They had to pass by the mayor's office to get to the pit and pick up Beor, and they happened to run into Ruth on the way.

“Oh, hey!” she said. She grinned. “Guess what I found?”

“A proper sense of bloodlust?” Anna quipped. Mary elbowed her so hard in the chest that she bent over.

Josh and Ruth both ignored their antics, and he led their group off into a small alley next to the office. There was no need to have a conversation out in the middle of the street, and Beor guarded the mouth of the alley as a matter of course. “Is this about the rift crystals?”

Yesterday, Ruth, Darius, Abraham, and a fourth woman who might have been Abraham's wife—Josh felt like he was missing quite a lot of context between those two—had raided the malfunctioning dungeon. Apparently, it hadn't been a particularly interesting story, since he and Ruth had crafted enough grenades to level half the Jungle before the group went in. They had defeated it entirely and closed down the rift.

Ruth nodded eagerly. “See, at first I was disappointed I only got one type, but I discovered if I have them and a bloodstone, I can preview possible advancements.”

Mary had Anna in a headlock, but she looked up at that. “Wait. You actually got an advancement? You can hit a freaking Exemplary-tier class at level 40?”

Ruth grinned wide enough to split her face. “Yep!”

Anna squirmed out of Mary's grip in a way that made Josh think that she could have done that at any time. “That is impressive.” She sounded genuine, for once. “What did you get?”

“The rift only gave Vareo crystals,” Ruth said with a sigh. “One for each of us. Darius said they usually give different elements, so I was hoping that we could swap between us. Still, apparently this happens, so we could—”

Anna chuckled. “I meant what class did you get?” She drummed her fingers on her twinblades, split in two and sheathed at either hip. “Actually, what class do you have now? Something to do with runes, I believe?”

“Rune Warrior.” Her grin broadened. “My next option is a straight upgrade.” She flicked her fingers, and a screen appeared in front of Josh's eyes.

[For killing EIGHT (8) enemies using a Vareo Rune effect directly, you have gained access to the Vareo Rune Warrior class. Note: This class requires and consumes four (4) Vareo Crystals.]

[Vareo Rune Warrior (Attacker). Primary statistics: Strength, Capacity. This is an Exemplary Combat class of the Attacker role. Use Vareo Runes to produce a variety of gravity effects in combat. Focuses on personal runes, but party support is possible.]

Josh raised an eyebrow. That was a straight upgrade. He also knew from experience that this sort of class only showed up if you had the right class advancement resources in your possession. He suspected that she could have gained a Pyro version of this class, or something close to it, from all her uses of grenades.

“Are you going to take it?” he asked.

Ruth looked shocked. “Of course!” she said. “Is there any reason I shouldn't?”

He shrugged. “It's at least worth seeing if you can get anything else. Are there any other dungeons in the area that need to be cleared out? Or, God, maybe someone in this town will actually sell some spare crystals.” Anna opened her mouth, but Josh waved her down. “Yes, I remember, the previous mayor burned them all up or sold them. But there are enough people in this town that I would expect at least a few were squirreled away.”

Anna shrugged, clearly not caring. Ruth, however, just nodded slowly. “I'll talk to Baara and Darius,” she said. “They'll know for sure.” Then she blinked, as if clearing herself out of a fugue. “What are you guys doing, anyway?”

Josh sighed. “One last hunt for bloodstones down in the pit.” He did have a new idea, he just really didn't want to pin all his hopes on it.

“Ooh, can I help?”

“Uh, no?” He raised an eyebrow. “Thought you were the one who told me you were busy all day.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I just forgot how annoying paperwork and planning is.”

He grinned and flicked her forehead. “I'll bring you back a souvenir from the pit.”

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She laughed. “Sure, bring me back some magic mushrooms or something!”

The descent down into the pit seemed brighter, somehow. Josh and Mary had been around for long enough that people started to recognize them, and of course Anna and Beor had been here even longer. People waved hello when they saw them, chatted with them on the lift down. It was very different from Josh's first trip.

Once they got to the ground, Josh checked his map. Baara had helped him find an old one in the town archives. “So I think the residential part of the town was this way...” He walked towards the north-west.

The others followed. “You think that's going to be the answer? Just dig around under an old house?”

Josh shrugged. “It's better than digging around at random.”

After a few minutes of pushing through the glowing mushroom forest—they only had to kill one monster, and Mary got it in one shot—they came to the stone wall that was the edge of the pit. It was a bit rough after decades of weather, but still surprisingly smooth.

Anna looked around. “I don't see any tunnels. You get the right spot?”

“Yes.” He handed off the map to Beor, who took it without a word. Then he placed his hand on the wall. He felt the cold seeping into him as he breathed deeply, trying to ignore the aching in his missing fingers. He should have used his other hand for this. “Hands-Free Crafting.”

There was a pause, as if the System wasn't sure whether it should allow this. Then, finally, the stone in front of them began to crack.

The stone chipped away as if attacked by invisible picks, slowly chiseling out a doorway into solid stone. It expanded itself into a tunnel, barely tall enough for him and hardly deep enough to even go anywhere. The stone and dirt and dust sloughed away, moving around Josh's feet and sliding into a neat pile nearby. In moments, it was done.

It wasn't a particularly impressive tunnel. Josh felt he had to crouch, and it only went a few feet in. Definitely not far enough to go anywhere or find anything.

But it had worked. He had managed to dig a tunnel in minutes using nothing but his own crafting abilities. There was even a stone pillar left in the middle of the tunnel to help support the ceiling. That would be terrible if they wanted to move anything through by cart, but for now it was fine.

Josh took a deep breath, and smiled. He was shaking and sweating profusely, but he couldn't stop smiling. This would accelerate his plans significantly.

“Okay,” he said. “There's a pocket of air about twenty feet ahead. I should be able to get to it without too much trouble.” He took a plastic bottle out of his pocket and guzzled it down. The liquid glowed blue, and tasted like a mouthful of raw sugar.

“What was that?” Mary asked, suspicious.

He grinned. “Mana potion.”

She made a squawk of protest.

“That I bought,” he added. “With my own money.” He enjoyed the offended look on her face. But good God, had he missed having access to actual mana potions.

As expected, with the mana potions it only took about an hour to dig to the cave he had detected with his Stonesense. He thought it was an actual cave, not just a pocket formed in the rock when the Eight were fighting the dragon, but it was hard to be sure. Maybe this cave had always been here, and the fight had just closed off all the exits.

Whatever the case, there were two cars sitting in the middle of the cave, parked right next to each other. It was too neat and precise to be the result of random chance during the fight. Unless a random portion of parking lot just happened to sink down a hundred feet with two cars sitting on it.

Josh recognized both models of car, though he couldn't put a name to them. He had never been a car person. Still, these were tough family cars that were common leading up to the end of the world, and therefore still pretty common now, after the Tower. They were four-door sedans with enough assorted junk visible through the windows that it was clear someone had intended to come back for them eventually.

“Hey,” he said to Anna, even as they were all clambering over the cars. “This reminds me. What's the deal with all those cars and muck near the entrance to the village?”

Anna shrugged, then started working at a car's boot with her twinblade. “Same as ever, I suspect. People were fleeing from somewhere, or to somewhere, and then they had to ditch their cars and run the rest of the way on foot.” She popped it open with a grunt. “That happened all the time back then.”

“No, I know that.” He tapped the lock of the boot on the other car. Beor got the hint, and punched through it with his bare hand. He didn't even blink. “I was just wondering why no one's done anything with them. Bit of an untapped resource, innit?”

The boot didn't have anything interesting in it. Just the sort of random tools you might expect to find in a car. A jack, some jumper cables, that sort of thing. They might be able to find a use for them eventually, but for now he moved on. Maybe there would be something interesting inside the car.

“Anything that actually works is long gone,” Anna called. She was still rooting around in her own boot, while Mary had broken a window and was looking around inside the car. “Not sure there's anything left out there besides rusting metal and rotting rubber.” She chuckled. “Not like these beauties!”

Josh had to admit that she was right, these cars were in rather good shape. It seemed that being entombed for decades had preserved them surprisingly well. It almost seemed a shame to break a window.

He was about to do it anyway when he paused. He tried the driver's door, and it worked. It was unlocked, and opened with little more than a creak from the hinges. He laughed. “Hey, Mary! You even try the door before you decided to play a drunk banger?”

She poked her head up and scowled at him. “Shove off! It was a fair guess, yeah?” She stepped out of the car, then tried to open it from the outside. It didn't work. She turned around, grinning in triumph. “Ha! Mine was locked anyway!”

“You still didn't try,” Anna pointed out.

“Shut up, you.”