He crouched down and leaped up onto the florist’s building. The roof was flat grey stone, and Steven easily snuck along the edge without being seen by the group in the alleyway. He heard a nasally voice from below and went prone to low crawl to the edge to peek over.

“Why do you care about this man?” The nasally voice asked again. It came from the smallest member of the eight man group that had surrounded a beaten and seemingly elderly man. The small man had buzzed hair and wore a rusty chainmail hauberk that came down to his knees and cinched around his waist with a wide leather belt.

Steven figured the small man was the leader. All the others in the group wore a type of dark leather armor that seemed less protective but was more intended on concealing the wearers. None had helms or covered their faces at all.

The alleyway was close to ten feet wide, and the sun’s position only gave half of the alley any shade. Garth stood in the shadowy side, able to keep all of the ruffians in view.

Steven raised himself up to a crouch and hoped that Garth noticed him across the alley on the rooftops. Luckily, the sun was at his front, so he didn’t cast a shadow down below.

“I don’t know him. I just abhor your hobbies.” Garth replied. Steven noticed that he didn’t have his staff out.

The group of men broke into laughter. “A goody two shoes!” The leader exclaimed, gesturing to his comrades. “This is hell, fella. What’s it to you if there are a few devils around? We’re legit now, anyway.” He produced a red and gold emblem from a pocket.

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Garth asked.

“It means, we take what’s owed and give most of it to the Emperor. Tax collectors, see? I’m done talking, you’re interfering with our duties.” He smiled wide at Garth, “Roberts, Johnson, take care of the do-gooder.”

As the two men started to advance on Garth, Steven jumped off the roof towards the back of the group. He had been working on a visualization intended to simply scare the men into leaving, since he didn’t really have the capability to pull off what it implied. He cast Mimic Growth: Magic Cannon, and he burst into a cloud of red dust right before he landed in between two thugs stationed near the elderly man on the ground.

“Stop!” Steven yelled. All eyes turned on him, and everyone froze. He had turned into a mass of cannons. Each arm had four cannons, three were evenly spaced around his wrists. There was a cannon directly in the middle of the top of his wrist, and two more below on both sides of his veins. A cannon emerged from each elbow and both shoulders sprouted two more cannons each side by side. He also spawned a cannon from each side of his waist and two on the outside of each thigh.

He had an arm pointing directly at the chests of the two men he stood between, the wrist cannons trained to a single point where their hearts were. The elbow cannons pointed outward with the waist cannons, at a man on each side of the alleyway. All four of his shoulder mounted growths pointed at the face of the short leader. His thigh cannons pointed past the leader at the two men that had approached Garth. Only the final thug wasn’t covered, but Garth had produced his staff and was pointing it at him.

Now that Steven had their attention, he wasn’t sure what to do or say. Garth saved him the trouble.

“Now it’s time for you all to leave. One by one, starting with you,” he wiggled his staff at the man who wasn’t covered by a cannon.

The man at whom Garth wiggled his staff glanced at his leader, who returned the look with a grim nod, and he began to slowly sidestep down the alleyway to where the crowd of onlookers were gathered.

Garth turned to keep his staff pointed at him, and when the man was several paces further down the alley, he looked back towards the group of thugs. The man took his chance, and reached down into a pocket with incredible swiftness and pulled out a shortsword similar to the one that Steven could conjure. The man swung the sword directly at Garth’s neck, but Garth was looking directly at Steven.

The sword froze mid swing several inches away from beheading Garth. Steven knew what he had to do and ignored the image sent from the black clad tutor. He took advantage of the five seconds of frozen time to mentally push as many rock bullets into his cannons as he could. It was a weird sensation. The bullets weren’t released from the cannons, but he could feel the magic queued up inside waiting for time to move forward.

After the initial five seconds he felt the world begin to speed up slowly again, but he remained unmoving and watched as the bullets formed just outside the opening of his cannons in quick succession. He thought it was weird that they didn’t form inside the barrel. He could see very little space between each bullet after it had formed and started traveling through the air to their targets, and he hoped that his natural movement would sway the little rocks enough to not just punch through the same hole.

He wished he could do something for Garth, but he wasn’t fast enough to get a couple cannons trained on the final ruffian and shots out before the effects of the spell wore off. As time sped up a bit more, Steven saw that Garth was already ducking forward.

Had Garth predicted this would happen? Steven didn’t have much time to think about it as he felt the effects of the spell end.

All of the small rock bullets that he had mentally pushed into the cannons burst out almost at once. The men who he had pointed his arms at had holes where their hearts should be. They fell straight down with surprised looks on their faces. The two other men closer to the sides of the alley were clutched at random holes that appeared in their abdomens and chests while they fell screaming to the ground.

Steven’s aim hadn’t been as pinpoint on them and had likely punctured through their lungs and stomach at several points. The two men that had approached Garth were in a similar situation and groaned on the ground in pain.

The leader screamed and grabbed at his face. Steven felt kind of sorry for the man. He must have had high enough endurance to not have the multitude of rock bullets poke holes through his skull, but there was enough blood pouring from his hands to know that his face was badly damaged.

A strong wave of nausea passed through Steven and he scrambled to the side of a building to vomit the remains of his latest meal. He dismissed his growths and sat down next to the puddle of sick.

He had just effectively killed six people and permanently disfigured one in the blink of an eye. Closing his eyes, he let his head relax against the wall. He knew they weren’t actually dead or hurt. They would just respawn. It was the first time Steven had actually hurt another person, and it was the act more than the consequence that bothered him.

Steven heard some murmurs and soon after heeled shoes that Garth wore approached.

“I’m sorry that turned out the way it did.” Garth said as he sat down next to him. “I expected they would just leave. Bullies generally do when someone stands up to them.”

“Only in TV shows,” Steven replied, “I’ve never hurt anyone before.” His voice cracked and he took a deep shuddering breath. “I know it sounds stupid. They can just come back, and then they’ll be butt hurt and want revenge. What problems did we solve?”

“Well, for one. The florist gets to keep his wages.”

“And they’ll just come back, and with more people. Nothing is solved.” Steven opened his eyes and looked over at Garth. “Did you see that badge? Are they really allowed to kill people and take their mana?”

“Things are different now, it seems. There are thousands of them. They used to be shunned and hidden away, only ever seen when they infiltrate someone’s floor or do something like this.” Garth gestured at the elderly man, now being cared for by another. “Mana Hunters. It’s sick.”

They watched as the man was picked up and carried around the side of the building. Steven jumped up, eyes casting around.

“Won’t they come back? I mean they probably just respawned, not far from here.”

“No,” Garth said. He stood up and brushed off his robes. “You’ve heard the term 'Might is Right'?”

“Uh. Yea, it has something to do with survival of the fittest or history is written by the victors.” Steven said as he forcibly relaxed himself. His adrenaline had returned to normal, and he shook slightly.

“In here, the dungeon specifically, the strong can do what they want, when they want.” Garth shrugged, “And they have discovered you’re strong, they won't come back until they know you’re not here. Keep in mind, they don’t know I cast a spell on you. Anyway, this mana is technically yours now.” He motioned at the motes of mana floating above the ground where the six men had died.

“Didn’t only six men die? Why are there seven mana floaties?” Steven asked.

“I mercifully granted the chainmail guy’s death. The guy that started it all, with the sword from his pocket, ran off. I imagine the crowd will bring justice upon him.”

“I still don’t like it.” Steven said, and started to walk down the alleyway towards the Red Eye. He ignored the floating mana. “The whole thing. We’re supposed to be killing dungeon floors, not other people. It’s wrong.”

Garth fell in step beside him, “It’s only wrong when it’s pointless. I think anyway. What you did was in defense of others. And that was necessary. Mana hunters are sadists. They could just murder and take the mana, but instead they were beating and torturing the man, knowing he’ll suffer even more when he respawned.”

“That’s something I wanted to ask about.” Steven said as they neared the eye. “How does the pain attribute work? Really all the attributes. I didn’t do my diligence when I could when selecting my class. I just looked at strength and intelligence. I didn’t want to make myself dumber if I took the swordsman class.”

Garth hesitated a moment and reached into his satchel. He pulled out a green canteen and offered it to Steven.

“Thanks,” Steven said and took a sip. His eyebrows shot up and he stared at the canteen. “Is this Tang?!”

“Sure is.” Garth said, “You probably should get yourself a canteen too. Maybe not for Tang, but it’s good to have some supplies. You said you were going to take me somewhere?”

“Oh, yea, I forgot about that.” Steven said and tapped on the Red Eye to initiate teleportation to Floor 2.

They waited for the teleportation to complete before they continued the conversation.

“The pain attribute is only in play when you respawn.” Garth said as he covered his head with his hood. “When you go up in floor and level, your pain attribute is increased. It is different for each class. My pain increases by point two every level, and every floor it is increased by point one.”

Steven hadn’t really been thinking about where they were going and had his eyes wide open when they appeared in the bright dusty desert. He had his eyes squeezed shut and was trying to work them open slowly as they adjusted to the light level.

“That’s like mine, but I don’t have levels.” He replied. “And I’m sorry. I brought you here for mana and levels. Didn’t even think to ask you if you wanted to. I had forgotten that levels also increase pain.”

“Honestly, it’s the single most common reason a person quits progressing their floors. It’s too painful. Most people only end up around level twenty or thirty before they give up. They can gain a few more levels through mana beads, and as long as they continue to take in mana they won’t wither.” Garth continued, “but it's hard to keep up the motivation to continue the floors when the pain increases the way it does.”

“Well, my head hurts now, so why don’t we go and decrease your motivation a bit. I’ve got a new element to try.”