Seth and I used to ride dirt bikes together around Dad’s ranch. It’s the kind of fun I couldn’t really share with most of my school friends. Mason was the only one really into physical activities and dirt bikes just weren’t his thing. A few years ago, I’d crashed pretty hard. I landed wrong after coming out a divot and ended up flying from the open pasture we’d been riding through into the forest and brush, I broke several small tree branches and got tangled up in some thorny vines. If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, I’d have probably cracked my skull.

The weird thing was that the pain didn’t actually hit me while I was doing the crashing. There was too much adrenaline. Too much confusion. It had just been a jumble of information, too much to process until after I’d come to a stop. Then it had hit.

The moments that followed that fight felt a lot like that. Fatigue, relief, the world slowing down and dawning clarity, all in that order, followed by my injuries making themselves known. It hurt. It hurt a lot.

My shirt had multiple holes in it. So did my body. I still had my hat though, for whatever that was worth.

That giant centipede had gotten me good. If those mandibles had sunk home, I’d have been a dead man, no two ways about it. Instead, I got to experience what it was like to be a human pincushion. Except that might have been better, because the holes in me weren’t the size of little needles. No, they were wide and only luck had kept them from being deep enough to get my organs. Or at least, I hoped that was the case.

I was covered in blood and a little dizzy, but if I’d had an organ punctured, wouldn’t I know it? Wouldn’t there be some sort of bodily warning sign or massive blackout? There was no way to tell. No way to do anything about it either and the Corridor wasn’t finished. We still had to push forward.

“First aid kit,” I groaned, walking over to the wall and leaning against it. I took a moment to really look myself over. Mostly scrapes, but a few deeper wounds. They couldn’t have been too deep though. Not more than an inch or two in some places. That seemed plenty deep though. You ever see a rotten plumb? My torso, when I took my shirt off to look myself over, looked a lot like it had a bunch of those all over it, but inverted, you know. Like rotten-plumb holes. Also, red. Not that the red was all that visible in the dark, at least not until Damien swept the Maglite over me and dropped his backpack at my feet.

“Wimp,” he said, smirking at me. If he wanted to, right then and there, he could have killed me. That army stiletto he’d drawn was still in his hand, still dripping with blood, and I was hurting and tired. I was barely holding onto my own knives, my fingers caught in a weird sort of aching numbness.

I glared at him. “Got any duct tape in there?”

The smirk fell away. “No.”

“Figures.” His first aid kit was less than perfect for these types of cuts or punctures. The bandages just weren’t strong enough.

Emilio came over and helped me splash peroxide over everything, using his phone’s flashlight to help him see what he was doing. Let me tell you, that stung like a son of a bitch. At least it got all the extra blood off of me. It also covered me in a layer of bubbly foam. Guess giant centipede claws aren’t especially hygienic. Go figure.

Bandaging my back, sides, and chest was awkward. It required a lot of twisting around and those bandages in the first aid kit weren’t really strong enough. What we ended up doing was using what bandages we could, shoving gauze and cotton over the worse cuts, then using the bandage wrap to bind it all down. I looked like a khaki mummy by the time we were done and felt like if I moved too much it would all come loose. Probably because it would. Bright side, it stopped the bleeding. That was the most important thing until I could get to a hospital and have them stitch me up.

“You going to be okay, man?” Emilio asked as I slipped my shirt back on. It was sticky with blood and full of holes. It was also the only thing I had to wear unless I wanted to run around bare chested.

“I’m fine,” I said, grimacing. “Embrace the suck, right?”

That was one of Dad’s favorite sayings. It was a marine thing. He’d said it often enough when he’d been teaching me to hunt that it kind of got driven home. ‘Embracing the suck’ was what made me such a dedicated bow hunter. It also made me a better cook. Professional kitchens are hot, hectic, and high stress. Embracing the suck got me through it. It made me tough. This was just another hot kitchen I needed to work in. Another dark, wet night hunting feral hogs.

A little sticky blood and some pain wasn’t going to stop me.

Slow me down a lot, but not stop me. My legs worked fine at least. I just had to watch how I twisted myself. The pain was a constant and it shot to new heights if I moved too fast. Like I had to an instant later to avoid a fresh line of fishing goo from the fungi overhead. I did not want to have to cut myself free and fall back down all over again. I especially didn’t want to find out if there were any other giant centipedes hiding up above us.

It was a reminder though that we weren’t out of danger. Far from it. We hadn’t killed all of the goblins that had been trailing us for example. Who knew what else was still lurking in this place?

We joined Damien, who was waiting in the open passageway that the mouth-monster had been blocking, disguised as a door. I found myself reluctantly impressed. His position let him keep an eye on the door we’d come through and look to make sure nothing was coming back. Damien had actually thought to play lookout all by himself. Maybe he had half a brain after all.

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I handed him his backpack back and he slid it on.

I readied both my pocket knives, keenly feeling their lack of size. They were small, tiny things, without a lot of stopping power. Worse, not only would I have to get in super close to use them, I’d have to be quick. Anything that required me moving quickly was not my friend right now.

I wasn’t about to ask Emilio to use his stolen zombie-killer. If my stats were to be trusted, I was still better with my knives than anything else. Also, that bat put more distance between the monsters and my best friend. He’d been putting in some solid work with it too. So, no, asking for the bat from Emilio was out.

Maybe Damien had another larger blade I could use? I opened my mouth to ask him, but what came out instead was, “Is my brother in here somewhere?”

Damien just looked at me for a moment before answering, a way too-satisfied smile creeping over his face. “You think anyone can just disappear these days? There’re cameras everywhere. Digital fingerprints. Nobody just vanishes without a trace, Griffin. Not unless they’ve got somewhere there’s no technology, no internet, and no way out.”

No way out. Right. We had to clear the Corridor or else we’d be trapped here forever. Like my brother?

“Is that what happened to Seth?” I asked. “He came in here and got lost, or couldn’t clear the dungeon?”

Damien tapped a finger to the side of his head. “Now you’re using your brain. For someone who always thinks he’s so smart, you sure are slow.”

“There were better ways to get me to help you save him,” I said.

Damien snorted. “Sure, whatever. Try not to slow me down.”

He stepped through the opening left by the false-door monster and into the stone passageway beyond.

“Asshole,” Emilio said.

Damien whirled around. “What did you say, pintsize?”

“I called you the sphincter that drops our bodily waste,” Emilio said. “Ass. Hole. Plain enough for you?”

Damien sneered. “Big talker with that bat.”

Emilio didn’t back down. He jerked his chin up and didn’t break eye contact. “Says the guy who needs a pair of high schoolers to help him beat this place.”

Damien glared at him, then he laughed, and turned away, doing that obnoxious flapping thing with his coat so that it made a snapping sound. “You are likely to be eaten by a gru.”

Nobody said anything after that for a while. We just walked on in silence. Oddly, it wasn’t as hard as I expected. Oh, I still hurt like hell. There was just something different. Moving was easier. More certain, despite the injuries. It was so subtle that if I hadn’t been so hurt, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

“Check your phone,” Emilio whispered, once Damien was up far enough ahead that he could risk not being overheard.

“Why?” I asked.

“There were notifications on mine,” he whispered. “I got a look while I was helping you. I think I got an Attainment.”

“You keeping an eye out?” I asked as I pulled out my phone. I wasn’t about to repeat my earlier mistake.

“Yeah, I got us covered,” he said.

I unlocked my phone then hurried to adjust the screen’s lighting so it wouldn’t give us away if Damien glanced back or completely ruin my night vision. Emilio was right, I had notifications on my phone.

The Corridors of Chaos app had the familiar notification icon.

I clicked on it and received a message: Congratulations! You have obtained the Attainment: Ranger. You receive Ranger Bonuses and may select an Ability.

I selected my character sheet to see if that might give me some kind of clue.

Griffin Spader

Class: None

Background 1: Huntsman

Background 2: Chef

Primary Attributes

* Prowess +2 (1, +1 Chef)

* Mobility +3 (2, +1 Ranger)

* Combat +4 (2, +1 Huntsman, +1 Ranger)

Secondary Attributes

* Strength +0

* Fortitude +2 (1, +1 Chef)

* Speed +3 (1, +1 Huntsman, +1 Ranger)

* Reflexes +3 (1, +1 Chef, +1 Ranger)

* Melee +2 (1, +1 Ranger)

* Ranged +3 (1, +1 Huntsman, +1 Ranger)

Tertiary Attributes

* Knives +3 (+1 Chef, +1 Huntsman, +1 Ranger)

* Archery +2 (+ 1 Huntsman, +1 Ranger)

Attainments

* Ranger

Abilities

* Hunter’s Mercy

Pretty much every single skill that had received a plus one bonus from my Huntsman background had also received an additional plus one from Ranger, plus a few new ones. I even had a +1 to Swords! Ranger sounded like a character class. So why was it being called an Attainment? Ranger was typically a class in an RPG so wouldn’t that be my Class?

I tapped on my Class just to see what would happen. I ended up opening a new page with a list of available classes. Ranger was the only one on it and it was greyed out. I tapped on it and received an error message. Classes can only be assigned outside of the Corridor.

Good to know. What would have happened if I’d successfully been able to assign myself the Ranger Class? Would all those bonuses I received from the Attainment double?

Those bonuses were nothing to sneeze at. Just having Knives +2 earlier had made me able to fight all those Goblins. Now, if my character sheet was to be believed, I was an even better combatant now than before. I even felt like I was moving a little better.

I had Abilities to choose!

A quick tap brought them up for perusal.

* Two Weapon Fighting: receive a 1.5x bonus to Melee when wielding two weapons.

* Sharpshooter: receive a 1.5x bonus to Ranged after a careful aim.

* Rapid-fire Archery: draw and aim 50% faster.

Holy crap!

These all sounded awesome. Getting an Attainment was clearly a very big deal. How did all of this actually work though? The key to building a character in any role playing game was understanding the system. Maybe there was a guide somewhere in the app?

I went back to the main menu and selected History. I froze, so suddenly that I nearly fell over. Emilio hurried to a stop.

“What is it?”

Damien spun around, then rushed back to us, Maglite and stiletto at the ready. “What is it? Something coming up behind us?”

I hurriedly stowed my phone away. “No, nothing behind us.”

“What then?” he demanded.

I shrugged.

We were all quiet for a tense moment, then he blew out a breath. “Irritating little angry midget,” he muttered, pushing on ahead once more.

“What was it?” Emilio leaned over to whisper.

“The History option in that app,” I whispered back. “It’s like a videogame log. Something is tracking everything that we do in here.”