After drinking the fruity tasting health potion in his backpack, Colin got a prompt that made him smile. You have drunk a minor healing potion and will recover 30 health over five seconds. If drunk in combat, this potion’s effects will immediately cease upon taking damage. Those five seconds indicated in the prompt started with a pleasant warmth that radiated through his body. Then light suffused the wounds that were visible around his body, and they visibly began to close. The light dimmed as the damage that Colin had accumulated during his fight decreased by a quarter. Health: 61/120 Now that is so much better; Colin thought as he basked in the eased pain for a long moment. Congratulations! You have defeated a Stone Mastiff! You have gained 650 experience points! Since the Stone Mastiff is a monster several levels stronger than you and you fought it alone, you gain an additional 1.5 times experience. New total: 975 experience points gained. You have gained 975 EXP and have 1005/600 experience towards your next level. LEVEL UP! You are now level 4 and have 405/1200 EXP needed to attain level 5. you now have a total of 15 unspent attribute points to spend. It is advised that you attain your class before you spend your points to ensure proper placement since all finalized choices are permanent. Just say LEVEL UP to access the appropriate menus. For defeating a monster at least five levels higher than you in single combat, you have gained the Achievement; Outmatched but Victorious. To view your achievement list, see the new tab in your character sheet. Your Acrobatics skill has increased to level 3. +3% bonus to jumping distance, height, and landing stability. +1.5% bonus to stability while performing any act considered acrobatic. +3% bonus to balancing. You have leveled up the skill; Personal Blades to level 4. +4% damage with all Personal Blades. +4% critical damage with all Personal Blades. +2% dodge rate. Smiling in grim satisfaction, Colin looked over at the arrogant dog and saw no movement from the thing. After a moment of thought, Colin assumed that no experience is awarded from monsters until you kill them. It made total sense but wished he could have just gotten the experience once he’d downed it instead of waiting for it to bleed out.

But life is life, and this is a game with rules on how everything works. To get ahead here, just like in life, one must learn the rules and find the figure out their holes and limits. Colin had personally gotten out of several binding contracts and deals by knowing what they could do and what they couldn’t make him do. It was no different here. Hell, if he had been fighting several of these Stone Mastiffs, then downing one from blood loss could be a good strategy.

With his breath evening out more and more every second, Colin hoped that Solis wouldn’t be too upset that her intruder had bled everywhere.

Another minute and Colin was able to stand up without any pain and discomfort except for a little stiffness. A quick stretch later, and Colin felt good enough to do anything. Except what he was sure that he was going to have to do. Usually, you’d have to bring back the proof of a kill to get the rewards of a job, and he was sure that would be the case here. He considered just cut off a paw or the ears for evidence, but Solis had no idea what was down here. So he was sure he’d have to bring the whole thing up.

He was almost giddy with relief when he heard the sound of sturdy footsteps coming down the stairs. The voice that accompanied it was quiet and careful, “Walker, you alive down here? I got a prompt that said you completed the quest.”

Ah, that would do it, Colin thought. He remembered that Eldrin told him that he’d been told when the quest had been completed. He’d even been informed that Colin had defeated the Druid too. It did stand to reason that she might get similar prompts. Good to know that she did.

“Down here, Solis,” Colin called out. The walls around him had a slight echo that made it unnecessary to yell. “Wanna see who your intruder was?”

She came around one of the cask shelves and looked at Colin first with a smile that seemed relieved to see him. Then she looked at the Stone Mastiff, and a gasp escaped her. “Walker, you killed a Mastiff?” She asked incredulously. Colin simply nodded, and Solis squinted at him, looking so much more closely than when she’d given him the quest. “level four, and you beat a Mastiff? That’s remarkable.” she said, looking back at the Mastiff. “Looks like a Stone Mastiff due to the color and fur density. That species of Mastiff has a standard level of around level eight. It should have taken at least two of you to defeat it. What class are you?” she asked curiously.

Seeing no reason to lie, Colin said, “I don’t have one yet?”

Solis’s jaw fell open when she heard him say those words. “No class and you beat a Mastiff. That’s insane.”

“Why do you keep saying Mastiff like that? Are there more breeds for these things?” he inquired.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Mastiff is sort of catch-all term for magical canines. Hellhounds aren’t Mastiffs because they are a type of demon and are considered interplanar. There are Rime Mastiffs, Flare Mastiffs, Gale Mastiffs; there are a lot of types.” She explained with a shrug. “Luckily, most Mastiffs are somewhat intelligent, so they usually know to avoid humanoid settlements.”

“I see,” Colin said, taking in the information. “This one was talking to me, so it was more than somewhat intelligent.”

“Whoa, freaky.” She said, looking at the creature again. “Did you see the hole it used it get in here?” she asked, a serious expression now painted on her face.

Colin shook his head, “No. I found the Mastiff before I found the hole.”

“We had better find it then. With the creature dead, who knows how long it will be before something else tries to get in here. Whatever’s next could be scarier than a Mastiff, so let’s move,” Solis told him, an air of authority mingled with her words.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Colin said as he stepped in front of the woman, deciding to be her bodyguard until they left the basement. He figured it was okay since Solis said nothing about him stepping in front of her and keeping watch. The duo walked past the puddle of mixed booze that was still contaminated with the smell of dirty dog and turned the last shelf-made aisle. The hole was at the end of the final shelf in the basement, of course, and measured roughly three-and-a-half feet around. The Mastiff made tunnel looked like it had been partially obstructed by one of the higher-end wine shelves when it had tunneled in. Most likely, it pushed the shelf out of the way knocking several of its bottles, still intact, to the floor.

“You wouldn’t happen to know and earth or stone shaping spells, would you?” she checked hopefully.

“Sorry,” Colin informed her. “No magic here.”

“Pity,” Solis let out. “It would have been nice to properly seal up that hole now instead of barricading it until I can have it done. Oh well,” she said, resigned. “Help me out here, would you?”

So Colin got to work, helping Solis cover the hole and reinforcing it as best they could. He was now glad that the Mastiff had broken several of the casks because it had given the two materials to work. They used the round lids to help form a seal around the hole, needing most of the ones they found to cover the tunnel, as well as they could and used several of the planks from those same casks to prop them up.

But before they covered the hole completely, Colin got an idea. He took several of the broken shards from the broken bottles around them on the floor and littered the other side of their barricade with them.

“What was the purpose of that?” Solis asked, watching Colin as he finished propping up the last pieces of their Macgyvered wall. Congratulations! You have gained a new skill; Improvised crafting level 1! Sometimes you just don’t have the right materials to do the right job. Now you can see how things can be completed in ways they usually couldn’t. +1% chance for the improvised project to succeed, +1% chance to notice an unorthodox tool, +0.5% general crafting speed. Was anything not a skill here? Colin asked himself before turning his attention back to Solis. “My hope is that if something tries to get in through that hole, then they hopefully will have to go past the glass and risk hurting themselves. Think of it as a low-level trap,” he answered as he looked over their joint efforts.

He gave it a little shake and shrugged noncommittally. “Hopefully, it will hold, but it’s still pretty shoddy. That Mastiff wouldn’t have had a problem breaking through that,” he said with only a touch of disgust tinging his words at his handiwork.

“Hopefully, it won’t have to stay up that long. As soon as we are out of here and I pay you, I will be going to the Mage’s Association. They should be able to have someone come who can use earth magic,” she informed Colin as she started to walk away from the hole.

He followed behind her until they got to the body of the slain Stone Mastiff, and he looked at it thoughtfully. It took Solis a few seconds to notice that Colin had stopped following here before she did the same and looked where he was.

“What are we going to do about this, though?” Colin inquired as he wondered what the body of a creature like this might be worth. Most fantasy settings had uses for the bodies of slain magical creatures.

“Can you carry it or use some kind of magic item to get it out of here?” she asked.

“No, but we shouldn’t just leave it here, right?” he pressed as he smelled the copper this could net him. “Unfortunately, we will have too. I can’t carry it either, and it would take forever to drag it out of here. Mage’s for the Association all carry items for this kind of purpose, and they would love to buy a magical beast. I will sell it to the mage and give you an equal cut when I get it, sound fair?” Solis asked.

Acquiescing, Colin again started after Solis as she took them out of the basement levels.

Mere minutes later, they were both back on the ground floor of the Tavern proper. He followed behind Solis and was looking around the shop quizzically. Every tavern patron they passed looked at Colin with both disgust and a little cautiously.

Looking down at himself, he sucked in a breath as he discovered that he had large splotches of dark blood from his confrontation with the Mastiff. Colin couldn’t smell it, but it must not have been pleasant. He figured that most of it wasn’t his but saying that wouldn’t fix the looks that were given to him. Only Solis didn’t seem to mind his smell or appearance in the establishment.

Solis walked behind the bar where she had been when Colin first walked in, and immediately she began rummaging underneath the counter. A minute later, Solis had risen above the surface again and was holding a small bag of copper that clinked pleasantly to his ears. “Here you go, DevilWalker. Ten Copper Coins since you kill a creature that was stronger than you and a second gift for a job well done. Just wait here a moment,” she said as she retreated into a door behind the counter.

Taking a seat while he waited, Solis returned a few minutes later with a bundle of clothes in her hands, including boots. “Your current clothes are pretty beat up and messy. These belong to my father, but he really won’t mind me giving them away in this circumstance. Thank you for taking care of that Mastiff, Walker. I appreciate it.” She said, giving Colin a genuine smile. Your reputation with Solis Lane has increased from neutral to optimistically friendly, skipping cautiously friendly due to special circumstances. New dialogue is now available. Convenient that the system let him know about these sorts of things, but this does open some new lines of thought. Colin had been assuming that he was in good standing with Eldrin, but if the system informs him when he gets friendly with someone, then why didn’t it tell him then? Was it because he hadn’t increased his reputation with Eldrin, or had it not risen enough to be noticed?

Shelving that line of thought for another time, Colin took the clothes from Solis and smiled at her. “I don’t know what to say. You don’t have to do this. You didn’t promise me these,” he said, shaking the bundle in emphasis.

“And you didn’t need to help me cover that hole. I doubt most adventurers would have unless it was stated in a quest. You did though and you needed a change of clothes. So there, clean clothes. Unless you really don’t want them?” she asked with a slight pout in her tone.

“I will take these gratefully. I don’t have a lot to my name right now, so these will be helpful. Thank you, Solis. Do you have a place that I can change into these?” he asked with a relieved smile. He really wanted to get out of these starter clothes.

She pointed around the bar to a door marked as a bathroom, “you can use that bathroom there. Nice and clean unless someone puked in there within the last hour.”

Without another word, he made for the bathroom and locked the door behind him as he entered. It was a simple five by five foot square with a porcelain toilet tucked into one corner and a sink against the wall opposite the door. Without a second thought, Colin stripped out of his soiled clothes before even looking at the clothes she’d given him.

Before even that, Colin spent time at the sink, trying to clean the spots on him where the blood had seeped pass fabric. The skin had been discolored, and he didn’t want to worry about fetid blood on his skin from not cleaning properly.

After he was reasonably clean, Colin picked up the first item in the bundle and shrugged at it before putting it on. He was glad that Solis’s father had a passable taste in clothes since he was willing to wear these and not just to make Solis happy.

To finish getting ready, Colin reattached his daggers to his person, one dagger to each hip and the pouch of throwing knives at the small of his back. Ready Colin took a quick moment to look himself over and found that he could live with this look. A black, cotton, long-sleeved shirt covered his torso with a pair of beige cargo pants covering his legs and hiking boots adorning his feet. It wasn’t a lot, but at least he didn’t look like a bum on a murder streak anymore. Putting his old clothes in his backpack, Colin left the room and walked up to the bar to thank Solis more time before leaving. She wasn’t where he last saw he last saw her, but a passing server informed him that she’d just rushed out, saying that she’d be back shortly. Colin thanked him and headed out the door. Solis must have headed for the Mage’s Association to get the mage like she’d told him and figured that he’d stop by another day to get some more of their home-crafted booze.

With money in his hand, Colin thought about how to proceed. He still had that quest from Eldrin to do and wasn’t sure how to go about getting ready for it. Gearing up was a logical choice, but since he doubted that he had enough money to get anything worthwhile to help infiltrate Harvey Regic’s building. So what could he do?

As he pondered, the phone on Colin’s belt vibrated, and he reflexively moved to grab it.

It read; ‘its time to stop playing for the day. You have real-life things to do. Like eating and drinking.’

Yeah, it was time to stop for now.

So Colin pulled up his menus to log-out for the moment when he found something that he’d glossed over a little earlier. Next to his character sheet, which was still remarkably simple, there were multiple sections all lined up next to each other like tabs on browser. There were three tabs, the first marked simply as ‘Character,’ which was the one he was looking at now. The next two were labeled ‘skill’s list’ and ‘Achievements.’

Colin knew his skills, so he mentally selected Achievements and saw the one he earned after killing the Stone Mastiff and tried to learn more about it. Outmatched but Victorious(Upgradeable): You defeated a being at least five levels higher than your own in a one on one battle. Effect: Gain a +5% increase to all damage dealt to opponents between 5 to 10 levels higher than your own. This bonus only applies if you are fighting by yourself. He focused on the word ‘upgradeable,’ trying to figure out what it meant. Specifically, he wanted to know how to upgrade this achievement, but the only prompt that appeared told him that the requirements were unknown.

This achievement was a boon to him, and no amount of annoyances could take that away from him. A flat damage increase if his opponent was a certain amount stronger than him? Yes please.

Now armed with this information, Colin moved back to the appropriate window on his staus screen and Logged Out.

The sensation of weightlessness overtook him for a moment as he left the game, and his senses reengaged in his own body. It took a few seconds for his body and his mind to interpret the signals they were giving each other but first, and most importantly, the bathroom.

Removing the helmet, he hurried to the bathroom before McKenna could corner him like the day before. Business complete, he went into the kitchen next and got himself a glass of water. The first glass was gone in as many seconds it had taken Colin to pour it. Getting himself a second glass, he sipped at it this time while he looked at the clock. Wow, he’d been on all day.

It was four oh seven in the afternoon, and Colin could see why McKenna had told him to get off the game. Thinking of which, Colin raised his voice and called, “McKenna, you here?!”

“Upstairs!” she returned, her voice advertising her location as well.

Moving upstairs, Colin found that he was glad that he’d gone for that jog before going into the game. He didn’t feel nearly as still-sore as he did the day before and knew he’d keep up with it. Hell, he may go on a second shorter run after getting off to loosen up.

He took the stairs two at a time and found McKenna in the first room on his right, their bedroom. It was a little unusual for her to be here at this time of day, nearly 4:30 in the afternoon, but maybe she was changing.

The man took one look into their room and found himself only a little disappointed that he didn’t see her mid-clothing change.

“Well hello there beautiful,” Colin chirped as he leaned against the doorframe. She was in some of her standard relaxation attire. Baggy pants, a graphic tee shirt that was one size too big, and ankle socks to protect her feet from the cold floor. Nothing revealing or especially flattering, but part of her charm was that she just didn’t like wearing those clothes. She considered them impractical ninety-nine out of a hundred times.

“Hey, how’s Solis doing?” she asked, pouting just a little and trying not to look at him.

Having not expected that question, Colin wasn’t sure what to say. So instead of being clever or a smart-mouth, he went with the truth, “when I left, she was fine. Think she went to go get mages to collect that Stone Mastiff I killed.” Since he was reasonably sure he knew what was going on, mostly due to how she kept going from not looking to looking at him, he decided to play along. “why? Are you worried that I am doing something uncouth?”

Then she ignored all pretenses of play and looked at him with eyebrows raised. “Uncouth? Really? Why would I think anything of the sort, and besides, why would you even suggest that’s possible? Unless…” she gasped dramatically, “you actually were thinking about it!” she accused with a pointed finger.

Smiling at McKenna, he stood up from the wall and took a step closer to her. “No, actually, I wasn’t. She’s nice and all, but she doesn’t have your sparkling personality.”

McKenna raised an eyebrow, “sparkling?”

“Yeah, you know. Like a firework or a faulty crematorium,” Colin told her with a naughty smile.

“Why you punk-ass-” she started before he interrupted her.

“So, are you seriously worried about anything like that happening in-game? You know I’m not like that. I’m loyal to a fault,” Colin told her.

“I know, Colin,” she said quietly. “It’s just some old paranoia resurfacing. I just saw her getting very comfortable with you after that quest, and it reminded me of something.” McKenna trailed off.

“What?” he asked softly. This was definitely not like the ‘I’m stronger than steel McKenna’ that he was familiar with. This was something far softer. Vulnerability? Wow, just the fact that he was questioning it reminded Colin that he did not see this often.

“Just that you are a handsome man,” she said with all trace of that previous softness gone, suddenly replaced with a look in her eye that promised mischief and fun. “My handsome man,” she stated.

“Oh you are good. You totally had me,” Colin said as she stalked towards him. Her every movement towards him was vibrant, strong, and breathed of a woman who knew what she wanted. Some men might be a bit intimidated by a woman who acted as forward as she did, but Colin preferred this. It was so much better than guessing what your partner wanted.

She reached him and immediately started kissing him, deeply. Her hands began dragging across his back and shoulders as she got more and more into it while Colin reciprocated in kind.

As she dragged him into the room, Colin grabbed the door and closed it behind them. While the couple lived alone, Colin always felt better closing the door behind them when they ‘got busy.’ It was an extra measure of security that helped him relax when he was the most vulnerable. An hour and a half later, Colin left the room in a pair of shorts while McKenna stayed in their room in a heap of sheets. While he went down to go make them some sandwiches after their romp, she decided to let the glow fade a little bit before moving from her very comfortable spot.

They did not have a lot to work with, so he made a couple of ham on wheat sandwiches and threw a little tomato on them for extra flavor. Not much, but good enough until one of them went to the store. Tomorrow maybe. Tonight, he was going to go for a short run, research more about the game, and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. That sounded good. For tomorrow, he'd buy more in-game gear and scout the building where Harvey Regic is staying. Maybe he’ll get lucky and see an excellent opportunity to get in under his nose. Hopefully.

Damn, he needed to get more skills. Luck was not a force to rely upon.