“I see it,” Wendy said, an Extended Senses cast later.

  Doctor Flinders, Vermin Maker (Beastkin)

  F-Grade Level Boss

  Health 780 Mana 1,620 Endurance 790

  Skills: * Mutagenic Nimbus (Legendary, Toggle: Self-Heal (25 Health per second), inflicts random Mutation to anyone within a twenty-foot radius; Mutations have a 5% of becoming permanent).

  *Plague Goggles (Epic, Action): Fires beams of Disease-attuned energy that place 1-8 stacks of a random Disease. Plague Goggles block eye contact effects.

  * Rodent Resiliency (Epic, Passive): Damage Reduction (15) against all attacks, Self-Resurrection).

  * ROUS Summoning (Epic, Passive: Every second after entering combat, summons 2-4 ROUS).

  Affinities: Disease, Life, Survival, Vermin.

  Resistances and Invulnerabilities:

  Vulnerabilities: Fire, Life, Light.

  “It’s about the size of a normal person,” she continued. “But he is a rat thing, wearing a filthy lab coat and big goggles. Has a walking stick that looks like something made from a cargo pallet, all splintery-like.”

  “Rouse? Summon rouse? That doesn’t make any sense,” Josh said after Wendy was finished reading the stats of the boss.

  “It’s an acronym,” Dahlia said, clearly holding back on an insult stream. “Princess Bride. The System is a plagiarist. But I’m willing to forgive it,” she added, petting her Fiend.

  Barton nodded. “Rodents of Unusual Size. Definitely a plagiarist. I bet this Doctor Flinders looks a lot like a beloved comic book character, too.”

  The party had entered the room, walking over the corpses of a handful of small Ratlings that had been near the door when it exploded. The door itself was a mangled mess with a huge hole near the lock; it had been blasted clear off its hinges and squished several rats. The others were taken out by the shockwave and shrapnel.

  Nobody got any Essence or loot from those kills. No risk, no reward.

  The room the rat squad had been guarding looked like a dried-out sewer tunnel, complete with walkways on each side of a muck-covered canal. The walkways were filled with wire cages, piled all the way to the ceiling, each cage filled with a handful of chittering rats, the real world kind, rather than the two-legged version. There were thousands of caged rodents in the room, and none of them were happy to be there.

  A few had gotten killed by the explosion, and any survivors sharing the cages with them had proceeded to feast on the corpses. Some of the more heavily wounded rats had also been placed on the menu by their ratty brothers. Rats had no chill.

  “This is Bubonic Plague Central,” Barton had commented as they made their way through the room.

  At the other end of the cage room was a wooden door that looked far less sturdy than the one they’d blown up. The party had scanned the door with assorted Skills and discovered that it wasn’t locked or trapped. Even better, it was much weaker than the external door; it only had sixty Durability and fifteen points of Damage Resistance. And it didn’t block sensory Skills. It might as well be wide open.

  Wendy used Extended Senses to see what was on the other side, and discovered the boss, who was inside a huge room that seemed to have been crudely carved out of bedrock.

  “I don’t care what it looks like,” Josh said. “Let’s go kill it.”

  “Time ran out,” Wendy said, ignoring Josh’s comment. “Casting it again from a different angle.”

  “See if you can spot any humanoid turtles,” Barton told her. “Or pizza.”

  “No turtles or pizza,” Wendy said after recasting the Skill. “Doctor Flinders is alone. Other things in there are just a bunch of big glass things, filled with some yellow liquid; there are rats and rat people floating in it. Ugh, one of the vats has human body parts!”

  “Ratling manufacturing center,” Bob growled. “Fucking Doctor Ratenstein.”

  “Oh, and there is a glowing portal like the one we used to get here, Wendy finished.

  “Portal?”

  “Yeah. It’s changing colors, blue to red to – and the spell wore off again. It just went up to Beginner 2, though, so next time I can hold it for six seconds.”

  “I think we’ve seen enough,” Roland said.

  A portal. This must be what Raven meant. Kill the Boss, take the portal, see a Pattern doctor and fix my malfunctioning Dantian. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

  Roland’s lived experience made a strong argument against things being so easy, of course. But maybe he could catch a break for a change. On second thought, he had been catching a lot of lucky breaks, too. He wasn’t sure if the break balance was even. Maybe there was a Karma accountant somewhere out there who could figure it out.

  “Josh is right,” Roland said, surprising everyone, Josh included. “Let’s go kill it.”

  “Kee!” Bloodykee agreed.

  After making a quick and dirty plan, the party assumed positions around the door. Bob was on one side of the door, Josh on the other; they would be numbers two and three going inside. Barton, Dahlia and her MiniFiend would follow, with Wendy bringing up the rear.

  Roland checked his character sheet and spent ten of his reserve freebie points to increase his Strength and Constitution to fifty-five each, which left him with seven unspent points. Everyone was ready. He moved back far enough to get a running start.

  I’m the Juggernaut!

  The door exploded on impact under the hundred-and-ten points of damage the Skill delivered. Roland barely felt the impact as his momentum carried him forward. The rat in the lab coat wasn’t in his path – it was walking back and forth between two vats – but that didn’t matter.

  Reaper’s Dash!

  Roland switched movement powers just before he crashed into one of the vats, a big glass and metal container with several unfinished Ratlings floating there like so many turds in a punchbowl. The dash switched vectors and sent his ghostly form at Doctor Flinders, who was just beginning to turn towards him.

  He had been expecting his ghostly form to bounce off the Boss’ defenses, but this time it worked just fine and he flew through it. By the time he had rematerialized, naginata appearing in his hands, Bob fired the first shot from his upgraded Rare Quality Kel-Tec shotgun. The Fire-augmented round punched through Doctor Flinders’ defenses, staggering it. Roland, still in ghostly form, joined in with a savage double-slash at the rat’s neck.

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

  Josh’s single shot with his blunderbuss struck a split second before the arrival of a trio of spells from the two casters and pet in the rear.

  The combined volley dragged Doctor Flinders’ Health below the fifty percent mark.

  Two rats the size of wild boars materialized next to the Boss. The ROUS squad had arrived. They had 80 hit points apiece, but they weren’t even an obstacle to Roland, who stayed in his incorporeal form.

  Roland kept on the pressure as everyone else kept hitting the boss or its pets at range. He swung his naginata or Spirit Weapons without pause, not caring when a stray shot from Bob’s gun winged him; the damage healed as quickly as it was inflicted, Vital Essence flowing into his reserves with every hit on the Boss.

  You have resisted a Mutation attempt!

  Doctor Flinders fired off Plague Beam at Roland, who twisted his body out of the way. The move was so similar to his Subtle Sidestep Technique that he almost lost focus, but he let his instincts guide him.

  The naginata’s point punched through one of the goggle lenses and the eye beneath with an explosive crunch-splat sound. More shotgun slugs and blunderbuss balls scored hits. By the time Roland withdrew his weapon after giving it a brutal twist as a parting gift, the Boss fell on his back, its legs cartoonishly kicking once before falling still.

  He’s down but he’s got a rez, Roland thought as the Boss’ body vanished. There!

  The lab rat had materialized on the other side of the room. Its goggles were gone, however. The device hadn’t carried over after its resurrection.

  Roland met its unprotected eyes with Judgment Gaze.

  Cruelty to animals. Human experimentation. Guilty!

  Doctor Flinders staggered. The Bloodline Skill didn’t stun it, but the loss of fifty percent of its Health and the accompanying pain slowed it down. Everybody with a clean shot to the Boss took it, hammering the off-balance critter to its knees.

  The end was anticlimactic. The Floor Boss just faceplanted for the second and final time. It barely had time to spawn two sets of ROUS before dying, and the rodents were wiped out before its final death.

  “Well, that was –” Josh began to say in the ensuing silence.

  “Don’t,” Dahlia cut him off. Josh shut up.

  Raven appeared out of thin air and flittered down on Roland’s shoulder.

  Well done, grasshopper. I see you have found our exit.

  * * *

  You have found: 1 Boss Core (F-Grade, Life, Mutation, Vermin), 2 Rare Health Potions, 3 Rare Mana Potions, 2 Rare Endurance Potions, 9 Gold and 50 Essence.

  “Better than nothing, I guess,” Roland said, storing the stuff away.

  Everyone else had gotten about half the Essence he did, although a couple of people had gotten some items. An Uncommon leather chest piece for Wendy and a Rare wand for Barton.

  The way he was nerfing their rewards only solidified his decision to go.

  “Shouldn’t there be a chest after completing a Dungeon level?” he asked Raven.

  “Level incomplete,” the bird said out loud before switching to telepathy.

  There are four more chambers to clear, and an optional Boss in a secret room connected to one of those chambers. If your friends complete the secret room, the portal will give you a choice to travel to the next level of the dungeon or follow a side quest in a pocket dimension. This is why I can tweak the portal to bring us to where we need to go.

  “All right, everyone,” Roland called out after people were done sorting through their prizes. “We need to talk.”

  He explained his situation, telling them about how his cultivation and at least half his power had been disabled. And he shared Raven’s news with them.

  “Raven can modify this portal to take me and him somewhere else. He says that you can’t come with us, though.”

  “Splitting the party is never a good idea,” Barton said.

  Roland shrugged. “There are exemptions to every rule.”

  “Why?” Dahlia asked with a scowl that many a friend and lover had learned to fear.

  “’cause you’ll die,” Raven told her.

  For the first time since she had met the bird, Dahlia stood up to Raven. “Says you. And why do you talk telepathically with Roland but act like a parrot around us? We’ve got Classes now. Why not speak to us directly?”

  Because, Raven said, including the entire party, it would hurt you.

  Roland didn’t feel any difference, but everyone else dropped to the ground, holding their heads in both hands, clearly in pain.

  Except for Bloodykee. The MiniFiend was glaring at Raven, ears flat, fur standing on end.

  “Blood,” he told Raven, eyes aglow. “Blood.”

  Oh, calm down, little cousin. They will be fine.

  “That was unnecessary, Raven,” Roland said as people sat up. Bloodykee ran up to Dahlia and rubbed against her.

  Josh wiped some blood under his nose. “I didn’t do nothing! Why hit me with that shit?”

  “Sorry not sorry,” Raven said out loud. “Necessary.”

  Children who never learned to mind their manners sometimes need a pointed reminder of why they should, the bird said without a hint of regret.

  Roland decided to let it go. Cultural differences could be all kinds of messed up.

  “Raven won’t tell me the details – it’s a need-to-know thing – but one of the reasons you can’t go is that it involves cultivation, which none of you guys have.”

  “Is it dangerous, wherever the hell it is you’re going?” Dahlia asked him, then turned to Raven. “Is it?”

  Raven nodded.

  She turned back to Roland. “We could help. I could help.”

  “I’ll be back,” he said, and resisted the urge to add an Austrian accent to the phrase. “Seriously, I will.”

  Bob jumped in. “How long? And what are we supposed to do while you’re away?”

  “Unknown,” Raven said. “You go kill.”

  “You should clear this level,” Roland told them and repeated the stuff Raven had told him about the area. “If you clear all the rooms, you get a personalized loot chest. And if you do the side quest and kill the hidden boss, you’ll get another one.”

  “You had me at ‘personalized loot chest,’” Barton said. “Let’s do it.”

  “We can probably get an extra level or two out that without Roland dragging down our party XP,” Bob agreed. “No offence, Rolls.”

  “None taken. I am dragging down your Essence gains.”

  “You are also keeping us alive,” Wendy noted. “If you leave... I don’t know. It will be dangerous, but it doesn’t feel like death is inevitable if we go on our own.”

  “That’s a relief,” Barton said.

  “But it’s not impossible,” she went on. “Or even improbable. We’re going to be at far more risk.”

  “Then we can’t do it,” Josh said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’m worried about you, you idiot!”

  The interplay reminded Roland of Mandy. He still needed to talk to her but wanted to finish the dungeon run first. The idea of bringing her on a dungeon crawl hadn’t even occurred to him.

  Risking his cousin’s life, or even his gaming acquaintances and two total strangers, had made him sick with worry he was going to get them killed. To do that to his sister? Never.

  His plans for Mandy were simple. He would explain things to her, drag her to his Safe Zone, and help her get a nice civilian Class. Something that let her gain Essence by crafting, teaching, waiting tables, whatever.

  And if you get killed, either in this Dungeon or this side quest, who’s going to take care of her?

  That was always the question. You put your life between death and your loved ones, and sometimes death took you instead. He was willing to make that trade. But he had to make arrangements, just in case.

  “Bob,” he said.

  “Yeah, Rolls.”

  Roland handed him his Safe Zone tokens, every potion he had, and all the remaining C4. “You know what to do with the tokens. Well, you know as much as I do.”

  “Got it.” The tokens and enough plastic explosives to take down a small building disappeared into Bob’s Inventory.

  “You’re party leader while I’m gone.”

  Bob nodded. Everyone seemed to be okay with the decision, even Josh.

  Roland went on: “You take care of Mandy, you hear me? If, you know.”

  “You got it, coz. On my life.”

  Dahlia looked like she wanted to cry but had forgotten how. “You are going to leave. Leave us.”

  He met her eyes. “I’m stuck until I fix this. In ten levels or so, I’ll get left behind. And then I won’t be able to protect anybody from what’s coming. I have to do this.”

  She forced a grin on her face. “Fine. We’ll kick this level’s ass. This whole Dungeon’s ass, if you don’t hurry the fuck up.”

  “Bloh,” her Fiend agreed. “Dee.”

  “We’ve got this,” Barton said. “Pretty sure we’ve got this. Hopefully.”

  “We do,” Bob said. “Watch your six, Rolls.”

  “Roger that. Last time I didn’t, I got FUBAR.”

  “Please come back,” Wendy told him. “Bad things will happen if you don’t. More bad things, I mean.”

  “I will.”

  Josh didn’t say anything. His eyes were glancing back and forth between Bob and Dahlia.

  Sizing up the competition, Roland thought. I hope his sister can rein him in, or Bloodykee will have his heart for a snack.

  He shrugged. And pointedly kept the Ring of the Bodyguard, even though he knew it would stop working the moment he was out of range. For one, nobody else had the hit points to really take hits for someone else. For another, the guy was playing rear-line-sniper, which wasn’t terribly risky.

  Josh would have to look out for himself until Roland came back. Some might think it was a dick move, but nobody called him on it.

  “Let’s go,” he told Raven.

  Activate Reaper’s Dance. You will need it where you are going.

  Roland did so, wincing as the toggle began to drain his Mana to the tune of twelve points per second. Even with his leftover Vital Essence, he couldn’t stay on that form for very long.

  The world changed to watery shades, soft and flimsy. He saw the party members’ auras, glowing in the colors of their Affinities. Everyone was looking at him.

  The gate shifted colors, turned solid black. It was like the opposite of going into the light.

  He waved at them and went in.

  Bob Acosta has been designated as Party leader.

  You have left the Halls of Refuse.

  You have left the Party.