“No pets allowed,” Levi’s Uber driver grumbled. He squinted at Gremlin Two. Gremlin Two waved and grinned, showing his pointy teeth. The driver recoiled. “I don’t want your angry cat making a mess in my car. I’m not sure I want it near my car. Looks like it wants to claw my eyes out.”
Levi made a mental note to stick Two in the backpack next time. “He’s very well trained, doesn’t shed, and will sit on my lap the entire time. I promise we won’t cause any damage. And I’ll add an extra tip for the trouble. I’m in a hurry.”
The driver hesitated, then looked at his phone. A long trip meant good money. “Fine. Get in.”
Levi did so, holding Gremlin Two on his lap as he’d promised. Even on the highway, their speed felt oddly sluggish to Levi. Warriors with high Spirit could sprint faster than this.
But the rumble of the car was soothing, and Levi was mentally and physically exhausted. He hadn’t intended to, but before long he fell asleep.
He jerked awake as the car swerved sharply, the horn blaring.
“Sorry, almost missed the exit,” the driver explained. “Stupid trucks wouldn't let me in.”
Levi didn’t know the roads, only the general area of the dungeon he was heading for, so he couldn’t be sure how close they were. He considered returning to sleep, but adrenaline had already shot through him. There would be no resting now.
Two sprawled in his lap, holding Levi’s arm like a pillow, his warm little head tucked between Levi’s chest and elbow as he snored in tiny barely audible squeaks.
“You’re a weird critter, alright,” Levi murmured fondly. It seemed that Two’s disposable name hadn't been enough to prevent Levi from forming an attachment. He didn't mind. Two had done well by him so far.
Ten minutes later they arrived at the destination Levi had input — a random place in the vicinity of the Control dungeon. His local knowledge of Ohio was patchy at best; it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d be able to narrow down to GPS coordinates. It might take another hour or two to locate the dungeon.
He paid the driver, adding a sizable tip, then started the search. He’d arrived in a small town, roads laid out in neat squares, houses spaced with plenty of yard, and several old stone churches down the main street.
To his surprise, the ping returned something almost at once. He couldn’t be that lucky, could he?
“Hey, can you crawl on all fours?” he asked Gremlin Two. “Pretend to be a cat?”
His minion squeaked indignantly, crossed his arms defiantly, then sighed and got down on his hands and feet, grumbling to himself.
Levi looked him over critically. It wouldn’t hold up to a close inspection, but at a distance he could probably pass for some kind of abnormal pet with a skin condition. “Can you keep up like that?”
Two glared up at him.
“I’ll take that as a yes. We should get you a fur costume at some point, or maybe a dog sweater. Could pretend you’re my chihuahua.” Levi chuckled, shook his head, then started walking toward the mana source he’d detected. One advantage of people actually living here still were the neatly kept lawns. No one had time to mow during the apocalypse, so he was used to forcing his way through overgrown tangles left to grow wild for half a decade. He could get used to this.
A few stores were scattered here and there in the center of town, but there wasn’t much of a business district — a drug store and a couple supermarkets and fast-food places, a tiny plaza, then back to churches and houses.
There weren’t many people out and about, nothing compared to the city, at least, but he still got more than a few odd looks.
The unfamiliar surroundings left him feeling intensely disoriented. Having a mental map of the state was one thing, to actually follow roads with people and moving cars and intact houses was another. He'd thought he’d gotten used to it in the city, but seeing the bustle of life here felt unfamiliar and wrong all over again.
He pinged a second time, then adjusted his course to close the distance.
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Past a small freestanding two-story building, then a low building right in the path of the ping. He hurried past it, checked again, and turned in surprise. The ping pointed straight at the building.
Of course, it made some sense. Statistically, you couldn’t drop thousands of dungeons randomly across the country without a few of them ending up hitting an occupied space. But it made Levi uneasy.
Gremlin Two butted his head against Levi’s leg, his sharp horn nearly breaking the skin.
“I think this is it,” he said slowly with a pensive frown. Something felt wrong here. His instincts were on edge.
Two bumped into him again.
Levi looked down.
The gremlin hissed with dissatisfaction.
“Ah.” Levi glanced around, but they were the only people out and about in this part of town. “Yeah, you can stand up now.”
Gremlin Two instead sat down and scrubbed his hands against his chest with an expression of disgust.
“We’ve all got to make sacrifices if we’re going to win this.” He turned his attention back to the building in front of him.
It seemed to be a private business, a few cars parked in the small lot, but the lights were off and the windows dark.
He moved around the building and cast another mana ping. The first two hadn’t lied, a huge mana source was coming from inside.
Levi approached the door and knocked firmly. No answer.
He waited, knocked again, peered in all the windows, but there was no sign of movement from within. He didn’t want to resort to breaking and entering unless necessary.
Something told him it would be necessary.
“I don’t suppose you know how to pick a lock?” he asked the gremlin without much hope. His preferred method would be a manablade through the deadbolt, but without a power stone in his dagger that method was unavailable.
Gremlin Two looked at him flatly, then reached up toward the doorknob, jumping twice to indicate his inability to even reach it, then shrugged and crossed his arms.
Levi sighed. “I’m sorry I had to ask you to pretend to be a cat, but it’s going to happen again. You can’t hold a grudge over it forever.”
Gremlin Two grinned in a way that made Levi shake his head.
“Sure, you can if you really want to. But it’s counterproductive.”
He half-heartedly tugged at the door. To his surprise it opened.
Levi’s heart started racing, adrenaline shooting through him as his sense of something wrong skyrocketed.
“That’s not normal,” he said, voice low. “Stay close.”
He drew his dagger, wishing he had a power stone so he could light it up. If he forced mana into it manually, without a power stone to regulate the drain, it would use all his mana in seconds.
The very ordinary entry area opened into a very ordinary waiting room. Levi took a step forward, then stopped as the hovering shimmer, thick and warping like oily heat, registered in his vision.
Destruction Dungeon: Level 9
“This isn’t the right place.” He stepped quickly back and concentrated on the map he’d memorized from the future. The nearest Destruction dungeon to his destination... was significantly further north. There was a Fire dungeon near the Control one, but this...
He opened his eyes. “Out. I need to check something.”
They returned to the bright outdoors, where Levi pulled out the treasure map and looked it over again. He hadn’t studied it closely at the time, more focused on figuring out the destination than matching up everything, but on closer examination there was indeed an extra dungeon.
Something present on the current map which hadn’t survived to the future. This Destruction dungeon had been destroyed before the creation of the map he’d memorized.
Once he thought about it, it made sense. The dungeon had reached level 9, so it had probably sucked in dozens of people, maybe hundreds. Depending on how long they’d remained inside and how much damage they'd done, this dungeon had made enough of a splash to be hunted down early, before the protections were put in place.
On one hand, this could be a great opportunity to level fast. A level 9 dungeon would provide a much greater experience benefit than running through level 1 dungeons again and again.
On the other hand, dungeons were never meant to be faced solo. He was already barely surviving against level 1 bosses, and dungeons scaled up fast. Anything above level 5 would be idiotic to try to clear until he was better equipped and higher level himself. Level 9, he’d want at least seven or eight minions to even consider entering.
He looked down at the map again. It seemed he’d come too far north; he needed to head south to reach the Control dungeon on the map. Then he looked back at the dark entryway, a faint glimmer in the air the only betrayal of its deadly trap.
“Damn it.”
He pulled the door shut, silently apologizing to anyone who might be tricked into the dungeon in the meantime.
For a moment he considered trying to write a warning on the door, but could think of nothing that wouldn't be immediately dismissed as graffiti or a prank. He settled for carving DANGER on the wall with the tip of his dagger.
“We'll be back,” he promised, then pulled out his phone to request another ride.
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