Once we got back to the safe room I immediately tried to scrub myself clean. Trouble was I kept failing the cleaning checks. I even cranked the water as hot as it would go and scrubbed as hard as I could. While the top layer of my skin was coming off. The film of vitae stayed stuck. The really odd bit was when I pulled a piece of gear out of my inventory but didn’t equip it, the clothing was clean. But if I equipped it, it was soaked in gore. Taking it off came away dirty. Tossing it into inventory and then pulling it back out again? Clean.

After getting dressed I joined the others. When they saw me still red-tinted, I explained, “I can’t get clean.”

We sat at a table. Brand was cleaning his guns. Angelica was sharpening her spear. I was twiddling my thumbs.

“What have we learned?” Brand said around the cigarette in his mouth. He seemed to be falling into the habit of having one after each run. Must be running low.

“I think the barricades and the blood work pretty good,” I said, drumming my fingers on the table.

“Understatement,” Brand muttered, shaking his head, “The only gap I can see is lack of utility against Heroic Scale brute-type enemies.”

“Is that really a gap?” Angelica asked, looking up from her work.

“I would say that is to be expected,” Brand admitted.

“Do we think that Megaleo is going to be rattling around the dungeon?” I asked.

“I don’t think it will be armored the next time we encounter it,” Angelica said. She pulled the spear into her inventory. She clipped out of reality for a second and switched from her red coat and snow pants to jeans and t-shirt with the picture of a winged horse sliding down a rainbow on it. She rolled her shoulders and neck, “Some…” she stopped herself, “It just doesn’t seem likely.” she finished.

“Agreed,” Brand said quickly.

I picked up on the ‘not talking about how we know someone is in here with us’ bit.

I looked at the piece of loot I got from the Megaleo.

Juggernaut’s Bangle

Improve Power Attribute by 5. Gain access to the Wrecking Crew skill. While worn gain two levels of Scale while applying force to objects or structures.

Wrecking Crew skill

The not so delicate science of knocking down those uppity buildings. Use this skill to identify weak spots in a structure. Also successful rolls allow user to negate up to mind points of defense for a building they are trying to destroy.

I pulled it out of my inventory and set it on the table, “Is this any good?”

Angelica looked at it and whistled. “That cat was twinked out.” She pulled a green headband.

Analyze check…successful

Headband of Impossible Endurance

While wearing this headband you are immune to any Exhaustion related conditions caused from extreme activity. Note: without rest Exhaustion condition will still progress at normal rate.

Damn that was huge.

We both looked at Brand. He sighed a cloud of smoke. “Fine.”

He pulled a pair of bracers out of his inventory and set them on the table next to the rest of the gear.

Analyze check…successful

Rupturing Bracers

Ignore twenty points of targets Defence

Armor: 14

No wonder that thing was so hard to mitigate.

“I am quite happy with my gear,” Brand said, pulling the shotgun into his inventory. “I am not exactly interested in trading.”

“The current distribution does seem fairly ideal,” I admitted.

“Dungeons tend to be more optimized in distribution of loot,” Angelica said, picking the headband back up, “At least until the end. God, I hate that drama.” The headband disappeared into her inventory.

Brand picked up the bracers and pulled the bracers into his inventory. He took the butt of the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it into his inventory “Anything else worth discussing?” Brand asked. He looked deeply, almost spiritually weary.

“I got nothing,” that I cared to say, possibly under surveillance.

Angelica shook her head ‘No’.

Brand stood and stretched, “I am going to shower.” after a few steps he asked, “Care to join me?”

I was not expecting that. I froze. I am many things. Among them is smooth as 40 grit sandpaper.

“Yeah, why not…” Angelica said flatly. She followed Brand into the shower he always used.

“Huh,” I muttered to myself. I would not have guessed that would happen. It would probably be a good idea to consider my feelings about what just happened, or… “Denise. I have questions.” Avoidant behavior for the temporary win.

“Okay,” Denise said, appearing behind me. “Can we make it quick?” she sounded on edge.

I turned to face her. Denise had her head on a swivel. Trying to look everywhere all the time.

She also kept eyeing the door to the shower. I raised an eyebrow, “Do you have a problem with that?”

“I find the whole process… upsetting.” Denise said with a disgusted look on her face. She pressed on, “You said you had questions.”

“Yeah, what were the retcons?” I watched Denise closely to see if the question provoked a response.

It did but not the one I thought it would. Denise brighted. She all but exuded that energy people have when they talk about that part of their job that they actually like, “That was actually kinda fascinating. Lindsey updated the dungeons AI from lethal to killer mentality. That caused the dungeon to enable a soft lock with the blessing and Domain interaction. You are actually quite lucky you guys went in the order you did.”

That had a lot of troubling implications, “I take it Lindsey is Fiona’s replacement?”

Denise nodded with a smile, “Yep. But the second Retcon was where things became almost genius. Wilson suggested letting the arena be open because that allowed for the potential for the Megaleo to destroy the safe zone. Brandon ran with it, because the default scenario would have had the Megaleo reach the safe zone with about six percent of its hit points. That would have forced you guys to do a low resource run to finish the dungeon, but would have prevented an obvious chance of soft locking. At least in a way that would have made the audience feel cheated. How did you figure out that the plan was for the Megaleo to break this place?”

“I just thought about what was the most assholish reason for opening the door,” I explained.

She didn’t seem to like my answer. “Am I good to go then?” Denise asked. Again she was trying to look everywhere all at once.

“I still have questions, How many types of armor are there, and what are the differences between them?”

“Oh, yeah so, there are three types of armor: Soft, Hard, Structural.” Denise said not looking at her phone. “Soft armor is the lightest armor. It almost never has any negative effects for wearing it. But it is the least protective, tends to have the lowest defense rating, and allows d4 damage through should an attack hit. Hard armor is much more expensive to make, and harder to maintain. Beside always having a base deflection rate of five percent at the lowest it only lets one point of damage through to the user per hit through. It takes the remaining of the d4 as damage to itself. So hard armor tends to not stick around that long. Then there is Structural armor. This is the most protective armor with regard to mitigating damage, but it is heavy. Wearing structural armor limits all sorts of mobility skills. The big thing is while you are wearing it, you are not going to take any damage. The armor is taking whatever damage there is. That is why it isn’t going to be around much after a few big fights.” she pulled out her phone, “The Megaleo’s armor was Godsteel structural armor. It had one-hundred and seventy-five structural points. Before you ask, Structural points are like hit points but for an object or building.”

“Could I craft structural armor with the material I have?” asked, looking at all the bones I have in my inventory.

Denise tapped at her phone for a brief moment then frowned. She tilted her hand from side to side for a moment, “Sota, kinda, not in a way you would like. It would take literally every bone you have in your inventory and about thirty hours of your time to craft a set of Bone-shell armor. The armor will have about 50 structural points and an armor value of 16. It is going to take at least a d4 damage each time you get hit, so you could really only use it for a boss or something.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

That didn’t sound like a great answer. I would almost be better off making more barricades, although that was going to get rough on the inventory space quickly.

“Can I please go?” Denise pressed.

“Celeste isn’t going to hurt you…I think,” i started

“You Think!” Denise shouted her fear going from containable to the other thing.

“I am all but certain,” I tried to explain.

“It’s not just her I’m worried about,” Denise started but stopped. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “Let’s focus. What other questions do you have?”

“Why is my regen ‘healing’ my armor, would it work with structural armor?” I asked. Suddenly I found myself hoping the system would continue to be the clown parade it has been up till now.

Trusty phone in hand Denise searched for the answers, “Okay, so the QA team thinks that what is happening is your Scale is causing minor glitches. The power of your regen is getting confused because the Titanic Armor perk marks the gear with your essence. This makes the regen unable to tell where your skin ends and the armor begins so it just heals both. They have patched this so it won’t devolve into a full on exploit. So, no regeneration with hard armor or structural armor.”

“Lame,” I complained.

“If you are going to pout I can just leave…like right now… please?” Denise responded clearly not sympathetic.

One last thing, “Why did the material I was crafting bend and mold to my will while I was crafting with it?”

“Because you’re a titan spawn,” Denise said. After realizing who she was talking to she elaborated, “You aren’t just a physical being. You are also pushing the boundaries of the system's ability to handle things on a metaphysical level. You had four levels of Scale on the epic material you were crafting with making things easier as you went. Most players would be at a penalty when trying to work with epic Scale materials, but you get bonuses.

“But I wasn’t trained in the skill until after I made the Vitae of Tumult,” I said, legitimately confused.

“Dang it,” Denise muttered, going back to her phone, “Okay. your Scale still meant you didn’t take penalties, but you had high enough attributes and were crafting simple enough things that you made your checks. For the Vitae you did roll a critical success. You just got lucky there.”

That actually made sense. The system worked for me because I was a titan spawn. Even when things shouldn’t benefit me, being a titan spawn allowed me to ignore the limitation. “Thanks Denise. You can get out of here.”

“Bye Doug,” she said before blinking out of existence.

Then it hit me. ‘It's not just her I am worried about.’ Denise was afraid of someone else who could act during a time stop. Oh shit. I am not sure why, but I had assumed ‘gods’ would be more hands off in their dealings. Denise clearly feared someone coming down here and doing stuff.

The door to the shower opened, “Doug get in here,” Angelica commanded.

There will come a day when I will know what is about to happen. It is not that day. Tomorrow didn’t look good either. I really was not expecting Angelica and Brand to get together. This invitation was beyond my imagination. Why would they even want me around for that? …team building exercise? “No thank you.”

“Now,” Angelica insisted flatly. She slammed the door behind her and went back into the shower.

I sighed and got to my feet. I was mentally preparing some sort of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech. Which I should be able to improv by stating the honest truth, that while not sex negative. I was just not in a head space to meaningfully contribute to group sex. Also I just didn’t wanna. The constant violence of the dungeon was something I didn’t want associated with sex. That can’t be healthy.

My mind went to an odd place. I was clearly avoiding the current situation, and while that was of course going to result in being pulled back into reality, for the moment I could drift away from that problem. It is the perfect strategy. You know for an extremely finite amount of time.

Okay so I won the lottery. No, that is not quite right. Marnie and I won the lottery. She loved playing the game, and bought a ticket each month. I always thought it was silly, but that time I bought the ticket for her. And we won. Now it wasn’t some record breaking jackpot that makes headlines, but it was thirty million dollars. That became roughly fifteen million to our bank account after taxes. We then donated half the money to various charity groups leaving us with about seven million. Marnie was the smart one then. She insisted I pull in my buddy Richard. He was a stock market guy. Not wealthy, but actively building a retirement as he spouted southern fried platitudes about what he could accomplish with a real ‘warchest’ it turns out that worked out to a roughly seven percent return on investment year over year. Which translated to a four percent growth of the investment and about a quarter of million dollars a year passive income for us, and a hedge fund large enough for Richard to attract other investors.

I was at the door. The money didn’t help then. It wouldn’t help now.

I opened the door to find Angelica in shorts and a sports bra by the door, and Brand in a swimsuit, standing under the shower. The wall of the shower was covered in carvings and some sort of bloody rune was drawn on the mirror. I closed the door behind me, “Before we go any further, is this a weird sex thing?”

“No,” Angelica said, sliding the lock to the door in place. “Now strip.”

“Gonna have to ask you why?” I said, not stripping. I didn’t even sway to the music.

“So we can scrub that horrifying gunk off of you?” Angelica explained. She waved her arm toward Brand in the shower. “In you go.”

I found my attention locked on the cut in her arm.

Willpower check… successful

Emotional state kept under control

Note: Repeated rolls will increase difficulty.

That is not lessening with time. “Could you please cover that?” I pointed at her arm.

Angelica looked at the cut, “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“You have your traumas, I have mine. Please?”

Angelica shrugged and taped up her arm, “Better?”

I nodded.

“If you are finished, we have a lot to do,” Brand chided.

“I am still not clear on why this needs to be a group activity?” I explained, still not stripping. I am a tease that way.

“Because we are also going to put together the final plan for clearing the dungeon without surveillance.” Brand answered.

“Oh, why didn’t you lead with that?” I pulled all my gear except my tighty-whities back into my inventory.

Angelica wolf whistled.

“Really?” I asked.

Angelica shrugged, “It felt like it would be funny in the moment.”

The scrubbing of the vitae was not pleasant. It was also not in any way erotic. It was just Brand and Angelica rubbing soap all over my back, chest, legs and arms. Apparently my face was my responsibility.

“Why are we all doing this?”

“Because you are going to need help to get a high enough roll to get the gore off of you,” Angelica said, her efforts were scouring in nature. After a few minutes she busted out a pumice stone. While, abrasive it didn’t budge the gore.

I was failing every attempt to clean myself also. Shit, was the Vitae Titanic Scale? I did make it out of my own blood. Did that mean that this assumedly common Scale soap couldn’t clean the blood? Wasn’t this only supposed to last ten hours? I looked at the condition. It informed me that I was no longer causing the Blood Frenzy condition. The gore stuck around. I was beginning to suspect that this Vitae of Tumult was something meant to be applied to someone else. That said, I had concerns about applying it to others. It seemed like a death sentence with a cruel and unusual means of execution

“What’s the plan?” I asked, as we scrubbed my body.

“Are we still clear?” Brand checked with Angelica. She paused for a moment before nodding. After getting the all go ahead he continued, “It is highly likely that beating the last miniboss is going to set off some sort of trap that if we do not immediately make for the final boss will prevent us from ever reaching it.”

That made sense to me. “I take it this room is safe?”

“For now yes,” Angelica said, she was constantly checking on the mirror and having her eyes then stare into the middle distance. “The rune will block magical divinations up to divine Scale.”

“And I have planted several anti-surveillance devices over my time here. If they can listen in that way, we have no means of opposing them anyways,” Brand said

“Good to know, because I think a god is messing with us,” I said.

“What makes you say that?” Brand inquired. His tone was casual but I felt him pause at my words.

“The Megaleo stopped frenzying and attacking me to knock me off the ceiling, and then hunted me without trying to sniff me out. I am a little surprised it just chased us down the tunnel.”

Brand sighed. “Damn, I had hoped we were simply dealing with a Priestess of Grond. Possession of a heroic Scale boss is beyond them though. That complicates things greatly.”

“Is that going to change our plan?” I asked. I found my eyes being drawn to the rune on the mirror.

“I don’t think so,” Angelica said after a moment’s thought. “Plan is a bit of a strong word anyways. It boils down to what we have been doing before. Depending on the miniboss you need to hide in the shed and just draw attention. Then we immediately dash for the final boss. I was going to immediately bust out my trump card to wrap this up and be done, but if we have a god, even a relative lightweight like Grond, it is probably going to be best to keep that in the deck.”

“How likely are they to step in?” I asked.

Angelica shrugged, “Impossible to say to what degree. He is probably going to try and pilot the last miniboss. The area is almost certainly going to be a domain. No clue what he is going to pull with the final boss.”

“I suspect the final boss will be a spawning boss with a priestess supporting it,” Brand supplied. He stopped trying to scrub the gore of me, and stepped out of the shower, “I believe that will be the real test of your tanking strategies.”

“I still have the bucket of this stuff,” I gestured at myself. “If I get a shot at it, I will try and apply it to the boss. That could turn a bunch of the lions on the boss.”

“That idea has serious potential,” Angelica said, thinking through something. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think we can get you clean.” she also stepped out of the shower, “okay, so we will conga through the halls. Doug will shelter in his shed in any big rooms. I will over power the megaleo if it doesn’t have armor. If it does we will run back to the safe zone even if it breaks this place. We have to gamble on the third miniboss, but once it is done we go for the final boss. Brand and I will clear the way for Doug to coat the final boss in the rage goo.”

“Vitae of Tumult,” I corrected.

“That is much fancier,” Angelica agreed. “Anything else we need to discuss.

“I got nothing,” I said, turning the shower off.

“Leave that on,” Angelica said, shooing me toward the door.

I turned the water back on before shuffling passed her and stood next to Brand.

He put a hand on my shoulder, “One last order of business then. Doug, are you any good at acting in any way?”

I shook my head, and shrugged my shoulders, trying to get his hand off. “No. I can't act to save my life.”

Brand Sighed, “Pity. You will have to be the wronged party.”

I was just about to ask what he was talking about and if he could take his hand off my shoulder when suddenly his other hand was on my dick. This surprised me greatly, “Brand what the fuck?” I roared.

Angelica pushed both of us out the door. We flew across the room and slapped wetly onto the floor. “If you are going to fight, fuck off!” She slammed the door behind her. Why was she naked?

“Way to ruin a good time, mate,” Brand said, standing. He stood and flicked the water off his hands before pulling a cigarette out of his inventory and lighting it.

I found myself in his face shouting, “You just grabbed me out of nowhere!”

Brand blew a puff of smoke into my face, “You know what we were doing in there. Honestly, were you being selfish or naive? It is hard to tell with people like you.”

I almost hit him. Then I realized what just happened. Apparently we were now selling that whatever secret thing happened in that shower was whatever lurid image a voyeur could imagine, but ending in an interruptus sort of way. I even said I couldn't act. So, actually upsetting me was the way to have that outcome occur. Strangely, understanding that Brand knowingly upset me by violating my personal space didn’t soothe my anger. I felt my knuckles pop. When I spoke my voice was toneless and calm, “Never do that again.”