On metafauna.

Metafauna has quickly become one of the more pressing concerns in the post manifestation world. Animals which gain powers can threaten towns and even cities, disrupt transport and travel and even alter ecosystems almost as much as metaregions. The saving grace is we can generally kill or otherwise deal with metafauna. Metafauna can often be found in or nearby metaregions, or metamaterials.

Cassie was surprised enough by Dozza swearing that she had to ask.

"What's got you so chuffed Dozza?"

Dolphin held up the Rod Of Identify.

"This. It identifies things it touches. Look."

He hands the Rod to Cassowary.

“Huh. Does anybody else see this screen in front of me?” Cassie questioned the others.

After they confirmed that only the person using the Rod could see the item description, Cassie tapped Alphonse's flail identifying the weapon as a

[

{A low quality flail, made of a leaden head attached to a wooden haft by a leather cord.

Materials: Iead, wood, leather}]

Curious, she then gave the bulky teen a tap on the head.

[ NAME

Alphonse Staghorn

TITLE

The Bold

CONDITION

Health - Slightly Injured

Stamina - Tired

Status - None

EQUIPMENT

Worn- Shirt, Pants, Bandage, Socks, Shoes, Underwear,

Held- Keys,Phone, Walet^, Flail, Sports Bag^

ABILITIES

]

“What the fuck Al when did you get a title?”

“Yesterday. Didn’t I tell you? Also you can see my status screen? I can’t even see my status screen. What’s it say? ”

Cassowary listed off Big Al’s Status, before noticing something wrong with the screen hovering over the rod itself.

“Why’s it down to six charges? I only identified two things.”

“Itself. It identifies itself when you pick it up. One for me, two for you, three for the flail and four for Al.” Said Donga.

Benji did some quick maths.

“That means as long as Cassie uses it we can identify each of us, plus the bracers and the knife plus one last thing. Hold on. I'll write it down on my phone. Al what were your stats?”

“Ahh They were pretty general I think? I had my name, The Bold as a title, normal health and stuff and three skills. , and .”

Cassie took the opportunity to repeat the entire screen, which was still hovering above Alphonse, though it had faded slightly.

“Okay. Cass what did the flail get?”

“I don’t remember exactly? It was just a basic description of a flail. I didn’t notice any plus ones or anything in there.”

“Okay. Well try it on yourself. Maybe it won’t work since you’re already touching it.”

Cassie tapped herself on the head and Big Al’s screen disappeared as another popped up above Cassowary.

[ NAME

Cassowary Herschel

TITLE

CONDITION

Health - Healthy

Stamina - Tired

Status - None

EQUIPMENT

Worn- Shirt, Jeans, Socks, Shoes, Sports Underwear, Sports Underwear, Leather Vambraces,

Held- Keys,Phone, Walet^, Lip Gloss, Rod of Identify

ABILITIES

]

After she recited this for Benjamin to copy down he had her do the same for Dolphin and Benji himself.

[ NAME

Benjamin Everton

TITLE

CONDITION

Health - Slightly Injured

Stamina - Tired

Status - None

EQUIPMENT

Worn- Shirt, Pants, Socks, Shoes, Underwear,

Held- Keys,Phone, Walet^, First aid kit, Long Knife

ABILITIES

]

[ NAME

Dolphin Herschel

TITLE

CONDITION

Health - Healthy

Stamina - Tired

Status - Nauseous

EQUIPMENT

Worn- Shirt, Jeans, Socks, Boots, Underwear,

Held- Phone, Walet^, Cricket Bat,

ABILITIES

]

After Benjamin noted down Delver's stats screens, Cassowary identified the knife and the vambraces.

{ A decent knife sharpened on one side with a blade length of 100cm. Material: Steel, Wood}

{ Protective leather armour for the forearms. Material: Leather}

“Only one use left. What should we use it on?” Asked Cassie.

“Use it on your shoes, please. I want to see if it can identify normal non-dungeon stuff.” replied Benji.

She tapped her shoes with the rod.

{A pair of A$+== BraNd Shoes. Materials: *#&Y%%A#, #*)[email protected]~[email protected]%}

“It’s just a garbled mess. It has, like error text for the materials section and such. It does say that they’re shoes though.” Said Cassie in some confusion.

Benji hummed in thought.

“So a partial read then? Well that’s interesting.”

“What does it mean?” Asked Big Al.

“I have no idea. Probably that there's some complicated limit to the rod or the metaregion we’re in. Maybe it can only identify things from the dungeon and it only gives gibberish for everything else. C’mon let's leave. I’m hungry and there's nothing left to do here.”

The teenagers left the little circle they had gathered in while using the rod and moved towards the exit.

As they passed by the Entrance Pillar it flashed and a message popped up in front of their faces.

[Hello There! You just completed the tutorial level of the dungeon! This has unlocked the Status and the Party panels for your Crest. To open these simply place one hand on your Crest and say either “Party” or “Status”. Use your other hand to navigate the panels. You can toggle passive skills from your Status panel.

This Crest feature requires two hands.

This Crest feature can only be used in the Dungeon.

You may unlock further Crest features with specific achievements.

You may unlock further Crest features with specific skills.

You may unlock further Crest features with specific items.

Congratulations!]

"What bullshit is this?" Asked Alphonse.

"We just wasted four charges of that rod on this. Fuck!"

"Well at least we can check our stat's without it now. That's pretty useful." Responded Benji calmly.

"Ugh. Fine. Let's go get something to eat. I want burgers."

"No, we should get sushi. Down at that place near the station." Cassie disagreed.

Bickering about what to eat, the group left the dungeon.

With a groan Mickey finally pushed as much of the accumulated Psi energy into the dungeon space as he could, expanding the potential size of his pocket dimension. The relief that came from letting go of so much energy was almost blissful.

He had intended to conduct more experiments to test how his newfound power worked but he was simply too exhausted from holding the excess psi energy.

The full body ache and pounding, nauseating migraine reminded him that he had seriously overexerted himself with this delve. But with the exercise would come more strength and if he couldn't handle this he wouldn't be able to make any significant progress.

After setting the obstacle reward pillar to give a random skill from , or Mickey decided to leave the combat room empty until he had recovered.

Making his way to bed he sent a text to Elanore letting her know he had a migraine and would be resting