~~~Stanley~~~

"Fuck." Stanley rested his hand against the solid wall of blue light, then pushed against it.

It was unyielding.

"Fuck!" he screamed, and Caffeine whined.

"I was so fucking close, Caff... if I hadn't stopped for food..." Stanley punched the wall.

[Dungeon Perimeter] No Dungeon Entities may cross until All Invaders or Defenders are Defeated.

"Fuck you too!" The worst part was that he could still feel Lee in the distance as if the wall were mocking him with the sensation.

Caffeine squirmed high enough in his jacket to lick his face, and Stanley took a deep breath. The poor pug always got nervous if he screamed too much through the windshield, and Caffeine didn't deserve the stress. It wasn't his fault, and besides, he couldn't go hide in Stanley's bed anymore...

Stanley descended slowly toward the moonlit ground below. Slowly because he couldn't see shit, and also, what was the fucking rush now...

A snow-covered roof just barely resolved itself in the snow, and Stanley diverted his downward trajectory slightly to avoid it. Also, the glowing wall came down on the middle of that roof, and Stanley was curious if he might bypass it by going inside the building. He knew it was a stupid idea; there couldn't possibly be such a glaring loophole, but just maybe...

He drifted further from the wall, and it faded. The hiding, lying wall... Stanley hovered before the house above a deep snowdrift. More snow buried much of the home, and it took him a minute to realize he was looking at the back of it.

The rear sported a covered porch area, where Stanley let the squirming pug free from his jacket onto the mostly clean and dry surface.

Caffeine wouldn't run far with the snow trapping him in, and Stanley wanted to investigate inside.

He could have smashed his way in, but this was someone's house, and he was slightly wary of another shotgun in his face. So he knocked.

It was dark and quiet.

Once he'd pounded on the door with no sign of life, Stanley moved on to breaking and entering. The first shotgun had been a dud, and considering how quiet it was out here, he suspected all guns were now useless.

The way he moved his truck required Stanley to touch something that he couldn't directly see, a learning process that cost him a few repairs. Now he used that same technique to reach past the door and try to find the lock.

He went slowly, trying to feel out the surface of the door by mental touch alone. It wasn't a completely foreign exercise, but doing it so softly was a new experience, and it showed when he pushed too hard and cracked the door in half.

"Fuck," Stanley said under his breath, then crushed the door into a lump of splinters. It was a satisfying display of power and temper, but ultimately a failure for what he'd intended.

He walked into the cold dark house, no sign of the glowing wall. It couldn't be that easy... he expected it to appear and yet still felt that tiny glimmer of hope that just maybe... the wall appeared a step later, the house obviously offering no impediment to it.

It had been a useless, false hope, but one that only made his disappointment even more bitter.

As he glared at the cause of his misfortune, Stanley also finally noticed that the glowing wall didn't actually shed any light... very weird, given that it was clearly glowing. Yet it completely failed to light up the interior of the house despite the way he felt it should.

Stanley had to pull out his lighter again and, in the flickering yellow glow, saw Caffeine staring intently up at the kitchen counter. Staring with great focus at the tub of dog biscuits.

The pug looked away long enough to glance at Stanley, whine pleadingly, and then continued staring at the treats.

Stanley sighed. "Sure, Caff. Why not? We got nowhere else to be..." He pulled the tub to himself and collapsed onto someone else's couch. It was a nice couch, soft and comfortable, and would shortly become covered in little black dog hairs.

Caffeine nearly climbed into his lap, and Stanley started fishing out the snacks, offering them one by one to the starving dog. The zippo standing on the coffee table provided just enough light to see, but no more. Stanley glared across the cold room at the fireplace, already set up for a fire with stacked logs and all, and on the wrong side of the magic wall...

He threw a treat at it, and to his surprise, the dog biscuit bounced off the logs... on the other side of the wall. Even more surprising, Caffeine sprang after it and snatched up the treat from the floor before bouncing back into Stanley's lap, his passage leaving two small pug-sized holes through the suddenly much brighter magic barrier.

Warning! Attempts to breach [Dungeon Perimeter] may incur heavy penalties.

Caffeine growled and barked when the message appeared while also spinning in circles as if he wasn't sure who he was barking at... did he get the messages too?

Meanwhile, Stanley slumped back down from his belated attempt to dive through when the holes shrank nearly instantly back into a solid sheet of light. He wouldn't have fit, anyway...

The treats had gone through like it wasn't there but hadn't left holes like Caffeine did... was there a loophole for animals?

Stanley tried throwing a whole handful of treats next, spreading them all right near the edge to see if Caffeine might make a bigger hole, but the pug didn't go through again. He grabbed everything on this side of the wall but only whined at the ones on the far side.

Then barked at the wall when the message appeared again.

Warning! Attempts to breach [Dungeon Perimeter] may incur heavy penalties.

Did it know he was trying to escape? Neither of them had even touched it...

Stanley caught himself before throwing the entire tub at the stupid fucking wall! Instead, he dumped it onto the floor and wandered back to the porch while Caffeine devoured everything.

What the hell do I do now? His breath fogged the air and sounded loud in the still night as Stanley stared out into the dark.

He was in the countryside now; or he thought so, at least. It was hard to tell in the ever-present darkness. All he could make out were some trees jutting up with bare branches in the moonlight, while a few evergreens stood beneath their blankets of snow. No city lights, no sounds of traffic, not even a breeze to rustle the branches.

Stanley munched on a piece of jerky while his thoughts spiraled until Caffeine appeared to paw at his leg. Stanley dropped a piece for the always-hungry pug and pulled another for himself.

The deafening bark came out of nowhere, and Stanley flinched in surprise. What the...

At nearly the same instant, something shot right past him in a blur. It crashed into and then through the deck with a loud crunch before vanishing underneath.

That drew a more violent response from Stanley when his flinching turned into a reflexive shove. He ripped half of the porch free from the house and sent it into the trees across the open field of snow before he could stop himself. The fuck was that!?

Skill Level Up: [Psychokinesis]

Class Level Up: [Psionic]

You have gained a class level. Review your Status for changes.

Stanley watched the darkness as he retreated closer to the doorway and further under what remained of the porch's roof. Though he wasn't sure how much protection either would offer against whatever that was. Caffeine kept growling while leaning into his leg, and Stanley appreciated the contact as his surging adrenaline demanded action.

But nothing else stirred. Other than the pieces of the porch finishing their journey to the ground from the trees where he'd thrown them...

Then it was quiet again, and Caffeine relaxed enough to keep begging for jerky.

"Good boy, Caff." Stanley took that as his cue and checked whatever this Status was. Of course, he fed Caffeine while doing so. Turned out his pug had better night vision after all, even while looking in two directions at once. Stanley was just glad whatever that was had missed him, given how fast it was going...

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Status

Name: Stanley Cascade

Race: [Human](UnGraded)

Traits: [Adaptable] [Unique Body Modification]

Class: Psionic (Rare) - Level 2 (Novice)

Class Skills: Psychokinesis (Uncommon) - Level 3 (Novice)

Attributes:

Strength: 4(0%)4

Vitality: 5(0%)5

Dexterity 6(0%)6

Wisdom 7(+6%)7.4

Intelligence 6(+6%)6.3

Willpower 10+(+6%)10.6

Twin-Soul ???

Non-Class Skills(0/1):

It was weird that this dungeon system could tell when he was trying to escape its walls, but couldn't figure out their soul. It was the one who put that name on it in the first place...

He focused on the Traits next.

[Adaptable]

A Human racial trait.

Unlocks all Class and Skill restrictions as well as providing more evolution options for the user.

Note: This trait will be lost if the user adapts too far from their origins.

Adaptability: 75%

Somewhere along the way, he must have adapted... or did everyone start with 75%? [Unique Body Modification]

Unknown Modifications made to the user's body. Analyzing...

And there was yet another thing it didn't know!

Stanley stopped his musings when he saw a light out in the snow. It was faint, a mere sparkle, but it wasn't something he'd seen before. He watched it warily for a while, waiting for it to move or do something... It did neither. It was in the same area where he'd thrown the porch...

Rather than venture out into the open to investigate the suspicious light, Stanley simply scooped it up and dragged it closer. Or he tried to. His first attempt shifted the light out of sight when he grabbed a pile of snow instead. The distance and darkness made it hard to aim his power... There was some juggling and a lot of racket, which almost lured Caffeine to brave the snow to see what was happening, but Stanley eventually sifted through the detritus and pulled a small glowing rock into his hand.

Core Chip[F-grade]

+1 Dexterity

Absorb? Y/N

That's... new. Accepting it gave him more information.

+0.1 Dexterity(-.9 from Unknown Body Modification)

Trait Updated: [Unknown Body Modification] = [Energetic Resilience]

It was bad information.

[Energetic Resilience]

Your body and mind have been subjected to extreme amounts of energy and have adapted to survive.

This Adaptation has made your body highly efficient at drawing in and retaining all energy, whether internal or external.

This has the added effect of absorbing a portion of all energy directed at you, increasing your regeneration while making you highly resistant to all but the most direct foreign energy.

Effects:

All energy resistance greatly improved.

All regeneration greatly improved.

Increased core absorption requirements.

Additional side effects are possible. Continuing Analysis...

Stanley cursed. Side effects, my ass! How is that a fair trade? The trait increased regeneration, and did some other vaguely defined stuff, but then they got only a tenth from the cores? What about Lee? Did he have this trait too? Goddamnit! I hope he got a good class...

Stanley closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind as he struggled with what the hell he was supposed to do...

The core had mentioned F-grade... He could only assume that was above his own Ungraded, and now he had a pretty good idea of how to get there. He just needed to kill a shit ton of these F-grade... birds? It had come from above; he was mostly sure it'd been a bird. Probably one chasing him from before, and it had finally caught up. Idiot bird.

Looking out at the dark night gave pause to Stanley's new ambition. He hadn't been able to see his attacker coming just now, and that was kind of a big deal... not that he necessarily had to see something to effect it, but it sure helped.

His next thought was about something he'd initially glossed over in the disappointment of being trapped in this so-called dungeon. It only said he couldn't leave until after the invaders were dead... or rather defeated, probably the same thing. That still meant he was trapped, sure... but he just had to defeat these invaders and then he could leave. It wasn't much to go on, but it was a better plan than he had before.

The invaders probably weren't the birds... probably.

Stanley grabbed Caffeine and took them both into the sky again. All he saw was the night. No lights. Not even fires... didn't people light shit on fire when the world went to hell?

Another question on his mind; just how big was this Grand Raid Dungeon?

Math was never a strong suit of his, but Stanley took a shot at flying along the glowing wall to gauge the circumference. After a few minutes, he was fairly certain it was curving. A few more, and he knew it was fucking huge.

Still no sign of the invaders either. He'd been checking. No explosions or lights, nothing that would indicate a fight. Granted, Stanley was probably pretty far from civilization. It was just hard to tell without city lights.

What he hadn't tried yet was going higher. So he did.

He learned that the wall curved overhead as well when he ran into it because he was looking down toward where he thought Boston should be in the dark. Unfortunately, he hit it softly because the damn curve was so slight, which meant that the dungeon was stupidly tall as well as wide...

The only bright spot in that experience was that he finally saw what he was looking for; fires. Or flickering lights, at least. It was probably fire, and he was pretty sure there were a lot of them. He'd just had to fly high enough to spot them in the far distance... in what he wanted to call east. It was hard to tell without light, but it looked a lot darker past the fires like maybe an ocean not covered in snow... Feeling his brother behind him also helped.

Stanley soared toward the light and away from Lee.

It might be smarter to wait for dawn. There might be more birds up here. Plus, he still had no idea what the invaders were capable of, where they were, or even what they looked like, but he had to do something. Lee was alone because of him, because he just had to keep pushing his damn truck.

But hey, at least it wouldn't be completely dark if the city was on fire.

I got this, Stanley told himself. He was powerful and could fly. Hell, he'd been pushing himself every day to get more powerful, and here was his chance to prove it hadn't been pointless. Besides, how hard could it be to defeat these invaders? Much less a few birds.

Stanley never made it to the fires, though he got close enough to confirm that it was indeed fire.

Caffeine gave him some warning when he started growling and then barking. Really loud barking that left Stanley's ears ringing as he slowed his approach, eyes squinting against the wind as he tried to focus on the flickering flames.

The flickering wasn't actually from the flames, however. It was birds. A massive swarm of them filled the sky, and they weren't normal birds... they were far too big for that.

Then Stanley plowed into them. Literally.

He tried to dodge the collision with the first bird looming before him and failed.

It wasn't so bad. Like hitting a pillow at fifty miles an hour. Then he ricocheted off, only to be blindsided by something slamming into his knees. That one hurt. A lot. After that, it was all he could do to hold Caffeine close while lashing out as he tumbled head over heels through the air.

Stanley hit back repeatedly, feeling his power strike against solid objects around him, but it wasn't nearly enough. The thousands of fucking pigeons that filled the sky pummeled him from every direction, seemingly unaffected by his attacks into the swarm.

Stanley couldn't actually get any good looks at his attackers and only knew they were pigeons because their horrible cooing drowned out even Caffeine's barking. He saw enough to know they were all fucking huge...

After that, it was chaos. Sharp, hard things tore at him. He couldn't tell if it was claws or beaks, but they ripped at his skin, leaving burning lines in his flesh, while flapping wings hit like hammer blows to his head and body. Through it all, Stanley held the little dog tight inside his jacket as he escaped from the shitshow.

Caffeine didn't help, and tried repeatedly to claw his way free of the jacket, while Stanley fought him down and also tried to stay airborne.

The pug had always been a bit odd with his fears. One minute scared of a rock or plastic bag, and the next trying to fight a cow. When he wasn't scared of something, Caffeine was far too bold in his confidence, but this was insane. Or maybe he simply didn't understand they were in the sky...

Stanley fully intended to fly straight up, leave them all behind, and he put a lot of his considerable power into doing just that, trying to brute force his way out of this shit show.

He wasn't prepared when a wall of glass appeared in his path, a skyscraper, by the glimpse he got right before impact and filled with cubicles as he saw right after impact. Shit! was all he had time to think. Then he hit something harder than glass... There was a brief pain, flashing lights in his head, and...

...

~~~Caffeine~~~

Caffeine was trying to help Dearest Human with the bad birds, but Dearest Human didn't want to let him bite them.

Then Dearest Human ran into a wall... Caffeine wasn't sure why he did that... because now Dearest Human smelled like hurting... and he was napping. Maybe he just needed a nap? Naps were the best! But not hurting naps...

The big birds followed them into the inside, and Caffeine woofed at them, quietly, to let Dearest Human rest. "No playing now. Go away!"

They didn't go away. They jumped and flapped closer. They smelled like hungry... and they were very big.

Birds weren't supposed to be so big... and they were not good for playing. They always only flew away and never wanted to chase. These birds wanted to chase, but it was a mean chasing. They didn't want to play, they wanted to hurt.

So Caffeine bit the little birds until they stopped being mean.

Dearest Human kept sleeping... he still smelled like pain, too. But it was getting better!

Caffeine wanted to cuddle and nap with Dearest Human, but he was a good boy. He would watch for danger while Dearest Human napped. There was a lot of danger... so many noises and other things in the outside. So many Not Dearest Humans making not good noises...

It was good he watched, because more bad birds tried to come into the inside where Dearest Human rested. They wanted to eat him... Dearest Human was not food!

Caffeine bit them all until they stopped trying to eat Dearest Human. "Bad birds!"