Dane ended up calling it a night after dealing with Rivera and Niederhauer. He had a pretty good idea that he cold un-fuck Pugh’s poor core-locking because of his Human species ability, but he wasn’t sure about what to give him, Guzman or Daniels. Frankly, there were just too many options.

By morning though, it was very clear. Guzman woke him with a shake of the shoulder.

“Look,” she told him, and splayed out a handful of cards. The first of these was called Freedom to Move, a Monk-only card, as were the next five. This mythic had the ability to speed up her perception of time and let her attack up to three times for every attack made by others. He hadn’t noted Freedom to Move before… he was sure of it.

“Where’d you get this?”

“When we crossed over. Can you make me a Monk?” She hadn’t shared it with anyone, and of course not… Daniels would’ve made her sell it. “I can’t equip it until I’m a monk.”

It turned out he could, with a great deal of trial and error. They ended up core-locking Olympian, a card that made her a physical champion by doubling all her stats during any non-combat physical task, or adding +2 to all stats during combat. He thought probably Brawlerina would complete her ascension from Adventurer to Monk, but they didn’t have another one. Instead they used the other Combat Reflexes from their collection, which dismantled half a dozen other potential builds he had, but he was okay with it. She was clearly Once a Monk, she core-locked Freedom To Move, and he watched as the class aura around her flashed in all different colors at once. From all around her swirled a rainbow of magical colors, all reaching up and connecting above her head. They flashed black together, the black bled down into white all at once, and then it went to gray.

She was now a Follower of the Path. He gave that a low whistle.

The Monk cards cost Chi instead of MP, but the casting costs were far lower than most spells. This allowed Guzman to focus all of her level up efforts on Agility, Strength, and Endurance. She immediately sprinted off, ran up a tree, disappeared into its branches, came rocketing out with about a dozen flippy twisties, landed in that perfect superhero pose, and grinned. Niederhauer and Pugh gave her a polite round of golf clapping, which caused her to roll her eyes.

Later, when they gathered, he told them the issue. Either they’d need to find another card shop with actual healing cards, they’d have to do a bunch of Quests to get them, or they’d have to seek out some other way.

“Augh, it’s bout time we consult that felinian fella from through the portal.”

Dane wasn’t comfortable with the obvious Scottish accent he’d begun to put on, but nobody else seemed to mind.

“While we’re on the move, you two can figure out who you’d prefer to have as the healer,” Dane said, while he gathered up all the cards into carefully organized piles. Neither had he figured out how to enhance himself… sure he’d equipped a couple of spells, an aura, and some Passive abilities to keep him alive for the time being, but it wasn’t a proper deck of cards.

He did the same for Pugh and Daniels, warning them not to core-lock any of the cards for now.

“So… Niederhauer, Rivera and Guzman get theirs, but the LT gets nothin,” Pugh said.

“If you want to figure out who’s the healer, we’ll build out the other one.”

Pugh and the LT turned, pulled a quick rock paper scissors without speaking a word to one another. Daniels lost paper to scissors, but didn’t seem to be too put out about it. Daniels was then faced with the choice of meeting back up with Prissy and her allies, or testing out their new powers in the field.

“Fine, okay. You’ll be ranged attack rogue type, or bard. Pick one.”

“The hell?”

“We need someone specialized in getting us the things we need, buffing everyone with inspires and battlefield bonuses… or to stab people in the back for massive amounts of damage.”

“Both of those sound like bad options.”

“Blame Niederhauer for turning himself into a Caster early, or blame yourself for not transforming into a seven foot block of rock and metal. Or I guess Guzman for wanting to do that.” He gestured over to where Guzman was doing a handstand on two fingers, surrounded by a thin glow of green magic.

“Can’t I be a sword and shield guy? I saw that card Masterplater. Big armor bonuses and a funny name.”

“How is it you manage to choose the very worst options available at all times?” Dane asked with a sigh. “Rogue or bard, choose one.”

“Ugh…” Then his face lit up. “If I were a bard, I’d have to play an instrument, wouldn’t I?”

“Uh… yes?”

“Bard it is.”

The LT chose the latter of the two options. While they walked, Dane got Pugh squared away with several of their better Adventurer/Scoundrel options, but paused a bit when the third Core card failed to overwrite and expel his City Guard card. In any event, the new class surrounded him with a plethora of hypnotic, dancing lights of all colors, including motes that made various string, woodwind and flute noises. There was even a hint of bagpipes.

“What did you do?”

“I kept the City Guard,” Pugh told him proudly.

“You did not.”

A second later, Pugh reached into the sky and caught a magically glowing ukulele drifting down out of the heavens. “Say hello to Bard Guard, baby!”

Dane stifled a curse and put on his best stoic gnomish face. “What have I done,” he said.

They were humping it over to where Dane had scouted with his eagle, up the side of a large foothill attached to a much larger mountain. He’d found a craggy mountain entrance to what could only be a dungeon. At almost the same moment they reached the dungeon’s mouth, a window popped up in front of Dane’s face.

Quest Progress! I’m a Big Boy Now!

You have one hour to finish your quest. Better get on that.

Party members with acceptable builds: 5/6

Reward pending: A free level up. You know you want it.

“Fuck you, quest!” Dane screamed at the sky. He’d meant it to be a roar but it came out as a tinny squawk. Shit. He had to think. His mental image was nothing

“LT, where’s the damned crystal ball?”

They had the crystal ball out in no time, and Dane focused on the furry face of Priscilla. It had been burned into his mind every time she sauntered toward him with that knowing grin on her face, like she could just reach into his mind and see the infatuation balloon.

She appeared in the ball, talking and laughing with the others she’d been with before: the healer, the tank and the skirmisher.

“Priscilla!” he shouted.

The conversation ceased, and all of them looked around. He definitely saw the words ‘what the fuck’ play out on her lips.

He turned to the rest of the guys. “Shit, we can’t hear anything she’s saying.” Then to the ball, he shouted, “It’s Dane! I need to know where you guys are! We need to get some healer cards. We don’t know where to find them. Do you guys have any spares? Please, can you help us?”

Niderhauer was staring at him. “You shouldn’t be able to use that… it’s attuned to me, dickwad.”

In the depths of the ball, Priscilla held up a finger, then turned to Rinna, the acolyte. A short exchange later, she turned back toward him. Maybe she saw a glowing ball hovering in the air above them. She clapped her hands together, motioned hard, and fell on her knees.

“What…”

She stood up, held up a finger for him again, then put her hands together and fell to her knees once more. She closed her eyes and pantomimed–

“Prayer!”

Thumbs up from Priscilla. Dane pulled his hand off the crystal ball and turned to the lieutenant.

“Sir, get on your knees.”

***

Lieutenant Daniels was not at all receptive to the idea of praying for cards.

“Listen laddie, all them cards we got’s is fine.”

“Sir–”

“Won’t work,” Niederhauer said. He was on his knees in the prayer position. “Watch. Dear Lord, please give us the healing cards we need to get the LT here his position as the party healer, so we can do Your work in blasting these sonsabitches back to the dark ages and put the world back the way it’s supposed to go with no portals or nothing. Amen.” He opened his eyes and looked back over at Dane. “See? Nothing.”

“If we want to have a shot at surviving–”

“Won’t do it, sonny jim,” Daniels said.

“–we need you to ask for God to grant that power.”

“Negative.”

“Nobody else can do this, Lieutenant.”

“That’s a noo.”

“A new?” he asked. Never mind. Time was wasting. “Why not?”

“Ah’m Catholic.”

“I… don’t see what that has to do with any–”

“I canna do it maself, lad. Only an ordained priest can perform the blessing.”

Dane stared into his eyes, hard. He put a hand on either of the LT’s shoulders, and got in real close.

“If you don’t do this, we all die. That’s–”

It was possible a light bulb appeared over his head. Dane suddenly broke off, headed over to a nice spot, and had a seat. He immediately closed his eyes, and put his hands comfortably in his lap.

“What’re ya–”

“I’ll do it myself,” he said. He was an atheist, or had been until right this very moment. But he had a bit of a hunch this might work.

“But yeh… got the… eagle thing. All yer heals’ll be gadgets.”

“Not nearly as good as the magic heals from that tiger guy, sure, but we have no choice. Either I do this or you do.”

“Ah bloody ‘ell,” the LT cursed, and headed over to a nearby rock, perched himself on it, and closed his eyes as well.

Dane watched. And watched.

And watched more.

He got to the point where he closed his eyes, started praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for some spaghetti-based inspiration and healing cards. Any port in a storm, as his daddy used to say. He could’ve sworn he heard some far off heavenly squishing of noodles and sauce, when a bright light exploded over his eyelids.

They shot open, to find a god literally standing before Daniels. Maybe The God with capital letters and everything, since they were standing on earth and not the other world. The huge, glowing man knelt before Daniels and laid a hand upon his head.

Pugh’s mouth was hanging open. “Ho. Lee. Sh–”

“Don’t you dare, Corporal Bard Guard,” Guzman hissed.

The voice was heavy with thunder and purpose and righteousness. “The Lord your God has bestowed upon you His divine gifts to carry out your mission-quest given upon you by the Thane-General, Second Lieutenant Daniels. Guard these gifts well, and use them only for the advancement of all that is Good and Right. Do you accept this stricture as given to you from the most high?”

“Augh.”

“That presumably means you do?” the godly guy asked, with just a trace of humor in his voice.

“At’s right. I def’n’ly do.”

“And should you deviate from this stricture, your punishment will be everlasting.”

Daniels nodded, and before Dane realized the figure was gone, it was already dark. The shock was enough to leave him with a case of temporary night blindness, so he tripped twice on his way over to the rock where Daniels was seated.

“Core lock the best one,” he called. “Come on, do it!”

He produced the little deck of cards he had set aside for Daniels (given he couldn’t trust any of them not to mess this up) just as the swirling golden light danced around the little man with the gigantic beard. He handed them to Daniels, and gave him a quick Inspect.

Second Lieutenant Jeremiah Daniels

Level 5 Acolyte

HP: 105/105

Dane skipped over reading the rest of the stuff he didn’t really need to know about the LT’s backstory, because seconds later the Quest pop-up appeared.

Quest Complete - I’m a Big Boy Now!

It’s a promising start. Make sure you don’t mess this up. Pro tip: seriously, healing potions. Get some.

Reward: a free level up. You’ve earned it.

Dane sank back on his butt for a second and he heaved up a big sigh. Yes, a level up and all these headstrong badasses were finally beginning to think and act like a fantasy adventuring party. He pulled in another deep breath, opened up his character sheet, and tried to see where he ought to put his two attribute points.

Then he immediately swore in frustration.

***

Once Dane attacked Niederhauer and Pugh, screamed at all of them to stop looking at their character sheets, and individually handed out permissions to spend their Attribute points, he finally relaxed and gave himself a point of Luck, and a point of Intelligence.

Then they went dungeon spelunking.

And there was no skirting around it: they performed brilliantly. Guzman cleared out practically half the dungeon by herself, but held back when it was clear she would level up faster than the rest of them. So she held back, waited for Rivera to pull aggro on any of the monsters she hadn’t brutally killed yet, and watched in awe while Rivera and Niederhauer went to work. The dragon man now used his expanded mana pool to roast enemies with fire breath, while Pugh gave them all law-inspired combat buffs.

They headed down through spiral staircases full of kobolds, just wreaking havoc on the inhabitants. Any time a mob had someone try to blow a horn or run off to alert others, Guzman rushed out and bashed their skull in with extreme prejudice. She could literally run over the walls and ceiling of a dungeon now.

Dane’s intelligence and eagle caught a handful of badly made traps that probably weren’t too much of a danger to Rivera, but they disabled them anyhow, allowing Dane to strip them for parts. Thank heavens for that, too, because kobolds had basically nothing in the way of decent loot for constructing gadgets. He got sharpened stakes, a pressure plate, lengths of rope and other goodies, on top of armor scraps aplenty.

The end of the dungeon was a kobold king they had dead in under two minutes, minions or no minions, amulet of protection or no amulet of protection. It only soaked up a limited number of HP, and the combination of Guzman’s blur of striking, Rivera’s hammering fists, and Niederhauer essentially mashing buttons made about nine different spell attacks come out at the same time. Most of them thudded into the kobold king’s dead body, and at least one of them broke the amulet.

And the beautiful thing about all of it was that the damage they took was instantly healed by Daniels, and the mana aura coming off Niederhauer kept him near full the whole time. He wasn’t needed in the front lines with his hammer, so he just shouted orders at Rivera and Niederhauer, and a bit to Pugh, which was kind of astonishing given that he couldn’t possibly remember all the cards the whole squad had on hand.

Dane mourned the loss of a magic item but conceded it hardly mattered, they were now a force capable of mowing through a dungeon. They could probably take on Prissy now, if they figured out how to work as a team, although it sounded much less awesome to think a team of hardened military vets could finally stand up to a kindergarten teacher from the greater Buffalo area… on her own. Together with her buddies, Dand was sure they still didn’t stand a chance.

They did come upon a big old puddle of gelatinous stuff in one of the antechambers, which had a whole mess of kobold bones floating through it. Dane identified it as a Gray Ooze, and noted that it was level 7, so no harm to them.

The bizarre experience with the Sentient Ooze leapt to the front of his mind, and he warned the others against killing it off. Maybe it wouldn’t matter… but it wasn’t impossible for it to come back and bite them in the ass.

Dane came up with enough components that he was forced to ask Guzman to carry some for him. Luckily, at the end of the dungeon, after the boss, they ended up with a large chest of magic items. Weirdly, or perhaps not weirdly at all, there were six items, none of which Niederhauer could identify because he didn’t have the correct build.

And because he was an idiot… but slightly less of an idiot while in combat.

Luckily for them, though, Dane had high enough ranks in Inspect that it wasn’t an issue. He immediately gave the Shock Wraps to Guzman without even looking past the lightning damage and the knockback. After that, the Amulet of Rage went right to Rivera. This enhanced his raging abilities, of course. Holy Beard Ornament went to Daniels, a large bead with Celtic knot patterns over its three faces, and he quickly had Pugh there braiding in the oversized bead into his thick tangles. Pugh attained the Badge of Honor, which was slightly less useless than it sounded, in that it upped his Charm by a degree or two. Niederhauer got himself a Dragonflame Reservoir, a masterful bit of magical engineering giving him more fire breath each day. And for Dane, the Voluminous Sack. Each item was perfectly fitted to a member of their team, an interesting factoid Dane needed to ponder more. He hoped every dungeon went like this, with them absolutely brutalizing the enemy and ending up with something specifically geared for each member of the party.

His new Sack was a drawstring bag about the size of a woman’s purse, with a curious embroidered design on each side he didn’t recognize. He would say the leafy bits made it look like a flowering plant, but the embroidery was done in a thread that constantly seemed to be either gold or, bizarrely, indigo.

He turned his Inspect to the task with his own item. With luck the others could open their character sheets and read through their own stuff.

Voluminous Sack (wondrous magical item, legendary)

Size matters, as does weight, and that’s why Harriet the Enchanter™ has brought you a quick and easy way to free up inventory space and loosen your encumbrance! Take a load off by putting your heaviest items into the Voluminous Sack. Grants the user an extra forty (40!) inventory slots, while only taking up one. All items placed within the sack weigh half a pound until removed for use, no matter how much they weighed before.

Brought to you by Harriet the Enchanter™, for all your incredibly specific magical crafting needs. Scry 500-500 to HEnchants if you too have a specifical need that would be made so much easier with the magical, fantastical knowledge Harriet is famous for.

“Huh.” He was curious about this Harriet person, but even more curious how her big ole’ sack ended up in a kobold king’s loot chest, and most curious of all about the ability to magically text people. What was that about?

He stowed these questions for later, and tried putting the eagle’s footlocker-sized carrying case to the mouth of this new bag. To his surprise, the Voluminous Sack slurped it right up.

“Nice sack you got there,” Guzman said.

Dane smiled. “It’s about the right size now, ain’t it?”

She laughed. “But seriously though, you have extra inventory space now, right? I don’t want kobold leather in my inventory.” A dozen knobbly pelts fell in his lap.