Zach watched as Andy turned to him. “You haven’t gotten a world message on the death of the slimes yet have you? That means even with fire, the damn slimes take a while to kill. We either wait for the slimes to come in here and have you cast your Flaming Arrow till they are dead or we need to find another exit.”

Zach looked around at the room to realize that most of the ceramic pipes were too small for a human to crawl through, only three pipes were large enough for Andy and Zach to crawl through, but Alexa would have to take off her heavier leather armor and drag her shield behind her as she crawled. Looking back over to the main pipe they entered from; the purplish black gas was getting thicker and an orange glow lit the muddy clay of the pipe. “Andy!” Zach said trying to keep his voice from raising like a little girl’s. Andy quickly turned around from his own search of the brick walls to see what Zach was pointing at.

“Everyone move back to the entrance to the Rat King’s Lair! Zach, as soon as you see them start casting!” Zach back to the doorway as the heavy black smoke and the purple light came closer and closer to the spillway’s entrance. Zach made his hands ready to cast as his foot crunched something under his heel. Taking a moment to look down Zach saw broken pieces of a ceramic pipe and he felt a slight pull at his mind. He felt like he was forgetting something about ceramics but couldn’t remember because of his own fear. A warmth flowed over him and he could feel Grim reaching into his mind and removing the obstacle from this memory.

The memory was of sitting in Material Chemistry lecture writing notes, the only reason he was so studious of the lecture was that Cindy Temple couldn’t make it to class and she desperately needed him to take notes. His mind wasn’t on the content of the lecture, more like Cindy in her low-cut top and that this was just some boring engineering elective for his programing degree. Then Professor Yue spoke, “Most Ceramics are resistant to most acids, this fact has been popularized by the TV show ‘Breaking Bad’. However, just like glass certain strong acids can break it down depending on the silicate compounds. The following slides are about ceramic polymers and how certain acids react to them.”

Zach snapped back to the present and realized that weapons and armor made out ceramic pipes could penetrate the slimes and kill them. Zach picked up the clay pipe piece and focused his mana on the surrounding pipes. Casting [Shape Stone], Zach could feel his mind and the spell struggle to move the ceramic material over Hayze. As Zach poured more mana into the spell and focused on pulling the material; the pipes softened into a puddle on the floor, before becoming a stream of clay that moved over and upward onto Hayze, coating his spear and armaments. As the clay harden, Zach commanded Hayze, “Attack!” The clay coated golem jumped down into the basin. Zach watch Hayze for a moment as cracks formed over his armor from the hard landing, but as the golem straighten only a few small pieces splashed into the water below.

As Hayze walked through the swirling water, two slimes came out of the spillway on fire. Black smoke with purple flames came from them as they continued to hop forward. However, instead of being as large as barrels the slimes had shrunk in size of a mop bucket. Zach could see Hayze closing in on one, so he cast [Flaming Arrow]. A flaming bolt leapt from this hand and hit the small slime right in the middle of its mass. Chunks of slime exploded and pieces of it hit Hayze. Looking over to Hayze, Zach saw the clay on the golem sizzle slightly as the flames died out. Hayze thrust the spear into the middle of the slime and penetrated the gooey membrane shell. Acidic liquid poured out of the slime as it caught on fire coating the water around the slime in a ring of fire. Zach wasn’t sure what was going on until Hayze used his [Shadow Strike] to puncture more holes into the creature creating a fountain of flames as the creature died.

“Fuck! Shadow Strike!” Zach said as Hayze’s slime became a pancake like corpse. Zach realized that [Shadow Strike] was the perfect weapon for slimes. It could puncture the slimes membrane from a distance and even if the acid ate away the shadow substance, it didn’t matter as Zach could just cast it again. Shit, Zach thought, how the hell do the rats protect their lair? After all the rats were supposed to be guardians and if they die to these things then how in the world can they protect themselves? They are made of death mana; maybe the rats have a poison or ability that kills the slimes?

Zach tore his attention away from his thoughts as another Slime came out of the pipe, this one was thankfully not on fire. Learning from his previous mistake of using the spell [Flaming Arrow], Zach switched to [Shadow Strike]. Barbs of darkness came out of the water and pierced the Slimes membrane, spilling clear liquid into the water and causing the water to foam up. Smiling Zach cast the spell again and again as Hayze moved up to the slime and swiped at it with his spear. In all it took Zach and Hayze half a minute to kill the thing, but at the end of it a blue screen popped up.

Congratulations, you and your golem have killed three Medium Slimes! As per your contract, your golem will receive the total mana pool rewards of shared kills!

You have gained +9 to your experience!

You have gained +30 to your mana pool!

You have gained +2 to your Intelligence!

You have gained +1 to your Wisdom!

You have gained +3% to your Mastery of [Spell: Flaming Arrow]!

You have gained +8% to your Mastery of [Spell: Shadow Strike]!

You have gained +3% to your Mastery of [Spell: Shape Stone Tier 2]!

You have looted 12 Mana Cores containing Pure Mana!

You have looted 2 vials of Mana Alkahest!

You have looted 6 Slime Filaments!

As you have killed your first Medium Slime, each Medium Slime is worth 10 Slimes, you have gained 30 Slime Kills and 30 mana points for killing your first slime. Kill another 70 Slimes to receive another bonus!

Zach watched as the corpses of the Slimes went down the drain in the middle of the basin. Andy stepped out of the Rat King’s entryway to cast a spell of his own. A ball of light appeared in the spillway pipe and showed the pipe to be clear of anymore slimes. However, the water was definitively rising as Andy, Alexa, and Zach jumped into the basin and hurried towards the exit. Cold water soaked Zach’s pants up to the middle of his thighs has he pumped his legs back and forth against the current. Heading into the pipe, Zach shook as more cold water came up to his waist. Finally, the group made it through the pipe as they entered the drainage pool. Twenty or so pipes were spilling water into the pool as shrieks of rats echoed off the wall. Quickly the group made their way over to stone steps and climbed out of the pool back onto the walkway. Taking a moment Zach looked around to see fifty or more rats battling ten mop bucket size slimes. It was a strange sight to see a rat glowing green or the dark shadows bending over its skin as it lunged and tore at the slimes. However, as chucks of gelatinous member few off the slimes, hair and skin dissolved off of the rats.

Zach felt a tap on his shoulder and noticed that Andy was signaling them to be quiet and leave. With care Zach turned and followed Andy and Alexa as they made their way back through the tunnels to a safer location. It was a tense half an hour before they found a main corridor that had plenty of foot traffic, by then Hayze’s clay coating had started to break apart and fall off his bronze body. Taking a moment to sit, Andy spoke, “All right, we need to head back up to the surface. We have no more healing potions, but we have loot. So if we go now, the shops should still be open and then we can head to the inn for an earlier supper.”

A part of Zach wanted to say no they should keep going, but the logical part of his mind said it was only because he wasn’t hurt which was why he wanted to go on. However, he was tired and exhausted, besides he could turn in the quest at the Adventurer’s Guild, and maybe look for a healer for the group. After all it would lessen the burden and expense of healing potions. Slowly they go back up and Grim helped them to find the entrance in which they came from. Andy kept them in silence as he wanted to be sure they wouldn’t be ambushed or fall into a trap on their way out. It wasn’t till they finally came to the portal that the silence was lifted and joy came back to the party. Jumping back over the threshold Zach noticed that the Jump Point had changed. Instead of a small circular stone floor that was twenty feet in diameter, it had expanded to thirty feet with small stone benches arranged around the circumference. Additionally, there appeared a small round stone table, supported by a center leg carved in the likeness of the Rat King in the middle of the floor with a small blue screen.

As Zach came near the table, he noticed a large silver plate on the table below the screen. Looking up from the plate, he read.

Standard Dungeon Pass detected!

Important Announcement: Greetings Adventurer from the Bellmare Adventurers Guild. As you have bought the Standard Dungeon Pass, you have been given permission to use the Dungeon Points System and Dungeon Quest System. The Dungeon Points System allows you to place any unwanted item on the plate and for the Dungeon to reabsorb it. Once done, the dungeon will award you points for an item. To redeem the points press the button label [Dungeon Shop] below. If you wish to keep your hard fought loot but want to increase your Dungeon Points please press the button label [Dungeon Quests]. If a quest requires a component, merely place it on the plate for completion of the quest, otherwise the Dungeon will track all objectives. Good luck and if your luck turns bad may your death be a swift one!Dungeon ShopDungeon Quests

“Well, that’s fucking morbid!” Grim said as Zach turned over to see his Grimoire wearing a Lambda Lambda Lambda Greek shirt, with an Adam’s Atoms sweats on. Laughing slightly, Zach nodded and then touched the [Dungeon Shop] button. Just like the [Divine Shop] thousands of items were listed. However, Zach could already tell that it wasn’t a complete list of every item in the universe. The problem was that unlike the [Divine Shop] there didn’t appear to be a search function or even a sorting function. Grim’s hand reached out to the blue window and the list quickly scrolled down. “All right, got it. Assuming a one-to-one point conversion, if we were to give it all our loot we could get some cool stuff. However, Andy and Milly said this was a harvesting run for our town’s dungeon, so we probably can sacrifice some of the meat as we have close to a hundred pounds.”

Zach looked up to see Andy and Alexa both looking at the table and the screen. “Well, what do you think? Want to see if we can exchange it for healing potions or if nothing else some coins?”

For a moment Andy sucked in his mustache and chew on it as he thought. When he released it he smiled, “Aye lad, keep around fifty pounds of the meat, twenty for us and thirty for me to bargain with the inn, with any luck they have a mana chef that can unlock the meats essence. If they don’t have a chef, we can also return here to exchange it tomorrow or sell it someplace else.” Just as Andy gave his consent, flashes of light appeared on the silver plate as Grim operated Zach’s [Auto-Loot] feature. A small blue screen saying they now had five dungeon points popped up and then disappeared.

“Damn,” said Grim, “to buy ten pounds of rat meat would require ten points, but we only get one for trading in. What kind of crazy exchange system do they have here?” Grim said, as tons of items disappeared from the list and only a few they could afford showed up.

Andy shrugged for a moment, “Most guilds and towns want their adventurers to come out with loot for the local economy. So they probably have a hidden tax in the exchange of goods, besides the dungeon trying to keep better loot rewards from being exchange for a few hundred pounds of meat. Still ten for one seems a little high.” Looking at what they could buy with five points, it quickly became obvious that it would have been better to barter the meat for coins. The only thing that even Alexa suggested was to spend it on increasing their slime kill counts. For two points they could increase one of their kill counts by one.

Sighing, Alexa spoke, “This looks like the only way for me to increase my slime kill counts. My armor can’t stand up against the acid from the slimes, and I don’t have an acid resistance enhancement to protect me.” Shaking her head, Alexa touched the [Dungeon Quests] tab and found that most of the quests involved killing a certain number of mana monsters and getting a ten point reward. Grim was slightly more upbeat about it and pointed out to Alexa that average loot with the kill counts would only mean a week or two of killing leeches, rats, and ghouls. “I feel useless, Grim.” Alexa said. “I mean at least Hayze can attack the slimes with his clay armor, even my dad can kill them from a distance with his chains, but I can’t get close without a splash of them dissolving a hole right through me.”

“Alexa, I don’t know what to say.” Zach said and Grim seem to wince at his words. “I wish I had the answer to help you, but I know that without your help we would have been overwhelmed by the ghouls and rats. Also, you were bad ass taking out the Rat King.”

Alexa laughed and shook her head, “I am not sure what my ass had to do with killing the Rat King, but I will take your words in the spirit in which they were given.”

Zach blushed for a moment realizing he had spoken a phrase once again from his previous life. “Thanks Alexa, I guess I was trying to say I know I would have died against the Rat King. You, on the other hand, impaled that ugly monster like it another day around town. If we need to spend two weeks killing rats and completing quests, then that’s what we will do.” Shrugging like it was the only answer left to say. Zach caught Andy smiling for a moment right before he placed his own hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

“Alexa, understanding what to fight and when to run is an important first step in every dungeon diver’s life. There are always ways to get what you want, but the only thing you can’t buy is your life. Like Zach said if it takes two weeks then it takes two weeks. Now that both of you have gotten experience fighting rats and other things, I will leave the party tomorrow and try to get as far as I can in the dungeon to gather more materials and components for us.” Andy said as he looked down at his daughter.

Startled Alexa looked up at Andy, “But… I thought you would lead us for the first week.”

“I was going to, but I realized that we pushed harder than what we should have today. Alexa, Zach, the two of you understand how to kill rats and leeches. It might not be fun, but it’s relatively safe and it will allow you to develop your own skills faster. I sensed neither traps nor magical curses in the areas we covered today, and the only thing the two of you couldn’t have handled was the Rat King. So I will go out with the money and buy you both healing potions and focus on information about the next few levels. Daughter, you will be ok! You are a strong fighter and Zach is getting a handle on his magic, I trust you to be safe and to come back out.” Andy said as he looked deep into his daughter’s eyes.

Grim coughed slightly, and it shattered the moment for everyone. “Well, I don’t mean to interrupt, but perhaps Alexa and Zach can head to the Adventurer’s Guild to drop off the quest while you go shopping? I can give you all the money we earned today.” Laughing at the fact that everyday life seemed to force the heavy atmosphere back to something more normal. Getting up Zach handled over all the money from today’s run to Andy and jumped out of the portal back into the Romanesque Amphitheatre. As he left the portal wet clothes turned dry and the stench of raw old sewage left his body. The problem was that a new scent of unwashed bodies came over him as he landed.

People still seemed to enter the Dungeon, but instead of well-equipped fighters and mages, the line comprised of people in rags with a knife or club. Zach remembered that for a few hours a day the Bellmare Dungeon was open to the public, and as he looked over the crowd he realized that the town was sacrificing their beggars and desperate to the dungeon. Passing a man whose hands were trembling and the stench of old alcohol on his clothes, Zach looked back to find that Hayze no longer had his clay coating on his armor and Alexa was hugging her father before joining him. Looking back over the people, a worm of guilt came to his mind, These poor people. They have no one or any means to take care of themselves. So the city just feeds them to their dungeon to strengthen it. I feel like I should do something, but where do I start? Do I start with the old woman that is coughing, or how about the young man with the dead eyes? How do I stop something like this from happening?

As they walked away from the entrance of the dungeon Alexa spoke, “I feel like we should do something. At Schoner’s Creek, if someone is sick or can’t feed themselves we give them food to help. We all know one day we could be in the same situation, so we help, and if someone is lazy or doesn’t want to help, then they know they can expect the same attitude back at them.”

Zach looked at Alexa and smiled. It was a simple answer, a pure one, but his previous life had jaded him. He thought about the VR addicts, the drug and alcohol addicts, he thought about the news reports of elderly people dying from heat exhaustion because they couldn’t afford AC. Thousands of welfare programs, countless volunteers and nonprofit charities couldn’t solve this problem, yet they tried every day. “I don’t know Alexa.” The look of astonishment on her face told Zach that he had been misunderstood. “I mean, I don’t know how we can help. Should we offer them food and drink? We could give up a little of our loot and buy one or two people meals, but that only feeds them today. Should we teach them to fight? We barely know what we are doing and your mother and father taught us. Should we group up with the most helpless of cases, let them have some of our experience as we risk death to get it? Alexa, I don’t know what to do… the only thing I can think of is that when we get back, we tax dungeon loot and use it for those who need it. However, it doesn’t stop this, and it doesn’t stop it from happening in Schoner’s Creek.”

Alexa looked at Zach and nodded, but before she took another her gaze fell on someone in line. Instead of walking another step she held out her hand. “Zach, you still have those cheap maces?” Zach turned to follow her gaze and saw a small woman with three children holding on her skirts crying as she waited in line. The bruises on her face and arms either said this wasn’t the first time she had entered the dungeon, or some other monster lived at her house. It was then he noticed the bruising on the children and he knew what the answer was. Whatever private hell the woman was going through when Zach looked into her eyes he saw the cold determination that she would fight until there was no more fight left in her dead body.

A black iron pitted mace appeared in Zach’s hand, “Grim… give me a couple of silver out of my stash.” Alexa looked over to Zach and gave him a grateful smile as he handed her the mace and coin. “Tell her… tell her to come with us to the Adventurer’s Guild and the Inn.”

“Are you sure? We know nothing about her… taking her into dungeon we might not be able to keep her alive.” Zach could hear the question in Alexa’s voice. It was the same question he asked himself; if the mother died who would take care of her children? Of course, if they didn’t help teach the mother something then it was much more likely that the children would die. Besides the woman something about the woman demanded Zach’s attention and help. Perhaps it was because he hated bullies hurting innocent people; or perhaps he had savior complex that demanded he try to help no matter what the cost. Whatever it was, it overrode his modern view of turning a blind eye to those in need.

“No, I am not sure, but we can’t save them all but maybe we can give that family a chance.” Alexa nodded and walked over to the woman talking to her softly and handling her the mace and money. The woman quickly pocketed the money and with tears in her eyes kissed Alexa’s hand. Before Zach could hear the woman’s reply a blue screen appeared.

Goddess Yone has seen your actions! The Goddess of the Hearth and Family offers a quest!Quest Name:Protection of Christina Beoman and her childrenGoddess Yone has seen the horrors of what has happened to Christina and her children. Yet it is not in her domain to punish the offender or help Christina fight in a dungeon. By offering your charity and providing a chance for Christina and her family the Goddess asks you to protect her and her children for the time you are in Bellmare. You only have to protect Christina when in the dungeon and provide a room for her and her children. If you decline the quest, no punishment will occur. Should you go above the request of the quest, additional rewards may apply.

Reward: 1 Ward of Warmth over your residence for 5 years.

Do you accept the Quest?YesNo

Zach looked up from the quest to see a small girl of two looking at her mother crying. Her dirty brown hair hung limply as her green eyes were bloodshot. Yellow bruises could be seen on the little girl’s arm through her torn dress, and as Zach’s heart broke over the face of the little girl, he hit the accept button. “Fuck! What kind of man would I be if I can’t protect one person and her family?”