When Aiden woke up the next morning he noticed Victoria was staring out of the window with a cracker halfway to her mouth as if in a trance shaking slightly. He tried calling out to her softly but she didn’t respond in any way. Wondering what was going on he stood up and walked up to the window looking towards where her eyes were pointed.

He saw people walking around outside slowly, most of them bloody. Then he started noticing the details, these people were missing limbs and other parts of their body’s. “Zombies? you’ve got to be fucking kidding me!. The beast and the monsters aren’t enough? now we need to kill our own dead too?” He was quite pissed at this developement.

Aiden recognized some of the zombies down there as his teachers and classmates. Which brought up the question of why they were now zombies. After looking around some more he noticed that none of the dead bodies from the first day that littered the courtyard were there any longer.

‘Which probably means that if someone dies they will turn into a zombie, Shit! all the corpses I dragged into those rooms are probably zombies by now. At least I had the sense to lock the damn doors. If we run into anymore corpses It would probably be best to burn them or at least barricade them somewhere so they don’t get out.’ He sighed at the extra and unpleasant work and turned towards his partner.

He could see she still hadn't moved “Victoria, hey Vicky look at me” Aiden turned her around so she was facing him, she finally looked up and then broke down crying. He held her there for a while letting her know that it would be alright that they would get through this. An hour later she had calmed down and they were both sitting on the couch discussing what they should do.

“We need to kill them as well, especially the ones that probably turned inside this building. We can’t risk them getting out and sneaking up on one of us when we aren’t paying attention. Lets start with the top floor and work our way down again. It shouldn’t be too hard, there aren’t that many in here and from what we saw they seem to move slowly.”

After a bit more thought he purchased two Short bow’s and 50 arrows for himself and Victoria for 1500 credits (600 per bow and 300 for a stack of 50 arrows). Quivers weren’t strictly necessary since they could draw arrows straight from the inventory.

They practiced shooting against one of the couch cushions for a few hours till they were both familiar with the motions and were reasonably confident in hitting a target from 20 feet away. Aiden being an avid hunter was familiar with bows, but these weren’t like the modern ones he used before, and were harder to aim and less stable. Aiden took a quick look at their stats before they headed out.

Party Status:

Aiden Winters: Age 22

Race Human: Rank(f)

Level 6

Mana essence: 1265/1500

Health: 130/130

Stamina: 120/120

Mana: 80/80

Defense: 12(18)

Mana Defense: 8

Vitality - 13

Endurance - 12

Strength - 11

Agility - 14(19)

Dexterity - 11

Skill - 11

Intelligence - 8

Wisdom - 8

unspent points - 0

System credits - 310

Short Sword - (Common) / Quality (Good) / Damage Physical: 25-30

Shortbow - (Common) / Quality (Good) / Damage Physical: 22-26

Iron tipped arrow x25 (Common) / Quality (Average) / +1 damage

Hunting Knife - (Common) / Quality (Good) / Damage Physical: 15-20

Leather Boots - (Common) / Quality (Average) / +2 defense

Leather Jacket - (Common) / Quality (Good) / +3 defense

Leather gloves - (Common) / Quality (Poor) / +1 defense

Ring of Agility - (Uncommon) / Quality (Very Good) / +5 Agility

Active Skill: Rush Aura (Doubles the wearers movement speed for 10 seconds at the cost of 50 mana, 10 minute cool down. Channel Mana into the ring to activate effect).

Victoria Leblanc: Age 21

Race Human: Rank(f)

Level 3

Mana essence: 125/400

Health: 90/90

Stamina: 70/70

Mana: 70/70

Defense: 7(14)

Mana Defense: 7

Vitality - 9

Endurance - 7

Strength - 7

Agility - 7

Dexterity - 6

Skill - 6

Intelligence - 7

Wisdom - 7

unspent points - 0

System credits - 1020

Short spear - (Common /Quality (Average) / Damage Physical: 20-25

Shortbow - (Common) / Quality (Good) / Damage Physical: 23-27

Iron tipped arrow x25 (Common) / Quality (Average) / +1 damage

Leather Jerkin - (Common) / Quality (Good) / +5 defense

Leather boots - (Common) / Quality (Average) +2 Defense

When they reached the third floor they opened up a few of the classrooms and dragged out some desks and chairs, scattering them along the floor around the door leading to the room where Aiden placed the bodies creating a makeshift baricade.

Victoria stood behind the barricade they made while Aiden made his way over it to the locked door, he could hear noises on the other side. Steeling his nerves he quietly opened the door and pushed it open. He saw a few of the zombies walking about or just standing in place doing nothing. He started to back up carefully casting a quick inspect on one of them.

Corrupted Undead: Rank (g)

lvl 1

Health 70

stamina 20

Vitality - 7

Endurance - 2

Strength - 8

Agility - 2

Dexterity - 2

Skill - 1

Intelligence - 1

Wisdom - 0

The first thing Aiden noticed was that they were classified as 'Corrupted' Undead which made him think back on that feeling he first had when he saw the spawn emerge from the miasma. He though these people must have been infected somehow by the Mana beasts making him believe that anyone killed by them would probably turn into one of these things.

Then he looked at the stats. This thing was slow and dumb, had a decent chunk of health, and was pretty strong. Meaning they would be fine if there weren’t too many and they didn’t get surprised by one or cornered. Going by its health 3 arrows should put one down and 1 arrow if it was a critical hit.

Aiden carefully backed up and hopped over the barricade to stand next to Victoria. Once in position he tapped his bow on the floor a few times to draw their attention. Soon two of them, one after the other were stumbling out of the room.

The pair of them both took aim and started shooting. They feeling Aiden got from the arrows impaling the undead was distasteful. It felt like he was shooting at people and his mind took a second to adjust and remind himself they were already dead.

It took them a total of 10 minutes to clear out all the Undead, the obstacles they made proving very helpful. The Undead kept falling over them making killing the undead that much easier. When they died they evaporated into motes of Mana meaning they wouldn’t be getting up again.

They spent the next 3 hours repeating the process on the 2nd and first floors. They took a quick break to eat then moved on to the ground floor where they spent the next 6 hours slowly and as quietly as they could whittling away at the Beast and Undead. Aiden noticed that the beasts would readily attack the undead and vice versa gaining essence from the kills.

When they were done they earned a total of 1480 Mana essence and 328 Mana crystals between them, bringing Aiden to lvl 7 and Victoria to lvl 5. Aiden put his 3 stat points into Strength, Dexterity, and Skill. Victoria put a point each into Vitality and strength, and 2 each into Dexterity and skill. They focused on Dexterity and skill in particular in the hopes it would help with their aim. They missed nearly a third of the shots they took right now (Victoria more then Aiden) although they were getting better.

They did a careful search of the ground floor for any supplies and made sure all the doors were locked. While they were checking one of the bathrooms they found an angled hole leading into the ground, when they looked inside they could see what appeared to be a swirling vortex of energy. When Aiden took a step closer for a better look a system message appeared before them.

“Your party has discovered a Dungeon!”

“Congratulations World First bonus! Your party is the first on your world to discover a (G) ranked Dungeon! +1 permanent bonus to all stats per party member”

“One time Dungeon: Rank (G) ‘The Arachnid Den’ Recommended lvl’s 5-10 / Recommended Party size 3-4”

“New Quest Obtained!”

Quest: Delving

Description: You have found your first Dungeon! Check it out! who knows what you might find?

Rewards 5000 Mana Essence / 500 low grade Mana stones

Aiden swallowed heavily turning a bit pale at the word ‘Arachnid’ ‘Great, I fuckning hate spiders’ and turned to look at Victoria. “What do you think?” She gave him a dry look in return. ‘Right she cant talk’ “Sorry” he said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. They backed out of there for now and headed back to the teachers lounge. They were battered and bruised and emotionally drained from the day but they were still alive.

It was ‘6:24 pm’ by the time they got back. They each grabbed some snacks and settled down on the couch to talk. Before Aiden could say anything Victoria wrote down two question and showed them to Aiden. ‘Whats a Dungeon?’ ‘Why did we get free stat points for discovering it?’ Aiden scratched his head absentmindedly while he contemplated how to answer that.

“I’m not really sure... I mean think about it! a few days ago our Planet literally Woke up! helped by something calling itself ‘the System’ The entire shape of the planet ‘Apparently’ named Terra not Earth by the way changed in an impossible display of power. We are somehow now these ‘Mana Awakened’ or ‘Mana Chosen’ because we had enough ‘Mana affinity’ and have stats and levels like in that of a video game and can see floating screens of information. How does any of that even work?!” Aiden asked incredulously.

“I mean why is what is happening so similar to those games? and how did the people that made those games know all of this! I mean you saw it right? there were Goblins outside! And now a fucking Dungeon! None of this makes any sense to me! Whats going to show up next Orcs? Vampires? Fucking Dragons?!”

At that moment they both heard an earth shaking roar coming from outside. They both looked at each other and slowly moved over to the window taking a look around. A minute later Victoria with a shaking finger pointed to the sky. Aiden looked up following her finger and saw four massive creatures up in the sky a couple of miles away fighting each other. ‘Fuck me’ One of them was bigger then the other three combined.

They watched as the large out tore into the three smaller ones ripping two of them apart and burning the third to ash with a breath of fire. ‘Fuck me’ The thing roared once more in triumph and flew away towards a mountain range far off in the distance.

After a few minutes of staring dumbly at the thing as it flew away Aiden slowly turned towards Victoria. With a pained expression he asked “Vicky... Was that a Dragon?” Victoria looked at him pale faced and still trembling and nodded once. “Fuck me” Aiden collapsed on the ground with his back against the wall muttering to himself. “I just had to say it didn’t I. Fucking Dragons...”

Eventually they settled down again and Aiden revisited the questions she asked before he went of on a rant and they found out there were now fucking dragons about. “Right... So Dungeons from what I’ve read and know from games are usually closed off areas that have monsters for adventurers to kill for experience and gaining levels. They can have boss monsters that are much stronger then regular ones, and if you manage to kill it you can earn good rewards. There can even be treasures in them. I'm not sure if its the same, but there you have it.” Victoria nodded that she understood and Aiden continued.

“As to the ‘World First’ thing and free stat points I’m guessing its sort of like achievements that the System finds worthy of a reward. Something no one has managed to do yet. I already have 3 of them so far for a total bonus of 24 stat points which is 8 levels worth, so their definitely important and we should try and get as many as possible. Anything that can give us an edge in this new world is a good thing in my book.”

"This also brings of the question of if this is the only world with living beings on it. From how the system phrases the message I'm guessing not. Thats pretty encredible if you think about it, how long have people wonder about other life in the galaxy and now we sort of had it confirmed."

“Anyway, we managed to scrounge about 2 weeks worth of food so if we ration it a bit we should be alright on that front for now. Our best bet for finding more food right now would be the kitchens/cafeteria in the building the goblins went towards.

Which reminds me we need to go clear them out soon, otherwise we may have problems later on.” When Victoria asked ‘why’ Aiden cringed reluctant to explain but did so anyway. “If these are the same type of goblins that I know from fantasy works then they can breed at an alarming rate, and they can breed with any female of a humanoid species.” Victoria blanched and grimmaced once she understood what he was getting at.

“Yeah... so like I said we need to clear them out fast, who knows what their up to in there. I think we should clear that Dungeon first tho. I’m thinking we’ll definitely get some extra levels if we do, that and maybe some better gear. Goblins are more intelligent then the things we have been fighting so far, it will be a lot harder I’m guessing."

"I’m also worried that we haven’t seen any more people since the first day. Most of them should be in the main building but we haven’t seen anyone through the windows, that cant be good. There were the gunshots yesterday but we havent heard any today. I really hope were not the only ones left alive here.”

After that ominous proclamation it was a weary duo that got ready for bed. Each of them thinking of the days events and what they would be doing tomorrow as they tried to fall asleep.