A dark, lithe form, nearly 3 feet long, lunged from the shadows, its fangs tearing through dark leather and sinking into flesh. Perseus cried in pain, desperately tearing the beast off of him and hurling it to the floor. “I know giant rats are a rpg classic, but why the hell are these obnoxious monstrosities so fast?!” He screamed. He’d been able to run circles around almost every enemy he’d fought since the game’s full release, even being able to keep up with the fucking DEMON - but a rat 6 times its usual size?

NOPE.

Ether winced as he sliced another of the beasts in half. He snapped his fingers and a green glow wrapped around the open wound in his friend’s shoulder, sealing it shut. “Hang in there!” He called out as he ducked a lunge from another oversized rodent. “We’re almost there!”

He had a plan to deal with the nearly two dozen beasts, but it depended heavily on - “Shar? How’s the setup?”

“Just about done,” the redhead shot back as she emptied yet another water barrel on the floor. She leapt back, weaving deftly between the vicious rats as they lunged left and right in a desperate attempt to swarm her. “You sure this is gonna work?”

“No idea!” he replied cheerfully as he spun his glaive. “Now HURRY UP!”

The [Rogue] and [Battle Chef] Sprinted towards the staircase, lunging to escape the now ankle deep water as their party leader grinned at the furry swarm.

“[Spark]![Spark]![Spark]![Spark]![Spark]![Spark]!”

Lightning surged along his weapon and through the water, pulsing throughout the massive cellar and paralyzing the giant rats. He kept casting until the notification popped into view.

You killed [Giant Rat] level 4 x27

Good work, Exterminator!

“Still no level ups?” Ether groaned as they strode back into town, the sun setting behind them. He wasn’t going to be able to cast any more magic for an hour at least, but he knew the side effects from overexerting himself would fade in a few minutes.

A few painfully miserable, excessively long minutes.

“Orlando wasn’t bluffing when he called himself the strongest man in the valley,” Perseus said with a shrug. “Now you know why! You don’t get much for taking out creatures weaker than you, and the strongest stuff in the valley tends to be around level 6 or so. Most people leave around level 7, but since we kinda skipped the normal progression route with that surprise boss fight...”

Ether knew it was stupid to complain about having been too successful yesterday, but he couldn’t help it. He was just dying to hit level ten and unlock a class of his own! He felt awkward ‘leading’ a party that was so much stronger than he was, even if his skills were varied enough to make up some of the difference.

Shar cheerfully passed each of them their shares of the day’s earnings. And all of that added up to…

“70 gold,” Ether mumbled as he stored it in his inventory.

“Each,” Shar said reproachfully. “210 gold total. That’s not bad for a day’s work!”

“You’re right,” he conceded reluctantly. “It’s just… that last mission .”

Perseus nodded, subconsciously rubbing the spot on his shoulder where one of the beasts had managed to bite him. There was a reason they hadn’t made much off of that last quest. “It could’ve been worse, but it could’ve been better, too. For instance, If someone hadn’t decided to flood the fucking cellar-” He started.

“Then we wouldn’t have had to spend half our money on a scroll of [Water Manipulation] so I could dry the place out,” Ether replied moodily. “I know! You don’t have to remind me every five minutes!”

“Grow up!” Shar told the pair as they slowly made their way back to Gio’s stand. She gestured towards her waterlogged appearance. “Aren’t I the one who ought to be complaining at this point? If you whine any louder, people might mistake me for your babysitter.” She’d been in charge of setting up Ether’s plan, transporting and pouring almost a dozen good sized barrels full of water while the other two kept the rats busy. She’d ended up basically drenched in the process, but she took it in stride, a wide smile plastered on her face.

“I wouldn’t blame them,” Perseus said casually. “You spend most of your time with the biggest baby on the server.”

“Perseus, we should really have a talk about your self image issues,” Ether fired back reflexively.

“The ‘I am rubber, you’re glue’ argument. Classic schoolyard faire, E! Not doing yourself a lot of favors here.”

Oblivious to the fact that the two of them were proving her point, the pair bickered while Shar rolled her eyes and sighed, wringing some of the water out of her hair. In spite of the two insisting on acting like idiots and trying to one up each other at every available opportunity, it had been a fun day - and it wasn’t over yet. In spite of the rapidly darkening sky, the trio intended to take another quest once they had a proper meal and picked up their new weapons.

Giovanni was ready for them, as it turned out, though he dropped his hammer when he saw them approach. “What happened, Shar? You look a bit…” he eyed her up and down slowly as he searched for the proper adjective. “Bedraggled?”

She glanced down at her drenched appearance, suddenly immensely glad that the armor she’d picked out was made of such thick leather. ‘Bedraggled’ indeed - she was soaked to the bone!

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Don’t worry, I'm fine. We finally took care of that rat problem people have been ignoring for like two months.”

The smith raised an eyebrow. “By… drowning them?”

“Electrocuting them,” Ether corrected with a smile. “She helped us flood the cellar enough that [Spark] could hit them all at once!”

Giovanni seemed even more confused at that. “Wouldn’t that upset the innkeeper and damage the inn?”

Ether winced. “We might’ve… forgotten about that at the time. We cleaned up after ourselves though!”

Gio slowly nodded. “ [Water Manipulation]?”

“Hell of a skill,” Perseus confirmed.

“And you haven’t used it to dry off Shar because…?”

The redhead turned towards Ether, raising an eyebrow. “You didn’t think of it either!” He objected weakly. “And I’m out of MP!”

Shar wordlessly pulled a miraculously dry bread roll from her bag and shoved it in his face. “Eat,” she said sweetly, her smile no longer reaching her eyes. “Quickly. I wanna be dry again.”

“Don’t worry,” Perseus said with a shit eating grin. “Ether’s great at making girls dry.”

Ether nearly choked on his roll as the [Battle Chef] burst out laughing.

Ether quickly passed the remaining 90 coins to the smith as he ate, eager to see his new weapon. He was shocked when a window he’d never seen before popped up.

You’re now under the effects of [Restorative Roll] lvl 1

MP Regeneration while out of combat will be tripled for the next 30 minutes

Health regeneration outside of combat will be doubled for the next 30 minutes.

“Your food gives buffs?” He asked the redhead in surprise, his earlier embarrassment already forgotten.

“It’s almost as if I’m some sort of Chef,” she replied dryly. “I’m honestly more surprised that the battle part of my class doesn’t let me provide some sort of combat buff. I’ve got a class skill, [Instill], that lets me seal skill effects inside of food, but so far I haven’t found a skill that works well with it.”

“Well, at least it tastes good,” Ether offered as he finished eating. Shar gave a small smile at that, but before she could reply, Gio returned with his latest creation.

The glaive was at least 7 feet long, with a curved edge on the blade and a sharpened, albeit awkwardly angled, tip. A blue shimmer seemed to emanate from the silvery surface of the blade, and several shallow channels seemed to have been etched into the alloy’s surface. “As you can see,” Gio said proudly, “it turned out pretty well. I left some runic marks there, there, and there, for enchanting purposes, and the haft is pre enchanted with a minor durability rune. It’s not really sturdy enough to block anything, but you’d need at least 30 strength to be able to damage it through regular use.” The smith was beaming at the weapon, so caught up in his explanation that he completely forgot that he was supposed to be giving it to Ether until Shar cleared her throat pointedly.

“AH! Right,” he said, flushing slightly as he handed the adventurer his new weapon. “Sorry. I get caught up in my work sometimes. You know, I’m just finishing up with that dagger, too. Just finishing up the handle, so if you can wait about five minutes or so, I’ll have that out to you!”

“Hey,” Perseus said with a smile as he turned towards his companions. “I know we talked about taking another quest after a quick break, but I just had an idea. Wanna go try a dungeon?”

Shar raised an eyebrow. “You know where to find a dungeon?”

Perseus smirked. “Beta tester, remember? Months ago, before the game even launched, I found… 5? I wanna say 5 dungeons. Of course, people are pretty thorough, and 3 of those have been found already, but nobody bothers to stick around this valley very long. I checked online, and sure enough, either whoever found it is keeping it secret -”

“Or there’s a low level dungeon here that nobody knows about!” Ether finished, his eyes widening. “Weren’t dungeons one of the only places with a halfway decent respawn timer?”

“Good loot, too,” Shar said with a nod. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard. What level is the dungeon supposed to be?”

The pale beta tester’s smirk grew even wider, to the point where Ether was beginning to wonder if his friend hadn’t dislocated his digital jaw. “Level 8. The whole point of it was probably to help people push through to 10 before they leave the safety net, but people just got bored and wandered off instead - probably because of the riddle lock.” He held up a hand before his party leader could object. “They probably changed the riddle, E, and if they didn’t, I’ll let you have a crack at it for a while before I step in.”

Shar raised an eyebrow yet again. “What -?”

“Perseus and I have some… philosophical differences when it comes to in game puzzles,” Ether explained. “If I can’t solve a puzzle on my own, I don’t think I deserve to see what it's hiding. Perseus, on the other hand, has the patience of a four year old and just looks up the answer to every riddle or puzzle he finds.”

“Hey!” the svelte man objected, putting on his best attempt at an offended expression. “I had to figure out that riddle without help once already! Besides, like I said, there’s no mention of it online, so if they changed it, I’ll be just as lost as you are. Unless they pulled it off the web to begin with, in which case they deserve to have people just look up the answer. Lazy bastards.”

“Perseus!” Shar said with a snap of her fingers. “Focus! The dungeon? What can we expect?”

The [Rogue] scowled. “Expect? It’s a dungeon. You can expect monsters, loot, and traps, probably in that order.”

The redhead took a deep breath and tried very, very hard not to grind her teeth. “What kinds of monsters, loot, and traps?” She asked sweetly, her usually cheerful smile looking strained.

Perseus, being him, either failed to notice or failed to care that he was irritating her. “Beasts, random shit, and too fucking many pitfalls.” He replied simply, closing his eyes and leaning against a nearby wall. He jumped nearly a foot off the ground as a wave of cold water suddenly struck him, leaving him spluttering in surprise.

Ether and the suddenly dry Sharlette tried to suppress their laughter as he glared at them.

They failed miserably.

“Sorry,” Ether said, tears in his eyes. “Didn’t think my new spell would cause such a splash.”

Shar groaned even as she laughed, the pair of them leaning into each other for support as the look on their pale friend’s face sent them into a fresh round of laughter. He silently swore to leave them in the first pit they stumbled in for at least as long as they laughed as he stomped back towards Gio’s stand.