One of the things that Sid, Em, and I had spent XP on was an increased Inventory. My inventory was currently 18 spaces instead of the default 3. I could also stack items and hold things in containers to save room. I also bought the option for complete gear and outfit changes. I had three outfits set up. 1) Casual, i.e., t-shirt, jeans, 2) Adventuring gear, 3) Cashmere Bathrobe. Each outfit only took up one space in my inventory, so it was really space efficient. And I had taken the time one rest break to Cast [Clean] and [Mend] on everything.

I hadn't bothered to identify most of the loot we'd found on our dive. It had all gone into our expanded inventory to be sorted after we got out. Sure, I'd checked out the skill crystals we'd found, and any handy ones had been claimed. Em claimed [Basic: herbology] and [imbue metallurgy] skill crystals, as well as the fancy magic shield; Sid had claimed a [Basic: Distract] and [Dark Vision] Crystal and a fancy magic cloak. While I'd claimed a [Basic: Increased Mana Pool] crystal, a couple of Intermediate: healing potions.

A part of me considered creating a wiki article about Basic Adventuring Utility Skills, and I spent a few moments re-organizing my [System Skills] to reflect this.

We'd been down here about a week, according to the [System Clock], and we were all sick and tired of the dampness and the smell of mold. It would be nice to sleep in a real bed too. Sid had taken to talking to Mr. Linty, and he periodically asked me to summon him just to pet him. I could tell that he kind of wished he had the skill himself.

The passageway we were on led to one of Sid's map's last remaining dark areas. We had camped out about 50 yards in front of the opening to a large room. Sid had snuck ahead and taken a peek. He mentioned that there were a lot of webs and odd yellow mushrooms growing on the walls, as well as a large portal, like in my condo, up against one wall.

"I'm ready to sleep in my own Bed. Or any bed, for that matter. Right now, I would settle for sleeping in the cab of some trucker I picked up at the highway rest stop." Em said.

"Forgiving my wife's lot lizard fantasies, a real bed would be great, but right now, I would kill for a Large McDonalds Coke with extra Ice." Said Sid.

"Well, onward then. I don't know where this dungeon will come out, but a round of McDonald's Coke is on me, assuming we end up somewhere with Mcdonald's. Remember, if the boss is too scary and any of you don't think we can take it out, the safe word is' Spicy,' and we all focus on fighting our way to the portal and escaping. Getting out safely takes priority over getting killed. I will try my best to leave last to ensure that if anybody goes down, they can get back up."

I summoned Mr. Linty just in case we needed a sudden, directed burst of fire. Then we moved forward, Mr. Linty at point, Em, and me. Sid, like usual, was nowhere to be seen; he was undoubtedly lurking about.

We stood at the opening of the room. The portal glowed and rippled on the other side of the room. Deadwood lay scattered across the floor, covered in moss and chicken of the woods mushrooms. I could see patrols of death cap mushrooms, spider webs clung to every corner, and a handful of dog-sized spiders wandered around the floor.

The omnipresent trickle of water led into a stairway against the far left dungeon wall.

A black diamond appeared over one of the spider's heads, a Brown diamond appeared over a second spider, and a Red diamond appeared over the third spider. Sid had picked up a party targeting skill and, for some inexplicable reason, had organized the colors he was using according to the color band codes of resistors.

It was almost anticlimactic when Sid popped out of nowhere and buried his knife into the spider with the black diamond flag above its body. We had killed so many of these arachnids that there was no doubt that they would die.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The only difference in this attack is that the chicken of the wood mushrooms began letting out clouds of spores. I could hear Sid start coughing from inside the cloud, and from what I could tell, he was having difficulty disappearing.

From the ceiling, a massive spider fell. It was the size of a Tibetan mastiff dog or a small bear. And when it landed on the ground, it scuttled over to Sid and bit him with its chelicerae. I switched targets away from the lesser spiders I had planned to zap and targeted the massive mommy spider. Em, began taunting it like crazy, and you could almost see the huge spider's eyes jerk away from Sid's prone body over to Em.

Casting [Intermediate: Cure poison] on Sid repeatedly, I heard him swear as the poisoned condition disappeared from my party display. His knives, which he hadn't dropped, stabbed upward into the spider's body standing over him. "Take that, you Eight-Legged Freak" he yelled.

The spider couldn't stop focusing on Em, and it leaped at her crossing the room in a bound. Em raised the shield she had found in these caves and bashed the airborne spider in the chelicerae, knocking it to the ground.

I had been zapping it with my [Intermediate: Shock] as soon as I'd finished casting my Cures on Sid. And the spider wasn't doing so well. Neither was Sid; I could see him having trouble getting up. Three of the smaller spiders were mobbing him. I was relieved when he disappeared.

I moved closer to Emily, who was doing a marvelous job of using her shield to keep blocking the spider from biting her. Except that as I watched, a glob of clear liquid was secreted from the spider's fangs and shot like spit at Her. According to her status on my HUD, she had a poisoned Debuff. Even poisoned, she continued to block and stab with her sword. I cast a quick cure on her and healed any hit points she'd lost.

As we fought, the chicken of the woods kept belching out spores, which made it hard to see and difficult to breathe. The portal beckoned like a seasonal depression lamp. And I began focusing on the massive spider in front of us again, laying into it with electricity and the occasional slash of my sword. Mr. Linty grabbed one of the spider's legs and burst into flames. From somewhere hidden, Sid yelled, "You killed Mr. Linty, you Spider Bastard!" And then another of the smaller spiders died.

After a minute more, the enormous spider's legs crumpled into its body, and it fell over and began to twitch. Em, and I started picking off teams of death cap mushrooms and hacking chicken of the woods mushrooms off their dead trees. The fight ended a few minutes later.

"I think we're getting the hang of this," Sid said. "Big boss fights, no serious wounds, and everyone emerged unscathed."

"Shut up and Loot Sid." Em said.

Emily cut the chicken of the Woods off their decaying trees and stuffed as many as she could into her inventory. "These are good eating. She said."

"There was a small village of morelipeeps living peacefully in one of the corners, and the poor mushroom children would undoubtedly tell their future unborn children about the day the horrible Emily swept down onto their pastoral community and ripped the arms and legs off the adults and stuff them in her inventory while muttering about Goulash. I let her act like Gargamel for a bit because I couldn't figure out a way to stop her.

Everything looked; I said, "Are we ready?" With nods from both Sid and Emily, I stepped into the glowing portal and left the dungeon.

It felt incredible to feel fresh air after days of living underground. We were in some sort of limestone cave, and the floor was damp with water from where the rain filtered in from the Earth above us. About 15 yards from the portal, an opening was well hidden behind a thicket of Old Oak, Porcelain Berry, Raspberry, Sumac, and Kudzu.

I pulled my phone out of inventory, but the battery had died, so I couldn't consult my GPS.

We all switched out of our adventuring gear into regular clothing and began walking downhill. The countryside looked like what you would find in the woodlands of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. So I was almost positive we had not immersed into yet another new world. This was further confirmed when I found a bag full of standard American Trash that someone had dumped in the woods.

We walked for a few hours until we finally ran into a road. At this point, we began walking along the road, with Emily sticking out her thumb whenever a car or truck drove by in either direction.

A truck pulled over to the side of the road. "You folks need a lift?"

"We're lost, is there a town nearby, and where are we."

"A little late in the season to be hiking. And don't you guys usually have packs?" The guy in the pickup said. "Get in the Back; I'm heading into Asheville; I can drop you off at the local motel."

"Thank you. You don't know how much of a lifesaver you are. Anything interesting has happened in the world over the last two weeks. We've been out of touch for a long time."

"Naw. Shit is happening in the world."

"Good to know," I said. And we climbed into the Bed of the pickup and relaxed for the first time in weeks as we got driven into Ashville, South Carolina.