Em and Gwen faced off, swords at the ready. Sid was hidden. We had decided he would pop out and drop a piece of fabric between both warriors; when the material hit the ground, the fight would begin.

"For those of you who are about to die, I salute you." I misquoted.

Gwen turned to me and said, "You quoted it all wrong. It is supposed to be "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die to salute you."

At that very moment, Sid Popped out of nowhere and dropped the piece of cloth. I don't think Gwen saw it since she was too busy pointing out my flaws.

Em, dashed forward and sliced Gwen across the stomach with her blunted blade. It was a direct hit, and Gwen's face planted into the pavement. I thought I had wasted 100 xp on the crystals I'd given her, plus the resale value of the two crystals I'd found. Except that Em backed off and yelled, "Get up. Show me what you got. Ignore Randy. He's a twat."

Annie punched me in the shoulder. "Hey," I said.

"Shut up," Annie said.

Gwen pushed herself up and put her sword at the ready. Em lunged at her, and Gwen blocked Em's hit easily. In the same motion, Gwen used the momentum from Em's blade to return a strike at Em, which Em barely blocked. There was a flurry of blade work where it became evident that Em was completely out of her league. Gwen struck her three times, and Em after that first strike, Em couldn't even get close.

Finally, Em backed off. "Stop. Stop. You know your stuff. You're going to have to show me some of those moves." Then she looked at me, "' She's in if she wants it."

"You want in?" I asked. Then said, "Anyone want healz?"

"I need to know more. Tell me about this Dungeon you have." Gwen said.

"You have access to a dungeon?" Annie said.

"Shush, everyone. We don't want this to get out. Don't tell anyone. Not even your friends. Why don't we get a couple of Ubers and head to my place to talk about things? In Private."

"Why take Uber. Annie and I drove here. And I feel sober enough to drive." Gwen said.

"I cast [Basic: Sober] on you before you beat up on Em, so you should be fine. I hope. If we are taking cars, I hope you don't mind if I cast it on Annie too." Which I did.

We loaded into both cars after Gwen and Annie went in and apologized to their friends for leaving early. Annie had a Purple Jeep, and Gwen a Lexus. I noticed a small box of rubber ducks sitting on Annie's passenger seat. Moving the box out of the way before I sat down, I gave her an odd look. She just "It's a Jeep thing, don't ask, you wouldn't understand."

I shrugged because I really didn't care. Once at my condo, I had Annie park in one of the guest parking spaces. Marigold was sitting in front of her apartment and got up when she saw us.

"Bringing another one of your whores home? The Condo board will hear about this"

"Whores?" Annie Asked?

"My Karen neighbor. Let me handle this." I said, and I cast my [Basic: flatulence] several times on Marigold. Who began to fart loudly and frequently.

"Marigold, can't you control yourself? Do you need a diaper? I should tell the Condo Board and the neighbors about this."

I cast the spell another couple of times, and it had the side effect of causing my neighbor to shit her pants. The smell was wretched. The old woman stinks times 1000. Marigold turned and ran inside, crying.

"That seemed a bit excessive," Annie said.

"She is a bitter old hag; I've wanted to do that to her for ages," I replied.

"Welcome to my humble abode. Sorry, the place is a mess. We've been using my living room as kind of a base camp. Normally I would have cleaned up or hired a maid if I knew a woman was coming over." I opened the front door and ushered Annie in.

"Your whores?" Annie asked?

"Don't listen to Marigold. She is convinced I hold regular orgies in here."

"You don't? That's a major letdown. All my friends have regular orgies in their living room."

"We're friends?" I asked.

Annie shrugged. "Maybe, we'll see. Depends on how well the orgies go. I assume that is why you lured me to your lair."

There was a knock at the front door. When I opened it, Em, Sid, and Gwen stood on my "In this house, we play Taylor's Version" doormat. A couple of packages were waiting by the door, which I picked up and brought in.

"Come in. Come in. Sorry about the mess."

Everyone came in and found places to sit.

"Holy shit, Sid. There is a lot of Estrogen in this room."

Sid shrugged. "Think of the advantages."

"Bobs. Lots and lots of Bobs." He said, and when Em glared at him. He said, "But I am sure we will all act with the quiet professionalism the situation demands."

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Em coughed, then began. "Okay, everyone. Thank you for coming. And Gwen, thanks for putting up with our little test. I assume you are wondering why you are here. Thanks to Randy here, we have access to a dungeon. It is primarily goblins and ogres with a few slimes. We have had some tight scrapes with a cultist and some mushrooms and thought we should expand our group into a complete party.

"So far, I have been acting as Tank, while Sid is DPS/Stealth/Scout, and Randy has been Healer/DPS and Tanking as the situation changes. I thought it would be best to focus on doing roles well rather than half ass-things as we have been doing, and the boys agreed.

"First off, Randy, why not show everyone the portal to the Dungeon so the ladies don't think we are full of it. I'll use the kitchen for cooking something using the Morelipeeps we harvested."

"You harvested. Still can't believe you ripped the Morelipeep's arms and legs off and then dumped them alive into your inventory on top of the bodies of hundreds of their friends and loved ones who were also armless and legless. Emily, you have a cruel streak I didn't know you had."

"Randy, they are just Mushrooms. Stop anthropomorphizing them. Tasty mushrooms. Now quit procrastinating and show the ladies the Dungeon. Maybe grab some weapons and take them for a quick look around."

"Okay, Annie, Gwen, if you don't mind coming with me."

I led Annie and Gwen into my guest room. "We built this protective enclosure when a dungeon monster came out and stole my car."

I plugged in the code for the lock. "The code is 2718281. It is the same code going in and coming out." I pulled the door open and led them inside. I opened one of the storage spaces and pulled out two ballistic vests, two long swords, and two bowie knives. "Here, use these for now."

I bought [crystals] for [Basic: regenerate] and [Basic: cure wound] [Basic: Increase Stamina Recovery] and handed them to Annie. "Here. Learn these. Do you know any weapon skills?"

"My dad used to take me out Elk hunting when I was young."

"So, no. Unless you were using a bow?"

"Rifle. Sorry."

I bought [Basic: Longsword] and handed it to her. She quickly absorbed all four [Crystals].

"Ready," I asked. "The first room is a bedroom. Three goblins will charge us as soon as we enter. Sid and I will hold back and only step in if you are over your head. Right, Sid? Sid? Sid, are you around?"

"Looks like we are doing this without Sid," I said. "Are you ready? Gwen, why don't you take point. Annie, Also accept my group request. So we can share XP."

Gwen and Annie stepped in. I gave them a minute and then stepped in myself. Both women had their swords out. Two goblins were bleeding corpses on the ground, and Gwen was swinging at the third; Annie stood cautiously back a few steps, watching Gwen as she beheaded the last green fucker.

"Remember to loot. Also, if I weren't just taking you on a quick tour, I would have you search the room to find the secret compartment. But since we are in a hurry, I will tell you where it is. Check the hardwood flooring under the bed."

Gwen moved the bed out of the way, and Annie started trying to pry wood up. They found the compartment fairly quickly and googled the Snickers bar hidden inside.

"The next room, I out the door and in the bathroom to the left. There are two slimes. The first is in the toilet. The second is hidden in the soap bottle. Keep in mind that you need magic to kill slimes. Swords don't do shit. And if they touch you, their acid will burn your skin." I said.

"Who would be stupid enough to get slime all over them," Annie asked.

"You would be surprised. It is a common mistake." I replied.

"So, how do we kill the slime if we can't use magic?"

"The first time I ran into slimes, I flushed one down the toilet and set the other on fire. The second time I ran, I did go into the bathroom; I had bought myself a DPS spell. One or both of you might want to consider getting a fire, electricity, or wind damage spell when you can't just kill with your sword.

We haven't run into any magic weapons in all of our delving. Em might have mentioned that she wants to pick up some enchanting to go with her pre-apocalypse blacksmithing hobby. Sid mumbled about buying a spell that converts physical damage into arcane damage. But essentially, I am our group's only magi user and am slotted into healing right now. Which is why we were looking for new team members.

I'll kill them this time, but think about spending the XP on something other than whatever primary function you think you would fit into the group. It isn't just slimes. There are undead out there and other things that need esoteric methods of killing." I said.

I led them into the bathroom and electrocuted both slimes. "Loot up, and let's head on to the next room."

Gwen and Annie looted the slimes and found a couple of [dungeon coppers]. "Is this all?" Annie said.

"Yeah. Easy monsters, barely any loot. It adds up, though." I said. "Moving on. The third battle is just like the first. Three goblins in the next room. Are you ready? Gwen, why don't you let Annie kill at least one."

They both nodded, and we moved into the second bedroom. As usual, the goblins were still playing Minesweeper on their ancient computer. Gwen stepped into the room, and the goblins turned and looked over at us; Annie stepped up beside Gwen just as the goblins charged. The fight was over quickly. Annie killed one, and Gwen killed the other two.

"Loot away, girls." I said, "Then we will head out for now."

"This was fun. Can we do more?" Gwen asked.

"Later. Doing more was why we brought the two of you into our group. There is a lot more to this Dungeon than we have yet explored. This was to just give you a taste and some XP to spend. Remember, you both owe me for the spells I bought for you before coming in here. Em is cooking a nice snack for us right now, and Sid is off somewhere doing something."

"I'm not paying you back for the [Etruscan Pottery] skill. And it occurs to me that you or Sid might be the reason for my sudden mysterious growth of butt hair last week."

We backtracked to the first room. There were three goblin corpses still lying bloody on the floor. "See you on the other side," Gwen said when she stepped through the portal.

I was about to leave, too, when Annie said. "Randy, stop for a moment."

I turned, and Annie was right up near me. She grabbed onto my armor, pulled me close, and kissed me. Then another, and then we were on the fake bed making out.

"Randy. This delve made me feel alive. It was a rush. And I'm Horney. And I'm so looking forward to doing this again."

"This this," I said.

"This this, too, but I was mostly talking about facing death and killing things," Annie said. She started fiddling with my ballistic vest, and I took off hers. Amid the kissing, we were both naked in a room with green blood spatter covering the walls and a severed goblin head by the foot of the bed.

Annie had a tattoo of sunflowers entwined with red honeysuckle and trumpet creepers running up the left side of her body from her pelvis around her left boob and to her shoulder. I could see a couple human skulls girded by flowers and hidden in the darker parts of her tattoo. On her lower abdomen, just above her pubic region, were two tattooed hummingbirds. Annie had a small tuft of dark brown pubes just above her clitoral hood.

Randy, "I know you saw the skulls on the tattoo. Medieval artists used to hide human bones in paintings as a reminder that everything beautiful someday will die. It is a way to visually represent Carpe Dium. I'm tired of living life paycheck to paycheck. This is the most vibrant I've felt in ages."

I gently stroked one of the hummingbirds and said, "A couple weeks ago, I met a Mexican granny who would love you."

"Are you sure you want to be talking about old women right now?" She said.

I moved my hand, ran it through her loosly curled chestnut hair, and said, "Nope."