His mother, Barry, Adam, and Ben were sitting in his office of the first floor of the HQ.

  Allison looked at Adam, “where did you find the money for that last firebomb? It was helpful – but having early would not have been bad.”

  “I didn’t. It was Jane. Those were apparently her last two cores.”

  Allison nodded, “ok, I have to thank her for that later.”

  “Talking about money – I hate to bring it up now – but with the collected cores we have more than thirty thousand Credits and close to 200 SCs. If there is something that we need urgently, we should be able to afford it. I expect us to get another 2,200 SCs in two days.”

  Ben still struggled a bit to stay focused, but he nodded at that, “if there is something needed for the Protectors or militia, buy it. Otherwise, let’s wait until we have the SC influx in two days.

  “The more important, or rather urgent, question is, what now? Was that it? Where did they come from?”

  “The answer on the last question seems obvious.” Barry said.

  Ben nodded, “A dungeon break…”

  “Unless there are mechanisms that we don’t understand, that seems the most likely answer,” Allison weighed in.

  “That means we have to go, find it, and acquire it. And given Mesa’s message, we should probably do it right away.”

  “Yes, but we all need sleep. Going there now is a recipe for disaster.”

  Barry nodded emphatically to that, “indeed. The last 36 hours have been exhausting for everybody on many levels. 8 hours of rest are a minimum.”

  Ben wasn’t sure, but he was bone tired – and if that was true for him with a Body attribute of 19, it probably was at least as true for everybody else.

  “Okay, we need to decide who goes to the dungeon. I can’t just assume Anne, Jamal, or Michael will go along after all this. What about you, mom?”

  Allison thought about the answer for a moment, looked at Barry, “could you take over the responsibilities here for our defense?”

  Barry nodded, “sure. Let’s hope there will be little need for that, but I will do my best should it be necessary.”

  “Thank you. Then, yes, I will come along. Hopefully we can finish this once and for all.”

  Ben felt relief. While he was always worried about her, the emotional support his mother provided outweighed that. Maybe selfish. Maybe even weird for a 29-year-old. But he did not have the strength right now to challenge himself on that topic.

  A few minutes later, he sat with Jamal, Michael, and Anne in their apartment on the first floor of the HQ.

  “If you’re even half as tired as I am, you must be shattered, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

  “First off, I’m sorry. Sorry to get you hurt. Sorry about Simon dying.” That off his chest, Ben wanted to continue, but Jamal interrupted him.

  “You didn’t get us hurt, boss. We fight because we chose to. When you fight, you get hurt. It is that simple.”

  Ben struggled to keep his emotions contained, so he gave a short sharp nod. After a few seconds he continued.

  “We’ve decided to rest for the next eight hours. Then we go out and search for the source of the Retskuls. Most likely a dungeon break.

  “I do not expect you to join me and mom, so please don’t feel obliged in any way. Maybe just let me know after we’ve had some sleep. Okay?”

  Surprisingly it was Michael who responded first, “we will come.”

  “Of course we will.” Anne chimed in.

  Jamal did not react, clearly feeling like everything worthwhile had been said.

  Ben jumped up, managed a short “thank you,” before racing up the steps to his apartment and falling onto his bed, where the emotions of the day took a hold of him until he fell asleep a short while later.

  It was afternoon when Ben woke up. His body felt refreshed, but mentally he was still exhausted. A few minutes later he stepped into the inn, to grab a bite before heading out.

  The mood was somber. He saw uncertainty in people’s gazes and he tried to smile confidently, despite his own state of mind. It worked. Mostly.

  Allison joined him. “It doesn’t feel like it right now, but the last 36 hours were a success…” before Ben could interject, she raised her hand. “Believe me, I am grieving for Simon and once we are done with all of this we can think about what we all could have done better, but I am telling you, if 70 monsters were to attack Simonston, they would kill half of the population, if not more. Despite how shitty it feels, this proved the value of the Protectorate, not the opposite.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “But either way, we need to focus on the mission now, then get back, have a proper ceremony for Simon, and then maybe we can make use of Jeff.”

  “Who is Jeff?”

  “Jeff is one of the newcomers from Antarctica. He’s a shrink.”

  Ben nodded slowly. “Sure, makes sense.”

  ***

  It was dark, but they had not stopped, the stars had provided them with enough light to find the portal. It hadn’t been too hard, as more than a dozen Retskuls were milling around the gate to another dungeon.

  In the few minutes they had watched the scene, a single lizardkin had exited the portal, once and for all confirming that the dungeon was the source of the attack.

  Ben looked at his team, “how about mom opens up with a ranged attack, we,” he pointed at Anne, Jamal, and himself, “attack from here, and Michael uses the commotion to strike from the flanks?”

  It was a simple plan for a fight that they did not expect to be dangerous, so everybody agreed.

  Allison waited a few minutes for Michael to get into position, then dark, powerful roots erupted among the Retskul, capturing three of them.

  The three frontliners did not announce their arrival but attracted the attention of the alerted warriors anyway. Just as they were getting ready to face the assault, Michael appeared behind them and took out two.

  It took less than two minutes to mop up the rest.

  Shortly after, Ben touched the portal.

  You are about to enter a dungeon.

  Theme: Lizard evolution

  Tier: 1 – Attention! Dungeon has broken, expect significantly increased difficulty level

  Min / Max party size: 1 / 5

  Instances: 3

  Levels: 3

  Average days to break: 4

  “Well, this sounds ominous. Also, three levels…” Ben frowned.

  “The first one to have multiple instances as well.” Allison said.

  “I have to admit, this sounds dangerous. But somebody’s got to do it – and I don’t see anybody else around…” Anne said with a shrug.

  Jamal nodded, “let’s go!”

  With that they stepped into the fourth dungeon since Arrival Day.

  A dense rainforest welcomed them. Tall trees with dark foliage and vines hanging between them. Beautiful orchids growing on some of them.

  As was custom by now, Ben checked the portal and the thin barrier surrounding them.

  Attention. Exiting dungeon only possible after full clear.

  He sighed. The weariness since Simon’s death had never really left, and the challenges seemed to mount.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He would not let anybody from his team die. They were strong. They had trained as hard as possible since the advent of the systems, they had responsibilities. They would succeed. Another deep breath. He set his shoulders and opened his eyes.

  Game time.

  There was no path but on three sides the forest was almost impenetrable and dark mist hung in the air. It was an easy decision to try the one open direction first.

  Jamal led, his Shield of Taunt at the ready. Michael roamed nearby but stayed relatively close by. They had no feeling for the strength of the dungeon, yet, and didn’t want to risk being caught out without their full strength at hand.

  There were small rivulets and ponds all over the place and the humidity in the air was high. Some colorful birds and small animals could be seen and heard.

  Michael, who had been scouting a few meters to the left, waved at them. As Ben looked in the direction he had pointed, he saw some movement at the end of one of the rivulets, but it was hard to make out what it was that he saw.

  Michael moved a few more meters ahead but quickly returned. “Big lizards, six, around a pond.”

  Ben didn’t believe that there was an easy way to surprise the beasts, so they agreed to use the same setup they had successfully used at the dungeon entrance.

  When Michael had had some time to get close, Allison opened the fight with roots grabbing two of the lizards.

  As Ben closed in, he was able to identify them. They were 1.50 meters long, not counting their tails, had relatively short heads, and sharp claws.

  Retskul. Lizard. Young. Energy-Born. Tier 1. Uncommon Challenge.

  Weird. Retskul, not Lizardkin but Lizard.

  Jamal used his taunt the moment they were in range, and that turned out to be a good thing as it led to two even bigger lizards to drop from the trees above them, to join the remaining four lizards in their attack on them.

  Michael managed to successfully backstab one of them, but it seemed he had some difficulty getting through their thick, green hide.

  Ben managed to use the distraction that Jamal provided to enter the range of one of the large beasts and successfully hit it in the side, but he hadn’t managed to get enough power behind the cut to kill. Instead, he had to jump back to avoid a tail swing.

  Unfortunately, that got him in range of one of the smaller lizards, which bit down on his right leg, however his armor managed to blunt the damage, if not all of the pain.

  Ben sliced downward, cutting deep into the attacker’s neck and finishing it off. He struggled for a second to free his leg from the lizard’s bite, enough time for the original beast to close in and try to catch him in the other leg. This time Ben managed to evade, however. Before he could counterattack, Anne appeared by his side and stomped the beast into the ground with a forceful kick. In combination with the wound that Ben had dealt it previously, it was enough and the lizard did not get back up again.

  Allison checked with everybody whether they were ok. Ben was the only one who had gotten hit, but he didn’t feel like he would need a health potion right now.

  “So… I think the meaning of Lizard Evolution is clear,” Anne said.

  “Cool concept, to be honest. I wonder if we will face the Retskuls that attacked us in level 3…?” Ben wondered.

  “The fact that we managed that encounter relatively easily shows we’ve grown stronger—through perks and experience. Let’s keep it up,” Allison added.

  That’s what they did. For the next two hours they fought their way through the forest and multiple encounters. None of them got hurt, but it was exhausting.

  Not long after their last encounter, the forest thinned and multiple rivulets converged into a broad, fast-moving river.

  A short while later they saw a wooden fort protecting a bridge across the river – that fort was manned with Retskuls. The variant that had given them so much grief over the last 48 hours.

  The fort wasn’t huge. The walls were basically just stakes rammed into the earth, it was about 15 meters wide and arranged in a semicircle across the bridge. The structure was mirrored on the other side of the river.

  There were about 15 lizardkin on each side of the fort.