day with a dead body lying beside her and the rules (as she knew them) altered.

The game was rigged from the start; good thing she has an Ace up her sleeves.