I followed Eco through the Guild building to the garage in the back. There were a variety of SUVs of various makes, models, and colors in the garage. Eco ignored them in favor of a stairwell leading down into a tunnel. I followed him down and was surprised to find what looked like roller coaster cars sitting on railroad tracks. The tunnel was brick lined and round, painted white, and the air was dry and smelled disused.

"Come on," Eco said, gesturing to the cars. "Hop in. I got permission to go to some of our older beginner dungeons. I think they are more your speed."

I gingerly wiped the thick layer of dust off the seat before sitting down. Eco just plopped down in the first car with the controls. He fiddled with a few things and soon the cars took off, into the tunnel which coincidentally was pitch black. The front car had lights, so the only light was directly ahead of us. The rail was not perfectly straight, but it never varied much, so I felt like it was a kiddie roller coaster we were riding. The darkness got to you, and it seemed like hours before we pulled into a dimly lit station of sorts.

The room we were in rose four stories overhead and was made almost entirely of bricks. Thick pillars rose from the walls and curved in to form arches holding up the ceiling. The center of the room, where we stopped, was a railway turntable, for turning the cars around. Spaced at even intervals around the room were five dungeon portals, their frames covered in dust and cobwebs. The blue glow of the dungeon portal shone through the webs and dirt.

"Excellent," Eco said, standing up. I followed him as he stepped out of the car and walked to the turntable controls. With a thrown switch and a pushed lever the turntable ponderously turned until the cars were facing back the way we'd come. "Now we have our way home ready and we can enjoy the dungeons."

"Dungeons as in plural," I asked. "Won't that work against our quota?"

"Normally, yes," Eco explained as he walked towards the first dungeon. "I reached out to a guy I know in scheduling and these dungeons haven't been run in about three years. They were put on inactive because they'd been run so often the dungeon was on the verge of breaking down. Normally if that's the case, we leave them for five years to recharge, but these ones are so weak that it was deemed unproductive to keep them in regular use. So, we'll go through them and clear them one time each to keep their strength in check."

"Why not just close them if they aren't going to be used again," I asked.

"Bureaucracy, probably," Eco said. "Now look alive. When we go in, we'll be in a safe area called the Gate room. I'll go first to make sure nothing has changed, you come in after me by a ten count. I'll give you a rough idea of what the dungeon entails and then you'll take the lead, okay?"

"You go in and verify, I come in after a ten count, dungeon brief, I lead. Got it," I said.

"Good. Here we go." Eco strode through the portal, disappearing.

I slowly counted to ten and stepped in. Taking the portal was very odd to me. I felt like I'd been flattened, folded, put upright, posed, and now had a fifteen cup caffeine high. The sensation was indescribable and when I found myself stepping out the other side, I was of two minds. On the one hand, this was hands down the most excruciating thing I'd ever experienced, and on the other hand, I was in another dimension! I looked around hoping to see something impossible in this different reality.

Eco and I were standing in a cave. The dirt floor was suspiciously free of debris, and the walls and ceiling were a lot more regular than I thought a real cave would be. There were convenient growths of glowing fungus on the walls and ceiling giving off just enough light to see without being bright enough that it would be hard to hide. Eco was looking around suspiciously. He pulled his club off of his belt and reached back for the shield on his back. I watched in amazement as the shield unfolded into a much larger shield as plant fibers pulled, and wooden 'petals' folded out and back to form a braced shield that could cover him from neck to knee.

"What's going on, Eco?" I asked as I donned my small shield and the nightstick.

"Something's not quite right," Eco said. "This is Dungeon One: Pixie Village. It was outdoors in a dark forest at night."

"So....we were fighting pixies?" I asked. "What do pixies look like?"

"A bit like that," he said. "Except they aren't supposed to be that color."

I looked where he was staring to watch as a small, eighteen inch tall figure walked into the cave through an entrance. The figure was humanoid in form, looking surprisingly human in shape. The figure was inhumanly thin, with a skimpy pair of cloth shorts, a very brief shirt, short purple hair of a dark purple, and light purple skin. The figure held a bow and had a quiver of arrows hung from a belt around its waist. There were two larger spears hanging from its back between the four, long, dragonfly-like wings.

The pixie spotted us and immediately targeted me, nearly instantly nocking arrows and launching them in my direction. I barely intercepted the tiny arrows with my shield as the pixie opened its mouth and began to scream in an almost inconceivably high tone. I charged the pixie, crossing the cave at a run as I jinked left and right, throwing the pixie's aim off. Because of how small the pixie was, I flipped my nightstick around, holding it like a sword. A quick press of a hidden switch and the end of the long part of the night stick suddenly telescoped out, increasing its length by another foot and a half. The pixie dropped its bow as I came close and pulled the two spears out. I stopped short and swept sideways with my nightstick. The pixie tried to jump over it, wings fluttering, but was too slow, as the end of the baton caught the pixie's legs and flipped it sideways. I followed the nightstick blow with a roundhouse kick that struck it on the top of the head and dashed it against the cave wall. I stepped on the pixie's legs and prepared to beat it to death with my nightstick. All of a sudden, I hesitated.

I don't know what caused me to pause, but I had the sudden thought that this was a moment that would decide what would happen from now on. Would I use weapons, or my feet and fists? Would I rely on brute force, or would I use dexterity and speed, or would I simply dodge everything? Would I strike from a distance or get up close? The thoughts ran through my head faster than I could even understand. What was my role to be?

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I used my baton to pin the pixie and crushed its head with my foot. The give of the skull was unpleasant, and I stepped back, trying not to vomit.

"That was.....interesting," Eco said, stepping up beside me. "I wish I could have warned you, but it's forbidden. Until you first engage in combat and finally vanquish a foe, you don't understand. But now you do. Want to talk about it?"

"I...I....it was like I saw a bunch of realities," I admitted. "In some I was a ranged guy, in some I was super fast, in some I was a frontline fighter, and in some....I have no idea," I shrugged.

"Yeah. It's hard to explain," Eco agreed. "So what did you decide?"

"I need to be able to do any of it," I said. "But I think I'm here for battlefield control."

"I'm not sure I understand," Eco replied. "Can you explain?"

"Sure," I said. "While I'll be able to deal a fair amount of damage myself, I'm going to dedicate myself to being whatever it takes to make the rest of the team more effective. My weapons will be there to slow enemies, poison them, trap them. I will be there to take blows the others cannot, to place them where they can do the most damage. But on my own, my hands and feet will be the damage. I'll have to avoid blows where possible, deflect the rest, and hammer them down with my hands and feet. My weapons will be dedicated to making sure they can't fight back effectively."

"That.....may actually be a great idea," Eco said after thinking about it. "I wonder how your powers will evolve as you get more experience. Now, do you want to go back out? This dungeon has gone rogue. We have no idea what is going on, and it's best to have a full team just in case."

"I don't think we should," I said, glancing at the dead pixie. "I think you could beat this place easily, and I need experience. Will you back me up? We can call the others once we get out."

"I don't like it, but okay," Eco finally said. "You managed that one pixie with only three blows, and you did very well. I'm going to stay closer to you, though. I'm not convinced you can handle multiple enemies at once yet."

"Fair enough," I said, and led Eco out of the cave.

The outside of the cave opened to a dense tropical forest, with only a few paths through it and a lot of underbrush. Eco took the lead, and his shield caught a lot of arrows that I wouldn't have been able to stop. Pixies ambushed us by ones and twos, and while Eco defended himself, he mostly made me do the killing. I'm ashamed to even think it, but the killing came easier. The pixies were all dressed similarly and looked similar and I soon learned better techniques for dealing with them. My weapons rarely killed them, as I found my fists and feet did a better job.

We spent hours looking for some sort of pixie village before we thought to look up, and up in the canopy were little pixie huts, all through the forest. Eco motioned for me to follow him and we ended up in a clearing, out of bowshot of the pixies unless they came out of the trees. We kept our shields facing out, but huddled up for a strategy session.

"You said there's a boss, right? Someone protecting a device keeping the portal open?" I asked Eco.

"That's my understanding," Eco said. "Before the change there was a village on the forest floor that groups would attack and then they'd have to destroy a ritual circle. That would force a much larger pixie out into the open and that boss had to be defeated. Then the portal out would open up and the group would exit."

"So if the village is in the trees," I said. "Then either the circle is up there or it's on the ground disguised."

"Oh no, humans," a voice called out. "You will not get in the way this time. We have learned from our past."

Eco and I turned to look at the voice and found a near-human sized pixie stepping out of the foliage. This pixie was not only significantly larger, but was dressed differently, having some sort of leaf armor over much of its body. This one carried a sword and a spear, and while three of its wings were whole, the fourth was cut in half. Scars marred the pixie's face and exposed skin, and there was a subtle glow around it.

"Now, invaders," the pixie said. "You will die to Pixie General Pillo! Attack!"

Pixies bolted out of the underbrush, and Eco and I found ourselves surrounded as we were charged en mass by over seventy pixies.

"Can you take the boss if I keep the small fry busy," I asked.

"Sure," Eco said. "But I'll never get close. The boss will run away. The small fry have to be defeated before we can approach the boss."

"Nope," I said, as I unleashed my power. I sent it out looking for energy signatures. I immediately found Eco's, but there were far too many pixie signatures in too small an area for me to pick out individual ones.....except one. I locked onto the boss's energy signature and began prepping the switch.

"Boss is going to be right where I am standing in five seconds," I told Eco. "Give it a good welcome, eh? Smash the Pillo!" Eco glanced at me before he wound up.

"Now!" I yelled, triggering the switch. I felt the world lurch as I was suddenly standing near the edge of the clearing....and behind all of the normal pixies.

"Pillo fight!" I yelled as I ran two steps forward and punted a pixie at where I knew Eco was fighting the boss. I barely caught sight of Eco going to town on the Pixie before I turned back to the regular ones. I whacked a few with my baton and kicked a few more before they realized there was an enemy behind them. Pixies swarmed after me, even taking flight, as I ran away, whacking at random pixies on my way past.

Pixies were very quick opponents, but they were not fast. I easily outdistanced the mob of pixies and regularly slowed down just to beat the fastest ones in the bunch. It was nearly ten minutes before Eco joined me, smashing pixies and stomping them into the ground. They eventually all died, and Eco and I were breathing hard and plucking a few random arrows out of our uniforms.

"Good job," Eco congratulated me. "That's the quickest boss fight I've ever had. I'd forgotten you can do that."

"Thanks," I said. "I really wanted to fight her, but neither of us is particularly set up for fighting mobs, and I can run fast and for a long time."

"Too true," the big man said. "Now go loot the general," he waved at the corpse.

I moved to the fallen general and reached down to touch the body. I felt more than saw the energy lurch into my body. I cannot describe adequately the feeling that flowed through my body. I felt the energy latch on to something in my chest, and I could almost see some sort of tree forming from the core. One of the branches of that tree lit up, and I suddenly knew.

"Well?" Eco asked as I straightened up. "What'd you get?" I blinked at him for a second.

"I thought we had to destroy a power source?" I asked. "How did I get some power evolution from a boss?"

"Good question," Eco said. "It's the fact that this is a training dungeon. The device we put over the core sends excess energy to the boss. Over time the bosses power up and become a secondary power source of their own. This way, we have a captive dungeon and the people running it still get their power upgrades."

"Oh," I said thoughtfully. "Makes sense, I guess. I got an evolution ability called Quick Switch. It gives me two benefits: the first is that I can store energy signatures of anyone I meet, and if I have to switch with them, it becomes near instantaneous. The second is that I have these battery pools of energy. I don't need to build up energy anymore, as it is already in some of these energy batteries. When I want to switch it happens immediately, but I can only do it fast three times before recharging is required. I get the feeling that as I get stronger I'll get more batteries and they'll use less energy."

"That'll be handy," Eco said as he roughly searched the general's corpse. Shortly thereafter, a portal sprang up by the boss's corpse.

"Let's get out of here," Eco said, striding through the portal. I followed.

We materialized outside of the gate to find a group of people waiting for us. Shank, BrightGold and Hyper were front and center, along with someone dressed in a military uniform.

"Oh, um....hi guys," Eco said as they glared at us. "Fancy meeting you here."