“So, this throws a wrench in our plans.” Thomas said, looking at the Big Bad Woolf. It smiled a crescent moon of sharp fangs at him before taking a sip of its tea.

The woolf was, according to Volos, a special hunter mob. A creature with tracking skills that allowed it home in on crawlers it spotted before, often meant to be the slow but inevitable and nigh unbeatable monster on your heels that kept crawlers moving and on their toes. At the later floors with a much longer time limit, they existed to prevent crawlers from taking things slow and cautious or camping easy mobs around their spawn point.

These hunters wouldn’t appear until several floors later, usually, and Volos never heard of a follow-up boss happening at all. But what they were facing was in essence a Borough Boss unrestricted to a room, rather having the entire borough as their playground. A kind of threat that dwarfs the surprises Volos hinted bosses could pull on the next two floors.

The problem was significant, but the answer relatively straightforward. The teleportation trick that one can pull off by entering the tutorial guide and leaving through the door that your party members came through, would’ve allowed Darryl to shake off the Big Bad Woolf by appearing kilometres away. Ben and Thomas could even leave the borough before coming to get him and permanently shake the boss, if need be.

The problem was that the woolf had entered the guild through the door that Darryl hadn’t closed, and couldn’t close as it would’ve taken him too far out of the safe zone to reach for the handle.

“Mobs aren’t allowed to enter guilds, so the woolf cannot open the door himself.” Volos had explained after he resigned himself to their new guest. “And they’re teleported out the moment they attack a crawler or guide. But if they don’t attack, well…”

Volos took a sip of the tea that the woolf made. After the slab of furred muscle in drag pushed its way past the crawler into the room, it had refused to attack him and instead just sniffed Darryl from an uncomfortably intimate distance before claiming the big and comfortable armchair next to Volos’. A couple of minutes later it had asked Volos if it could use his kitchen, using a surprising sophisticated vocabulary for its guttural voice, and somehow proficiently handled the kettle and teacups, small even for human hands, with its long talons.

It must have a high tea making skill, Darryl begrudgingly had to admit as he took a sip of the brew himself. It had nothing on the Bopca’s cooking, but the tea was still better than anything Darryl could make himself.

Darryl took another bite from the chicken wing Ben gave him, and the woolf’s nose wrinkled in displeasure when it saw its tea being used as a rinser for such an unsophisticated fatty meal. The Bopca’s cooking was still as amazing as Darryl remembered, and the food stayed as warm and fresh as the moment it was made when stored in the inventory.

After the rest of his party went to the Bad Llamas and told them of the cleared neighbourhood boss, Thomas and Ben had split up. Thomas took the bike that Darryl sent back to him to pull ahead of the llama scouts so he could loot everything he could lift from the room. He had then negotiated a deal, begrudgingly admitting afterwards that Ben probably should’ve handled that part considering the teen’s higher charisma stat.

Ben meanwhile had sought out their first safe room and stocked up on food. The Bopca had been pissed, but was obligated to oblige when Ben ordered batch after batch of ludicrous quantities of food to store in his inventory.

“So, what did that dealer say?” Ben asked with a mouthful of chicken. “You got a crap deal, but we’re getting something at least?”

“If we want more drugs, they’d be eager to oblige. Anything else, and they’re stonewalling me.” Thomas sighed. “Eventually I had to agree to us getting mostly meth and some chemicals they use to make it. We probably want to negotiate a deal with a different faction and leave the llama deal for what it is.”

“Not sure if that’s going to be that easy now.” Darryl said, nudging his head to the woolf. “Same for our… other mission.”

The woolf took another sip with a cheeky smile perking its lips, not saying anything while it pretended that it wasn’t combing their every word for useful information.

“Not necessarily. We got a lot of good experience and boxes from the boss fight.” Ben said. “Only Darryl got the instant kill box, but we all got a gold box for taking no damage. There was a bunch of good loot in there. Enough that we should be able to beat those frenchies now, and we’re not at a disadvantage assuming our big friend here will attack them as well.”

“I won’t deny that we got good stuff.” Thomas said, twirling the shepherd staff in his hands. Where it had been too big for the lamb, it looked like a cane in his hands. It apparently buffed druids and shamans, useless before they’d hit the third floor and picked a class, but it also came with two druidic support spells he could cast and an intelligence buff.

The woolf pelt had similar boons, granting immunity to various specific plant poisons and diseases on top of a shaman booster. Volos explained that while loot boxes would always grant you species-compatible gear, enemies wouldn’t be so convenient. But if you could somehow wear it, even incompatible gear would grant a reduced version of their boons. After a lot of fiddling and pulling the thing, Thomas eventually resigned himself to wearing the cape as a tight scarf by putting the two ends in a knot.

The stuff from their four gold boxes was better. Darryl got a much better shield than his now shattered kite shield, the Paladin’s Plate Protector which was essentially a big slab of shiny metal. It granted a boost to his already high Shielding skill to raise it above 10, granting the additional boon of shielding better against elemental and magical attacks. It also gave a +3 to the Steadfast skill that Volos explained steadied his stance when shielding, to make sure his bones wouldn’t give when the shield held, and a protector’s aura that would increase the defence of others within 5m of him. All in all, a massive improvement overall.

From the instant kill box he got the Helmet of Myriad Minor Boons, a bucket-like helmet with a T-visor for him to see and breathe through, granting him a +1 to all his stats as well as one random skill that would change every day. Darryl now had a +1 in Sewing, which unfortunately didn’t reroll when he unequipped it or even when someone else donned it. The +1 intelligence did change his UI to now show the Big Bad Woolf’s intimidatingly long health bar instead of a dot. The box also contained a fantasy tavern wench uniform with a low cut that none of them could possibly fit in.

His silver box gave him Spartan sandals, which came with rather uncomfortable buckles that would grind his skin for a bit before he’d grow calluses, but the Spartan kick to push away enemies was worth equipping them instead of his regular shoes.

Thomas had gotten some good items too. He now looked quite wizardly after donning the Robes of the Apprentice Progeny, granting him +30% to the damage of all spells as well as another Int boost. Ben’s silver box yielded a dagger called the pocket viper, which was clearly meant to be a rogue sidearm but which they decided to give to Thomas for now. The dagger added poison damage proportional to the piercing damage dealt and was thus clearly most effective in a rogue’s hands, but it also had the feature of not needing a quick-slot to be quickly summoned to one’s hand. As Thomas’s hotbar was now filled with items and spells after equipping the Shepherd Staff and gaining a new spell tome called ‘Blink’, not having to use one of the slots on a physical weapon became a boon.

Ben’s appearance hadn’t changed much. He now had a ranged weapon called the Spine-Splitting Crossbow, granting him buffs on the Ranged and Crossbow skills to ensure he wouldn’t be fumbling and missing to use the ranged weapon as Darryl had with his spear, and it had a chance of paralysing a foe upon critting with 2% odds. He also had a +2 dex ring on his finger to finally buff his Dexterity some, and a short sword with a +2 Dex modifier whose handle was so awkward that it was clearly worse than his backstabbing dagger.

After Volos confirmed that weapons didn’t have to be used, only wielded, to grant their boons, Ben tied the short sword to his wrist. He originally intended to make it a Wolverine-like extension from his wrist, but he turned it around when it became clear that the point would likely cut into his own hand more often than he’d use it against foes. He could now, theoretically, stab someone with the sword when elbowing them. That the sword wasn’t that tightly secured and would probably never be used this way didn’t matter, he had the +2 Dex now.

“About the items, I actually had an idea about that.” Ben said. “Darryl, could you trade me all your stuff? Except the things you have equipped.”

“Sure.” Darryl shrugged, quickly throwing all of his already sizeable collection of basic survival items and junk into the trade bar to trade. Clicking send, he got three achievements and two bronze boxes plus a silver one for trading a certain amount of times, items of a certain value and making a trade over a certain weight threshold.

“Don’t open those quite yet, having boxes in your inventory won’t matter.” Ben said, sending Darryl a single torch. “Alright, just turn around and close your eyes or study something or whatever.”

Darryl obliged and turned around while closing his eyes.

Thomas J. Bennet has kicked you from the group.

Thomas J. Bennet tried to pickpocket you and failed!

“Damn it! I’ve got a damned cooldown of a whole minute before I can pickpocket again after a failure.” Ben grumbled. “Guess we have to wait. Not a huge surprise, my Pickpocket skill is only +1. Got it after stealing the lamb’s staff, guess that counted to gain the skill at all.”

Darryl turned around and took off his helmet which he handed off to Thomas. “I assume it will be easier when I have some lower stats. Also, what are you even planning to do?”

“You’d just give away all your stuff without even knowing why? Even when he threw you from the party after that?” Volos said. “What if they’d planned to screw you over and leave you after taking all your stuff?”

“Eh. I’ve got faith in my friends.” Darryl shrugged.

“Yeah, I can already tell you he’s like that.” Ben said. “No need to worry though, having him in the group also greatly increases my odds of survival, if you want a selfish reason for us to trust one another. On another note, getting all of Darryl’s junk and then kicking him out actually netted me a silver villain box, plus a gold storage box for now having a metric ton of weight in my inventory.”

“Nice.” Darryl said, putting up his fist for a box which Ben gladly reciprocated.

Two boxes appeared in the air in front of Ben and opened themselves, a pair of transparent gloves falling out of the silver box and a back brace out of the gold box. Ben gave the items to Thomas for identification as usual, and Thomas sent the item descriptions to the both of them.

The gloves greatly improved stealing and pickpocketing, so Ben quickly took off the Spidersilk gloves he never used and donned the gloves that looked as if they were woven out of water. The back brace increased strength and constitution and gave a +4 in the Deadlift skill which essentially allowed one to lift heavy items easier and faster. So essentially a means to abuse the infinite storage exploit with even heavier and bigger stuff.

Darryl took off his jacket, sweater and shield, all three clothing items popping out of existence instead of him having to take them off manually, and then equipped the back brace onto his bare back before putting on his sweater again. He traded the jacket to Ben.

You’ve been pickpocketed by Thomas J. Bennet!

“Alright, success! Doesn’t matter that you noticed me, I stole your torch!” Ben said. “And now to reveal why I had you clear out your entire inventory, despite it being more difficult this way.”

“You see, I can pickpocket items that you’re wearing or steal something directly from your inventory this way.” Ben explained. “But until I get my Pickpocket to +5 I cannot actually see the contents of your inventory and will just pickpocket something at random.”

“Your chance of success varies based on the weight and value of the item.” Volos said. “But when you pickpocket at random, the AI tends to pick something with a fair chance of stealing it instead of making you fail at stealing something you couldn’t possibly take unnoticed. It would’ve actually been easier if Darryl still had all the junk in his inventory.”

“Well, sure. But then I wouldn’t have this item specifically.” Ben said, taking out the torch. “And as you can see, it’s still here.”

“Ah, I see.” Thomas said, sipping his tea. “You broke the disintegration. ”

“Exactly. When I steal something, it specifies in the description that it’s a stolen item.” Ben said. “I assume that this would change the properties of the item some, not in features but it might stop the items from being considered Darryl's and in need of destruction. And I was right, Darryl’s achievement that disintegrates his stuff stops applying to the items after being stolen.”

Ben traded the breastplate to Darryl and began the tiresome challenge of successfully stealing it back. The torch was light and low in value, while the breastplate was a rare item and a lot heavier. The odds of successfully stealing it were apparently non-existent, and the odds of stealing it while being noticed were very low.

Five minutes and five tries later, Volos returned to his book while the Woolf had pulled the needles out of its shoulder to knit more of the soft pink wool into what looked like it might one day be an itchy sweater. Thomas was reading some more item descriptions while Darryl opened up his storage box. The AI clearly didn’t like duplicating achievements, because he had gotten nothing but health potions, biscuits and torches same as Thomas.

Darryl: So, while we’re doing this, does anyone have a plan of escape?

Ben: leave on bike, wolf chases. other 2 go

Thomas: That is the easiest solution, but the woolf seems too cunning to fall for that plan.

Darryl nodded in agreement. He had his back turned on the woolf, but he felt its eyes on him regardless. Visually they appeared completely focussed on the needles that were but a white cloth-making blur in their skilled hands, but their murderous intent made their subtle glances feel like their warm breath was wafting in his neck. That they weren’t paying attention to their every move was but a thin façade.

As much as they acted as a savage hunter during the chase, Darryl knew that believing that for even a second would spell their deaths. It wasn’t just powerful enough to strike down Ben and Thomas in a single strike, and Darryl in two, but it no doubt already planned ahead for any order and combination of them trying to leave the guild.

They might be able to wait it out, the mobs probably had to eat too and with four days left the woolf might find themselves forced to forage for food or water. But that would be a lot of time lost. And if it didn’t leave, they might still find themselves trapped here when the level collapsed.

As long as it wouldn’t attack them, they couldn’t just leave. Unless…

Darryl: Guys, I have an idea.