“How the fuck did you gain a level?” Rick asked Billy.

“I’m the floor boss. If a minion gets experience, so do I,” the gunslinger explained.

“That… makes sense. Otherwise, you’d fall behind everyone else,” Rick said, telling Billy what he already knew. “Your place is coming together nicely.”

Billy puffed his chest out at the still barebones structure. A piece of warming stone fell off one of the pillars stacked too high and he deflated a bit.

“It’s still a work in progress,” he said.

Normally, Rick would have cleared his throat and made a suggestion, but those little human quirks continued to vanish. “Do you want Yosk to come give you any pointers?”

“Absolutely not. Has the System punished us? Why have we been given such an annoying minion?” Billy asked.

“Cool your jets. Yosk is great. You just don’t have any taste,” Rick said, trying not to laugh.

“And you let him procreate,” Billy mumbled, scratching Stella’s ear.

“Speaking of which — Any more wolf pups I should prepare for?”

Billy sighed, “No. I think they’re bored. And unlike me – they don’t get experience from the other minions.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Rick said and thought of a solution. “From now on, we’re going to rotate the Ceaseless Wolves and Finn and Stella. For the next Challengers, Finn and Stella will be their first encounter and their kids will be here with you. Then, alternate them each Challenge.”

“Sounds good to me,” Billy said and got back to work on his house.

Rick sent a mental command to the Ceaseless Wolves to head toward Billy. They looked like they were full-grown, but Rick sensed they were going to get bigger still. And when they weren’t viciously attacking Challengers or bargles, they certainly still acted like puppies.

It was pretty funny watching them chase and nip at each other. Once in a while, one of them would stray too far away from the group and tumble over from straining their connection. Although they were still young and playful, they understood Rick’s mental commands and headed over to Billy.

Stella and Finn replaced their kids near the door and nibbled at the red clover.

Rick realized that he would need to figure out a way to get Luca some levels as well. Couldn’t Jimmy calibrate the door so the second floor technically became the first floor? If he did that, then it would also throw some of the Challengers off. Not to mention, Rick really wanted to see what Luca could do in a fight.

He continued his expansion of Luca’s level until the trash was completely gone. Rather than using up all of the water, he decided to let the pool at the bottom of the stream fill up in case of an emergency.

Luca had made an impressive maze of mucus around the grass pillars during his time alone. If Rick couldn’t sense the stuff, he’d never have seen it.

The mosquito had made sure to coat it and form an actual maze. It gave the Challengers an opportunity to fight Luca without touching the stuff, but in all likelihood, they’d get stuck in it.

“Are you ready to fight soon, Luca?”

A warm glow emanated from Luca’s body in response. Rick had to admit that it was a welcoming sight, and it gave Rick an idea. Maybe he could find a similar light from the Dungeon Shop and put them near treasures around the floor. That way, Challengers would associate the light with a prize and have no choice other than to investigate. Plus, it would ensure people would come back if the treasures were good enough.

He wanted to save up for the Broadcaster, but he figured this was also a decent investment.

“Screw it, let’s see what we can find,” Rick said and started to mess with the Shop filters.

He fumbled through, looking through a vast array of lighting fixtures. It started to give him a headache so he bookmarked the one that resembled Luca’s glow the closest. Then, he searched for treasure chests. He just had a feeling that a dungeon needed to sprinkle some of those in.

What came up shocked him. The treasure chest section was longer than anything he had seen thus far. Some of them ranged in the billions of CP, made of beams of light and locks that required odd sacrifices to open. Others were merely one or two CP and were made of simple wood.

On a whim, he added the word ‘glowing’ to his search. Much like the light fixtures, he could find chests that glowed in any color or wavelength of light.

“Christ,” he mumbled and focused on Luca. The mosquito still gave off a calming warm glow. It reminded him of a cozy fireplace on a cold night around the holidays. He couldn’t put a simple word to the look so he just continued to hold the sight and the feeling in his mind’s eye while he selected the filter.

For the first time, the shop only showed a meager dozen options. The options still had a wide range of prices. One of the chests was made of balrog skin and the chest had a feature where whoever opened the chest would be sucked into some kind of portal and transported to a dungeon in another system called, “Skalleg’s Torment”. That opened up a lot of questions for him, but he couldn’t afford it anyway.

Instead, he found one in his price range. For only three CP, he could buy a simple wooden chest with a simple enchantment. The enchantment was called, “Solace”. It didn’t give buffs like Penny’s scarf — just the welcoming light.

He bought it and quickly made a dozen of them, scattering both the first and second floor with six apiece. Then, Rick produced various treasures within the boxes. On the first floor, he placed a box inside Billy’s construction area and put a gold bar in it.

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In Luca’s little mucus nest, he put a box containing a handful of diamonds.

The other notable treasures included a slice of pizza infused with a Minor Strength skill he got from one of Pablo’s former comrades. Another box contained a vintage Playboy magazine. A fine relic of the former world.

A couple of hours passed and Rick spent his time looking through the Dungeon Shop out of boredom. Finally, the door opened and a few familiar faces stepped in as the Broadcast fired up.

The Spell & Sword entered with Pablo tagging along.

“Looks like they struck some kind of deal,” Rick said. His minions knew by now that he talked to himself so they ignored him unless he spoke directly to them. “There’s no way Pablo made more than one or two of those dolls in this time,” Rick continued his own play-by-play announcing.

The group checked the immediate area for any pressure plates hidden on the ground.

“Ah, they’re learning,” Rick said.

Finn and Stella were lurking in the tunnels, waiting for the right time to strike.

Alex held up a fist, signaling for them to stop and be silent.

Rick scoffed, “Nerds.”

Of course, Rick knew why he had stopped them. In the distance, Yosk was screaming to be let go when Elza jammed a piece of cloth in his mouth and tied it around his face. She was holding him down, forcing him to stay put rather than run over and ruin a bunch of her traps. The lizardman clearly had no idea how to work strategically and Rick thought that Elza might just kill him to make it easier on herself.

The broadcast numbers had only gotten to 1.2 billion thus far, but it didn’t indicate what percentage of the population it was.

Alex shook his head, “Whatever, we’ll deal with whatever that is when we need to. My guess is that the wolves are in the tunnels again.”

Sarah nodded, “Got those scary ass pinatas, Pablo?”

He smiled and opened his backpack. Healing dolls came out and propped themselves on the shoulders of each party member, followed by five horse-shaped pinatas. He kept the rest of his dolls in the backpack for now.

“This thing still gives me the creeps,” Grady said, rolling the shoulder holding the dia de muertos doll.

“I’ll happily put it away so you don’t break it,” Pablo offered.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll get used to it,” Grady said.

“Yeah, you’ll get used to it when one of those lobos bites your dick and my doll is helping you grow it back,” Pablo said with a wink.

Grady shuddered and continued to scan the area with his eyes.

“Stay put everyone. I’m sending out the pinatas,” Pablo said.

The tiny pink and yellow horses galloped into different tunnel entrances. They made a funny rustling noise as they ran and were light enough to bounce off of the red clovers.

The Challengers still had no idea how valuable the resource was and Rick hoped they’d figure it out before the whole place became a big red eyesore.

“I guess it’s another source of Energy. Let’s see,” Rick said and started burning some of the clovers by Billy and expanding the 2nd floor. “Nevermind, I hope they never figure it out.”

Rick was interrupted from his thoughts by two explosions within the tunnels.

To the Challengers, little bombs sounded like dull thuds within the tunnel. All five of their faces broke into a grin as Pablo called back the other three pinatas that didn’t detonate.

“We each get a shit ton of XP?” Diane asked. She’d been unusually quiet, still recovering from being humbled by Kara.

The group confirmed and turned to Pablo again.

“Mind sending one of your dolls to fetch the loot sacks?” Alex asked.

“If I’m going to do everything, you really should be paying me a bigger cut,” Pablo said.

Diane clenched her jaw, “Ha-Ha,” she mocked. “We already agreed on an even split and if you joke about that shit again, I’ll shove one of those pinatas up your ass.”

As annoying as Diane could be, he was glad to see her return to her original self.

Pablo’s face colored. He knew the entire world could see what they were doing and saying. “Try it, puta.”

Before the group could collapse into an argument, Alex butted in. “Enough! Let’s focus on the positives here,” he said, holding his hands up for everyone to calm down.

Diane and Pablo relaxed and nodded. They had gone over their expectations extensively before coming in and made written agreements that Pablo, the Cartel, and the Sword & Spell were all happy with.

Pablo agreed to join the Spell & Sword but it came at the cost of 5% of his earnings going to the Cartel. He didn’t mind too much since he had a lot of friends and family within the organization.

Each member of the Spell & Sword agreed on an even split of 20%. Alex, being the most level-headed would assign loot if they came across a specialized item. If none of them could directly use it, they would sell it and split the profit five ways.

“Good,” Alex continued. “Ok, like we planned. Clear this first area, then move on. Pablo, your dolls are extremely useful for finding traps which I suspect we’ll encounter soon. If shit hits the fan, me and Sarah have your back. Grady and Diane have your front. You’re the safest one of the group.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just check the loot,” Pablo said, still angry with Diane for making him look bad. His dolls came back carrying the loot sacks.

“If you weren’t a bunch of cowards, you would have found the treasure chest,” Rick said as he watched the group.

Ignorance was bliss to the five people as Alex greedily opened the sacks. “Ah, 100 Credits apiece?”

“Yup, what’s inside!” Grady said like a kid on Christmas morning.

Alex put his hand in the first bag and screamed. His hand looked like it was being pulled in. Diane drew her sword and prepared to cut his arm off.

The mage jumped back and laughed, “Whoa, relax. I was just messing with you.”

Diane growled and the group shook their heads in embarrassment.

“The whole world is cringing at you right now,” Sarah said.

“Oh, whatever. This one is for Pablo anyway,” Alex said and pulled out a dia de muertos doll and tossed it to Pablo who nodded in thanks.

“Lucky bastard,” Grady grumbled. “What’s in the other one?

“Total dud,” Alex said and produced a tube of chapstick.

Sarah practically lunged for it and snatched the tube out of Alex’s hands. “Uh - any objections?”

None in the group did so Alex stood up and said, “Alright, let’s move on to phase two.”

As they walked toward the arch separating this area and the one to Elza and Yosk, Pablo sent his pinatas and dolls ahead of the two frontline warriors. The moment one of the pinatas stepped through the arch, it was impaled by a wooden spike and exploded. The explosion set off more traps, turning the archway into a door of utter death and destruction.

Pablo opened his mouth, about to ask for another raise when Diane glared and cut him off. “Remember,” she said and pointed a finger upwards. “Pinata. Ass.”