“So we have an agreement? You’ll abide by my terms?” Martin asked.

“Yeah, yeah. No kids, no more than three kills, yadda yadda.” Corey shrugged.

Martin narrowed his eyes at the thug’s blatant disrespect of upholding basic human decency. “Then what are they, without yadda yadda’ing it?”

Corey furrowed his thin brow in return, and came a half-step closer to loom over Martin. His intimidation tactic didn’t work on the old man, probably in part because of his higher charisma stat.

“If you’re just paying lip service to get the tickets and go on a killing spree, then I guess I’ll just leave.” Martin said.

He was bluffing, and at least a few of the people here knew it. Approaching team Epsilon had been a desperate move, and something that he would’ve avoided entirely if he could help it.

One of these men had raped his daughter in law, after all, and from the very beginning he’d been heavily conflicted if he should kill once more without rewards.

But these men had been their own party since the first floor, meaning he never got their ticket. He would’ve made that bastard one of his three kills if he could, but that wasn’t an option. And to kill not for items that could be the salvation of the hardy few but for his own petty vengeance, that was a line he didn’t want to cross. An act that would turn him from a sinning martyr into the murderous madman that people saw him as.

The very fact that he’d approached them at all showed that he was desperate, though. If he didn’t get some support, some muscle to swing the balance in his favour, then nothing was going to happen and a lot of people were going to die because they never got the chance to live.

But for his first followers to be these bastards stepping on others for their own gain, it didn’t send the message he wanted. With the way that things were, he felt like he was already compromising too much. He couldn’t, he shouldn’t give another inch if he could help it.

The man he was dealing with made that difficult. Corey had a habit of getting his way through intimidation, and if that failed he didn’t hesitate to switch to violence.

Corey would remain the de facto leader of these people even if Martin became their official party leader, that much was clear. The bald and none too thin man did radiate quite a vicious and aggressive presence with his hot temper and facial scars, and though he ruled through fear he had some leadership skills to boast of.

He might be just your run of the mill hooligan, but down here that was still a huge step above the rest.

Hell, he literally was just some hooligan until a few days back. One of those extreme ‘fans’ that didn’t necessarily care about football or their club rather than for the feral fist fighting with a different group of hooligans at a deserted parking lot behind the stadium. The kind that didn’t mind bringing a lead pipe in case the fight wasn’t going their way, or shrinking away from others bringing those to bear.

But even though he was just some street punk addicted to violence, even though his scars were but the result of another thug shoving a broken bottle into his throat only to find his chin instead, Martin had to admit that Corey was one of the most experienced and ‘suitable’ people to survive the dungeon that they walked into.

But the man was drunk on power and the lack of restraints. He and two of his hooligan buddies found themselves in a place where no one could really stop them if they escalated, where violence would get them respect and even adoration from some, where they could even take things beyond what was possible before. And he had been prodding those lines again and again, probably hoping to find the limit and then break whoever enforced it.

Corey hadn’t taken a girl against her will yet, his group still walked a thin pretence of bartering their strength for ‘willing’ services, but only one of the four women here looked like she was truly willing to be here. And Martin feared that if no one stopped them, soon they’d just take the women they liked without verbal agreement. Or start robbing people of their gear regardless of the tickets.

Martin spared a glance at the rest of the group. Six men, four women. A total of eleven people in this party, twelve if he were to join.

Corey was the strongest at lvl8, decked out in gear that made it clear that even the AI saw the man as nothing but a thug. His weapons were a long metal chain wrapped around his right arm and knuckles to punch hard and nasty, and a switchblade as back-up. He had an already grimy biker-style leather vest over his Manchester United shirt, though for a decade-long Manchester City fan like Martin that filthy thing was still an improvement over what it covered up, and a skull bandana covering the lower half of his face that gave him buffs for every member in his party wearing a non-descript red bandana.

Both of his old buddies were lvl6 and equipped with identical items, courtesy of the AI’s sense of humour. Small was even fatter than Corey and stood only 1m54. Tall was a lanky teen so scrawny you almost wondered if he was anorexic, and he was a good two metres tall.

Both wore a non-descript red bandana over their lower face, a tacky black cowboy hat, and stripped their chests bare to nothing but a white tank top to reveal tattoo sleeves that apparently allowed them to add and remove tattoos with buffs. Small had a metal pipe, while Tall got himself a magical item broken bottle. Because apparently the dungeon had broken bottles with skill improvements.

The other four men were a lot weaker at lvl4-5, the beta squad of this group. They all wore red bandanas and all but this guy named Gunther had the same dark cowboy hat, and all but one had open leather vests similar to Corey except that they only reached down to their midriff.

The hat, bandana and vest combo made them look like those non-descript goons from old western movies and games. Probably intentionally, Martin thought. Following the Wild West theme, the last guy wore an indian-style poncho instead. Deviating from the theme, one guy had almost feminine boots from the 18th century, the kind that almost came up to your kneecaps and had about a hundred buttons.

Poncho had a longbow with native American decorations on it so tacky and cliché that Martin almost felt racist just looking at the thing, and a quiver of arrows with black and white feathers at the end. Boots had a thin metal chain with weights, a poor man’s imitation of a morning star without handle or spikes. Gunther had a regular spear and some brass knuckles that at least a few of the others were eyeing enviously, and the last generic thug had a switchblade.

Amongst the women one stood out, namely the one willing to be here. Bea was clearly the AI’s darling considering the amount of gear she got. Biker boots, tight leather pants, a spiked biker’s belt and a leather black corset that barely contained her breasts with a black leather half-jacket to cover her shoulders and armpits while showing off her waist.

Or at least, she seemed favoured by the AI at first. Turns out she was wearing that outfit when she came in, the biker lass being out for a smoke when her gang got squashed along with their den. Apparently she had a surface weapon and a motorcycle in her inventory, but her dungeon gear was limited to black leather gloves, a red bandana, her tiny top hat that somehow stayed on despite being at a 30-degree angle to the left, and a collection of some kind of cigarettes called ‘Blitz sticks’.

She’d be the darling of the group, had she not been forty and an early-bloomer. Her clothes forced her body into something more desirable, but after a week in the dungeon she ran out of make-up to cover the crow’s feet and her dyed hair was growing out.

The other women were a bit younger, two looked like they were about thirty and the last one somewhere in her late twenties. Kate would’ve been the oldest here after Bea, had they ‘kept’ her. And these three seemed just as sad to be here. Not reluctant or threatened, just sad.

Their presence, and the reason for Corey’s ‘chivalrous’ requirements of consent, was the biggest reason that Martin was against empowering exactly these bastards.

One of Corey’s first recruits had grabbed a lone woman he ran across in the tunnels and took her by force, back on the first floor. Dave had thrown a tantrum about it, and almost a hundred people with him. The man who expected Corey to back him up was hung out to dry, only to be found dead before the mob got to him.

Turns out that getting raped got the girl an achievement with a gold victim box, and she used the contents to castrate the bastard before leaving him to bleed out. She disappeared after that. Corey insisted on a thin fig leaf of consent after that.

And bastard that he was, it worked. The three women that were here instead gained Silver Bitch Boxes, granting them items that could heal or buff others. They were all still lvl3, the youngest one not wearing any magical item at all. Not surprising, as it was probably something just as degrading as the collar or the maid outfit that the other two wore.

That the AI gave such achievements and rewards with no doubt gleeful sarcasm and wit, once again showed how fucked up this place was. It made him sick. That these women would remain stuck in their hopeless situation made him sick as well, and a part of him raged against the very thought of him having any part in it.

If he was going to be part of this group, he had to help these women. He had to.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Corey grumbled, stirring Martin awake from his contemplations. “Your demands are as followed, and agreed upon by both sides:”

“We are not going to kill children, obviously.” Corey started. “We don’t kill people that are well-armed and able to fight, unless it’s in self-defence.”

“It’s not self-defence if you’re baiting an attack, or if you get a choice between running and fighting.” Martin added. “We’re not to pick fights with those that can survive this place themselves, and getting attacked first is not a sufficient excuse if it could’ve been avoided.”

Corey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and that. I think you’re overestimating our desire to murder, old man. I like a good scuffle, but I never killed in my life. Well, killed a person. We all killed a few of those damned monsters out there.”

“Let’s see…” Corey continued. “No looting, no more than three kills from three tickets, and there’s going to be other people joining for their three tickets. They get to leave afterwards if they want. The main purpose of alllll this is to get some of the chumps that are sitting on their ass right now to get up and start with a royal beginner package.”

“We’ll stick to those tenets, old man. In exchange you’ll give us three tickets each so that we too can survive this place a bit more comfortably, and lend us your special power to take away our skulls.” Corey said, holding out his hand.

Martin hesitated. He wanted to add some more demands, like letting these women go, or have them tell him who defiled Kate, or protection for the children, or, or…

No, he couldn’t. He already scrapped the conditions that were too vague, demanding or impossible to enforce, and if he tried to tack new ones on now then things could escalate.

Yet, he was in doubt. He couldn’t change the deal at this point, but he could still walk away. Leave Corey hanging and try to find some other means.

If he thought about this logically, that was exactly what he should do. These people couldn’t force his hand yet, but once they got their tickets he couldn’t stop them. Once they had their items, then he was but one of the strong ones. Weaker, in fact, considering that Corey would stack three free levels onto a higher level than Martin’s.

Once that came to pass the deal might be but empty words, considering there was nothing and no one left to enforce them at that point. They might even kill him, take his tickets and go on a killing spree to get three gold boxes for each skull.

Worse, some of Epsilon’s inhibitions might fall away. Corey enforced consent because the dungeon was holding a sword over his head, a gold box tailor-fit for revenge. But that sword became a butter knife once he and his gang all had three platinum and twelve gold boxes to defend themselves with.

And yet…

There wasn’t another option. Martin racked his brain and thought of everything, anything, that would allow him to decline this deal, and came up empty-handed. The way things were now, Kate would stay out of his reach, all of these people would die soon enough and he had become a murderer for nought.

Martin shuddered, but took Corey’s grimy hand and shook it.