The prize booth was exactly what it sounded like.

There was a long, glass-fronted cabinet filled with smaller, less valuable trinkets, while the bigger high-ticket items hung on the wall, grouped by price. Perched on top of the counter were small, computerized kiosks with colorful touchscreens and ticket eaters.

Just Scan Your Hand to Begin! the pixelated screen flashed.

My Spelunker’s Sixth Sense didn’t send up any sort of warning, but still I hesitated. Just because the computer wasn’t overtly a trap didn’t mean it couldn’t bone me in the long run. Sure, it probably wouldn’t explode or eat my hand when I touched it, but it could activate some asinine and improbable Rube Goldberg machine that would leave me running away from a sentient Indian Jones boulder that wanted to grind me into meat paste.

I glanced at Croc, who simply bobbed its head. Nothing to worry about here, Dan, that gesture said.

Reluctantly, I pressed my palm against the scanner and felt the familiar warm buzz I’d come to associate with activating a Progenitor Monolith.

The screen flickered and a message appeared.

Welcome, Dan Woodridge, Specimen Biotag ID #03A-01-B00R7T569C, to the Loot Arcade Prize Gallery Redemption Kiosk. The Prize Gallery tab has been successfully added to your Progenitor Monolith Interface Menu. Loot Arcade Location: Funtime Frank’s Jungle Gym Jamboree has been added to your Prize Gallery tab. Insert your tickets now to redeem amazing prizes!

There was a rectangular slot on the side of the machine that I could feed the tickets into, but since it seemed the tickets would be permanently linked to my Specimen Bio-Report, we decided to split them first.

I’d paid for most of the games from my own pocket, but I wouldn’t have been able to clear half as many games without Jakob, Temperance, and Croc to lend a hand—or a tentacle, in the mimic’s case. In theory, the tickets were mine by right, but hoarding them wouldn’t win me any friends. Plus, I needed the others to be at the top of their game when we went toe-to-toe against Funtime Frank.

Jakob politely declined when I offered him a share—which didn’t entirely surprise me—and Croc wouldn’t be able to use the Relics anyway. Dwellers evolved their own Relics as they advanced and crossed specific evolutionary thresholds.

Temperance, on the other hand, was more than happy to accept. I graciously gave her a third of the haul—3,091 tickets, in total. That left me 6,182 tickets to spend, which I promptly fed into the kiosk. They disappeared with a mechanized whirl, like a fat kid inhaling a fruit rollup, and a new ticket balance immediately appeared on the screen.

The prize system worked a bit like a giant vending machine.

Each item had a price tag along with a redemption code, prominently displayed on a little placard. All I had to do was punch the code into the computer and, assuming I had the tickets to pay, the item would instantly appear inside my storage space. Just like magic. I did idly wonder what would happen if I vaulted over the glass-fronted counter and started pulling Relics off the wall display, but Jakob strongly disabused me of the notion.

Turned out, that was how Delvers earned a one-way ticket to Floor: You Cheated! And that was a floor no one ever came back from. Not ever.

So, because I had no desire to die a horrific death stretched over the course of slow and painful years, I played by the rules.

Smaller Artifacts and Insert Sigils, ranging from fifty to three thousand tickets, were held within the glass display case. On the lower end were Common Artifacts with empty Effect Slots, but the prize booth also had Uncommon and even Rare Artifacts with some genuinely badass abilities. A pair of Augmented Reality Glasses created a real-time HUD overlay that would allow the user to see traps and identify mimics, in a close approximation of my Spelunker’s Sixth Sense.

There was a pricey vial of Bioluminescent Tattoo Ink, which had unique properties. I got the sense that the ink itself didn’t actually do anything, but rather was a component in some larger ritual. A pair of red-and-white high-top sneakers, Get-Air Gordans, allowed the wearer to literally walk on air for up to thirty seconds per day. There was even a pair of Silver EarPods, which instantly translated any foreign language in earshot. That item was extremely tempting. But at three thousand tickets, I had to reluctantly pass.

An elegant brass key, appropriately called a Quantum Skeleton Key, had my name written all over it, even though it didn’t have any immediate combat or survival utility. The key could be inserted into a wide array of locks and would quantum shift between realities until it found one where the object in question was already unlocked, then duplicate that status.

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In essence, it was the ultimate lockpick.

Apparently, it wouldn’t work on things like Arcane Seals or Quantum Locks, but it would still work for ninety-nine percent of the other locks I’d run across so far.

I dropped 750 tickets on the key and didn’t even bat an eye.

Next up was a strange pry bar about the length of my forearm with an angled hook on one end and what appeared to be an engravers awl on the other. The Apprentice Trapsmith’s Pry Bar. There were a wide range of different tools that would-be Trapsmiths used to disarm, move, or repurpose traps, and this was one of ’em. Even though I didn’t know how it worked, the potential was too good to pass up, and all for the low, low price of 150 tickets. Practically a steal.

There was also a Common-grade weapon sigil for a measly two hundred and fifty tickets that caught my eye. Simply called Boomerang Bound, it could be attached to any melee weapon. When thrown, the weapon would automatically boomerang, returning to the thrower’s hand after successfully hitting a target. Having a physical, ranged attack seemed like a great option on the off chance that I ran out of Mana in the middle of a fight and didn’t want to wade elbow-deep into the battle.

I even knew what I wanted to attach it to.

My tactical speed square.

The speed square was basically the poor man’s version of a batarang, and if I could make it magically boomerang back into my hand, I’d finally be able to live out my boyhood fantasy of transforming into Batman and curb stomping shitheads.

Although there were countless other weapon and armor sigils I wanted to snag, I needed to choose carefully. This stuff was expensive with a capital E, and I still had Relics to pick through.

The Common-grade Relics were all decent quality and had a standard price tag of 1,000 tickets per Relic. Extremely pricey, considering it had cost more than two Silver Loot Tokens to earn that many tickets. But Relics were the one thing you couldn’t buy from the Gashapon machines, and you could examine the Relics at the prize booth before purchasing, so you knew exactly what you were getting.

In my estimation, it was hard to put a price tag on that kind of convenience.

The Uncommon-grade Relics were 2,000 tickets a pop, and the Rares—which were few and far between—ranged from 3,000 all the way up to 5,000 tickets. There were several Relics that left me salivating, but I didn’t want to risk changing my build too drastically right before facing off against Funtime Frank and his five-man band. Going into the big game with a bunch of untested abilities that I didn’t really understand was a surefire way to end up dead.

But there was one I couldn’t pass up.

Mental Micromanagement was a Rare-grade Relic that topped the scale at 5,000 tickets. Despite the high price, it had incredible potential for someone like me with high Resonance and abysmal Athleticism.

Mental Micromanagement

Rare Relic – Level 1

Range: Line of Sight

Cost: 1 Mana/Minute

Mind over matter isn’t just one of those bullshit slogans found at the bottom of motivational posters. Not for you anyway.

Those bestowed with Mental Micromanagement can weave invisible telekinetic strings around any object weighing less than forty-five pounds. Whether you’re lifting a key from afar, guiding a blade through the air, or fetching a couple of cold brewskis from the fridge without getting up, this skill bridges the gap between thought and reality.

Each new level enables you to control an additional object, turning this solo act into a full-blown telekinetic orchestra. Word of warning, though, trying to mentally control too many items at once is a good way to give yourself a brain aneurysm—and no, that’s not a joke. The Mana cost per minute also doubles with each additional item you telekinetically wield. This Relic enables Mana usage.

The idea of actively giving myself a brain aneurysm was worrisome but gaining the ability to control objects with my mind offset any potential risk. The weight limit was a bit restrictive and meant I wouldn’t be able to hurl my enemies through the air or use it to toss Croc across the field of battle, but that was fine. My hammer was only 19 oz after all, and if I could use it to beat the ever-living shit out of enemies a football field away, I’d be happy as a pig in shit.

Plus, the more I leveled the Relic up, the more weapons I’d be able to wield from afar.

I couldn’t help but recall the battle between the Flayed Monarch and the Boundless Wanderer. In my head, I saw an army of bloodred weapons zipping through the air, hacking and slashing at the dusty gunslinger from a dozen angles all at once.

Whatever Relic the Monarch had used to accomplish the feat was clearly leaps and bounds above this one, but they were clearly in the same vein. And if I could use the Codex to forge it with other powerful Relics, maybe I’d be able to turn this skill into one that could rival the Monarch, given enough time.

Buying the Relic would take up almost all of my remaining tickets, and I waffled for a couple of minutes. I could pick up two Uncommons and a Common for the same cost. But after looking everything on offer over for a second time, I decided I’d rather have one super badass Relic that complemented my skill set instead of three mediocre ones that I probably wouldn’t even end up using in the long run.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled the trigger on Mental Micromanagement, leaving me with a grand total of 32 tickets. Not enough for jack-shit else—though the remaining balance stayed on my new Prize Gallery Tab.

Loot in hand and feeling weary to the bone, I planted my VIP Doorway Anchor, and we made our way back to the store to clean up, gear up, and catch a little bit of shut-eye before our final showdown with Funtime Frank.