“I’ve marked the nearest tavern,” Dickhead said. “We really shouldn’t put it off any longer.”

  I felt the ping as soon as he placed it and glanced over to see the white pillar.

  “Fine,” I said. “But no more pulling up menus on me while I’m walking.”

  “Okie-dokie.”

  I started walking while Dickhead started talking.

  “The first thing you should know about upgrade tokens is they’re expensive.”

  “But it’s only gold, right?”

  Gold seemed a lot easier to get than credits.

  “True, but you won’t earn much in the Tutorial. Not until you set up a few supply chains. The Homesteading Questline should cover that. If you’ve got enough gold, you can turn even mundane items into something useful. It’s one of the best gold sinks in the World Dungeon, besides investing in your Lair.”

  “How expensive are they?”

  “The Common upgrade tokens start at about a thousand gold.”

  That was a steep price, especially since I was only getting ten to fifteen gold a pop.

  Fixing my jacket probably wasn’t worth it until I could make it more durable. It’d just get wrecked again in my next fight.

  I saw my first werewolf up ahead. The glorious bastard came at me from the opposite direction. He was covered in dark gray fur, head to toe. Intense orange eyes sat on his canid face. He wasn’t wearing clothes or shoes as he walked by on his massive, clawed paws. His clawed hands were just as big, and he gave off an aura of primal power as we passed.

  Now that was a damn killing machine.

  Up ahead, the tavern appeared to be an actual structure. The hull of a giant boat served as its roof. Like a beached ship flipped upside down, it stood out among the sea of mycelial buildings.

  Safe Harbor was the name of the establishment.

  Someone had propped open the front door, inviting all to enter. Monsters of all kinds stepped in and out of the bustling tavern. I waited for a gaggle of goblins to exit.

  “Come on, Pops, let’s go try out that Instance,” one said.

  “Yeah, you promised we could after everyone hit level two,” the other short one added.

  “Alright, alright,” the largest goblin said. “But remember to protect your mother.”

  I hadn’t thought about it before: some families might pick the same class and work together.

  An ettercap followed right behind me. It looked like they smashed a skinny-fat troglodyte and a spider together. It had two legs, two arms, a beer belly, and an arachnid face. The damn thing didn’t need eight legs to creep me out.

  Safe Harbor had an open floor plan. The tavern was wider than it was deep. On my left was the kitchen, cordoned off by half-walls and a full-service bar.

  I watched naked skeletons covered in various colors of fungal fuzz scurrying to and from the kitchen.

  “More fungalshades,” I muttered under my breath.

  On my right was the biggest fireplace I’d ever seen. The flames licked at least four feet high, which was barely a third of the hearth’s total height.

  Then, like watching a Harry Potter movie gone wrong, Bigfoot walked out of the flames with a whump.

  The fire didn’t even die down; he just walked through it.

  “What the…?” I asked with a squint.

  The player sported a thick fur coat of brown, two enormous feet, a wide frame, and antler-horns. To be fair, he could’ve been a yeti, wendigo, or sasquatch for all I knew.

  Three more whumps fired off as a trio of slimes appeared and hopped out, unscathed by the heat. Each of them had a different color: red, blue, and purple.

  “Dick, why are players walking out of the fireplace?”

  “That’s the hearth. It’s where you’ll show up when you use a hearthrune. The fire is there to encourage players to clear the landing zone immediately, so more can come through.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “The fire’s real?”

  “Very, although it gives you a second before applying the heat.”

  Seeing the kitchen made me wonder if they could prepare brains. I’d been eating them raw, like sushi.

  I bet they’d taste amazing in butter, I thought as my mouth watered. Butter made everything better.

  My eyes drifted to an antique grandfather clock standing awkwardly by the bar. None of the bits were moving, so I had assumed it was broken. Weird thing to keep around.

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  “Go up to the barkeep and ask for a hearthrune. The first one’s free.”

  “First one?”

  “Yeah, they’re consumables. You Know Who usually gives the first one for free, like that potion of healing you got from your first NPC kill.”

  “Is that why I didn’t get any more?”

  “Probably. Low-risk NPCs don’t have a very large drop table.”

  I walked up to the packed bar and flagged down the bartender. She looked like a drowned corpse: blue skin, dressed in seaweed, with coral growing out of her hair.

  She came over, wiping down a pint glass with a drying towel.

  “One hearthrune,” I said.

  “That’ll be a hundred gold. Anything else?”

  “A hundred? I’m not asking you to sew my damn arm back on.”

  She smiled and let out a little chuckle. “Ain’t heard that one before. Can’t do anything about the price, but you made me laugh. I suppose that’s worth a free drink. What’ll it be?”

  I wasn’t fond of booze, but a free beer was a free beer.

  “Whatever’s on tap. Also, my manager mentioned I could pick up my first hearthrune on the house?”

  She gave a slight nod. “One complimentary hearthrune and a pint of our best watered-down swill, coming right up.”

  As far as people went, bartenders were alright. At least it was obvious why they were nice. They worked for tips.

  Or so I thought. I leaned over the bar, looking up and down it for a tip jar. There wasn’t one.

  She came back with a golden pint and a palm-sized stone with a glowing purple etching. I hefted the stone in my hand, tossing it up and down a couple times—a literal runed stone.

  “Careful with that, darlin’,” she said. “Break it and you’ll be walking through that hearth right over there. And the next one won’t be free.” She lifted a finger toward the fireplace before heading off to serve someone else.

  “Dick, do these stack?”

  “Yep, up to ten.”

  That was good news. I’d only have to dedicate a tenth of my inventory to carrying the damn things around.

  “Now go touch the hearth and get attuned.”

  I drained my drink and crossed the tavern, dodging every fungalshade as I made my way. The last thing I needed was something else trying to work my ass like a puppet. I already had Dickhead constantly telling me what to do.

  Attuning to the hearth couldn’t have been easier. There wasn’t even a System prompt or notification. The entire fireplace flashed as if highlighted for a second when I touched it.

  “That’s it?” I asked to be sure.

  “Yep, now when you use the hearthrune, it’ll take you to the last place you’ve attuned.”

  “The bartender said something about breaking it?”

  “Breaking it triggers the teleport, which is why it’s a consumable.”

  Other than convincing the chefs to cook up a brain from my inventory, I was done with the tavern.

  “What’s next?”

  “Now that we have a way to return to town, I say we get back to the Lair and finish the Homesteading Questline.”

  I groaned. “Isn’t there anything else we could do? What about an Instance? I heard that pack of goblins talking about it earlier.”

  “The Freelancer portion of the Questline will lead us to the first Instance. Without it, we’d either have to buy a map, which the town hasn’t unlocked, or wander around until we stumble upon the entrance. It’s just faster to do the quests. Also, quests earn you achievement points.”

  Dickhead had quickly picked up that I was very Credit motivated. He had me at achievement points, the most direct way to unlocking the stupid profanity filter QoL.

  “Fine.”

  I didn’t want to have to spend another day running back to town, so I asked, “You want me to use the gravekey, right?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He was polite; I’d give him that.

  I hit the gravekey on my hotbar with a mental activation.

  [Exiting the Tutorial. Please wait…]

  An odd thought occurred to me as it all went black.

  Am I the same person on the other side?

  [Welcome to your Lair.]

  I read the System message after materializing.

  What was I thinking about? I couldn’t remember and shrugged. Probably not important.

  While I had a moment, I checked my achievements.

  UPDATED!

  +6 NPCs killed.

  +1 Player towns discovered.

  +90 Total gold earned.

  +90 Max gold held.

  +2,093 Total credits earned.

  +2,093 Max credits held.

  (New!) All that Glitters - You opened the first celestial chest in the World Dungeon, RNGesus.

  I closed the menu and received a milestone notification.

  [You’ve gained: 20 credits from new achievement milestones. Total credits: 2,114.]

  The next step in the Homesteading Questline wanted me to build a bed.

  All I had were the rewards from a previous quest, which included some planks, ingots, and cloth. This was going to be one shitty bed. I wasn’t sure if I needed to craft it by hand or if it used video-game logic in which a pile of parts got you an item.

  I went over to the Lair terminal and entered Build Mode. My consciousness flew out of my body, zooming out until I had an isometric view of my tiny-ass Lair. I found a Chair icon on the toolbar and tapped it. That earned me a new System message.

  [New blueprint unlocked: common bedroom furniture - twin bed.]

  Bed was the only item in the list. I tapped on it and saw the cost to construct it: 8 wood planks, 2 iron ingots, 1 cured resin, 1 cotton bolt, 1 wool bolt, which was exactly what I’d gotten from a previous treasure chest.

  Tapping on Bed again gave me a ghost-blue outline of what the bed would look like in real space. It didn’t look like I could change the model or even the color. I was stuck with a plain-Jane twin bed. I wasn’t sure how they were going to make a mattress out of the materials I had, but all I needed to do was tap it again once I positioned the ghost.

  It materialized, earning me a quest notification.

  [Homesteading - Objective: Build and place a bed, complete.]

  [You’ve gained: 1 common chest.]

  [New objective: Build a bedroom and move your bed.]

  I’d check out the treasure chest later. I tapped on the Hammer icon and highlighted a section of wall. An option to create a new room popped up, asking for the dimensions. I chose a three-by-three square room, and my Lair tile count increased to 13/50.

  I moved the bed to my bedroom and earned another quest notification.

  [Homesteading - Objective: Build a bedroom and move your bed, complete.]

  [You’ve gained: 1 common chest.]

  [New objective: Decorate your bedroom.]

  I sighed. I was a function-over-form guy most of the time. Not that I couldn’t appreciate nice things. I just didn’t go out of my way to match the curtains with the rug, or whatever the stupid quest wanted me to do. Never really saw the point.

  I exited Build Mode and strolled into my room. It was bigger than the closet I’d spawned in. The twin bed was just a mattress and frame. It came with a single pillow and a thin sheet, which was fine with me. I’d gone with less before.

  I took out the pitchfork and leaned it against the wall in the corner, but didn’t get an objective complete notification. I frowned. Apparently, that didn’t count as decorating.

  “Dick, what does the quest mean by ‘decorate my bedroom’? I’ve got nothing to decorate with.”

  “Earlier objectives in a questline will usually give you what you need to complete later ones. We should open more chests.” He sounded more excited about opening treasure chests than I was.

  I pulled up the Rewards submenu and accidentally tapped both chests, which was how I found out I could summon more than one at a time.

  I turned around and gently tapped them both open with my boot. Back-to-back loot notifications showed up.

  [You’ve gained: 100 gold and 1 common blueprint. Total gold: 190.]

  [You’ve gained: 100 gold, 1 granite block, and 1 common blueprint. Total gold: 290.]

  Awesome, I’d have enough to buy another hearthrune when I got back to Safe Harbor. But what the hell was I supposed to do with a slab of granite?

  I found out after going back into Build Mode and tapping the Chair icon again. A couple of new items had been added to the list.

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