I got distracted about half a mile into my journey by another flopping shark. But first, I looked over my shoulder to make sure there weren’t any wandering whales around before getting to work on the monster. As much as I wanted to get out of dodge, I really did need the experience. Not to mention, I’d eventually be able to go back to a town and get some gear made. Might as well have a surplus to work with when that happened.

With my second shark kill under my metaphorical belt, I prepared to carve the thing. Sadly, I was knifeless thanks to my shattered bag all those weeks ago.

“How exactly am I going to skin this thing, then?”

The obvious answer was that I wouldn’t, but that was also totally unacceptable. Now that I was outside of the freezing crab caves, these bad boys would start rotting real fast. As I thought about my options, I decided to put everything down for a second and think things through. Once I did, I also noticed that I was sopping wet from being underwater for most of a day, judging by the sunset on the horizon.

Great. The dark might help me stay out of sight from any wandering monsters, and it certainly wouldn’t slow me down any. Changing my clothes as quickly as I could, I came up with a potentially stupid idea.

The crab carapace was hard and rigid. What if I broke off the hard, sharp tail bit and used that for carving? It was at least worth a shot.

The carapace didn’t give no matter how many times I tried to snap it off, but a few well placed uppercuts while bracing the thing against a tree finally got the job done. The tail spike snapped off, spinning backwards and lodging itself into my chest. Numbly, I retrieved the dangerous object before looking at my brand new pair of furs that were now dyed and wet with blood. Again. With a sigh, I used the now dirty clothing to bandage the wound before changing to my last remaining set. Actually, on second thought, maybe I’d just do this next part naked. Who knew what nastiness was waiting for me inside these sharks.

I got to work, just trying to saw the heads off the oversized fish to get that over with. It really didn’t work. Fine then! I went ahead and got to work on the shark jaw next, determined to get a literal saw for doing the deed. Once again, I had to use the leverage of the nearby trees to snap the jaw-blade off and, once again, it flew directly into me as it came free.

“This is so stupid.”

I was being careless, my frustration at this situation clearly getting the better of me. A few deep breaths helped me calm down enough to get back to work after I’d patched myself up again.

With an actual saw, I was able to cut the head off much more easily. The tail spike still came in handy when it was skinning time, since the jagged wheel definitely wouldn’t have left me with anything usable by the time I was done. Still, it took forever to debone this fish, even without caring for the meat. It was deep into the night by the time I was holding the sharkskin in my hands without too much gross stuff to go with it, and I immediately got to moving. I had another one to go still, but I had no interest in doing more until I’d distanced myself from the giant pile of bait.

Half a mile later I finished the job, getting shark number two fully gutted before working to scrape the remaining fleshy bits off the thick hide. On the plus side, it was really easy to do now that I knew the hide was stronger than my impromptu knife. Still, it was tedious and mind numbing work.

When I was finally finished, I threw on my remaining good pair of clothes and stuffed the rest of my shit into the carapace, crystal first. If I was willing to really test its structural integrity, which I wasn’t, I could fit the whole thing inside. Now that I had some extra material though, I could disguise the outside a little bit to make it less obvious at a glance. Considering how little interest I had in cities at the moment, that would hopefully be good enough.

Dry and all packed up, I got back on the road. The entire time I’d been in the forest, just a dozen or so feet into the tree line to avoid direct line of sight by any curious stabilizers or hungry whale sized otters, and it was going well so far. That being the case, I stayed the course and followed the edge of the woods south and east, hoping to find another cluster of portals eventually. A dozen miles and a sunrise later, I got my wish.

The bundle of dungeon entrances was closer to the trees than the city beyond it, looking like a two to one split. If my feet were a good enough measuring tool, then I’d guess it was a mile from the forest at least. That seemed unusual to me, but I was in no mood to look a gift dungeon in the mouth. Except, that’s exactly what I was about to do.

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Nestling my loot up in a random tree but leaving a mark to help me find my way back, I ran over to the dungeon cluster to do some inspecting. A group of five gaps in reality shimmered in the air, not more than a dozen feet from each other. It was a veritable bushel of portals, waiting to be explored by a bored man in need of adventure. Ignoring my apparent mid life crisis, I picked the furthest one to be my first target, poking my head through carefully. About a minute of staring at the classic gray walls, floors, and ceilings later, I decided I may as well try another. If all four were like this then I’d go dumpster diving if necessary, but hopefully I’d find something more immediately interesting and dangerous than that.

Portal number two was even more disappointing, having a god damn check in station built inside. The thing looked like a wooden ticket booth and the guy manning it just stared at me, as if I was the weirdo.

“Hey buddy. Come around here often?”

The floating head, that’s me, spoke to the normal enough looking guy as if it were just any old day. Clearly, he wasn’t impressed.

“You have a pass?”

The man spoke slowly as he stared at me head on. Not that there was anything else for him to look at.

“No?”

“Then please leave.”

How rude! Just because I was a disembodied head without the need to be here didn’t mean you could just ignore me!

The sounds of steel hitting stone echoed out in the distance as I looked over the place I’d poked my head into. Aside from the ticket booth, it seemed like your average dungeon cave with one difference. This place was obviously occupied, just not by monsters. Mine carts, tools, and all kinds of work-adjacent things filled the large cavern as the telltale sounds of men at work echoed out from the tunnels.

This was actually great news for me. If I could get this crotchety guy to talk to me, he might be able to tell me which of these portals was worth going into. If he worked here, then he probably wasn’t on the lookout for me. Actually, was anyone? Was I being too paranoid?

Whatever, no reason not to ask.

“I’ll be right out if your hair, but could you give me some directions? I need to find a DL5 or 6, but I seem to be lost.”

I tried to appeal to the man’s humanity, but I’d forgotten that these weren’t humans.

“I’m a bit busy, pal. If you’re not here to work, then buzz off.”

How rude. Wait, I had a solution for that. Ducking my head back outside the portal, I ran back to my stash. I’d pulled my coin purse out of my pants as soon as I could, so I no longer had any money on me. That normally wouldn’t be a problem when I was dungeon diving, but today was shaping up to be a weird day.

I ran back to the portal, poking my head into the wrong one twice before finding my good pal at the ticket booth.

“Look, buddy, I already told you—”

He was cut off by the sight of me rubbing two small pieces of silver together. I still had a good chunk of money on me and wouldn’t be able to use it outside of civilization anyway. If it could save me a trip to town and tell me what I needed to know, then it would be worth the price.

“Think you could point me to the DL5 and above dungeons in this area? I’ll make it worth your time.”

My words finally got through to the man as he scrambled out of his tollbooth. I hadn’t seen anybody else here, but the sounds were enough to tell me that this was a pretty busy place.

“We’ll have to make it quick, otherwise I’ll get in trouble,” he rapid fired the words like a machine gun, spraying saliva as he did. This guy really was in a rush to take my money and then get back to work. I respected that.

Stepping outside the portal, the man started pointing around fast as hell.

“This one is a DL5, nicknamed Ambush Woods. Nothing worth selling there and all the monsters are sneaky. Over that way is a DL6 filled with pack animals. Actual difficulty is closer to a 7 and nobody in town can clear that, so good luck there. It’s a normal looking cave on the inside, but if you hear barking then it’s probably the right place. Obviously, the forest portal is a few miles in the woods somewhere, but that’s even more dangerous. Otherwise, it’s just those two on this side of town with another DL6 on the opposite end. That one I know very little about aside from the fact that no one goes there.”

Taking a moment to breathe, he shoved his palm out towards me, making it very clear that he wanted his money right away. No shot that I was paying him without some better directions at least, so I got him to slow down and describe what was where. Still, I only ended up with one place really mapped out, and even that was because it was directly behind me.

It may or may not have been worth the money, but I gave him his two silver, watching the man disappear back into his portal. If he liked running a ticket booth that much then more power to him, I guess.

I shook my head, looking back at the remaining portals. They all looked the same, but evidently one of these had a forest within it that was filled to bursting with ambush predators, just waiting to bite my face off. Apparently, lots of teams had tried to take this place on before giving up, realizing that the monsters didn’t have any loot worth taking and that the trees themselves weren’t worth any more than the ones to the south. Once they figured that out, the dungeon just became a huge gamble with no real payout. After all, getting stronger was nice, but bills still had to be paid. Assuming you needed to eat and sleep, that is.

With a smile, I headed for my next destination, ready to discover what awaited me.