Instead of making their way through the almost certainly trap infested field, they all piled into Chris's world and he used his bow and arrow teleportation method to make his way over to the central structure. "Okay. We're all clear that this is almost definitely a death house, correct?" Quinn pointed out as they exited Chris's world.

"Well, you already died, so there isn't much it can do to you now, is there?" Greg pointed out, earning himself a glare from Quinn.

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful!" Quinn snapped back. "Besides, Drew hasn't died yet, and he's the one who needs to get to the core."

"And I would like to keep it that way." Andrew agreed with a nod.

"Can't you just turn into an ant and go wherever you want?" Greg pointed out. "Hell, I can go through as smoke Greg and trigger everything before it can get you. Therefore, death house smesh house, let's do this."

Andrew blinked. "Well, fair enough." He shrugged, gesturing for Greg to proceed as he turned into his ant form.

Greg grinned back at him as his smoke self opened the door, before immediately letting out a yelp as the floor fell out beneath him, dropping him into a pool of acid. "Every time I open my mouth, acid." He grumbled as he reformed, making his way deeper into the house, ant Andrew following after him.

Just like Greg had said, despite getting hit by traps at almost every turn, there wasn't anything the Ruin could do to stop them at this point. Andrew buzzed around the house, looking for the core, eventually finding it sitting slightly above the roof of the house. "You mean to tell me, we went through all that, and it isn't even in the house?!?" Greg complained.

Andrew shrugged helplessly. "I couldn't see it from down there."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Greg sighed. "Just- freaking acid, man. Hurts like a bitch." He shook his head. "Ah, whatever. Do your thing." He waved vaguely at where he thought the core might be.

Andrew nodded, sending out his aura to grab the core, pulling at it and… it moved. Andrew blinked, moving the core back and forth. He even tried pulling it inside himself, but nothing happened! He then tried crushing it, reducing its aura, replacing it with his own, but the core resisted all his manipulations! "Um, I think we missed something." Andrew coughed awkwardly. "The core is still in the dungeon, so… even if I move it, it's still, you know, the dungeon's. And everything else I'm trying doesn't work."

Greg considered the problem for a moment. "See if we can get it through Chris's portal?"

Andrew cocked his head. "That could work."

The rest of them had been waiting in Chris's world, so Greg's other self just let him know and a portal opened next to them. They both entered as Andrew attempted to pull the core inside, and he encountered the first resistance to his attempts at moving the core. It wasn't even a resistance really, but a full rejection of his efforts, with no way for him to even try. It was like he was trying to pull a steel ball through a brick wall.

"That sounds like a World issue." Chris explained after Andrew told them the problem. "I get the same thing when my world's physics are off. My portals get a hard cap. When my physics are in order, I get a bit more wiggle room. I guess the World doesn't want you dragging cores out of it?"

"But you take cores in and out of here all the time." Andrew replied with a frown.

"True…" Chris muttered. "Maybe it's the fact you're doing it without the body? I've never had a core without a body in here…"

"Either way, it's obviously not working." Thomas interjected. "What else could we try?"

"I could open a portal outside?" Chris offered. "Maybe it won't care if it doesn't enter my world."

"And where would you be opening this portal?" Quinn asked warningly. "Because you can't do it in public, and you are not doing it in my apartment!"

Chris paused. "Well, I got nothing." He shrugged.

"Wait, I can make a little pocket using smoke somewhere emptyish." Greg offered.

"But how do I get a portal there?" Chris retorted. "There's plenty of hidden places to open a portal, I just don't have portal points for them."

"It doesn't have to be far." Greg pointed out. "Open a little portal and I'll send my smoke through and make the pocket underneath it. Then you can drop a rock or something, I'll bring it into the pocket and boom, hidden portal!"

Chris nodded. "That would work." He agreed. "Shall we then? Any objections?" Everyone shook their heads and Chris opened a small portal outside the dungeon for Greg to send his smoke through. Greg quickly created the pocket a few meters below ground, before making a small tunnel for Chris to drop a rock through, and once it reached the pocket, Chris opened a portal between it and the Ruin. "Alright, go for it." He gestured for Andrew to try removing the Ruin's core again.

"Hopefully this works." Andrew muttered, stepping into the pocket. If he couldn't take the core this way, they had no other options. The Ruin would eventually get out, Quinn would be investigated, and they'd either have to run or deal with the government, neither of which would be good. Andrew took a deep breath, grabbing the core yet again, and pulling. Andrew almost flinched as the core easily glided through the portal. "Ha! Take that you stupid-" Andrew cut off, his eyes widening as the core crystalized and began to expand, growing larger. "No, no, shit, fuck, no!" Andrew cursed trying to yank the core away again, punching and kicking at it as it began to grow faster and faster, quickly filling the pocket. Andrew only avoided getting crushed by diving through Chris's portal.

"Well… that didn't work." Chris commented blandly.

"Ya think?!?" Andrew growled. "Fuck! The hell did we just do?!?"

"I believe we just released the Ruin." Chris replied. "No need for a break, because we gave it it's out."

Andrew buried his face in his hands. "We are so screwed."

"Eh? At this point, this was inevitable. We just sped up the process." Chris shrugged.

"We could have at least warned people." Andrew groaned.

"I suppose…" Chris agreed. "But we didn't know this would happen, so don't beat yourself up too much." He patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go. We need to discuss our options with the others."

*

"This is so bad." Quinn groaned, watching the news report on the Ruin growing outside Nobilis as they gathered in her living room.

"Shouldn't someone have destroyed it by now?" Thomas asked curiously.

"They've tried a few times." Greg commented. Chris had opened a portal for his smoke so he could keep an eye on the situation. "It looks like it's still partially supported by the dungeon. Every time they destroy something, it comes back almost instantly."

"This is so, so bad!" Quinn groaned again. "I created a Ruin outside Nobilis!"

Andrew frowned. "Didn't I create the Ruin?" He wanted to freak out as well, but Quinn was doing such a good job of it, he felt like he couldn't.

"You created the dungeon." Quinn grumbled. "I used the skill that twisted it into a fucking Ruin!"

"I think we all have some blame here." Greg interjected, shaking his head. "This is clearly World fuckery. I wouldn't be surprised if taking the core out of the dungeon should have worked, but the World made it not, because of course we couldn't get rid of the monster we created that easily. No, this is an event if I've ever seen one, and it's all because we gathered four of the uniquest people around and went on an adventure together."

"Doesn't that mean the World is to blame then?" Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow.

Greg shook his head. "You can't really blame Worlds for things. They're just following their nature. It'd be like blaming a cat for killing your pet mouse. That's what they do. How were they supposed to know that this mouse was special? Worlds fuck with us because that's what they do. It's our job to be mindful of it and do what we can to keep it from fucking over others in the process."

"So what do we do about it?" Thomas asked. "Split up?"

"I think that'd make this worse, actually." Greg replied. "We're all unique enough to cause problems, so we'd just be spreading it around. Plus, Worlds think unique people should interact, so we'd probably just get forced back together again."

"We could hide?" Andrew offered. "Avoid doing anything that could potentially cause an issue?"

Greg waved dismissively. "No, the World wants us to do things, so if we don't do anything, it'll just send shit after us."

"Like having guys literally fall out of the sky in front of you." Thomas grumbled. No wonder Victoria's life seemed to have calmed down after he started hunting.

Greg nodded. "Right, so avoiding events won't do anything for us. The key is to direct them."

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"And how do we do that?" Chris asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Be mindful of what could potentially happen whenever you go somewhere or do something." Greg explained. "Creating a dungeon? Think about what kinds of dungeons are possible. Are any of them dangerous? Could you deal with the danger if it happened? What would be the consequences if you couldn't? Do you care about them? Are they preventable? Can you at least mitigate them? I'm not saying we can account for everything, but we can at least try."

"Fair enough." Chris shrugged. "So what do we do about this? I don't think ignoring it is an option. A potentially catastrophic problem we caused? Seems like exactly the kind of thing we'd be forced to deal with."

"True." Greg agreed, his brow furrowing in thought. He turned to Quinn. "How are Ruins normally destroyed?"

"Overwhelming power." She replied, her expression twisting. "You have to destroy it in its entirety, or it'll just come back. It isn't as bad as in the dungeon, but… the smaller it gets the faster it regenerates, and at some point that regeneration becomes almost instantaneous. If you can't destroy it instantly and completely at that size, there's nothing you can do. And the larger it grows, the larger that size becomes."

"So the sooner we deal with this thing, the better." Thomas muttered. "Which means we need to grow fast. Unless your smoke can deal with it?"

Greg shook his head. "I already tried. The core of it is full of energy so I can't even get my smoke inside."

Thomas sighed. "Of course. Because that would be too easy, now wouldn't it?"

"Well, it wouldn't be very interesting at least." Chris commented. "Major problems need major solutions. Otherwise what's the point?"

"And it needs to build." Andrew frowned. "There needs to be struggle, setbacks, and hard-earned progress."

"Yeah, you can't just waltz through a major plot point." Greg nodded, before pausing. "Wait… unless we suddenly develop new capabilities! Like, in my World, there was this whole invasion thing, two equally powerful forces going head to head in a bloody brawl, but… then I figured out how to turn into a lightning ball of doom and the whole thing kinda fizzled. Hard to maintain your will to fight when your men are being hunted by an immortal death cloud."

"Oh, good, let me just pull a sudden increase in power out my ass." Thomas rolled his eyes.

Greg blinked, before coughing awkwardly. "I wasn't saying it was a reliable solution… I'm just saying it's possible."

"There's one issue with all this." Chris interjected. "This problem should be solved by someone else. There are more than enough people with more than enough power to be able to handle what should be a level seven Ruin. So why can't they? Why are we the ones who need to deal with this?"

"Responsibility, for one." Greg replied. "We started this, so even if no one else does, we'll take care of it, because it needs to be taken care of."

"That's our personal motivation." Chris shook his head. "It's why we'll try. What I'm wondering is why it has to be us. What uniqueness do we have that makes it so that no one but us can deal with this?"

"What isn't unique about us?" Thomas snorted.

Chris cocked his head. "Fair, but I think this one will be situation focused. Not related to our natures, but rather unique to the way we relate to this World." He paused. "Probably something to do with Andrew, if we're being honest. The rest of us haven't exactly had time to develop."

Andrew groaned. "Why is it always me?"

"It's your World, dude." Thomas pointed out. "It'd be weird if it suddenly decided to focus on one of us instead."

Andrew's expression twisted, before he spat out a sigh. "Ugh, fine. Let me think." He grumbled, frowning as he considered what he could have done to fuck things up this time. The answer was actually rather obvious. "Shit… it's my dungeon!"

"Ah. That would do it." Chris nodded. "I wonder if you're still connected somehow? A sort of 'one of you needs to die for the other to fully live' type thing?"

"That doesn't explain why no one else can kill the thing, though." Greg commented.

"If it's still connected to the dungeon…" Andrew muttered. "Maybe- maybe I need to close the dungeon somehow? Or no one will ever be able to kill it, because the dungeon keeps bringing it back?"

"Sounds plausible." Thomas nodded along. "Though there's still the question of how."

Andrew frowned. "I never got the prompt to leave the dungeon… which means we never fully cleared the dungeon. So maybe that's it? We need to go back to the dungeon and beat it, and all this will be over?"

Chris frowned. "That seems too easy… I could take us back to the dungeon right now and we could beat it. I still have a portal point there."

"Beating a dungeon doesn't break it." Quinn muttered numbly, still staring at the disaster she'd caused unfolding on the TV. "You need to break the core, which-" She gestured weakly at Andrew. "Or destroy the space completely. There's no other way."

"So we either find a way to destroy space, or we kill Andrew?" Thomas asked, raising an eyebrow as he turned to Andrew. "Well? Ready to take one for the team?"

"Wait." Chris interjected with a frown. "Destroying the core destroys the dungeon because that's what anchors it. However, Andrew clearly isn't anchoring anything. I don't think killing him will do much good."

"Well, we can't know until we try." Greg pointed out with a shrug.

Andrew scowled, before letting out a sigh. "Just make it quick." He grumbled.

"I recommend a quick stab to the side of the head." Chris commented with a shrug. He didn't think it would do anything, but if they were going to do it, they might as well do it right.

"Shall I do the honors?" Greg grinned, creating himself a dagger.

"How about I do it?" Thomas interjected, giving Greg a look. "I think you'd enjoy it too much."

Greg paused, before shrugging in acceptance. "Fair enough."

"Okay, ready?" Thomas asked, pulling out one of his blades and lining it up.

"Ready." Andrew nodded, closing his eyes and bracing himself. Thomas took a deep breath, steadying himself, before thrusting forward, stabbing Andrew precisely through his temple, the blade breaking through the skull and sliding deep into his brain. Andrew fell slightly as Thomas pulled the knife out, before his aura expanded, his flesh knit back together, and he caught himself. "Fuck!" Andrew cursed, rubbing at where the blade had entered. The pain was gone now, but there'd been a spike of wrong as it first went in, something too painful to even really be called pain. It was pure death, driving through him!

"Huh…" Thomas blinked. "I just leveled up to fourteen."

"That's cause I'm rank eight." Andrew grumbled, still rubbing his head. "I give… ten thousand times the experience for you."

"Oh really?" Greg slid up beside Andrew, throwing an arm over his shoulder. "You up for a little power leveling sesh?" He asked, wiggling his dagger at him.

Andrew scowled, throwing his arm off. "I'm not some mob for you to farm!" He growled.

"Oh come on! I'd do it for you!" Greg protested, before pausing. "Huh, actually, that's not a bad idea either…" He could make rank four creatures out of essentially nothing! He could probably power level himself into the teens pretty easily. "Man, why didn't I think of this earlier!"

Andrew frowned at him for a moment, before shaking his head and turning to Chris. "Well? Did it work?"

Chris shook his head. "Nope. Dungeon is still there. Not even a wiggle."

Andrew sighed. "Of course it is. Fuck! I just lost all that progress for nothing!"

"Hey, we had to try." Thomas patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, I know." Andrew grumbled. "It's just- it's like all this is designed to screw me over, you know? Fucking- I hate this shit! Why can't the World just leave us alone?!? Why does it have to fuck with us!?!"

"It's just the way the Multiverse works." Greg shrugged. "It's like gravity. You can't really complain about it, because it simply is."

"That doesn't make it right!" Andrew retorted. "People should be allowed to live their lives without being fucked with, no matter how unique they are!"

"Sure, but what can we do about it?" Thomas replied with a helpless shrug. "It's the way things are. We can't exactly change it."

"Though if anyone could, it'd probably be us." Chris muttered thoughtfully.

They all fell silent for a moment, considering that statement and its implications. "It's- something to keep in mind, I suppose, but it definitely isn't something we're capable of now." Thomas shook his head.

"Kinda interesting to think about though." Greg cocked his head. "If we could change things, what would we do?"

"I just want to be left alone." Andrew grumbled. "To be able to enjoy my life without constantly wondering what will go wrong next."

Thomas shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

They froze as a knock came from the door, before turning to Quinn. "What?" She asked, not having heard the knock since she was so engrossed in the news.

"Someone's at the door." Chris gestured.

"So? Answer it!" She waved him off in irritation.

"It's your apartment." Chris replied.

She glared at him for a moment, before rolling her eyes and getting up with a grumble, stomping towards the door and yanking it open. "Can I help-" She began grumpily, before freezing, her eyes widening as she saw the pair of uniformed officers waiting for her.

"Quinn La'Chandria?" One of the officers asked, and Quinn nodded. "We have some questions about your recent dungeon activity in relation to the ongoing Ruin situation."

Quinn gulped. "Am I being arrested."

The officer shook his head. "No, Ma'am. We simply need to ask you some questions." He glanced around her, noticing the other four. "Having a party?"

"Huh?" She glanced back. "Oh, no! Just- they're just friends. We- we were watching the news together."

The officer nodded, narrowing his eyes, before refocusing on Quinn. "I see. May we come in? We have quite a few questions for you." Quinn hesitated, before nodding and stepping aside, letting them in. She and the officer sat down at the kitchen table while his partner looked around. "You've visited a few low-level dungeons recently. May I ask why?" The officer began, pulling out a small notebook.

"I was given custody of an uplift and I was taking them to level." Quinn replied.

"I see. Yet you entered the last dungeon on your own, didn't you? The dungeon that just so happened to release the Ruin." The officer continued.

"I- I'm also a Dungeon Streamer." Quinn explained, trying to avoid telling a lie. "I- wanted to test out a certain skill. It- the dungeon I entered wasn't a Ruin."

"Hm." The officer nodded. "Did you notice any suspicious individuals around when you entered the dungeon?" Quinn shook her head. "How about inside the dungeon? Anything suspicious?"

"No, everything seemed normal." Quinn replied.

"So you had no reason to suspect a Ruin would appear?" The officer asked, raising an eyebrow.

"None." Quinn shook her head, answering honestly. She couldn't have dreamed the combination of her skill and Andrew's trait would make a Ruin!

"Very well. One last thing. Could you please remove your status mask?" The officer asked, settling down his notebook.

Quinn blinked. "My what? I- I don't have a status mask."

The officer frowned. "You mean to tell me you are, in fact, level one, with no Class?" He asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow at her.

Quinn froze, her eyes flicking to Chris. "I- I don't know how to explain it, but… my status was reset recently. I- I lost everything."

The officer blinked. "Did it have anything to do with the Ruin?"

"No, it-" Quinn began.

"That was a lie." The officer interjected, narrowing his eyes at her. "Did you help create this Ruin?"

"No! I-" Quinn protested, shaking her head, but the officer interrupted again.

"Another lie." He growled, standing to his feet. "Miss Quinn, you are under arrest. You-" He suddenly cut off as she disappeared. "Where-" He turned just in time to see the other four jumping into a portal, which closed behind them. "Shit! Call for backup! We've got runners!"