Alek cautiously made his way through the castle hallway, scanning for traps. No monsters had jumped out at him yet, hissing and foaming at the mouth.

It was then that a monster jumped out from a bend in the hall, hissing and foaming at the mouth.

Its head was green and pitted, its body short and thin. A grotesque nose jutted out the front of its face, marred with bulbous pimples, and a glowing necklace hung from its neck. A message appeared before him.

[Enemy identified: Goblin]

The goblin let loose a horrible shriek that grated on his ears. Alek took a step backwards, and the goblin lunged at him, leading the way with its gleaming claws and gnarled fingers.

Alek’s mind screamed at him to move. He jumped out of the way, but its claws still connected, slicing through his arm like a knife through butter.

The shock made him stumble, and the goblin took the opportunity to rake its claws down his leg.

He went down, landing on his shoulder. It should have hurt, but the adrenaline racing through his body kept him from feeling anything.

It went for his throat, and Alek threw himself back, its claw passing through where his neck had been a moment earlier.

It all felt surreal. Like he was watching it happen, rather than experiencing it. Was this how he was going to die? Killed by a goblin on the first floor? Blood streamed out from his wounds in rivulets, and all he could do was stare.

Something inside him snapped. He didn’t wait a year to die like this. That wasn’t how he was going out. He staggered to his feet, black and red closing in at the edges of his vision.

The goblin snarled and leaped at him. His instincts screamed at him to run, to get away from the creature with the sharp claws.

Instead, he stepped forward, leading with his fist. The goblin was the size of a child. Alek was not. His blow knocked the goblin’s claws aside and kept going, smashing into its face.

It was flung away, hitting the opposite wall and slamming the back of its head against the stone. It sat there, dazed, and for a moment the two of them stared at each other.

The goblin reached its hands up and cradled its broken nose, which was now bent to the right.

It seemed to have forgotten about him. Alek didn’t remember moving, but then it was dead, its skull caved in. White mist gathered above its body, spinning like a miniature tornado, and then it shot toward him, into him. In a moment, his dry throat was soothed, and he felt sated, as though he’d just eaten a filling meal.

[You have slain Goblin. Gained 5 Essence.]

[Essence can be used to upgrade attributes and for trade with other Climbers. View attributes and spend Essence by calling up your status.]

Alek fell to the ground, gasping for air. He ignored the new messages and crawled over to prod the goblin.

Once he was satisfied that it wouldn’t be tormenting him any longer, he looked down at himself. Blood flowed freely from his arm and leg, and the flesh covering his knuckles was torn to shreds. But pain was still a foreign concept to him, and his wounds seemed shallow.

Infection would be far deadlier of an enemy, especially considering the filth coating the goblin’s claws. But he had no antiseptic with him. He had nothing. He looked down at his wounds, the trickle of blood that snaked down his arm and leg forming a pool on the cobblestone floor.

His hands trembled, slick with blood. He knew he could die, understood it was likely, but somehow it didn’t truly hit him until that moment.

He remembered his father, how he returned from the Tower and looked alive for the first time since Alek’s mother had died. How he’d allowed himself to be taken to protect Alek. He relived the memory to reaffirm his resolve.

Afterwards, Alek had contacted the police, had filed a missing person report, had gone to his neighbors to see if they had cameras. None of it worked. He spent hours scouring every corner of the internet for information, and for a while he couldn’t find anything.

Then, one day, on a conspiracy theory forum, he finally found someone that claimed to have returned from the tower. Everything they wrote was in line with what his father had told him.

But something had bothered him. There was no evidence of other superpowered humans on Earth. Not in the news, not on the internet–it was like they didn’t exist. No superpowered humans were roaming the streets and wreaking havoc, as he had no doubt there should have been.

His answer came in the form of a warning. As the Yaksha had confirmed, there had always been magic on Earth. Alek didn’t understand it at the time, but it was mages who abducted his father. They didn’t want to lose their monopoly on power, and so they nipped the potential powers in the bud.

Alek wouldn’t stand for it.

He tore his shirt into strips of cloth, wrapping them tightly around his wounds. It was the best he could do, and he could only hope that he wouldn’t be infected.

That dealt with, he looked over the messages he’d received upon killing the goblin. He’d gained 5 Essence. Essence that could be used to increase his power.

He wasn’t sure how one would call up their status, but upon thinking about it, another screen popped up.

[Climber: Aleksander Campbell

Primary Race: Human

Bloodline: LOCKED

Strength: 0

Agility: 0

Endurance: 0

Vitality: 0

Luck: 0

Spirit: 0

Magic: 0

Essence: 5]

His attributes were something one would see in a video game. His father had mentioned that everything was gamified, but Alek was still surprised when he saw it in front of him.

The effects of some of the attributes were obvious, like Strength and Agility. Others were not, like Spirit or Magic.

Alek visualized using the Essence to increase an attribute.

[Do you wish to allocate 5 Essence to Strength? Current conversion rate: 5 Essence per attribute point.]

Alek declined, repeating his command with each attribute. Sure enough, they all required 5 Essence to increase by a single point.

He decided to use the Essence to increase his Agility. He didn’t need more Strength to defeat any goblins, and he’d rather avoid getting hit, so Endurance and Vitality were out. The benefits of Luck, Magic and Spirit were all unclear, so they were out as well.

[Do you wish to allocate 5 Essence to Agility? Current conversion rate: 5 Essence per attribute point.]

As soon as he confirmed his decision, he dropped to the ground, every muscle in his body cramping up simultaneously. He laid on the floor, gritting his teeth in silent agony, unable to move.

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Several long seconds later, the pain subsided. He breathed heavily, body slick with sweat, and looked down at himself. He didn’t feel any different, and if that was how it would feel every time he increased his Agility, maybe he should give more thought to other attributes.

Something flashed, and Alek at the goblin. It was disintegrating, its green flesh turning to black dust, floating up into the air and vanishing.

Unwilling to let a potential resource disappear before him, Alek grabbed the necklace the goblin had worn and pulled it free.

[Spirit Stone [quality: poor] (enchantment: light)]

The Spirit Stone was a pale-blue stone that glowed softly. Marks were carved into its surface. He slipped it into his pocket and stood. Pain shot up his leg and down his arm, but he would have to manage.

The rest of the hallway was empty and silent, though Alek almost wished it wasn’t. He walked, his body tensed like a coiled spring, waiting for another pea-colored demon to leap out at him.

A door stood at the end of the hallway. Alek pushed, and it swung open without a sound.

The ceiling was high above him, and it glittered with glowing rocks not unlike his Spirit Stone. They submerged the room in a dull-orange glow that reminded him of sunset.

Stone slabs rose off the slate-gray ground as tables would. Wooden shelves littered the place without pattern, filled with leather-bound books, vials and a variety of objects that Alek had never seen before.

He drew closer to one of the tables. Manacles hung down from each of its four corners, and the stone itself was stained a faint red. Blood.

A clatter came from up ahead. Alek ducked behind a shelf and peeked his head out.

Three goblins stood at the other end of the room. Two of them looked to be sniffing something on the ground, while the third milled around aimlessly.

There was a door on the opposite wall, close to the goblins. If he could cause a distraction, maybe he could slip through without having to fight them. Three on one were odds he’d rather not take.

Alek shifted, putting weight on his injured leg. A flare of pain caused him to stumble, bumping into the shelf, and a winding glass apparatus fell free. It hit the ground and shattered. The goblins turned toward the source of the sound.

It didn’t take long for them to see him. They screeched. Alek cursed himself. He’d have to fight.

They ran at him. The one in the lead jumped at him, and instead of backing away, Alek stepped forward. He brought his fist down on it with all his strength, heard a crack, and it flew away, tumbling across the stone floor and going still.

The other two reached him at the same time, and Alek slipped out of the path of a vicious swing, the ease of the movement surprising him.

The goblin stumbled, having expected its swing to hit, but Alek wasn’t able to take advantage of the opportunity. The third goblin was right behind it, and he didn’t want to leave himself exposed. So he limped away, casting a glance behind him. Sure enough, the goblins chased after him.

Nearing a shelf, Alek grabbed a glass vial and hurled it. The vial went wide, landing some five feet away from both of the goblins and shattering.

They both turned to look, and that was when he made his move. He kicked out with his uninjured leg, catching one of them in the jaw. Its teeth clicked together and its head snapped upward. It fell back, holding its hands to its face and mewling.

Alek narrowly dodged a wild swing from the uninjured goblin before countering with a swing of his own. Then he finished them off.

[You have slain Goblin. Gained 5 Essence.]

[You have slain Goblin. Gained 5 Essence.]

[You have slain Goblin. Gained 5 Essence.]

That had been easy. Almost too easy. He searched the corpses. One of them had pocketed a few silver trinkets it seemed to have looted from the room. Bile rose in his throat. His first fight had been close. Visceral. This one had not been. He turned away, relieved when the goblins turned to an ethereal black ash. They weren’t real, and empathy would get him nowhere.

Unsurprisingly, Alek couldn’t understand any of the books that lined the shelves. They were written in a language he didn’t know, one with loopy, flowing characters. He wondered if anyone could read them, or if it was nonsensical by design. Whatever the case, they weren’t useful.

Next, Alek called up his status. He’d gained 15 Essence. He increased his Agility by a single point, weathering the ensuing muscle cramps with gritted teeth. Then he decided to increase his Strength and Vitality each by a point, and it felt like he was being beaten by a sledgehammer. After the deed was done, he sat there, panting, sitting in a pool of his sweat.

…

Alek spent the next few hours roaming the halls of the Souldrop Prison, killing any goblins he happened to come across. They no longer posed a threat to him, but they gave him Essence, and he split the Essence between Strength and Agility. At some point, he came across a massive, ornate door at the end of a hallway, but he chose to ignore it. It stuck out like a sore thumb, and if Alek’s intuition was correct, the floor’s boss was inside.

When Alek reached 5 attribute points in Agility, he received a message.

[Congratulations! Agility has reached 5 attribute points. Gained Skill: Godspeed. Significantly increase agility for ten seconds. Usable once every thirty minutes.]

The first thing that Alek did was use the ability. It was easy, like flexing a muscle. Nothing happened, not visibly, so he pushed his feet into the ground and ran.

In an instant, he was at the other end of the hallway. He turned, looking down at his feet in awe. He had to be the fastest human–normal human–on the planet.

Then the ten seconds elapsed, and his Skill deactivated. He slouched, energy leaving him in waves, like the worst caffeine crash he’d ever had.

…

Finally, Alek was ready. He’d hunted as many goblins as he could, even managed to hit 5 points in Strength. He’d gained a Skill called Empowered Strike, and it did exactly what the name suggested. It empowered his next attack.

He stood in front of the huge door, and before he could doubt himself, he pushed it open. The pungent stench of fecal matter and rotting meat washed over him, and he cringed.

The room was filled with cages. Goblins, he realized, occupied most of them.

But many were badly damaged. Some had their doors ripped off, and others were bent and crushed beyond repair. Bits of goblins were scattered everywhere.

Blood had even been splattered against the ceiling, and Spirit Stones flickered.

In the center of the room, a pile of goblin corpses rose into the air. And sitting on top of it all, a giant goblin gnawed on a bone with sharp yellow teeth.

[Floor Boss identified: Hobgoblin]

The hobgoblin had many of the same characteristics as a normal goblin, though it was far larger. It was hard to tell by how much, but he guessed it was roughly his size.

He stepped inside and the door vanished. When he turned around, there was nothing there but a stone wall.

Alek’s heart sank.

The hobgoblin noticed him immediately. It leaped down from the towering pile of corpses, landing in a crouch. It took the bone out of its mouth and roared.

Not for the first time, Alek wished he had a weapon.

The cannibalistic hobgoblin ran at him. And it was fast.

It ate up the distance between them in seconds, swinging the bone in a vicious arc. Alek used Godspeed and twisted away, dodging with every bit of Agility he had. He was struck anyway.

He felt some of his ribs break, and then he was sent tumbling away.

He scrambled to his feet, gasping for air. Each breath he took was torture, sending red-hot pain coursing through his body.

The hobgoblin raced toward him, and Alek ducked behind one of the cages. It attempted to follow and, blinded by bloodlust, crashed bodily into it, causing the two smaller goblins inside to shriek in indignation.

And for a moment, the hobgoblin was distracted. Growling, it reached its hand between the metal bars and grabbed one of them by the head. There was an audible crunch, and then the goblin went silent.

Alek made some distance, using the last few seconds of Godspeed as best he could, and furtively scanned the room for any sort of exit. He saw none.

The hobgoblin refocused its attention on Alek, the goblins dead. At that moment, an idea came to mind.

As Godspeed deactivated, Alek grabbed a twisted metal bar that lay free from a crumpled cage. In an action he might come to regret, he ran over to a cell packed with goblins. Even as the hobgoblin came after him, he used Empowered Strike and swung down, shattering the chain that kept the cell door shut.

Goblins poured out into the room, but by then Alek had already moved. They shrieked and screamed and, seeing the large, noisy hobgoblin, they charged it.

Not that they had any real chance at defeating the hobgoblin. But if there was anything Alek had learned about goblins, big or small, it was that they were single-minded. Hyper-focused on what was in front of them.

It fought them like a god of war, each swing killing or incapacitating. But its victory wasn’t without injury. Blood flowed freely from its scratches and gashes.

As it went to dispatch the last goblin, moaning and writhing around on the floor, Alek struck.

He’d snuck behind them during the distraction, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen, wouldn’t be noticed, and swung the metal bar downward. It whistled.

Then it made impact, and the hobgoblin stumbled, dazed. Alek kept hitting until the Essence streamed out of it, and only then did he stop. Alek panted, drinking in air, and his chest felt like it was tearing itself apart.

[You have slain Hobgoblin. Gained 15 Essence.]

[Floor One cleared! Choose a Skill to upgrade or two Skills to merge. WARNING: creating a Skill through a merge will erase both component skills.]

His two skills appeared in front of him. Godspeed, he thought, and then the world went dark.