The motel was on the edge of town, and we rented 2 rooms. There was a convenience store, so after a shower, I bought a USB charging cable for my phone. Then I walked back to my room. I used the phone in the room to order a large sausage pizza and a 2-liter bottle of Coke from the local pizzeria advertising in the hotel room. Then, I turned on the Television and stretched out in bed.

After the Pizza arrived, I went to the next room and invited Sid and Em for food.

"There must be a summon Pizza spell," Sid said. "I don't think I could get sick of this." Sid was sitting in a recliner by the front window. We had the air conditioner going full blast and drank Coke from the cups the motel provided for water. I'd already filled and refilled the ice container from the ice machine outside twice. Sid was talking about going to the convenience store next door to pick up a case of beer.

"I would kill for a beer." He said.

"There is a convenience store next door. That's where I bought the cell phone charger." I said.

"So what's the plan?"

"Was going to get a good night's sleep in a real bed. Wake up late. I already mentioned to the guy at the Check-in that we would sleep and check out late. According to the guy at the desk, there is a chain car rental place down the street. So I thought I would rent a car and drive us home."

"Right now, I have no plans to do anything except sleep. Do either of you need me to drain your stamina? And there is a CPAP spell I was eyeing that I have enough XP for. The same goes for the [Basic: Prevent Snores] spell."

"I think we'll manage. Night Randy."

"Night, guys."

And with that, I went back into my room; with the TV chattering at me, I curled up in bed and quickly drifted into a dreamless sleep.

As promised, the next day, we got up early and took an Uber to the nearest Enterprise Rent-A-Car, where the SUV I had reserved on my phone the night before was filled up and waiting for us. 11 hours later, I was dropping Em and Sid off at their place.

"Fitz tonight?" Sid Asked.

"Tomorrow. It is pretty late, and I'm tired from driving. I know I have the stamina spell, but it doesn't cover burnout all that well. Just physical exhaustion. Wouldn't mind spending the night in my own bed. Tomorrow. Let's meet for dinner. 5ish. We can chat about finding another team member then."

It took another 20 minutes to find another branch of the car rental place near my house, return the car, and have them drop me off. By that point, all I wanted to do was stumble into my place and get some sleep.

Laying in bed, I decided to round out my skill set. So I bought the spells [Basic: Unclog Arteries],[Heal wound to heart], [Heal wound to head],[Lower Blood Pressure], [Basic: Regulate Air to Lungs], [Lessen Swelling] and the Skills [Basic: Nursing 1], [Basic: Battlefield Paramedic 1] and [Human: Anatomy].

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After absorbing those spells, I fell asleep again until noon.

I woke up the following day and emptied the loot I'd gathered in the mushroom well into a plastic storage box. Then I began organizing my inventory. Sleep quilt, inflatable floor mat, camping tent, rope, survival rations, camping chair, sandals, extra sword, extra baseball bat, extra reinforced leather gear, kevlar vest, layers of clothing, rain gear, winter boots, beer, a hunting knife. That kind of thing. Everything went into a 100 Liter backpack that I annotated as "Camping/Survival," so it took up minimal inventory spaces.

Then I put on my adventuring gear and headed into the Dungeon. The first few rooms were accessible. Even the Ogre hidden under the sink was easy. I got another [Hulk Smash] crystal and a bunch of coins. It looked like this was preassigned loot. I would either try to sell it or save it for Sid. I wasn't sure which yet. Sneaking down the stairs to the basement, The cultist was again trying to perform a sacrifice. This time the victim was Quimby's Mom. I hit the cultist with multiple Intermediate Shocks and put him down like a rabid dog. Before he could retaliate.

Quimby's mom recognized me, and I asked if she could find her way home since I didn't want to repeat the trip to the village. Since the cultist's robes only vaguely smelt like burnt pork, I stripped him of them and handed them to Quimby's mom. Then I looted him, finding a handful of coins and the [Basic: Revive Zombie] Spell, which I shrugged and learned. Necromancer wasn't exactly where I wanted my character to go, but I figured one or two spells couldn't hurt.

I returned and had a short epic battle with the Alligator in the pond. While I was killing the scaly son of a bitch, a patrol of goblins happened, and I lost half of my hit points to arrows before I could switch my attention from the lizard to the goblins. Fortunately, I could heal myself up while I charged, and the goblins went down double quick.

I walked over to the condo next door and tried opening the French doors leading into the backyard. They were locked. Shrugging, I broke the back door window, reached in, and opened the door.

There were four goblins in the kitchen cooking something at the stove. I attacked them with my baseball bat, and they died quickly, as did the Ogre in the basement. The Ogre dropped a [Basic: Pottery - Etruscan Funerary Urns] crystal. The upstairs of this house was mostly empty except for a few slimes that died in the most slime fully way possible. And I didn't bother looking for hidden compartments or hidden rooms.

I tried the [Basic: Revive Zombie] spell a couple of times. Found out that I needed a corpse to cast the spell. And after I had revived the Ogre, I found out that I had gained no experience killing my own zombie.

The next condo had a mixture of goblins, orcs, and cultists. The fights were more difficult, but I was good as long as I remembered to heal a buff myself periodically. I came out of those fights with a handful of dungeon coins, a dagger lodged in my leg, and a [Basic: Improved competitive eating - Hot dog division] and [Intermediate PASCAL Programming] skill crystal.

Seeing a skill crystal for a dead programming language on my list, I was curious about what other real-world skills were for sale. I opened up the [Market] and did some elementary searches, finding [Basic: Cryptography],[Basic: Banking Computing systems],[Basic: Writing Malware],[Basic: Cyber security],[Basic: Digital Forensics],[Basic: Penetration Testing] and a whole bunch exciting subjects. I considered buying a bunch for shits and giggles, but I was already stretched pretty thin. And because becoming a Black Hat hacker wouldn't kill even one Goblin.

I did grab a few stealth skills that Sid would have liked, including [Basic: Ignore],[Basic: Quiet footsteps],[Basic: fade into shadows],[Basic: Blend with Background],[Basic: Pick Lock] and [Basic: Muffle Sound] just because if I was going to solo a lot, being able to move stealthily seemed like a smart idea.

It was getting to the point that I would have to meet up with Sid, so I pulled the knife out of my leg, healed up, and left my Dungeon.