Chef twitched in the corner, hands tied by zip ties right next to a shelf filled with flour and pepper. He swore every once in a while—he begged every once in a while, too. Said that cutting Cindy’s face was an accident. And that was true. But in the next sentence, he swore at them for bogging down dinner service. Pretending that this dead-end job was somehow still functioning.

When he said, “We’re running out of time, who cares if I cut that bitch!” Sarah had enough and stuffed a dish-rag into Chef’s mouth, then taped it over with good-old electric tape.

Colt rubbed his eyes, right next to Nate and Cindy, as the military man glued the cut closed.

“That’ll hold you,” Nate said.

“Will it scar?” Cindy asked.

“Probably. Can’t do better unless you fancy an unneeded stitch with dirty kitchen twine. The alcohol I poured on it should help. You should be more afraid of an infection than scarring. Lucky it didn’t take your eye out. An inch higher, and that’d be it.”

Cindy cried at that. An understandable long sob. When she stopped, Colt felt it was finally time to speak up.

“When did everyone else leave?”

“About ten minutes after you, Bill said, ‘We’re going, have dinner ready when we get back,’ Jimmy didn’t want to go, but Bill made Logan drag him out. As soon as they were out the door, Chef grabbed a Knife and started screaming. I think he’s gone.” Cindy finished, rubbing away the tears.

Sarah threw an arm around her and cleaned her face up with a wet cloth—trying to clear away the blood and tears. Impressive how much a face wound bled. Blood kept coming like an endless tap. He was almost scared she’d bleed out.

Now, all four of them looked like they came out of a horror movie—God knew the kitchen did with the bloody marks, pans with half-cooked and burned food, and all the other trash they’d made in the mad scramble to find the zip-ties.

“They had weapons?” Colt asked, continuing the conversation. Details were important. Especially since, more likely than not, if and when they returned, they’d be coming back with levels.

The secret was out of the bag.

“Logan and Bill did. They didn’t give Jimmy much chance to grab one given how they…” She trailed off and sniffled again.

Colt took in the situation; Chef in the corner tied up. Nate and Sarah broke out in a hushed discussion. Probably about Bill, and maybe a little to do with their new broken prisoner… Then, there was Cindy on the verge of breaking and crying after her injury. She was afraid. Whether or not she’d had something going on with Bill before clearly didn’t matter now. He’d left her alone.

Now was the chance to add another ally to their side.

“Cindy, we found out a lot while we looked around outside.”

She didn’t answer, letting Sarah clean her face.

“That first message—this place is like a game. They call the alley outside a dungeon, the Endless Alley. But it’s not just monsters and dungeons outside; there are levels. When you gain one, you can see a sheet called ‘status.’ Skills, too.” Colt bit the bullet, bringing her into the fold. Chef was listening, but it didn’t matter since the man wasn’t connected with reality.

“You’re lying,” Cindy responded.

“No, it’s true.” Sarah cut in, taking one of Cindy’s hands in hers. “Even worse, too. There’s, like, no food out there. It says we gotta kill a ‘boss’ before we can get out. When you get far enough from the kitchen, a message will pop up, telling you that you’ve entered the dungeon.”

“They’re right; it’s all real,” Nate added.

Like that, Cindy ran through the five stages of grief. Rejecting what they said at first and telling them to cut out the shit for two minutes and shoving Sarah away—then she threw a pan, almost hitting Chef. She tried to bargain with god. With all that was going on, Colt had no idea what any kind of god who put them here would even want to make a deal. For a sullen five minutes, she sat in silence, her eyes glazed as the occasional tear came free.

Then, at last, she started asking questions.

Sarah was happy to answer and to help her heal, sharing what she knew. All the while, Colt stared at the doorway. Waiting for the rest of the kitchen to show up; when they did, he didn’t know what would happen. He looked over his Status sheet, noting that he’d hit level nine—six levels from where he’d prefer to be when the news broke. But he was stronger than before. Not as easy to push around. It would have to be enough.

The waiting was killing him.

So, he chose to move forward instead of waiting, so he pulled back from Cindy and Sarah and found a quiet corner to concentrate.

Colt eyed his last remaining unspent point and then invested it into soul.

The world doubled; the blood in the kitchen became more visceral and real. In a second, everything had a weight to it that didn’t exist before. Colt could feel the weight. A tangible thing, pressing against his mind—and he could see the threads. Things were connected, formed together, and bound in the world’s reality—strings, tugging one another tied, twined, and bound.

Once, Colt had taken mushrooms accidentally as a child. It’d been a chocolate bar his mother left on the table on one of those days she just up-and-left until one o’clock in the morn. He got home, thinking it was for him since she hadn’t left money for dinner—the way the world flowed together bled into one another. Colors pulsed, patterns moved. It’d scared the shit out of him. He’d found a corner, hid it, and cried until those colors stopped swirling.

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This wasn’t far from that. Only, instead of the weird sensations that’d come with that accidental drug trip, this felt more real than the actual reality around him.

He was connected. It all flowed together. All of it one puzzle, with countless strings—as he gazed at them all, taking them in, he noticed some of the strings were more similar than others. The same color, the same feel.

Blood—it was distinctive, matching the numerous lines that made up the people around him and connected them to the world around them.

But the strings that caught his attention the most… His sword. The Knives—all the knives in the kitchen. Sharp. The sensation of cutting and what it felt like to cleave, they thrummed as he felt them, rang in his ears in a slicing melody that slid through the air.

He felt, almost, like if he were a little further, he might understand. What they meant, what they spoke, what that sensation was.

The door to the kitchen slammed open, and Colt blinked. In an instant, he was torn from that state and spat smack dab in the middle of reality, though it felt different. Even more grounded and real than ever before.

Jimmy was shoved in first. Bruises and nicks covered him all over, along with two vicious-looking bite marks on his arms. Afterward came Logan—his muscles red; his face scrunched as he took in everyone else. A large steel fence post clutched in one hand, the end coated with blood and dried slushy bits of flesh. Last came in, Bill, with a rusty hatchet.

They must have found weapons out there, too.

“So, levels, then? That was the big secret?” Bill sneered as he looked between Colt and the others. “Gonna get a bunch of power so you could steamroll the rest of us?”

Nate folded his arms—he and Sarah walked over to stand next to Colt. Cindy stayed where she was, too afraid to move.

“Look at Chef. Was that what you wanted to do to me?!” Logan rumbled, his face getting redder, his knuckles tightening on the fencepost in his hand.

Bill side-glanced at Donny, who was surprisingly calm, given the situation. Chef’d sunken into mumbling to himself, repeatedly mentioning different tickets or things he had to do. After overhearing them, reveal the truths of their situation. “Damn. They moved quick. See Jimmy? Logan has it right. This was their plan for us, tie us all up, then take all the food.”

Jimmy rubbed his wrist and mumbled something Colt hadn’t caught.

Well, it didn’t matter anyway.

“This place is a dungeon. If we want to get out and survive, we need to kill the boss. We didn’t tie Donny up because we were trying to hoard food for survival. We tied him up because he’s gone off the deep end and cut Cindy. He’s dangerous.” Even while saying that, though, Colt put a hand on his sword. Logan’s face was getting redder by the second. They’d all seen the big guy snap enough times to he was a skip away from smashing shit.

Colt didn’t fancy being the next thing Logan smashed.

Then, Bill’s eyes narrowed as he looked at him. Colt felt the guy’s gaze, a tangible weight to it. Like the red eyes that had stared at him in the dungeon, only, without the certainty of death.

———

Hide Status (Basic) has gained a level!

———

He picked up Inspect. Colt felt a slight shudder go through him; his hide status skill should keep his skills hidden, but Bill knew his level now. Bill puckered his lips like he’d tasted something sour. Yeah, he wasn’t happy.

Fine. Two could play at that. Colt focused his attention on Bill.

———

Name: Bill Glass | Race: Basic Human

Class: Pending

Level: 9

This is a basic human with a pending class selection; he has yet to begin to walk on any path of enlightenment. He is a former convict who has been charged twice with possession and once with assault and battery, though they aren’t the only crimes he’s committed, only the ones with enough evidence to convict. He won’t hesitate to cross anyone who he believes has crossed him.

Noteworthy Skills:

Axes Proficiency - Level 5

Inspect - Level 2

Leech [Uncommon] - Level 3

Inspect (Basic) has gained a level!

———

Colt took in the information in the blink of an eye, processing what it all meant. Somehow, Bill had gained levels quicker than they had—a quick check of Logan and Jimmy made it even more confusing. Logan had only reached level 3, with Jimmy at level 3. Both had a couple of skills between them—Jimmy having a ‘medicine’ skill was interesting, but that was the only noteworthy aspect on the others. By far, Bill’s growth was the most impressive.

Yet it made no sense. They’d gone out together and presumably fought together the entire time, they should be roughly the same level.

The best he could tell was that one’s contribution to a kill influenced how much ‘experience’ they got, with it splitting between all the people involved in some grand and invisible calculation. It still worked pretty evenly. Nate was sitting at level 7, and Sarah at level 5.

This disparity, however, was odd unless Bill did almost all of the fighting on his own. Given the blood on Jimmy and Logan, that didn’t seem likely.

Leech?

An uncommon skill. Try to focus as he might; nothing extra came up about that skill, no additional information in the inspect. Maybe at a higher level. Does it Leech experience? A guess. But given all he had to go off of, it didn’t seem too far.

And last, but not least, was the other bit of information Inspect revealed. It hadn’t been there when he’d inspected the man before. As he suspected, Bill was a convict, and those charges seemed nasty; the ominous mention of those being the only ones he’d been caught committing made Colt’s blood run cold.

“Level 9. Level 7—and Level 5. You’ve all been quite busy, haven’t you?” Bill spat on the floor and looked at Logan. “Don’t bother. They would wipe the floor with you. See Jimmy? This is what me and Logan told you. You can’t trust these people; they’re only in it for themselves. You can’t trust snakes.”

“That’s a lie,” Colt said, nose furling. He felt more in that sentence; Bill was hiding a lie in a lie.

“Oh, if I’m a liar, why didn’t you tell us about levels? We all gained one after killing our first group of Kobolds. I’m sure you did when saving Chef. No, you decided to keep that to yourself and your friends. Playing us like idiots.” Bill continued.

They would go into circles with this argument, devolving until Logan was pushed to a snapping point. Then they would be fighting.

Colt looked at their weapons. The bloody fencepost and the axe—Cindy was still at level 1, and while he liked their odds, it would be pyloric victory. People would die. Any major injuries right now could kill them, too. Not even two hours into this mess and they were already at one another's throats.

It was almost comedic. Even though he was in a dungeon surrounded by monsters, the biggest threat right now was another person in the kitchen.

A cold anger sat deep in his stomach. Colt’s grip on his sword tightened. So be it. If they wanted to fight, he’d do it.

Nate raised a hand. “I’ve an idea that will make us all happy. For now.”