Rick quickly inspected the area around the dais. The necromancer’s worktable was lootable. It produced several bits of corpses and a [Ceremonial Dagger]. The weapon was covered with jewels, with a bone ivory handle, and gave a +1 to magic affinity. Rick immediately equipped it. The knife appeared in a scabbard at his waist.

Gambit was peering through the arched doorway leading out of the chamber. "Hurry up!" he called before disappearing through.

"I'm coming.” Rick hopped down from the dais and hurried as fast as he could. He pelted up a flight of stone stairs behind Gambit. Torches lit the walls, casting flickery shadows on the rough steps. Daniel caught up with him halfway up, grinning as he passed Rick.

[+1 to Stair Climbing!] popped up as Rick reached the top. The military man must have a higher stair climbing skill, which made sense, because Daniel was active-duty military, and Rick was a mostly sedentary gaming nerd.

The two of them ducked through the doorway. Gambit was twenty paces ahead of them, head down and racing forward along the high-ceilinged damp stone corridor. Pipes ran along the corridor, some dripping down from overhead while others branched off to disappear into the stone walls on either side. The pipes were made of rough metal. Here and there, they had windows in the side, showing off a glowing green liquid. The drips from the pipes above hissed as they hit the floor.

"Aren't parties supposed to be five?" Daniel asked. “There are only four of us counting that guy we are chasing.”

“Didn’t you see the notification earlier?” Rick said. “We lost a tank, right off.”

As they moved down the corridor, they caught up with Gambit, who was moving slowly and dodging the glowing green puddles that dripped from the pipes above. "Don't step in any of that. It ate a hole in my bandit boots," Gambit warned.

Rick inspected. Gambit's boots said [Durability: 2/10]. "You can say that again.” He gave the puddles a wider berth.

The hunter they had been chasing was long gone. "I don't think we're going to catch him," Gambit said.

"Didn't you say we had to keep up with him or it would be more dangerous?" Daniel asked.

"Maybe we should queue for a tank,” Gambit suggested.

Rick noticed Gambit was carrying a large square-bladed sword. "Where'd you get that?"

"The last boss. It’s called the Surgeon’s Scalpel, but it equips as a sword," Gambit replied. The square blade looked like a razor blade, but much larger and stuck onto a handle. “The stats look awesome. It’s two-handed so I can’t equip a shield but,” he gave a whistle, “it’s a plus four to my main attacks.”

“So, you really aren’t going to tank.” Rick sighed and pulled up the party control interface. Still dodging around the green acid puddles, he ran through the selections and chose the option to [Complete Group]. The system acknowledged his action.

"I got us queued, but I don't know that it will do any good. From what Slate said, the chances of us getting matched with a tank are pretty astronomical."

"Maybe he was wrong," Daniel offered. "He said it would take a long time for that first dungeon to get into a dungeon at all, and that happened immediately.”

They passed two groups of bodies so completely obliterated the system only identified them as [Mangled Corpses]. Now that Daniel was moving more confidently, he pulled ahead slightly.

“Don’t get too far, there might be more adds,” Rick called as he glanced through the Looking for Group interface.

“What was that?” Daniel asked, but he slowed down. He was grinning when they caught up.

“You guys need to get in better shape.”

Gambit growled something under his breath. Rick thought he caught something about points in speed.

“Rick, why do you call everything adds?” Daniel said as he jogged alongside them.

“It’s just what you call stuff in a dungeon,” Rick started to explain but then caught himself. “Well, no. Actually, you call everything in here that isn’t a boss, ‘trash’. You only call them adds when you attract stuff you didn’t mean to aggro.”

“Aggro?”

“Look, we’ll explain some other time. When we aren’t trying to keep our boots from melting off our feet while catching up to some overgeared scrub on a speed run.”

“Your gamer jargon is worse than military acronyms.” Daniel rubbed a quick hand across his face, sounding half contemptuous, half aggravated.

Rick was offended. “Hey, technical terms exist for a reason. They convey specific information in a concise fashion.”

“And they confuse the hell out of noobs,” Gambit added. “Which is its own reward.”

He smirked at Daniel, who shot back a dirty look, as they reached a junction with a larger tunnel. The pipes turned and went left. Gambit followed.

“Was there anything good in the boss gear?” Rick asked, heading left as well.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t checked it all. Oh, hey, those look good.” Daniel suddenly was wearing knee high boots, black leather with one-inch heels, like what a Nazi dominatrix would wear to go horseback riding. “Ew, no, nevermind. Sorry, trying things on. Hey, this looks like something for you.”

Stolen novel; please report.

A dialogue popped up, closing his Looking for Group window.

[Daniel is requesting to trade.]

An icon appeared in the grid of the trade window. Rick couldn't tell much from the icon. It just looked like a skull sitting on some black cloth.

Rick inspected it.

[Mantle of the Necromancer. Chest and head slot item.]

[This chest slot mantle was created by the Necromancer Grellathon. Legend says the Necromancer was traveling through the endless battlefield and came across two celestial beings locked in eternal conflict for the fate of the universe. He killed them both and took their skulls to craft this item.]

[Variable. This item can be used as a chest slot only item or may cover chest and head. Can be switched at any time]

[Chest slot item base stats: +10 armor, +2 spell affinity.

Raise Ally effect: If a member of your party dies, they will be resurrected as an undead minion for 1 minute. If you are able to fully heal them in that amount of time, they will return to normal life.]

[When the hood is raised, provides +1 to intimidation and +10 armor.]

“Holy crap, this is amazing!” Rick said.

“I thought it looked kind of good,” Daniel replied, though he didn’t sound too certain.

Rick tried to equip it and got an error.

[Chest slot already filled.]

He pulled up his character sheet and toggled the SpacecruiseR jumpsuit to be legs only. Immediately, his chest was bare, and the arms of the jumpsuit were tied about his waist. Thank goodness the system allowed that sort of variability. He’d hate to be running around the dungeon in his boxers, after all. Rick equipped the Mantle of the Necromancer.

He was instantly wrapped in tight-fitting leather armor from waist to shoulders. It fit like a second skin, heavier than a leather jacket but easy to move in. The buckles across the chest shaped like silver skulls with little rubies set in the eyesockets. Above each shoulder floated a glowing orb with a skull slowly rotating in each. It was the most badass thing Rick had ever seen. He stopped short, staring in admiration. He manually raised the hood, filling his head slot as well. It barely blocked his peripheral vision and it felt amazing.

“Crap,” Gambit called from farther down the hall, as he turned and raced back to where they stood. "Run!"

Rick spun and followed Gambit. "What is it?" He didn't dare look back over his shoulder. Daniel's footsteps followed on his heels.

"There's a patrol coming this way."

Rick swore and put his head down. They made it back where the acid pool tunnel joined the larger passage. Gambit headed back into the acid tunnel, Rick close behind. A few yards inside the tunnel, they both stopped, and a moment later, Daniel caught up.

"What’s wrong?" he asked.

"There’s a big group coming down the hall toward us. We should have gone the other way," Rick said.

Gambit shook his head. "I don't think so. If another pack came from that direction, we'd be trapped between them. It was a big group, so I don't think they'll come down here. If we stay quiet, maybe they'll go on by."

"What do we do if they don't? What do we do if they come down here?" Daniel asked, his voice full of worry. For active duty military, he was easily spooked. Rick figured the whole game world was too far out of his comfort zone. Or maybe he was just naturally easily frightened, but that didn't sound likely for someone who was into ordinance disposal. You couldn’t be scared of your own shadow and make it on the bomb squad.

"I don't think so," Gambit said. "If they do, we bottleneck them here."

Rick nodded. "We can take them two at a time if they have to squeeze in here."

Gambit shook his head. "One at a time. These things are big."

Rick started to ask for more details, just as they heard the footsteps in the corridor beyond. He froze. Shapes moved across the tunnel mouth. They all held their breath, but the pack didn't pause. Their footsteps faded down the hall.

When Rick judged it far enough, he moved forward towards the tunnel mouth to get a look. Before he made it to the end, the sound changed. Another set of footsteps started growing louder. Gambit moved up, but Rick stuck out an arm to stop him. "I think it's another patrol."

"Damn. Now what do we do?"

Rick considered. "If we had a tank, I would say we taunt a pack in here and fight them in the narrow spot, one at a time, but,” he shrugged, "there's been no sign of this queue getting us one."

Daniel joined them, keeping his voice low. "I've been thinking about that. The queue’s automatic, right? It matches us with someone else in the world. Is there a way to use it in a manual mode?"

Gambit and Rick just stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if it's trying to match up people in the world, maybe you can find a list of those people and just select one."

Gambit shook his head. "There won't be any tanks on the list, even if we could find such a thing. Maybe we can get by with another DPSer. With a second melee player, we could block this hall."

This was a good idea. Rick was impressed with Daniel’s insight. While they stood in the dark, listening to the sound of the approaching patrol, Rick dug into the interface for the party system. Below the "Complete My Group" button, there was a tab labelled "Looking for More." Rick selected it. A complex database form appeared, with fields to select what he was looking for and filter on the results. He picked the tanking role by selecting the shield icon.

To his surprise, the list that popped up wasn't empty; there were actually three entries. None of them had names, just level and a Social Standing rating that Rick had never seen before.

The first two players on the list had the word [ineligible] beside them in red letters. It didn't say why they weren't eligible. The third entry had a negative social rating.

Rick highlighted the tank with the negative rating, and a box appeared: [Level 12 Tank. This player has a negative social rating. Automatic matching disabled. Do you want to invite anyway? Accept / Cancel.]

“So, huh, there’s a match but there’s a catch,” Rick said. Gambit opened his mouth as a light began flashing on the ceiling of the tunnel. A metallic voice boomed down the hall. "Intruder alert detected. Prepare for acid purge.”

A bar reading “Acid Purge” appeared in his interface that, like the one the boss had shown when casting its attack.

"We've got to get out of here,” Rick said at once.

“The patrol’s still out there.” Daniel looked around, eyes wide. “Can we go back the way we came?"

The bar was half full now. "We'll never make it in time," Gambit said.

There was a loud clank from the pipes overhead. A little puff of glowing green gas hissed from a vent Rick had not seen before. The cast bar was two-thirds complete. It started flashing.

"No time," Rick shouted, and they rushed out of the tunnel into the main corridor.

Twenty yards away to the right, the patrol squad stopped and turned. Eight-foot-tall hulking monstrosities, they had been stitched together out of multiple other creatures like the creepiest sort of Frankenstein Rick could imagine. Patches of their skin were different colors, and their arms didn't match their legs. They wore leather loincloths and heavy metal collars around their necks, carrying an assortment of rusty weapons. Their name plates said [Patchwork Ogre]. In the middle of the group was a smaller hunchbacked goblin clad in bedraggled robes. He waved a metal box that looked like a remote control and shouted "Get them!" in a high, squeaky voice.

Rick's party interface was still open. The tank's listing was right there, waiting. As the group of ogres bore down on them, Rick clicked [Accept].