As I walked out on the sandy beach of floor 6, the door behind me slammed shut. The sand crunched under my bare feet, it lodged in my toenails, and made my body feel dry. The air smelled of salt and sea life. An ocean stretched as far as the eye could see.

There were no paths to take only the sea and the island. It was vastly different from the former floors. Luci was silent during my exploration of this level. I walked around the island and found a set of foot prints.

The prints led to the only forested area on the island. Trees were cut down all through the forest. Make shift equipment was used to craft a multitude of rafts the remains of which littered the beach. Lemurs hopped through the trees. None were over level thirty.

The lemurs led me to a group of fruit bearing trees. Bananas, pineapples, and coconut trees were plentiful. That was when a man planted the end of pistol firmly against the side of my head.

I will say it now, I wasn’t caught off guard. I was caught up in the majesty of the island. The smells of fresh fruit and the comfortably warm weather may have been relaxing. The next part, I wasn’t ready for.

The man took his pistol and bashed me with the side of it. The blow knocked my head to the side. Another man walked out of the brush bow drawn ready to pin cushion me. The third of this band put the edge of his sword to my throat, the fourth put his knife to my groin, and the fifth man was dressed in fine robes, well he threatened to drive an ice sickle through my eye.

“Don’t move, if you know what’s good for you, you will stay right where you are.” The man in the robes cast a series of spells. “Greg, is he a human or just a pretender?” The man pointing the gun said.

“Phil, he has a lot of magic defense but from what I can tell, he’s human.” Phil pulled his gun away and offered his hand.

“Sorry about that the names Phil, the mage is Greg, our rogue is Jim, Eric is our warrior, and Tomas is our magic archer. Together we are team pump and dump we are members of the Red Wyrm Adventurer’s Guild. Now that we have introduced ourselves, who are you?” Phil was a blunt guy, I was immediately enamored by it.

“I’m John, I guess I’m a solo player, this is my first dungeon. I’m a mage though, I have a few skill trees outside traditional DPS. Before you ask, I’m naked because my last armor set burned off.” I said.

“Wow man you must have some op fire resistance to get out of that without dying. Fire is normally a big problem for us fleshy humans. Dwarves, Orcs, and even sun elves have natural tier 2 fire resistance. That’s why I use ice instead of fire, the fire element is just too harmful to friendlies.” Greg said.

“You don’t move like a mage, you must have agility in the hundreds at least. That’s weird for a mage. Normally, a mage will rely on a rogue to use a paralysis skill on a mob, so the mage can unleash max dps.” Jim said.

“Jim the guy just said he was a solo. You know solos must have a wide variety of skills to survive dungeons. What guild are you in Blue phoenix, Black Leviathans, or by that skin color maybe White Hydra? Eric said. I caught Tom’s eye he was studying my aura. I unleashed it and felt the sand rise at my increased mana output. He cracked a smile and began to charge up mana aura as well.

“Damn it Tomas, we just met the guy and your already comparing magic dicks.” Phil yelled. It was all in good humor. I charged my aura with fire and mana letting it turn purple. Sand billowed around me like a small hurricane. Trees too close caught fire as the others got some distance. Tomas smiled, and his aura turned a green tint as wind began to billow around him.

Energy crackled in the air as our auras clashed. The clash itself served a purpose. Small tendrils of inspects slipped between us. We were like wild dogs getting to know a new member of the pack. In this case, Tomas was vetting me the outsider.

We locked eyes, my blue almost purple orbs to his green. He gave a nod of respect after a time and our auras died down. I didn’t know what that was until it happened. The aura a mage produced was determined by their mana output. The color was determined by experience and skills. The clash was not a battle it was an act of diplomacy.

“He isn’t a part of any guild. John, why don’t you tell your side of the story.” Tomas said.

“What story, we just met the guy?” Eric asked.

“John, did you have something to do with the commotion in the city? Twin Star went insane just after we entered. There was talk of throwing all male adventurers and tourists out until the punishment was over. Something about some spider’s nest getting burned down.” Phil said. I nodded. The man grinned and took out a pipe.

The air quickly filled with the scent of tobacco. “I’m guessing you want me to heal your lungs again after you smoke.” Greg said. Phil waved away the mage.

“What happened, did they throw you down here as punishment?” Jim said.

I thought about what I could say. Luci wasn’t giving me advise. Most likely, because it would look insane talking with the dungeon. I needed allies, and who better than members of a guild.

“I spawned in a spider’s nest and burned it to the ground, then when the queen confronted me I burned her too; ripped off her legs; and ate them, and then I learned the inspect skill; with which I promptly inspected their god tree Venus.” They were blinking at me rather owlishly at this point.

“Ah, I see using inspect is considered rather intrusive. When used too strongly, it could be considered rape. One time couldn’t have been that big of a deal to Venus. She is practically the forest.” Greg said.

“I used it 40 times in a second. Then after I obtained the wood skill from her, I ran. From there she unleashed a hoard of parasitic wasps. They took over a few forest wolves. I burned them as well. The city guard found me and acted like nothing was wrong. They claimed that I needed to be registered to the city and took me to the mistress’s mansion. Once there they slapped a set of magic dampening hand cuffs on me and tossed me in the dungeon. Oh, and they said that once I die down here, my soul will be captured in a soul gem.” I said.

“Want to join the guild?” Eric asked.

“Damn it Eric we can’t recruit him. He is a wanted fugitive. The man is living on barrowed time, do you want to drag us down with him?” Jim said.

“Jim, it doesn’t matter. Those golems came for us and they even took Frank. That sick bastard killed him and wore Frank’s skin like a new suit. From what transmissions, I can get down here the guild thinks we are dead. The golem wearing the Frank suit saw to that. They aren’t going to let us out of here alive. Our only hope is to hit the 3 or 4 hundred levels and break through the city on our own.” Phil said. The others nodded.

“Yea how, the way is blocked. Every time we build a raft some sea monster destroys it. To make matters worse, every day we wait here we run the risk of the dungeon killing us in our sleep. The number of lemures keep increasing. Soon there will be enough to eat all our food. Most of the sea life is poisonous to eat, what are we going to do?” Jim said.

“I don’t want to say it, but Jim has a point Phil. No offense John you seem like a nice guy, but if we can use you to buy passage out of here we will.” Eric said and pulled his sword. Fire light gleamed off the metal.

“Put the sword down Eric. Did you forget the first level? The white knights were stabbed in the back not the front. More than likely we will get the knife too. We are supposed to be dead after all. I wouldn’t put it past the mistress to kill us just to save face.” Tomas said.

“Guys, I don’t want to die like Frank and our new friend certainly doesn’t want that. So, there is only one way to move forward.” Phil said.

“We kill them all.” I said. They all looked my way.

“Right, that’s easier said than done. No one has been past the 20th level in our guild. Monsters there, number in the 380s to 500s we aren’t even past the 90s yet.” Greg said. I nodded. That was good information to have.

I had 889 points to spend it was time to become a leader and put my war mage skill tree to work. Screens appeared as I maxed war mage to the 3rd tier. 717 points remained. 2600 stat points just filled out charisma. The people around me seemed to pale as they felt the shift. Battle mage was next. 545 points remained, and my body went through a change. 1865 stat points went into strength.

To be fair, I was no where near as strong as the warrior nor as charismatic as Phil seemed to be. I simply no longer had the displeasing appearance of a paper white bald naked man. I wasn’t finished not by a long shot. With only 247 points remaining mana elementalist crossed the threshold to the 3rd tier. 5000 points went in both agility and wisdom. My body felt super charged. I could do anything run anywhere jump over any obstacle. The initial high was quickly over run by the rush of wisdom. Wasting energy didn’t seem like such a grand play anymore. I would use my new speed but only when the time was right. Blue mage was next on the list. Once I brought the new tree to 3rd tier I felt a little different.

75 points remained. 1875Int and 725Wis increased increasing my reserves even more. I put every remaining point in my unique skill Eyes of the Sun II. What I hadn’t anticipated was the vast increase in power. 3,800 stat points went in increasing perception. The world around me shifted in focus once again.

“Hey, are you done spending your hard-earned skill points?” Phil said. Phil had a knowing smile on his face.

“Yea, I’m done what’s up?” I said.

“No need to stop on my account, I know how it feels to get a sudden power up from skill points. The high from stat increases has been enough to drag low level adventurers down here.” I stared at the man and he stared back with a smug knowing gaze.

“I have a question.” The man raised an eyebrow but nodded.

“Are there people who focus on a single skill tree like let’s say black mage?” The guy smiled. Greg walked up.

“Hey John, your finally awake. You were staring at the fire for a while after you allocated your skill points. That isn’t a healthy habit to have. I would hate to be nosy, but you just asked about the brains.” I turned to the guy. What did the brains mean?

“Greg, I got this. The brains John, are people who focus on one skill tree and spend every point they can on them. They are almost universally called the brains. We call them brains because that’s all that’s left of them. Their bodies atrophy and break down around their skulls. They are no longer considered humans. I believe the guild classification for them are pseudo dungeons. Their mental powers are so great that they can forge a new body from buildings, caves, and even take over parts of existing dungeons. They are hyper intelligent and psychotic.” Phil said.

“There are others as well. Over in my tree we call them trolls. Our bodies become insanely powerful and regenerative, but our mentality suffers for it. Studies have shown that a troll’s skull is so thick that it puts pressure on the brain.” Eric said.

“Well my tree also has an issue. When too many points are placed in agility and perception we become phantoms. Our physical bodies vanish and only the shadows remain.” Jim said.

“That’s good to know. Guys do you want to leave the island?” I said.

They turned to me, I had their attention. I had planned to make a boat and sail out on the water, since I saw the vast blue ocean. Meeting team pump and dump had put my building ideas on the back burner. Now that building a ship was relevant again. I might as well share my abilities with them.

“Do you have a plan, or do you know a way to build a better boat with our current resources?” Phil asked.

I produced ten seeds from my mana pool. Using mana craft these seeds would grow to form a colossal ship. Wood was naturally buoyant so floating wasn’t the issue. I needed to layer the wood in a way to take more damage. My intelligence determined the physical durability of the wood. The wooden spears, I made were comparable to steel. I tossed the seeds and they rapidly grew. Tens of thousands of MP went into the creation of the ship.

When the ship was complete we would set sail for the next floor.