“Huh,” said Hildi. “I wasn’t expecting any great enthusiasm, but even so, I’m kind of disappointed. What’s so bad about my status sheet.”

“Well,” said Jake. “You’re a week into the apocalypse and you don’t have a class yet and you’re sitting at level zero. Your stats are good, but girl, you’ve got to be grinding in this world. Those men that were chasing you, they were probably 5th or 6th level. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to push a lot harder. What’s your title do?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “How do I find out?”

“Focus on it,” Jake said. “That how I get information. At least the little bit the Bobs allow me.”

She did and another menu must have popped up because she said, “Hmm, that’s not bad.”

“What does it say,” Jake asked. She must have shared that menu too, because suddenly, Jake could view it.

Be bold! Soul Bond Formed. Experience earned.

First Bonded: As the first person to enter into a Soul Bond you’ve been granted the title, “First Bonded.” This title grants you the following permanent benefits. +2 Wisdom and Intelligence, +10% to all experience gained, +2 attribute points gained per level, + 2 skill point gained per level. The title cannot be unequipped.

As you elected to enter into a greater bond, this title’s benefits have been increased.

“Crap!” said Jake.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, that bit about greater bonds. That means that we did something stupid,” said Jake.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Well, maybe we could have specified a time limit or even how we’d help each other. Maybe we could have reduced the penalty, or even made the bond be removable by mutual consent or something. But we didn’t, so I guess we’re in it for the long haul.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I tend to leap. I trust my intuition a lot. I guess you don’t?”

“I’m pretty much a planner. Intuition and I were never friends,” Jake said.

“We’ll just have to see, but I still feel good about the decision,” she said.

“So do I,” Jake rushed to answer. He just wished he’d had a little more time to think about it before he essentially married a ginger. But he didn’t say that, not being stupid.

There was a pause then while they both reflected on their recent actions. Baxter let out a sigh and said, “Jake snack.”

“What?” said Hildi.

“He wants a snack. I make him loot snacks. Here I’ll show you.” He concentrated and produced a miniaturized version of the Red Meat Drumstick snack.

“Small snack,” said Baxter.

“You’re small now, you don’t need a big snack,” Jake replied.

“Still owe,” said Baxter before settling in and beginning to nosh on his drumstick. It was only small in a relative sense. It was about as large as Baxter’s dachshund body. It also only cost a third of the mana of a regular snack.

“Ok,” said Jake.

Hildi looked puzzled, but Jake decided not to spend the time explaining it. “Select your class,” he told her.

“How do I do that?” she said.

“Focus on classes and see what happens,” Jake said. He wondered if he could get a class. Maybe so, he needed to try once she and Baxter were gone.

She focused, Jake could tell because she always seemed to shrug her shoulders up a couple of times, blow out a stream of air and bring her fingers together right in front of her face. He didn’t remember her sister doing that, so he wrote it off as a peculiarity of the new generation. Maybe she thought it would help with mana manipulation or something.

“Ok,” she said. “I’ve got a list here. Let me share it.” She did and this menu appeared in front of Jake’s vision:

Current Classes Available

Monk Fighter Mage Scholar Wench Alchemist Chef Drudge

“Wench?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said blushing. “I must have got that one because of last summer. I worked at the Castle in Muscogee, a Ren Faire. That was my official title: ‘Serving Wench’:

“Ok, let’s forget about that one,” Jake said. “Scholar from school, Chef and Drudge from housework, again we can forget about all them. So that leaves Monk, Fighter, Mage, and Alchemist. Alchemist is a potion maker, I guess?

“In oriental stories they also make pills,” she said.

“Can you be more than one class,” Jake asked.

Her eyes seemed to defocus in the way that Jake was coming to understand meant she was concentrating on her system, and then she said, “Yes.”

“Ok,” Jake said. “Monk?” he asked.

“I took Wing Chun from a local organization. They were kind of like the Boy Scouts except they were into community stuff and taught Chinese Kung Fu. I miss my team. The group started in Tulsa.”

“Alchemist?” asked Jake.

“I make my own essential oils and soaps. It’s a hobby.” She paused and then said, “What do you think?”

Jake thought for a second and then said, “You should do three classes: Alchemist, Monk, and Mage.”

“Three?” she said. “One of the problems with multi-classes in D&D was they took forever to level up. Won’t I have the same problem? And why Monk instead of Fighter? And Alchemist?”

“Here’s why I think you should do it. You have this energy called Qi in your body. Your classes should use that. I’m not sure which classes use it, but since both the Monk and the Alchemist have oriental roots, at least the stories do, we can maximize your chances of getting the ability. Mage’s use mana, that’s a big deal. At least for me and you.”

“What do you mean,” she asked.

“Remember our bonding agreement? It said we could transfer Qi and Mana back and forth between the two of us. That could be a huge win for us. You could be my mana battery and I could be your Qi source,” Jake said.

She paused and was evidently looking at her system again. “We could add on classes too,” she said.

“Where are you getting this information, anyway?” Jake asked.

“The help files,” she answered.

“You get help files?” he asked.

“Yes, don’t you?” she answered.

“No,” he answered. “The Bobs in their infinite wisdom decided not to allow dungeons to have access to the help system. What I have in my help files are things that I’ve figured out.”

“Oh!” she said and then paused and thought for a bit, “well, I guess that makes sense.”

“What?” Jake exploded. “What about that makes sense.”

“Look,” she said. “You’re a rock with powers. Sorry, but that’s what you are. I don’t know how long you are going to live, but probably a long time. If you started off with all the information that humans did, you could easily take over the world. You’d also avoid some mistakes that if you were greedy or power-mad, you’d make. Mistakes that would give us humans a chance to, well defeat you. Or at least make us aware that you’re greedy or power-mad. So good. There it is. That’s why I think the Bobs did it that way. At least, one of the reasons.”

Shortly afterward, she said, “Oh wow! Cool.”

Jake watched as her intelligence and wisdom clicked up by one. If he’d had teeth he’d have gnawed them to the gum lines by now. “Are you done? Because we’ve got to get moving? So, what do you want to do?” asked Jake sullenly.

“Don’t get pissy with me, dungeon boy!” she said. “You asked. I told you. And the Bobs agree, so chill!

Jake was glad that he didn’t have a human body right then. He figured he’d be raging about now. But he didn’t, so he moved on.

“Ok,” she said, looking at her system. “Done.”

Status

Name

Hildi Brown

Level

1

Class(es)

Monk, Mage, Alchemist

Titles: First Bonded!

Attributes

0

Skill Points

10

Strength

20

Intelligence

26

Dexterity

22

Wisdom

23

Agility

23

Perception

20

Constitution

18

Charisma

19

Vitality

19

Luck

21

AC

4

Health:

135

Mana:

100

Qi:

100

Stamina:

117

He wasn’t used to Hildi’s speed of operating. Jake would have made a list by now, maybe a brain map, still been in the midst of agonizing over the decision, Hildi just did.

“Feel good about the decision?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said. “Or else I wouldn’t have made it. I feel and then I do. It drove my dad insane.”

“Imagine that,” Jake said dryly.

Hildi shot a glance at his core but decided to let it go.

“Didn’t you have some extra points to assign,” Jake asked. “You did go up a level.”

“I did,” she said. “My perception was low and since two of my classes had perception as a secondary attribute, I threw all the points into it.”

Once again, Jake was surprised at the hurricane that was Hildi. He shook it off though. “So, big or little on crossbow? You know what, never mind. With your strength, dexterity, and agility you can handle the biggest damn crossbow in the world. You are stronger than any man I’ve ever seen before.”

He thought for a second, used his Loot Pattern skill and then followed it up with the Loot Creation skill and there was a crossbow sitting on the floor of the room.

“Hmm!” Jake said.

“Hmm, what?” Hildi asked.

“Well, I have a crossbow, an Excalibur Crossbow Matrix SMF Grizzly. It’s made out of modern plastics and metal. Has a camouflage grip and body, a scope on it, a quiver on the side. I tried to make a copy of my crossbow. That isn’t it. That is more like a, well, my dad had a crossbow that he had would sometimes use, an Avalanche TrailBlazer. It was pretty much all wood and fiberglass. Didn’t have a scope on it. Didn’t have a quiver. That crossbow there is closer to my dad’s Avalanche crossbow than what I was trying for. I have no idea why that happened. But the limb is made out of metal, instead of fiberglass.”

“Will it work?” she asked.

“Should,” Jake answered. “Let me get you some bolts and you can try in the corridor outside.” He concentrated, used his two skills and once again there was a neatly bundled, small quiver of crossbow bolts next to the crossbow on the floor.”

“Hmm!” Jake said again.

“Different than you were expecting?” Hildi asked.

“Yep, but they should work,” he said. “Do you know how to use one?” he asked.

“Load, point and shoot?” she answered.

“Well, with your stats, that may be all the instruction you need. Remember, don’t fire it without a bolt on it. You’ll ruin it. And keep your fingers out of the path of the string. Got it? I’ll set up a target for you here in a minute.”

“Next up is your daggers,” he said. Once again, he concentrated, used his two skills and a dagger appeared, followed by a second one smaller one. Neither was a straight blade, actually, he’d actually tried to re-create a blade he’d found online. A kukri which was a kind of Nepalese machete. He looked at Hildi and she seemed ok with it, so he left it alone. The smaller one was about 40 centimeters long, the other was about 50. Both made from a black steel, their handles were some kind of ebony wood. He liked the little Cho on the blade.

Finally, he took a stab at the armor. He didn’t know what the armor should look like but he figured that something like what cat woman would wear would do? He made a pattern with short ankle-high boots with thick, rubber soles, then created a form-fitting leather armor with a silk undergarment to go with it. The armor was padded at the shins, thighs, belly, breasts, forearms, and biceps and he put a small series of steel plates underneath the padding. He tried to cover the spine and the back of the neck with a chain of linked plates. It looked a little like something a modern SWAT team might wear if they didn’t have kevlar. Of course, it was black.

He also created two long throwing spikes that she could stick in her long hair to create a bun on the top of her head. He figured that she might need something. Besides, it looked cool when the ninjas babes threw them in the movies. And, you know, she could always stab someone with them.

He explained all this to her and he could see her thinking it through. She picked up the armor and looked it over pretty carefully. She seemed at least moderately pleased with it. When she held it up to herself, she was actually kind of shocked at how well the armor looked like it would fit.

“Dungeon boy, something you want to tell me about this?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, perfectly truthfully.

“I mean this seems like it would fit. Really well. How did you do that?” she said.

“Dungeon powers activate! Shape of armor!” he said.

She glared at his core for a few seconds and he could see that she still had something to say, but she must have swallowed it because she just gathered up all the armor and stepped out into the dark, to her, hallway. “I’m changing out here,” she said. “I expect all dungeon eyes to be pointed elsewhere.”

They were. Mostly. Ok, they weren’t. Jake was aware of everything that was going on in his dungeon at all times, which, in this case, happened to include a red-headed, human female with blue eyes and freckles. Some in interesting places. He was both interested and, curiously, not. He thought it boiled down to his current lack of glands. ‘She is hot,’ he thought, but at the same time, that’s where the thought stopped. In a real way, it made him sad to realize just how much he’d changed since becoming a dungeon. He missed the chemical rush.

Finally, she walked back into the dimly lighted room and said, kind of embarrassedly, “I think it fits pretty good. What do you think?”

Baxter looked up from his snack and said, “Girl slick? Skin black!”

Jake thought his dog did a pretty good job of telling it like it is. The leather or material that Jake had used to create the armor was black and almost iridescent. She looked a little like she had covered herself in slightly glowing oil. The armor fit well.

“What’s your AC?” he said.

“AC?” she asked.

“Armor Class. Isn’t that a D&D thing? It said it right on the bottom of your status screen, right above your health points.

“15,” she said.

“Cool,” Jake said. “There’s an 11 point difference between you before the armor and you now, so, good job me! I guess. I guess standard clothes are about a four, no higher than that.”

“Well, D&D works the other way,” she said. “Lower’s better! By the way, thanks for all this.”

“No problem,” Jake said. “We’re bonded now. I guess what’s mine is yours.”

She blushed then. Being a redhead, it was impossible for her to hide it. She stood there for a few long seconds seeming to be thinking about something, but then she said, “You mentioned a range.”

“Hang on a second,” Jake said. He started casting light circles, just like the one in the room down the hallway. Every four meters another circle of light appeared on both sides of the hallway.

After the eighth time he used the skill he got a notification:

‘Bout time you lit the place. Remember, you ain’t the only one living here anymore. Experience gained.

Skill Level Gained

Create Light

Rank: Bronze

Level 2

Choose:

Minus 5 mana to use skill

He selected Option A and not for the first time wondered why the Bobs were giving him a one choice option. Maybe if he had done something else, he’d have other options he thought, but he didn’t know what he could have done and decided not to worry about it anymore. It’s probably their subtle way of telling him that he’s screwing up or doing something wrong. Or it could be their way of passing on messages. He didn’t think that anything they said, could be discounted. That line, ‘remember, you ain’t the only one living here anymore’ probably meant something. He just wasn’t sure what.

He used the skill another eighteen times and the hallway was lit from end to end. Then he raised a wooden target about 15 meters down the corridor and put some light circles on its face. Each circle centered on and surrounded the next smaller one. The circles glowed with a pale yellow light and where they overlapped the light was brighter, so the smallest circle in the center of the target was almost too bright to look at.

“Ok,” he said. “Target’s ready, the range is ready.”

She had picked up the crossbow and examined it thoroughly. Her high dexterity was obvious. Her hands seemed to almost caress the crossbow, learning its secrets with their touch. Her face looked down, a slight crease between her eyebrows, and then, the crossbow was loaded, shouldered and fired.

“Huh,” she said. “I got a new skill, ‘Archery’. Cool!”

Jake thought back to all the lessons that he’d had to sit through with his dad before his dad would even let him touch the crossbow and sighed internally. ‘I guess stats make a difference, genius and high dexterity. Probably not much she can’t learn to do craftwise or skillwise. Good thing she’s mine!’ That last bit took him by surprise. He resolved to think about it later.

Of course, the first shot missed, spangling off the wall and vanishing down the hallway. The second did too, the third hit the target, by the 20th bolt, most of them were in the first or second light circle.

“Ok,” she said. “I’ve got this,” gesturing with the now unloaded crossbow. “Now, I need a way to carry both it and my knives and I’m ready to get out of here.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to practice more? At greater range? The range you’ve practiced at is basically the range you can expect to hit at with a crossbow. I can make you a new target 30 meters, 45 meters?” Jake asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m good. I’ve got to get back to my little bro. I told him that I’d be gone for a couple of hours and to stay inside the house. It’s been over 5 hours now and it’ll take me about two and a half hours to get back. I need to go now.”

“Ok,” Jake said. “But remember, you’ve got the stats of an olympian now. You can run 3.06-minute kilometers for hours if you had too. Baxter can keep up I’m sure. You’ll be home in about 36 minutes. We’ve got time enough to make sure you’re safe.”

“Thanks, Jake,” she said. “But with Baxter, if he’s as good a protector as you said, I won’t have any problems, but I need to go. Now!”

“Ok,” said Jake. Four patterns created and four uses of his loot creation skill, two kukri sheaths, a belt and a copy of his old Tenpoint HCA-004 crossbow sling appeared in front of her. All made of the same iridescent, oil-like leather that made up her armor.

She picked them up and said, “I get the quasi-divine part of what the Bobs were saying now too,” before she studied them briefly, hummed a little bit and then slipped them on correctly.

“You ready Baxter!” she said.

“Yes! Let’s go!” said Baxter.

“Are you going to be safe, Jake?” she asked. “After all if Baxter is coming with me, all you have is a rat.”

“Oh,” he said. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got others to protect me now.” And he did, now, after running his Create Monster skill and producing a Giant Rattlesnake. The snake stretched down the corridor about 10 meters long. Its head, where it lifted it to look over the girl and the dog, was easily 56 cm across. Its tongue flickering out of its mouth was over 10 cm in width.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a big, pretty snake!”

Jake was a little taken aback, he expected another scream or some similar reaction. He didn’t expect that she’d calmly look at the snake. “Aren’t you afraid?” he said.

“It startled me,” she said. “When it first showed up, I thought, holy crap! But then I remembered where I was and knew I was safe. Plus, I can feel him, he’s curious about us, he’s not angry or excited, just wondering what we’re doing.”

“Huh,” Jake said. “Get out of here then. Remember, get your brother, find my family and bring them all back to me. Ok?”

“That was our deal,” she said. “And I mean to live by it!”