Immediately after the doors opened, we vacated the boss room down the stairs. It was hidden under a fake panel that swung open at the end. Halfway down the stairs to the fifth floor, we stopped.

"I need to make sure none of us has these parasites," I said. "I guess we are stripping naked to check."

Kara smirked and raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

We removed all our equipment and clothes and then had to do a thorough check. Right in the middle of a Dungeon wasn't the proper place for anything else, so we just made sure we didn't have any silver parasites on us.

I had two on my shins. How they got between my armor and boots was anyone's guess. I used an Ice arrow to remove them, then crushed them with the Earth arrow. The silver pieces lost their luster, turning into gunmetal gray brittle dust when thoroughly crushed. Kara was clean. We double-checked and donned our clothes again. I also checked Sleepy and William for any parasites and found them clean.

I didn't know why they didn't grant any Exp when crushed and also why they latched onto Sleepy if he was immune to parasites. The reason I came up with was that they weren't alive. I wish I could get a sample and bring it to Alice but the risk was too high. Those random hitchhikers could spell doom to a community if they got out of hand. Given how fast they burrowed into a Legendary, I was afraid of what they would do to a normal person.

So we left them behind. Alice had to be satisfied with just my report. She might even know what these silver orbs were. Once we were a hundred percent certain we didn't have any hitchhiker on ourselves or our clothes, we had a major decision to make.

We were close enough to the boss room that it couldn't respawn yet but far enough that the Dungeon could reabsorb whatever it wanted from that room. I hoped that included the silver flakes. We could retreat to the fourth floor or proceed to the fifth.

Regarding supplies used in that fight, we used three healing potions and a lot of arrows. I didn't stop to retrieve those from the boss' corpse because I didn't want to give those silver flakes more time to latch onto our bodies.

"So, what do you think?" I asked Kara.

"What's the fifth-floor monster again?"

"Horror Limbs," I replied. "Balls of random humanoid limbs that can kick, grasp, and even use tools. They are fast and very annoying to fight. No head nor eyes, it's just a bunch of arms and legs attached to a central sphere. It can detach wounded limbs so unless we damage the center, each lost limb only subtracts from its efficiency. I'm hoping Sleepy can stun them and then we capitalize on the opportunity to finish them."

Kara thought about it, then glanced at the stairs going up behind us. "And if we go down further, the boss above us will respawn."

"It won't be the same, most likely. This Dungeon likes to swap bosses around. Makes it easier for delvers to commit mistakes if they aren't training the same fight over and over."

"How hard was the boss above us, compared to what Delvers reported on the fourth floor?"

"Very hard. It most likely was the result of the fourth floor not being challenged for a long time."

"Which means the fifth-floor boss is off-limits to us, right?"

"Yes, most likely. I wouldn't risk it."

"Let's descend then," Kara concluded. "I wish to finish assigning all the subclasses and repay this debt before going back to the surface."

"All right. Let's go. After we rest for the night here. We need to recover our HP."

She wasn't happy to rest on the stairs but it was the only safe place to do that.

*

*

The fifth floor had a thick and oppressive atmosphere. It smelled of mold and moisture and forced us to wear masks. Right from the last step of the staircase, I could hear the monsters shuffling around. They stomped and slapped the floor and walls as they moved around. They were classified as constructs, close to flesh golems because they didn't have any internal functions. They didn't eat or shit, and they shed little blood when wounded. And it was only a matter of time until we had contact.

"Get ready. they're coming." I warned and readied my bow. Ranged attacks were very hard in the chaotic combat against these Horror Limbs. I could shoot them before they engaged in melee but after that, I had to switch to close-quarters weapons. "Sleepy, charge up!"

We set up in formation right there, with the stairs behind us. At least we could be sure they would come only from one side.

They came, balls of hands and feet tumbling our way. Some of these hands held rusted weapons or just random objects they picked up and the Dungeon didn't bother to absorb. I started to shoot but at the speed they were rotating, any hopes of scoring a clean hit past the limbs on the central body was useless. At least these creatures didn't have HP. Instead, they had Hardness, reinforcing the notion they were golems. My arrows, despite my enormous Strength, only sank down to the arrowhead.

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Sleepy let loose his lightning. The bolt flew straight down the center of the tunnel, burning my retinas and thundering down the tunnel. It struck three Horror Limbs and paralyzed them. The others tumbled over their brethren and kept coming at us.

Between shots, I made a request. "William, do you think you can stop the first ones that get within ten meters of us?"

"Baaahhh!" William answered that he could.

Sleepy started to charge again. I scored a good hit on an arm, forcing the monster to detach that arm. Kara moved into position on the left side of the tunnel. The first three Horror Limbs came into the proper distance. William's eyes flashed blue and purple, causing the Horror Limbs to halt mid-jump. Kara dashed and stabbed one deep into the core while I fired at the gaps between limbs. She got one attack while I could only fire five arrows in the time they remained completely still. All three died. The moment the central sphere was wounded enough, all limbs popped out and fell to the ground.

> For killing level 44 Horror Limb, you gained 796 Experience points. You paid 1 level worth of debt. Marksman has reached level 15. You gained 5 Attribute points.

> For killing level 44 Horror Limb, you gained 796 Experience points. You paid 1 level worth of debt. Marksman has reached level 16. You gained 5 Attribute points.

We really needed some way to share Experience. Those three kills cost William 300 MP, more than Sleepy's lightning. At a hundred MP per monster, he could only deal with twelve before he ran out of MP. Yet, it was our most effective way to kill them. I did some calculations and it was worth to send both Sleepy and mine MP to William. This way the three of us could pool our MP regeneration to keep him going.

But that would have to wait. The remainder of the Horror Limbs were coming fast. Both William and Sleepy charged at them. William gored one, and had it stuck on his horns. He lifted his head and tossed the monster away. The Horror Limb detached the limbs William had impaled. Sleepy pounced on the other one and ravaged the Horror Limb's limbs with his claws and bites. I timed my arrow and shot to hit the gap on the one William had sent flying. One of the arms moved in front of the arrow by random chance and took the hit. The arm fell off but the Horror Limb was back on the ground. I couldn't shoot over William and risk hitting him.

The Horror Limb fighting sleepy delivered some blows but the Wolfertinger just tanked it on his HP, forfeting defense in exchange for savaging the limbs. Once enough were off the monster, he rammed his budding antlers and shocked the core. Another kill.

> For killing level 46 Horror Limb, you gained 1146 Experience points. You paid 1 level worth of debt. Marksman has reached level 17. You gained 5 Attribute points.

William finished his own Horror Limb.

> For killing level 45 Horror Limb, you gained 955 Experience points. You paid 1 level worth of debt. Marksman has reached level 16. You gained 5 Attribute points.

The fight was over. Despite being classified as a construct, the monster's limbs were perfectly edible. If one fancied humanoid limbs. Sleepy asked for permission before diving in. William decided to chew on an old silver dagger. Go figure.

"I'm going to take Raid Leader on my level 35 subclass slot," Kara said. "This way we can share Experience."

"Go for it. You'll eventually have more subclass Slots than you know what to do with," I answered with a grin.

*

*

Kara had this Class unlocked for a long time. She confirmed her selection.

> You have become a Raid Leader (Rare). As this is a subclass, you gain only 5 Attribute points per level. You gained 185 Attribute Points.

> You gained the Trait, Raid Experience Share: You can add up to 1+sqrt(Charisma) other willing creatures to your raid party. Everyone shares Experience points from their kills equally.

> Class Experience: Shared Experience is rounded up if the kill yielded an Experience points total higher than 10 times the number of people in the party.

> You gained the Skill, Raid Logistics. Rank I: Supplies you manage for your raid party last R*10% longer. This does not include combat consumables.

She told George what her Class granted, especially the Skill. Kara also invited him to her party. Once he accepted, she found his name and Class listed right under hers.

"Odd, can I use this to learn about people's Classes?" She wondered out loud.

"No. The Raid information only shows what you know about the people who joined. It is showing my information because I told you what my Class is. Otherwise, people would never join such parties. I didn't know about the rounding up but it makes sense. Right now, with your Charisma of fifty-two, your raid party can have up to eight people. I believe it will lean heavily on Charisma for the other Perks and maybe some Skill ranks."

"I still feel a little bad for leeching Experience off of your kills."

"Don't be. You are now in charge of the supplies," George retorted with a laugh. "That Skill bonus will surely make us last longer down here. And it will count as practice."

"I'm going to invest my Attribute points in Charisma."

"Shore your weaknesses. You are pretty resilient for your level but you need more Intelligence to effectively use your full Dexterity score in combat."

"I'm going to spread everything evenly, then."

"Yes, it's a good call."

Kara spent her Attributes and then checked her Status.

Silver-Age Vigilante (Epic) Persona: Regenerator Level 37 Adjusted Total Strength 260 300 Dexterity 312 360 Endurance 952 1064 Intelligence 192 168 Wisdom 168 147 Clarity 44 38 Charisma 93 80 Health (HP) 8174 9044 Mana (MP) 213 204 Stamina (SP) 1142 1272