Max doused the remains of the campfire in sand before stamping the remaining embers under his boots. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a warm, orange light over the golden plains and the sleeping forms of Nina and George. The boy, still in dragon form, was curled up against the woman, her arms wrapped protectively around him.

Waking them would be a shame, they looked so peaceful, but Max wasn’t willing to waste any more time. Images of that classer woman’s threat had kept him up almost all night. We’ve got the girl. There were so few women in Max’s life, who else could she have meant other than his ex, Samantha?

He held the small memory card Cassandra had given him right before he had disappeared into the dungeon. He was unable to access it and yet certain it contained everything there was to know about him. His entire life distilled into 1s and 0s — a boring story up till now. Max flipped the card between his knuckles before pocketing it and walking towards Nina and George.

“Alright, time to —”

A curved blade appeared against Max’s throat. His eyes ran down the length of the saber until they met a fierce, blue gaze. A single drop of red fell into the rolling yellow of the grass. Max’s eyes grew wide and Nina let out a gasp as she dropped her blade, letting it fade into thin wisps of light.

“Max,” she said, “I’m so sorry, but it’s best not to approach me when I’m asleep. I’ve got … trust issues.”

“No problem,” Max said, backing away as he ran his fingers over his neck, “I needed to shave anyway. How about we just scoff down a few donuts and get back to getting out of here? My treat.”

“Donuts?”

Nina smiled, as George awoke with a sleepy yawn.

“Morning, little guy,” Max said. “Sleep okay?”

Smoke rose from the tiny dragon’s nostrils as he gave Max a silent stare. George snorted, small sparks appearing in his maw, before breaking eye contact and climbing up to Nina’s shoulder where he promptly fell back asleep.

“I get the feeling he’s warming up to me.”

“It might not seem like it, but he really is … now, about those donuts?”

“In that silver duffle bag you had me fill. How does that trick work anyway?”

“Here,” Nina materialized a bracelet made from woven silver thread and tossed it to Max. “It’s an SSD, or Sub-dimensional storage device. Just about every high-level quad has access to at least one. My family are the only ones that can make artificial SSDs.”

“SSDs? I’ve heard of them, but one as big as a duffle bag — that must be worth a fortune. And I don’t mean ‘fuck you’ money. I mean ‘buy a small country and everybody in it’ kinda money.”

“Colorful, but you’re not wrong.”

As Max slipped the bracelet over his hand, Nina threw the said bag onto the ground and began rummaging through its contents. “Aha,” she exclaimed as she pulled a pink cardboard carton from the depths.

“Save me a jelly,” Max said. “So how does this thing work?”

“Just,” Nina said through a mouthful of pastry, “hold on.”

She held a powdered treat in front of George, who opened one eye just long enough to take a large bite, before slipping back into sleep. Nina smiled contentedly, nibbling on the rest of the donut as she scratched the sleeping dragon behind his ears.

“Sorry, but these are the best day-old donuts I’ve ever had. You know, hunger is the best spice and all.”

“Hunger and unrelenting terror, yeah,” Max said. “Now about this bracelet?”

“That’s a tier IV artificial SSD,” she said. “Just hold an item, think ‘store,’ and give the item a name. Any name you can think of but be sure it’s something you can remember. To retrieve the object just think ‘retrieve’ followed by the same name. That bracelet can hold five items, as long as the items are small enough to fit in a single hand and don’t weigh more than five pounds. Try it.”

Max drew the revolver from his waistband with his left hand. Store gun, he thought. The weapon instantly disappeared.

“Inventory detected,” said the computerized voice of Eve. “Synchronization in progress … initializing … process complete.”

The familiar glow of his status screen appeared in front of Max, but a new category had been added. Clicking on the blinking symbol, a row of greyed out squares appeared in front of him. The only square that wasn’t grey held a small, stylized image of a revolver above the description “Gun, Lesser Artifact (6/6).”

“This is …”

Max thought, retrieve gun, and felt his hand grow heavy as the item disappeared from his display. He stored and retrieved the item several times before finally closing his status screen, leaving the gun in the extradimensional space.

How cool is this?

“Pretty fun, huh?” said Nina. “I got my first when I was just a little bit bigger than George.”

“It’s amazing. Really. By the way, how old is George?”

“That’s … complicated. Mentally he’s about eight, but he’s actually much younger. I know I can trust you Max, really. I just need you to trust me a little longer. I’ll tell you everything when I’m ready.”

“I’m not trying to pressure you, I just hate bringing a child into danger and it will keep bugging me unless you can tell me you had a damn good reason for doing so.”

“I did.”

“Fine, I trust you.” About as far I can throw you, he thought. “Let’s go.”

The journey down the narrow ravine took several hours. The hard, sandstone ground was level and the cliff walls shaded the group from the sweltering sun. Even so, it continued to get hotter as the sun rose higher. Max’s face was turning red from exertion, as thick beads of sweat ran down his face.

Looking behind him, he saw the pale, unblemished face of Nina. She seemed unaffected by the heat or the length of the hike, despite her heavy-looking armor. Max knew she could summon or dismiss it at will, and yet she hadn’t taken it off since he first met her at the bridge, even sleeping in it.

“Do you need a rest?” the girl called.

“What, no,” Max shook his head, “I’m fine. Besides we’re almost there. The tree is just around the next bend.”

“And you’ve never been attacked inside the ravine? It seems a good place for an ambush.”

“No,” he shook his head again, “I’ve never so much as seen a monster outside the tree, but once we’re inside they’ll attack us almost immediately. Why do you ask?”

“Because,” Nina said, her saber appearing in her hand. “There is something tracking us from the ledge above.”

Max looked up, spinning around as he scanned the cliffs. He conjured his revolver into his left hand, as he pulled his dagger with the right. Nothing, no ambush or sign of motion. Not even the sound of pebbles falling from the soft rock.

“Are you sure?” Max asked.

Nina answered by spinning, launching three daggers behind her. A shriek echoed through the canyon, as red blood stained the white and brown striations of the cliff. The corpse of a humanoid with stony scales, and a thick tail covered in raised plates tumbled down the cliff.

“Kobolds,” Max leveled his gun at the fallen creature.

He watched as Nina leaped and ran across the surface of the cliff wall. As her blade lashed out, blood and severed limbs appeared as if from nowhere. Mangled corpses fell onto the floor of the ravine.

Max ran after the girl, taking the time to kick at every corpse as he passed it. The last thing he needed was to be taken out by some lizard because he got careless. As Max’s boot came down on the skull of a kobold, a soft chime and Eve’s voice caught his attention.

“Item detected within range. Would you like to store … Item: Common, Used Loincloth?”

“What! No Eve, I do not want to store a loincloth, thank you.”

Several more chimes appeared as Eve began to ask Max if he wanted to store each loincloth and broken spear he came across.

“Stop it, Eve. I don’t want any filthy loincloths. Do you understand me?”

“… affirmative. Would the user like to update inventory settings?”

“Yes!”

“Inventory settings: would you like to turn off automatic looting?”

“Can you just make it so you only alert me if the item is actually worth anything?”

“… unable to comply. Please clarify.”

“Just tell me,” Max said as his boot fell onto another skull, “if you detect any items worth at least, let’s say … fifty bucks?”

“Processing … request confirmed. Inventory management, auto-loot set to values of greater than fifty US dollars. Alerts on. Confirm?”

“Confirmed,” Max said.

“Max!” Nina yelled. “Behind you.”

Shit, Max thought as he spun, dropping to one knee and raising his gun. I got distracted. A group of three kobolds was charging towards him. The had dropped onto all fours and were scurrying over the ground, constantly changing position as they leaped frogged over each other like the world’s most terrifying shell game.

Max fired twice, but the only results were two plumes of dust and powdered sandstone. The leader of the trio reached Max, its teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his calf. He screamed in pain, as he slammed his dagger into the creature’s skull.

The blade turned as it met hard scale stretched over even harder bone. Max could feel his shin begin to fracture, as sharp teeth dug into his flesh. Max tried to stab at the eyes, but the kobold had closed them behind two scaly eyelids that were impenetrable to Max’s stabs.

“Eve,” Max yelled. “Re-spec, all points into Might!”

Instantaneously, Max felt his muscles begin to swell. The mouth of the kobold was even pushed further open as it tried to bite down on the growing calf. A deep rage filled max as the creature began to shake its mouth back and forth, trying to fling Max away.

Instead, Max took the creature's jaw in his hands and began to pry them open. Max’s own grin widened as he felt the ligaments in the creature’s jaw begin to strain. The other two creatures stopped, taking a moment to glance at Max and their endangered comrade. They slowly began circling behind Max.

“That’s not going to save you,” Max roared.

A sickening snap echoed through the canyon, spraying blood over Max’s head as crimson rained down onto the sand and rock. Max tossed aside the severed portion of the kobold’s jaw as he swung the rest of the body behind him.

He felt resistance as the corpse collided with one of the circling kobolds, sending the creature spinning through the air like a homerun ball. The other kobold lurched forward, stabbing at Max’s exposed chest with a crude spear.

Max turned, trying to use the jawless kobold as a shield, but he was too slow. A spear tip made of fire-hardened wood pierced Max’s skin just before he completed his turn. Max continued to swing the dead kobold as he felt the point sinking deeper into his flesh. Only his improved toughness and muscle mass had stopped the spear from impaling Max’s lung.

The spear exploded into splinters as Max dropped the corpse and smashed through the spear with his empty hand. The spear-wielding kobold was expecting this and had dropped its weapon and fallen into a low stance. The creature waited until Max had fully committed to his swing, his own strength locking him into the motion as centrifugal force pulled him off balance.

The kobold lunged, its teeth aimed for Max’s exposed throat. Max’s eyes grew wide in panic as he desperately tried to raise his gun towards the creature.

A gory mist covered Max’s face as the thick blade of Nina’s saber dissected the kobolds head. The creature slumped down, one half of its face sliding down the blade onto the sandy rock below. Max was left staring into the eyes of his savior.

Nina’s face and blade were covered in splotches of red, but her armor remained pristine. Long, golden hair trailed behind her as George clung to her shoulder with a look of triumph, smoke still rising from his nostrils.

“Are you all right?”

“Huh,” Max said.

“I said, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, just a little … well, I was caught off guard is all. Thanks for the save.”

“No problem, Mr. Tightpants. It was my pleasure.”

“Tight …” Max said as he looked down at himself.

He had worn loose jeans on purpose, but the effects of increasing Might through re-spec had caused his muscles to grow to the point that they threatened to break free of the struggling denim.

“Ha ha,” he deadpanned. “Now let’s get out of here before any more of those lizards show up. I prefer the spiders.”