The XP gem that was left behind after the crab boss dissipated was absolutely massive in size. Believe me when I say that it was easily the size of a beach ball. For a moment I tried to pick it up and move it, it was too heavy, like trying to lift a block of solid lead. I was still able to absorb it no problem though.

Gained 200 Soul Energy, 234/190

“Sweet mother of fuck!”

That singular gem, that one beautiful gem, had rocketed me from a meager 24 SE over and beyond the amount that I needed to reach level ten. Past that, I would have enough left over afterward to enchant a few items! Level five had already been a massive boost with the additional points it had granted, and the ability to gain a class. That made me excited to see what this next big milestone would bring to the table.

Level: 10

Soul Energy: 44/235

5 points assignable

That was already looking pretty good, with the bonus points making a return, but it got even better when the next notification popped up right after.

Congratulations on reaching Level 10! You have reached the Journeyman tier! Please pick one of the following Boons:

Mana Surge: You gain +2 maximum Mana, and your Mana regenerates 20% faster

Boundless Stamina: You gain +20 maximum Stamina, and your Stamina regenerates 25% faster

Refined Aura: Your Aura regenerates 10% faster, and takes 5% less damage

Quick Evolution: You gain 5 additional assignable points

Sweet. Mother. Of. Jesus.

Right away I could see that Quick Evolution would be what I consider a “trap option”. Sure, the immediate addition of another five points sounded nice, but those were points I could gain over time anyways. The other three options all granted substantial passive buffs. I didn’t have to think about it for very long, the decision was pretty much made for me the moment I read it at the top. Of course having more Mana and quicker regen of it was the best option.

Boon selected: Mana Surge

Confirm?

Mana: 2/6

The pain was less significant this time, but I could still feel it as my Manawell expanded again. I could feel another change, which I could best describe as being like a water intake pipe suddenly widening, or having a pump attached to amp up the throughput. I took that to be the feeling of more Mana seeping in. With that out of the way, I needed to allocate my points.

Intellect: 0 -> 1

Wisdom: 1 -> 4

Dexterity: 3 -> 4

Confirm?

I had considered for a moment that I should increase my Strength, seeing as I was going to be switching to a heavier weapon going forward, but I had some ideas that were going to mitigate the weight. I decided I’d level it up later. I mostly bumped up Intellect by a point just to see what the difference was going to be, to see if it would help me multitask better. If I could effectively use two Blades at once, or another levitating weapon, that would be awesome.

Dexterity got another point, as it made Minor Speed just that much better, and I needed all I could get with my Stamina as it currently was.

Finally came Wisdom, into which I poured a whole three points. The sooner I could protect my mind from outside interference, the better. If it was going to stop the dungeon from abducting me again, I would dump as many points as it took.

I confirmed my selection.

After one hell of a migraine passed I looked around and noticed an annoying lack of ability stones floating in the air. There were however two treasure chests sitting nearby. They both sat on a stone platform that had risen out of the ground about twenty feet away. The trees had moved to accommodate it.

Reward selection for defeating this boss has been reduced. Only one chest may be chosen as a reward.

Well that was a massive load of horseshit. The Lord downstairs let me pick between three abilities and then gave me three magic items, yet the ultimate lifeform up here was only going to let me pick between two items? Hey dungeon, how about you stop being such a dick? What was the point in defeating the crab besides the giant amount of SE? Shit, with how much easier the Lord was there was no reason I couldn’t just farm him instead of facing the ultimate lifeform again.

One of the chests had a large diamond shape embossed on the lid, while the other had two smaller diamonds. I flipped a quarter, heads being large and tails being small. The quarter decided that I’d be opening the large diamond chest. When I opened the lid there was a bright flash of gold light. A single golden gem floated out and hovered in the air, while the other chest dissipated into smoke.

“What the shit?”

So, if I had this right, the large diamond chest gave me a single ability stone, while the other had what? Loot? What the fuck dungeon!

Ability Stone (Common): Scribe

Passive

The user gains the ability to read and write 2 languages.

And of what use was that to me exactly? I very much doubted that it was going to work at all on the languages back on Earth, and it wasn’t like I was meeting a lot of people or finding reading material in this place! Well, there was no point in just turning it down and walking away seeing as how I had no other options. I begrudgingly took my consolation prize.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Ability Stone (Common): Scribe has been selected.

Granting Ability

It didn’t seem to instantly give me two new languages, so maybe I had to actually encounter them first? Great! I’ll get right on that! Not. It left me wondering why it had even given me the choice of taking it in the first place. I’d still much rather have taken the potential magic items over this useless (to me) ability.

Now I had to find my way out of this place. The crab, as it turns out, had carved an extremely easy to follow pathway that led all the way back to where it had first encountered me. There was another path that went toward the middle of the room, where I think it had been waiting around before aggroing.

From here though? Shit, which way was the door?

Almost as if by instinct, I started trekking through the trees. My memory of it wasn’t perfect, but I could sort of remember the path I had taken. Here and there I could see the faint outlines of my footprints, or where I had broken a branch as I passed. Between my slightly enhanced Intellect and my Wisdom, I was able to retrace my steps all the way back to the door I had entered through.

It was open, so I walked right in. A few seconds later I was back in the guillotine crab room. On the other side the stone door had opened again, allowing me to go back to the entrance. After a short journey through the second floor, I found the staircase. Even from the top I could look down and see that the door had opened again.

I damn near flew down those stairs in my hurry to get out. I could’ve broken into tears when I saw the portal waiting for me. I barreled through it and slammed the fridge door shut behind me. After I stripped off my blood-caked clothes and tossed them into the trash, I promptly got in the shower and stayed there until the water ran cold. I stood there even after that, just letting the chilly water hit me.

My stomach growled again, and I remembered that it had been hours since I’d eaten. I went into the kitchen to make some food. Since it’d been such a long day, and I had the ingredients on hand, I decided to spoil myself a bit and make lamb chops with mashed potatoes. I got out the pan and put a bit of olive oil in the bottom, along with some sliced onions. I sprinkled them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then put a bit of butter in the pan and set it to high heat to warm up.

Once I heard the onions sizzling, I turned down the heat and put a lid on the pan to let them soften while I prepped the lamb. It came in a rack, so I had to use my knife to separate them. Once done, I got them in the pan and seasoned them the same as the onions, but with Italian seasoning, parsley, and basil. As for the potatoes, I had some premade in a box, since I didn’t feel like chopping and mashing them myself. I got a pot of water and milk going for that.

A few minutes later I flipped the lamb, and poured the potato into the pot with some butter.

Soon enough my food was ready. I got everything onto a plate and sat it on the table before mixing myself a drink.

It was, of course, delicious. Yeah, it could’ve been better with homemade mashed potato, but oh well.

After dinner I spent some time cleaning up the kitchen, including the spot of blood on the floor left behind after I’d gotten out of the dungeon. I stared at my older fridge, and suddenly decided that I needed to move my fridge somewhere else. This was something that I had been trying to avoid as long as possible. The last thing I wanted was to move the fridge and upset the portal, and therefore lose my access to the dungeon.

To play it as safe as possible, I kept the door open while I worked so that I could watch and stop the moment I saw something going wrong. I grabbed my furniture rolled from the garage. I slowly lifted the side of the fridge until I could fit the roller under it, then hoisted it up and centered it. I was very pleased to see that lifting the fridge three inches off the ground did not disperse the portal.

Moving the fridge along the floor and into the living room also didn’t mess anything up. I ended up setting the fridge against the wall of my workshop’s closet, which happened to be just the right size for it. I really wish I had tried moving it the other day. Keeping someone from investigating the goings on of my workshop was infinitely easier, since I could keep it locked without visitors questioning it very much.

Everyone who knew me well enough to be invited into my home also knew that I kept a lot of dangerous stuff in that room. I had reloading equipment and materials such as gunpowder and primers. There were power tools, guns, knives. Just a whole lot of stuff I don’t want other people messing with. That is my stuff, only I get to mess with it. When I was moving into the house, I had done a bit of renovating to the room. I had bars installed on the window, the glass itself was bulletproof (rated up to .308, and yes I tested that). I knocked out the drywall and placed steel sheets alongside the insulation, then redid the drywall and paint. The door? Metal core, so it was hard to saw or drill through. The room was effectively a massive safe that I could walk into, with a smaller safe inside for my guns. I could even lock the closet if I really wanted to, but that would’ve been overkill.

After dinner and my impromptu fridge repositioning, it was about 9pm, and I still felt far too awake to go to bed.

“Well, I suppose I could have a drink or two…”

To my fridge I went (the new one), and pulled out the bottle of gin that sat within. I sat it on the table and retrieved a cup. I poured about a shot and a half worth of gin into it, before realizing that I had nothing on hand to mix it with.

When I had been buying groceries, I’d completely forgotten to grab any soda, or juice.

I may love gin, but no way was I going to drink straight liquor with no mixer.

I put the cup in the fridge to keep it cold and to make sure my cats couldn’t knock it over, then got dressed to make a quick run to the store. There was a gas station about half a mile down the street which had two liters of soda.

I put my Shield Plus on my side, put my shirt over it, and got into my car. A few minutes later I was at the gas station. Of course I made sure to park right by the door, where I could see my car through the front windows. You might call me paranoid, but my car has been broken into more than once, and I wasn’t going to make it easy to happen again.

There I stood in the drink aisle, weighing my choices between orange or strawberry sodas. This was an important decision, as I was planning to drink a good amount of it with my gin. The bell above the door rang as another person walked in, just as I was grabbing the orange soda. I glanced over by habit, something I’d picked up working at the gun store. We always immediately looked at the door when someone was coming in, to see if they were carrying a gun or not.

Sometimes they were. 99.9% of the time they were just bringing it in to buy a holster for it, or to sell it to us, or they had questions.

Well, this gentleman in the black hoodie had a gun. He wasn’t part of that 99.9%

He held a small 9mm of a model I instantly recognized, which was immediately pointed right at the face of the cashier.

“Give me all the fucking money!”

I suppose I was going to be delayed in getting back home.