The air felt immediately cooler once the scorching sun became nothing more than a persistent light marking the entrance to our descent. While I followed Killa and her lit-up arm, the air went from being just cool to being outright stale. The steps curved into a spiral as we continued walking. It wasn’t long until the only light we had was curled around Killa’s arm.

The stone walls transitioned from the black-and-white marble on the surface into sleek black stones. I brushed my hands on them, and they were as smooth as glass, and it was almost impossible to feel the seams between the stones.

Finally, we reached the bottom of the stairs. And a giant white cobweb blocked the door. When’s the last time someone’s been down here? The least they could’ve done was clean up the cobwebs. I’d hate to meet the spider that made that.

Killa stepped to the side and made herself flatter against it. "Alright, Rina. You’re up."

I froze and shifted my focus between the slime woman and the web. My hand rose unconsciously and pointed at the blocked doorway. "Uh, it’s blocked."

She smiled. "Very observant. You still got that dagger, right?" I wrapped my hand around the handle. It didn’t help calm my nerves, but I nodded anyway. "Well, cut it down. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you’re not overwhelmed." She glared at Bark. "Right?"

Bark raised two of his hands defensively. "Of course." He started pulling at my backpack. "You’ll want to take that off. It’ll only slow you down and throw your balance off."

I shrugged it off as I pulled the dagger from its sheath and pulled the magic gun that Bark had reloaded for me out too. But as I got ready to cut the webbing, I jumped back. My heart pounded in my chest, and a shiver ran down my spine.

Bark tapped his foot and drew one of his swords. "The longer you take to get started, the longer we’ll be here."

My hands shook as I raised the blade to the web. Like pulling off a bandage. If I make it quick, I should be fine. I took several deep breaths. Nice and quick. I raised the weapon and slashed at the web. The blade slipped from my grip, and I tumbled forward into the web. The sticky substance clung to my face, hands, clothes, hair, and everywhere else.

I may have started freaking out a bit.

"Ah! Get it off, get it off, get it off get it off getitoffgetitoffgetitoff." My voice rose as I thrashed around.

Bark held his stomach as he laughed while walking towards me. I tried rolling around. All that did was make it harder for me to move my arms. My breathing tried to compete with my heart that never seemed to slow down. Killa slapped Bark on the back of the head as she grabbed the web. She pulled it off me and helped me to my feet, all while Bark never stopped laughing.

Once I was free of the infernal trap, I immediately started back to the exit and up the stairs. "Where do you think you’re going?" Bark asked in between laughs.

"No." I shook my head as I stomped my feet. My whole body shook as I felt the tickle of the web against my skin. Even after brushing at my arms, the feeling didn’t go away, despite there being no webs. "Just no. Nope. Nuh-uh. Not going to happen."

"Come on. They were just spider webs," Killa called after me. "There are no spiders to worry about, yet."

I turned and pointed at her. "Yet! You said, ‘Yet.’ That means there are spiders, and I do have to worry about them."

Killa looked at me with a deadpan expression. "Well, yeah. The dungeon is full of them."

I started getting light-headed and awkwardly sat on the stairs. An entire dungeon full of spiders? Spiders that make a web large enough to cover a door. Yeah, I don’t think so. "Do you have any idea what all those webs felt like? All that sticky web everywhere."

"No." Her expression never changed.

"Yes," Bark answered. "Everyone goes through it once. Just Killa can eat the webs, so they don’t bother her."

"So why didn’t she go through the webs first?" I shouted.

Killa frowned. "Because if I do everything for you, when are you going to find your own courage? If we're going to teach you how to fight, we’re going to need to see what we’re working with. And after that display, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us."

Bark stepped behind her. "Yeah, so quit being a baby, and let’s go kill some spiders."

Killa waved her hand as she walked through the door. "They’re not even that big. I mean, they still fit in this place."

I don’t want to. And what do you mean by "they’re not that big?" Spiders are supposed to be tiny. A bug that can be squashed with my foot. I felt something in the back of my mind snap as I watched Bark follow her. "This better not be like the rat problem Cushin had. I’m not going to be an exterminator."

"Quit crying and get down here," Bark called. "The Nexus is filled with far worse dangers than some spiders. If you want to reach the top, this will be the least you need to do."

I slumped my shoulders. He’s right. If I want to live, I’ll need to be ready for that assassin when he comes back. Next time, he’ll take me seriously. He won’t show me any mercy or toy with me like he has. I will need to fight to survive. I started this when I came to the Nexus. It’s up to me to see it through.

I pushed off the steps and joined up with my companions. Avoiding the pile of sticky webs just inside the door, I stepped into the room and looked around. There wasn’t much in the room, just a few metal chairs that were heavily rusted. I feel like I need a tetanus shot just looking at them. A few metal counters lined one of the walls, with cabinet doors hanging wide open. The only thing filling them were more cobwebs. Lining another wall, a collection of metal coat hooks protruded from the otherwise smooth stone surface.

A single metal door with heavy rivets hung open, leading further into the dungeon. But next to the door was a cracked, dusty mirror. As I just stood there, everything seemed so still. The stale air made me a little envious of Killa, who couldn’t smell.

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Killa held out her arms. "See, it’s not so bad. But there are a few ground rules to remember." She held up a hand with one finger. "No fires. There is very little air circulation down here. Even a small fire will use up all our oxygen and suffocate you two."

I arched an eyebrow. "You don’t breathe either?"

The slime woman shrugged. "Technically, no. But that’s a complicated topic. The second rule: don’t run off on your own."

That makes sense. It's not like I planned on it either.

"Also, don’t lose your weapons." Bark walked up to me with my dagger held out to me. "I’ll show you how to hold it properly."

Bark took some time to show me how to hold the weapon in a couple of different ways while telling me the uses of each grip. Since my dagger had a straight edge, he showed me how to stab with it, so it didn’t slip from my hand every time I attacked.

I looked down at the weapon. With a flick of my wrist, I twirled the dagger from one grip to another. I kept switching between each grip faster and faster. Eventually, I wasn’t even looking at my hand as I rotated through each grip.

Bark nodded. "That’s pretty impressive."

I put the dagger back into its sheath and shrugged. "I’ve always been pretty good with my hand-eye coordination."

"To start with, the spiders might be a bit much to handle with a dagger until you get a few more levels. Maybe once you’re level seven, you can try to take one on with your dagger." Killa gave Bark a sidelong glance as she held out my gun. "I’m guessing you don’t know how this thing works, do you?"

"No," I admitted. "All I can tell you is that it feels weird when I fire it. It’s like something is pulling at my mind."

Killa nodded. "That’s because this gun uses your mana to propel its bullets. This is specifically an elemental gun that fires earthen bullets. So you can reload it with any rock or even sand if you need to."

I took the weapon from her hand. So that’s why it doesn’t make a sound or have the expected recoil. More importantly, that’s what I was feeling—my mana being used.

I pointed the gun at a chair and fired. The pulling sensation was there as the bullet punched a hole through the back and bounced off the stone wall behind it. I looked at my mana bar and saw that a fifth of it was used up. My energy bar, thankfully, didn’t move. Killa and Bark both jumped back from my impromptu target practice.

I smiled and put the gun back in my pocket. "It looks like I can fire four more shots before I run out of mana."

Bark glared at me. "Is that another one of your little nanite tricks?"

"Kind of. I have a few bars in my vision now, telling me how much mana I have, how much energy my nanites have, and any other important information. Like my heart rate when I’m panicking."

"Sounds useful," Killa mused. "But you said you could only fire four shots. How low is your arcane stat? Actually, just tell us all of your stats. That’s something we need to talk about too."

I pulled up my character sheet.

Name:

Rina Lone

Level:

6

Augments:

Agility:

100

Cellular Regeneration

Arcane:

15

Synthetic eyes: lvl 1

Power:

30

HUD

Quickness:

75

Resilience:

35

Toughness:

60

Unassigned Points:

0

Shards:

755

I then listed off all my stats for Killa and Bark.

"Your agility makes sense." Bark crossed his arms and stared at Killa. "It seems that I’m not the only one who specializes in certain stats."

Killa pouted. "She’s still a low level. We have time to balance them out."

My attention jumped from one to the other and back again. "What? Why does it matter if some of my stats are higher than others?"

They both opened their mouths at the same time, but Killa spoke first. "If your stats are lopsided, you’ll have a weakness that your enemies can exploit. And you may come across a situation where you’re not fit to handle it."

"That can be the same if you spread your stats around." Bark flexed his arms. "Overall, your potential can be wasted. If you focus on half of your stats, you can cover your defenses while being able to take on challenges higher level than you."

"So… who’s right?" I asked.

"I am!" they both shouted simultaneously.

"Look, your arcane stat is too low to bother with learning magic. You should focus on a speed-based fighting style to take advantage of your high agility." Bark relaxed slightly. "You have a good base to become a good scout, something we can use in our group."

Killa waved to Bark. "That part I can agree with him on. A scout would be beneficial. As you probably have figured out, I’m partial to magic, and all of my stats are one hundred and forty-four."

"We have the same agility score, even though I’m level thirteen," Bark began. "But my arcane and quickness are both fifty, while my defensive stats are both a hundred and fifty-five. My strength is one hundred and seventy. So while Killa is faster than me, I’m stronger and more difficult to damage, even though she has four levels on me."

I hummed. "I think I can see both of your points. But I don’t know how to use mana for spells like Killa. All I use it for is this gun." My mana bar had been filling up during our conversation. Half of what I spent on the one shot had recovered. "Does increasing my arcane increase my mana’s recovery rate?"

Killa bobbed her head. "Kind of. There are several other factors that contribute to mana regeneration. They usually involve a person’s biology. But nobody’s had such a quantifiable way to see their mana regenerate like you." She walked over and put a hand on my forehead. "But I can feel you pulling the ambient mana into your body far faster than I would have expected. Everyone else has to sort of feel how much mana they have and how quickly it recovers. It takes me about an hour and a half to recover my mana in most situations. At this rate, I’d expect it’d only take you twenty minutes to recover yours. But that might be just because you have far less mana than I do."

She took a step back and put her finger to her chin. Bark headed towards the door. "All this theory is fine, but it won’t do her any good if she doesn’t get any stats." He crossed two of his arms and waved at the door with a third. "Whatever you decide, all I can suggest is that you stick with it. If you want to up your arcane and strength until they’re fifty, that’s fine. But never, ever ignore your defensive stats. Doing that is asking to die."

Killa laughed. "He’s right. First and foremost, your resistance needs to get up." She put a hand on my back and pushed me towards the door. "Now, let’s go kill some spiders."

This is all so very much insane. Dungeons, stats, a system, and killing monsters. It’s like my life has become a game. A very dangerous game that I have to play to survive. It’s a good thing I’ve decided to go insane. So let’s get ready to play.