Grady’s eyes widened and he sprinted to the newly constructed tavern, “Holy smokes, look at this thing!”

Diane raised her eyebrows, “Damn, not bad. Reminds me of something you’d see in Tombstone.”

“Tombstone?” Danny asked in a small voice.

For once, Diane didn’t have a snooty comeback. Maybe she had a soft spot for kids. “Yeah, it’s an old western town in southern Arizona. They kept a lot of the old original buildings. It’s a fun little tourist spot with gunfight reenactments in the street and plenty of places to drink like a cowboy.”

“Oh. Sounds fun?” Danny said.

Diane laughed, “Yeah – I wonder if anyone is still there.”

The group got quiet for a moment as they made their way to the tavern. Nobody liked talking about places they’d been to anymore. Not knowing if it was still standing or not put a damper on the memories.

Nothing could dampen Grady’s mood at the moment. He had already shoved his way through the door and started exploring the place. “It’s got two levels!” he shouted from inside.

The group joined Grady in exploring the place, properly impressed and coming up with their own plans. Rick noticed that Danny and his brother, Dane, looked a bit out of place. Atrono had just gone off to do his work, leaving only Penny to greet the kids.

“Penny, do you want some new friends?” Rick asked his dog. Her tail started wagging, so he took that as a ‘yes’. “Great, there are two boys by the new tavern. One of them has powers just like you – the other is sick. Do you think you could get them and bring them here?”

Penny happily got up and trotted out of the empty health clinic. Now that the egg was more heavily guarded, she wasn’t nearly as anxiety-ridden to leave it alone for a moment. Once she got to the tavern, her nails started clacking loudly against the wooden floors. The two younger boys immediately looked at her and smiled.

“Hi, you must be Penny,” Dane said.

Penny’s comforting scarf went to work right away. The boys visibly relaxed and walked over to pet her. It also didn’t escape Penny that Dane was sick. As they pet her behind the ears, Penny’s nose began to glow gold. She leaned toward Dane and pressed it against his chest.

The boy closed his eyes for a moment before opening them slowly. “It’s still there, isn’t it?” he asked. Penny whined and made her nose glow again. Her tail was stiff and sticking straight down.

Rick probed the boy to see if he could gauge what was going on. When he looked deeper, all he could see was a dark ball in his chest that webbed out with dark strings throughout his body. What is that? Rick asked himself. As Penny’s nose glowed against him, the dark strings receded a little bit and the dark ball shrank a fraction.

Penny started panting and tried one last time. Rick knew that it would be the last of her mana. Rick watched as the dark ball shrank even more, yet it remained when Penny’s mana tapped out.

Dane’s eyes looked slightly less hollow, “Thank you, Penny. This is the best that I’ve felt in a long time.”

“Is it gone?” Danny asked.

Dane gave a small smile, “Not completely. With you and Penny helping me together, I think I’ll be just fine.”

Rick wasn’t so sure. That dark ball didn’t look like any infection he had ever heard of. He wished Penny could actually speak to him. Lately, he felt that she understood every one of his words. If the stats humans received from level-ups made them faster and stronger, why not smarter?

“Penny, do you know what that infection is?” Rick asked.

Penny shook her snout from side to side.

“You can understand me, can’t you?” Rick asked.

This time her nose went up and down, confirming his suspicions.

“Well, now that I know for certain, you should know that you’re the best dog in the world and I love you more than anything.”

Penny’s tongue flopped out to the side as she opened her mouth in that way Rick had always imagined was a smile and wagged her tail. Rick decided to use Identify on her.

Penny - Level 8 Good Girl - Kaiju Egg Guardian

“Yeah, you knew that. Would you take the boys to your little clinic?”

Penny walked behind Danny and nudged him before walking toward the clinic. The boys got the hint and happily followed her. She had gained quite a few levels and Rick figured that it was mostly due to bringing Kara back from near death and nursing her over a couple of days. Today she had to fight some unknown infection and managed to cut it down quite a bit. This must explain the increased intelligence.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Damn. Maybe Atrono knows more,” Rick mumbled. The implication of animals gaining intelligence rivaling humans was incredible. Could the same be said for insects? Was it class-dependent? All these things could change the landscape of Earth even more.

Despite it being bad etiquette in Rick’s mind, he probed Atrono while he was in his house. The centaur was frantically swiping and tapping on his tablet. Rick was about to leave him be, but he noticed the excitement in Atrono’s eyes and the sweat dripping from his face.

“Busy?” Rick asked.

Atrono’s front legs reared up in surprise, “Oh, please don’t do that while I’m in here. I thought I was alone.”

Rick felt embarrassed immediately, “Yeah, sorry about that. I had a question that I thought couldn’t wait. But then I saw how excited you were and my curiosity got the best of me.”

The centaur huffed, “It’s okay – this time. But please, unlike most centaurs, I cherish my privacy.”

“Fair enough. I’ll leave you to it then.”

Atrono clacked a hoof on the floor, reminding Rick of when he’d tap on the glass cases in his shop when deep in thought. “I could use a break, actually. Could I bother you for some water and update you on what I’ve been doing?”

“Absolutely,” Rick produced a glass of water for the centaur.

Atrono gulped it down in one swift motion, “I put the word out about this dungeon and have been bombarded with messages from people across the multiverse to subscribe. For some reason, it seems more parties than usual are interested in this little planet.”

“That’s great, Atrono,” Rick said tentatively. “So, if a Challenger walks through those doors right now, you’re prepared to announce it?”

Crimson spread across Atrono’s face, “I’ve made a mistake. I was caught up in all of this outside attention. I’m not ready! Tell Jimmy to lock it all down.”

Rick cut in as the centaur rambled, “Relax. Just put the tablet down and do what you need to prepare. Respond to these people once you’re ready.”

“Yes, yes - of course,” Atrono straightened his back and took a deep breath. Sticking his hand into one of his saddlebags, he produced a sphere that looked like a cheap crystal ball from a carnival fortune teller.

Before Rick could ridicule the object, it zipped into the air directly in front of Atrono’s face. The centaur then stepped forward and it enveloped his head as if it were made of liquid. Images of the first floor materialized within the ball, obscuring Atrono’s face completely.

“Can you breathe in that thing?” Rick asked.

“Quite easily. Now, I must prepare,” the centaur’s voice reverberated within Rick’s mind as if it were coming from within his core.

The sensation was unsettling. It was different from communicating telepathically like he did with Jimmy and some of his minions. This was more invasive. Perhaps most people didn’t know the difference as he doubted that telepathic communication was common outside of the dungeon.

Rick quickly observed everything else happening within his dungeon and felt overwhelmed. Before the System and becoming a Dungeon Core, he was happy to pore over the origin of an item in his shop for hours. He’d learn everything he could about it — such as where it came from, who invented it, how it worked, who may have owned it over the years. Anything that he found interesting. People would come into the shop and Jimmy would talk their ears off, often letting Rick just sit and study something.

Once in a while, someone would come in with an interest in an item that he spent hours or even days looking into and he’d be able to sell it at a premium by providing such details. He loved it. His favorite part of owning the shop was unearthing tidbits of information that made a mundane object special.

Now, it seemed that he had no time at all. He was frantically putting things in his registry and spitting them back out in an attempt to not fall behind the rest of the world. He grew his floors to accommodate more minions, the eventual Kaiju, and even more people in the Auxiliary Room.

He couldn’t wait to start building the shop near the entrance as Jimmy had suggested. Rick needed something for himself more than ever. With everyone else busy, he began building the counter section of his old shop near the entrance of the first floor. Rick didn’t even need to consult his registry to build it. It would be a nice surprise for Jimmy to walk into.

“What have you done,” Atrono’s voice reverberated within Rick again.

“Atrono – Before you go any further. Do me a favor and shut the fuck up,” Rick said.

The centaur sputtered in Rick’s mind and cut the connection.

Satisfied with his little shop counter, Rick checked in on the treasure room where his Core was. Quite frankly, it was pathetic. All of this old-world junk probably wasn’t worth anything anymore. He needed to stockpile expensive System items.

Nobody had managed to get to the treasure room without him or Jimmy letting them in. This would be the perfect spot to experiment with Gus clones. Rick grew frustrated. This was his domain. Why did he feel the need to hide anything?

The magnificent Alert of a Challenger entering his domain cut Rick off from spiraling into a fit of self-pity.

“Oh, System - No. I’m not ready,” Atrono gasped as his first words broadcast across the multiverse.

Five men stepped through the door – the only people on Earth who couldn’t hear Atrono’s blunder. They were all middle-aged, and dressed in polos. Unlike the golfers, these polos looked to have a little more wear and tear on them. The colors were also more muted than the country club style – with a range of various shades of beige. They also each carried a bag that Rick recognized as a bowling ball carrier.

“Bowlers,” Rick said to help out the mortified Atrono.

“Well, now that I have everyone’s attention, please allow me to welcome you to the first official multiversal broadcast of R&J’s Dungeon Depot! It appears we have a team of bowlers on our hands.”

Rick wished he could bury himself somewhere else. Atrono’s voice came out forced, sounding more like a radio DJ from the 1960s. The bowlers would have loved it. In contrast to most of the people Rick had seen since the System integration, they all appeared tired. Perhaps they had traveled far.

The bowlers calmly set their bags down and unzipped them. Rick imagined they’d all have various skills involving bowling, but he was wrong on that front. Only one of them pulled out an actual bowling ball. The others had various System-bought weapons.

The bowling ball did look quite expensive, so Rick probed it. “Shit,” was all he managed to cough out. Within the ball was the same darkness that was within Dane’s chest.

Shifting his attention to the boys in the clinic, he saw Dane’s face pale. The boy was watching the broadcast and recognized these men.