Slate blasted Rick and his team with information for a good 45 minutes before Rick stopped the game guide. His head spun. "Look, you're saying the first thing we need to do is fill out our team?"

Their guide nodded. “All the quests, dungeons, challenges are designed for a five member team with a dedicated tank and healer. Anything else is… suboptimal.”

"And after that, we need to gear up and start running those dungeons."

"That's the gist of it. The best gear is in dungeons, and the only way to get transport tokens is to be geared enough for the challenge dungeons."

"Right," Rick agreed. "And these challenge dungeons are like a raid?"

"Like a what?" the Martian asked.

Gambit was nodding. "From his description, that’s what I’d guess. Tuned for five-man groups, but longer and harder than an ordinary dungeon."

Rick turned back to Slate. "You said something earlier that makes me think there's a group finder interface."

The Rork frowned. He didn't like being knocked off his stride. Clearly, he preferred to be doing the lecturing. "Yes," he agreed slowly. "There's a mechanism that'll let you match up with anyone else out there looking for one of the same dungeons as you. It’s limited to other players here on the same world."

Rick smiled. "So, we can get straight into those. We don't need to find more party members first. And if we start with the easiest ones, we probably don't even need gear, right?"

The Rork considered. "The gear part's true, but trying to use Looking For More? It’s almost impossible without the right roles. Your wait time's gonna be literally years if you don't already have a tank or a healer on your team. Nobody wants to take those roles. There's simply none to be found on this planet. The only people here are some washed-up leftovers and a few Martian kids that think they're gonna give it a shot for the big time. They don't know shit, and they're only going to be pathetic excuses for damage-dealing classes."

Daniel pointed to Rick. "He can heal."

Rick frowned but didn't disagree. He had never really considered being a primary healer on a team. That wasn't how he had played in the past. Oh, the odd instance or a raid night where he’d ended up respeccing to fill a missing secondary healer slot, sure, but he’d never seen himself as a healer. Still, he had put points into Soothing Mist, and he was starting to get the hang of it.

The Rork studied Rick. His eyes had the unfocused look that told Rick he was using menus to look deeper. "Oh, I see. I thought you were going for a caster build, but you do have a healing ability. Splitting your points between healing and damage, that makes sense if you're soloing. Hmm, hmm."

The alien shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as he considered, and then he nodded slowly. "Yes, you could try the healer role challenge. If you pass you will be able to enter the queue as a healer, and you might be able to hack it. Maybe. It would be better once you have some gear. You'd still need a tank, though. Hmm, those are a lot easier to find." He glanced at Gambit. "A melee class could transfer into tanking pretty easily."

Gambit shook his head. "Hell no. Not my style. I tried it once, years ago. Hated it."

The Martian folded both sets of arms and demanded, "And if it's that, or not get off this planet?"

Gambit shrugged. "Don’t care. We're stuck in this game world, so I'm going to live it my way."

"I think we need to get into one of these dungeon things right away," Daniel said, looking excited. For the first time since they had looted the bandit camp, Rick sensed his enthusiasm. "If what he says is true, we can gear up, we can get stronger and earn our ride back home."

Gambit eyed Daniel. "You understand what he said, don't you? That it won't be the Earth we remember. It'll be something like this." He swung his finger around in the air to encompass the entire world. “A game world. Just… Earth themed.”

Daniel frowned. "Sure, but anything's better than here, right? And at least a game world based on Earth would be more like home, wouldn't it?" He looked between Rick and Gambit.

Rick didn't want explain to him just how different such a game world might be. "Sure, it'll be more like home." The man needed hope. Let him think there was a way home, while he was getting used to the new world.

Rick had his own list of priorities he wasn’t sharing with anyone.

1. Find Sam, somehow, and pray she wasn’t already a non-combat player.

2. Avoid non-combat player status at all costs

3. Get off Mars and figure out what else there was to this game system.

In Rick’s mind, there was no way some aliens had sent a giant probe all the way across the galaxy to induct people into a game and then just leave them there. There was a purpose to this, and he wanted to find out what.

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Slate shook his head. "You need gear first, and all of you need to be level five. You can go in lower, but it isn't safe."

"I thought you were in a big hurry to get us ready. You were all excited earlier," Daniel accused.

"Sure, but not that big a hurry. If you all get killed and downgrade to NCPs, then I'll be back to waiting around the bar. This is my big chance, and I don't want to blow it."

"Wait," Rick held up a hand. "How do we avoid getting downgraded to NCPs?" He’d figured there was a mechanism for it, and if Slate was willing to talk, he wanted to learn the details.

Slate shrugged. "If you die without a soul stone, you're gonna come back as one of the system's puppets. If you're lucky, you might get offered a spot as a game guide. But considering your lack of knowledge about literally any of this, that ain’t gonna happen."

"Yeah." Things were falling into place in Rick's mind. "Is that what happened to this group? We know they came in here about two months ago. Earth time, that is. Don’t know what it is in Mars months. And they've been convinced that they're some kind of caravan ever since."

"That's right. Now they’re low-level quest givers. That’s the best they can hope for. They just got lucky they were assigned to a caravan and have a chance at something better if they can make it out of the starting area. They must have some decent skill points somewhere to even get that opportunity."

"They were all top scientists back on our world," Rick explained.

Slate nodded his head. "Well, that explains it then."

"Can we get back to the point?" Daniel asked. "How do we get into one of these dungeons?"

Slate pointed at Rick with one of his lower hands. "Getting in the queue is the easy part. You could be stuck waiting for weeks, even with a healer in your party. If you were all DPS, you might wait forever in there. Like, literally forever."

Gambit shook his head. "Surely it can't be that bad. I've seen a similar principle in queues I've been in, but tanks aren't that rare, are they?"

Slate gave a dry, humorless laugh. "They were rare before this place fell apart. Mars never had a big population, and when the probe transformed the world, the instance was barely viable. We only ended up with one top-tier raider. And when the Galactics came—"

"Hold up.” Rick held up a hand. “Galactics? You mean people came from outside your world? You’re not just talking about the probe, right?"

Slate gave a 'well-duh' gesture. "You're here, aren't you? Of course, people came from the outside world. When a new planet comes into the system, it's the latest thing." He tilted his head as if trying to access an obscure memory. "The new hotness. So top-tier raiders come from all over." Then he shook his head. "But a planet like Mars didn't keep their attention for long. They tore through us like ant’hor through a walrak nest and left just as quick. After that, we were left with newbie zones and a high-level challenge dungeon we could barely hope to survive, much less complete."

Rick cocked his head. "Are you saying this planet-instance doesn't have the full range of leveling opportunities?"

Slate grimaced. "If I understand you right, then no. There's a weak spot in the middle. A gap that makes it very hard to get your level from the initial few up to the latest challenge dungeons. ‘Course we’re not the latest right now. I dunno what the level cap is on the outside. Somebody came through a couple millennia ago hunting a rare pet and talked about the level squish. He was like level 140 and our top dungeon is set to 55, so go figure."

"Look," Daniel interrupted, "we're wasting time. You say this dungeon queue can take a while, right?”

"It might," Slate said. "You'd be better off finding a tank.”

“Then let's start the queue and then we can go," he waved a hand, "level or get gear or whatever it is that you think we should do first. That way we save time."

The idea had merit. Rick was impressed. Daniel was picking up on this stuff faster than he’d expected. Slate seemed to mull it over. He scratched the top of his bare skull with one of his upper hands. "That's not a bad idea. You would get to level 5 pretty fast. And if you go where I tell you, gear won't take too long either. But you can’t do that until he,” Slate indicated Rick. “Completes the healer role challenge.”

"Then tell me more about this role challenge. How does it work?" Rick asked. Truth be told, just the idea of a challenge had him itching to give it a try. His old competitive streak was starting to flare up again, now that they had at least a vague goal.

Slate shrugged with his lower set of arms. It was a funny gesture that made it look like he was shimmying his hips. “It’s pretty straightforward. Once you trigger it, the system will put you into a simulation. It won’t be anything like this place." He waved his hands around the camp. "It's based on a much older instance. Then it'll run you through several trials to test how well you can deal with healing a party."

"How difficult is it?"

"I’ve heard it’s pretty challenging." The Martian shrugged again. "Honestly, I don't know how hard. I've never done the healing one. If you pass all the levels, then you're granted the healer role. This isn't like a class. Those will come later. This is more generic, but it does give you access to new abilities."

"What else can you tell me about these trials?” Rick asked, but Slate shook his head.

"Like I said, I've never done the healing trial."

"And you get abilities for these trials?" Daniel interjected. "Is there one I can do for a damage dealer?"

"Dealing damage in a dungeon isn't nearly so challenging."

Daniel pouted at this. "It can't be that easy."

Slate just looked at him. Finally, he sighed. "There is a damage dealing trial and it is needed before you can have access to the queueing system. But it isn’t much…"

"Great!" Daniel rubbed his hands together. "I'm ready now." He pulled out his bow, bounced up and down on his toes slightly, and rolled his neck around. "Okay, hit me with it."

Nothing happened.

Slate just looked at him.

"What's taking so long?" A fly buzzed past past. Daniel frowned at the game guide. "Look, are you going to—"

The fly landed on Daniel's cheek. He reflexively smacked it with his open hand.

[Damage Dealer Trial complete. Congratulations. You have unlocked the ability to queue for dungeons as a damage dealer.]

The system message appeared and Rick and Gambit broke into uproarious laughter.

"What the—" He looked down at his palm where the smeared insect lay. He goggled at the dead bug and then at Slate. "You've got to be kidding me."

Gambit wiped his eyes. "Do me next. I'm ready." He held up his hands, open-palmed, and made a woo-pa kung-fu sound. "I hope I have what it takes."

Daniel glared at him. He glared even harder when Gambit snatched the bug right out of the air and crushed it in his fist.

Slate glared at Daniel. "Happy now? Can we get to the healing trial yet?"

Rick nodded. "Sure. I'm ready."