Roman crossed his arms and glanced over at Mixie. “Guessing we can’t squeeze the truck down there?”

“We could probably manage to get it down there. It would not come back up in one piece, however.” Mixie grunted laughter into his hand, as if he had just unleashed the height of comedy.

“Lovely,” said Roman. “Any volunteers to head down there first? Scott? Leo, maybe?”

Abigail cleared her throat. “Probably best for me to send a scouting golem. I can see through its eyes, more or less. Zero risk to any of us. Could be it just leads to an underground network of tunnels teeming with monsters. It might be better to flush them out from above ground.”

Roman began to pace around the area, noting the distribution of monster corpses. “Doubt it’s some random maze. Specific types of monsters came up from specific buildings. I bet the real dungeon is whatever’s down there, and this compound was just built on top of it for surface access.”

“The quest is called ‘Free the Food,’” said Alexander. “But the objective is to help captives. Makes me think something real sinister is going down there. We probably can’t just firebomb the tunnels without risking the objective.”

Roman eyed Alexander with some surprise. While it wasn’t the most brilliant deduction, the pudgy warrior had proven himself several rungs higher than Roman’s original estimation. He wondered what type of life the man had lived before the apocalypse--some random office job, maybe an accountant, putting in his thirty years of hard work and staring forlornly down the barrel of another grueling decade before his retirement benefits kicked in?

He thought of Birch, his first human companion, and his ignoble death after being turned into a frozen statue. Bella, her lanky hair framing her deathly-still face as she lay on the forest floor. Chances were, all of the present humans--himself included--would be dead within the next few days. Better to avoid getting too friendly.

A quick glance at the rest of the group showed most of them lingering about, distant looks in their eyes. No doubt distributing their attribute and node points from their level-ups. While the other Party plotted their next steps, Mixie took the opportunity to pick his way through the battlefield, shoving anything that looked valuable into his extra-large spatial satchel. Weapons, claws, even random limbs disappeared into the insatiable maw of the ghoul’s inventory.

A greedy voice in the back of Roman’s voice cheered Mixie on. According to John, once they defeated the dungeon boss, the instance would close down after an hour-long countdown. Better to loot as much as possible instead of waiting until the last moment. He considered joining in, but decided it was better to address his own slew of notifications before they moved on to the next stage of the dungeon.

Countless lines of text scrolled across his vision. He skimmed through the important parts, grateful for the boost to his reading speed from his accumulated Will and Perception.

[ Goblin Guard defeated. 100 experience rewarded. ]

…

[ Goblin Spider Experiment defeated. 400 experience rewarded. ]

…

[ Two-headed Ogre defeated. 600 experience rewarded. ]

…

[ Two-headed Ogre Leader defeated. 1500 experience rewarded. ]

His attention flitted across row after row, only filtering them to gain a sense of how much the various abominations were worth.

Even with the reduced experience penalty from sharing with Mixie, the clash earned him over 20,000 total experience. The majority came from the Mercenary Contract, though he had personally obliterated more of the horde than he expected. It was enough to bring him up to level 8, and 15268/25600 of the way to the next one.

Level 10 wasn’t far from reach. It was likely he would reach that major milestone by the end of the dungeon--if not, the reward for a successful completion should tip him over the edge. An evolved class and a higher-level skill selection would go a long way toward assuring his survival.

After the deluge of experience rewards came several new Watchers flinging useless offers his way. At least they were contributing to his Title that made the minimum Patronage offering increasingly ludicrous. He ignored them, moving on to the Titles. Even though they hadn’t even cleared the dungeon yet, he’d received two of them for his performance.

[ Title granted: Dungeon Crusader. +5 free attribute points. +1 Node Point. Access to minimap inside of dungeons unlocked. ]

[ Title granted: Vanguard Fanatic. +4 Endurance, +4 Strength. +2 Node Points. ]

The worst part of the generous heaping of rewards was that the other Party likely received the same. The required amount of experience to level up doubling each time meant that the other Players would soon be nipping at his heels, even if he and MIxie were leeching away a respectable portion for themselves. While he tried to tell himself all of them growing stronger was in his best interest, he couldn’t help but remember the snarl on Scott’s face, and the sight of the bastard’s 1911 handgun swiveling his way.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Roman glanced at the gunslinger from the corner of his eye.

Though the fight had long since ended, Roman maintained [ Impose Will ] in a tight field around him. [ Hunter’s Eye ] picked out the dark aura of Scott’s enchanted handgun, tucked away in a shoulder holster. Leo stood on Roman’s other side, lingering slightly behind him. It felt uncomfortably like he was being pincered between the two.

After a moment of thought, Roman dumped his 6 free attribute points into Perception. It was lagging behind every other stat besides Charisma. Endurance may have boosted his survivability, but an augmented bullet through his skull would probably still do the trick regardless of whether the attribute was 55 or 61. Greater awareness of his surroundings would come in handy in a subterranean location, especially in case of ambushes.

He sniffed and rubbed his nose in annoyance. The scent of blood and offal overwhelmed his senses for a moment until he adjusted. He glanced back at Scott and noticed a small blur around the man’s forehead, like a mirage from a heat-wave. Roman’s eyes narrowed.

A sudden clap from Abigail drew his attention. “Alright, we’ve decided we’re going to go investigate the spider-goblin entrance, since our Mercenary friend was kind enough to open up the floor plan and give us some breathing room.” A considerate way of describing Mixie leveling a huge portion of the building with his technique. “Finish up consolidating your rewards. We’ll get into a defensive formation, then I’ll send a golem down below to scout.”

Curiously, a small blur also shimmered around Abigail’s forehead, though her wooden mask seemed to repel it like a barrier. None of the other members of the Party besides her and Scott possessed the marker. It vanished when he turned [ Hunter’s Eye ] off, then reappeared upon reactivation. Definitely some sort of ability. It could have been any number of things, like a personal telepathic bond, but he hadn’t seen any indication the two of them were particularly close.

While it may have been pure paranoia, Roman warned himself to watch Abigail as well. If she was conspiring with Scott against him, his opposition was more numerous than he suspected. He clenched his fists but otherwise remained silent.

Mixie finished looting the battlefield after a scant few minutes. Afterwards, he parked the armored vehicle close to the ruined building and remained in the driver’s seat. Roman considered joining him and sharing his concerns, but he wanted a better vantage point.

“I’m going to look out from above. Make sure nothing sneaks up on us,” Roman told the other Party.

Before anyone could respond, [ Flash Step ] teleported him over to the rooftop of the building that had disgorged the Two-headed Ogres. He noted that Scott, Noah, and Alexander glanced around in surprise until they located him, while the others ignored him altogether.

The other Party gathered around the stairwell leading belowground--Alexander and Leo standing in front of the others, Noah and Jessie at the back, with everyone else forming a protective circle around Abigail.

She knelt on the ground beside her steel golem and rested her hand upon its head. A stream of white energy flowed from her hand into the construct, presumably feeding it instructions. After a few seconds, the golem swiveled in place and launched itself down the stairwell.

Abigail settled down in the lotus position, surrounded by her loyal crew.

John materialized next to Roman, arms crossed, legs planted wide in a mimicry of the much-larger man’s stance.

“Any clue what’s going on down there?” said Roman.

“Limited in how far I can explore on my own.” John rubbed his nose as if he repeated his inadequacy for the umpteenth time. “Dungeons, like much of the Chaos Playground, love to neuter what guides can do to help.”

Very conveniently inconvenient. Maybe it was Roman’s burgeoning paranoia, but he was growing increasingly distrustful of the idea of a system guide assigned to every Player. While he had come across others who seemed to possess one, some either lacked one or refused to publicly acknowledge them for whatever reason. Perhaps these so-called ‘guides’ were merely vengeful souls haunting those that had been close to them in life. He idly wondered if there was some Exorcist Class he could hire. No doubt there was, somewhere out there in the reformed world, and the bastards must have been thriving.

Silence reigned over the battlefield. No signs of monsters or any other life converging on their location. The isolated pocket realms that housed the dungeons were a parody of real life. Unlikely that the stingy system would cough up the required organic material to construct a secondary source of enemies. Still, the nape of Roman’s neck itched something fierce.

After Roman grew tired of rehashing old information with John and pointlessly surveilling the corpse-strewn battlefield, [ Flash Step ] carried him back down among the others. Somewhat childishly, he chose to appear right behind Leo, literally breathing down the man’s neck to make him just as uncomfortable as Roman felt. Leo sneered over his shoulder but remained silent.

Abigail's fingers twitched after a few more minutes of awkward silence. Her respirations sped up--gradually at first, then turning into a full-on hyperventilating panic attack that wracked her body with shudders. Her eyelids fluttered. A low groan escaped her lips. Finally, her eyes opened, and they were moist with barely-restrained tears, as if she had just glimpsed upon a hell far worse than they had already suffered.

"What's wrong?" Noah growled. The slick-haired lawyer sounded more annoyed than concerned, as if he just witnessed some obnoxious bit of evidence that proved his client's guilt.

Abigail touched her lips with a trembling hand. "There are...things down there. A city of things. An underground society, like...horrible insects crawling over the corpse of the world."

"Tone down the theatrics," said Scott, his tone nearly identical to Noah's. "Go on."

It took all Roman's willpower not to slap the bastard silly.

Abigail barely seemed to register the snide comment. She stared at her trembling hands as if unsure what they were. Fleshy protuberances, made surreal by her horror. "The monsters we fought above guard are herded into separate encampments for whatever reason. They're...they're not what the quest is about though. They aren't the food. I found out before they caught and destroyed my golem."

Sensing what was coming, Roman barely managed to hold back a wild laugh. Nothing about it was funny, but all he could do was view this macabre reality as a cruel joke.

"It's children," Abigail said, looking up at the rest of them with uncertain eyes. "They have farms of human children."