Steven’s sight came back and he was standing next to Garth at the Red Eye, fully expecting his face to explode in agony any second. He stood, breathing hard, with his face scrunched up waiting, but the pain never came.

“What’re you doing?” Garth asked, twirling his staff in his hands before storing it in his satchel.

“I was waiting for the pain,” he replied, looking over the open stony ground. He didn’t see any of the bones for the Skeletal Blend. Garth must have reset the floor.

“You didn’t die. I thought you did, however, and took my time to retrieve staff. Which, by the way, did not make it to me after your throw.”

“Your reward,” said Steven as pulled out the leg of the minotaur, offering it to Garth. “You’ve earned every last bite. I made it specially for you.”

“Is that?” Garth asked, holding up his hands and shaking his hands, “no, no thank you. Do you want to continue?” He gestured towards the Red Eye.

“Sure, but first, what did you do? You stopped shooting the paintballs and then I felt strong. Then time stopped.”

“Embolden, then awareness link. I’ve had embolden since before,” Garth paused and stayed quiet for a moment. “Since before you found me. It increases your attributes by fifteen percent. That’s not the best part. It also temporarily boosts your confidence and subdues our negative thoughts. Awareness link, now that one I got when you fought the werewolves.”

“Lycanthropes,” Steven corrected, but allowing Garth to continue.

“It sends what I see to you. For five seconds you can study my view, and then the five seconds after that, it gradually wears off. Both abilities have a long reset timer. Embolden I can use every thirty minutes. Awareness link,” he tapped on his implant and panned the holographic interface over to what Steven guessed was the abilities page. “I’m not quite sure about. It doesn’t say, so I’m timing it.”

Steven nodded, and moved over to the Red Eye. Tapping on it with his implant, he selected the dungeon floor menu and focused on the Y next to Floor 2 to initiate the transportation. He had expected to see a congratulatory screen about the bonus challenge since he was unconscious when the Skeletal Blend died, but there was nothing other than the usual teleportation nodes, with the exception of the new Floor 2.

Moments later they appeared in a bright area, causing Steven to immediately grimace and close his eyes as the contrast between the black of teleportation and the new floor caused spikes of pain. He felt himself sink a little into the ground as held his hand over his eyes to shield them as they adjusted.

The area was hot. The light breeze he felt was similar to opening an oven door after it was preheated. It smelled like a mixture of dust and copper.

He managed to get a look around when he kept one eye closed and covered, while squinting through the other. They were standing on top of a dune of sand in a vast desert. The sky was a light blue, very nearly white. There were two points of interest he could see. The dune on which they stood, containing the Red Eye sticking up from the sand, and a giant mountain around 500 meters from where they were.

“Sure beats the grey of the dungeon,” Garth said from the side, “but I could do with a little less light.” He pulled his hood up, casting a shadow over his face. “Much better.”

“Lucky,” Steven said as he squinted with his hands cupped around his eyes. “What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know. Special class floors are usually different than everyone else’s.”

They slowly made their way down the dune towards the mountain. Every step caused a small cascade of sand to tumble down the dune. He heard Garth yelp, and looked over. The man had slipped and fallen backwards.

“That’s hot!” Garth said as he brushed sand off his backside.

Steven reached down and grabbed a handful of sand. It was warm, borderline toasty, but not hot to him. He figured Garth must not have many attribute points in endurance. He was dripping with sweat, the other man must be miserable in the black robes.

The sand dune leveled off and they approached the mountain to find it was made out of sand as well. It was close to four stories tall, not as giant as it initially seemed. Steven reached out to find it was solid and crusty, like glue was holding the sand together.

“Look,” said Garth, pointing to the top of the sand mountain.

Steven saw movement near the top, and watched as several little tan critters scurry down the side of the mountain. When the critters were about halfway down, he could make out their details. They were ants, about half a foot long.

The group of ants were ten strong, and five of them had three inch long pincers on the front of their heads below two compound eyes. The other five had much smaller pincers, but had a wickedly curved stinger protruding from their backsides.

“Abdomen,” said Steven.

“What?”

“Sorry, thinking out loud. Let’s back up so I have space to identify them before they swarm us.” He said, starting to walk backwards. His increased dexterity allowed him to walk backwards up the sandy slope of the dune without trouble. He cast identify on the closest pincer ant.

Giant Desert Ant (Worker)

Mana 20

Strength - 2

Dexterity - 4

Endurance - 4

Intelligence - 1

Wisdom - 2

Mimicries - 1

Unable to absorb

“Crap, reset the floor,” he said as he watched Garth scramble up the dune. The ants were closing the distance, so Steven placed himself between the large insects and the black-clad tutor. They weren’t even remotely a threat to Steven, but he kicked at the sand to cause a small avalanche that impeded the monster’s advance.

Moments later Steven found himself in the black vacuum of the floor resetting. He squeezed his eyes shut waiting to return to the bright desert, opening his eyes slowly when he noticed the light through his eyelids.

“What’s the matter?” Garth asked, his face shrouded in the shadow of his hood.

“I think we have to disband the party,” he said, tapping on his implant to pull up the holographic interface. He turned to the contacts page and inspected it for a moment. Unable to find any information pertaining to his absorption problem, he dismissed the interface. “I can’t absorb the monsters, which you probably heard from the family heads is how I gain attributes. I think it has to be because we’re in a party. I might have to do my floors alone if I want to actually progress.”

“That’s kind of unfair. Everyone else can party up and gain mana faster that way.”

“Well. My class is kind of unfair. These ants don’t even pose a threat to me, and we’re on Floor 2. How many total attributes did you have on Floor 2?” Steven asked as he peered over the hazy sand at the giant ant hill.

“I was around level 4, so 27 total attribute points.

“I have over 70,” Steven said after some quick math in his head. “And I feel like the floors won’t even keep up with my growth. And if they do, that means I’ll just get stronger even faster.

The implications of absorbing attributes from monsters started to seem absurd to him. Over time, he’s going to easily outstrip the kind of damage the floors can dish out at him. Even if he does get multiple bonus challenges, before long they won’t even be a challenge.

“That does seem excessive. Well, that is why special classes get the special floors. Environmental factors are supposed to even the playing field. Who knows though, maybe that won’t be an issue for you,” said Garth, shrugging.

Steven watched him as he tapped on his implant and waved his hand over the hologram.

“My new room number is 200,000. Should be easy enough to remember. Come catch up when you take a break,” Garth said.

Steven watched him tap his implant against the eye and wink out of existence, leaving Steven alone in the desert with a giant ant hill.

“Well, it's time to get to it,” he said, stretching his arms above his head. “These monsters aren’t going to absorb themselves.”

He walked down the sand dune, taking less care now that he didn’t have to wait on Garth, and poked the side of the mountain of sand. Within moments the ants started crawling out of the top of the hill, and he watched as they got closer. When he could make out the two different types of ants, he cast identify on the and with the stinger.

Giant Desert Ant (Soldier)

Mana 30

Strength - 4

Dexterity - 3

Endurance - 4

Intelligence - 1

Wisdom - 1

Mimicries - 1

Smiling at the confirmation of his theory, he prepared to do battle with the ten small ants that were headed down the slope of their ant hill.