Once Levi put the wiki back in some semblance of order - sans demon invasion, since he still couldn’t decide how to present that properly - he went to the RL Game forums.

Still no one came forward with a Seed Fragment. Whoever had it must be keeping it secret. Or else they were a rogue element, not part of this online community. Though given the dungeon being in a member’s backyard, that seemed unlikely.

A couple decent trade offers had come in, one offering to swap an Ice token for a few of his crafting base items, and another offering to trade two elixir bases for three health restoratives. He messaged back the first in the affirmative, and sent a counter-offer on the other. He didn’t have enough restoratives to be willing to trade them at present, but any of his other items were available.

His application for joining Doom Raiders XXX had been processed and he needed to do an in-person interview before he could be official, but they were hopeful and proposed meeting over the weekend.

Levi didn’t want to wait that long, but without any other leads on the Seed Fragment this might be his only chance to complete the set. He sent a message agreeing to the meeting, then found another message waiting already.

The Ice token guy had replied almost immediately, suggesting they meet in dungeon 4 after work to complete the trade.

Levi checked through the wiki for which dungeon had that designation, and found it to be another destruction level 2 a bit south. He agreed to be there to make the trade. It would be good to get rid of some of the miscellany they kept accumulating. Years of instinct not to waste anything kept him collecting everything they found, but here he didn’t have a hierarchy above him to redistribute everything to the necessary crafters and soldiers who could make best use of it.

The mention of dungeon numbers sent him back down the rabbit hole of researching on the wiki for the known dungeons and locations around here. If he could get more precise data than what his mana ping returned, giving him specific locations instead of general regions, he could save a lot of time spent driving around trying to triangulate the dungeons.

As expected, they knew about fewer than half of those near the city, but still an impressive number. Seven dungeons found - they clearly had it down to a science and knew what to look for. For a group of nobodies who would have no actual knowledge of the systems underlying the dungeons, that was pretty amazing.

The level 1 he'd just cleared wasn't on their list, so he designated it as 8 and added the details in.

The dungeon outside Tom's house was designated as 3, so he requested that as the meeting place for his evaluation with the Doom Raiders XXX.

They wouldn't be able to meet him for two more days, though, which left him with the question of what to do in the meantime. He could follow Gordon's example and try to relax, could try to focus on disseminating information virtually, but he would feel useless sitting around doing nothing.

Centoo was close to threshold, Gordon needed to get his own levels up, and he still had plenty of dungeons in the area that no one had claimed. A Fire one in particular had his attention; he associated Summoner with fire, and felt almost completely certain that Fire tokens were one of the necessary ingredients for crafting the Summoner class upgrade.

He spent some time searching the websites and wiki for RL Game in search of any crafting information he may not know, but all of it was based on simple things like 'combine this type of tracing with this type of power stone to get this effect' and nothing on actual creating. Which did explain the interest in his component items.

He also amended his trade offer to include the sheath and his requests to include any power stone, but he didn't have much hope of that panning out. From what he could see, power stones were among the most high value and most in demand objects anywhere on the site.

Once tokens started being consumed to create everything with the unlock of the crafting system at level 15, they'd rise drastically in value given the full variety of their uses, and the value of power stones would drop as weapons and items with power stones already integrated began spawning more often than the standard varieties as dungeons outleveled humanity.

All that to say, eventually power stones would be commonplace and tokens more desirable, but that hadn’t happened yet.

Gordon returned, with his hands full of shopping bags. "Is it alright if I move your dead centipede around a bit?" he asked, popping open the trunk of the car and shoving it up with his knee.

"Yeah, Revive will pull him back together."

"How long until you can do that again?"

"A few more hours."

"Let me guess... you want to go find another dungeon while we wait?"

"Yes."

Gordon sighed. "And if I don't come with you, you'll run off on your own?"

"Probably."

"Alright, fine. We'll keep doing this."

"Do you not understand that this is going to be necessary? That if you don't have a head start, you're liable to end up drafted untrained and thrown up against the demons with nothing but a shield and spear and told 'try not to die'? There's no future coming that we can escape 'this'. If you don't learn to fight now, you'll learn later when I'm not there to watch your back, when there's no one who cares about you, and demons who'd as soon tear your face off as look at you."

“I know, you keep saying it. I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m ready to have 'fighting dungeon monsters' as my full time job 24/7.”

“Then help me find a taxi or something and I’ll be out of your hair.”

"No way." Gordon thumped the steering wheel for emphasis. “I told Irene I won’t let you out of my sight. I’m not going to let you disappear again. And you’re probably right, I do need to learn this. Even if I think you're moving too fast. I don’t want to keep doing this nonstop without pause, but I’m not going to back down just because it’s frustrating, painful, and annoying.”

Levi’s respect for the man rose a bit higher. Even if he was untrained, unprepared, and afraid, he still had some steel to him. The fact that he'd come along so far without complaining sooner proved that he could do what it took.

He just needed some practice. Levi would be happy to help provide it.

Levi planned to have Gordon converted into a battle-ready warrior by the time they reached Oregon, someone who could stand at his side as he proclaimed the truth to the world.

One man could be silenced a lot easier than two, and two would be much harder to silence if they had an entire army of monsters by their side. Levi himself wasn’t immune to bullets just yet, but with another few weeks of fighting every dungeon he could reach, he would be.

“I have arranged a meeting with someone to trade materials this evening, and another meeting in a few days. We can stay at the motel at night. Two dungeons a day. Sound fair?”

Gordon nodded, not looking particularly pleased, but resigned and not willing to argue.

Levi didn’t mention that he fully intended to go out on his own to the nearest dungeon while Gordon slept. Sleeping a whole night wasn’t something he could do any longer even if he tried. Years of snatching an hour here or there had trained his mind to hyper-alertness. His current body still protested the strain, but the mental fog was just one more distraction, like the physical aches of muscles repeatedly stretched far past their limits without more than minimal pause.

Restoratives would keep him going, and he should be close to leveling in another three dungeons anyway. That would be enough to wake him up and reset his battered body to full health, better than ever.

Gordon need never know.