Getting up early, and my brain felt like it had just been pegged by my Karen neighbor Marigold. The picture of Marigold wearing a strap-on, brain-fucking me, made me run to my bathroom to vomit. Today's omens were not good.

Eventually, I got cleaned up, re-hydrated, and ready to smite the supernatural world with a smile.

Charging into the first room of the Dungeon, sword in hand, was cathartic until I almost tripped over the threshold. I tried to hold my sword the way I'd been shown yesterday. Twice, I used the thrusts I had been taught.

After the goblins lay vivisected on the ground, I checked my Status and saw that [Learn: Basic Long Sword - HEMA Style] was at 15%. A 7% increase in just one fight as compared to spending three hours on getting the 8% in the HEMA club.

The loot the goblins dropped was a used condom and an entire bottle of Jack Daniels. I should buy better brands of booze to sacrifice to the Dungeon. Splurge on a Japanese Whiskey. Pick up something primo from Scotland or Ireland. I might have half a bottle of 16-year-old Lagavulin Scottish Whiskey tucked away in a closet.

The slimes in the bathroom were similarly straightforward. First, I flushed the shitter, killing the first slime. Then, instead of pumping the "soap" onto my hands, I carefully held the soap over the bowl and pumped the second slime into the toilet. A second flush, and five more effortless experience.

That brought me up to 34 experience, and I quickly scanned the skill list to see if there were any I wanted. There wasn't anything, although I mentally noted that I could summon a bagel if I got one more point.

The last room on the floor was a home office. Two goblins were playing Minesweeper (badly) on what looked like an ancient Windows 95 based computer. There was an ugly shag carpet on the ground and a poster of cats playing Eucher on the wall.

I ran into the room and stabbed them before they could even get out of their chairs. Looting their mangled and bloody corpses dropped a quarter and a copper piece. Fuck. I couldn't help myself. So I finished their Minesweep game before smashing the computer back into the depths of hell from whence it came.

Killing a Pentium I computer gave me 1 experience point. Hmmm. I would have to think about that. Smash more objects.

Now with 48 experience points, I possessed an abundance of riches. My top choices were Ignite, Shock, Dodge, and Summon Bagel. I could wait [Ignite] and [Basic Dodge] was 49 experience points, while [Shock] was 47 points. The question was kill one more monster or pick up [Shock].

[Basic Dodge] could save my life while none of the others would. [Ignite] or [Shock] (or [moisten] or [dig]) hopefully would start me on a path to magic use. [Summon bagel] would be the kind of spell someone would get to show off at Fitz's Irish Tavern to complain about how expensive buying Crystals on Craigslist and eBay is while explaining how I got the Status. Bagels were the goat. But getting [Summon Bagel] would inevitably force me to get [Toast], [Summon Cream Cheese], and [Summon Smoked Salmon]. Which was a lot of experience points this early on.

Being able to do magic is an incredibly mind-fuck, though. And I might pick up [Dodge] for free at my HEMA class. So I went into the [Market] and bought a [Crystal] for [Shock].

I hadn't yet done any damage to myself on this level, so I didn't need to heal, but I did sit down for 15 minutes and absorbed the [Crystal].

Then I shocked myself. I didn't even have to touch the person. I could just focus on a target, and when I invoked the spell with a thought, the electricity would run through whatever I targeted. The sensation felt like getting pranked by a juiced-up joy buzzer. I took six hit points of damage, costing 5 points of [Mana] to cast.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

For shits and giggles, I spent fifteen minutes shocking everything on the first floor. Nothing was a mimic, but it couldn't hurt to check.

Then when my mana pools had recharged, the direction I had left to travel was down the stairs.

Going downstairs would increase the danger or just provide new monsters to defeat. The first floor was as easy -- like sliding into an e-girls DMs. Now that I knew the layout, I could farm it forever and not take any damage. It would be safe, but I would advance slowly.

So downstairs I went.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

The third step was trapped.

I tripped and fell the rest of the way down, losing 22 hit points. To make matters worse, at the very bottom of the stairs was a hardwood floor with a very happy slime that smelt like Pine-Sol and wanted to dissolve my flesh. As I lay distracted and sprawled, the bastard attacked.

I started spamming [Shock] as I pushed myself away. But the slime was faster. And I kept taking damage and more damage. It was a battle of attrition. A pyrrhic struggle of legendary proportions.

I could run around the slime if I could get to my feet. I was faster, more agile, and likable than some oozy son of a bitch. Plus, the whole point of magic was that I could cast from afar. Fuck Shit. Slimes were immune to blunt and piercing damage, and I couldn't flush this one down the toilet.

"Fuck you, slime! Why don't you stick to Nickelodeon awards and Katie Perry's nightmares?" I yelled in frustration.

When the bastard son of a booger and a slobber finally died. I was down to 32 hit points. Burn marks covered my body. I had managed to get on my feet, but my legs and arms were covered in blisters. My [Status] sheet showed I only had 16 [Mana] left. The slime had died from electrical damage. Tendrils of smoke rose from its liquidy corpse. But at what cost? I needed to up my Mana, and that would require leveling. Maybe I should really rethink the whole Sid thing. Shit-titty-fuck!

Not knowing what would happen if I ran out of [Mana], I crawled back up the stairs and out of the Dungeon before crashing onto my couch and flipping on the TV. Scooby-Doo was on. It was the one where the old man would have got away with it except for some meddling kids.

Bringing up my [Status], my hit points had gone down to 29 as I'd evacuated. My Mana was ticking back up and was at 21 points.

Concentrating on short bursts of [Increase Healing Rates]. I could bring myself up two or three points with my heal, but I would lose a point or two from whatever bleeding or acid affect the slime had afflicted me.

This last fight had brought me back up to 12 experience. There had to be something in the [Market] that would speed this up. I wouldn't die, but I was getting blood all over the living room sofa.

Doing a search in the [Market] for Healing items for under 12 experience points:

Aspirin - 1 xp

Bandaid - 1 xp

Birth Control Pill - 1 xp

Burn Gel - 4 xp

Cold Pack - 3 xp

Condom - Ribbed - 2 xp

EMT Sheers - 5 xp

Echinacea - 1 xp

Face Mask - 2 xp

Garlic clove - 1 xp

Hydrogen Peroxide - 2 xp

Healing Jelly Beans - 3 xp per bean

Mugwort - 2 xp

Narcan 1 - dose - 12 xp

Splint - 3 xp

Stitching Kit - 4 xp

Stabilizing Gum - 10 xp

Sunscreen - 2 xp

Testosterone - 10 xp

Tin Thistle - 4 xp

Tylenol - 1 xp

Vitamin A tablet - 1 xp

Vitamin B tablet - 1 xp

Vitamin C tablet - 1 xp

Vitamin E tablet - 1 xp

Wet Wipes - 1 xp

Most of the list was useless, but I did hover over the [Burn Gel], the [Healing Jelly Beans], and the [Stabilizing Gum]. [Healing Jelly Beans] healed 5 hit points per bean instantly. The [Stabilizing Gum] didn't do any healing. Still, it immediately stopped damage over time outside of combat as long as the person kept chewing.

I hated spending this many points, but I purchased the Gum. It came in a pack of 5 sticks like old-school Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I popped a bar in my mouth, and the Gum tasted like wintergreen. Better yet, my hit points stopped going down.

Out of curiosity, I browsed around the healing section of the Market. The cheapest [Basic Healing Potion] cost 50 experience and would heal 75-150 hit points. I buy an MRI machine for 14,000 experience points. And a [Familiar - Woggle], which apparently was a magical parrot that sat on your shoulder and spammed you with healing spells, cost 6,500 experience.

Healing and topping up my pools took me three and a half hours. I got bored of Scoobie-Doo and watched one of the new Dungeon Delving movies that Hollywood had started churning. Last I heard, Literary Agents were chugging through the fiction on Royal Road, handing out movie options like it was the apocalypse, and making stars out of fan-fic and LITrpg authors.

When I was in my best shape, I took a shower and dressed to go to my HEMA class instead of delving into my dungeon again.