The Red Trail Gun Range and Store had been moderately busy for a Monday afternoon. The attached gun-and-camping-supply store was far busier. There was a line out of the store and a sign announcing a limit of a hundred rounds per customer.
“People are beginning to get skittish,” Bob said as their group headed in from the parking lot. “News since yesterday has been getting crazier. Too much weird stuff happening all at once.”
“I don’t watch the news,” Josh said. “What kind of weird news?”
“A dozen more disappearances just in the New Haven area. A guy heading home from work was tackled by a bear or a gorilla – witnesses couldn’t agree on what it was – and dragged off. Someone got it on video but it was too dark to make out.”
“Could’ve been a Ratling Champion,” Roland said. “They look a bit like a gorilla with a rat head. Close enough to a bear in a bad light.”
They got quiet for a few seconds, processing the information.
“Some don’t need the news to tell them something’s wrong,” Wendy said. She looked even paler than before. “Some can just feel it in the air, the way animals know when an earthquake is about to hit.”
Rick Kowalski, Red Trail’s owner and operator, greeted Bob warmly and took him aside for a private conversation that Roland easily overheard despite the gun reports outside and the half dozen other conversations in the shop.
The long and short of it was that Bob purchased two hours of range time and a hundred rounds for each of their guns. In return for the special treatment, Bob warned Rick that something bad was indeed on the way and that he would tell him more in a day or two.
Rick seemed more willing to believe Bob’s cryptic warnings than most regular people, which pegged him as another conspiracy lover. Sometimes the theories turned out to be close enough to reality. Kowalski said he planned to close down the store in a couple of days and go on vacation.
Bob suggested to Rick that a trip to Salisbury might be a good idea. Roland figured the guy’s personal arsenal and much of his inventory would soon be on its way to Uncle Gorman’s place. Which could be good or bad, depending on which way Gorman decided to jump.
Then it was time to shoot. They had two lanes to share; after setting the wood frames with their stapled paper targets, they waited for the clear signal and began busting caps. Everyone with a gun got to sight in their personal weapons at twenty-five and a hundred yards.
Even with hearing protection, Barton flinched for the first quarter hour until he got more or less used to it.
The short familiarization was nowhere near enough to get them ready, of course. Roland knew only too well just how much training a squad needed before its members learned to operate as a unit. And that was just to become fit to fight on paper.
He’d heard enough veterans complaining about the many things training didn’t cover, stuff you only discovered when the crap hit the spinning blades for real. Training standards had improved in recent decades, but no training that wasn’t dangerous enough to risk actual injury or death was enough to prepare people for actual combat.
Roland hadn’t frozen and hadn’t panicked when the rat bastards had tried to kill him, but that was either his Bloodline or some personal bug or feature in his personality. Maybe something was broken inside of him. Whatever it was, it suited the coming times much better than the current ones.
The two hours went by quickly. Roland figured it would do for now. Another day at the range or running in the woods playing Paintball might help, but they didn’t have a lot of time, and he wanted them to have a level or two under their belts.
They were going to have to wing it and hope they picked up enough experience along the way to figure out how to work together. Until then, the KISS Principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid – would have to apply.
The drive to West Haven passed mostly in silence. Bob drove; he kept tapping the steering wheel with his fingers while he whistled some tune Roland couldn’t identify. Dahlia fell asleep, which Roland could relate to; in the military you learned to catch your zees whenever you could. There was no telling how long the big green machine would keep you up for one reason or another. Barton pulled out a Kindle reader and spent the drive with his nose up in it.
“Anything good?” Roland asked him.
“The latest Dungeon Crawler Carl,” Barton said. “A bit depressing, but good. LitRPG. Apocalyptic, too. As in, most of humanity gets killed by like page five. At least that’s what the main character thinks at first, although actually...”
“Don’t spoil it. I might give it a try.”
Barton looked like he wanted to tell Roland there probably wouldn’t be any books on Kindle in his near or distant future, but instead he nodded and went back to his reading.
Roland just spent the rest of the ride watching the world go by.
It felt a little like saying goodbye to it.
* * *
Come to see me off, are you? Roland asked when he spotted Trixie and Raven as everyone got out of their cars.
They had parked the two vehicles at the nearby train station, where they would be fairly inconspicuous. According to Roland’s map, the Dungeon was a few minutes’ walk away. It was getting dark and he wanted to get everyone there as quickly as possible.
“Remember to leave phones, tablets, any complex electronics in the car. High Mana surges can mess with them, even burn them out.”
The NVGs might or might not survive the Dungeon but taking them was worth the risk. Phones had too many small components that could (and in time would) burn out.
As the group followed Roland, Trixie popped up in front of him and a caw over his head alerted him to Raven’s presence.
I will follow you in. To provide advice, and little else. I could fight for you, but then you would get few rewards.
If anybody in my party is about to die, I want you to help them, and damn the rewards.
Such a softie you are, Raven said in mock disapproval. Agreed. But I’m not omnipotent. I’ll do my best to protect them, but it may not be enough.
Will keep it in mind. I did have a question. Will my high Perception let me see in the dark?
Good to know. I’ll let the others have the NVGs, then.
The group crossed the street and headed for a vacant lot next to a block of restaurants and other businesses.
A lady in a Kia Fiesta drove slowly past them and gave them the stink-eye. Maybe she found it suspicious to see a group of people walking around after nightfall. Or maybe she was just a nosy Karen. Nobody bothered to ask her as she drove away, peering at them from the rearview mirror.
“Never mind us,” Barton said, clearly nervous. “Just six law-abiding citizens, going off for some live-action dungeon crawling.”
“Law-abiding?” Dahlia snorted. “Speak for yourself, Mister Dorko.”
“Quiet,” Roland said as a notification appeared:
You have discovered: Dungeon Antechamber Entrance
Activate? Y/N
“This is it,” Roland said as he ‘clicked’ on Yes.
A circle of swirling lights at least seven feet tall and wide appeared out of thin air in front of him.
“Ooh,” Bob said as Josh began cursing like a sailor and Barton screamed like a little girl and fell on his ass. Wendy just took a step back, her hands clasped together as if she was praying.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Dahlia gasped. “All real,” she said dreamily. “And I’m glad for the pit stop or I might have pis...”
A loud crash interrupted her. Roland turned toward the sound and spotted the Kia Fiesta. The lady had stopped at the light at the end of the street, but now the car was across the intersection, where it had wrapped itself around a powerline post. She must have seen the portal appear and panicked.
“Let’s go before things get worse,” he told them.
“Go where?” Barton asked, struggling to his feet.
Roland stuck his hand into the portal. He felt some tingling on his skin, but nothing bit his fingers off, which was a relief. “Through there.”
Trixie had told Roland all Dungeons had a staging area or antechamber that was safe to enter, and he had shared the info with everyone, but actually walking into a light took a big leap of faith.
“Uh, ladies first?” Barton squeaked.
“You’re a lady,” Dahlia hissed at him as she stepped through the portal without hesitation.
“She sure showed us,” Bob said, following her.
Everyone else went in, even Barton, although he was last in line and hemmed and hawed until Roland all but pushed him in.
Roland took a last look at the Kia. The driver had gotten out, bleeding from the nose; Roland could see the air bag had deployed. She staggered away from the car, pointed at Roland accusingly, and fell on her ass.
That’s what you get for minding other people’s business, Karen, he thought, rather unkindly, and went through the portal.
* * *
He slammed into Barton, who hadn’t stepped out of the way, knocking the portly gamer to the ground. It was the second time the poor guy had hit the dirt, and Roland suspected it would be far from the last.
“Ouch!”
“What did you think was going to happen?” Roland told him as he stepped over him, checking his surroundings. “Don’t stop right at the portal, bro.”
They had arrived at a roughly circular clearing, surrounded by scrawny trees, much like the ones dotting the vacant lot where the portal had appeared. It was much darker there, since there were no streetlights or even the skyglow all cities generated at night through light pollution.
Everybody but Barton had stepped away from the glowing portal. Josh and Bob were looking out of the clearing, both clearly wishing they had weapons in their hands. Roland was ferrying the party’s full equipment list in his inventory.
“We should be safe here,” Roland said as he stepped over Barton. “Right, Raven?”
“You are correct, sir,” Raven said in a jovial voice that sounded vaguely familiar.
“I still can’t believe your bird can talk,” Barton said, finally getting to his feet after several seconds of staring at the cloudy sky.
“Polly wants a cracker,” Raven said, now sounding just like a parrot. “Belay that. Polly wants a blow...”
“Hey!” Dahlia interrupted him. She had been taking it all in until the bird ruined her sense of wonder.
“Everyone, stay in the clearing,” Roland told them. “Let’s get geared in.”
They had discussed how to divvy up their small arsenal. Roland started unloading his inventory and handing out stuff. In terms of armor, Barton got to wear the steel breast plate and one of the combat helmets. Bob, Josh and Wendy got the plate carriers, although Wendy complained about the weight.
She also got one of the combat helmets, along with Bob, while Josh made do with a plastic bike helmet that would hopefully help a little. Dahlia put on the shark suit chain mail over, of all things, a baseball catcher’s chest protector; Bob had picked up a couple of those to offer an extra layer of protection.
Weapons and Tasers got distributed, with Dahlia and Barton getting spears which Roland hoped they’d never have to use, at least before getting a Class. Everyone got at least one knife and a belt sheath, although Barton handled the one he got like it might bite him without provocation.
Roland noticed Dahlia was using scotch tape to attach a MiniFiend playing card on each Taser. A closer look revealed the cards featured the game’s signature monster: Bloodykee, a red-furred, cute as a button cat-fox-raccoon mix – one that bore trademark-infringing similarities to MiniBeast’s official mascot, Chupakee. Besides the color switch (red instead of yellow), Bloodykee shot black lightning bolts out of any of its six orifices, as opposed to beams of light from the original MiniBeast.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“I’m doing my thing,” she said. “If it works, it’s going to be awesome. And if it doesn’t, it’s not hurting anyone, is it?”
Let the fair lass be, me boyo, Raven told him in a fake Irish accent. She might just be onto something.
“Carry on,” he told her, and began working on his own gear.
Roland practiced moving objects in and out of his inventory while people got ready. He discovered that he could decide where items would appear, as long as they were in contact with his body when they did.
Naginata, left hand, he thought, and it was there, touching his palm and ready for his waiting fingers to close on the shaft. He sent it back for now, replacing it with Executioner’s Gun, leaving all the other weapons in the inventory. No need to carry anything until he needed it.
You can abuse the heck out of inventories, he thought.
On the other hand, the System probably had ways to screw with inventories for balance’s sake. Maybe some Bosses could shut off your inventory access and leave you with whatever you were holding in your hands, which ideally would be something useful.
After asking Raven, who confirmed his worries, he decided to belt on the pistol and one of the knives, just in case.
Next, he put on the helmet, once again marveling at the way it didn’t obstruct his vision at all. Or any of his other senses: he could feel the damp coolness of the air around them. Roland tapped on his head and felt the metallic exterior. It was weird as eff, but it worked.
The jacket also felt lighter than normal and didn’t slow him down at all. It also fit him perfectly, which hadn’t been true before it became a Legendary item. A quick search through the Help Menu showed him that all Uncommon and better items could resize themselves to fit their wearer within certain limits. A suit of armor would fit most humanoids between four and ten feet in height, for example.
“Holy crap,” Barton said when Roland was fully outfitted. “His stuff is glowing.”
“Is it?” Roland said, looking down at himself and realizing the jacket and the weapons had a noticeable yellow aura. Only the Pants of the Wandering Monk didn’t make their own light.
“Guess it does.”
The Dungeon’s ambient Mana is causing this, Raven explained.
Since the bird didn’t seem to like speaking out loud for long, Roland shared that tidbit with the group.
“This is a dungeon. We’re really in a dungeon,” Barton said as he leaned on his spear and shifted around to find a more comfortable fit for the breastplate, which had taken two other people to put on him. Even with a couple of sweatshirts to serve as padding, the metal clamshell was not pleasant to wear. At least they had managed to latch it completely shut so there wouldn’t be any gaps on the side, although it was a tight fit.
“I thought a dungeon would be something more indoor-sy,” Wendy commented. “And underground. Like the Mines of Moria.”
“The term dungeon has been misused to mean any kind of challenging, self-contained area in many games, and I guess the System has stuck with it,” Barton explained. “And maybe don’t talk about that sort of place out loud. Best not to jinx us. Don’t mention the big bad in there, for real.”
“The Balrog?” Josh said as he ran a check on his gear. “I watched the movie too.”
“Don’t,” Dahlia told him, more forcefully than Barton had. “We are living in magic-land now, bro. Names have power. Things might hear you if you call them.”
Barton shuddered.
Josh and Barton finished gearing up; they put on the NVGs and helped the others put on their own.
“Everyone set?” Roland asked. “NVGs working?”
Everyone responded affirmatively and Roland clicked on the Party Tab, where he was offered the chance to form one. He agreed and then selected everyone. Raven was automatically added with a (Familiar) tag.
“Okay, you’re in the party. You should start seeing notifications.”
Barton put his hands on his cheeks, looking around with eyes as big as saucers. “Ohmygod.”
“I can see your stats!” Bob said. “Health, Mana, Endurance!” He turned to Roland. “Holy freaking crap, man! You’ve got like two hundred plus hit points, Mana, everything! What are you, level twenty or something?”
“You can see my level,” Roland told him. “Two in my class and two in my cultivation. Which adds up to four, although the two systems don’t match up exactly. Probably closer to level five or six, for an Epic Class.”
Closer to level twelve or even fifteen in a Common Class, he thought. But telling them that wouldn’t help morale.
“Nineteen hit points,” Barton said. “That’s not a lot. Unless weapon damage is like one four-sided die per hit, we can die real easy.”
“It’ll be okay,” Roland reassured him. “I’ve got your backs. First, I got about forty potions, so I can keep you topped off. And I also have this,” he added, activating Leadership of Mio Cid.
Lines of light erupted from the helmet, reminding Roland of the Ghost Octopus component of his currently-locked Art, only brighter and with golden hues. They flew toward his five party members. The only one who reacted to the light was Wendy, who flinched a second before it touched her. A moment later, they all staggered.
Roland watched their hit points, Mana and Endurance bars jump by eight or nine points apiece as they all gained ten percent of his stats. Since all his Attributes were in the forties or fifties, that meant big jumps for people whose stats were around ten to twelve. He noticed their appearance didn’t change, and the stat jump didn’t seem to cause them the severe pain he’d experienced.
It’s an artificial boost, he realized. Their bodies are the same, they’re just temporarily reinforced or powered-up.
“Wow. It feels... great!” Barton shouted. “Like I downed three cans of Monster!”
“Or did a couple lines of coke,” Josh said. “It’s like I’m supercharged.”
“Just a little pick-me-up from my headgear,” Roland told them, tapping the helmet.
“It’s got a tag, just like us!” Barton said. “The Helmet of El Cid! Wow. Although that kind of helmet didn’t really appear in Europe until after El Cid died, if I remember correctly.”
Roland rolled his eyes inside the helmet. “Alternate history. All that stuff happened on another Earth. One with magic.”
“For real?”
“Yeah. From what I can tell, the System is mostly interested in doing what it does – helping, infecting, what have you – on Earth, and there are a bunch of Earths out there.”
“Freaking Multiverse,” Bob grumbled. “Means nothing matters. Kill a bad guy, a copy from another timeline will show up sooner or later. Hate it.”
“No timelines,” Raven said. “Planets.”
“A guy I met at the martial arts school told me all these worlds are in our universe. It’s just that the universe is so big it starts to repeat itself.”
Barton’s eyes got wide. “Amazing. But it sort of makes sense. If the universe is truly infinite, any combination of matter and energy will repeat itself infinitely.”
“That’s worse!” Bob said.
“Actually, it’s better. Kinda,” Barton told him. “Multiple timelines require multiple infinite universes. Here we have a single, infinite universe. Although I guess multiplying infinity doesn’t really make it any bigger. That’s the problem with infinity; it doesn’t work in a way we can really understand.”
“All I’m hearing is ‘nerd, nerd, nerd, something nerd, nerd,” Josh said.
Tell your whining cousin that the System has only reached several thousand worlds, so he doesn’t have to worry about infinite versions of him showing up. In fact, I’m quite sure he’s one of a kind.
Roland repeated Raven’s words to Bob and added a few choice ones of his own:
“None of that matters. We are here, on this planet. If you want to survive, and help your loved ones survive, you’ve got to stay on mission, not worry about some copies of you that you’ll never meet.”
“Roger that,” Bob said, snapping out of it. “Charlie-Mike.”
“Okay,” Roland went on. “I’m going to step out of the clearing, which will officially open up the Dungeon. We are still at the entrance. Once I do it, things are going to get serious. No more bull sessions, no more getting bogged down on bullcrap.
“Stay frosty, keep your head on a swivel. That means, look around, don’t focus only on what’s ahead of you. If you don’t maintain situational awareness, it won’t end well for you.”
“Puma check,” Barton said. “Got it.”
“Whatta check?” Josh said.
“It’s a nerd thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Everyone ready?”
They all nodded. Roland stepped toward the edge of the clearing.
Time to get the show on the road.