“This isn’t what we prepared for,” One of the silhouettes whispered loud enough for his teammates to hear.

“Yeah, did the lights get shut off or what?” another said.

“No, this is different,” A tall silhouette in the middle said. “See those glowing lights? That’s the same light we saw in the last broadcast. Those are treasure chests.”

“Fuckin’ jackpot,” said another silhouette.

Rick observed the group and Luca, who was waiting in the middle, unmoving and glowing like a treasure chest. He could still sense the excitement in the monster. The rest of the world watching the broadcast also knew that Luca was the only creature inside. They could look through Luca’s eyes, but none knew what it looked like yet. The Challengers were still obscured in low light.

“What’s the plan then, Tim?” one of them asked.

“I’m not sure. Anyone have a flashlight?” the tall one, presumably named Tim, asked.

“No, we weren’t supposed to need one,” a frustrated silhouette said.

“Let’s just slowly make our way to one of the chests,” a shorter, stout man said.

“Steve, there could be traps and we can’t see shit,” Tim said.

The stout man named Steve said, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll lead the way. The whole world’s watchin’.”

Tim grabbed Steve’s shoulder before he could march on, “Hold up. The rest of you alright with this or do you wanna bail?”

“One of the silhouettes sighed, “Damnit, I didn’t want to use this. It’s expensive as hell.”

The broadcast viewers might not be able to see, but Rick could clearly see the man take out a bottle from one of the pockets in his cargo pants. Rick didn’t recognize the bottle, but it had a silver hue to it, making it appear to be System bought.

The silhouette twisted a metal top off and squirted the door in a big circle with a bright blue glowing liquid.

“What is that stuff, Doug?” Tim asked.

“Spot Squirt. Some shit I bought off the Shop. You can’t see it during the day, but I’d squirt a little bit on any doors of places I already raided or places I needed to avoid so I could skip ‘em the next night,” Doug explained. “Anyway, a circle means safe. An ‘X’ means danger. Got it?”

The group whispered their affirmations.

Rick wanted some of that juice. He could really screw with Challengers if he painted circles over traps. Luca waited patiently as the group went toward one of the actual treasure chests rather than the mucus maze of death.

Steve crept forward, “My eyes are adjusting a bit. I can see the ground at least.”

“Me too,” Tim said and the group picked up the pace.

They made it to the chest without any interference. As they stood around the glowing light, the people watching could finally see the Challengers who all looked pleased with themselves. They were all men in their mid-to-late 30s. Maybe early 40s. They could have been military vets, but if Rick had to guess, these guys just raided an Army Surplus store with fresh camo shirts and pants. Another giveaway was that none of them carried guns. One of them had a baseball bat, but no other obvious weapons.

“Shall we?” Tim asked.

The group all nodded excitedly as they kept their eyes glued to the glowing chest. Tim carefully ran his fingers over it, the way he had seen the Spell & Sword group do, searching for traps. He couldn’t find any and flipped the lid open. Inside, there was a slice of pizza with a note:

Eat it, pussy.

The group looked at the now room-temperature pizza and the note in confusion.

“I think the note’s talking to you, Greg,” Tim whispered, drawing a chuckle from his teammates.

Greg glared at Tim, “Odds that it’s poisoned?”

“Most likely,” Steven said.

Greg shook his head but shocked the group by taking a huge bite out of it. He chewed and chewed, locking eyes from one person in his group to the next, and swallowed. His eyes shot wide open and grabbed at his throat, dropping the slice of pizza.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Quick grab a —” Tim started to say.

Greg started to laugh, “Just fuckin’ with you guys. But, holy shit, it feels like I just did an 8-ball.”

“What do you mean?” Steven asked, narrowing his eyes.

Greg grabbed the treasure chest and lifted it over his head as if it were weightless, “It gave me a Strength buff. Says it only lasts ten minutes.”

Tim picked it up and took a bite, “Wow, this is sweet.”

Steven snatched it out of his hands, taking a bite as well before passing it to the other two. The five military posers laughed and flexed.

“Let’s go to the next one before my shit runs out!” Greg shouted and started a dead sprint toward Luca.

The other four men followed, laughing. Rick finally got to see some of their abilities as what appeared to be wooden spikes erupted from Steven’s body. He surged forward taking the lead and promptly stuck himself in some of Luca’s mucus.

Greg had been following close behind and impaled himself on Steven’s spikes, unable to slow down in time. The others skidded to a halt before impaling themselves as well.

“I’m stuck!” Steven yelled. “Who’s stuck to me?”

Tim looked like he was about to puke, “It’s Greg. One of your spikes went straight through his head.”

“Oh god, get him off of me,” Steven said and started thrashing about, getting more of the mucus on him.

“Retract your spikes,” Tim said.

“I can’t for another nine minutes.”

“Hold still then!” Tim yelled. “You two, help me pull Greg off.”

Rick noticed that the other two men who hadn’t spoken their names appeared to move more like fighters than the other three. Without a word, they jumped into action, each grabbing one of Greg’s arms and pulling him off quickly.

“Help me get out of this shit, it’s getting worse,” Steven complained.

Tim strained his eyes, barely able to see the clear mucus. “Man, this stuff blends in well. Give me a second.”

“It’s like a spiderweb or something,” Steven said, stating the obvious.

“Here, just grab my hand,” Tim said.

Steven reached out and grasped Tim’s hand firmly. This is when Luca chose to act.

The large mosquito pulsed its light and it lunged onto a large glob of mucus in the center of its maze. The glob was connected to the rest of the maze with strands in every direction. Once Luca was perched on top, the mosquito started to hum its wings against the glob. The vibration sent ripples throughout the mucus maze until it reached Steven and Tim.

The vibration caused Steven to get sucked further in, entangling Tim as well. Mucus covered Steven’s mouth, beginning to suffocate him.

“Help, motherfuckers!” Tim screamed at the other two men of the group.

They looked at each other and shook their heads as they began to back away toward the door that Greg had marked.

Steven and Tim’s enhanced strength worked against them as the more they thrashed about, the more they pulled more mucus onto them.

Rick chimed in as he was watching, “I really thought the pizza would help them. What’s wrong with these guys?”

Tim hadn’t been completely entangled yet and with his free hand, he showed what he could do. With his palm facing up toward the ceiling and his fingers pointed at the two men abandoning him, he whispered an incantation that even Rick couldn’t understand.

A circular symbol glowed in gold around his palm and lifted off, immediately shooting towards the men. They were ready for it as they were backing up and together they held up their forearms in front of their faces. There was some sort of silvery metal on them, indicating that what they wore on their arms was System Shop bought.

A dome of blue light erupted around them and deflected the gold ring. Tim cursed and knew that they weren’t worth the trouble. He needed to focus on getting out of the sticky mucus.

“If I make it out of here, I’ll skin you alive, motherfuckers,” Tim promised.

Rick watched and found it odd. Not all was lost if the other two helped, and they didn’t move like cowards or with much concern at all.

Once they saw that Tim had turned away from them, they backed up close enough to the door to make a quick exit. Just before they left, one of them looked up and said, “Gus says to consider it an act of good faith.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rick asked himself.

Tim had managed to free himself of most of the mucus except for his hand grasping the now purple-faced Steven. “Sorry, man. I gotta,” he said before summoning another golden ring. It shot up and down in a quick arc, severing Steven’s arm. Tim fell back on his ass but found himself safe from the clutches of the mucus.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a pulsing glow. Slowly turning his head he began another incantation, but it was too late.

At this moment, it also clicked about what the man had meant before he left the dungeon. Gus had picked this group to be sacrificed and sent two of his cronies to make sure it was done. He was about to yell for Luca to stop but the mosquito had already made its move.

Luca buzzed forward and impaled Tim’s chest with his swordlike nose. The mosquito’s normally thin body puffed out as it sucked in, turning Tim into an empty husk in moments.

Just then, Steven must have run out of air because he felt the Alert of leveling up.

Luca dropped Tim’s husk and went to Greg and Steven’s bodies to drain them as well, chittering happily along the way.

Rick sighed, “God damn Gus.” He promised to make sure they added that it was unacceptable to sacrifice people unwillingly to the dungeon. Rick said “unwillingly” because he had seen fates worse than death in the past and would at least entertain that idea as a choice.

“May as well check it,” he mumbled.

–ALERT–