Tony laughed the entire way back to the bar. “A fucking wizard! Shooting fireballs and stuff! HAHAHA!”

Tony had made it clear that no such thing existed here. Magician referred to being able to do tricks like disappearing or pulling things out of hats, sadly. Apparently magic actually existed. Like shamanic rituals and hyper realistic illusions, though nothing really combat orientainted. Nick’s disappointment was immeasurable and his day had been ruined. The dreams of being a murder hobo wizard and been quashed.

Tony had been pretty quick to gloss over the fact that he had just blackmailed him, laughing and joking around. Nick couldn’t gloss over it, but he knew that playing along was the only reasonable choice here. At least until he had more information to work with.

Once they made it to the bar Tony called out. “Ladies and gents, meet Nick, the new Explorer!”

Drinks were raised and loud cheers resounded throughout the room. Nick raised a hand and waved to everyone, getting a second cheer.

Tony walked back over to his seat at the bar, pulling Nick along with him. “Some introductions are in order. Sebas, bring the Roamers over.”

The man that had spoken earlier about instruments left the room through one of the doors Nick hadn’t been through.

“Gareth my man. Get over here.” Tony called out.

Nick hadn’t noticed him but Gareth was sitting by his lonesome in the corner. The man looked considerably less gruff without the scrap armour on, more like your next door neighbour who was always working on his car or mowing the lawn on weekends. Strong muscles hidden by a decent layer of fat, a classic dad bod if he’d ever seen one.

“Hey Gareth.” Nick said as he approached.

“Hey kid.” He replied, though Nick could see some guilt in his eyes.

“Gareth, once I’ve introduced the kid to the team I want you to take him out and show him the ropes a bit.” Tony cut into their awkward greeting.

“Sure thing boss.” Gareth sounded a bit glad for the opportunity.

Honestly Nick was a bit glad about it as well. He really wasn’t a fan of the vibe here and at least Gareth seemed like a good bloke.

All of a sudden there was a commotion from one of the doors as a large dark skinned man with dreadlocks came running into the room with a bloody knife brandished. An assassination attempt? Hell yeah! Now this is something Nick could get behind.

The words that came from the man’s mouth dashed his hopes though.

“Boss, this a bad ’in.” The man spoke in a voice so deep it sounded cavernous.

“What have you seen Val?” Tony asked, full attention on the man.

“Tha Flood brings worse taint than eva. Food’s gon be fucked.” The man, Val, spoke.

“So we stand to make hefty profits this Flood?” Tony asked. Nick could practically hear the coins clinking behind his eyes.

“Our food gonna be bad boss. Our pills comin’ up short.” Val replied, his tone unchanging.

Tony scowled. “Fuck. And the water? How bad?”

Val paused a moment. “Couldn’t see tha much, likely bad.”

“Ah shit. We might have a rough one on our hands.” Tony started running his hands through his hair. He then looked at Nick. “Gareth, take the kid out now. Introductions later, I need to talk things over with everyone. Need the kid ready to go ASAP.”

Gareth simply nodded and headed for the door that led back to the entrance room, Nick followed suit.

Once the door was closed behind them Gareth let out a curse. “Damn, we’re in for a rough one.” He then looked at Nick. “I’m sorry kid, you and your folks really got here at a bad time.”

He then put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about what Tony did, man’s a bit of an asshat. I didn’t think he’d go so far.”

Nick couldn’t really hold it against the man. It seems shit bosses existed everywhere, even in U-C-SHTs. “It’s alright Gareth, nothing much we can do about it now.”

The man still seemed to be feeling a bit guilty over the ordeal, so Nick made the first move.

“Can we stop by the rooms? I’ve got those meds for my dad.”

Gareth took the branch with enthusiasm. “Ah yeah, right this way.” He quickly moved off, back towards the next room.

Nick smiled to himself and followed along. Nick noticed that people seemed to respect Gareth, they looked at him differently, gave him space. Nick was intrigued about the man’s history. Even Tony had good things to say about him, though he was still sitting alone in the bar. Looking at him with appraising eyes Nick started to suspect some sort of tragic hero vibes. He started imagining a backstory of fighting a villain with a team of friends only to barely succeed at the cost of everyone but him. Now living a simpler life haunted by the ghosts of his fallen friends.

Nick chuckled to himself, he certainly did have quite the active imagination. It wasn’t a long trip and they were back at the seemingly infinite corridor in no time.

“Wanna come in?” Nick asked.

“That would be nice.”

“Lemme just make sure everyone is decent.” Nick slipped into the room.

Everyone was still deep asleep. “UP AND AT EM! WE’VE GOT A GUEST!” Nick yelled, startling the family awake.

“What the heck Nick…” Lily groaned.

“UggghHUHHgghh.” Eliminated from Henry’s direction.

Benny just blinked a couple of times.

Nick brought Gareth into the room. “Everyone remembers Gareth right?” Benny and Lily nodded. Henry hadn’t gotten out of bed. “Well due to a series of interesting events Gareth and I will be going out on a trip for a bit.”

“Ooo! Can I come?” Benny exclaimed.

Gareth came forward. “Not this time little man, ain’t going to be the safest of trips.”

Nick didn’t like the sound of that, his family certainly didn’t either. Lily stepped up to Gareth. “What are you doing with my brother?”

Gareth smiled at her reassuringly. “Nothing too bad, just getting him ready for the worst of it.”

Lily looked at Nick and he couldn’t smile reassuringly. “I may have gone out and gotten blackmailed into some magic stuff and conscripted into a team.”

“Sorry you what now?” Lily gaped.

“Yeahhhh soooo…” Nick started regaling his family on what had happened earlier that morning.

“This really does sound like those books you’re always reading…” Lily said in contemplation.

“They wrote books about this stuff?” Gareth asked, eyes wide.

“Yeah it became a little too big. Putting game aspects into books, really just led to padding word counts with massive copy and paste character screens in my opinion.” Nick really could go on a rant here.

“It certainly ain’t a game here kid.” Gareth said, looking off into a distance that wasn’t actually there. HUGE tragic hero vibes, Nick really had to ask him about his past.

“Well we’ve got the classes, all we’re missing is exp and slaying hordes of nameless monsters to grind that exp.” Nick said.

“You lost me at Ex Peas.” Gareth looked lost.

“Do you have to kill lots of those monsters in the car park to get incrementally stronger?”

“I wish it was that easy. Gotta get yourself some Class Gems for that.”

“DAMN!” Nick suddenly cried out.

“What’s wrong Nick.” Lily asked, worried.

“First they took my magic, now I can’t even be a murder hobo!” Nick loudly complained.

“Why would you murder hobos?” Lily asked.

“You wouldn’t get it, it’s a cultured pathway.” Nick shook his head. “Anyways we’re a bit distracted. I’ve got the meds for dad.”

Nick walked into the room where Henry was sprawled out on the bed and took out his pills. “So uh, just get him to take it and he’ll be fine?”

Gareth nodded. “Yeah kid, give him the green one and in a few hours he’ll be right as rain.”

Nick grabbed one of their water bottles and helped his dad sit up, giving him the green pill. Lily watched on, caution etched into her eyes. Nick saw this and laughed.

“Don’t worry Lily, you’ll get your turn taking meds.”

“Yeah no. Hard pass thanks.”

Gareth interjected. “He’s right. All the food and water in this place contains the taint. The only way anyone can continue to live is to take pills regularly.”

Alarm bells rang in everyone's heads. “Are they addictive?” Nick asked before Lily could ask anything.

Gareth thought for a moment. “I don’t know, can’t say I’ve heard of people stopping taking them. They don’t feel like it?”

“The food makes you sick?” Lily asked.

Gareth sighed. “You kids ask a lot of questions. Yes. If you eat or drink, look at the darkness or get injured you’ll be Stained. Have to take pills to not end up like your dad. Or worse, like the Infected.”

Lily went to ask something. “No. No more questions. We’re heading out Nick.” Gareth said, he grabbed Nick and made for the door. Lily and Benny watched on in wonder as the older man dragged their brother out of the room.

“Man doesn’t like questions.” Benny said.

“Clearly.”

Once out of the room Gareth let out a sigh.

“You really don’t like questions huh?” Nick asked.

“Too many questions, all the damn time.” Gareth sighed. “Alright follow me.”

Gareth led Nick back through some of the lobbies, taking turns and doors in what felt like a random order. Nick decided to just keep his mouth shut and let Gareth do his thing. Nick noticed that most of the hallways and rooms were very similar, like assets that had just been repeatedly copied and pasted haphazardly next to each other. Bedrooms would lead to kitchens, back to bedrooms to games rooms and then four corridors in a row. Nick started to doubt that Gareth even knew where he was going, it was just tacky room after tacky room.

Suddenly Gareth stopped. “Alright, looking at your skills, it can’t be hard to guess why you’re a wanted team member.”

Nick tried to see his skills, he thought ‘status’, ‘menu’, ‘skills’ but that screen didn’t pop up. “Yeah I can’t seem to get the screen back up?” He asked.

Gareth looked at him a little confused. “Why would you be able to see it? It only comes up when you’ve touched a button.”

“Ah.” Nick replied. He’d been relying on his assumed knowledge from webnovels. He hadn’t bothered to remember his skills. “I uh, don’t remember my skills.” Nick said sheepishly.

“Normally we write our skills down once we get a class, usually helps. Can’t believe Tony didn’t tell you that.” Gareth shook his head. “Well thankfully Explorer is a pretty well known class, I remember the skills.”

Gareth took out some paper and a pen from one of his pockets. “Alright, your first skill is an active one, that means you have to consciously choose to use it right?” Nick nodded along. “Treasure Sense, it basically tells you the direction where loot is. This is your bread and butter, the main reason people will want you around.” Made sense to Nick, who wouldn’t want someone who could sniff out loot.

Gareth continued. “Your second ability is where things get very interesting though. It’s a passive skill, which means it’s always on and you don’t have to choose when to use it. Lucky means you’re literally that. The loot you do find is more likely to be what you want or need and you’re more likely to get lucky in situations.”

Nick was amazed, that sounded like a very strong skill. Getting the things you want and just being luckier in general? Who would say no to that?

“That sounds amazing, why doesn’t everyone take this class?” He asked.

Gareth sighed. “You have no combat skills Nick. Luck can only help you so much in a fight. Most people have combat classes and can use brute strength over your luck. Sadly most Explorers ended up being strong armed into becoming metal detectors for teams.”

“Ah, damn.” That’s exactly what was happening to him. He was a glorified tool, he had no way to resist or fight back. Then Nick remembered his third skill. “I have Hasty Escape though? That made me feel really fast.”

“Ah so that’s what he made you use. Yeah it’s a very good ability from a survivability point of view. You get a huge boost to your agility and I’ve been told your spatial awareness also gets a considerable bump.” Gareth replied, nodding to himself. “It’s a very good ability if you can use it right.”

Nick fell into thought. The ability only triggered after he thought about it then actively took a step away from Tony, so he could assume that it only triggered if he was actually ‘escaping’. He could think of plenty of ways that could be abused, would evading count as escaping? He would have to do a bit of trial and error.

Gareth put a hand on Nick's shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. “Alright kid, we’re out here to get you used to your abilities and then the kind of stuff you’ll be facing with your team.”

To start with he had Nick activate his Hasty Escape ability a couple times just standing still. Nick found out that activating the skill gave him a couple of seconds to make a move, which would then activate the buff. He also had to be actively trying to get away from something, just taking a causal step backwards wasn’t enough to activate the buff. Only once he actively thought about getting away from Gareth as he moved would he get the buff. He had to wait about a minute between activating the skill, it seemed to have a cooldown of some sort, though it didn’t seem to use any sort of resource he could feel. It seems like mana was another concept that wasn’t carrying over from his webnovels.

He also tested if evading counted to activate the skill, and it did. He had Gareth throw a punch at him and he got the buff from slipping the side with a slight step. He was sent sprawling to the ground, much to the amusement of Gareth.

“That was a lot faster of a movement that I was used to okay.” Nick pouted.

He tried it a couple more times and got used to it, the buff lasted a few seconds so he could actually use the increased speed and awareness to throw a series of quick and accurate counter punches.

“Woah, this has some insane implications for fighting.” Nick’s mind ran with how useful this skill could be used on the offensive. He could be the most punishing counter boxer in history with a skill like this.

“You seem to have some training, which is good. Sadly most combat classes have similar skills that are just better suited for attacking, but you have to use what you’ve got. Especially until we can get you your second class.” Gareth said casually.

“Sorry, could you say that again? Second class?” Nick gaped.

“Oh yeah, you get two classes, kid. Though you have to wait a week or two to get it, your body can’t really handle such a procedure in a short time span.”

“Can I get a third? A fourth?” Nick asked.

“No kid, only two classes. People have tried going for a third but it just fizzles out and you feel incredibly full.” Gareth then walked through a door into a small room with only one other door in it. “Alright, now I’ll get you to use your other ability and we’ll do something a bit risky.”

Nick looked at the door in front of him and didn’t like it. There was just something about it that made him feel slightly uncomfortable, like an extra sense was warning him about it. It felt familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place.

Then he heard the shambling footsteps from behind the door. They got closer and closer to the door and then Nick remembered. It looked a bit off from every other door in the hotel, but exactly like the door he’d seen in the button room.

“Use Treasure Sense Nick, it should point you towards the door.” Gareth said.

Nick activated the ability and he could feel the door, he knew approximately how far away from him it was and its size and shape. If he closed his eyes he could vaguely make it out in his head, it was a strange experience. Though he was very curious as to why the door was considered ‘treasure’, especially if there was something terrible sounding behind the door.

“What’s special about the door Gareth?”

“You’re about to find out.” Gareth grinned and opened the door.