《My Dungeon》 Chapter 1 So here''s the thing, when the dungeon formed in my guest room, it wasn''t 100% unexpected. When the apocalypse (at least that what people online were calling it.) had started a couple weeks ago, I had begun stocking up.The last few months since the accident that had killed my wife had been an emotional low and getting preparing to kill monsters, had became my focus. No, I hadn¡¯t become a full fledge prepper, but I was prepared. I''d started keeping a couple of swords and knives under my bed. My closet had a bug-out bag with a tent, sleeping bag, water filtration, stove, mountain house freeze-dried foods, headlamps, and layers of clothing. I kept a gun safe in the utility cabinet with a shotgun and some shells. I had some fly rods were tackled in the trunk of my car even though I should have moved them into a closet inside, if only to annoy the fish in the pond behind my place.Stuffed into the closet of my lanai was enough bottled water and astronaut ice cream to last through a bad hurricane season. I wasn''t just ready -- I was ready! Prepared even. But not a prepper. Ready for anything from a zombie apocalypse to randomly being Isekaied all the way out to a particularly wild Lady''s Night at Fitz Irish Tavern. As days passed, rumors turned into blogs and eventually turned into news. Mysterious goings-on was going on. according to the information and the internet. In Florida, where I lived, there were at least five fully documented dungeons. Five that we knew about. A couple more might have appeared on private property, or deep in the mangroves. And who knew what the number of rifts amounted to nationwide. First, the unwary had gone in. Then quick-thinking web-fiction readers. Then danger seekers. Then journalists. Then libertarians and bitcoin speculators. Finally, the military decided they needed super soldiers, so Nations sent special Ops teams to gain levels. With the military giving at least tacit acceptance of the dungeon phenomenon, the Feds went all eminent domain and started grabbing up property. A bunch of the people who went in died. But enough survivors -- known on the inter-web as delvers and adventurers -- killed a monster or two, then came back out got the [System]. Square brackets in context indicated access to new mystical functionality. Sure, there were other ways to access the [System]. Most people bought [Crystals] on eBay and Craigslist. [Crystals] contained skills and spells that anyone could use to gain an ability. Once you had a power, [System] access was automatic. It was part of why people paid outrageous prices for the useless skills people found delving that nobody wanted to incorporate into their build. But enough scammers were selling cheap glass fakes for the secondary market not to be 100% trustworthy. Because of this, I had planned on strapping on my sword, motorcycle leathers, and packing heat until about a week ago. I''d planned to see if I could sneak into one of the nearby dungeons. The one in St. Petersburg. Supposedly there was another in Orlando too, but rumor had it that the one Disney required you to be on the Club 33 membership list to get in. Besides, according to rumor, the Disney dungeon had formed in a souvenir shop, it had sucked in half their inventory, and the drops mainly were Mickey Mouse hats, Star Wars DVDs, and the lyric sheets to ''It''s a Small World.'' You earned these prizes fighting Mickey, Minnie, or Pluto. At least the St. Petersburg dungeon (the other nearby portal) had popped up somewhere normal. It appeared next to the University of South Florida. It was treated as a resource for students and faculty to study. You only needed a grant and time scheduled with the Dungeon Coordinator. Or, I figured, you could try to sneak in. Campus security couldn''t be all that on the ball. A week before I had planned to embark on my campus caper, a dungeon formed in my guest room. The initial implosion that formed the dungeon sucked in the furniture, nick-nacks and dust bunnies from that room. These items would become the building blocks of whatever was on the other side of the glowing Star-gatey thing that took up an entire wall of one of the rooms of my condo. When I first saw the dungeon I hurredly draped heavy blankets over the windows.I didn¡¯t want my creepy neighbor Marigold peeking in. Enough with the background. I was currently standing in my guest room, ready, prepared, and excited about my switch from clinically depressed Architectural Engineer to Adventurer. I was about to step forth on my first dive into my private and secret second life. I would begin solo leveling in my own private XP heaven. Which was how I found myself in my living room; a sword hilt was strapped to my waist, and a leather jacket, chaps, and my old football helmet. Under the chaps were jeans, and under the jeans was an athletic cup since I wasn''t a moron. I also had knee guards, steel-toed boots, and football shoulder pads that I''d kept from my glory days.The best jury-rigged armor I could buy locally. In my left hand, I had a duffle bag with some stuff to seed my dungeon and where I could store my loot. In my right hand was the sword. According to the most upvoted thread on Reddit''s r/second_amendment_outrages, guns didn''t work in dungeons, so the shotgun was in the duffle bag, and the gun''s Status between firearm and club waiting to be confirmed. I was seriously ready to mess some monsters up. In my guest room, the dungeon rose like a portal to hell, only without the hellish bits. Only the portal bits. The blanket I''d hung in front of the window billowed slightly in the draft of the air conditioning and ceiling fan. I would have to do a better job nailing the blanket''s edges to the wall so my personal Karen aka Marigold couldn''t see any mysterious lights the portal emitted. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Stepping across the threshold was like crossing to another dimension. In one instant, I was in a room smelling slightly of mold and body odor. (I''d canceled Maria, my cleaning lady, when the dungeon had formed and my apartment began to smell). The next instant, I was in a cave smelling slightly of mold and body odor. It was a break in space and time that wasn''t anywhere as mystical or transcendent as all the online forums were making it out to be. Which just demonstrated that people online are stupid. And, more often than not, know nothing. In front of me were three little green creatures. Goblins, damn. They were ugly and naked, and I could see their dangly bits. I''d seen photos of goblins corpses online, that some adventurers had dragged out after a dive. I''d heard that the Disney dungeon started with a room full of pant-less mice and a dog in the first room and they were supposedly a cakewalk to kill. There was a rumor that before the mouse killed you, he would violate you. But the internet was filled with crazy rumors, probably spread by the Russians. I dropped my duffle bag and charged. The warty green bastards snarled and spread out and tried to flank me. This would be a hard fight, but I lived in Florida and was prepared.Alligators by definition were green and warty. As a longtime inhabitant of the retirement state, I was a veteran of many alligator sightings. I had survived the legions of octogenarian Swingers cruising the villages in their golf carts, looking to get laid. I had survived Covid under DeSantos. And once, at my last apartment, I had watched a meth-cooking neighbor who''d gotten fucked-up on bath salts and striped naked to attack a Grubhub driver before he''d been tased, and four police had wrestled him to the ground. Good times. Goblins, those miserable little (traditionally anti-semitic) evolutionary failures, didn''t have weapons. Just the claws and fangs Dungeon Formation had given them at birth. My sword stabbed deep into the middle one dropping it. The amount of time, however, that it took me to skewer that first goblin gave the other two time to close in. And one on the right bit down on my leg, getting a mouth full of leather pants for its troubles. The goblin to the left must have felt threatened, comparing my mighty man meat to its tiny ding-a-ling because it went straight for my crotch -- only the cup I was wearing stopped me from singing a couple of octaves higher. There was no way in this lifetime or the next I was planning on going Bard at level 10 (the level, I¡¯d read, the [System] forced people to choose classes), so I sighed an involuntary gasp of relief ¡ª I don¡¯t think I could endure a life singing castrato. Moving quickly like a guy who''d spent 8 hours a day of his post-college life studying CAD/CAM renderings of generic suburban homes ¡ª and who had become a hermit and quit his job after a terrible accident had killed the only person he''d ever loved a few months back -- but who had been in a celebrated football player in high school over a decade earlier. I punted the goblin like it was a pigskin on game day. The goblin went long and hit the far-off wall. Three points! A goblin scratched at me with its claws¡ªthat hurt. My leg was all torn up, and my chaps were ripped to shreds. I''d bought those the day after the guest room dungeon showed up and paid $300 for ''em. Switching my focus, I stabbed and stuck my sword into its face. The goblin I''d punted a moment ago got up again and charged me.Couldn''t it just make like its green buddies and die already? Wincing under pain of my badly wounded leg, my kicking foot went backward and showed the goblin why I''d made it to State Finals with my high school football team as a kicker. Again it flew across the room and bounced off the far wall. The stubborn little turd got up again, more bruised and extremely wobbly. Idly I thought, "Tough little guy." Probably got that way from eating babies. Kicking Goblins was a rush, so I limped over and kicked it again. "The kick is good." I yelled, "Right through the goalposts," as the tiny green monster flew again across the room. When the goblin slid to the floor this time, it didn''t get up, so I shuffled over and stomped on its scrawny little face. A blue screen popped up.
Combat Resolved
Experience: 24 points
"Fucking-A," I yelled, even though I had been expecting this. There was a massive thread about the first battle on Reddit, and I''d been tweeting at a bunch of supposed Delvers on Twitter. There were boatloads of liars and posers, but some of those dungeon delvers. Everyone geeked on about online had really been into a dungeon and weren''t just losers chasing clout. I cleared the blue screen from my vision.
Status
Name: Randy Luster
Class: N/A
Level: 0
Points to Next Level: 24/50
Health: 43/100
Lethargy: 93/120
Magic: 130/130
Vim: 12
Vigor: 10
Bounce: 14
Fumble Fingered: 13
Clumsiness: 10
Chutzpah: 7
Clueless: 13
Interesting¡­ Interesting¡­ Most people got [Strength] instead of [Vim], [Endurance] instead of [Vigor], [Social] instead of [Chutzpah], and [Willpower] instead of [Cluelessness]. But from what I''d read on Reddit, this screen wasn''t constant and could be edited. Our new dungeon overlords were not hugely focused on standardization. The wording changed according to which languages the delver could speak and presumably personality. One guy claimed his original [Status] was set to Klingon, but nobody online believed him. Either that, or he was such a big nerd he should be hunted and killed for the experience points. I was shocked that my [Chutzpah]/[Social] was seven. That was a bit low¡ªthe human average for an adult being ten and all. According to the ladies at Fitz''s Irish Tavern, I was charming and didn''t even have to buy them too many drinks before they told me this. It was mostly a rumor that classes weren''t available until level 10. Though some people said that you got sucky choices earlier, you were required to take one at level 10. Dungeons had only been popping up for about a month. And not many people outside of the military had gotten that high. That was the way of this apocalypse. To their disgust, no true believers had been raptured. Instead, this apocalypse was all about free enterprise. Access to the dungeons most people knew about was controlled by companies, academia, and the government. And until my dungeon had formed, I thought that sucked more than a porn star. But this was my dungeon. And sure as the shits after Taco Bell, I wasn''t gonna tell anyone about it. Chapter 2 From what I''d read on Reddit, the Dungeon wouldn''t respawn until an hour after the adventuring team inside had left. So I was good for a rest in the first room. Wandering mobs wouldn''t show up until later, if at all -- nobody knew the specific mechanic of wandering mobs, and if they did, they weren''t talking -- and who knew if this little bedroom of monster mayhem even had more than one level. I should be safe taking a short break. It was time for the important stuff. The post-battle stuff. Loot, drop-prep, and fiddling. I walked over to the corpse of the first goblin I''d killed. "Loot," I said out loud. The body of the goblin shimmered in a polyprismatic shimmer and then disappeared. In its place lay $0.41 in pennies and nickels. Well, I wouldn''t get rich quickly with this kind of loot. Especially if I had to keep replacing expensive leather pants. But everything was copacetic anyhow. I had access to the [System]. Yeah, that''s right bitches, fucking right, I did; I had access to THE MOTHER-FUCKING [System]. Looting the second goblin yielded an old pillowcase. While the corpse of the goblin I''d yeeted produced a quarter and a bent spoon with a crust of months-old dried melted cheese. I''d risked my testicles being gnawed off by naked green humanoids for these trinkets, and that¡­ well, honestly¡­ felt totally unsatisfying. But I''d thought ahead and devised a way to fix that. I returned to my duffle bag and began taking out the gifts I''d prepared for this moment. First out was the money. I pulled out stacks of cash. Money in hand, I began making it rain, scattering the bucks around like I was in my favorite strip joint. It had been expensive to get multiple bills in each denomination. But I figured that if the Dungeon began randomly dropping cash, I wanted numerous serial numbers just in case the IRS or Secret Service decided to come snooping around. Next, I pulled out a six-pack of Budweiser, a sixer of Coors Light, and six bottles of fruity girly drink for when I had a lady over. Then I added a bottle of Class Azul Tequila, a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label, and some Nolet''s Reserve. I followed that libation up with a couple small baggies of weed and a handful of Ritalin 40mg pills, some Adderall, and some Oxy. Finishing my stimulant bonanza, I left 6 tall cans of Monster Energy to drink scattered around the room. I also needed to concern myself with my own self-protection. So a set of unworn motorcycle leathers, a motorcycle helmet, a pair of Levis in my size, a leather belt, and a couple of my favorite band-tees were added to the mess on the floor. All were worthy of being a sacrifice to the God of Dungeon loot drops if there was such a venerable being. I made a mental note to visit a sports store to pick up some more football gear and add that to the loot table. My mistake for not thinking of that before I''d come in. Maybe I should order a couple of ballistic vests too. Sucks balls that I hadn''t thought about that before this dive started. There was so much to remember. I tested the shotgun I''d carried with me. Sure enough, guns didn''t work in this place. So I laid it on the floor, next to a box of shells I''d bought. Firearms might not work. I could always use more firepower in the real world. If this Dungeon started dropping Winchesters, well¡­ Lucky Me. Like that nutter, Charlton Heston used to say, "They could pry my Dungeon Portal out of my cold dead hands." Lastly, I took out a spare Cold Steel tanto, a K-Bar, a broadsword I''d bought off Amazon, an aluminum baseball bat, and some foam nunchucks for shits and giggles. That was that. My hopes of random seeding drops were spread across the floor around me. I had also given some thought to potential mobs. While Goblins and whatever else lay beyond the door out of this room were fine, maybe I could influence the diversity of the challenges I encountered. Muttering to myself, "This is a test. This is only a test. Please don''t mutate and eat my face off." I pulled a goldfish in a plastic bag full of water, a mouse in a cardboard box, and a brown anole in a jar I''d caught that morning out of my duffle bag. That done, I said "[Status]," beyond that one 7 for my social abilities, I was kind of awesome. And even the text fit my personality well.
Status
Name: Randy Luster
Class: N/A
Level: 0
Points to Next Level: 24/50
Health: 43/100
Lethargy: 93/120
Magic: 130/130
Vim: 12
Vigor: 10
Bounce: 14
Fumble Fingered: 13
Clumsiness: 10
Chutzpah: 7
Clueless: 13
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.Taking a long look around the room for the first time, I noticed that the first room of the Dungeon wasn''t the standard goblin cave theme. There was no moss, no dripping stalactites, or limestone stalagmites. Well... I''d noticed before, but I''d been occupied with killing shrimpy green munchkin motherfuckers. Instead of the cliched underground bog where goblins lived, this initial room looked like a college dorm decorated by a freshman who''d drunk too much LSD-spike frat party punch. Posters which might have been of bands, except that they were so generic no band would ever use them as posters, decorated the walls and hung in odd locations. A cheap desk with a fake laptop was propped against a wall. Both the desk and laptop were made of cardboard and were obviously props. The laptop screen showed a porn site featuring naked and cavorting goblins. The only chair in the room was made of empty beer cases. At least the bed I was resting on was a replica of the one I''d lost. And it was honestly kind of comfy. Supposedly the Dungeon theme was based on what the Dungeon sucked into its space when it formed. Which meant the whole place was a representation of my guest room. Or was it my subconscious? Was this moronic Dungeon making lifestyle judgments? Well, fuck you, Dungeon. Decore shame away. I''ve come to crush your monsters, drive them before me, and hear the lamentations of your goblins. There were a few other things in my duffle bag. I pulled out my cell phone and tried to turn it on. The power didn''t work, so I couldn''t test if there was a goddamned signal. Hadn''t the core ever heard of wifi and DC power? Fucking Samsung, you had one job, and you couldn''t even anticipate an apocalypse. When I got out, I would leave a strongly worded negative review. Bringing up my [Status] screen once again. Damned, but I liked the way it was. It fits me. But there was something I needed to try out. One of the delvers I chatted with on Twitter claimed that a guy was making a template based on stolen corporate research and that anybody could use it. For $40 bucks, he sent me a link to a website for someone or something calling themselves DominoRay. It cost me another $1000 to get the DominoRay [Status] vocalizations. I would have skipped it, but this Domino guy was hot shit among the people who I assumed were real Adventurers.
Status
Name: Randy Luster Current Alias: Randy Luster
Class: NA Level: 0
Points to Next Level: 24/50
Attributes
Strength: 12 Stamina: 93/120
Endurance: 10 Health: 45/100
Vitality: 14
Agility: 13
Dexterity: 10
Social: 7 Charm: 70/70
Willpower: 13 Mana: 130/130
Skills
Titles
Affinities
Achievements
Menu
Friends? Guild
Inventory Equipment
Direct Messages Newsfeed
Wiki Logs
DDRV:453B-16EF-****-****-****-**** [Status] by DominoRay Ver. 0.0.034
While I liked my old one better, this one had its advantages. Apparently, my bud DominoRay wasn''t a lying shithead. Nor had I wasted $1000. In the Direct Message he''d sent me before I sent him my money, he claimed he''d been working at a Silicon Valley start-up with access to a dungeon of its very own. They''d been trying to figure out how to monetize it. Their company had some minor successes, but he''d been let go just before they could start marketing. Elon Musk bought the company and replaced most of the staff. It was a shitty move, and my contact was bitter and selling trade secrets on the down low. I didn''t know if I believed this. Sounded like the anti-establishment bullshit Musk was known for spreading on his Twitter feed. Lies made up to sell [Status] products to many hard-core anti-establishment types. But the [Status] worked, and I decided to go with it until something better came. Chapter 3 Status screen tweaked; or, to quote the British writer, "mischief managed." Now was the time to make a decision. I could sit here until I healed up and then scoot deeper into my Dungeon. Or I could step out and heal up in the living room with the internet and TV. Being inducted into the [System] meant that healing was accelerated everywhere. Some scientists claimed we weren''t even fully human anymore. Forum dwellers had jokingly begun calling us Hominid[System] or HomusLitRPGicus Man. Anything was better than what 4Chan was calling us (Syssies). Academics who understood Latin would come up with something better. Probably after a few slower-moving or dumber Adventurers got themselves vivisected in a lab and studied. You know, for science. As a group, we''d already been excommunicated by the Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Evangelicals, and Scientologists. The Buddhists were on the fence. And the Orthodox and Reform Jewish communities were having vigorous discussions between angry Rabbis. The church of the flying spaghetti had declared a feast of pasta and pirates. Pastor Alex Jones had announced that dungeons were filled with very naughty chickens. Ever since news of the [System], the religious of the world had gotten their panties into a mega twist. I don''t know what the fuss was about. Everyone knew there was at least one Dungeon in Vatican City, several in Jerusalem, and a yeti-spawning snow-hole in Tibet. Oddly enough, another Yeti-spawning snowhole was also supposed to be in Salt Lake City. Dungeons weren''t typical, but they weren''t rare. Their rarity wasn''t just that these places only popped up willy-nilly and who knew where, nor was the difficulty getting into one dependent on the frequent no trespassing signs and [System] enhanced guys with guns and shoot-to-kill orders patrolling nearby perimeters. No, what made dungeons hard to get into was that they only allowed one team of delvers in at a time. There were rumors were going around that more extensive dives were instanced. Still, most delvers agreed that all publicly available evidence and gossip pointed to one team entering at a time. And once the team left the Dungeon (or died), it would take one hour for the Dungeon to respawn. This meant that if a team stepped into the Dungeon, then stepped back out again immediately. If they did this without battling mobs, looking for loot, whatever. Just stepped in, turned around, and stepped out; the maximum number of dungeon dives was 24 daily. This means that people who got into one tended to stay inside them for as long as possible before leaving. They brought food, survival gear, camping equipment, and whatever it took to lengthen their stays. And only left when they were forced to or had achieved whatever objective they had set out to achieve. Because usually, when a team left their Dungeon, sitting meant going to the back of the line to get in again. But this was my Dungeon. And because nobody was waiting their turn outside, where I waited really didn''t matter. Might as well wait outside and let the Dungeon respawn. Go over my first delve, and evaluate my performance. Maybe catch a game on TV. The choice to kick back out on the couch was an easy one. Healing in here or out there happened at [System] speed now. Eventually, I would like to go deeper than the first room. But on my first delve, I could let the scabs form over my bruises anywhere, and I might as well be comfy doing it. Stepping out, I exited my guest room and said, "Alexa set the timer for an hour." In my bedroom, I took off my ripped chaps and jeans. Then I took a shower to wash away the blood. Freshly cleaned, I wrapped my leg in bandages and walked around naked, hoping my neighbor Marigold was peeping through the windows again. Then I put on a new pair of jeans and a t-shirt that read "Pete Davidson Stunt Shlong," I limped into the kitchen to make myself a grilled cheese. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Realistically I hadn''t done very well on this dive. I''d allowed the verdant fuckers to flank me. One of the little shits had clawed up my leg. Retrospectives are the bedfellows of survival. I almost got felt up by a goblin. It had tried to gnaw and gnash on my junk. If I was going to do this, I needed to minimize my damage. Especially delving solo. What I had done was successful, but it was clearly also wrong. First, the sword had been the wrong choice, at least for my skill. It was an excellent weapon. It looked wicked cool. I pictured myself going all Highlander -- "There can be only me!" -- That had been a dream and a half. But I had no skillz. And while the aluminum baseball bat I brought along had all the elegance of Al Capone, it might have been a better starter basher for someone as purely talentless as me. Big wide swings would have forced the little green bastards to keep their distance and would have done a better job splattering goblin brains. Secondly, the obvious. I had no plan to go in because I had no idea what was inside. Now that I did, I could strategize. Thirdly, should I consider finding a group? More importantly, should I call Sid? On the plus side, inviting Sid and his wife or some PUGs would let me push deeper faster. I would have someone to watch my back. WoW had instilled the idea that I should bring at least a dedicated tank, a healer, and a couple DPS to overcome the Boss. Unless you were massively over-leveled. But the more people I told about this little cavern of experience points, the more likely someone would blab. And if someone snitched, someone would inevitably deserve to get stitches, but much more likely, the government, an unfriendly corporation, or my condo board would take the contents of my guest room away from me. There were a few things I could fix. As I sprawled out on the couch, I Googled "Kicking ass and taking names. Near me." Which inevitably led to a HEMA club, a Kendo Club, and an MMA school, all within a 20-mile radius. I decided that since the HEMA club was the closest and cheapest. I would try it first. My next stop was going to one of the e-commerce sites I knew America''s multitude of Gravy Seals shopped at. I put down an order for a complete ballistic armor outfit. A crossbow and a couple hundred quarrels. The current top-of-the-retail-line compound bow and a couple hundred arrows. A bunch of archery accessories. Arrowheads, arm guards, gloves, quivers, sights, tabs, targets, trucker hats, pullers, that kind of thing. I spent extra money on next-day shipping. Knowing that my purchases would come straight to my house since Governor DeSantis had eliminated most state weapon laws and background checks. Part of me was a little pissed because the gear I ordered only came in camouflage color, and I would look like a jackass, but that couldn''t be helped. Some ex-girlfriends had claimed I was a jackass and narcissist, which was totally unfair but maybe also a bit true. Just saying I had gotten used to the observation a long time ago. The alarm on Alexa eventually went off, and I put the new protective gear on and headed back into the Dungeon. My sword was sheathed but at my side. This time, I held a baseball bat in hand. None of the loot I''d left behind was still there. Hopefully, it would be added to the Dungeon and drop randomly, improving the delving experience. The same three goblins were standing around shooting the goblin shit. They were passing about a bottle of Jack Daniels Blue Label. Motherfuckers. That was my booze drop they were backwashing into. "Motherfuckers," I yelled as I charged, bat ready to swing for the fences. This time it went smoother. When the first bastard closed in, I didn''t immediately go in for the kill. Instead, I pushed it back with my bat. On the backswing, I hit one of the two trying to flank me, knocking it to the ground, but still no explicit kill. I then stepped back and hit the third one in the arm. Probably broke it, but it kept any of the little green shits from getting closer. Dashing back to the first goblin, I conked him good on the head. Green gray matter splattered everywhere. The second goblin was getting to its feet, and the third was whimpering, clutching its arm. Instead of bashing the goblin getting up, I yeeted him across the room. Then I turned and stomped over to the one clutching its arm. It whimpered and started crying before I bashed him real good. Dropping my bat, I walked over to the gob I had yeeted. It was twitching on the ground. So I pulled out my sword and stabbed him in the eye out of spite. The loot sucked mega ass. I got a small bottle of Tylenol and a copy of my ex-girlfriend''s Hitachi. I hadn''t known she had left that around to get sucked in and populate this place. I wouldn''t drink that backwashed JD, but I could probably pawn it off on someone, so at least there was that. Chapter 4 After a quick break, nothing was left to do except push to the second room. I wasn''t tired, but my dad''s favorite saying, "Measure twice, you little shit, and don''t fuck up," still applied. It was better to rest when I didn''t need to than to relax than to need to sleep but couldn''t. Eventually, I swung my backpack on again and started moving. I had an inventory, but it only had three spaces. That is where I kept my wallet and phone when I delved. I would need to get a [Crystal] to expand it, and I couldn''t afford that yet. The far side of the room had an ordinary door in regular drywall. The doorknob was black and modernist, and the door was the standard slab hollow core painted white. It opened into the room I was standing in. Tacked to the door was a large-three-breasted woman in a knit yarn bikini who looked like she had just stepped out of a swimming pool. She was holding a bottle of something I assumed was beer. The text on the poster was illegible. The beer girl was kind of mid for a marketing ad. Despite her three bobs, I would still probably do her; More to love. I wouldn''t even need to be drunk. I opened the door. The more important question was this. Was there a dungeon somewhere filled with swimming pools, alien beer, and three-breasted chicks. A slight bitterness filled me that I had goblins and not poontang populating my guestroom. Outside was a dark hallway. I reached over and flipped on the light switch, and a set of ceiling lamps lit up. Immediately to my left was another door. There were another door and a stairway further into the short hallway. Opening the door immediately to the left of me, the light from the hallway ceiling lamps illuminated a bathroom. A nightlight was in the wall outlet above the sink, and another switch was inside the door. I flipped the light switch on and saw an ordinary toilet and a simple blue subway tile backsplash. There was no shower or bathtub. The opportunity presented itself, so I unzipped my pants, lifted the toilet seat, and whipped out my dick. "Ahhhh," I said, taking a piss. Usually, I don''t look down to aim. I''ve spent a good chunk of my life pissing and gotten a lot of practice at it. Splatter and getting some on the floor is one of life''s immutable truths. Sometimes you just miss. Other times you just don''t care. This time, however, I was smart, like a cucumber. I realized that a delver must constantly be on guard of their nether regions in a dungeon. Solo adventurers never know when something will jump out of some random dungeon toilet somewhere and bite your junk. Instead of water, the toilet was filled with a jelly-like substance, meekly waving pseudopods at me. Cursing my foolishness, I kept pissing on the slime and then flushed the toilet. Bluewater washed away my pee and the monster. Easiest experience ever. Then I had a thought. I had just flushed the loot down the drain along with the monster. Fuck. There was a plunger beside the toilet, and I frantically pumped the plunger, trying to get my loot back... I mean, slime back. It was gone. Screw it. What did I need pissed-on-loot for, anywho? It probably sucked ass. Running the sink for a bit before I washed my hands seemed like the safe course of action. The cool water was comforting. I pumped some liquid soap from the dispenser onto my hands. Shit, fucking, Christ!. Another slime. The soap was a mother-fucking slime. The bits of the acidic bastard burning my hands had the consistency of semen. It stuck to everything and dripped all over. I bashed my hands down on the sink, which did nothing except spread the biatch and turn around. My hands and some of my arms were becoming pus-covered red-blistered messes. Running my hands under the water, and the acidic slime wouldn''t wash off. My guess is it was getting revenge for flushing its little friend. Finally, in desperation, I wiped my hands on my shirt, transferring the mess to the fabric. That worked, except the fabric of my shirt began to dissolve. I carefully removed my shirt by ripping it from my body; I Couldn''t pull it over my head, or it might get on my face. Before dropping that clothing on the floor, I ensured my hands were clean. Holes from the slime''s acid covered the fabric. My hands hurt. In some places, I could see the bone, and blood was pouring down my arm. In my HUD, my hitpoint bar was down to half. That wasn''t good, but the bar had stopped going down. The rest of the slime poured out of the soap dispenser. Tendrils on the sink were trying to reconnect with the slimy bits on my shirt. I hadn''t killed the thing, and the fucker had almost killed me. "You''re on my list, you son of a bitch. Yeah, that''s right. I''ve made a list, and I''m taking down names!" I yelled at the non-sentient jelly. I exited the bathroom and returned to the first room where the goblins had been. The blood and guts of the killed goblins stained the floor. The room smelt like iron. The dungeon wouldn''t clean up until I left this place. Son of a bitch my hands hurt. I hopped onto my guest room bed and lay back to heal. I considered leaving again to heal IRL but fuck it. If I was going to be a successful delver, I had to be a tough MoFo. Since this would take a few shakes of a lamb''s tail, I figured I might as well check out my [Status].
Update Status?
Yes No
I selected [Yes], and a bar showing the percentage complete of my [Status] update appeared in my HUD along with the words [Status] by DominoRay Ver. 0.0.034 I had heard about this update. There was a lot of talk on the Reddit forums. There were also a lot of nobodies, however, who talked shit and knew nothing talking about it too. They blathered on and on about how great and awesome the update was gonna be. Like they wouldn''t shit their pants the moment, they set foot in a place like this. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Status
Name: Randy Luster Current Alias: Randy Luster
Class: NA Level: 0
Experience: 53 xp Points to Next Level: 50 xp
Attributes
Strength: 12 Stamina: 93/120
Endurance: 10 Health: 45/100
Vitality: 14
Agility: 13
Dexterity: 10
Social: 7 Charm: 70/70
Willpower: 13 Mana: 130/130
Skills
Titles
Trees
Spells
Achievements
Menu
Friends Guild
Inventory Equipment
Market Auction
Direct Messages Newsfeed
Wiki Logs
License: DDRV:453B-16EF-****-****-****-**** [Status] by DominoRay Ver. 0.0.034
So [Affinities] had turned into [Trees] like the rumors had said it would. It made sense. Once you got a [Class], you gained access to skill trees associated with that [Class]: [Weapons], [Mana], [Skills] and bullshit like that. They had added the [Market] and [Auction] functions. Hmmm. 53 out of 50 Experience points. It looks like I had options. I could level up, which would get me a single point to put into an attributes, pushing me just a bit closer to being able to choose a class. Or I could spend the experience in the [Market] or [Auction]. From what I''d read online the difference between the [Market] and [Auction] was simple. The [Market] was a [System] creation. A place to buy and sell loot, skills, spells, and powers for pre-established generally high prices. It was a company store kind of apocalypse. On the other hand, the [Auction] was something that [DominoRay] and his backers had dreamt up. It was a human creation based on the loot Delvers snagged for themselves. Seeing as the [Auction] hadn''t even been there an hour ago, it was still probably buggy. There were bound to be far fewer choices. And I imagined the prices would be far lower than the [System] version. Checking the [Auction], the selection was pathetic. Consoling myself, DominoRay''s [Status] wasn''t widely used. Cloth Bandage 1 xp Goblin Club 1 xp Goblin Knife 1 xp Goblin Ear 1 xp It''s a Small World CD 1 xp Micky Mouse Ears 1 xp Rusty sword 4 xp Shiny Stone 1 xp Slime in Jar 10 xp ¡­ There were a couple of hundred items listed on the [Auction], and unfortunately, nothing I gave a shit to buy. Still, I took a moment and listed the Goblin spittle bottle of Jack Daniels and the Hitachi Vibrator on the [Auction] for 2xp each. Next, I checked the [Market]. The difference was immediate. Now there were hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of items listed. And they were broken down by function¡ª[Spells], pets, weapons, armor, reagents, potions, and a whole lot more. What I needed now was something to make fights easier or to cut short my downtime. Which meant I needed skill crystals. Skill crystals were spells or abilities that dropped randomly after combat. They were entirely outside of the class system and the affinity and talent tree system. Filtering the skill crystal listed by prices less than 50 xp yielded an interesting list. Basic Block 49 xp Basic Club 49 xp Basic Cure Wound 49 xp Basic Dagger 49 xp Basic Dodge 49 xp Basic Increase Movement 49 xp Basic Light 49 xp Basic Long Sword 49 xp Birth Control 47 xp Burn 49 xp Cause Flatulence 40 xp Cause Poop Pants 40 xp Cause Baldness 40 xp Cause Hair Growth 40 xp Clean location 45 xp Cure Hangover 45 xp| Heat object 47 xp Ignite 49 xp Increase Charm Recovery 49 xp Increase Health Recovery 49 xp Increase Mana Recovery 49 xp Increase Stamina Recovery 49 xp Refrigerate object 47 xp Shock 47 xp Summon Cheese Slice 47 xp Summon Chocolate Bar 35 xp Summon Creamer 20 xp Summon Cream Cheese 45 xp Summon Instant Coffee 35 xp Summon Bacon 47 xp Summon Bagel (Choc. Chip) 35 xp Summon Bagel (Everything) 35 xp Summon Bagel (Plain) 35 xp Summon Bagel (Pumpernickel) 35 xp Summon Bagel (Sesame) 35 xp Summon Crickets 35 xp Summon Dead Mouse 47 xp Summon Jam (Blueberry) 35 xp Summon Jam (Raspberry) 35 xp Summon Jam (Strawberry) 35 xp Summon Lettuce 47 xp Summon Liquid 8oz Budweiser 35 xp Summon Liquid 8oz Coke 35 xp Summon Liquid 8oz Lemonade 35 xp Summon Liquid 8oz Water 35 xp Summon Peanut Butter 35 xp Summon Pepperoni 42 xp Summon Pop Corn 35 xp Summon Sliced Brown Bread 35 xp Summon Sliced Rye Bread 43 xp Summon Sliced Sour Dough 43 xp Summon Sliced White Bread 30 xp Summon Sugar 30 xp Summon Sugar Substitute 30 xp Summon teabag (Camomile) 30 xp Summon teabag (Earl Grey) 30 xp Summon teabag (Green) 30 xp Summon teabag (Hibiscus) 30 xp Summon teabag (Oolong) 30 xP Summon Wax Ball 35 xp Toast object 34 xp And so on. And so on. I could buy hundreds, maybe even thousands of minor skills and spells. The only limiting factor was how many monsters I''d killed and how little I wanted to advance. Right now, I wanted a Basic Sword and a Basic Cure Wounds or Increased Health Recovery. Now that I had been confronted with my inability to kill the slime in the bathroom, I considered getting some damage-based spells like ignite, fire or shock. In the end, it was the pain in my leg decided things. My cheap punk ass could only afford an incredibly basic heal, and safety first had been drilled into my brain by a gym coach who had eventually been arrested for raping members of the wrestling team. I spent the money and bought Increase Health Recovery. I was going to a sword class tonight and I had plans for that slime. Oh yes, you little soap bottle, mother-fucker. I had plans for you. Chapter 5 Selecting [Increase Health Recovery] from the [Market] deposited a protective box made out of some mystical plastic material on the bed next to me. Opening this box, I expected some kind of gemstone or mineral. But no, the box contained a tiny ball made out of bougie glass with a deep blue internal glow, wrapped in mystical post apocalyptic bubble wrap. I had read a lot about these crystals. You had to break them to use them. Not just break them. You had to crush them; cause the crystal sphere break your skin, and draw blood. Shattering the crystal on the floor was just a waste of the experience you spent to get one. Someone on Reddit had swallowed one, and all it did was come out whole in his shit a few days later. There had been a lively debate about punching, clubbing, and stabbing the guy in the gut to see what would happen. But there were posers, trolls, scammers, and losers on the internet, who were willing to say and believe anything. The internet was filled with liars and conspiracies. And poor wayward me had no clue who to trust or who I could believe. Luckily I had access to a better option. DominoRay had thoughtfully included a wiki and a forum in the [Status] that only delvers had access to. Opening the [Forum] tab on my [Status], the following message appeared in my HUD - Keep it civil. Avoid conversations about religion or politics. Discussions that are favorable or derogatory of certain races, genders, sexual orientations, or disabilities are prohibited except in designated Sub Forums. - The first infraction is a warning. - The second warning is a hex of flatulence. - The third infraction is a ban from the forums. - The fourth infraction is a month''s ban on the [Status] software. - The fifth infraction is a complete ban. Keep it to the internet, folks. This space is for professional adventurers, not trolls or activists. - Do not post porn except in the designated porn forum. - Kiddy porn will lead to an automatic permanent ban on DominoRay [Status], and a Cho-Mo flag will be added to your system-generated [Status] - Beastiality will also result in automatic bans. The sole exception to this is sex with humanoid dungeon creatures. This will be evaluated on a case by case basis. More than likely this will also result in a permanent ban. NOTE: Please don''t fuck a goblin and post it to the Porn Section. It is not funny and will result in a ban. - DominoRay - If you don''t want to be known by your real name, please set your [Current Alias] on your [Status] page - No doxxing - Sales of Illegal substances are tolerated but not encouraged. Any extremely dangerous or toxic substances will result in a forum ban, and all your know information and communications will be sent to your local authorities. This app is not a substitute for the Dark-web, please do not use it as such. - All transactions between users are to be done in Dungeon currency or Experience points. Keep the use of Fiat and Crypto currency to NonRPG space. - Adventurers with a gold star ?? next to their name are known delvers. - Forum users with a blue diamond ?? are trusted users. - Adventurers with a grey checkmark ?? are administrators. - All viewpoints in this forum are opinions and not gospel and are open to debate, deletion, or modification when better information becomes available. Leaving the [Forum] temporarily, I switched my [Current Alias] to "Booty Master." Thanking whatever alien gods controlled this system that nobody had taken my handle. Forum Topics The contents of the Forum are for discussion, theory, and help. For known and presumed facts, consult the wiki. Who is Domino Ray - Theories and Discussion [Locked] New Users - Introduce Yourself and Say Hello Classes - Known Requirements Classes - Best Builds Skills - Discussion and Known Cheats Spells - Discussion and Known Cheats Trees/Affinity - Discussion and Known Cheats Looting Rules Armor Weapons Equipment Potions Scrolls Crafting Materials Reagents Drops Pets Dungeon Known Locations and Entrance Requirements Dungeons - Top Ten Lists Bestiary - Dungeon Monsters and Weaknesses Dungeon Geographies - Theory Dungeon Flora - Identify and Use Adventuring Parties, Guilds, Clans, and Groups Looking For Friends IRL Meetups Douchebag List - Assholes, Ninjas, Griefers, and Player Killers Delving - Streams and Clips Adventurers in the News Hate Groups which Target Adventurers Quest Board Corporate Sponsors Guild Sponsors IRL Help Wanted and Employment Adventurer Cosplay Known Adventurer Groupies Dungeon Nudes - Soft Core Dungeon Nudes and Sex - Explicit Dungeon Nudes and Sex - Fetish Dungeon Nudes and Sex - Freaky Politics Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism, Philosophy, and Metaphysics Flaming, Grudges, and Venting Politically Incorrect Viewpoints [System] Programming and MODs I selected [Skills - Discussion and Known Cheats] and then scrolled down to [Skill and Spell Crystals]. Inside was a list of various purchasable skills, how to use them, their limitations, and ideas about how to use them in ways they weren''t meant to be used. Entering [Increase Health Recovery] into the search function, I found the following discussion. Been experimenting with IHR. You can use it on yourself, party members, monsters, and pets. Similar requirements, though. Need for physical contact, spend a lot of mana, and deathly slow. Has anyone tried the spell out on a Demon or Undead? Curious to see what happens. ???? Demetri - 25 upvotes, 2 downvotes, Report Sorry @Dimitri, no, devil spawn in my dungeon. But tried IHR on a slime. After about 5 minutes, the slime exploded. Took mucho damage because I had to keep touching the slime. Totally not worth it. Does anybody else have any experience with overhealing? Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.??Cupcakes - 5 upvotes, 0 downvotes We''re the Atlas Medical Group, and we are looking for people who have chosen the healing path to join our outstanding team of Doctors and Specialists. Good career advancement. Access to Dungeon. Good Pay. Get in touch, and we will open the world to you. AtlasMedicalGroup - 0 upvotes, 32 downvotes, Report Reported. Keep it in the employment forum. @AtlasMedicalGroup ??Cupcakes - 32 upvotes, 1 downvote, Report Why would I want to heal an undead? Wookiemania - 2 upvotes, 10 downvotes, Report To see if healing causes them damage. ???? Demetri - 1 upvote, 0 downvotes, Report Spent three days "Healing" my boyfriend, who was already in full health. Didn''t do anything except get rid of a scar he had as a kid. Does overhealing only works on slimes? Or is it on all monsters? ??Cupcake - 14 upvotes, 0 downvotes, Report There is a rumor that you need IHR and BCW to get a healer class. Anyone know? ??Meeper - 0 upvotes, 0 downvotes, Report Guys, I need Incase Healer Crystal really bad. I can pay 10xp Hometown-Hero - 0 upvotes, 12 downvotes, Report @Meeper, there is enough data yet. Getting the spell couldn''t hurt, though. ???? Demetri - 1 upvote, 0 downvotes, Report This content went on and on for a few pages. It was facinating but currently useless to me. Next, I went to the wiki. [Increase Healing Rate] - often abbreviated to IHR Description Identify Description An introductory spell that speeds up the [System Natural Healing] speed. Requires touching the wound for optimal healing rate. Indirect contact decreases the healing rate depending on how distant the healer is from the injury. User Added [Increase Healing Rate] is thought to be the introductory spell for more advanced [Heal over Time] spells. While this spell is mainly used outside of combat, many users assign it the thought command Hot Heal in preparation for later more powerful [Heal Over Time] spells. Current cost in Marketplace: 49 xp Mana Per Second: 0.5 mp Health Per Second: 0.1 hp + [System Natural Healing]* * [System Natural Healing] = ((Strength + Endurance) / 200) + (Level / 100) hp/second [System Natural Healing] is an estimate based on a study of 76 people with the [System] who volunteered to take a 50-hitpoint wound while monitoring their statistics. It cannot be considered reliable until a more extensive sampling has been studied under more varied conditions. Known [Classes] which Grant this Spell [Combat Medic][Hedge Witch][Nurse Practitioner] [Spell Crystal] Previously Found So far, this [Spell] has only been found in the [Market] [Monsters] Known to be Using this Spell - [Kobol Shaman] - [Pluto] in [Disneyland Dungeon] Following the link [Spell Crystal] I found the wiki entry: [Spell Crystal] - Often abbreviated to Crystal Description Crystals hold spells or skills. Using a crystal to acquire an ability seems to occur outside the class system allowing non-standard advancement. It has been hypothesized that some [Classes] require spells or skills that must be bought or found. This has not been conclusively proven. Every functioning Spell Crystal has an internal glow. All similar crystals have a matching colored light. So far, Crystals have been found in the following colors, [Yellow], [Blue], [Green], [Orange]. It has not yet been discovered what these colors correspond to. Suggestions such as power, rarity, affinity, and class have all been advanced but not proven. Usage Break the crystal against your flesh or to a wound. As long as the injury has uncoagulated blood, the power of the crystal can enter the bloodstream. The longest recorded waiting time before a power has been added to a [Status] is one hour. Longer times have been postulated but not recorded yet. Giving a [Plebe] a crystal will induct that person into the [System] precisely as if they had entered a dungeon and killed a [Monster]. Crystal Decay Outside of a [Dungeon] or [Inventory], crystals lose power beginning after three days. The skill or spell will be completely exhausted an additional seven days after it begins losing potency. Storing the [Crystal] in an [Inventory] will stop the decay process, but will not refresh it. The weaker the crystal, the longer it will take to be absorbed into your bloodstream and onto the [Status]. A powerless crystal is not internally lit. See [Crystal Replenishment] for information about adding power to a powerless crystal. That was more than enough information for me. I crushed the crystal in my acid-damaged hand, letting the shards cut open my slowly healing skin and the light from inside the sphere flowed into my body. My body tingled nicely for about ten minutes, and then I heard a [ping] in my brain. Status
Status
Name: Randy Luster Current Alias: BootyMaster
Class: NA Level: 0
Current Experience: 3 xp Points to Next Level: 50 xp
Attributes
Strength: 12 Stamina: 93/120
Endurance: 10 Health: 45/100
Vitality: 14
Agility: 13
Dexterity: 10
Social: 7 Charm: 70/70
Willpower: 13 Mana: 130/130
Skills
Titles
Trees
Spells
- Increase Healing Rate
Achievements
Menu
Friends Guild
Inventory Equipment
Market Auction
Direct Messages Newsfeed
Wiki Logs
License: DDRV:453B-16EF-****-****-****-**** [Status] by DominoRay Ver. 0.0.034
Still lying on the bed, I activated IHR and let the healing energies flow through me. A couple minutes later, I was in full health. I didn''t even care about replenishing my mana since IHR was the only spell. It was time to kill a slime. Chapter 6 The first thing I did was tear down the beer girl poster and crumple it up. From the inside of my backpack, I grabbed the bottle of barbecue lighter fluid I''d packed. Carrying a burnable oil had been recommended on Reddit to fight the undead and things you couldn''t bash. Slime, undead, same thing, right? I doused the crumpled-up beer poster in lighter fluid and headed for the bathroom. The slime had reformed and was in the process of pulling itself back into its soap bottle home. This would be an epic battle; man vs. terrible dungeon monster, human vs. little shit. Whatever came, I''d prepared. I imagined myself covered in victory laurels with all the shorties oozing wetness when they saw me. I threw ripped-up chunks of the crumpled poster around the soap bottle and a small pile of butane-soaked paper littered around the sink and on the floor. For good measure, I resprayed the torn-up sign with lighter fluid. Pulling a safety match from my backpack, I lit that shit up. The fire started small. A flickering little flame, that soon spread across the torn and crumpled kindling I''d provided it. I held out my hands to warm myself on my fire. The soap container began to melt. It was then that the bathroom vanity and the dungeon [Drywall] caught fire. Who makes dungeon furniture out of cheap particle board? Where there once was a small bonfire of slime death, grew into the [bathroom] being engulfed in flames. This room was not up to NAHB standards. The smile on my face grew as my experience points ticked up 5 points. Take that, you slimy little motherfucker. Slimes, the little bastards, slimes probably grew up to be lawyers. Sending this one to the fiery pits of hell was my day''s good deed. Still, I had to back up out of the room quickly. The bathroom was turning into a massive conflagration. Note to self: don''t pour gasoline all over the place to get five shitty experience points. Another note to self: Think twice about getting the fireball spell. I closed the bathroom door and backed up into the first room. I could hear snaps, crackles, and pops that had nothing to do with rice crispies. The hallway was filling with smoke. Ah, shit. Time to stop this delve. Not like I didn''t have shit to do outside the dungeon. The bathroom door had caught fire when I got to the portal out of the dungeon. Hopefully, the refresh will fix things. On the other hand, I suddenly had visions of a burned-out hellscape and me walking around with a fire extinguisher battling fire elementals. That would totally kick-ass. Who knew. Maybe I could get an achievement for burning down a dungeon. Worth a try if I ever got access to someone else''s. In a better mood, I dropped all my delving stuff on the floor, then hummed "Fire, Water, Burn," and went into my bathroom to shower and change. The interior of the HEMA club was totally medieval chic. There were sword stands lining the walls holding hundreds of swords. The floor was covered in a rubber padding that was ever-so-slightly flexible. In the corner were a few complete suit of Medieval plate armor that seemed to glare balefully out at the room. A large group of people, dressed in exercise gear, stood in neatly organized lines moving from fighting stance to fighting stance. Most of these people were clearly beginners. "Ah, another new face. At this rate, we will have to buy another building to fit everyone. Welcome, stranger, welcome. I''m Gina," Said a woman who walked up to me. She was dressed all in black with a logo of "Tampa HEMA society," where a pocket should have been. "Gina, aren''t you supposed to be talking in all thee''s and thou''s? A girl dragged me to a Renaissance Fair once, and it was fucking irritating all the fake gobbledygook they babbled," I said. "Maybe a couple of months ago, but with all these dungeons popping up? Well, more people are interested in preparing to be the adventurer they always wanted to be than returning to the glorious old days. The thee''s and thou''s fell by the wayside. Adapt to the times, am I right? So what should I call you?" "Randy," I said. "Soooo Randy, let me guess. You want to be a Delver with a capital ''D'' and want to pick up sword fighting so you don''t get skewered by the first goblin who tries to bite your ankles? Our little HEMA Club can help you with that. And before you ask Randy, HEMA stands for Historical European Martial Arts. It is based upon Medieval Sword Fighting and is the same style of fighting Middle Age Knights, Lords, and Kings used." Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. "The cost is a straight up $150 a month, and you can stop by any session. In the old days, we would only have two classes a day after work, but you know, renewed interest and all that. These days we run lessons from 11:00 am until 10:00 at night. "You must buy a weighted, blunted polypropylene sword to use during practice. We sell them here for $500. You can buy them cheaper online, but then you have to wait for one to be in stock and then deal with the post office. We won''t let you on the floor without the proper gear, and if you want to get started now¡­, "It might also help if you bought our club''s book on basic stances and handholds. That''ll set you back another $75. You can dress in jogging clothes for the first few months, but when we press to sparring, you will need protective clothing. So what do you say? Are you in? We take Mastercard, Visa, Amex, PayPal, $Cashapp, Venmo, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. Sorry, we don''t take Diner''s Club because, like, who the hell ever takes Diners." Gina looked at me expectantly. I said, "But your website says it was $50 a month. That''s why I came here." "Old prices, I''m afraid. The new prices keep the dreamers away. You only qualify for the old price if you were a regular before the apocalypse started. Gus, that''s the guy who owns this building; he keeps meaning to get our web designer to update the prices but forgets. We do have a package deal of $650 for everything. Save $75 bucks. It''s a steal, I tell you." "I think I might try out the Kendo place then," I said. "No problem. But every dojo and martial arts organization these days is charging pretty near the same price. Sword skills, first aid skills, lock picking classes, mapping classes, even knitting classes. Some guy quit his high school science job and teaches a basic chemistry class that he calls Prelude to Alchemy. "I hear that the Church of the Forgiving Eagle even teaches a Praying to Chickens class. You can find brochures for the nearby schools teaching various skills on the wrack over there." Gina pointed to a rack near the door. "Frankly, Randy, for those of us with hobbies considered outside the norm, this apocalypse has become something of a godsend and money making renaissance." Sighing, I handed over my credit card. "I''ll get the package deal then, but I won''t like it." "That''s fine. Our charter has no rule that says you have to like it. I''ll grab a beginner''s package. If you need to change, go ahead. The changing room is over there. Feel free to browse through the brochures and watch the current class. The next session starts in 20 minutes. And you are in luck; it''s a beginner class. Nearly two-thirds of our classes these days are aimed at beginners. Can''t wait till some of you get good because I miss good sparing." Gina said. I walked over to the table and looked at all the brochures. There was everything from "You and me and bandages" to "Picking doors and treasure chests for dummies" to "Meditation, not just for Hippies and Buddhists anymore." I grabbed a copy of each and covertly stuffed them into my inventory. The "Basics of Delving" and "Survivalism 101" sounded interesting. I looked up the price of a sword on Amazon. The high-impact polypropylene training sword that most class members used cost $40. Son of a bitch. The next session started with stretching exercises for the first ten minutes. I followed along as best I could, though stretching wasn''t rocket science. After the stretching, Gina led me to the corner of the room next to the plate armor and said, "Okay, I am going to show you how to hold your sword. You don''t want to grip it too hard. Also, don''t hold the pommel. Your pommel is a counterweight that helps you control the speed and direction of your thrust. Right hand near the hilt, your left hand, just below it." She spent a few minutes correcting how I held onto the sword until she said, "I suppose that is good enough for now. Next, I want you to stand like this. Your legs should be about shoulder length apart. Yeah. Like that. Not bad. Okay, now this is your first move. Holding your sword correctly, I want you to thrust like this. It will be hard not to step into the thrust. That is an instinct. I want you to ignore your instincts and step into the thrust after swinging the blade." Gina had me practice until I had it, and then she said, "Keep going. I am going to help some of the other noobs. I will be back in a bit." I kept doing the same move, balancing on my legs, raising my sword, swinging, then stepping into the swing over and over. I didn''t immediately see a new status bar in my Heads up Display listed as Learn: Basic Long Sword - HEMA style, and the indicator showed that I was at 8%. Over the next few hours, Gina showed me three other swings, and the status bar climbed up to 43%, making almost jizz my pants. Just as I was about to leave, Gina came over. "Hope you liked the class. You would be amazed how many people stick around for the first session and then never show up again. Just between you and me, your progress was amazing. You seemed to instinctively get the moves. Impressive. Are you sure you haven''t become part of the system?" "Naw, just a poser like everyone else here," I said. "I uh¡­ just watched a lot of Star Trek and learned the moves from there," I said. "Star Trek?" Gina said sounding confused. "Well, I guess it takes all types. Anyway, see you next time you come in. And keep in mind that if you want to catch up faster, we offer one-on-one sessions for $70 an hour with any of our expert swords people." I nodded and hurried out of there. Chapter 7 Fitz''s Irish Tavern was run by a German man named Fritz Muller, although he told everyone Fitz was short for Fitzgerald. It was an excellent place to get a pint of Guinness, and the food was good Irish-German. Sheppard''s pie is forged from bratwurst, boiled cabbage and schnitzel, corned beef and sour kraut. Like every typical Irishman he was, Fritz made mean curry fries and the best donair kabab in the city. The bar was kitschy enough mishmash of styles and nationalities to be trendy. Fitz''s place somehow elevated itself beyond the typical Tampa dive into something approaching existentialism. There were more excellent places around. Hell, I could take an Uber to Saint Petersburg and bounce from site to locale, drowning in primo poontang and overpriced booze. But Fitz''s was my spot. There might have been better places, but Fitz''s Irish Tavern was the goat for me. It was inexpensive, had a decent and revolving selection of easy pussy, and frankly, it was a great place to get shit-faced. I walked over to my regular seat by the bar and waved my fingers vaguely at Fritz, who took that as a sign to pour me my usual pint of Harp. As usual, the jukebox was playing the Irish Rovers. The music would cycle through variations of the Irish Rovers, Drum and Bagpipe music, and Wagner unless someone paid for a song. Sidney ambled over and sat down next to me. "Yo, how''s it hanging, dude." "Check it out," I said. I took a sip of my Harps and then wiggled my fingers at my beer, ahem magically. "Shit. I thought I bought a Crystal that makes beer magically disappear, but once again, it was just me drinking it." I laughed. "Hardy, ha-ha," Sidney said. He then reached out and touched my drink, and the glass fogged up, and the beer chilled. Sidney had spent $8,500 buying a Skill Crystal that allowed him to perfectly chill beer magically. Not lemonade, water, coke, or other drink ¡ª just beer. It was a mixed blessing, great at bars and picnics but of dubious value anywhere else. At least gave him access to the [System]. "When are you going to take the plunge," said Sidney. "It isn''t cheap, but [System] access is totally worth it. You should see the new update. They just added an auction where [Players] can sell things between them for experience. And you get to see your [Stats] and have an [inventory] and everything." "Sid, I know all that. You keep telling me all about it. I read about it online. Before I quit my job, people talked about it at work. But where are you gonna fucking get experience if you can''t kill monsters? And your inventory carries what, two items? Unless that is, you somehow stumble across the fucking [Inventory Expansion] Skill Crystal or buy a magic pouch." I said. Sid said, "Randy, there is a rumor that at least two dungeons have appeared along the Appalachian Trail. They keep the location secret, but I plan to start my through-hike to find them in March. Worst comes to worst, I train my [Basic] and [Intermediate] walking skills kill." "Yeah," I said, "I just found out that there is a mondo fucking cottage industry teaching Adventurer Adjacent skills." "With all your fanboi lurking, you are completely oblivious. I already got [Basic Lock-pick] [Basic Unarmed Combat: Krav Maga] and [Basic Knife Combat]. I''m working on my CPR certificate right now. I am going for a scout build, which is why I''m so stoked about the Appalachian Trail hike and the Survivalism Class I''m taking this November." said Sid. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Gwen came into the bar. "Two pints of Kilkenny''s, and a Guinness Fritz," She was dressed in chain mail armor and carried a shield strapped across her back. I didn''t know if the equipment was functional. These days, many people dressed in Adventurer cosplay and used the bogus stuff they''d scrounged but were too embarrassed to admit to society for creative anachronism heydays. "Hey, Gwen," I said. She looked at me and snorted without saying anything. When Fritz finished his pour, she looked over at Sid and said, "Mind helping a girl out." Sid stammered a bit and then touched all three beers, rendering them magically chilled. Gwen looked at me once more, snorted in disdain once again, and walked to where her two friends were waiting for her. Sidney regained his courage and said. "I hear those boobs aren''t real. I hear she bought a Crystal for perfect size and boyancy." "Sid, should you be looking at boobs," I asked, "aren''t you supposed to be turned on by Burkas. And, for that matter, doesn''t the prophet frown on beer. Gwen''s boobs aren''t magic, Sidney. Remember she had them before the apocalypse. According to Stan, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from someone else, she got a [Skill] for perfect fellatio. From some simp who didn''t even score that perfect blowie out of the deal." "I''d hit that," muttered Sid. I raised my glass and said, "I''m not a boobs guy, but fuck. Me too. besides Sid, you''re married." "Fuck," replied Sid clinking my glass. "Randy, really, you should hike the Appalachian with me. Buy a [Crystal], get some [Skills], train some others, and then hike at least part of the Trail with me. Use that insurance money you got a couple months ago for good. Don''t just hide away from the world in your condo. You will feel better about yourself if your life has direction." I sighed. "Fuck, Sid." I left my car at Fitz''s Irish Tavern and took an Uber back to my condo. The Uber driver me off a couple houses away from mine, and then I stumbled and weaved the short distance to my place. I''d wanted to drive home, but that son of a bitch Sid wisely stole my keys while I wasn''t watching. I should get the curse of flatulence and hex him with it. Fuck, Gwen had a nice rack. Why didn''t I let Sid know about my Dungeon? It would be safer with someone I trusted. But the more people who shared a secret¡­ Sid was my bud, and it felt shitty holding out on him. I could trust him, right? Shitty that it seemed that he couldn''t trust me. Besides, who knew when a monster would drop a beer that needed to be chilled. I had a spare set of back door keys under the rock in my bushes. It took me a little bit to find the stone I''d hidden it under in the dark. Many plants made the ultimate sacrifice. Marigold, my Karen neighbor, popped her head out as I waded through the bushes and stomped one of her plants. "So you''re back, you degenerate. Probably drunk. At least you didn''t bring any of your whores home with you," Whores? I wish. I hadn''t gotten any action in three months. Hadn''t cared enough to make an effort. I''d reformed my ways, though. Been picking myself back up. Pulling my life together. The deep funk I''d been in had been leaving me since the Dungeon appeared. Marigold was right. I promised myself more whores would be in my future. Anything to make Marigold happy. Marigold must have seen me nodding in agreement with her. So I said, "Fuck you, Marigold." "I''ll let the Condo Board know about your atrocious behavior. You may not care about how your garden looks, but I assure you that the condo board does, and they will hear about it." Karen was yelling at me. I saw that I''d stomped on one of her hydrangeas. She wasn''t supposed to be planting flowers in the front. Each building was supposed to be uniform. Identical. Maybe I could dungeon-nab one of the goblins from the first room. Throw it in a canvas sack and claim it as loot. Let it rampage through one of Marigold''s open windows. No. As fun as it would be for a Karen to be eaten, it would bring the police, and they might search my house. Think it was a Dungeon break and find mine. I sighed. I just had to be nice to Marigold. "Marigold, you win, you win. I''ll make sure everything looks nice in the morning. Have a pleasant night." I said and walked into my house, slamming the door behind me. Chapter 8 Getting up early, and my brain felt like it had just been pegged by my Karen neighbor Marigold. The picture of Marigold wearing a strap-on, brain-fucking me, made me run to my bathroom to vomit. Today''s omens were not good. Eventually, I got cleaned up, re-hydrated, and ready to smite the supernatural world with a smile. Charging into the first room of the Dungeon, sword in hand, was cathartic until I almost tripped over the threshold. I tried to hold my sword the way I''d been shown yesterday. Twice, I used the thrusts I had been taught. After the goblins lay vivisected on the ground, I checked my Status and saw that [Learn: Basic Long Sword - HEMA Style] was at 15%. A 7% increase in just one fight as compared to spending three hours on getting the 8% in the HEMA club. The loot the goblins dropped was a used condom and an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. I should buy better brands of booze to sacrifice to the Dungeon. Splurge on a Japanese Whiskey. Pick up something primo from Scotland or Ireland. I might have half a bottle of 16-year-old Lagavulin Scottish Whiskey tucked away in a closet. The slimes in the bathroom were similarly straightforward. First, I flushed the shitter, killing the first slime. Then, instead of pumping the "soap" onto my hands, I carefully held the soap over the bowl and pumped the second slime into the toilet. A second flush, and five more effortless experience. That brought me up to 34 experience, and I quickly scanned the skill list to see if there were any I wanted. There wasn''t anything, although I mentally noted that I could summon a bagel if I got one more point. The last room on the floor was a home office. Two goblins were playing Minesweeper (badly) on what looked like an ancient Windows 95 based computer. There was an ugly shag carpet on the ground and a poster of cats playing Eucher on the wall. I ran into the room and stabbed them before they could even get out of their chairs. Looting their mangled and bloody corpses dropped a quarter and a copper piece. Fuck. I couldn''t help myself. So I finished their Minesweep game before smashing the computer back into the depths of hell from whence it came. Killing a Pentium I computer gave me 1 experience point. Hmmm. I would have to think about that. Smash more objects. Now with 48 experience points, I possessed an abundance of riches. My top choices were Ignite, Shock, Dodge, and Summon Bagel. I could wait [Ignite] and [Basic Dodge] was 49 experience points, while [Shock] was 47 points. The question was kill one more monster or pick up [Shock]. [Basic Dodge] could save my life while none of the others would. [Ignite] or [Shock] (or [moisten] or [dig]) hopefully would start me on a path to magic use. [Summon bagel] would be the kind of spell someone would get to show off at Fitz''s Irish Tavern to complain about how expensive buying Crystals on Craigslist and eBay is while explaining how I got the Status. Bagels were the goat. But getting [Summon Bagel] would inevitably force me to get [Toast], [Summon Cream Cheese], and [Summon Smoked Salmon]. Which was a lot of experience points this early on. Being able to do magic is an incredibly mind-fuck, though. And I might pick up [Dodge] for free at my HEMA class. So I went into the [Market] and bought a [Crystal] for [Shock]. I hadn''t yet done any damage to myself on this level, so I didn''t need to heal, but I did sit down for 15 minutes and absorbed the [Crystal]. Then I shocked myself. I didn''t even have to touch the person. I could just focus on a target, and when I invoked the spell with a thought, the electricity would run through whatever I targeted. The sensation felt like getting pranked by a juiced-up joy buzzer. I took six hit points of damage, costing 5 points of [Mana] to cast. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. For shits and giggles, I spent fifteen minutes shocking everything on the first floor. Nothing was a mimic, but it couldn''t hurt to check. Then when my mana pools had recharged, the direction I had left to travel was down the stairs. Going downstairs would increase the danger or just provide new monsters to defeat. The first floor was as easy -- like sliding into an e-girls DMs. Now that I knew the layout, I could farm it forever and not take any damage. It would be safe, but I would advance slowly. So downstairs I went. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The third step was trapped. I tripped and fell the rest of the way down, losing 22 hit points. To make matters worse, at the very bottom of the stairs was a hardwood floor with a very happy slime that smelt like Pine-Sol and wanted to dissolve my flesh. As I lay distracted and sprawled, the bastard attacked. I started spamming [Shock] as I pushed myself away. But the slime was faster. And I kept taking damage and more damage. It was a battle of attrition. A pyrrhic struggle of legendary proportions. I could run around the slime if I could get to my feet. I was faster, more agile, and likable than some oozy son of a bitch. Plus, the whole point of magic was that I could cast from afar. Fuck Shit. Slimes were immune to blunt and piercing damage, and I couldn''t flush this one down the toilet. "Fuck you, slime! Why don''t you stick to Nickelodeon awards and Katie Perry''s nightmares?" I yelled in frustration. When the bastard son of a booger and a slobber finally died. I was down to 32 hit points. Burn marks covered my body. I had managed to get on my feet, but my legs and arms were covered in blisters. My [Status] sheet showed I only had 16 [Mana] left. The slime had died from electrical damage. Tendrils of smoke rose from its liquidy corpse. But at what cost? I needed to up my Mana, and that would require leveling. Maybe I should really rethink the whole Sid thing. Shit-titty-fuck! Not knowing what would happen if I ran out of [Mana], I crawled back up the stairs and out of the Dungeon before crashing onto my couch and flipping on the TV. Scooby-Doo was on. It was the one where the old man would have got away with it except for some meddling kids. Bringing up my [Status], my hit points had gone down to 29 as I''d evacuated. My Mana was ticking back up and was at 21 points. Concentrating on short bursts of [Increase Healing Rates]. I could bring myself up two or three points with my heal, but I would lose a point or two from whatever bleeding or acid affect the slime had afflicted me. This last fight had brought me back up to 12 experience. There had to be something in the [Market] that would speed this up. I wouldn''t die, but I was getting blood all over the living room sofa. Doing a search in the [Market] for Healing items for under 12 experience points: Aspirin - 1 xp Bandaid - 1 xp Birth Control Pill - 1 xp Burn Gel - 4 xp Cold Pack - 3 xp Condom - Ribbed - 2 xp EMT Sheers - 5 xp Echinacea - 1 xp Face Mask - 2 xp Garlic clove - 1 xp Hydrogen Peroxide - 2 xp Healing Jelly Beans - 3 xp per bean Mugwort - 2 xp Narcan 1 - dose - 12 xp Splint - 3 xp Stitching Kit - 4 xp Stabilizing Gum - 10 xp Sunscreen - 2 xp Testosterone - 10 xp Tin Thistle - 4 xp Tylenol - 1 xp Vitamin A tablet - 1 xp Vitamin B tablet - 1 xp Vitamin C tablet - 1 xp Vitamin E tablet - 1 xp Wet Wipes - 1 xp Most of the list was useless, but I did hover over the [Burn Gel], the [Healing Jelly Beans], and the [Stabilizing Gum]. [Healing Jelly Beans] healed 5 hit points per bean instantly. The [Stabilizing Gum] didn''t do any healing. Still, it immediately stopped damage over time outside of combat as long as the person kept chewing. I hated spending this many points, but I purchased the Gum. It came in a pack of 5 sticks like old-school Wrigley''s Chewing Gum. I popped a bar in my mouth, and the Gum tasted like wintergreen. Better yet, my hit points stopped going down. Out of curiosity, I browsed around the healing section of the Market. The cheapest [Basic Healing Potion] cost 50 experience and would heal 75-150 hit points. I buy an MRI machine for 14,000 experience points. And a [Familiar - Woggle], which apparently was a magical parrot that sat on your shoulder and spammed you with healing spells, cost 6,500 experience. Healing and topping up my pools took me three and a half hours. I got bored of Scoobie-Doo and watched one of the new Dungeon Delving movies that Hollywood had started churning. Last I heard, Literary Agents were chugging through the fiction on Royal Road, handing out movie options like it was the apocalypse, and making stars out of fan-fic and LITrpg authors. When I was in my best shape, I took a shower and dressed to go to my HEMA class instead of delving into my dungeon again. Chapter 9 Gina wasn''t at the HEMA club. "She works late on Wednesday." A gruff man who looked like King Arthur crossed with Santa Claus, "just find a place in one of the rows and try to follow along as best you can." After the warm-up, we spent three hours with Arthur Claus demonstrating an attack. He had us do the same blow repeatedly as he walked up and down the rows correcting form and posture. Occasionally Santa Arthur would demonstrate a parry and have us practice it repeatedly. Then pair us up with a partner, with one person making the attack we had just learned and the other doing the parry. The class did this slowly, emphasizing form and control rather than speed. I left with my [Learn: Basic Long Sword - HEMA Style] at 22%. My [Learn: Basic Parry - HEMA Style] at 5%. And surprisingly, I had [Learn: Increase Healing Rate - Intermediate] at 9% and [Learn: Shock - Intermediate] at 7%. I could only assume the second two came from my time in the dungeon. The night before, I''d left my car at Fitz''s. After combat class, I headed over there for dinner and a beer. Mostly I hoped I could catch a friend to shoot the shit with. I found it cool that I knew something epic they would kill to know, but I had no plans to tell them. So what? I may be an asshole, but I''m an incredible asshole. Sue me. While waiting for my food, I sorted out the brochures I''d picked up yesterday. Most of them were bog average. Learn basket weaving, take archery lessons, fencing lessons, and horseback riding. A few classes stood out. One class promised wanna-be adventurers would be taken out into the woods. There they would be taught survival techniques like tracking, trapping, how to: spot edible plants, make and shoot a bow and arrow, butchering game and cooking the fucks out of it, make a shelter from twigs, and light a fire without matches. That sort of thing. The class was three months long and cost a whopping $12,000. This was the class Sid was probably planning to take. I hope Sidney hadn''t mortgaged his house without telling his wife. An ex-Army Medic and a couple of EMTs taught another class. It was a four-week class which you could take either morning or evening. The course involved how to intubate, perform CPR, trauma victim best practices, the principles of battlefield medicine, and essential life support. The pamphlet emphasized that you wouldn''t be qualified to be an EMT but might be able to save someone''s life. They blew up a goat; you had to save it in order to graduate. If you failed, presumably, they cooked the goat and made roti. An "Adventurer Basics" class offered to teach many simple skills for future Delvers. Skills include basic first aid, map making, looking for traps, spotting hidden objects, what to bring with you, combat decision-making, elementary knife fighting, and class/skill/spell theory crafting. Usually, I would have thought this would be a perfect class for posers, but almost dying to a slime after stepping in a trap really fucked with my mental equilibrium. It was a weekend class and only cost $300. I pulled out my phone and signed up for an opening that weekend. If Sid showed up at Fitz''s tonight, I''d invite him. Sid, however, didn''t show up. After Fitz''s I went home and spent the rest of the night doing the same dive over and over. Killed the first three goblins with my sword practicing the new blocks and strikes I had learned in my HEMA class. Flushed the two slimes down the toilet. Killed the two goblins in the bedroom. Smashed the Pentium I. Went down the stairs, stepped over the trapped third step (I had checked all the other steps, and they were fine), and blasted the slime at the bottom of the stairs from afar with [Shock]. Then I left my dungeon, crashed out in front of the TV, or read the forums for a while before returning. It was slow, tedious work, but every run at the start got me between 56-63 experience. I made 9 runs before I called it a night and went to sleep. Then I slept for 6 hours and did the whole thing again 19 more times on Thursday and 20 times on Friday. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I noticed early on that as I got tired, my stamina would go down. After my third run, I picked up [Increase Stamina Recovery]. That spell was like mainlining Monster Energy Drink without the calories or jitters. Casting [Increase Stamina Recovery] let me sit on my ass on the couch in my downtime and channel Mana to refresh myself. Also, I quickly noticed that the forum gossip about it taking a full hour for a dungeon to repopulate was wrong. For my short runs, I only needed to wait twenty minutes. Whether this was due to my not clearing the dungeon or some other freakish serendipity, who knew. But who was I to look side eye at a happy accident. The amount of experience I got dwindled the more times I did those four rooms. By the 38th run, I was down to 15-20 xp. Over three intense days, I picked up the following: [Summon Everything Bagel] [Toast Object] [Summon Cream Cheese] [Summon Bacon] [Summon Smoked Salmon] [Basic Dodge] [Basic Parry] [Basic Dagger] [Basic Longsword] [Basic Cure Wound] [Stabilize] [Increase Mana Recovery] [Increase Stamina Recovery] [Cause Flatulence] [Grow Hair] [Cure Hangover] [Ignite] [Moisten] [Breeze] [Basic Dig] [Basic Summon Water] [Basic Light] [Basic Sense Trap] [Sense North] [Meditate] [Basic Sense Life] [Basic Clean] [Basic Mend] [Basic Sharpen] And after that, I still had 341 experience. It was time to increase my level. 50 points got me to level 1, 100 points to level 2, 175 points to Level 3, and 16 experience left over. Beyond [Increased Stamina Recovery], some other interesting pickups were [Increase Mana Recovery] cost 10 MP to cast. Still, for 10 minutes afterward, my Mana recovery rate increased by 3 points a minute as long as I was stationary. It combined well with [Basic Meditate] and both the increased [Health] and [Stamina] recovery spells. [Basic Clean] was another spell with only moderate utility. I could cast on something, and after about a minute or two, that item would become clean. Or I could continuously channel-cast it on someone. Over nearly ten minutes, all the grime, shit, and muck would disappear, leaving the person as if they had taken a shower and put on clean, freshly pressed clothes. The spell even left a faint smell of sandalwood and pine. My high hopes for [Basic Sense Life] were dashed. If I sat and meditated, I would slowly begin to sense the life around me. The longer I cast, the further out my life senses went at about a foot every minute. I once drained my Mana and channeled the spell for 48 minutes, but the spell''s range never exceeded 20 feet. The magic gave me a feeling of direction, location, and intensity in life. But the sense was vague and prone to error. While the earthworms in the gardens had life, my Karen neighbor Marigold had no life. I almost went over and slew her. But a quote from the most incredible show ever -- the TV show which had revealed to the world the brilliance of Cartman ¡ª rang through my head. "How can you kill that which has no life?" And so I left her alone. As an experiment every time I cast [Summon Everything Bagel] I concentrated on a Jalape?o Cheddar Bagel instead and after 18 casts I received notice [Learn: Summon Cheddar Jalape?o Bagel] at 1%. As an adventurer with no class, I got a single attribute point at every level. The issue I ran into most often was running out of Mana, so all three points went into Will Power, bringing my Will Power to 16 and my Mana up to 160. When my Will Power hit 16, a pop-up in my HUD informed me that I had met the required minimums to pick a class. This was a surprise. The consensus on the forums was that you could only choose to specialize at level 10. People kept too many secrets, and the posers made up too much bullshit. The list I''d qualified for was paltry, and none of the classes interested me, but they were fun to look at.
Would you like to choose a Class? (Yes / No)
Available choices:
  1. Apprentice Hedge Witch
  2. Apprentice Witch Doctor
  3. Apprentice Hex Dancer
  4. Enhanced Coffee Shop Employee
  5. Prison Nurse''s Aide
  6. Zombie Fluffer
Out of curiosity, I looked up Zombie Fluffer in the Wiki. There was no information, so I added the following text to the encyclopedia. Hopefully, someone who knew something would change the information later. Zombie Fluffer Someone who fluffs zombies. An excellent choice for the discerning beginner necromancer. I laughed and then went out to my car; it was almost time for my beginning adventurer class. Chapter 10 There were eight of us in the Intro to Adventuring class. The group was evenly split between men and women, and the age range ran from 15 to an old lady with a walker. And we were waiting outside a building that said "Earl''s Escape Rooms." Standing around in a group, everyone looked at each other awkwardly. I said, "Yo." The big guy across from me replied, "Yo," and I nodded to him. "So. Adventuring," I said. He nodded back. "I expect I will eventually be eaten by a Grue, but I might as well try anyway. Name''s Neil." The big guy said. "Hey, Neil. Name''s Randy. Killed any monsters yet?" "Naw. Too hard to get into a dungeon. Bought a crystal, though. I can [Transform: Broccoli into Brussel Sprout]." "That''s an important skill," I said, nodding. "I can [Summon: Everything Bagel]." I handed a bagel to Neil. "Thanks. I wonder why we are waiting in front of an escape room?" Neil said, then took a bite from his bagel. "Mind giving me one too? I missed desayuno," The old woman with the walker spoke up, "My name is Maria, and I can [Summon: Ruby Throated Hummingbird]." She demonstrated by summoning a hummingbird which promptly flew away. "My grandson has regular access to the Dungeon en las Des Moines, and he said he found it and thought his abuela would like it. He is a good grandson." "Cool spell," Neil said while I handed her an Everything Bagel. "I brought some Broccoli if anyone wants to watch me turn it into a brussel sprout." He held up his backpack. "No thanks." Everyone, including the people who hadn''t spoken yet, said. "If you concentrate on something else while casting your spell, you can slowly learn a different spell. I have [Learn: Summon Jalape?o and Cheddar Bagel] at 1% because I think about how much my heart aches for a bagel with just the right amount of cheese and pepper when I summon an Everything Bagel. Maybe try turning your broccoli into Cauliflower or Bacon or hummingbird or something." I mentioned. "What a lovely idea," Maria said, "I wonder¡­ Maybe I can imagine my own bird." "[Summon: Attack Hummingbird] would be a cool spell," I said because a swarm of killer hummingbirds would be awesome. "Goodness, no! Why would I want such a thing? Humming Birds are muy bonita," said Maria. "Back in Guatemala, we had them in every rainbow color. I thought [Summon: Quetzal] would remind me of home." "The crystal I got lets me [Speak Turkish]," said a woman who hadn''t spoken yet. We all nodded. A car pulled up and parked in the open space next to the door. A man got out and opened the backdoor of the car, extracting some bags from Dunkin Donuts. He approached us and said, "Mind holding these while I get the door." The woman, who could now speak Turkish, took the bags. At the same time, the new man fiddled with his keys before eventually opening the door and holding it open so we could all go in. The bags held donuts, muffins, and coffee, which the new guy laid out on a table. "Feel free to grab a muffin and a coffee if you haven''t had breakfast. "While we do that, let''s get started. I''m Earl; I teach physics at the University of South St. Petersburg. I''m also a 12th-level Mage / Crafter hybrid subclass. My class specialty lets me make tools that measure physical and magical data in Dungeons. I have been delving since the University portal first appeared. I wouldn''t say I know everything, but I can give noobs a good start based on what the faculty and students of the University have learned so far. "But first. Raise your hand if you have been in a dungeon," Earl said. Some dood sitting behind Maria raised his hand. "One person. Good. Even if you have some experience taking a class focused on the basics is a great idea. Okay, now, who has gotten their hands on a skill crystal. Go ahead, raise your hands." I raised mine, as did Neil, Maria, the woman who spoke Turkish, the dood who said he''d been in a dungeon, and one other person. "Great. So two of you are virgins; that''s less than we normally get. There is no shame in not having a crystal. We have a class section on the various known ways of accessing the [System] and checking to see you aren''t getting ripped off." "But first," Earl opened a cabinet and took out a stack of handouts. He counted out eight and put the rest away. "Take one and pass it along. As you can see, the first page is the average [Status] screen everyone gets when they first access the [System]. I want to stress that this is average. What you see first is tailored to the language you speak and to your personality. A well-known example of a non-standard [Status] is the, possibly apocryphal, guy whose initial page was written in Klingon." "The next page is a copy of the [Status] by DominoRay. There have been some recent updates, so what you see on your [Status] isn''t exactly what is on the photocopy. If you haven''t installed it, I highly suggest you do. There are a lot of helpful apps and mods attached to it. The URL on the bottom of the photocopy is the website where you can buy the instructions for installing it. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "And no, DominoRay is not Satoshi Nakamoto, Hal Finney, Tim Brenner Lee, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, or any rando you can think of. Domino doesn''t like people asking about it. The fastest way to get banned from his [Status] shell is to discuss who he is on there. Many people are suspicious of this and develop conspiracy theories about who DominoRay is. Many libertarians and anarchists refuse to use his [Status]. "But it is a tool -- a useful tool -- and more importantly, DominoRay''s software is OpenSourced. A teammate in my adventuring party from the Computer Science Department of the University of South Florida went through the code line by line, and he couldn''t find anything hoakie." "Getting back on topic. - The basic stats are [Strength], which generates [Stamina] or how much energy you have. - [Endurance], which is your [Health] - how much the monsters can stomp on you before you croak. - [Vitality] helps you recover both your [Stamina] and [Health]. Some hypothesize that it measures how long you will live if nothing bad happens. Still, not enough experiments have been done on this subject. - [Agility] is how quickly you move around - [Dexterity] is how deft your physical, mechanical manipulation is. - [Social] is how well you interact with people - [Will Power] is how much mana you get." Earl reviewed the [Status] page line by line and compared every feature to the one DominoRay had made. The [Forum], [Market], [Auction], and [Groups] were covered in broad enough strokes that nothing Randy didn''t already know was covered. Then Earl went into some imitation [Status] screens people had put out based on the DominoRay code. Lastly, he brought up a couple of mods that might be interesting. I liked the idea of the Bestiary someone was compiling that listed the strengths and weaknesses of various monsters. Though Earl warned us that the Bestiary mod downloaded monster data from the logs of people who''d installed it into their [Status] unless they toggled the opted-out button. The Dungeon Wi-Fi connection and the Live Stream mods sounded useful. Still, both pieces of [Systemware] were based on a handful of passive skills with expensive Crystal prerequisites, and both were still incredibly buggy. Besides, I wasn''t sure I was down with turning my brain into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Next, Earl took us through some of the [Status] ''s system settings, including how to make the window transparent, install background images, watch other Delver''s live streams, record videos to broadcast, synch some [Status] functions to IFTTT, and had us write an easy macro to simplify looting. Around noon a guy with a couple of pizza boxes showed up at the door. Earl said, "That''s enough book learning for today. After lunch, I will split you into two groups of four, and we will do some applied exercises." The pizza was cheesy and gooey, like pizza should be. And through the miracle of chit-chat, I learned about the other would-be adventurers. From Amanda, I discovered that, unlike pizza, summoned bagels had no gluten or lactose. The dood said his name was Charlie, and he had the [Fireball] spell. I was curious about this since, so far, the only spell close enough to [Fireball] that I''d encountered were the [Ignite] and the [Burn] spell. I looked the crystal for Fireball up in the [Market], and it cost 1,434 Experience and had a couple of prerequisites. The last person with a spell and [System] was a woman in her early 20''s. Total business casual on a weekend vibe. Her parents gave her a crystal with a passive spell that made her immune to most date rape drugs. Her name was Maggie. I couldn''t imagine how much a useful spell would sell for on eBay or Craigslist. Her family must be loaded, or she must come from a family of active adventurers. "No doubt, some of you wondered what a course on the Basics of Adventuring has to do with escape rooms," Earl said as we gobbled our za, "It turns out the answer is a lot. Here''s a question for the group. In a dungeon, what is your most important skill?" I raised my hand, "The ability to turn Broccoli into Brussels Sprouts," turning my head to Neil, I said, "Sorry dude, it was just too easy." "Okay, after the ability to turn Broccoli into Brussels Sprouts, what is the second most important Skill?" Maggie raised her hand. "Staying alive?" "Close. Very close," said Earl, "Staying alive is indeed important, but how do we stay alive." "We bash the fuck out of things," Charlie the dood yelled, "And if we can''t bash them, we burn them. And if we can''t burn them, we stab them." "Killing monsters in a dungeon is important, but I wouldn''t rank it as the most important," Earl said. "At the University, teams often go in with Graduate Assistants who train for combat while the faculty who accompany them stay out of fights and perform research." "Is it having a [Status] and access to the [System]," Amanda said. "Nope. While the [System] is important, some people block access to their [System] entirely and try to learn how to survive without it. Religious types, paranoids, some researchers, and many other types. The most famous example of this is the Shaolin temple in China." "No, the most critical skill you need in a Dungeon is the ability to observe. The ability to find hidden dangers, secret treasure, and obscured passageways. You must be able to take in a situation quickly, plan out a strategy to deal with traps and monsters, and then implement your plans." "Yes, I know. Most public dungeons have walk-throughs with all the dangers cataloged and their risks detailed. But this apocalypse has only been happening for just over a month. Being able to [Observe] could save your life if things suddenly change." "At this establishment, we''ve set up two escape rooms to copy verified rooms in the University dungeon. Traps, hidden dangers, secret compartments, clues, and puzzles will exist. Your goal is to get out in an hour. If you take this seriously and you have the [System] you should be awarded the [Learn: Observe], [Learn: Find Secret] and [Learn: Find Trap] skills. If you don''t have the [System] yet, this exercise is still good practice." "In the photocopies, I have listed the name, address, and price of every escape room in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Consider driving to some of them. According to our Graduate Assistants, doing between 15 to 25 of these rooms will transform the [Learn] into a usable skill." "Now, why don''t you make two groups of four, and we can start the applied portion of day 1." I grouped up with Neil, Maria, and Amanda (the woman who could speak Turkish). Earl led us to the Second Escape room and let us in, making a visible show of locking the door behind us. Chapter 11 The escape room looked like an office. Two cubicles were complete with computers, file cabinets, and rolling chairs. On the wall was a framed Human Resources poster about how to prevent sexual harassment. There was a photocopier and a laser printer, and beside the laser printer was a treasure chest. "Cool," I said, "a treasure chest." Pushing to the front, I approached the chest and opened the gilded wooden box. Inside the chest was a note. "This is a Mimic. Were this a dungeon, you would have just been eaten." "Awe shit," I said, showing the others my note. "I''ve just been eaten." A hidden speaker turned on, and Earl spoke, "in a real dungeon, you have to be suspicious of everything. Monsters can hide in the weirdest places. It should have been obvious that a treasure chest was out of place in an office setting, so the chest should have been cautiously approached. Keep going, though. Making mistakes is an important part of learning." "Keep in mind that this room is nothing like what an escape room would be like. Our top free labor lackeys ¡ª I mean our generous graduate students ¡ª have specially designed it to acquire skills rather than be wholesome family fun." Over the next hour, we stepped on pressure plates that launched Nerf booby traps. We unscrewed light switches to find secret compartments. A net fell on Neil for no apparent reason. A light bulb exploded as we tried to unscrew it, dousing the entire group with confetti. A couple of times, my skill [Basic Trap Sense] lit up some traps. Not wanting to reveal I had more skills than just the epic ability to [Summon Everything Bagels], I only pointed out about a quarter of the pressure plates, leavers, and trip wires I detected. The skill [Basic Trap Sense] was amazeballs. If I stopped what I was doing and concentrated, one trap, usually the most obvious, would become outlined in blue. Only I could see the outline. And the skill missed as many traps as it found. Since it only worked on one trap at a time, there were times when I would be standing in front of a mechanism that the skill still needed to detect. At the same time, another pit, leaver, or pressure plate far away from me was being highlighted. At one point, Amanda pressed something, and slowly, the room began to fill with steam. "That''s poison gas, folks; find the switch to turn it off in the next five minutes, or else you are all dead," Earl gleefully announced over the hidden speaker. "Fuckity, fuck." I yelled. "We need to figure out what happened," Neil said. "I think it was me. I moved this pencil holder, and I heard a click." Amanda said. "Move it back. Move it back." I yelled. "Stop yelling, Randy," Neil yelled. "Stop yelling, Neil," Amanda yelled. "Ay caramba, stop it the yelling," Maria yelled. "I''m not yelling. You all are." I yelled back, then realizing something, I said, "Oops, sorry. I am yelling. Got a bit caught up in the moment there." ¡°Hay algo out of lugar, Amanda?¡± Maria said. "What?" I said. "I don''t know. I''m looking right now." Amanda said. "You are supposed to speak Turkish, not Spanish," I complained. "Why am I the only one who doesn''t have a clue what Maria is saying." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. "Shut up, Randy," Neil said, frantically shuffling stuff around the desk. The mist was getting thicker, though it mostly clung to the floor. Dry ice special effects, not steam, I decided. Amanda and Neil were over by the desk looking at things trying to determine what was out of place. "Oh, for fuck sake, the mouse isn''t on the mouse pad. Try that." I said because both the mouse and the mouse-pad were glowing blue. Neil looked at me, then shrugged. Putting the mouse onto the mouse pad, there was an audible click. The carbon dioxide vapor slowly faded away. Within minutes the air was airy once again. It didn''t take long to open the door after that. Maria found a series of numbers in a file folder. In a folder marked "Bunker" on a page labeled "Escape hatch," the following numbers were written 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. Turning on the computer resulted in "Make your own kind of music" by Mama Cass Elliot being played over the loudspeakers. At the same time, the computer waited for the sequence of digits to be entered. The door to leave the room opened when the final number was entered. "Good work, everyone," said Earl, "check your stats. See if you gained your skills." Which I did. My [Learn: Observe] was at 5, [Learn: Find Secret] at 6, and [Learn: Intermediate Trap Sense] was now at 3. My group and I sat in the waiting room shooting the shit while the other group finished their escape room. Eventually, Earl let them out. "Better luck on the next one. Even though you didn''t make it out, you should check your stats anyhow." Earl quickly cleaned and reset everything that was out of place, and we swapped rooms. My group was even faster in our second room. That room was laid out like a University classroom. And once we got out, we chilled for a bit waiting for the other group, who failed that room too. The second group came out, and Charlie, the dood with the [fireball] spell, yelled at everyone. "I can''t believe they teamed me up with such a lame group. You are all morons. Can''t you do anything right?" He yelled and stomped off, leaving the building. I looked quizzically at Maggie, the business lady, and she shrugged, "guy had major issues. Gave no help whatsoever. He thought he knew everything. Tried to boss everyone around. We would have kicked him off the team if we weren''t locked in a room together." Earl cleared his throat, "Okie-dokie, folks, we are about done for the day. Tomorrow we will meet up at the second location on your handout. Wear something you don''t mind getting dirty; you lot will be crawling around in the mud and bushes." I turned to look at Maria, who coughed, "lo siento," she said and gestured to her walker. "We can make accommodations," said Earl. Then he smiled and said, "See you all tomorrow." For a minute or two, I thought about going to Fritz''. It was difficult to resist the siren song of the Brewsky. I longed to throw myself upon beer''s hoppsy shores. In the end, though, the temptation to take apart the first few rooms of my dungeon was overwhelming. Don we now our adventuring apparel, fa la la la fuck you rar rar rar rar. Or whatever. I entered my dungeon. Killing the three goblins in the first room was trivial. One of these days, I had plans to capture one of the little shits and force-feed it bagels until it burst to see if I got an achievement. But not today. Today I killed the little green fucks quickly, then started to tear apart the room. I unscrewed the light switch covers, removed the bulbs, and tore the bed open. I even pried up the floorboards. And there was a tiny box in a little secret compartment that could be opened by putting pressure on the part of the floor. "Score, motherfuckers." Inside the box were three pieces of silver dungeon currency and a skill [Crystal]. I couldn''t identify the [Crystal] because I had no [Identify] spell. "Fuck." This must be the reason why there were so many crystals for sale. You find one, and [boom]; you don''t know what it does. So tempting. So elusive. I stuffed it in my inventory so it wouldn''t degrade. It could be helpful, total crapola, or I could sell it. [Basic: Identify Skill Crystal] and [Basic: Identify Spell Crystal] cost 93 experience each. I''d need to start saving. Then a thought occurred to me. I opened up my [Status] went into the auction, listed [Unknown Crystal] for a starting auction with a reserve of 50 experience, and set the timer for the auction for one week. I could get some free XPS. Who knew why someone would want to buy unidentified loot was beyond me. I did not find anything in the next few rooms, and like always, I stopped after I killed the slime at the bottom of the stairs. The whole run, all the carnage, netted me 15 xps, which at this point was sweet fuck all, but I wouldn''t turn up my nose, either. I left the dungeon, sat around waiting for it to reset, and then returned to it. The hidden compartment was there, and inside was a shiny button and a lollipop. It wasn''t even a magic lollipop. Well, I guess it could have been ¡ª I didn''t have [Identify] yet. But the lollipop didn''t do anything to me when I ate it, so fuck. Four more times, and four more useless finds. The dungeon was mocking me. The 46 more experience points weren''t a kick in the teeth. I banked them since I was saving for the basic [Identify] spells. Chapter 12 The following day found me at the second location of the "Introduction to Adventuring" class. It was your classic Florida orange orchard. Complete with a farmhouse, stormwater retention pond, and what looked like an obstacle course. Earl stood out front with a dopy smile standing next to four picnic tables. One of the tables had a Dunkin Donut outlay. He also had a couple of mysterious bins and some bottles of distilled water shoved under the table. I parked and walked over. "Yo." Neil and Amanda were there, and they "yo''ed" me back. Maria hadn''t shown up yet. The businesswoman, what was her name, was there, and so was the Dood, who considered himself an expert. I gave them both nods. We were still waiting on three people, so I summoned a couple bagels, put them on the picnic table, and grabbed myself a sour cream glazed and a coffee. When the rest of the class showed up, Earl put the first plastic box on the table and began to take stuff out. "Okay folks, gather round. The first thing you will do this morning is watch me make a simple healing potion. Knowing this skill might save your life. You''ll also get the [Learn: Basic Alchemy] skill." Alchemy? Meh. I was interested but not interested. I mean, in MMORPGs, it was a super useful skill. But it took a lot of time; it used a lot of weird ingredients. But the buffs. Plus, I had no interest in turning lead into gold or living a trillion fucking years. "Keep in mind that what I will show you is not some panacea," Earl said. "But for what it does, it is straightforward to make. The University of South Florida has a patent on a slightly stronger version that we sell to local Tampa and St. Petersburg first responders. And we are trying to get FDA approval to sell to hospitals. So pay attention." Earl pulled out a cardboard box, opened the lid, and pulled out a masonry jar. Next, he withdrew a baggie of mysterious leaves, a fifth of Sam''s Club generic vodka, a measuring cup, an electric kitchen scale, and a glass stirring stick. Then he reached under the table for one of the gallon bottles of distilled water. "These are called [Tin Thistle] by the [System]," Earl said, pointing at the mysterious leaves, "they are a magical plant with healing properties. You can buy a small batch of the leaves for 4xp, or a small packet of seeds for 2xp, from the [Market]." "[Tin Thistle] doesn''t grow well in our world unless you have [Basic: Mana Fertilize] and [Basic: Magical Plant Horticulture]. If you do, for whatever reason, decide on getting those skills and have a Willpower higher than 15 you will be offered the [Druid: Pledge], [Enhanced Greenhouse Technician], and [Basement Dwelling Pot Cultivator] classes. And yes, I know there are no basements in Florida due to the water table." "The university has repurposed a small greenhouse for Dungeon plants. Some of our more enterprising grad students grow alchemical herbs to help pay for tuition. Better than Pot or OnlyFans, I suppose," Earl said, then blinked as if realizing what he had said, "What I am trying to say is that [Tin Thistle] isn''t exactly hard to get. The going price is $30 for about 30 grams and $17 for the same amount dried. Both fresh and dried work fine for this potion." "Measure out 10 grams and put it into your jar." Earl did this. "Add 50 ml of alcohol. Again for this potion, it doesn''t matter which kind of alcohol you use. Stir. Screw on the lid, and put the mixture into a cool dark place for at least a week." Earl put aside the jar he had been demonstrating with and then pulled out a second jar. A tiny amount of liquid was at the bottom of the second masonry jar. The color shifted between dark purple and copper and glissened when I looked at it. "This is what you [Tin Thistle] and alcohol mixture will look like if you let it sit for a week. Notice the color. If you can get your hands on the [Basic: Infuse liquid] spell, you can save time and do this in less than a minute. "The next step is simply to add liquid. Water is the usual substance we use to dilute the mixture, but I''ve heard that our students have come up with various mixed drinks. Apparently, suppose you mix the [Tin Thistle] infused alcohol with Mango Juice and food-grade glitter. In that case, they call it a [Tingly Come To Jesus]. It is a popular beverage at campus grad parties." "What does it do?" The businesswoman asked. Earl coughed embarrassedly again and said, "Ahem. You combine the infused alcohol base with 300 ml of water, mix, strain, and separate into 50 ml shots. That shot will cure 15 hit points over 20 seconds. It isn''t a lot, l but it will stabilize someone about to die. Or give you a quick pick me up in battle." The Dood laughed, "What a waste of time. I have over 200 hit points. Fifteen hitpoints would barely do anything." Over 200 hit points? That meant he had over 20 in Strength. Or maybe an item? He looked like a weak and scrawny fuck. I mentally moved him over to the poser category. Earl appeared doubtful, too, but he didn''t say anything. "When our faculty and students enter a dungeon, they each carry at least three vials of this. Even in the parts of our dungeon, we have well-documented walkthroughs. Accidents can happen. These little potions are quite frequently a lifesaver. After some battles, everyone is tapped out of their mana, and a couple of these will get a party member from near dead to hanging on. And the great thing is you don''t have to be part of the [System] to use them. Which is why we sell them to first responders." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Earl pulled out some mason jars and "Go ahead and make a jar of the good stuff. You can take it home and add water later. From what I''ve been told, you get the [Learn: Skill] when you finish a successful potion, which means adding the water after seven days." We all stood around stirring and mixing. It was mind-numbingly easy and every bit as boring. Somehow the Dood managed to screw it up, but everyone else finished up quickly. I wasn''t sure how useful it would be with my [Basic: Cure Wound] and [Basic: Increase Healing Rate], but maybe Sid would be interested. I''d been near death and out of mana a couple times. Perhaps this skill wasn''t so useless. When everyone was done, Earl gave us a few minutes to pack our proto-potion away in our cars, then he had us line up in rows and handed each of us a rubber kbar. "Okay, while I can''t teach you how to fight, in the short time we have, I can teach you the basics and point you where to get more skills. The Grad Students at the University of South Florida use a bunch of martial arts. Clubs on campus have become really popular. "But Professor Amy Smith in our bio-engineering department has emphasized the need for some standardization. Since she spent her wilder youth as a drill sergeant instructing recruits in the Marine Corps Martial Arts, we have made it our policy that all students and faculty suffer two weeks of combat training with her before they go in." "We are not going to do the whole course. Though I can give you a phone number if you want to join the next class. We accept people who aren''t students to audit the course. "Remember that Marine Corps Martial Arts is not the best combat skill ever. Taking the full two weeks is not going to make you a killer. Nor will the couple hours I am going to teach you. Its Strength is that it can be taught quickly, even to people who frequently eat crayons. I will simply show you how to hold a knife and some basics. Enough to get the [Learn: Basic Knife Fighting] skill." Maria held up her hand and said, "Lo siento. No can do it." Earl smiled and said, "how about now?" A look of Shock passed on Maria''s face, "Dios mia." And she stood without the walker. "I have a spell called [Basic: Basic Body Stat]; if you don''t have at least an eight in any of your body stats, those stats are raised to eight for twenty minutes. Our first-level boss in the University dungeon has a negative body attribute debuff. Eight isn''t very high, but it will keep you going for what we will be doing." Earl had us line up in a row and then demonstrate how to hold the knife, how to slash, and how to do a stab. "Remember, slash to keep your opponent away, stab to move in. It is all about using the footwork I showed you." "Maria, you stupid cow! You keep getting in my way," yelled the Dood. Frankly, I was getting sick of the Dood. I had started playing a little game to keep myself from falling asleep. Whenever fuck-face blamed someone else for one of his screw-ups, I cast [Grow Hair] on his junk, back, or ass hair. Dood must have two-foot-long pubes by now. The next time he took a piss, he wouldn''t be able to find his dick because of major Chewbacca groin. Otherwise, learning to fight with a knife was cool but ultimately pointless. I had a sword. And a sword was like a giant, much more badass knife. And I''d bought the [Basic: Daggar] from the [System]. After a couple hours, I got the [Learn: Marine Corps Martial Arts] skill, and when Earl called a break, I was almost ready to head out. While eating sandwiches for lunch, Earl told us, "The last part of this class is the obstacle course. If you don''t want to do this, that''s fine. But going through this course successfully will give you the [Learn: Basic Athletics] skill, and once you get the full skill, [Basic Athletics] gives you a plus 1 in your [Strength], [Endruance], and [Agility] attributes." As an ex-high-school football star kicker crawling through mud, swinging from monkey bars, climbing a rope, and running through tires would be easy. I put down my sandwich and did the obstacle course in nothing flat. Easy peasy. Sure enough, I got the skill. "You can improve the [Lean] by doing other exercise-type things. Lifting weights, jogging, three-legged races, and soccer will increase if you practice other skills like practicing your Marine Corp Martial Arts." Earl told me while we watched the others stumble around in the mud. Then he looked me over. "Have you ever considered registering for grad school? I get the feeling you''d make a good tank, and it can never hurt to have another meat shield on the team." I nodded. "I''ll think about it. Thanks. I''m gonna head out. The phone number for the potion dealer is on the photocopies you gave us?" "Yup. And if you have any questions, my email is on there too. We will send you a link to a course evaluation survey in a couple of days. Standard stuff. How did you like the course? Anything you would change? That kind of thing. We will also add your email to our mailing list about other Adventuring classes we offer when we come up with them. I think an Alchemy for beginner Alchemists class is planned, and we offer combat classes every couple of weeks." I nodded again. Dood was yelling at Neil, so I spammed his palms a few times with [Grow Hair], got in my car, and drove away. First, I headed home and took a shower. I was fuck tired and wanted a beer and company, so I figured a supper at Fitz would hit the spot. As I was toweling off, the dungeon started to go crazy. Light appeared. It shot out of the entrance aperture, and beams, lasers, and rainbows glinted helter-skelter. Better special effects than SVU. My towel dropped to the floor, and I grabbed my sword and stood at the door to my guest room, [Shock] at the ready. Completely naked, balls dangling in the breeze. The light show stopped. A tall man dressed in a black suit, wearing a top hat, stepped into my guest room and out of the dungeon. "How do I look," he said. "Fuck." I said. "Judging from your species'' grammar, I believe your statement means you would like to copulate with me. Some other time maybe. Do I look human enough for your world? Our records are limited." "Fuck you. Fuck me." I said again, still somewhat in awe. The man in the black suit and top hat said, "I suppose you insist. Oh well, bend over. I will make this quick. I believe that you shall be the bottom in your world''s terms." And he began loosening his pants. "Stay away," I said, "I ain''t gonna get raped by a bug-eyed alien today." And I raised my sword. "I don''t understand. First, my spells cannot detect bug-eyed aliens in the vicinity. Is that a variety of mob native to your land? Secondly, this dialogue is taking far too much time." He raised his hand, and I froze in place. My muscles were completely immobile. "I hope you will not mind if I ignore your request for sexual intercourse? I really must be going. I have a schedule to keep. Toot-a-loo." He pushed past me and walked towards the door out of my condo. "If it distresses you, my spell should dissipate in five minutes." Chapter 13 When the spell that had caused my body to freeze wore off, I dashed into my bedroom, opened my gun safe, and grabbed a shotgun. Quickly chambering two shells, I ran out my front door. I was still buck-naked. Nobody was there. No, scratch that; my Karen neighbor Marigold was watering her plants in front of her apartment. "Eek. You are naked. Have you finally decided to ravish me at gunpoint?" Marigold said. She sounded oddly excited like this was the moment she had waited for all her life. "Did you see someone in a suit and top hat just now?" I yelled. "Your homosexual love toy? He got in your car and drove off. Is he going to come back and ravish me too? Or am I going to have to tell the condo board that you have been holding gay orgies in your living room." said Marigold. Sure enough, my car was gone. "Fuck! Son of a bitch stole my car." I yelled. I turned around to go back to my apartment. I grabbed the phone and was about to call the police to report my stolen car. Then I realized a major flaw in my plan. If I called in my stolen car, the police might send a squad car for my statement. What could I tell them? That a monster disguised as a human came out of my unregistered dungeon and took my ten-year-old Honda Accord Which brought up a couple concerns. It was unlikely that the police would look for my car. I live in Florida, a lot of cars get stolen. I''d never, not even once, heard of the police finding one. I wasn''t worried about the insurance on my shit-box, but can dungeon monsters drive? What was my liability if the alien hurt someone ¡ª say a hit and run ¡ª while in my car? Fuck and double fuck. And all I''d wanted to do was kick back and relax, maybe get shit-faced with friends. Instead, there I was, ordering an uber to go to a donut-eating cop-shop. Oh well, it couldn''t be helped. The Uber driver wanted to talk about country music, so I shot the shit with him despite only knowing that Old Town Road song from TikTok. At the police station, the desk sergeant looked at me and said, "Yeah?" "I''d like to report a stolen car," I said. "Fill out the paperwork," the cop said, reaching under her desk and getting a stack of papers she handed me attached to a clipboard. "Do you have a pen?" I asked, and she handed me one. "If you try to leave with that pen, we can and will arrest you," she said. I sat down in one of the provided chairs and entered my name, address, car make, VIN, license plate, and a bunch more boring something-something. Where the paperwork asked about the circumstances surrounding the car''s disappearance, I thought for a second. The key, I figured, was being truthful enough not to get tripped up in a lie but being crazy enough that the police would be embarrassed to check into it. Frankly, I considered leaving the space blank. But in the unlikely case that a cop came over and spoke to Marigold, I''d be screwed. Instead, I wrote: "I got out of the shower. A man came through the door through my lanai. He walked through my kitchen and living room and took my keys off their hook by the front door. When I tried to stop him, he used evil magic on me. Then he left through the front door and took my car. I did not know this person. He was wearing a black suit and top hat." Then I handed the paperwork in. The cop lady at the desk looked the paperwork over quickly. Her eyes stopped at the description of how the car had been stolen. "Are you drunk?" She asked. "Me? No." "Stoned? Is this some kind of joke?" "No, and no. Would you like your pen back? Please don''t shoot me, I''m not black, and this is your pen, not a gun." I said, handing her a bagel. Then if realizing my mistake, I took the bagel back and handed her back her pen. "Whoops. Bagels and pens confuse me sometimes." The woman just looked at me, shrugged, and I watched as she pulled out a hand stamp and put the words "Mentally Ill" in big red letters on the paperwork. This was fine since I didn''t want the police coming to my place and looking around. "Thanks," I said, leaving the building to order another Uber. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. While waiting for my driver to show up, I opened my [Status] and went to the [Forum] section. There was a new category called Incursion and/or Dungeon Break. Dozens of people worldwide reported strangely dressed people coming out of dungeons. Some people had even met these monsters while fighting and exploring inside. Can confirm. Saw a woman dressed like she had just left high school prom come out of the Lincoln Park dungeon. Watched her hop the turnstile and climb the stairs to the red-line platform. She fit in with late night homeless and drunk vibe you run into at night on the EL. ??Dementor - 1250 upvotes, 451 downvotes, Report Some guy dressed like an old west prospector came out of the dungeon they have in the back room of the Getty. Freaked me the hell out. Called me an earthling and asked for directions out of the museum. He was polite enough, I suppose. Called the police after he left. They asked me if I''d been drinking and didn''t take me seriously. ????Robert Frank - 2123 upvotes, 597 downvotes, Report You guys are all full of it. Monsters can''t leave the dungeons. It is a proven fact; everyone knows this. You guys are just trying to make Fetch happen. Steven Glansberg - 112 upvotes, 3248 downvotes, Report ??Just saw that some guy running the beta streaming app got footage when his party ran into a man dressed as an Inuit in the Kitchener, Ontario, Octoberfest Dungeon. It''s up on YouTube, and it is wild, man. Canuck-a-luck - 20111 upvotes, 10154 downvotes, Report You can''t trust Canadians. You know they invented Hawaiian pizza, right? Who puts pineapple on pizza? Deviants, perverts, and woke pedos, that''s who. Steven Glansberg - 512 upvotes, 11298 downvotes, Report Good. It looked like enough people were reporting sightings that I probably didn''t need to report mine too. So I didn''t and kept my privacy and wrote nothing. My Uber driver took me to Fitz''s, where I grabbed a chair at the bar and ordered a beer. Sid wasn''t around, so I had to endure standard keg temperature, for fuck sake. It was like a crime or something to serve only moderately cold beer. Sipping quietly, watching a YouTube video of an experienced party of mighty warriors fighting waves of skeletons and zombies. Then came the incongruity. A man dressed like an Eskimo came out of nowhere, walked up to their healer, rubbed noses, and left. Sid came up and sat down as I watched the video for a third time. I pushed my beer over to him, and he chilled it. Then very obviously, I showed him my empty hands, rolled up my sleeves to demonstrate there was nothing there, and then handed him an everything bagel. "Skukran, Randy. You finally took the plunge. Good for you," said Sid. "You could say that. Mind if I don''t say anything for a bit? I''m freaked out at the moment," I said. "Sure, sure," and we sat in silence while Sid cooled beers for a couple of Fitz''s customers who came over. Finally, Fitz said, "So have you heard about the spate of dungeon breaks? People didn''t think monsters could leave, and now we''ve got strangely dressed dungeon monsters doing who knows what," Sid said. "I don''t want to talk about it," I said. Sid looked at me oddly, then shrugged. "Have you decided to take my advice and buy a new car?" I looked over at Sid. Then I grabbed my beer, chugged it, and gestured at Fitz to pour another. "Your car is a touchy subject too? Well, this one will get you laughing. Some guy found a skill [Crystal], and I guess he didn''t have [Identify], so he just put it up for sale on the [Auction]. Someone else identified it as something that has the entire DominoRay user base buzzing. It isn''t anything any one in the forums will admit having seen or heard of before. A brand new item called a [Bloodline Crystal], specifically [Bloodline: Aristocrat]. "If we were further into the apocalypse, the guy would probably make [Bank], but nobody has the spare experience to bid on it right now. I think people are waiting to snipe it for themselves right now. Sucker will probably only get a few hundred xp when he could have made thousands if he had [Identified] it and then waited. Hell, I would have used it myself if I''d gotten such epic loot." I groaned, then checked the [Auction]. Sure enough, the [Crystal] I''d found in my dungeon was now listed as [Bloodline: Aristocrat], and there was a 45 xp bid on it. I tried to end the Auction and take my [Crystal] back, but that option was grayed out, and the fine print read, "All submissions once [Identified] by a third party are final." Putting my face in my hands, I wanted to cry. "There, there, dude. Whoever she is, she isn''t worth it," Sidney said. "Is that why you''ve been so stand-offish recently? Have you been getting some poon on the side, and now it''s gone? Dude, we''ve all been there." Making a sudden decision, I said, "Sid, come back to my place. There is something I would like to show you." "Randy. Randy. Randy. You are a good friend. An amigo, as they say, in the great land of the taco. I know you are going through something. But -- nothing personal -- I do not wish to have sex with you. I am saving my anal virginity for Gwen and her giant dildo, for when inevitably gives in and asks" I looked at him flatly, then burst out laughing. "Dude, I needed that. Seriously though, I have something you will want to see back in my apartment. Finish up your beer, and have a bagel or two. We should head out sooner rather than later." After that, we sipped our beer in silence. I ordered a bratwurst Sheppard''s pie, and Sid had a schnitzel and cabbage, which Fitz promised was halal. Gwen came in, and I briefly considered making her pubes grow many times too long, but I did not succumb to temptation because she wouldn''t show me. To calm my guilty heart, I offered her a bagel. We took an Uber back to my place. Sid wasn''t too drunk but had been planning on it, so he''d left his car at his house, and he didn''t want to call his wife to drive him. "Are you going to tell me what''s up?" Sid asked as our ride pulled into my parking space. For once, Marigold was not out front waiting to bitch at me when I came home. She was probably off-cackling and gnawing on eye of newt on her broom somewhere. Beckoning Sid inside, I led him through the living room, down the hallway, and into my guest room. There in all its glory, stood my dungeon. "Dude," I said, "A dungeon monster stole my car." Chapter 14 We''d returned to the living room, and I explained what I''d been doing over the past week to Sid. "And that''s why you can''t tell anyone. Not even your wife." "Not even Emily? That''s pretty harsh, Randy." "Look, Sid, I didn''t even want to tell you. I wouldn''t have, except I was freaking out, and it was a moment of weakness. If word of this got out, they would take this place away from me. It is my fucking Dungeon, not some corporation, not the government, not the banks, and definitely not my condo board. It is mine. I''ve paid the loan I took to buy it. I pay my condo fees. I don''t have any outstanding debt. It is mine, all mine." "I don''t think it works like that when corporations and the government are involved. But understood. I am going to have to tell Emily, though. She is every bit as into this apocalypse as we are. I probably told you this before, but I met Em in WoW. She was dancing for tips on top of the Ogrimmar mailbox. I saw her and said, "That''s the girl for me." Besides, she''ll know something is up if I keep sneaking out. Why don''t I call her and have her come over? It is better to just get it over with," Sid said. "Okay, but you make sure she doesn''t blab." Sid pulled out his cell phone, "I''ll try, but have you ever managed to stop a woman from doing something she wants to do?" "Hey, Em? Yeah, it''s me. Mind coming over to Sid''s place? It''s important. Yes, it is worth leaving your book-club night early. No, I''m not just begging for a drive because I''m too pickled to order an Uber. Love you." And Sid hung up. "She''s coming over. She seemed a bit angry. At you for leading me astray. She knows just how easily I can be led into temptation. She''ll be here in about half an hour. Why don''t you give me a tour of what you''ve explored." So I led Sid into my Dungeon''s first room and then killed and looted the three goblins. I pushed the bed aside and showed him the secret compartment where I''d found the skill crystal. I only received five xp for my goblin kills in this room, but Sid, who was grouped with me, received 27 xp, which made him happy. Next, we moved into the next room, the bathroom, where I killed the two slimes with electricity. I pointed out that I had not been able to find any hidden goodies in this room, but he was welcome to look for himself. We went into the second bedroom, and I made short work of the three mine-sweeping goblins. Then I walked over to the stairs and showed Sid the trap midway down, and we both stepped over it while I zapped the slime at the bottom of the steps with magic from afar. We left the Dungeon and returned to the living room so Sid could spend his experience and wait for Emily. It took 25 minutes to clear those four rooms. Em was due any minute now, depending on how quickly she could get out of her book club meeting and how bad traffic was coming here. We sat in my living room while Sid browsed the [Market] for a helpful skill [crystal]. He ignored my advice to get [summon Bagel], claiming he didn''t want to be a pure utility caster. He gave me a look when I pointed out that there were worse things to be, like being a [zombie fluffer]. And I pointed out that I thought I''d been offered that option when I''d gotten a 16 [Will Power] and the [Sense Life] requirements. ally Emily would have been a good stand-in for a traditional Norse Valkyrie. She would be easy to imagine swooping down to pick up the spirits of the valorous dead and carry them off to feast with their ancestors and gods in the halls of Valhalla. Sid''s wife Emily was a thicc blue-haired woman who usually played a tank in the MMORPGs she was addicted to. She would look just right if she braided her long blue hair into pigtails and wore a horned iron cap. I wouldn''t be surprised if she started to sing about killing the rabbit. In addition to being married to Sid and online gaming, Em, owned a farm that her parents had left her. She spent her weekends there mastering her other hobby -- blacksmithing at the forge she''d set up in the barn. Em had been on forged in Fire twice. Once as a regular contestant and once being asked back for a winner''s tournament. She would probably be pissed about all the Cold Steel swords I bought on Amazon that I had lying around the house. My only reason for getting them was that they were quick and cheap. And Amazon did not ask why I suddenly needed a castle''s armory. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Sid had Em sitting on the couch and quietly explaining things to her. I just entered my bedroom armory and got her a broadsword and a ballistic vest, then walked back into the living room and handed them to her. She sniffed in scorn when she looked at the sword and said, "Barely adequate. Got a shield?" so I went back and grabbed a plexiglass riot/swat ballistic shield for her to borrow. "Once more into the breach," I said. "You coming, Sid?" "No, I am still reviewing the list of possible [Crystals] I can buy. Having difficulty choosing between [Mute: Footsteps] and [Fade: Into Background]. Though some [rogues] in the forums swear by [Chameleon Skin] or the Mental Spell [Ignore me]. I think I am going to sit here and read a little more. Plus, I don''t want to bogart xp that Em should properly be getting. I went through the same process with Emily as I had done with Sid, except that after the first room, Emily demanded that I tell her what was in each room before we went in. And she killed all the mine sweep goblins on her own. Emily was far better with a sword than I was. She also wanted to continue exploring past the bottom of the stairs, but I put the kibosh on that until Sid was with us. Explaining some of my near-death experiences. As we left the Dungeon. Emily said. "We are going to have to come up with fair looting rules. This is your Dungeon, so you should get most of the loot. I will also keep a firm hand on my blabbermouth husband and ensure he doesn''t tell everyone about this. I understand why you need to keep this secret. People will want to steal this from you." "I would appreciate that. I thought of getting a geas spell or investigating contract magic and cursing the two of you so you couldn''t blab." "I hear that [Contract magic crystals] are hard to get and sell for over a million dollars in the real world. Don''t waste that kind of opportunity on us." Now if you excuse me, I have enough XP for [Basic: Taunt] or [Basic: Regenerate] or [Basic: Toughness], so I can begin my Tank build. Sid is a sweetheart, but the skill he bought me to get the system, doesn''t fit how I want to make my build. [Turn: Blue] is incredible. I don''t have to spend money on hair dye. And people are always complimenting me on my vibrant blue eyes and fingernails. But I''m always scared to use it too much in case just in case something goes wrong and I turn into a smurf. "I told you about the monster who stole my car, right?" "You mentioned something. When I first got here." "I was wondering if you had any ideas on how to block off the entrance to the dungeon from the inside and lock the outside." "Hmm," Emily said. "I guess you could buy an enormous metal stationary supply or filing closet; I could bring over my portable acetylene torch to cut off the back, then we could bolt the cabinet to the wall. Anyone coming here wouldn''t see the Dungeon, just a big metal box with doors and a lock. Or you could buy an additional sizeable upright document safe, and we could do the same thing. The document safe would have the advantage of being more sturdy and having an electronic lock. We might even find a safe with an interior lock. We might have to run some metal I bars behind the drywall to better secure whatever structure we decide. I wouldn''t know about that. You are the architectural engineer; you figure that out. Lastly, we could build a mold and pour a concrete structure around the Dungeon. That way, we could have complete control over the shape and functionality of the door, locks, and everything. "I like your way of thinking," I said; if that crazy woman Marigold gets in a Karen kind of mood and sicks the condo board on me, if they came in here and instead of seeing a dungeon, they saw a document safe or a supply cabinet up against the wall. There would be less of a chance of discovery. I went to the home depot website online and ordered cinder blocks, cement, sand, and rebar for home delivery. Then I rented a pallet jack, a floor stripper, and a cement mixer to mix mortar. Everything I needed to build what amounted to a safe room in my guest room. In my head, I pictured enough space for cabinets filled with healing potions, spare weapons, buff scrolls, anti-curse spells, mountain house freeze-dried rations, a CCTV system, chairs, a table, and a desk with a computer. A place to wash so you wouldn''t track blood and monster guts all over the house. It was shitty that I couldn''t hire a contractor to do this construction. Chapter 15 When Emily and Sid left for the night, they were filled with excitement and plans for the future. They said they would come over after work tomorrow to help me lay bricks to build my safe room around my portal. I considered buying bunk beds and turning my living room into a dormitory since I foresaw a future in which Sidney and Emily would spend a lot of time here. It wasn''t as if they could use the guest room anymore. I ran the dungeon a few times to get experience and even went so far as to explore the floor the slime was on. A mock living room and kitchen were at the bottom of the steps. I sat on the carpeted floor and spent around 10 minutes detecting life and traps. I couldn''t sense any traps, but I got a funny feeling from the dryer in the laundry room off the kitchen. I gave the dryer a quick zap with electricity on the off chance it might move if it was a mimic. It did not. I then opened the dryer door and looked in. An Arm made of dryer lint grabbed me and dragged my head into the dryer. I was stuck. Oh nos. I was trapped in the dryer. My worst Porno nightmare had come true. I didn''t even have a stepsis nearby to take advantage of my helplessness. What would I do? What would I do? The lint monster was still active inside the dryer. It kept on trying to fill my mouth and nostrils with dryer fluff. Casting a quick [Ignite] spell set the monster on fire, which was fine, but the currently burning monster was wrapped around my head, trying to suffocate me. Casting [Moisten] on my face and hair repeatedly, I pulled myself out of the dryer and extinguished the fire. I was badly burnt even though I had only lost... holy shit 98 hit points, my face and head must be covered in 3rd-degree burns; it was a wonder I was aware enough to spam [cure wounds] and [grow hair] on myself a bunch of times. The scarring faded away, and my hair grew back. I looked like a Chewbacca; not wanting to worry about a hairstyle on this delve, I trimmed the hair out on the sides until I sported a grand mohawk. Looting the dryer monster yielded a [spell crystal]. Having learned my lesson on the last [cystal] I''d found, I immediately broke it in my hand and accepted the spell [Summon Lint Elemental] I also currently had 46xp that I could spend. And I couldn''t see any doors except the one out onto the backyard deck and the one down to the basement. Neither of which I wanted to explore without an entire team. Instead, I began o take apart the kitchen. Exploring every nook and cranny. I found an empty hidden compartment behind one of the backsplash subway tiles. And there was a suspicious hole leading to a secret room in the cabinet under the sink. I almost got shot by an arrow trap when I moved the washer and dryer combo out of the way. And I nuked the dishwasher with electricity before opening it because it looked like it would hold slimes. Taking a chance, I moved the cleaning supplies out of the way and summoned a lint elemental. This one was cute, unlike the lint monster that had just tried to kill me. "I shall call you Mr. Linty," I said. Mr. Linty danced around and tried to look imposing. It clawed at the air with its tiny arms made out of dryer lint. Mr. Linty was about as scary as a pet bunny clawing at the side of its hutch, begging for a treat. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Letting Mr. Linty take point seemed wise, so I sent him down under the sink and through the hidden hole. Once Mr. Linty was all the way through, I saw a club swing down and try to crush the poor little guy. "I''m coming Mr. Linty." I yelled as I rapidly wiggled my way under the sink and through the hole. I was glad I had been laying off the donuts. It was a tight fit under there. The room was empty except for Mr. Linty, who was trying his best to distract a 7-foot-tall Ogre, who I started spamming with electricity. I noticed a treasure chest in the corner of the room. I pulled out my sword. While I was doing this, the Ogre had already recovered his balance from taking a largely ineffectual swing at Mr. Linty. It had shifted its focus to me and was winding up to swing at my poor noggin this time. Kicking forward with my feet, I rolled out of the swing, taking the hit to my midriff instead of my head. Owie! My hit points tumbled down 32 points from just that one blow. And my sword went clattering away, and I was knocked to the ground. I still had Mana, so I was shocked the SOB several times. While the Ogre was spasming from the current running through its body, I spider-crawled over to my sword, grabbed it, and managed to stand up. The Ogre''s club was moving at my face with incredible velocity, so I tried to block with my sword like I''d been shown in class. Fuck! The Ogre was one hella strong son of a bitch. Broke my cheap ass sword in half. Knocked off another 63 hit points. I still had my baseball bat strapped to my back, so I reached for that. I wielded my club like a sword -- I''d bought the [Basic: Sword] skill days ago, and I couldn''t see the point in increasing my [HEMA] skill in this actual combat. It took a fair amount of mental gymnastics to convince myself my baseball bat was a sword to get my skill to work. I had to pretend the baseball bat was a practice weapon. But it worked until I got a really good opening for a thrust. I took it and felt stupid when I didn''t pierce the Ogre through the heart with the pointy end of an aluminum baseball bat. My Mana was now high enough to cast a spell. I remember how effective pets were in WoW. And I needed that advantage now. It is your time to shine Mr. Linty. I commanded the fluffy dude to do more than taunt and tank. He should attack directly. What can I say? Monsters made of fluff particulates are neither the most full tanks nor the best DPSs. Sure, the little puff ball could take a hit. Mental note blunt weapons didn''t damage something that was basically all cushioning. But the lint had neither teeth nor claws. But what Mr. Linty did have was flammability. Inspired by my fight in the dryer, I commanded my trusty elemental protector to climb the Ogre and wrap itself around the Ogre''s head. Then I cast [ignite] on my buddy, watching the Ogre''s head burst into flames. While the Ogre was distracted, I swung for the bleachers with my bat. The Ogre fell to his knees. And I kept swinging. I was swinging as hard as any 55+-year-old conservative Christian couple from Nebraska who''d retired to the Villages, had left their front door invitingly open, and had strategically placed an upside-down pineapple on their porch. The Ogre fell to its knees, desperately clawing at its face trying to peel my elemental buddy off. Then it fell flat on its face. "You killed Mr. Linty, you bastard," I yelled and hit it a few more times to inconvenience me, then I unzipped and pissed on its face to put the fire out. Then I opened my [Status] to see how much experience I''d received from defeating the Ogre. Chapter 16 DominoRay¡¯s most recent update did not take long. Out of instinct I clicked on Open Change Log. [Change Log] by DominoRay Ver. 0.0.036 Error fixes, updates, changes - Fixed time change bug Resulting from moving from a dungeon with a temporal speed than real life - Added programming to account for Daylight Savings Time in North America - Added privacy toggle for [Status GPS] and [Status: GPS Metadata] Updates: - [Notes Tab] to jot down bits of random information about people, places, monsters and things as you adventure. - Added an input field for users to record their faith. - Plans to implement limited functionality for [Faith] field. - i.e. the Mormon church has requested that all Mormons default to being a part of the Mormon Guild in addition to whatever guilds they join or start. [Auto Tithing] and [faith chat] implemented. You must still form a guild within the apocalypse guild framework to have a faith guild. NOTE from DominoRay: I am simply modding the interface, I have nothing to do with the functionality of this Apocalypse. Please stop requesting features that I cannot provide. - A new Tab has been developed for common [Services] from other players. - Encapsulate selected parts of your [Status] into a sharable combination [resume] and [contact sheet]. Perfect for Guild, Raid Leaders, singles/dating, and Marketing to use to fill out team roles. - A place to add your social media links and any external website has been added so you can share content with your [non-adventuring friends] and for the delvers you meet to follow you irl. Nice! I hadn¡¯t know there was a GPS inside my [Status] so I went into settings and toggled it off. Next and more importantly, I checked my experience. I had 173 xp. Checking my [Combat log], I saw that the ogre had given me a Nice chunk. Easily enough to pay for [Basic: Inspect Item] and [Basic: Masonry] with 31 xp left over. Looting the Ogre returned 7 [Dungeon Silver] and a skill crystal which I immediately identified as [Basic: Hulk Smash] which was a skill that added extra force to any impact done with a blunt object. I could immediately imagine how much this skill would sell for if I offered it to Professional Baseball. Instead I crushed it in my hand to absorb the [crystal]. The only other thing in the room was a chest which I approached cautiously due to past experience with faux mimics. Using my baseball bat to flip the chest open. I discovered loot not danger. 156 [Dungeon Copper] 23 [Dungeon Silver] 5[Dungeon Gold] 2[lesser Healing potions] and a skill [Heal: Tooth Decay] which I immediately absorbed. Casting [Heal Tooth Decay] on myself I felt a tingling in my mouth.During all my dental check up except one, I had never had a cavity.That one time was with a dentist who I¡¯d gone to on vacation for a cleaning, and had never expected to go back to again.I was half way convinced he had ¡°found¡± those three cavities which he had drilled and filled just to pad his bill. Three fillings popped out and rolled across my mouth before I could spit them out. I cast [Basic: Clean] on my teeth to give them a nice whitening. Now I just needed a [Cure: Gum Disease] and [Freshen Breath] and I would be the envy of dental hygienists everywhere. I used some of the knowhow I got from the Adventuring Class I¡¯d taken and wrote a macro that would cast and recast [Basic: Increase Healing Rate] [Basic: Increase Stamina Recovery] and [Basic: Increase Mana Recovery] Until my health, stamina and mana were full.Then I sat in the middle of the floor next to the body of a dead ogre and cast my new macro. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Then I crawled back out of the secret hole under the sink and back into the kitchen.My next two options were going down the stairs to the basement which was odd, who ever heard of a basement in Florida.The water table was so high here any basement would flood in no time flat.And stepping out the sliding doors and onto the patio into the back yard. The patio looked out over a tidily mown lawn there was a retention pond at the edge of the property in which I assumed were alligators and turtle monsters. I still walked over to it and was surprised to see fish swimming just under the surface. I cast [Basic: shock] into the water near the silhouette of a larger fish and a stunned largemouth bass and a handful of bluegills floated to the surface. Hmm. Good spot for fishing. The air was fresh and a cool breeze blew through the palm trees on the other side of the retention pond. As expected, a suspicious looking log was moving swiftly towards me.And I started blasting it with Electricity. And I readied my baseball bat for combat which simply involved getting into a batting pose and casting [Basic: Hulk Smash]. The Alligator launched itself out of the water gaping mouth wide open and I swung and caught the alligator in the throat.But the gator got my arm.When the gator fell to the ground it began to roll to try and tear my arm off, and I, wise to gator tricks,dropped and rolled with it.All the time casting [shock]. Then the gator had enough of my bullshit.It let go of my arm and tried to escape back into the pond.And I kept zapping away.I only wish I had a cast iron pan and a cigar so I could do the perfect imitation of a real Florida Man.Rescuing the small yappy dog from the vicious gator. Alas nobody was around to film me cause the retreat of the whily lizard and I was loath to give chase into the water lest other pond life try to nibble me.I began walking around the pond while I spammed my healing macro.I found that the pond was in a large fenced in section that jutted out behind a subdivision with a dozen nearly identical houses.Each house was, from the exterior at least, almost identical to my own dungeon. Out of curiosity, I climbed the back patio and opened the sliding glass door of another ¡°house¡± while the interior kitchen was shaped the same as the kitchen in my own dungeon house, right down to the gaudy floral walpaper, there were four bigger, spell casting goblins sitting around the kitchen table playing poker in this house, (loot after killing 3 [Dungeon Silver]) and there was no ogre infested hidden room under the sink. I was beginning to understand that my dungeon took the form of a gated condo community. Leaving the rest of the houses to be explored with Sid and Em, I followed the contour of the fence for another 300 yards to a gate. There was another retaining pond here with a bench overlooking the water. Tired, out from all the fighting and walking, I sat down on the bench, and damn if this bench wasn¡¯t a baby mimic As I sat I felt something bite my ass. Looking down the bench had grown fangs and a digestive system, and was trying to pull me in. I started to blast it with my go to spell [spark] and using my baseball bat as a kind of pole, I jammed the bat into the earth and used that as an anchor for leverage to pull myself away from the foul demonic hell bench. I was learning to hate mimics. There were still teeth suck in my ass when I managed to dislodge myself from the bench. I [hulk smashed] the sinister seating several times without any noticeable effect. Then I pulled out the small bottle of lighter fluid I carried with me and sprayed the mimic down, and cast ignite on it. The thing screamed as it burnt and it started to waddle towards me, exactly the way I imagined a bench would waddle. I was so angry. It was such a scenic pond. There were turtles, and fish and a couple of great blue herons, no sign of any alligators. The bench had been positioned right underneath a wheeping willow. What kind of monster would imbed itself in such a pastoral location. A shitty mimic, that was what kind of monster. I [Basic: Hulk Smashed] the now burning bench again and the arm rests on the bench reached out and grabbed my aluminum bat and ripped my weapon out of my hand. Then the mimic ate my bat. It gave an audible burp when the entire bat was in its gullet. I [Shocked] it a couple more times, then retreated. Now weaponless, I retraced my steps back to the entrance to my condo. Chapter 17 Getting out of the dungeon after my latest delve, I went to take a quick nap. I turned on Alexa turn on Sleep Sounds Thunderstorm the white noise that I liked best and curled up around my pillow to sleep. I flipped on my TV and turned on the news. Nothing exciting seemed to be happening in the world. Politicians were doing politics. Criminals were criming around. Athletes were jumping up and down. And a person dressed as an Inuit had just assassinated Elon Musk¡­.? I found the grainy security camera footage on YouTube. Musk could clearly be seen coming out of the Twitter headquarters when a guy dressed exactly like the guy in the video I had seen in the adventurer forum walked up to Musk, pulled out a sword from some hidden inventory, and decapitated both of Elon Musks bodyguards, before stabbing Musk through the door of the Tesla he had just jumped into to get away. Blood splattered throughout the interior of his black car. Gut and spilling the bodyguards intestines out all over the parking lot floor, before turning around and walking away. Then the Inuit monster pulled his sword out of the car door, put his car back into his inventory, cast a spell to clean the blood off his body and turned and walked away. So far, the news had not connected the Eskimo dude who killed the South African Tesla founder with the guy who had stumbled out of the dungeon in Canada. But it would happen inevitably. Journalists had access to all the same [status forums] I had. This was big. I opened my [Status] and checked out the [Forum] to see what my fellow [Adventurers] were saying. That''s fucked, man. The Dungeon Eskimo dude must be really pissed about what Musk is doing to Twitter. The Eskimo Dude probably had to pay for a blue checkmark. Bummer. ??Nob Goblin - 125 upvotes, 25 downvotes, Report Did you see how he pulled his sword out of nowhere and went through those security guards? How his sword cut straight through the Steel Frame of Musk''s car. I heard that most bodyguards for celebs and CEOs are like retired Special Forces types trained to spot danger. And Eskimo guy cut through them like they were cheese. ??Ring Wraith - 258 upvotes, 75 downvotes, Report The media haven''t seen the connection yet. I can''t believe there aren''t any reporters reading this Forum. What will the public outcry be when they start talking about this. Will the government try to regulate our dungeons? Delving is how I express myself. I have a 1st amendment right to do this. Freedom! I, for one, opt out of the Federalist and Statist oppression. ??Ruby Ridge 4Eva - 25 upvotes, 1202 downvotes, Report Maybe SpaceX was getting too close to discovering something. Nobody has convincingly explained where all these dungeons came from. They just appeared all of a sudden. Now dungeon monsters have assassinated the world''s foremost authority on space travel. I find that mighty suspicious. What else are they planning? Did they cause Covid? ??Qanon Paladin - 1257 upvotes, 598 downvotes, Report Need I remind everyone. There have been hundreds of recorded dungeon breaks that have been recorded. That doesn''t include dungeons that have not been found or revealed, or controlled by people who aren''t participating in our little gossip forum. ????Dante - 12251 upvotes, 1562 downvotes, Report My buddy has a dungeon he hasn''t told anyone about, and a monster stole his car. ??Gimly - 1201 upvotes, 745 downvotes, Report I am going to strangle Sid. Emily was supposed to be keeping him on a short leash. From there, seeing how great [increase Stamina Recovery] was for keeping sleep away, I wondered if there was an anti [Stamina] debuff. Now that would be better than Melatonin. There was a [Drain: Stamina] and a [Steal: Stamina]. Scratch the [Steal Stamina] Spell since I didn''t want someone else''s [Stamina]; I just wanted to get rid of my own. [Drain: Stamina] seemed promising. More uses than the straight up [Sleep] spell. And 45xp wasn''t too expensive. I made a mental note in the [Notes] section of my [Status]. It did occur to me that maybe I was spreading myself too thin. I was getting too many Utility Spells and too many spells targeting my creature comforts. I summoned a bagel to gosh and thought about it. The problem was I liked to be a generalist. And I wanted to spoil myself. Now I was only justifying. Wasn''t the apocalypse in books supposed to be about a personal quest for power to allow some semblance of human civilization to thrive? It was either that or all the evangelicals being rapturized so that they could feel schadenfreude about everyone who didn''t subscribe to the political extremism of their leaders being miserable for the rest of eternity. It seemed lately that dying for the SBC was just another way to own the libs. The Evangelicals had all been left behind in this world were pissy about us calling it an Apocalypse, since they had been predicting one for years, and once that apocalypse came the apocalypse was nothing like what they had been predicting. Not that I was planning on burning in hellfire just to make some religious douches happy, not any time soon at least. No matter how much that would please the congregants at the mega church down the street. The only natural post-apocalyptic choice ¡ª if you accepted the framework of online web-fiction rules; which seemed closest to what was going on ¡ª was to seize power. I was hunky-dory with that as long as I could do it on my own terms. I was OK with finding my inner ubermensch. I spake Zarathustra and all that. And if becoming a superman meant more [Summon: Smoked Salmon] spells; that was fine by me. The void I stared into was in my guest room, and I was building a wall around it, so it couldn¡¯t gaze back at me too much. Others might think that having a dungeon I could use by myself was wasteful. But to me it meant I could let my freak flag fly free. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. And why the fuck would I give a shit about what other people thought? This didn''t mean I wasn''t curious about what the mandatory class choice at Level 10 would offer. Supposedly the best classes were provided then. I had originally thought that you were only offered a class at Level 10, but now I knew that was wrong. If you met the pre-requisite you could get classes at any time. It was amazing how much bullshit was floating around the internet. People without access to the [System] really were clueless. The doorbell rang and I got out of bed to answer it. The Home Depot delivery van was here with Bricks, concrete, and the tools I''d rented. I asked them to move everything into my living room, so they piled everything up in front of the TV. One of the Home Depot associates gave me a weird look when he saw the blood spatter on the floor, all the swords, baseball bats, and bits of armor lying around. I shrugged and said, "We got a little too involved in the role-playing parts of our last D&D session last night." I gave the delivery folks a nice tip so they wouldn''t have negative feelings about our interaction. Then I went into the guest room and started to scrap up the oak floor. I had most of it gone in the area I planned to enclose when I heard a knock on the front door. Checking my doorbell cam, I saw that it was not the cops, and it was just Sid and Em, so I went out and opened the door for them. "Hey Em, hey Gimly." I stepped aside so they could come in and closed the door behind them. "So Gimly, I hear you have a friend with an undiscovered dungeon, and this friend had his car stolen by a dungeon monster," I said. Sid looked embarrassed, he was blushing, and Emily just looked confused. "Al Sala''am Alaykum Randy, I can explain. I just thought I should provide information without giving anything away. It might help the people who were studying all this stuff out." "What is going on," said Emily. I forwarded her the link through the [system] interface. "Sid." She swatted her husband''s head. "You moron. Randy didn''t have to invite us into his home and give us a chance at becoming adventurers. Nobody else would have. And if someone figures out who you are and follows you back here, we won''t be able to use this dungeon anymore. There goes our only chance to level up. And we are back to the fantasy of finding one everyone missed somewhere out in the wilderness. I really don''t want to hike the Appalachian trail anytime soon." "Em, darling, I didn''t mean to screw up." "I know, Sid. You were just chasing clout. I get it. Now apologize to Randy and never do it again." "Randy, astaghfirullah -- I''m sorry. I wasn''t thinking. I was being a Chud" "Dude. I don''t think any lasting damage has been done. Just promise me you''ll think before you try to flex online again. Now let''s get moving bricks. You can fit 3 stacks of 20 cinder blocks in your inventory. Em, would you mind mixing some masonry cement? Sid, could you tear down the drywall in the area where I got rid of the flooring. Also, could you bag the ripped-up hardwood and haul it to the dumpster. Use your inventory; it makes carrying shit easy. You don''t feel the weight" "You seriously want me to stand before your dumpster and pull things out of nowhere? What will your neighbors think?" "Hmmm¡­ good point. Then pile it up in the living room, and I''ll hire a junk hauler when we are ready to have them come and pick it up. Speaking of Junk, Em, my sword broke on my last delve. Any chance you have a better one?" "I''ve got a ton. I was thinking about bringing a selection of swords and knives over. So we always have a supply on hand." "That would be useful. Maybe next time." Relying on my recently purchased [Masonry] skill and vague memories of the summers in High School, I spent working for a contractor as a part-time job. I began a U-Shaped cinder block wall around the dungeon. The space the cinder blocks would enclose would be 12'' by 15''. Easily 2/3rds of my guest room. It helped that the exterior wall was already made of cinderblock behind the drywall. We decided to incorporate the already existing 2x4" studs of the wall frame into the construction to facilitate the inclusion of electrical and plumbing into the enclosed area. If worse came to worse, I could use my [Dig] spell to make trenches and holes in the cement foundation far more accessible and faster than a jackhammer could have. We had a quick debate over it, and building a room seemed like a better idea than just reinforcing my guest room( I hadn''t ordered enough bricks anyway). Eventually we could do that too, if we needed two layers of defense for things like [dungeon breaks]. Storing the cinderblocks and masonry cement in inventory sped up the process immeasurably. And through blasting a steady stream of [Increase Stamina Recovery Spells], we had the rough construction done in a day and a half. Em said she could put up drywall. I ordered enough framing materials, drywall, white paint, and vinyl imitation hardwood flooring to make the interior and exterior look nice. And I spent a few thousand dollars to order a steel security door. And an excellent smart-lock that locks from both directions. After Em had put up drywall and the flooring was done, and we''d cleaned up a bit, the new room ¡ª which we had begun to call the "Dungeon Foyer ¡ª looked stunning, and there was no trace of the dungeon. There were CCTV cameras focused both inside the dungeon foyer and my guest room, so anyone with an internet connection or access to the monitors inside the guest room or inside the foyer could see the rest of the house. While there was a video camera on the inside of the foyer so people in the rest of the house could monitor if anything had come out of the dungeon. The lights in both rooms came on by motion sensor. The foyer was set up really nicely. We had cabinets lining one wall that we had filled with weapons and armor, and the healing potions I had managed to make out of the concentrate from the [intro to Adventuring class]. On the other side of the foyer, we had set up some bathroom cabinets with a working sink, a supply of towels, a toilet, and a shower stall. The CCTV monitor was installed into the drywall with buttons you could use to cycle through the video Channel. Chapter 18 It had taken enough time to finish the foyer infant of the dungeon. I had wanted to layer steel plate and maybe a layer of lead between the cinder blocks and the drywall, but when Em pointed to the price, well¡­ The money from the insurance settlement was dwindling. I wasn''t in danger of having to find another source of income pretty soon. And I couldn''t just spend much money on frivolous things anymore. I regretted not selling [hulk smash]. I still needed to buy a car, after all. Before we went into the dungeon again, I wanted to check on the sale of the [bloodline crystal]. It was over. I hadn''t noticed before this because I had my notifications turned off. Still, with some trepidation, I entered the [auction] to see how the [bloodline] I had unknowingly put up for sale had done. The final bid was 1675 xp and 250 [Dungeon Gold] coins which caused me to let out a "Woot" of joy. I immediately sat down and tried to decide how I would spend this windfall. 250 xp went into bringing me to 4th level and 425 xp to 5th. Both attribute points went into willpower. It was looking more and more like I was going the caster route. In terms of spells, our group needed more healing potions, so I took: [Basic: Mana Fertilize] and [Basic: Magical Plant Horticulture], and [basic: Infuse]. As predicted by Earl, I was offered the [Druid: Pledge], [Enhanced Greenhouse Technician], and [Basement Dwelling Pot Cultivator] class options, all of which I turned down. To round myself out, I also bought [Basic: Blunt Weapon] even though I already had the [Learn: Basic Weapon] at 34%. Since It looked like I was going to be the healer in the group, I picked up [Basic: Cure Disease],[Basic: Drain Stamina] and [Basic: Remove Curse], and [Basic: Freshen Breath]. I spent some time looking for buffs and found [Basic: Group Slow stamina Loss] and [Basic: Group Increase Strength], and [Basic: Group Drain Stamina] because that was the closest I could find as a sleep spell, as well as the [Basic: Attribute Floor] Earl had used on Maria. Group versions of [Basic: Group Increase Mana Recovery] and [Basic: Group Increase Healing Rate] were also usable in combat. And with that, my spending spree with a healthy 145 xp left over, but I figured I was better off saving that for a rainy day. The next level was at 550 xp, and who knew after that. Presumably, 1700 xp was a magic number since I was almost sure someone had spent the xp they had saved for advancing a level on the bloodline I had put up for sale. Back in the real world Em and Sid were gearing up. I got to that too. At some point, while we were building the safe room, Em had driven to her farm and picked up a bunch of weapons and armor she had made. Sure, there were a lot of fancy cooking knives (they sell well online). Still, there was a sword that felt comfy, and I put a spare into my inventory along with another baseball bat. We formed a group, and I sent out a party request. Em and Sid both accepted. Then I summoned Mr. Linty to take point, followed by Em, in chain mail and holding the riot shield I''d given her the other day in front of her. Once I cast my new buffs on the party, Sid faded into the background. I would have to get a spell that showed group health because, as it is right now, I couldn''t tell. And if I couldn''t tell, I wouldn''t be able to keep everyone healthy. Then we stepped into the dungeon. Em taunted the first three goblins. While I blasted them with spells from afar, Sid snuck around doing sneaky things. A group was overkill here, but it was good practice, I figured. Besides, you couldn''t be too careful. After looting the goblin corpses, I checked the hidden compartment. Gaining 23 [dungeon copper], a hundred dollar bill, and a healing potion. We moved into the Bathroom, and I electrocuted the two slimes. Strangely enough, I received a Canadian toonie and a couple [dungeon copper] for our trouble. "I don''t remember seeding any Canadian money in this dungeon," I said. "I wonder if that means we get the crap we leave in here are shared between all the dungeon, sort of like our [market] access." Em shrugged. "Does it matter?" "Suppose not. I just haven''t gotten a bottle of booze as a drop in a long time and wondered if I''d wasted much money on high-priced liquor seeding it for everyone. I hope other people appreciate my effort. We''ll know if we ever get a pair of Mickey Mouse ears as a drop." "Mr. Linty says he thinks,'' We should move on to the next room,''" I said Mr. Linty, upon hearing his name, started to jump up and down like a chihuahua that desperately needed to pee. "Onward to the next room, then." Once again, Mr. Linty led the way, followed by Em, then Me, with Sid off somewhere doing oddly non-visible things. Once again, Em taunted the three goblins enough to drag them away from their minesweeper game. Sid came out of nowhere and sliced open a goblin before waving and disappearing again. And then, once the goblins were dead, she finished their game for them. "I used to play Minesweeper for hours," she Em said. The loot was another handful of [dungeon copper] and a [unused condom] We then stood at midway down the stairs while I blasted the slime at the bottom of the stairs with electricity. That slime did not have any loot. We then let Mr. Linty solo the lint elemental in the dryer Linty a Linty. They looked a little like battling guinea pigs fighting to the death. After I had set the feral Mr. Linty on fire, the next step was to the secret room under the sink. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. "Okay, here is the plan. I resummon Mr. Linty and send him in the hole as a distraction." I said. Sid reappeared and said, "I can''t believe you killed Mr. Linty. You bastard." "Sid, it freaks me out every time you disappear and reappears. Either stick around and talk or stay silent you son of a bitch¡± "No can do. I''m stealthy like a Bedouin in the desert," he said before disappearing again. I continued the tactical rundown. "the next in should be Sid going in full-on bedouin style. While Sid did his best to stick knives in the Ogre, keeping his wife safe by distracting the monster, Em will shimmy her way in." We spent some time considering drilling holes in the walls so I could blast the Ogre and heal from outside the room. Still, no matter how many holes above the sink I melted open using [Dig] repeatedly on the backsplash, I could not see the room''s interior. It was like the hidden room was not in the same physical location as it was geographically on whatever mental maps we could imagine. The only thing I could do with [Dig] enlarged the opening under the sink. "Hold up. Before we start, let me spend some experience." Said Em. "Okay," I said. Now was the time to buy something to monitor the group''s health and mana usage. [Basic: Analyze Party Wellness] cost 98 xp, so I grabbed that while Sid babbled on with Em about [Muffle Sound] vs. [Basic: Shadow Blend]. Since they were both 48xp, I sent him the experience I had left and told him, "Shut it and buy both." Em had already decided on [Basic: Iron Skin] before we set out, so she bought that. "Thanks, Randy," Sid said. "Okay, I''m gonna recast and refresh my buffs on our group and cast a Heal Over Time on everyone, so get ready to move quickly. Which I did. We removed the cabinet doors and removed the drain pipe in preparation for this attack. Mr. Linty had no trouble going in, regardless of the size. Sid was through next, and a couple of seconds later, I heard the Ogre shriek in pain. Em was already under the sink, and her head was through the hole while she wriggled forward. Suddenly I heard, "Hold on, Em, I got you. And Em''s body slid into the tiny room like she was being pulled. I heard a muffled "Thanks, Sid." I cast my new [Party Wellness] spell and saw that everyone was healthy except Mr. Linty, who was down about a third, and there was a little icon of a fire next to his health score. I clicked on the button to see what to do, and I heard Sid yell, "Mr. Linty just burst into fire. Someone just killed Mr. Linty. Someone is a bastard." I crawled under the sink and peered through the hole. Mr. Linty was indeed running around on fire. I cast cure wounds on him, which brought him right back up to halfway, then directed him to attack the Ogre. The little guy ran forward and valiantly wrapped himself around the Ogre''s leg while he burned. Sid keeps disappearing and reappearing like a Bedouin ninja. And Em, blue braids flipping around as she blocked strike after strike from the Ogre''s club. I cast a [Basic: increased healing rate] on her, and her health bar in my heads-up display returned to full. I stuck myself under the sink, focusing on keeping my peeps healthy. Then Sid reappeared and shoved a knife in the Ogre''s neck, and Em quickly followed up by shoving her sword into the Ogre''s stomach. And with that, the Ogre toppled over dead. "Randy." Em said, "How do you get used to the violence?" I shrugged. "Keep in mind that most of the time I did this, I was alone. It was either them or me. This attacking random sentients to kill something for just a few [dungeon coppers] is new to me too. Now open the treasure chest. It wasn''t a mimic last time, but be careful. Mimics are jerks that keep popping up when you don''t expect them." Em bent down over the ogre''s corpse and looted it. "Skill Crystal," she said. "Bring it over here so I can identify it." I called out from under the sink. She handed me the [crystal] and I cast [Basic: Identify Object] on it only to find out that it was another [Basic: Hulk Smash]. "It is [Hulk Smash] I wonder if this room will become a reliable place to farm these. We could probably make good money if we can find a speedy way to get through the room. We could sell them to Major League Baseball, so they could have power hitters Hulk smash their way to more home runs." Em shook her head. "Professional sports are banning people with [System] access. Claim it is cheating, like steroids. Like Steroids, there is a healthy market for better ways to hide or show someone''s [System]. I have a sorority sister who works for the law firm that Major League Baseball uses to lobby Congress. She might be able to point me to an unscrupulous agent or two. Still, I wouldn''t get your hopes up. Savannah is a lobbyist, but she''s a straight shooter. "It might be best to sell it on Craigslist or eBay to those desperate to become adventurers if this is a farmable item. Though not yet. I am going to use this one. And if we get another next run-through, that one is Sid''s." "Come on Sid, what''s in the chest." Like me, Sid used the Ogres club to open the treasure chest. There were 17 [Dungeon Silver] 45[Dungeon Copper] $200 in mixed US currency, a bottle of Japanese Whiskey, a measuring tape, and a [skill Crystal]. He handed the crystal over to me. "I call dibs if it is anything tooth related." Then cast Identify on it. The skill turned out to be [Basic: X-Ray Vision]. "Hand that back," said Sid "I want it." "What do you want it for," asked Em. "Doesn''t matter, I just want it. You just got [Hulk Smash] I want something cool from this fight." I sighed, "If nobody has a legit use for it, why don''t we roll for it?" I asked Em shrugged and looked at Sid, who said, "What the hell? Why not?" I open-end the [Group] screen, selected [Loot Distribution], a prompt appeared for [Item], and I focused on the crystal in my hand. The weight of the crystals disappeared when I selected it, then chose [Random Party]. "If Mr. Linty gets this, I will kill someone." Then removed Mr. Linty from the list of Party Members the loot could go to. The words: [Randomizing between] 1.[Booty Master] 2.[Freya Bellegrave] 3.[Gimli] appeared in my Heads up display, I heard Emily mutter, "Booty Master? I''m surrounded by 14-year-olds." to herself. Just before [Gimli] was highlighted "Woot, I got the treasure! I got the treasure!" Sid began to sing and do a little dance around the room. "Hand it over," he said. "I don''t have it. Check your [Status]." "Hey, thanks. A message from the [System] in my message folder said, "You have won a randomized loot roll. Please claim in 72 hours, or the System will reclaim your prize." "I had wondered about that," I said. "Back before Blizzard introduced the Bank and Guild Bank in WoW, I would send loot I wanted to keep but had no bag room to myself in the wow-mail, and as long as I retrieved it by the end of the month, the Ogrimar post was a convenient extra place to keep item overflow," I said. "Shall we venture into the basement? Or outside. I haven''t been downstairs yet. While there is at least one alligator in the pond outside." Chapter 19 "I say we go downstairs," Em said. "Onward to the unexplored area to find new loots." I resummoned Mr. Linty and saw that he had the little flame icon next to his name on my Party health display. "Just a sec. I want to make sure of something." And I clicked on the flame icon. Mr. Linty burst into flames. "Damn you. You killed Mr. Linty. Randy, you are a bastard." "But. There was a flame button next to his name." "Randy. If you ever see a flame button next to my name, don''t press it," Sid said. "No promises. Depends on how ticked off I am at you." I said, resummoning Mr. Linty. We headed down to the Basement, Mr. Linty at point. The basement was the typical suburban cliche of forgotten boxes of Christmas ornaments, tools, spare snow tires, extra blankets, and body parts hanging from hooks attached to the ceiling. The musty smell of mold, dust, and blood was omnipresent. In the corner of the room was a small altar to some dark god in which a humanoid figure in a robe stood, knife in hand, about to sacrifice a terrified and squirming naked teenage girl strapped to an alter. Mr. Linty attacked immediately, and Em taunted. And I kept to the back. The cultist turned towards Em, raised his hand, and sent a ball of fire straight at her. She raised her riot shield just in time as the flames washed over her, and her health dropped drastically. She fell to the ground with second-degree burns all over her body. "Stop, Drop, and Roll, Em," I yelled but quickly saw she was beyond that. Sid looked freaked out when he popped out of nowhere and slammed his knives into the cultist. He ran over to his Wife, cradling her head in his arms, and yelled, "Randy, do something; she is dying." At the same time, I was casting cure wounds on Em as quickly as I could. The cultist was not dead yet, though. Whisps of green vapor began to form around his fingers. And I had to switch from healing Em to blasting the cultist with electricity. "Sid, get your head back in the game," I yelled as the vapor left the cultist''s control and fell to the ground. Where it landed, corpses began pulling themselves out of the earth. The naked teenager screamed, and I agreed, spamming Em with my healing macro and pulling my baseball bat out of inventory, when I noticed that Sid was nowhere to be seen. I went over and stood over top Em''s prone body, and whenever a zombie came near, I [Hulk Smashed] it real good. The cultist was not relaxing either. I felt electricity course through my body. I almost fell to the ground, convulsing. Shit, I was getting a taste of my own medicine. My health was down halfway. Sid popped out of nowhere and plunged his knives into the cultist''s eyes. "That one is for Emily. Mother fucker." The cultist fell to the ground, but his three risen undead kept trying to kill us. "How is she, Randy." "She is hanging on; every time I cast a heal, the sheer amount of burns soak up her healing. She is losing more health than I can heal. But she is still alive. We have to get out of this soon. Shut up and focus on killing zombies." I said as I swung at the head of the nearest Zombie who didn''t even have the common decency to moan about brains before I shattered his skull. I looked over and Sid was nowhere to be seen. "Fuck, Sidney, speed is important here. These guys are brainless. You don''t have to sneak-attack them." Sid popped out of nowhere and stuck his knives in a zombie''s back. It just kept moving towards me. "Use Blunt weapons, or you have to cut them up." I commanded Mr. Linty to go after the Zombie Sid had just stabbed, then pressed the fire button. Mr. Linty burst into flames, and that Zombie went up like dry kindling. Em''s health was deteriorating, so I cast another healing spell on her and another Heal over Time. "Shit!" I yelled. "What. Is it Em? Please tell me she isn''t dead." Sid yelled. "No, I forgot about a spell I bought that could help her a lot." And then I cast [Stabilize] on her, and her health stopped deteriorating. I stepped away from Emily and swung at the last Zombie shuffling towards the naked teenage girl on the sacrificial altar. I connected with its skull. Sid held a mace that he''d pulled out of who knows where, and he swung at the last Zombie. I turned away. Sid had that Zombie under control. And I was worried about the Zombie I had set on fire burning the house down, so I cast [moisten] on him a few times while looking around the room for a fire extinguisher. I saw a fire blanket on one of the storage shelves and grabbed it, throwing it on the burning Zombie. Who groaned in a zombie-like fashion as I put him out. "Ungrateful son of a bitch." As I slammed him over and over again with my baseball bat until it stopped twitching. I then knelt by Emily''s side and started layering on heals. The black skin flaked away, and I pushed the melted bits of her mail aside. A lot of the fabric of her clothing had caught fire and burnt off. "Sid, grab those blankets in that box over there. Cut. A hole in the middle of two of them so both women aren''t as exposed." Then I turned to the would-be sacrifice, "Hello, sweetheart, who are you, and what are you doing in my dungeon? What is your name?" The girl started to speak and a popup appeared in my vision.
Buy Language -- Basic: Speak and Read Darlan''ii 25 XP Yes / No
I selected "Yes" All of a sudden I could understand what the girl was yammering on about. "My name is Quimby." I almost spit all over myself when she said her name. "The goblins keep raiding my village. I was at my father''s farm when they came the last time they killed my parents, and that foul man brought me here. I thought I''d be eaten, not sacrificed to whatever dark god he worshiped." Emily groaned, waking up. "I feel like shit. We won? Who is the naked babe? And I just got a popup" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. "Me too." Said Sid. "It is the language she is speaking." I said. "Might as well get it." "Speak for yourself, Em, the fabric of your clothes caught fire, and your boobs are hanging out. Anyway, she says she comes from a nearby village. And get this. Her name is Quimby." I said while Emily started to giggle. "Anyway, There seems to be a human village in my dungeon." I asked her, "Do you think you can bring us there?" Sid handed the girl one of the blankets he''d gathered and said, "Here you go Quimby, and I don''t think your name is funny. Different cultures, that kind of thing." He said, staring straight at Quimby''s perky boobs. Then he gave the other blanket to Em, who punched him before saying, "Eyes over here, Sidney." I said to the girl, "Put your head through the hole. Wear it like a Poncho. I''m sorry we don''t have a lot of extra clothes right now. If we leave the dungeon to get some, I suspect this place will reset, and you will be a prisoner again. I think. I''m not sure how this works with actual people. I''m not even sure if I can take a goblin out. I keep meaning to put one in a duffle bag and try. Do you know, can you leave with us. A guy in a Top Hat came out once." "I cannot leave the Dinge. And you claim to have met one of the Forerunners?" "Forerunner? What are they? What is the Dinge?" "This place is the Dinge. It is a place of power used to cross the border between your world and mine. The Forerunners are legends. They are the ones who come before. In the stories, they were supposed to be heralds of destruction, death, and chaos." "Can you take us to your home?" "Yes. I know the way." I looked over at Em and Sid. "Looks like we found our first side quest." Sid said, "I hate escort missions." "Okay, Let''s go," I said. "Mind if I check the other boxes for some better clothes first? I feel ridiculous in this blanket." Em said. "Go ahead. I went over and sat on the bottom step of the stairway. And I opened the [market]. We needed some buff against elemental attacks. More fireballs would easily have killed us all." I found a [Basic: Fire resistance] and a [Basic: Lightning Resistance] for 45 xp each. Both worked like a heal spell, where I could cast them on a group member individually, and they would have resistance for an hour. They were better than nothing. But I wanted a group buff. There was a Basic: Elemental Resistance Group that cost 250 xp. But I only had 175 xp. "Sid? Em? Do you think you could lend me some experience ?There is an Elemental resistance buff that I want to get, but I am 75 xp short." "Sorry, Randy." Sid said, while he crushed some skill crystals in his hand, "I just bought [Basic: Archery], [Basic: Combat Sharpen], [Basic: Lockpicking], [Basic: Equipment Upkeep], and [Basic: Tracking] so I only have 15 xp left. I can send that over to you." Said, Sid. Looking at Emily, she said, "I can''t help you much either. I just bought [Basic: Fire Resistance], [Basic: Regenerate], [Basic: Combat Sharpen], and [Summon: Cashmere Robe], and I have 32 xp left." "Send me what you can, you guys," I said. "I guess I will save up for it." And with that, we set off with Quimby in the lead. Both she and Em had dressed in unreasonably decadent Cashmere Bath Robes. The blankets they''d been wearing a few minutes before were left behind. Quimby went up the stairs. On the top step, I resummoned Mr. Linty, added Quimby to the party, and recast all my buffs on the group. We headed towards the main gate where the mimic chair had been. "Keep an eye out." I said, "When I came this way last time, I didn''t see any guards, but I might have gotten lucky." As we walked, we heard war drums beat over towards where the swimming pool, bocce courts, and clubhouse, and smoke rose in the distance. When we got to the pond, I said, "Careful, that bench eats ass and not in a sexy way." A door in the gate was beside the automatic mechanism on the road leading in. This place was a broken reflection of the world outside. I lived in a condo complex. The dungeon had taken the shape of a condo complex. There were roads and buildings and meticulous landscaping that were nothing like the roads and buildings and landscaping, yet I instinctively knew how everything was laid out. There were roads, car ports, and parking spaces, but no cars. There were Alligators and Ibises that, from a distance, were almost identical to the wildlife outside in the real world. Still, everything was subtly different. It wasn''t anything obvious. The sky outside was blue. There was only one sun in the sky. No superfluous moons were visible in the sunlit sky. The structures looked like structures you would find in any condominium complex. The plants were green. The trees were treelike. Then it hit me¡ªthe feeling of incongruity which had been bothering me for so long. The regular life in the condo was missing. My Karen next door, Marigold, was not sitting on a lawn chair in front of her home scolding passersby. People weren''t out walking their dogs. No older people were trying to accumulate enough steps on their Fitbit for the day. It was quiet except for the goblin war drums pouting over by the clubhouse. Too damned quiet. Quimby led us through the gate, and she became visibly more relaxed when we were outside the complex. According to my [Sense: North] spell, we headed North across a pasture-like field until we came to a river. And then Quimby followed the river west upstream. We walked following the current for over two hours, only stopping once for a bagel, smoked salmon, and cream cheese break. I kept a steady stream of [Basic: Increased Stamina recovery] going on everyone, so nobody tired out. Which led my thoughts in a different direction. I wonder what would happen if I went to the gym and kept refreshing someone''s stamina and health as they worked out, allowing them to push well past their limits. I could make millions as a workout guru. But what would be the effect on my stats? Well, it wouldn''t be hard to buy a weight set and find out. But where to put it? I was running out of space in my small condo. We had traveled around 5 miles, and the sun was going down when Quimby said, "We should set up a camp for the night. We have a lot of walking to do tomorrow. There aren''t a lot of monsters out here, but you can''t be too careful." Sid was having Em perform a Tick check. This is something Sid did whenever he was exposed to nature. He had been doing this ever since he had read about Lone Star Ticks and the horrible sickness they inflicted on their victims. "If you are this scared of insects, I don''t get how you plan on being a scout," I told him. "As soon as I get more experience, I, there are a bunch of anti-insect spells I plan to get." "And what is the [Basic: Combat Sharpen] spell you both got? Should I get it too?" I asked. "Up to you dood. All it does is makes the bladed weapon in your hand sharper than steel can normally get for a few minutes at the expense of wearing down your blade." Sid said. I cast [Basic: Dig] a few times and lined the hole with branches and kindling. Quimby said, ¡°no fire. We are still too close to the green manling abominations. Can you bring forth more of those bread things from earlier?" So it was Everything Bagels with Bacon and Cheddar for dinner. Then Emily cast her [Summon Cashmere robe a few dozen times to give us ample bedding. I volunteered to keep watch since I had the [Stamina Recovery spell] and could effectively use it to stay awake forever. Then I cast Drain Stamina on Sid and Em so that their sleep was more effective, and while they slept, I cast [Basic: Group Increase Healing Rate] and [Basic: Group Increase Mana Recovery] on everyone. Mr. Linty patrolled around the camp, looking for danger. The night passed quietly and would have been uneventful, except I killed a Rabbit with [Shock] that startled and terrified Mr. Linty. It wasn''t a monstrous bunny¡ªjust this world''s equivalent to a typical American Cottontail. I felt terrible about it because Quimby''s no fires restriction made it so we couldn''t eat it for breakfast. Plus, it was cute. The morning sun appeared out from behind the mountains in the difference, and after a breakfast of toasted everything bagels (and one cheddar and jalape?o bagel ¡ª I had finally learned the spell), we set off. We walked for another four hours following the stream until we reached a stone bridge over the creek and muddy dirt road. Quimby seemed more and more relaxed the further we went down the road. Eventually, we started to see houses and fields of crops. Many of the homes showed signs of fire and those that didn''t showed signs of having been repaired recently. At one of the Recently repaired houses, Quimby ran to the door and opened it, "Mother, Father, it is your Quim. I have returned." Chapter 20 "Mom? Dad?" No voices came from inside the house as Quimby pushed her way in. I looked around at what must have once been a neat well, an organized farm that looked like it had fallen on hard times recently. Admittedly the little I knew about farming came from Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, but the mangy scarecrow, garden tools left out to rust, and weeds sprouting in among the crops. One of the fields looked like it had been burned. And our group kept getting baleful angry glances from a couple of brown cows were all I needed to know that something was wrong in this place. The three of us followed her. The house''s interior, which would have once been nicely put together in a total cottage core decor, was messy. Herbs were hanging to dry in front of a window front window that looked dusty and moldy. And a sour unsavory scent came from an iron pot on the stove next to a haphazardly piled mess of firewood and kindling. There was a table set up with a stained floral tablecloth neatly laid out on top. "Mom? Dad?" Yelled Quimby. She turned to us, "Sorry, it doesn''t normally look this bad. I don''t understand. What could be the matter." "Mom? Dad? Albus? Nickelback? Durer? Solbert? Mikus? Where is everyone?" The back door opened, and a portly woman carrying a heavy bag stepped through the door. "Quimby!" the woman yelled, dropping the bag and spilling potatoes and carrots all over the ground. Quimby ran to her. "Everyone assumed you were dead." "Mom. What happened? Where is everyone?" "Your dad was finally able to get out of bed today, and he went into town to register your death with the Mayor and to buy a small memorial so we could visit your spirit on the Night of the Dead." "Oh, Mom. I am alive. These adventurers rescued me. Was anyone else hurt?" "Your Father hired Jacon, then he hired a [Medium], and then finally he contacted a [Master Necromancer], not one of whom could contact even an echo of your spirit. The [Necromancer] said that it was possible not to reach you only if you were still alive or the cultists had destroyed your soul in some foul ritual. We know the unsavory habits of the beings who took you, and your Father tried not to give up hope. The more he could not contact your spirit, the worse he imagined your fate. I told him to buy the memorial so we could move on." "It is okay, Mom. I would like to see my death memorial. Did [Light Sculptor]Herry make it?" Looking around, I said, "Quimby, I hope you don''t mind that are going to push on into Town. You mentioned that there was a place where we could buy lodging?" "Yes, "The Broken Anchor" Captain Richmond used to be a sea adventurer until his ship was lost in a Kraken attack, and he was the only survivor. He came inland and started the inn to be as far away from the sea as possible." Said, Quimby. "I can take you there. I would like to see my death memorial. I will keep an eye watching for Dad and the boys. It will be good to see them again, and I imagine they would like to know I am alive sooner rather than later." Quimby led us out the front door and down the road in front of her house. After about twenty minutes of walking, more and more places that were obviously not farms began appearing. We even ran into a couple of patrols of local militia types. Everyone we passed seemed glad to see Quimby, they would come over and hug her and tell her how much they had worried when she went missing. And she was obviously well-liked. They were led to a small two-story stone inn where they got two rooms for the night and dinner. "We haven''t been back to Fitz''s since you invited us into your dungeon," Sid said, casting his chill spell on our clay cups of the local suds. "I''ve missed this." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. "This is a shit beer," I said after a sip. "Kind of flat and tastes worse than Budweiser. I didn''t think that was possible. I wonder if the innkeeper has a selection of craft beers." "Craft Beers, in a fantasy village? Now you are just showing your East Coast Elitism. I think you are supposed to say, "Good Inkeep, bring me your finest IPA''" "Is it just me, or are the two of you also really getting a kick out of this?" Said Em, "Here we are in a village tavern, adventuring. I wonder when the mysterious stranger will come and offer us a quest to destroy the nearby dungeon?" "The nearby dungeon is mine." I said, "And as far as I am concerned, there will be no destroying it. Remind me to pick up a summon beer spell if we keep coming back here. The stuff they serve here is crapola." "Don''t you usually get Harps at Fitz''? That is hardly a craft beer." "I get it to fit in with the Irish-German ambiance," I said. "Other than the beer, I kind of like this place. Too bad it is such a long walk from my place. Otherwise, we could use this place as our hangout when we form a guild." "What are the requirements for forming a guild? Does anyone know?" "Yeah," Sid said. "I looked it up. You need a dungeon core, a piece of property you own outright for a guild headquarters, at least 2 people, and a name." "Shit, we''re never gonna get that. We would have to find a second dungeon." "Maybe we should be looking for that mysterious stranger to approach us. And direct us to another dungeon. This is a fantasy tavern, after all." Said Em. "Cheers to that," I said. "Getting sick of goblins and slimes." "I''m going shopping. I want to see if there is an armorer I can get to fix my chainmail, or if I can borrow a blacksmith''s tools, or worse comes to worse if I can buy a new mail coat. Plus I need a new shield. "Yeah, I want to see if they sell anything interesting at the general store," I said. "And I want to see Quim''s death Memorial," said Sid. The general store had a good supply of primary weapons and Armor and a handful of spell crystals mostly related to agriculture. There were a bunch of seeds and a garden out back with some fruit trees to take cuttings from for some ambitious farmer''s future orchard. The spell crystals cost between 5 and 10 gold, and I had a Buch of [dungeon gold] burning a hole in my pocket. I picked up [Summon Earth Elemental],[Basic: Lesser Grow],[Summon Lesser Rain Spirit], and [Basic: Lesser Plow Furrow]. I had no idea when I would ever use any of these spells. Maybe someday, as a hobby, I would set up a greenhouse and start selling rare magic herbs on eBay. Em came in and looked around; she was wearing new Armor. "Up to your standard?" I asked. "Better. This get-up negates the Dexterity Penalty on the stuff I made." Lastly, we followed Quimby to an ancient wall upon which thousands of bronze plaques were named. Many of these plaques had a tiny 3D visual hologram of a face or a person''s likeness which appeared when you looked at the bronze marker. The earliest ones did not have these images, these plaques were weathered, and the writing was almost in an entirely different language. Quimby said, "Our people have been doing this for over 2 thousand years. Traditions have changed, but their name goes on this wall as soon as a person is considered dead. The line of color on the ground indicates the season, and it is possible to count years back by groups of four. During the Cataclysm of the Forerunners, the season was always winter for 80 seasons, represented by that long blue over there. I fear it is what your world has to look forward to if the forerunners get their way." She indicated a part of the wall 100 yards away with the densest collection of names and plaques. Quimby saw her Father surrounded by a group of boys at the newest part of the wall, and she ran over to them. "Father, you are too impatient. I am clearly still alive. These adventurers rescued me. Though [Light Sculptor]Herey did a marvelous job capturing my likeness." I wanted to take a closer look at the wall. Still, Quim''s Father kept thanking us for rescuing his daughter, and her brothers kept pestering Sid and Em for them to tell them stories of their adventures. Eventually, we all returned to the inn, where Quimby''s Father plyed our food and alcohol. That night I woke up to screaming outside the inn. The room glowed red and orange, and breathing through the smoke was hard. I rushed to the window and saw green figures running around with torches. Quickly buying [Basic Resist Fire] and [Basic Breath Smoke} and casting both on myself, I put on my clothes, grabbed the rest of my gear, and pushed my way out my door into the hallway. I know I had been saving for a group that [resist elements] buff, but I needed to resist fire right now. Sid and Em didn''t seem up, so they pounded on their door. Outside, a bell started ringing frantically. Sid came to the door dressed in one of Em''s bathrobes. He looked at me and said, "What?" "Get your shit. The Town is under attack, and I think this inn is on fire." Chapter 21 Things were a mess out on the street. The back of the inn they had come out of was on fire. As was most of the town. There was a wooden palisade delineating the edge of the town. That was on fire too. The city militia was doing battle with a group of six green fuckers, and was being sniped by rock-throwing goblins. "I would summon Mr. Linty, but there is too much fire already. Oh. Wait for a second. I bought a "[Basic Summon: Earth Elemental] spell. Let me try that out." I summoned an Earth Elemental, and a two-foot-high perfect copy of "Thing" from the Fantastic Four appeared. He was cute. "I shall call you El Grumpy" The elemental accepted his name by throwing clods of dirt up into the air, leaving a divot in the road. The image of El Grumpy on the party status had its health and a button that looked like El Grumpy submerged in the earth. While I checked out the party status, I buffed everyone up, ensuring the group was healed up and had refreshed stamina. Sid faded into invisibility, and Emily moved forward with her brand-new shield facing outward. Massive sword in hand. "Let''s kill some goblins." I nodded, pulling my own sword out. And we advanced slowly on a group of six goblins holding torches, whom I began to blast with electricity. Another group of goblins ran out from behind a building and began throwing rocks at us. I commanded El Grumpy to harry them. The rocks were nothing but a nuisance distraction, and Em''s sword came down more like a club than a blade on the head of the first goblin she encountered. Sid stepped out of somewhere dark and stuck his knives in one of the goblin''s backs before disappearing. I began to lie shocked on the rock, throwing goblins while watching the ones in front of us and the party''s health status. Em, swung her sword and decapitated a goblin. A goblin was in front of me, so I zapped it and stuck my sword into its gut as it spasmed and seized up from the electricity running through its body. Sid kept reappearing and disappearing, and a goblin fell every time he showed up. I mostly ignored him while I followed behind Em, protecting her flanks and ensuring she stayed healed while she taunted goblins out of hiding. We were like a low-level agricultural harvesting machine, pulling goblins to us, and leaving neat rows of their broken, bleeding bodies out behind us. We fought for hours, and I kept a steady stream of stamina replenishment on Sid, Em, and myself. I could not have done it without my [Basic: Increase Mana Regeneration] myself. Even so, I had to conserve Mana and limit my damage spells. Without it, I would have run out of Mana after nearly 20 minutes of this fight. Despite keeping everyone going, I killed my fair share of the little green shits. Finally, as the sun rose from behind the distant mountains, we seemed to run out of goblins. "Lucky they didn''t all come at us at once. We might have been overwhelmed." "Luck had nothing to do with it. I didn''t keep my taunt up. I only used it in short bursts when we were done fighting the group we were working on. We should think about getting another person for our little group, Randy. You cover too many different roles. And we desperately need another DPS. Quimby ran over to us, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was the biggest attack so far. They seemed to be getting more and more daring with their raids. They have never breached the town walls before. "Glad we could help," I said as a large man ran over. "You must be the Adventurers who brought back Quimby yesterday. I was going to introduce myself to you yesterday. I am so overwhelmed a the luck that put you here last night." He said. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "The goblins have never attacked in such numbers before. Over 20 buildings have burnt down, and at last count, there have been 35 deaths. We do not know if they took anyone, like young Quimby. Usually, they only attack a farmhouse and retreat from our militia patrols. I am the town mayor, by the way. You are adventurers. Can you enter the Dinge and remove the core for us? Removing the core will destroy the dungeon. After that, you can do what you want with it. Destroying the Goblin Dinge is the only way to ensure our village remains safe." "You are asking a lot from us," I said, "that Dungeon is our only way back to my world, and we were planning on milking it for resources." "You can use any Dinge to travel back to your world. I know of three within a seven-day walk from here." The Mayor said. "Not all of them send out raiding parties, and we often ignore the quiet ones. Still, if you are worried about returning to your world and need a Dinge to do it, we can help. "This is a big decision for us. We would like to see for ourselves if we can go back home through a different dungeon. Would you mind having someone take us to the nearest one?" Sid Said, "What are you thinking, Randy?" "I wouldn''t mind finding a second dungeon. New epic loot. I like this town, but I''m not entirely sold on destroying my dungeon to rescue it. We will need to clear it eventually, though, and we will need a dungeon core to form a guild. What bugs me is that if anyone can clear a dungeon from this side, My dungeon isn''t as protected as I thought. Anyone who wants a core doesn''t have to go through my front door or go through our little safe room. They can just wander over to it from this side, clear the place and make off with my core." I turned to the Mayor and asked, "So do you think you could take us to this second dungeon?" And when he nodded, I asked, "When do you think we could head out." "Let me see if a hunter in town knows the area. We lost a lot of people last night." "Oh. I am so sorry. I know some healing. Do you want me to cast any spells on your people?" "The town healers have set up over there." The Mayor said, pointing to two harried-looking people surrounded by folks trying to get their attention. "Looks like a mess. Oh well, no rest for the wicked, I guess. Sid, Em, would you mind creating a little order out of all that chaos." Instead of directly healing everybody, I cast [Increased Mana Recover] and [increase Stamina Recovery] on the healers and watched their fatigue disappear. Most of the hard work had already been done. The need for triage was over. Now it was just fixing up a few minor booboos left over from the fighting. Sid and Em got the waiting patients into orderly lines, and we were finished in less than an hour. I felt that my help had barely been needed, but the healers felt otherwise and came to thank me repeatedly. The Mayor came over with a gristly, bearded man. The man looked more like a Brooklyn hipster than the promised hunter. I halfway expected him to ironically pull out a can of Pabst blue ribbon and a pack of Pall Malls and start debating the merit of obscure indie bands instead of leading us into the wilderness to find this other dungeon. Before we left, I bought a backpack at the general store, some dried rations, and a waxed bedroll. Sleeping on Cashmere robes was all well and good, but like eating only bagels, it got old soon. Saying goodbye took less time than I expected. And we set out almost immediately. Hofred the [hunter] led us north-west according to my [Find North] spell. We spent the day walking until Hofred led us to a small clearing that had obviously been used many times before as a place hunters or villagers stopped and rested. There was a small wooden building with a sand floor and wooden slabs jutting out of the walls to place bedrolls. Someone had already dug a well, a latrine, and a fire pit. Judging by the balls of fur and bones littering the floor, some sort of owl had taken residence in the building. We quickly cleaned the place, hung our packs, and set out our bedrolls for the night. Hofred disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a small hoofed animal that looked a little like a deer but was about the size of a giant continental rabbit. Which he skinned, bled, and gutted, then prepared over the fire with some herbs he had found somewhere. "So, Hofred, any advice on buying skills?" "Enlarged inventory," Hofred grunted. "Everything else you teach yourself. Or someone teach you. Buy skills. Waste money. Save experience for level. Eat." He said, spearing the meat off the spit with a curved knife and cutting bits off onto a plate. None of us had thought to bring dishes, so we summoned more bagels and made sandwiches. "Making a list of stuff we forgot. Add dishes and a propane hiking stove. Sleeping bags and tents. We have a much bigger place to explore, it would seem." Chapter 22 Nothing exciting happened over the walk except once when we were attacked by some sort of an angry bison that Hofred killed and then field dressed and stuffed into his inventory. Em tried to get him to point out edible wild plants and alchemical ingredients, but Hofred either wasn''t interested in teaching or didn''t care. We had Bison streaks that night, cooked over the campfire. We finally reached a hill that stood out from the surrounding landscape because it was covered in mushrooms. Hofred pointed at it and said, this is the Dinge. "Mushroom people and Spiders. The entrance is on top. Poison Danger. Some mushrooms you only touch, give terrible visions. You are the healer." On the top of the hill was a pile of cages that looked like lobster cages attached to long ropes. We looked at Hofred, who shrugged. "Some Mushroom People are tasty. Put shiny things in the cage, and drop the cage into a dirge. Come back after a few days. Catch many." A hole in the ground also dropped down deep into the hill, more like the opening of a well and not a cave or crevasse. Sighing, I had been saving up my XP from the battle for this, and I quickly bought [Basic: Cure Poison],[Basic: Protection from Spores],[Basic: Cure Venom],[Basic: Cure Fungus], and what the heck [Basic: Detect Poison],[Basic: Detect Toxins],[Sense: Basic Tastes Good] I had bought the crystal for [Basic: Protection from Elements], but the system had grayed it out on my [status], and a pop-up appeared saying, "Requirements not met," and I couldn''t use the group buff. The forum''s example was that you couldn''t get [Intermediate: Dagger] without [Basic Dagger] first. Looked like I was going to have to pick up some more Em got [Basic: Mycologist],[Basic: Herbology],[Intermediate: Taunt][Intermediate: Shield Parry],[Intermediate: Sword], and [Intermediate Dodge], while Sid got [Intermediate: Stealth],[Intermediate: Fade to into Background],[Intermediate: Ignore Me],[Intermediate: Daggers], and [Intermediate: Detect Traps] Thus prepared, we said goodbye to Hofred and climbed down into the dungeon. High school gym class was beneficial since I hadn''t done any rope climbing since then. It was about 30 feet to the dungeon floor, which was beginning to seem more and more like a well-shaft the further they went down. We had all bought ropes at the general store in town and shimmied down our line. At the bottom of the rope, the floor was covered in mushrooms that looked like morels. But morels with wee-little arms and legs. Some of the mushroom men were holding tiny swords made out of bits of shiny materials. Sid had, of course, landed on what must have been the most significant concentration of mushroom people, the mushroom community center. The light was diffused from reflecting off the moist bricks of the well. I thought idly that it must get really bright at noon when the sun is directly overhead. Where there wasn''t lovely fertile dirt, full of decomposing organic matter, for the mushrooms to grow in, there were tiny trees ¡ª not bushes, but full trees, like oak and elm trees that were less than a foot tall. The only light in the room came from the top of the moist, mossy, cobblestoned well. There were two exits from the room. Both entrances were human and not mushroom sized, which was super convenient. It occurred to me that this dungeon was trying to lure people in by providing a tasty snack in the first room. Presumably, there would be horrors deeper in the pit. The mushrooms began to rush at Sid. Curious, I cast [Sense: Basic Tastes Good] on them. Apparently, these little people had a delicious complex but nutty flavor. I followed that elevation up with casting a [Basic: Detect Poison] and discovered that, at least, the ones that looked like Morels were not poisonous. Em had started running around gathering silently screaming mushroom people, ripping off their arms and legs and stuffing them into her backpack. "I''m gonna make the best-damned goulash ever." She was saying to the now missing Sid. Meanwhile, some of the mushrooms had decided to fight back. They were shooting tiny arrows at Sid, who was still sitting in their auditorium, city center, or town hall. I was offered the option of purchasing the skill [Speak: Basic Morelipeep], which I turned down because I knew that if I could speak and empathize with these people, my inevitable enjoyment of the "Best-damned Goulash" would be so much less. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. "Okay, Gargamel," I told Emily, "Gather up your Azreal or Sid or whatever you call your husband, and let''s leave these little people alone and find our way out of here." "But Randy, these are Morelipeeps. According to my [mycology] skill, they are supposed to be incredibly delicious and rare. I was just thinking about dinner." "Em. Stop. Just stop. The Morelipeeps are Sapient. I was just offered the chance to learn their language. They will probably tell this story to their children, and their children will tell them about this day. We will probably enter their folklore like humanoid Godzillas." "This¡­" I pointed to the small mushroom community, "Is their Tokyo we are stomping around on." "Spoilsport." That was all she said. "And is it necessary to rip their arms and legs off?" "I''m ripping their appendages off so they can''t get away before I cook them." "It just seems unnecessarily cruel," I replied. "Randy, you can''t be cruel to a mushroom." "Say that again after you''ve been chopped up, saut¨¦ed in butter with onion and garlic, and sprinkled with paprika before being simmered in a roux," I said. "Randy. I didn''t know you had that kind of kinky side. Better not let Sid hear you, or he''ll get jealous." Em said. "Can we just get moving again? We have a portal to find." Sid used a chalky rock he found on the ground to write "This one #1" next to the path we chose took. We agreed to only choose the route closest to the north as we navigated through the dungeon. "Did anyone notice that there was no glowing portal thing at the start of this dungeon, like the one in my bedroom?" "Feels like a dungeon, though. There was no glowing portal at your dungeon exit, either. Maybe dungeons don''t have Stargate ports in this world; maybe it is only for connections into our world. Can''t really make any general rules without more data." Sid said. "I suppose it doesn''t matter." And I shrugged We walked forward for a little bit before turning a corner. I had long since cast light because the environment is so dark and damp it was fit only for fungi. A small trickle of water flowed through the center of the pathway. "Are you really going to seize the core and take the dungeon?" Sid popped out of nowhere to ask. "Naw. The villagers were nice enough, good people, but I don''t feel responsible for them. We just met them. And while Quimby is nice, despite having a stupid name, it isn''t my problem. I''m not the self-sacrificing kind of guy. Besides, we can help them if we keep clearing my dungeon and killing off enough monsters." "So we''re gonna clear your dungeon. We need at least one other person to do that, I think. And we will have to give them our spare XP to get them up to speed. Sid and I will probably have to level up a bit too. Instead of just picking up and increasing skills." We turned a corner and ran into a hunting party of death cap mushrooms carrying the freshly slaughtered corpse of a portobello. The death caps were covered in garish-colored paint, and They immediately started throwing tiny spears at Em. I noticed immediately that, according to the party health monitor, she had a poisoned debuff. Directly casting [Basic: cure poison on her] did almost nothing. I only kept her health from plummeting by casting [Basic: Cure wounds] repeatedly. Sid was coming in and out of visibility, stomping shrooms. Not bothering to stab the mushroom men, he stomped on the little shits. Death Cap mushroom innards covered the bottom of his feet, and several mushrooms had become smears of pasty white on the floor. Eventually, all the mushrooms were killed, and Em''s health kept decreasing remarkably. She had kept casting her [Taunt] spell, so she''d been peppered with toothpick-sized spears. Sid ran over and started pulling spears out of his wife. They had tiny barbs meant to break the skin when pulled out. There must be some incredibly vicious mushroom monsters down here. Then he remembered there were supposed to be spiders too. "Heal her, Randy. Please Randy, save her." "I''m trying," I said as I put another heal on her and cast another cure poison. "I don''t think my cure poison is strong enough. I think I need to get to the intermediate level. Hopefully, I don''t need advanced. Do me a favor and see if there is a cure for death-cap mushroom poison or advanced poisons. I don''t have any extra XP." "Neither do I. I''m tapped." By this time, Sid had stomped on the entire hunting party of Death Caps. I cast [stabilize] on her, and she seemed to do a little better. Then kept alternating between [Basic Increase: Healing rate],[Basic: Increase Mana Recovery], and [Basic: Cure Poison]. After doing this for a few minutes, the debuff flickered and eventually disappeared. Em''s health had almost bottomed out. But with constant healing, it began creeping back up. She woke up and said, "What happened," the mushrooms had a killer poison that I couldn''t heal. All I could do was keep you from losing too many hit points while the poison passed through your system naturally. Call it Karma for your inevitable Morelipeep feast." Chapter 23 "Okay," I said. "That was horrible. Em almost died. That is the second time we''ve run into a freakishly common MMORPG trope and have been utterly unprepared for it¡ªfirst fire, then Poison. I don''t know if we will go deeper into this Dungeon. Mushrooms and spiders. Lots and lots of Poison. I have [BASIC: Cure Poison], but I am sure I will need at least intermediate and maybe even advanced." "The thing is, [Intermediate: Cure poison] costs 220 xp, and [Advanced: Cure poison] costs 520 xp, and All I''ve got from this battle and the morelipeeps village, plus what I had leftover is 187 xp." Sid said, "You need another 33 xp to keep us safe? Here, remember you owe me." "I don''t need it so much anymore; almost dying got me [Learn: Poison Resistance - 51%]," Said Emily, sitting up and cleaning the dried blood off her exposed legs and arms. "I''ve been meaning to ask, Sid. You managed to disappear quickly on your first delve with me, but you only had the [Beer Chilling][Crystal] as far as I could tell. What gives?" "After I got my [Crystal], I spent every moment I could sneak up on EM, sneaking around the neighborhood; I bought a lock picking kit and instruction video and even broke into a few empty buildings. That made me as prepared as I could be." "Okay, I just bought the [Intermediate: Cure Poison]," I said as I broke the [Crystal in my hand and let the spell enter my bloodstream. "Hand me one of those Death Cap spears." Sid handed me one. "Sid, stab yourself with the poisonous bit," I said. "Randy, I love you like a brother, but I don''t want to be poisoned. What if you fuck up? What if the cure spell doesn''t work?" "We need to find out if the Cure: Poison spell works. Otherwise, we will have to turn around and kill morelipeeps until we get enough XP to buy Advance: Cure Poison." "Don''t be chicken shit, Sidney." Said Em. "You do it then," Sid told his wife. "Ohhhh¡­ Someone''s in trouble when they get home." I observed. "Whatever," Emma said. "Hand me a spear." Sid handed her the spear, and she held the tiny little thing from the end, which was not stained with a blackish color, above her exposed arm before thrusting the point in. "Ouch," she said. Em''s icon on my Party status view indicated she was poisoned and losing health rapidly. I cast [Intermediate: cure poison] once, then twice before it was gone. "It took two casts and drained about a third of my mana. Not sure even keeping [Basic: Increased Mana Recovery] will keep me topped up in a fight. But at least we have a reliable cure." "Everyone ready to get started again," I said. "Hold up, Randy. My [Learn: Poison Resistance] is at 67% now. It seems to me that would be a handy skill to have. I say we camp here and keep poisoning ourselves until we all have it." Emma said. "Sounds good," I said "Sounds horrible," Sid said. The room had a slightly cold draft and smelt like a peat bog. I was buzzing, flying, biting insects that I considered investing in an insect repellant spell. But I didn''t have enough Experience Points, and Em was reluctant. A kind of pale white moss grew everywhere, and the only light came from flickering stones positioned equidistant in the stone wall. In other words, typical Dungeon straight out of D&D. I healed everyone up and refilled their stamina, and we began stabbing each other with poisoned spears. It took 4 hours of incremental self-poisoning to get the skill [Basic: Resist Poison] and another 8 hours to finish learning the [Intermediate: Resist Poison]; taking more mushroom poison would not push the skill any higher. After a couple of hours, the spears stopped working, and Em cut up some of the mystery Jerky she had gotten from Hofred, and I conjured and chopped up some bacon. She mixed in some of the wild plants she had picked up while walking and boiled all of these ingredients over the fire in the Viking helmet she wore in combat. I ensured she washed it thoroughly first and cast clean on it. She also slipped a variety of races of diced mushroom people into her soup. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Sid was a baby, and Em had to lace his food with Poison to get him to begin gaining his resistance. "Em, you know I gonna tell my Therapist about this." "Sid, stop being a child. It''s just Poison, after all. It isn''t like I am trying to kill you. And these death cap mushrooms added a tasty flavor and texture to the soup I made us. Especially when you pair them with the Morelipeeps, if it wasn''t, Randy is here to fix you all up. Would you rather have eaten them on a bagel with cream cheese? It isn''t like we have many choices in food now." "Sid, I''ll treat you to Fitz to make it up to you, Once we get out. Now can we move again since we all have the skill." "When we get home, we will have to do this with fire and acid and cold too." Em said. "When we get fucking home." I agreed. Emily retook the lead. And Sid vanished, presumably scouting. I followed behind. Two hundred yards down the path, we ran into another team of wild death cap mushrooms. Each death cap mushroom was riding a large portobello and had a pack of angry bouncing puffball mushrooms with spiked collars leading the way. Em cast her [Taunt] and was peppered with spears again. No debuff popped up on my interface, so apparently, her skill was working. And the group of us began stomping on the little fungi freaks. The only hard part of this battle was that stomping on the puff balls released clouds of spores that caused momentary vertigo. But I cast [Basic: protection from spores] on the group, and the mele was over quickly. The fight was relatively easy, and Em took the time to salvage the bits of portobello that had survived Sid''s stomping. A few more turns to the right, and we began running into webs. At first, they were scattered, here and there, with tiny, almost invisible spiders scuttling between the stone, moss, and multitude of non-sentient mushrooms that littered the ground. A small yet steady trickle of water ran like a creek down the center of the hallway. The further in we walked, the thicker and denser the cobwebs became, and the fewer hunter-gatherer packs of feral Deathcaps we ran into. After several more right turns, we came to the end of the path we had been following. By this point, our clothing was covered in cobwebs, and it had been hard to keep pushing forward. "What gives," Sid said, "I haven''t seen a spider bigger than an inch yet. This Dungeon is a cakewalk so far." "Fuck. Sid, you jinxed it." And, of course, he had. Because at that point, a dozen bright blue and black tarantulas the size of German Sheppards came pouring out of a break in the wall and swarmed us. Em began taunting. Sid disappeared. I laid down mana, stamina, and health recovery spells. And they were upon us. In some regards, it was good that Emma could taunt. Otherwise, the spiders would have been free to climb the walls and drop down on us from the ceiling. As it was, they chose to charge at Em, which was both good and bad since she had her shield prepared and sword pointed forward. I began zapping with my [Basic: Shock], and after the second cast, I got a notification on my HUD, which I ignored. Suddenly my spell was hitting harder and using more mana. I finally finished learning the [Intermediate] version of the magic. Sid kept popping back into sight, stabbing spiders into their thorax, and I kept an eye on everyone''s health, stamina, and mana while slashing at everything that tried to get around Em. Em was right, though, this was distracting for me, and I couldn''t go all out for fear of burning through my mana supply in case someone needed an emergency heal. Our little group needed another primary DPS or two. It took 10 minutes to kill the spiders; by then, we were all exhausted. The [increased Stamina Recovery] Spell I had cast going into the fight had ended halfway through, and in conserving mana, I had held off on casting it again. We looted the spiders and then found comfortable web-free places to rest up. I cast the necessary spells to make rest time more efficient. "So, Em. What are your thoughts on Spider Goulash? It seems to work for Gossamer in Bugs Bunny." "Yuck. I''ll pass." Checking my Experience, I saw that I had 64 XP after this fight." "Sid, Catch," I said, sending him the 50 xp I owed him. "What? Oh. Thanks. What no interest?" "Don''t push it," I said. After a bit, we backtracked to the last left-right decision we''d made, and instead of going right after Sid recorded our passage on the wall, we chose to turn left, which led us to another battle with dog-sized spiders and a dead end. So we backtracked again and again. We took the left branches at every right turn we''d taken. Whenever a left branch led to a left-right choice, we took the right turn after making a mark on the wall. This way, we systematically delved our way through the labyrinth. Hours underground grew into days. We had lost count of the man vs. Spider battles we''d fought, or even man versus mushroom melees. I''d gotten up to Level 7 and had picked up [Intermediate: Sword][Intermediate: Heal] and [Intermediate: Increased Mana Recovery]. None of which I had to spend valuable XP on since the constant battles had leveled them up on their own. My attributes went into Endurance to increase my Hit Points. Both Sid and Em had moved up to Level 5 and picked up many skills relevant to their roles as tank and scout. We''d stopped needing to mark the walls when Sid had gotten [Intermediate: mini map] skill. Sid and Em claimed to be sick of Bagels, which I initially took as an insult but later accepted once I became sick of them myself. Since training [Summon: Everything Bagel] to [Summon: Sesame Bagel] didn''t help, I picked up [Summon: Chicken Broth], which Em mixed with edible mushrooms, and the [Summon: Russet Potato] and [Summon: Carrot] spells she bought. Sid decided to pitch in and purchased himself [Summon: Shredded chicken] and [Summon: Dutch Oven] And thus the whole "I''m so fucking sick of Everything, Cheddar Jalape?o, yes, and even Sesame bagels, Randy" dinner dilemma was ended ¡ª through teamwork. I noticed that I had reached a point where the three of us were buying fewer and fewer new skills and were now improving our skills more organically by practicing them. Chapter 24 One of the things that Sid, Em, and I had spent XP on was an increased Inventory. My inventory was currently 18 spaces instead of the default 3. I could also stack items and hold things in containers to save room. I also bought the option for complete gear and outfit changes. I had three outfits set up. 1) Casual, i.e., t-shirt, jeans, 2) Adventuring gear, 3) Cashmere Bathrobe. Each outfit only took up one space in my inventory, so it was really space efficient. And I had taken the time one rest break to Cast [Clean] and [Mend] on everything. I hadn''t bothered to identify most of the loot we''d found on our dive. It had all gone into our expanded inventory to be sorted after we got out. Sure, I''d checked out the skill crystals we''d found, and any handy ones had been claimed. Em claimed [Basic: herbology] and [imbue metallurgy] skill crystals, as well as the fancy magic shield; Sid had claimed a [Basic: Distract] and [Dark Vision] Crystal and a fancy magic cloak. While I''d claimed a [Basic: Increased Mana Pool] crystal, a couple of Intermediate: healing potions. A part of me considered creating a wiki article about Basic Adventuring Utility Skills, and I spent a few moments re-organizing my [System Skills] to reflect this. We''d been down here about a week, according to the [System Clock], and we were all sick and tired of the dampness and the smell of mold. It would be nice to sleep in a real bed too. Sid had taken to talking to Mr. Linty, and he periodically asked me to summon him just to pet him. I could tell that he kind of wished he had the skill himself. The passageway we were on led to one of Sid''s map''s last remaining dark areas. We had camped out about 50 yards in front of the opening to a large room. Sid had snuck ahead and taken a peek. He mentioned that there were a lot of webs and odd yellow mushrooms growing on the walls, as well as a large portal, like in my condo, up against one wall. "I''m ready to sleep in my own Bed. Or any bed, for that matter. Right now, I would settle for sleeping in the cab of some trucker I picked up at the highway rest stop." Em said. "Forgiving my wife''s lot lizard fantasies, a real bed would be great, but right now, I would kill for a Large McDonalds Coke with extra Ice." Said Sid. "Well, onward then. I don''t know where this dungeon will come out, but a round of McDonald''s Coke is on me, assuming we end up somewhere with Mcdonald''s. Remember, if the boss is too scary and any of you don''t think we can take it out, the safe word is'' Spicy,'' and we all focus on fighting our way to the portal and escaping. Getting out safely takes priority over getting killed. I will try my best to leave last to ensure that if anybody goes down, they can get back up." I summoned Mr. Linty just in case we needed a sudden, directed burst of fire. Then we moved forward, Mr. Linty at point, Em, and me. Sid, like usual, was nowhere to be seen; he was undoubtedly lurking about. We stood at the opening of the room. The portal glowed and rippled on the other side of the room. Deadwood lay scattered across the floor, covered in moss and chicken of the woods mushrooms. I could see patrols of death cap mushrooms, spider webs clung to every corner, and a handful of dog-sized spiders wandered around the floor. The omnipresent trickle of water led into a stairway against the far left dungeon wall. A black diamond appeared over one of the spider''s heads, a Brown diamond appeared over a second spider, and a Red diamond appeared over the third spider. Sid had picked up a party targeting skill and, for some inexplicable reason, had organized the colors he was using according to the color band codes of resistors. It was almost anticlimactic when Sid popped out of nowhere and buried his knife into the spider with the black diamond flag above its body. We had killed so many of these arachnids that there was no doubt that they would die. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. The only difference in this attack is that the chicken of the wood mushrooms began letting out clouds of spores. I could hear Sid start coughing from inside the cloud, and from what I could tell, he was having difficulty disappearing. From the ceiling, a massive spider fell. It was the size of a Tibetan mastiff dog or a small bear. And when it landed on the ground, it scuttled over to Sid and bit him with its chelicerae. I switched targets away from the lesser spiders I had planned to zap and targeted the massive mommy spider. Em, began taunting it like crazy, and you could almost see the huge spider''s eyes jerk away from Sid''s prone body over to Em. Casting [Intermediate: Cure poison] on Sid repeatedly, I heard him swear as the poisoned condition disappeared from my party display. His knives, which he hadn''t dropped, stabbed upward into the spider''s body standing over him. "Take that, you Eight-Legged Freak" he yelled. The spider couldn''t stop focusing on Em, and it leaped at her crossing the room in a bound. Em raised the shield she had found in these caves and bashed the airborne spider in the chelicerae, knocking it to the ground. I had been zapping it with my [Intermediate: Shock] as soon as I''d finished casting my Cures on Sid. And the spider wasn''t doing so well. Neither was Sid; I could see him having trouble getting up. Three of the smaller spiders were mobbing him. I was relieved when he disappeared. I moved closer to Emily, who was doing a marvelous job of using her shield to keep blocking the spider from biting her. Except that as I watched, a glob of clear liquid was secreted from the spider''s fangs and shot like spit at Her. According to her status on my HUD, she had a poisoned Debuff. Even poisoned, she continued to block and stab with her sword. I cast a quick cure on her and healed any hit points she''d lost. As we fought, the chicken of the woods kept belching out spores, which made it hard to see and difficult to breathe. The portal beckoned like a seasonal depression lamp. And I began focusing on the massive spider in front of us again, laying into it with electricity and the occasional slash of my sword. Mr. Linty grabbed one of the spider''s legs and burst into flames. From somewhere hidden, Sid yelled, "You killed Mr. Linty, you Spider Bastard!" And then another of the smaller spiders died. After a minute more, the enormous spider''s legs crumpled into its body, and it fell over and began to twitch. Em, and I started picking off teams of death cap mushrooms and hacking chicken of the woods mushrooms off their dead trees. The fight ended a few minutes later. "I think we''re getting the hang of this," Sid said. "Big boss fights, no serious wounds, and everyone emerged unscathed." "Shut up and Loot Sid." Em said. Emily cut the chicken of the Woods off their decaying trees and stuffed as many as she could into her inventory. "These are good eating. She said." "There was a small village of morelipeeps living peacefully in one of the corners, and the poor mushroom children would undoubtedly tell their future unborn children about the day the horrible Emily swept down onto their pastoral community and ripped the arms and legs off the adults and stuff them in her inventory while muttering about Goulash. I let her act like Gargamel for a bit because I couldn''t figure out a way to stop her. Everything looked; I said, "Are we ready?" With nods from both Sid and Emily, I stepped into the glowing portal and left the dungeon. It felt incredible to feel fresh air after days of living underground. We were in some sort of limestone cave, and the floor was damp with water from where the rain filtered in from the Earth above us. About 15 yards from the portal, an opening was well hidden behind a thicket of Old Oak, Porcelain Berry, Raspberry, Sumac, and Kudzu. I pulled my phone out of inventory, but the battery had died, so I couldn''t consult my GPS. We all switched out of our adventuring gear into regular clothing and began walking downhill. The countryside looked like what you would find in the woodlands of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. So I was almost positive we had not immersed into yet another new world. This was further confirmed when I found a bag full of standard American Trash that someone had dumped in the woods. We walked for a few hours until we finally ran into a road. At this point, we began walking along the road, with Emily sticking out her thumb whenever a car or truck drove by in either direction. A truck pulled over to the side of the road. "You folks need a lift?" "We''re lost, is there a town nearby, and where are we." "A little late in the season to be hiking. And don''t you guys usually have packs?" The guy in the pickup said. "Get in the Back; I''m heading into Asheville; I can drop you off at the local motel." "Thank you. You don''t know how much of a lifesaver you are. Anything interesting has happened in the world over the last two weeks. We''ve been out of touch for a long time." "Naw. Shit is happening in the world." "Good to know," I said. And we climbed into the Bed of the pickup and relaxed for the first time in weeks as we got driven into Ashville, South Carolina. Chapter 25 The motel was on the edge of town, and we rented 2 rooms. There was a convenience store, so after a shower, I bought a USB charging cable for my phone. Then I walked back to my room. I used the phone in the room to order a large sausage pizza and a 2-liter bottle of Coke from the local pizzeria advertising in the hotel room. Then, I turned on the Television and stretched out in bed. After the Pizza arrived, I went to the next room and invited Sid and Em for food. "There must be a summon Pizza spell," Sid said. "I don''t think I could get sick of this." Sid was sitting in a recliner by the front window. We had the air conditioner going full blast and drank Coke from the cups the motel provided for water. I''d already filled and refilled the ice container from the ice machine outside twice. Sid was talking about going to the convenience store next door to pick up a case of beer. "I would kill for a beer." He said. "There is a convenience store next door. That''s where I bought the cell phone charger." I said. "So what''s the plan?" "Was going to get a good night''s sleep in a real bed. Wake up late. I already mentioned to the guy at the Check-in that we would sleep and check out late. According to the guy at the desk, there is a chain car rental place down the street. So I thought I would rent a car and drive us home." "Right now, I have no plans to do anything except sleep. Do either of you need me to drain your stamina? And there is a CPAP spell I was eyeing that I have enough XP for. The same goes for the [Basic: Prevent Snores] spell." "I think we''ll manage. Night Randy." "Night, guys." And with that, I went back into my room; with the TV chattering at me, I curled up in bed and quickly drifted into a dreamless sleep. As promised, the next day, we got up early and took an Uber to the nearest Enterprise Rent-A-Car, where the SUV I had reserved on my phone the night before was filled up and waiting for us. 11 hours later, I was dropping Em and Sid off at their place. "Fitz tonight?" Sid Asked. "Tomorrow. It is pretty late, and I''m tired from driving. I know I have the stamina spell, but it doesn''t cover burnout all that well. Just physical exhaustion. Wouldn''t mind spending the night in my own bed. Tomorrow. Let''s meet for dinner. 5ish. We can chat about finding another team member then." It took another 20 minutes to find another branch of the car rental place near my house, return the car, and have them drop me off. By that point, all I wanted to do was stumble into my place and get some sleep. Laying in bed, I decided to round out my skill set. So I bought the spells [Basic: Unclog Arteries],[Heal wound to heart], [Heal wound to head],[Lower Blood Pressure], [Basic: Regulate Air to Lungs], [Lessen Swelling] and the Skills [Basic: Nursing 1], [Basic: Battlefield Paramedic 1] and [Human: Anatomy]. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. After absorbing those spells, I fell asleep again until noon. I woke up the following day and emptied the loot I''d gathered in the mushroom well into a plastic storage box. Then I began organizing my inventory. Sleep quilt, inflatable floor mat, camping tent, rope, survival rations, camping chair, sandals, extra sword, extra baseball bat, extra reinforced leather gear, kevlar vest, layers of clothing, rain gear, winter boots, beer, a hunting knife. That kind of thing. Everything went into a 100 Liter backpack that I annotated as "Camping/Survival," so it took up minimal inventory spaces. Then I put on my adventuring gear and headed into the Dungeon. The first few rooms were accessible. Even the Ogre hidden under the sink was easy. I got another [Hulk Smash] crystal and a bunch of coins. It looked like this was preassigned loot. I would either try to sell it or save it for Sid. I wasn''t sure which yet. Sneaking down the stairs to the basement, The cultist was again trying to perform a sacrifice. This time the victim was Quimby''s Mom. I hit the cultist with multiple Intermediate Shocks and put him down like a rabid dog. Before he could retaliate. Quimby''s mom recognized me, and I asked if she could find her way home since I didn''t want to repeat the trip to the village. Since the cultist''s robes only vaguely smelt like burnt pork, I stripped him of them and handed them to Quimby''s mom. Then I looted him, finding a handful of coins and the [Basic: Revive Zombie] Spell, which I shrugged and learned. Necromancer wasn''t exactly where I wanted my character to go, but I figured one or two spells couldn''t hurt. I returned and had a short epic battle with the Alligator in the pond. While I was killing the scaly son of a bitch, a patrol of goblins happened, and I lost half of my hit points to arrows before I could switch my attention from the lizard to the goblins. Fortunately, I could heal myself up while I charged, and the goblins went down double quick. I walked over to the condo next door and tried opening the French doors leading into the backyard. They were locked. Shrugging, I broke the back door window, reached in, and opened the door. There were four goblins in the kitchen cooking something at the stove. I attacked them with my baseball bat, and they died quickly, as did the Ogre in the basement. The Ogre dropped a [Basic: Pottery - Etruscan Funerary Urns] crystal. The upstairs of this house was mostly empty except for a few slimes that died in the most slime fully way possible. And I didn''t bother looking for hidden compartments or hidden rooms. I tried the [Basic: Revive Zombie] spell a couple of times. Found out that I needed a corpse to cast the spell. And after I had revived the Ogre, I found out that I had gained no experience killing my own zombie. The next condo had a mixture of goblins, orcs, and cultists. The fights were more difficult, but I was good as long as I remembered to heal a buff myself periodically. I came out of those fights with a handful of dungeon coins, a dagger lodged in my leg, and a [Basic: Improved competitive eating - Hot dog division] and [Intermediate PASCAL Programming] skill crystal. Seeing a skill crystal for a dead programming language on my list, I was curious about what other real-world skills were for sale. I opened up the [Market] and did some elementary searches, finding [Basic: Cryptography],[Basic: Banking Computing systems],[Basic: Writing Malware],[Basic: Cyber security],[Basic: Digital Forensics],[Basic: Penetration Testing] and a whole bunch exciting subjects. I considered buying a bunch for shits and giggles, but I was already stretched pretty thin. And because becoming a Black Hat hacker wouldn''t kill even one Goblin. I did grab a few stealth skills that Sid would have liked, including [Basic: Ignore],[Basic: Quiet footsteps],[Basic: fade into shadows],[Basic: Blend with Background],[Basic: Pick Lock] and [Basic: Muffle Sound] just because if I was going to solo a lot, being able to move stealthily seemed like a smart idea. It was getting to the point that I would have to meet up with Sid, so I pulled the knife out of my leg, healed up, and left my Dungeon. Chapter 26 The Uber lady dropped me off in the front parking lot at Fitz¡¯s. I went in and grabbed a table. One of Fitz¡¯s waitresses came over, and I ordered a Guinness. I also mentioned that I was waiting for two more people. I was early, so I got up and went to one of the dart boards and played a game of darts. Fitz kept a set of darts. The hard-core people who came here to play darts usually brought their own since the ones Fitz kept had been used and abused by all sorts of randos. There was no guarantee that they would fly true. I played two games and lost two pints of beer to a 16-year-old who had snuck into the bar to hustle darts. Neither game was even close. As I was offering to put another beer on the line for a third game when I saw Sid and Em enter the bar. I went to my table and sat down, and waved them over. ¡°Yo.¡± Said, Sid. ¡°Randy.¡± Said, Em. ¡°Hey, guys. Have a seat. How were things? Your car is parked in my parking space, by the way. Not sure what that twat Marigold will think.¡± Then I said, ¡°So. We¡¯re here. Something was said about recruiting a new member of our merry troupe. First off, I just wanted to say I am uncomfortable letting people in on our secret. Do we really need another person? I think we¡¯re developing our own groove.¡± ¡°Randy, if we know the monsters, we can handle it. But I almost died twice the last time we entered the dungeon. We need someone who can handle things if one of us goes down, and we need more firepower for when we want to kick down doors and start taking names.¡± Emily said. ¡°Do you have any suggestions then? I¡¯m not entirely fond of the idea, but if you can find someone who can keep their mouth shut and who we can all get along with, and who isn¡¯t a complete drag on our team, then sure, why not?¡± ¡°No idea. You?¡± Em said ¡°Nope. No. Well, maybe. There is this chick who teaches where I was learning broadsword fighting. Not sure how excited she would be to delve with us and if she is into the whole adventurer thing. But I guess I could ask.¡± I ordered another pint, then got up to go pee. When I got back, Sid and Em were sitting at our table with Gwen, who was in her entire battle maiden getup. I sat down ¡°I can¡¯t believe you are considering Gwen,¡± I moaned. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with Gwen?¡± Em said. ¡°Yeah, what¡¯s wrong with me? And what am I being considered for?¡± Gwen said. ¡°Em. Gwen and I don¡¯t get along for some inexplicable reason.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you remember? About six months ago, you were piss drunk, came over to me, and said, ¡°Hey Gwen, are you a beaver? Because right now, I need you to eat my wood.¡± Then you slapped my ass and stumbled off to take a piss without even giving me a chance to yell at you.¡± ¡°Damn, Randy. Even I would punch you in the face for that,¡± Sid said. ¡°Forget about Randy for now,¡± said Em. She gestured at the armor and sword Gwen was wearing. ¡°Can you use all that, or is it just for show? Have you opened your [Status] yet, and if you have, what skills do you have?¡± ¡°You do realize that all of that is personal information. I¡¯ve got to have a reason to share.¡± ¡°Em. She¡¯s another cosplayer who has gotten too far into this apocalypse thing.¡± ¡°Gwen,¡± said Em, ¡°We have access to a dungeon.¡± ¡°What? Which one?¡± ¡°Technically, two dungeons. We also have access to that one near Asheville. Neither of them is well known,¡± I said. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Gwen sat there, shocked all over her face, ¡°I have so many questions.¡± ¡°We¡¯re looking for a good off-tank, and DPS is considering adding you to our Party. Well, at least Sid and I are. Randy, I¡¯m not so sure about.¡± ¡±Repeating the questions.¡± Em continued. ¡°Is that getup just for show, or do you have any talent? Have you opened your [Status]? What [skills] do you have.¡± ¡°No. I haven¡¯t opened my Status yet. Just saving up for a good [skill]. I didn¡¯t want a useless crystal to get the [Status] page. My Dad taught Brazilian Jujitsu, wrestling, and fencing at my private school. I¡¯ve trained with him since I was nine. I¡¯ve also got my black belts in Kendo and Iaido. And I almost made it to the Olympics for Women¡¯t Individual Foil.¡± ¡°As for the gear. This is the outfit my DnD character wears. Kira is a half-elven ranger. The girls and I get together after work on Mondays and play. Sort of like a book club, just nerdier.¡± ¡°So, Randy, Sid. What do you think? She sounds like a good fit to me.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you think we should do some sort of background check? Or even just a sparing session with rubberized practice swords?¡± I said. ¡°Sounds like a good idea. Gwen, you up for a sword fight? Don¡¯t worry about holding back. Randy is a half-assed healer, but he¡¯ll do in a pinch.¡± Em said. ¡°So, are we going to stand around insulting me, or are we going to do this smackdown,¡± I said. ¡°Why not the parking lot behind Fitz.¡± Em said. ¡°Aren¡¯t you worried about people watching?¡± One of Gwen¡¯s friends came over. She looked worried for her friend. I¡¯d seen her before and tried to chat her up a few times. She had long, slightly curly brown hair, huge brown eyes, and a dusky complexion. Super cute. I¡¯d never even gotten her name, much less the phone number I¡¯d been after. ¡°Hey, Gwen, what¡¯s taking so long? And why are you hanging with the bar¡¯s biggest loser.¡± ¡°Sorry, Annie, just taking care of some business.¡± ¡°If you need help or a rescue, your girls are here for you,¡± Annie said. ¡°I¡¯m right here. Does every woman in this place hate me?¡± I said ¡°Pretty much.¡± Annie and Gwen said together. ¡°I need to find a different bar,¡± I said. ¡°Or a better personality,¡± Annie mumbled. Before walking away to rejoin the group of women, Gwen usually hung out with. ¡°Okay, enough of piling up on Randy. How are we gonna do this thing? We Sid and I took Uber here, and so did Randy, I assume. Gwen, any chance you have some practice swords in your car?¡± ¡°Nope. I took Uber too. Didn¡¯t want to drive home after drinking.¡± ¡°The two of you could go old school. I could see if Fitz had any cardboard wrapping paper tubes in the back. Or maybe we could get some broomsticks?¡± I said. ¡°Shut up, Randy, unless you have a good suggestion.¡± ¡°I just checked the [market]. Blunted metal Practice swords are 25 xp each. The rubberized ones are 23 xp. You guys gotta lend me some XP to buy them since I spent all mine yesterday.¡± Sid said. ¡°I went on a solo dive this morning. I have plenty.¡± I said. Then bought two metal practice swords. I also purchased the passive spells [Basic: Regeneration] and [Basic: thick skin]. Gwen was becoming an investment. I handed everything over to Gwen, along with [Basic: Hulk Smash] and the [Basic: Etruscan Pottery] skills I¡¯d found this morning. ¡°Here, take these since you will be joining our little group. If you are full of shit and have been lying, I am willing to take repayment in hand jobs and blow jobs. In case you don¡¯t know how to activate a [Crystal] by cutting your skin, breaking the glass container, and letting it seep into your bloodstream.¡± ¡°I know. I¡¯ve seen it done on YouTube.¡± Gwen said. ¡°Shall we meet in the parking lot?¡± After Gwen had absorbed the [Crystals], I gave her. The four of us got up and headed out back, now carrying swords. While we walked, I cast [Basic: Make Sober] on the whole team. Current and future members. Annie saw us walking to the back door and came over like the Mother hen she was turning out to be and said, ¡°What¡¯s up, Gwen.¡± I looked at her and said, ¡°Gwen made one too many bad jokes about me, and Em is taking her out back to school her.¡± ¡°With Swords?¡± Annie said. ¡°Yup. Gwen claims she is an expert. We¡¯re just double-checking in the parking lot. Don¡¯t worry; the swords are dull.¡± ¡°Mind if I come to watch,¡± Annie said. ¡°I have a healing spell. In case things get out of hand.¡± ¡°Lead the way,¡± I said, motioning towards the door. ¡°So, which healing spell do you have?¡± I asked. ¡°It is called [Basic: Lay on Hands]. It lets me transfer some of my hit points to someone I touch. Hurts like a son of a bitch, too. Which is probably why it came up for sale.¡± Annie said. ¡°Still, an actual useful spell must have cost a boatload?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. My Dad bought it for me.¡± Annie looked embarrassed about this fact, so I didn¡¯t push any further. And so the abrupt change in conversation, ¡°Hey, where¡¯s Sid?¡± It was not unexpected. ¡°He¡¯s around somewhere,¡± I told her. While in the back parking lot, I sent out group invitations to everyone. I included Annie in the group invite. ¡°I spent some time trying to think of ground rules. The best I could come up with was 1) No head shots, 2) No casting combat spells, that includes the [Hulk Smash] spell I gave you or the [Basic: Combat sharpen] Em that you and Sid have. Defense spells are fine, though. 3) If someone is on the ground, let them get back up 4) If someone is unconscious, back off and let me or Annie heal them up. 5) The fight goes until someone is in the Red, in other words, down to 15% of their Hit Points. Both of you, remember, this fight isn¡¯t about winning or losing. It is about Gwen showing us she has some skills and can take a hit.¡± Chapter 27 Em and Gwen faced off, swords at the ready. Sid was hidden. We had decided he would pop out and drop a piece of fabric between both warriors; when the material hit the ground, the fight would begin. "For those of you who are about to die, I salute you." I misquoted. Gwen turned to me and said, "You quoted it all wrong. It is supposed to be "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die to salute you." At that very moment, Sid Popped out of nowhere and dropped the piece of cloth. I don''t think Gwen saw it since she was too busy pointing out my flaws. Em, dashed forward and sliced Gwen across the stomach with her blunted blade. It was a direct hit, and Gwen''s face planted into the pavement. I thought I had wasted 100 xp on the crystals I''d given her, plus the resale value of the two crystals I''d found. Except that Em backed off and yelled, "Get up. Show me what you got. Ignore Randy. He''s a twat." Annie punched me in the shoulder. "Hey," I said. "Shut up," Annie said. Gwen pushed herself up and put her sword at the ready. Em lunged at her, and Gwen blocked Em''s hit easily. In the same motion, Gwen used the momentum from Em''s blade to return a strike at Em, which Em barely blocked. There was a flurry of blade work where it became evident that Em was completely out of her league. Gwen struck her three times, and Em after that first strike, Em couldn''t even get close. Finally, Em backed off. "Stop. Stop. You know your stuff. You''re going to have to show me some of those moves." Then she looked at me, "'' She''s in if she wants it." "You want in?" I asked. Then said, "Anyone want healz?" "I need to know more. Tell me about this Dungeon you have." Gwen said. "You have access to a dungeon?" Annie said. "Shush, everyone. We don''t want this to get out. Don''t tell anyone. Not even your friends. Why don''t we get a couple of Ubers and head to my place to talk about things? In Private." "Why take Uber. Annie and I drove here. And I feel sober enough to drive." Gwen said. "I cast [Basic: Sober] on you before you beat up on Em, so you should be fine. I hope. If we are taking cars, I hope you don''t mind if I cast it on Annie too." Which I did. We loaded into both cars after Gwen and Annie went in and apologized to their friends for leaving early. Annie had a Purple Jeep, and Gwen a Lexus. I noticed a small box of rubber ducks sitting on Annie''s passenger seat. Moving the box out of the way before I sat down, I gave her an odd look. She just "It''s a Jeep thing, don''t ask, you wouldn''t understand." I shrugged because I really didn''t care. Once at my condo, I had Annie park in one of the guest parking spaces. Marigold was sitting in front of her apartment and got up when she saw us. "Bringing another one of your whores home? The Condo board will hear about this" "Whores?" Annie Asked? "My Karen neighbor. Let me handle this." I said, and I cast my [Basic: flatulence] several times on Marigold. Who began to fart loudly and frequently. "Marigold, can''t you control yourself? Do you need a diaper? I should tell the Condo Board and the neighbors about this." I cast the spell another couple of times, and it had the side effect of causing my neighbor to shit her pants. The smell was wretched. The old woman stinks times 1000. Marigold turned and ran inside, crying. "That seemed a bit excessive," Annie said. "She is a bitter old hag; I''ve wanted to do that to her for ages," I replied. "Welcome to my humble abode. Sorry, the place is a mess. We''ve been using my living room as kind of a base camp. Normally I would have cleaned up or hired a maid if I knew a woman was coming over." I opened the front door and ushered Annie in. "Your whores?" Annie asked? "Don''t listen to Marigold. She is convinced I hold regular orgies in here." "You don''t? That''s a major letdown. All my friends have regular orgies in their living room." "We''re friends?" I asked. Annie shrugged. "Maybe, we''ll see. Depends on how well the orgies go. I assume that is why you lured me to your lair." There was a knock at the front door. When I opened it, Em, Sid, and Gwen stood on my "In this house, we play Taylor''s Version" doormat. A couple of packages were waiting by the door, which I picked up and brought in. "Come in. Come in. Sorry about the mess." Everyone came in and found places to sit. "Holy shit, Sid. There is a lot of Estrogen in this room." Sid shrugged. "Think of the advantages." "Bobs. Lots and lots of Bobs." He said, and when Em glared at him. He said, "But I am sure we will all act with the quiet professionalism the situation demands." Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Em coughed, then began. "Okay, everyone. Thank you for coming. And Gwen, thanks for putting up with our little test. I assume you are wondering why you are here. Thanks to Randy here, we have access to a dungeon. It is primarily goblins and ogres with a few slimes. We have had some tight scrapes with a cultist and some mushrooms and thought we should expand our group into a complete party. "So far, I have been acting as Tank, while Sid is DPS/Stealth/Scout, and Randy has been Healer/DPS and Tanking as the situation changes. I thought it would be best to focus on doing roles well rather than half ass-things as we have been doing, and the boys agreed. "First off, Randy, why not show everyone the portal to the Dungeon so the ladies don''t think we are full of it. I''ll use the kitchen for cooking something using the Morelipeeps we harvested." "You harvested. Still can''t believe you ripped the Morelipeep''s arms and legs off and then dumped them alive into your inventory on top of the bodies of hundreds of their friends and loved ones who were also armless and legless. Emily, you have a cruel streak I didn''t know you had." "Randy, they are just Mushrooms. Stop anthropomorphizing them. Tasty mushrooms. Now quit procrastinating and show the ladies the Dungeon. Maybe grab some weapons and take them for a quick look around." "Okay, Annie, Gwen, if you don''t mind coming with me." I led Annie and Gwen into my guest room. "We built this protective enclosure when a dungeon monster came out and stole my car." I plugged in the code for the lock. "The code is 2718281. It is the same code going in and coming out." I pulled the door open and led them inside. I opened one of the storage spaces and pulled out two ballistic vests, two long swords, and two bowie knives. "Here, use these for now." I bought [crystals] for [Basic: regenerate] and [Basic: cure wound] [Basic: Increase Stamina Recovery] and handed them to Annie. "Here. Learn these. Do you know any weapon skills?" "My dad used to take me out Elk hunting when I was young." "So, no. Unless you were using a bow?" "Rifle. Sorry." I bought [Basic: Longsword] and handed it to her. She quickly absorbed all four [Crystals]. "Ready," I asked. "The first room is a bedroom. Three goblins will charge us as soon as we enter. Sid and I will hold back and only step in if you are over your head. Right, Sid? Sid? Sid, are you around?" "Looks like we are doing this without Sid," I said. "Are you ready? Gwen, why don''t you take point. Annie, Also accept my group request. So we can share XP." Gwen and Annie stepped in. I gave them a minute and then stepped in myself. Both women had their swords out. Two goblins were bleeding corpses on the ground, and Gwen was swinging at the third; Annie stood cautiously back a few steps, watching Gwen as she beheaded the last green fucker. "Remember to loot. Also, if I weren''t just taking you on a quick tour, I would have you search the room to find the secret compartment. But since we are in a hurry, I will tell you where it is. Check the hardwood flooring under the bed." Gwen moved the bed out of the way, and Annie started trying to pry wood up. They found the compartment fairly quickly and googled the Snickers bar hidden inside. "The next room, I out the door and in the bathroom to the left. There are two slimes. The first is in the toilet. The second is hidden in the soap bottle. Keep in mind that you need magic to kill slimes. Swords don''t do shit. And if they touch you, their acid will burn your skin." I said. "Who would be stupid enough to get slime all over them," Annie asked. "You would be surprised. It is a common mistake." I replied. "So, how do we kill the slime if we can''t use magic?" "The first time I ran into slimes, I flushed one down the toilet and set the other on fire. The second time I ran, I did go into the bathroom; I had bought myself a DPS spell. One or both of you might want to consider getting a fire, electricity, or wind damage spell when you can''t just kill with your sword. We haven''t run into any magic weapons in all of our delving. Em might have mentioned that she wants to pick up some enchanting to go with her pre-apocalypse blacksmithing hobby. Sid mumbled about buying a spell that converts physical damage into arcane damage. But essentially, I am our group''s only magi user and am slotted into healing right now. Which is why we were looking for new team members. I''ll kill them this time, but think about spending the XP on something other than whatever primary function you think you would fit into the group. It isn''t just slimes. There are undead out there and other things that need esoteric methods of killing." I said. I led them into the bathroom and electrocuted both slimes. "Loot up, and let''s head on to the next room." Gwen and Annie looted the slimes and found a couple of [dungeon coppers]. "Is this all?" Annie said. "Yeah. Easy monsters, barely any loot. It adds up, though." I said. "Moving on. The third battle is just like the first. Three goblins in the next room. Are you ready? Gwen, why don''t you let Annie kill at least one." They both nodded, and we moved into the second bedroom. As usual, the goblins were still playing Minesweeper on their ancient computer. Gwen stepped into the room, and the goblins turned and looked over at us; Annie stepped up beside Gwen just as the goblins charged. The fight was over quickly. Annie killed one, and Gwen killed the other two. "Loot away, girls." I said, "Then we will head out for now." "This was fun. Can we do more?" Gwen asked. "Later. Doing more was why we brought the two of you into our group. There is a lot more to this Dungeon than we have yet explored. This was to just give you a taste and some XP to spend. Remember, you both owe me for the spells I bought for you before coming in here. Em is cooking a nice snack for us right now, and Sid is off somewhere doing something." "I''m not paying you back for the [Etruscan Pottery] skill. And it occurs to me that you or Sid might be the reason for my sudden mysterious growth of butt hair last week." We backtracked to the first room. There were three goblin corpses still lying bloody on the floor. "See you on the other side," Gwen said when she stepped through the portal. I was about to leave, too, when Annie said. "Randy, stop for a moment." I turned, and Annie was right up near me. She grabbed onto my armor, pulled me close, and kissed me. Then another, and then we were on the fake bed making out. "Randy. This delve made me feel alive. It was a rush. And I''m Horney. And I''m so looking forward to doing this again." "This this," I said. "This this, too, but I was mostly talking about facing death and killing things," Annie said. She started fiddling with my ballistic vest, and I took off hers. Amid the kissing, we were both naked in a room with green blood spatter covering the walls and a severed goblin head by the foot of the bed. Annie had a tattoo of sunflowers entwined with red honeysuckle and trumpet creepers running up the left side of her body from her pelvis around her left boob and to her shoulder. I could see a couple human skulls girded by flowers and hidden in the darker parts of her tattoo. On her lower abdomen, just above her pubic region, were two tattooed hummingbirds. Annie had a small tuft of dark brown pubes just above her clitoral hood. Randy, "I know you saw the skulls on the tattoo. Medieval artists used to hide human bones in paintings as a reminder that everything beautiful someday will die. It is a way to visually represent Carpe Dium. I''m tired of living life paycheck to paycheck. This is the most vibrant I''ve felt in ages." I gently stroked one of the hummingbirds and said, "A couple weeks ago, I met a Mexican granny who would love you." "Are you sure you want to be talking about old women right now?" She said. I moved my hand, ran it through her loosly curled chestnut hair, and said, "Nope." Chapter 28
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This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Chapter 29 Watching the police on TV give a press conference about the school shooting, it became evident that soon, the police would be showing up at my home. I had reported my car stolen, but they had questions. Especially if the dungeon monster was still using it. Had they driven my car to the scene of their crimes? Nothing to do right now. I considered preemptively going to the police station to answer questions. That would probably be an excellent idea. Plus, I needed a new car. "I''m gonna head out," Gwen said. "I''ll go with you. Mind dropping me off at a police station?" "Sure, Randy. You coming, Annie? "Gwen said. "Naw, I thought I would go back in a couple times with Sid and Em. If they don''t mind giving me a walk-through." Like Abed from Sid''s favorite show, Sid said, "Sure, Sure, Sure." So it looked like Annie would be power-leveling while I was away. Gwen and I got into her car, a Mustang GT convertible with a faint new car smell holding on. I was ready to give her directions to the police station nearest me, but she had already found it in her car''s GPS. Gwen let me off at the police station. I was about to go in when I had a thought, so I sat down on a public bench outside the station and called the Lawyer I had used after my wife''s death to deal with the insurance company. Sarah, the law firm''s receptionist, answered. "Hey Sarah, it''s Randy Luster. Your firm helped me out a lot last year. I was wondering if Bob was available?" "He''s in a meeting with a client. Can I get him to call you back?" Sarah replied. Having him call me back probably wouldn''t work since I was already sitting in front of a police station. "How long do you think he is going to be. I''m currently sitting in front of a police station, and I will probably need legal help pretty soon." "Oh. Our firm mostly does Insurance, probate, and property law. If this isn''t some sort of property dispute, you are probably looking for an attorney specializing in criminal law." "Yeah, I had a suspicion about that. Can you make a recommendation?" "We frequently refer our clients to the firm on the 6th floor. Cummings & Cockburn. They are good people. Their number is 555¡­" a number which I quickly wrote down and dialed. "Hello, Cummings and Cockburn; how can I help you." "Ackerby and Associates gave me your number. I am currently sitting in front of the police station off U.S. 19. I figured that it would make sense to have legal representation before I went in. Do you have an associate you can send over?" "Certainly, we will need you to pay a retainer; after that, Frank Cummings Jr. should be over immediately. That station is just down the street. Should I let him know if you''re in serious trouble?" I thought about it for a few seconds. I had done nothing wrong. That said, I knew the portrayal of police on TV cop shows ¡ª of diligent detectives rejecting the apparent answer and probing for more profound answers ¡ª was fiction. Cops, in my admittedly limited experience, were prone to jumping to conclusions and following the path of least resistance. (I based this on the day I almost got shot when a swat team had gone to the wrong address and kicked in 21a Woodling Lane instead of 21b Woodling Lane.) This was the reason I was hiring a lawyer, after all. Finally, I answered, "I''m not sure. Tell Mr. Cummings that my car was stolen a couple days ago. I reported this theft to the police and my Insurance. But about half an hour ago, I saw the thief on Television as part of that school shooting. I don''t think I''ve done anything wrong, but I want to avoid any investigations and finger-pointing." "Okay." The receptionist said. "I will let Frank know. If you wouldn''t mind putting a deposit for the retainer immediately, we take all the major credit cards." I gave her the numbers for my VISA, and after the charge went through, the receptionist said, "Frank will be right over. Hold tight, and don''t talk with anyone until he gets there." It was a sunny day. There was a pleasant breeze blowing in off the Ocean. The station was located in a busy part of the suburban sprawl. U.S. 19 hugged the Florida coast up to Georgia and beyond. I''d driven down that street once with my wife after renting a vacation cottage in Alabama for a month. We''d stopped off in Crystal River to swim with the manatees. It still hurts remembering those days. About an hour and a half later, when I was thinking about going in on my own, a guy who looked like he was just out of law school dressed in a suit walked over to him. "Randy?" A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "Mr. Cummings?" "Call me Frank. Mr. Cummings is my dad. Sorry, I''m late. I wanted to catch up with the latest about what was going on with the school shooting situation, and the sheriff in charge of the situation in Kansas gave a press conference just before I came over. I got what you told Kelsey, our receptionist, but I want to hear things from you before we go in." "I gave my credit card to the woman on the phone. And paid your retainer, so you have to keep things confidential. Right" "Yes, Attorney-Client privilege. But I''ll tell you upfront that if you had anything to do with killing those children, our law firm will refund you your retainer, except for the billable hours I spend prepping for this meeting. I can recommend someone who would be happy to help you, but child killers aren''t the type of cases our firm wants to represent as clients." "No, nothing like that." And I then told him everything, including the Dungeon in my guest room. I tried not to hold anything back. But I did stress that I wanted to keep the dungeon portal a secret, and I didn''t want the police snooping around. "Well, this is certainly a new one for me. Okay. If that is everything, I think we should go in." We walked into the police station. The same desk sergeant from before was on duty. She recognized me right away. "The jokester again. My day is complete." My Lawyer had told me to stay silent except when he told me to speak, so he talked to the Desk Sergeant. "My client, Mr. Luster, has some information about a currently active case and would like to speak with a detective if one is available. I represent the law firm, Cummings and Cockburn. Would you like to see my bar card?" "That won''t be necessary. Your father is a constant pain in our ass. I will call up for a detective. Would you mind having a seat?" About ten minutes later, my Lawyer and I were escorted to a featureless mirrored room. The temperature was a little too high. The old fluorescent lighting made the room claustrophobic, and the hum of the tubes set his teeth on edge. When the Detective on duty came in and sat down, he said, "I''m Detective Laufferty. Just so you know, this interview is being recorded. So, what brings you in today? You mentioned you had information on an active case to the desk, Sargent." Frank looked over at me and said, "I just want to emphasize that my client came in voluntarily and has done nothing wrong." He turned and looked at me. "Go ahead, Randy. Tell them everything you told me. I will do my best to make sure your rights are protected." "You sure? Everything" I asked He nodded. "If you leave stuff out, they will assume you are trying to cover things up and assume you are more involved than you actually are. They will then try to prove things. And let their imaginations run wild. So just tell them everything. If you''ve been honest with me, you have nothing to worry about." So, I started to explain the Dungeon in my guest room. Then I brought up the Dungeon monster in the suit and top hat who had come out of it and how it had stolen my car. I pulled out my phone and showed the police the Ring video of the Monster coming out of my house, insulting my Karen neighbor, and then getting into my car and driving away. Lastly, I mentioned that the same dungeon monster was the being who was responsible for the school shooting that was currently being broadcast on TV. When I was done, the Detective looked at me and said, "This was incredibly irresponsible. I have to make some calls. Stay put. I''m sure the Tampa branch of the FBI will want to talk to you." And he got up and left the room. My Lawyer and I sat silently for around twenty minutes when I got an instant message prompt from my System. It was Sid. "Dude. The Florida National Guard just showed up and kicked us out of your Condo. Gwen is with them, but she won''t speak with us. Not even to Annie." "What the fuck?" I said it aloud and also texted it to Sid. Frank, the Lawyer, looked over at me. "Anything I should know about? "The Florida National Guard just seized my condo," I told him. "My friends were hanging out there and claim that DeScumbag''s jackbooted thugs came over and kicked them out. Wait a second, my buddy Sid said a girl I know is with the Government Storm Troopers." I sent a text to Gwen, "You brought goons?" Gwen texted me back right away. "When I got home, I mentioned your secret to my dad. He agreed that your discovery was just a little too important for someone as irresponsible as you to control. He contacted an ex-student he''d stayed friendly with who works in the Florida Legislature, and they took possession of the title to your house." "You Bitch!" I texted to Gwen. "You can''t do this." "Can they do this?" I asked my Lawyer after explaining what was going on. "You live in a Condo, correct? Technically, they can. The laws about seizing a condo are pretty flexible. It would be different if you lived in a Private home. But a condo can kick you out, regardless of ownership, for things as varied as not paying condo fees or storing dangerous or illegal items. Usually, they must give notice, but I suppose this is a special situation." "I can''t hire your firm to get my property rights back. Or at least let me keep my Mystical Rights. Is that a thing yet?" "I can head over there, but you are still in interrogation. Or I can let my firm know what is happening, and they can send my Dad or some other Partner over. I''m not sure what he can do in a situation like this. You will probably need a much bigger law firm -- off hand I can''t think of anyone in Tampa with the experience. Maybe in Tallahassee. My Dad would know. And I can''t see this case costing you anything less than a couple million bucks. No guarantee of winning. You might luck out and find someone to take it pro bono because this is precedent-setting. Who knows. But yeah, I can have someone from my firm head over and muddy the waters for a little while. Filing an injunction should halt things for a couple days at least." Frank left the interrogation room. I sat alone under the buzzing fluorescent lighting for a little while. The Detective came back in with a guy in a black suit. "Mr. Luster, this is Special Agent Smithfield. Who would like to ask you a few questions." I held up my hand. "Wait until my Lawyer gets back." "You don''t really need him. You aren''t under arrest or a suspect of anything." The Detective replied. "I''m sure that''s what you say to all the innocent people you put in jail. If you don''t mind, I would rather speak in the presence of an attorney." A few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, went by, and then Frank returned to the room. "I let the firm know what is happening, and my Dad is heading to your place right now." I sighed in relief and began explaining what had happened this time with the FBI asking questions. Chapter 30 It was another eight hours before I got out. I answered the same set of questions over and over again. I told the police, FBI, and eventually representatives from the DEA, NSA, and Army about being frozen by the dungeon monster. I gave them a rundown of my skills. I described the first few rooms of the Dungeon. I even complained about Gwen and the Government seizing it. I couldn''t see what much of this had to do with the Monster who stole my car. And nobody was revealing anything to me. Finally, Frank, my Lawyer, called it quits for the night. "I assume my client isn''t under arrest and is free to leave." There were nods all around. "We have more questions." Said the army general. "No, you don''t. You have just asked the same questions over and over again. If you have more questions, submit them to my office, and I will think about passing them on to Randy here." Frank got up and gathered some of the papers strewn across the interrogation table and said. "Let''s go, Randy." I got up, and Frank led me out of the interrogation room and the police station. "My car is over this way. Do you want me to drop you off at one of your friend''s places? Since you have been evicted, that is." "Take me to a hotel," I said. "Gotcha," Frank replied. Frank dropped me off at the local Holiday Inn, and I booked a room, took a shower, and then fell asleep dripping wet with the TV on. I awoke from a dream about having a job as a local mall security guard, lobbing fireballs and electricity at raiders who refused to become paying customers before using the bathrooms. The raiders dropped crypto currency whenever I burnt them to crunchy goodness. This gave me mixed feelings. By the end, my dream let me know that I was supposed to turn the crypto into the Mall owners, but in my sleep, I kept a lot of it. In the morning, I mentally texted Sid and Em. [I had some weird dreams last night. Please tell me yesterday was one of them." Not that I would have believed them since I was lying in bed in a hotel room.] [Nope. That miserable bitch Gwen and the Government of Florida seized your house and kicked you out. I''m so sorry I brought her over to our table. Do you have any plans?] Em wrote. [My lawyer said he would try to recommend a company from Tallahassee to Sue Gwen and try to get my rights back. Said it would cost a shit load of money. The word Millions was mentioned. I don''t have that kind of cash. I was thinking about driving to South Carolina and using that Dungeon to return to my own Dungeon. Didn''t Quimby''s village give us a quest to destroy the goblin dungeon that kept raiding their town? Wanna come with?] [How wonderfully bitter. I wonder if going into the Dungeon through the back door will prevent Gwen and her crew from entering. Not sure if we can come with you, though. Em, and I have been away from work for a while. Why not bring Annie? She was every bit as pissed at Gwen as we were. The whole thing took her by surprise.] [Naw. I''m still angry with her friend and haven''t known her long enough to be sure she wouldn''t stab me in the back. Plus, if she does tell Gwen, there are no reasons why Gwen just can''t send a DeSantos taxpayer-funded hit team into the Dungeon to take me out. Who will know if it happens in the land beyond the dungeon portals.] Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Though don''t tell her that. I''ve soloed the Dungeon enough I should be fine. Or maybe I can find myself in a crowd of angry villagers with torches and pitchforks.] [I''m sure she will use the fact that we had sex to guilt me into something I don''t want to do later.] I had the guy at the hotel''s front desk call a cab company when I checked out. And the cab dropped me off at a car rental. The drive to South Carolina was long and lonely, and only the music from SiriusXM kept me driving. I had to ask myself a few times if my actions were crazy. Here, I was planning on storming an entire gathering of monsters myself. For some reason, I planned to go all out and challenge the entire Florida National Guard to do it. I will admit to having some pretty massive libertarian tendencies. However, even so, I still had to think twice about screwing with the lawfully elected Government of my own state. Not even when they had totally screwed me over. I pulled over for gas and Cane''s chicken in Georgia and almost turned around. A tiny voice kept telling me that I was taking things to an unhealthy extreme, that maybe I was going overboard. Still, as I sat in the drive-thru, I realized I would go through this. Was I subconsciously buying chicken because I was, at heart, chicken? I was going to fight through the legion of morelipeeps, climb out of the well, and find my way back to Quimby''s village. Equip me up and then do what I was beginning to think of as a suicide run through my Dungeon to destroy its core. Eventually, I made it to Asheville, South Carolina. I booked a room in the same hotel I''d stayed in with Em and Sid. After a short sleep where I kept waking up from the nervous energy, I left my room and wandered over to the bar next door. There was a band of teenagers in cowboy hats, attempting at some sort of post-modern honky tonk. There weren''t many people in the bar. Some bikers playing pool. A couple biker chicks. A scattering of townies. There was a short blond with a pixie cut drinking a margarita by the bar, so I had the bartender send another drink over to her. When she got the glass, the bartender pointed to me, and I lifted my beer in silent acknowledgment. I gave it a couple minutes, then walked over to the woman. "According to the sign just outside of Town, ''Asheville, Discovery Inside, and Out,'' I almost didn''t think there was anything to see in town, yet here we are together making discoveries." It was a barely inspired line, but I was tired and didn''t care if it succeeded. "You are supposed to say something funny or clever." She said. "Regurgitating a tourist slogan barely counts as either." I shrugged. "Saying you must be from South Carolina because you''re the only ten I see seemed kind of lazy," I said. "It is supposed to be Tennessee, not South Carolina. Besides, I''m from Delaware." I took a sip of beer, "Everyone says Tennessee, nobody says South Carolina, but look¡­ we''re talking about it." "Because you sound like a moron." She said. I shrugged, held out my hand, and said, "Randy." "Randy, if I had to guess, it sounds like you struck out, but thanks for the drink." She said. "Oh well. No problem. Have a nice rest of your evening." And so I turned around and returned to my table, ordered another pint, finished that, and listened to live amateur country music until the band finished their set. And then I wandered back to my hotel room. The following day, I dropped the rental off at the rental company and then took a Taxi out where we''d come out in the forest a couple days earlier. The cave that held the Dungeon looked exactly like it had when we''d come out. I was convinced I would fight through the Florida National Guard to get in. Pushing the brush out of the way took no time, and I cast my light spell to illuminate the interior as I walked to the portal out of sight inside the cave. Chapter 31 I considered summoning Mr. Linty, but I didn''t. I didn''t want to deal with the boss fight I remembered from the other side of the portal. Instead, I hoped the stealth skills I had picked up would carry me through the room. Double-checking that I was adequately faded into the background, I did one last status check. I had switched into black clothing, motorcycle leathers tightly hugging my body. I had a spare sword from my inventory strapped to my waist, but I held a hunting knife in each of my hands. Keeping exta gear in inventory space was sure a neat trick. I had picked up a Harley Davidson black bandana at a gas station off Highway 23, which I had wrapped around my face, hoping that the dark colors would help me fade into the background even better. It was a cheap bandana, and the logo had only been silk-screened on one side of the fabric, so I wore it reversed. Taking a deep breath, not unlike the first time I had stepped into the dungeon that had formed in my former condo, I returned to the mushroom labyrinth. The portal bubbled and rippled as I stepped in. I moved slowly, and the change in light in the dungeon from the portal activating did not trigger the agro on the spiders, morelipeeps, or death cap mushrooms. The room was exactly like it had been when Sid, Em and I had been here. Damp, moldy well chic. Cobblestone walls with roots growing out of the walls and puddles of water. The stairs going deeper into the dungeon were still present. Cautious. Sticking to the walls. I moved across the floor, careful not to step on twigs or any of the fungi-citizens and not crushing any tiny button mushroom houses. As I walked, I winced while I thought of how crazy Emily had been around these little guys. They''d been hella tasty when cooked, though. Not being seen was harder than Sid made it out to be. I almost made it entirely through the entire room when I accidentally stepped on the hut of a morelipeep living on its own by the side of a water-filled pothole. Part of me was worried that I had just squished the morel monster''s version of Henry David Thoreau living at Walden dungeon puddle. But I had bigger concerns, like wiping mushroom guts off my clothes was more important. I moved through the dungeon labyrinth like a silent shadow of mushroom death. Significant shroom communities I left alone. I ignored a rare Psilocybin spawn I almost ran into because I didn''t want to spend an afternoon dreaming of flying elephants if I took a hit. Stragglers I killed without showing any fungal mercy. My System map was a huge help. The last thing I wanted to was to spend another week down here, pooping in corners and sleeping where random patrols of death cap mushrooms could find me. They weren''t that scary, considering I was immune to their poison, but I didn''t want to change it. Sid''s data, while we explored, showed the exact way out, and he even kept notes about dangers, monster types and numbers, and potential loot. And in no time, well in two days, I made it to the well opening. I had subdued the morelipeep village at the bottom of the well. They would make good eating in the future. Now, I simply stood at the bottom of the well, looking upward at the skylight. I had done some rock climbing with friends. The roughly cobbled walls had a multitude of handholds. But I didn''t have enough skills to reach the top. What I did have was experience from killing the occasional mushroom over the last few hours. I had two choices and enough experience to get both. The first choice was a crossbow, grappling hook, and rope combo. The second choice was the standard rock climbing skill. Since I could afford both, I bought them both. A box shimmered into existence in front of me. Learning the basic rock climbing skill was easy enough, as was shooting the grappling hook over the lip of the well. And I tried to look like Eminem (without the Batman getup) in his "Without Me" video as I used the rope to scale the wall. "Now, this looks like a job for me So everybody, just follow me The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.Guess who''s back, Shady''s back Guess who''s back." I sang as I climbed the wall. Once out, I put the crossbow into inventory and walked to Quimby''s village. The village had changed a lot. Many burnt-out buildings had been cleared, and a wooden palisade was going up. A part of me thought that a wooden wall would only help a little with invaders with axes and fire. But then I realized I didn''t care; it wasn''t my problem. In the mushroom tunnels, it had occurred to me that I would try to solo my goblin dungeon because I had a kind of death wish. Depression from the accident that had killed my wife, mixed with my home being stolen by the Florida Government, and maybe a bit of Gwen''s betrayal. I didn''t know Gwen that well, but despite Sid and Emily''s assurances, part of me was positive that Anna knew something and had betrayed me too. I didn''t want to return to that life and throw myself into a downward and self-destructive spiral. Logic told me I needed therapy more than hiding in my dungeon lair. But we were well past that now. When I was last here, the village inn had burnt down, and the innkeeper had been killed. A few people wave at me, maybe recognizing me from when I had visited with Quimby, or perhaps they were just being friendly. I planned to leave quickly, so I headed to the general store. "Can I buy some rations? I''m going dungeon diving and need an alternative to everything: bagels and cream cheese. Plus, I will need some spare weapons and armor. Is there anywhere to stay while the Inn is indisposed? "Some locals are letting visitors stay in their homes while we figure out what to do about the Inn. Old Widow Maux keeps a nice place nearby. She rents out her kid''s rooms now that they all have homes and families of their own. I can have the boy take you there." "Out of curiosity, how much would it cost me if I wanted to buy the land where the old Inn was located? Call me Randy, by the way." I said, holding out my hand while asking. "Depends on what you plan to do with the land, Randy. Suppose you were going to build an inn to replace the old one. In that case, the mayor would let you have the land for free, especially if you planned to pay local workers to do the construction. I''m Beynard." "I was thinking about setting up a guild headquarters. But my friends like to drink, so a combination of adventurers'' guild, guild hall, and Inn wouldn''t be amiss. Please find out for me. It doesn''t have to be right away. It may never be if I don''t leave the dungeon alive. And there is always the chance that I am fantasizing. But there isn''t anything left for me back in my old world ¡ª except for my friends ¡ª but it is a long journey to get to this village. So, I would need a place for them to stay and hang out when they are here. I have no problem adding a few extra rooms for rent." "I will consult the mayor. It may be that we can work with you. This village is a bit out of the way, a lot of us came here to get away from our old lives." Beynard, the storekeeper, said he walked over to the front door. And he pulled a cord which rang a little bell that hung outside. A few minutes later, a ten-year-old child came running to the door. "Urist, run over to Widow Maux''s place and see if the room she rents out is available." "Okay, shoppy dude." The boy replied and ran off. "It shouldn''t take him too long. The boy is reasonably responsible. You may have to tip him when he gets back. A copper or two will do." We stood in silence for a minute. I was tempted to ask the storekeeper about football, "What do you think about the Green Bay Packers'' chance at the Super Bowl this year," somehow didn''t seem the right topic to bring up to fill the uncomfortable silence. Instead, I settle on, "Let me take another look at your armor selection while we wait." But before we could get too far into the store where the armor was kept, the boy was back huffing and puffing like an asthmatic old man. "Ms. Maux has space for him. The price is two silver a day, which includes breakfast. She is preparing the room, but I can take you there now." The boy said. I paid the shopkeeper for the supplies and followed the boy down the dirt road to Widow Maux''s home. Ms. Maux lived in a tidy two-story rock house with a backyard vegetable garden and a tree bearing an unripe and undefined fruit in the front. The boy knocked, and a woman in her 40s opened the door. "You the adventurer looking for a place?" she said. "Yup. Hear you got a room." "Two silver a night, Three if you want dinner. And call me Mandy. Mandy is a strange name, but my parents were not from these parts." According to my system, I had plenty, and the system automatically converted gold into silver, platinum, and copper, so I always had the exact change that couldn''t be pickpocketed. I handed the Widow Maux Three silver. But I also wanted to try something, so I dug into my pockets and pulled out a handful of change from back home. A couple quarters, a dime, and a half dozen pennies. Four of the pennies were Canadian. Out of curiosity, I handed the boy the four Canadian pennies. He looked at the coins strangely. Went as far as to bite one. "This ain''t dungeon standard. Not sure what I can do with these." I shrugged and flipped the boy two more copper pieces. "Keep as souvenirs. Melt them for the metal content. It is mostly copper. Plus Zinc. Don''t really care."