Vasily Mahanenko

Yuri Vinokuroff

The Selected

Book One

A LitRPG Action Adventure Series

Published by Magic Dome Books

The Selected

Book # 1

Copyright © Vasily Mahanenko, Yuri Vinokuroff 2025

Cover Art © DrakArt Studio 2025

Cover designer: Vladimir Manyukhin

English translation copyright © Philip Parker 2025

Published by Magic Dome Books, 2025

ISBN: 978-80-7693-986-8

All Rights Reserved

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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Table of Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About The Authors

Chapter 1

HI, MY NAME’S MAX and I’m one of the Selected.

That’s the sort of phrase you’d normally hear in a close-knit circle of struggling former addicts, but there’s no other way to begin. Yes, I’m one of the Selected. And if you think that sounds cool, you’re in for a disappointment. There’s nothing cool about it. Because… Well, because there just isn’t.

It all started twenty years ago, when a huge space object appeared not far from the Moon. People were excited by the idea of encountering an alien intelligence and sent up a contact group. They didn’t get any answer and they couldn’t get inside the object, so eventually everyone lost interest.

Exactly one year later, a thousand people went missing from Earth. People of all different ages, nationalities, and faiths. Why they were taken, nobody knew, but everybody could see where they were taken to. The blue columns of light in the sky that carried up the selected people at terrifying speed made it quite clear what their final destination was.

People got scared and sent another “contact group” — roughly half the contents of the world’s nuclear arsenals. Even this didn’t elicit the slightest response, although the entire “contact group” vanished soon after leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.

Exactly one year later, the situation repeated itself, and the Earth lost another thousand people. Then another. Then a thousand more every year. People got used to it, and the rest of the time the object went on ignoring contact groups and did absolutely nothing. As a species, humans will get used to anything. So it went on for twenty years, and everyone gradually resigned themselves to this unavoidable evil. The only thing our world did somehow manage to achieve was that the Selected now got notification that they would soon be sent off on their selected business.

Today, all my messaging services lit up with the news that I have been Selected. One of only a thousand people. But as I say, there’s nothing cool about it. It means that in two hours, I will disappear, and there’s no hiding from it. Not that I really have anywhere to hide. Besides, there’s no point. Jumping out of the window, as some other Selected have done, is a dumb move too — a thousand people will still leave Earth, they’ll just select somebody else. And they’ll have even less time to make peace with their selectedness. There is one thing that cheers me up, though — there aren’t any animals in space, so at least I’ll get some relief from my terrible allergies. When the blue glow starts to appear around me, I’ll be ready…

Hi, my name’s Max and I’m one of the Selected. Now I just have to find out what that actually means…

* * *

SYSTEM INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL

Subject: Human, Planet 527

System designation: 527-20887

Local name: unidentified

Planet for employment: Х-592

As soon as the blue glow lifted me off the ground, I lost consciousness. Then it came back with these unpleasant messages. I was lying with my eyes closed on something hard, but that didn’t stop the text appearing in front of me, printed directly in my brain. This didn’t particularly disturb me — I’ve used VR headsets plenty, so messages appearing in front of my eyes were nothing new. But what I didn’t like was the meaning of those messages. More exactly, I didn’t like one specific word: employment. The way I see it, the word “selected” loses a lot of its glamor when directly followed by “for employment”. However, the aliens didn’t seem to agree. Had we all been kidnapped just to work? What kind of insane intergalactic headhunting was this?

“It’s our pleasure to welcome a new member of the family on board these living quarters,” said a pleasant female voice. I opened my eyes to see a translucent projection of an attractive girl. She looked like a model straight off the cover of a glossy magazine. An expensive magazine too, you didn’t get such perfect features on the cheap ones. The projection had a warm smile and looked absolutely nothing like the scary aliens that had been presented in so many movies on our world. Over twenty years, people hadn’t just imagined what they looked like, it had been officially confirmed. But what I was seeing looked nothing like the official version. Her skin wasn’t green, she didn’t have scales, and there were no antennae sticking out of her head. Everybody lies!

I was in a small room that looked like a cheap cabin on a no-frills ferry. A metal door, a hard bed, a chair, a few square feet of space, and that was it! Pure minimalism, and not the fashionable kind. The same applied to the clothes I was wearing — loose beige pants and a one-size T-shirt. I didn’t have any shoes, and the metal floor was chilling my feet. They had at least given me underwear, although it looked like it could’ve been handed out by a charity for the elderly. I’d only ever seen baggy shorts like the ones I was wearing once before, when my grandpa dug out an old pair to put on a scarecrow. Now I was the scarecrow.

“The gathering for newcomers chosen for employment on Planet X-592 will be held in twenty minutes,” the projection continued, and it really seemed like the projection was talking, not some speaker hidden off to the side somewhere. “You will require fifteen minutes to reach the general hall and take your seat. As you have not collapsed in hysterics, you have five minutes for questions. I am here to answer them. Ask away.”

“Why me?” That was the question that was disturbing me most.

“Because you are Subject 527-20887,” was the no less disturbing answer.

“Why am I Subject 527-20887?”

“Because that is your system designation. Your local name remains unidentified.”

I tried a different approach: “What am I doing here?”

“Preparing for employment on Planet X-592.”

“What will my employment involve?”

“The collecting of silirium.” Finally, the smiling projection had told me something I didn’t already know.

“What is silirium?”

“The material that you will be collecting on Planet X-592.”

“What is it used for?”

“For the functioning of the System.”

“What is the System?”

“The System is what gave you your number and is preparing you for your employment on Planet X-592.”

“Are you sure you came here to give me answers?” I was getting angry now.

“I’ve answered all the questions you asked me. If the answers are unsatisfactory, you should choose your questions more carefully. You have two minutes and thirty seconds remaining. Should we continue?”

“What happens if I refuse to collect silirium?” I was interested to know what would happen if I refused to become an intergalactic slave — as far as I could tell, that was the role I’d been assigned here: to work, keep quiet, and be satisfied with one-word answers.

“You will be recognized as an untrustworthy member of our family and eliminated as an unproductive element.”

My desire to ask any more questions had suddenly vanished. Although what was I expecting? Did I really think being selected would mean bathing in hot springs, eating delicacies, and making out with hot girls like the hologram? That wasn’t the world I was born into. At least, not if you didn’t earn it first. That was the one hope I had, and without it the life in front of me looked utterly miserable. Surely there’d be opportunities to excel. There had to be, right?

The projection of the girl kept watching me in silence for a while and then disappeared. The metal door opened, and an arrow appeared in the floor showing me which way to move. It needn’t have bothered, as the corridor directly outside my door was already packed with people. Men, women, kids… Wait, kids? As far as I knew, nobody under the age of eighteen had been taken from our world. As I understood it, the aliens had no use for child labor. But I could clearly see a child moving in the crowd. Although was that really a child? More like a bearded tree stump with arms that looked thicker than my ex’s waist. Don’t get me wrong, she’d been gorgeous once upon a time — like one of those hot Latin girls with huge, erm, potential. But then something went wrong. After we broke up, she joined the ample ranks of a body positive group for ladies called Over 180 — pounds, not IQ points — so I’m talking serious heft.

The dwarf moved with the general mass, his eyes fixed straight ahead, paying no attention to anything else. In fact, hardly anyone in the crowd was glancing around the way I was. They were missing out. I soon realized that it would be hard to call the stream of creatures flowing past me human. Talk about diversity! There were bearded dwarves, massive stone giants, reptilians covered in scales, hairy yetis, and some other absurd-looking creatures, let’s call them dickimora, common or garden. I came up with that name right there, just to stop myself going crazy. This parade of freaks did have some things in common, though — two legs, two arms, and one head. There were no thoraxes or feelers in sight.

As I joined the general flow, my head kept swinging from side to side, taking in my neighbors. The vast majority looked like they were sleepwalking. Or, recalling my conversation with the hologram, stuffed to the gills (some of them did have gills) with some kind of sedative. After all, everyone there had been “selected”, torn abruptly out of their normal life. However, there were others who didn’t seem completely overwhelmed. I encountered some of them when the general flow carried me into a tight space.

“Get your hands off me, you dirty creep!” The pretty voice belonged to an incredibly attractive girl. Petite to the point of fragility, she nonetheless had all her feminine charms. Even the standard-issue beige sacks we were wearing couldn’t hide her amazing body, just as the long golden hair flowing down to her waist couldn’t hide her long, pointed ears. One look at them sent a wave of excitement through my guts. An elf! A real elf, straight out of my most lurid erotic fantasies!

I wasn’t just me that had noticed the girl’s beauty. There were two others that stood out abruptly from the general crowd. These were the first creatures I’d seen that had footwear and, no less significantly, weren’t wearing the beige sacks the rest of us had on. These two were dressed in suits of leather with metal buckles that would’ve seemed more appropriate for warriors in a medieval battle than guests on an alien space station. They completed the look with the sheaths of long daggers which hung from their belts. Laughing, these two surrounded the elf girl, loudly discussing her charms. When the girl tried to get past them and disappear into the crowd, they pushed her roughly up against the wall.

“Nobody said you could go, zero!” said one of them angrily. “Be grateful that members of the Celestial Clan have even noticed you! Act docile and obedient and you won’t have any problems in our world. But start making trouble and you’ll be in so much shit you’ll have to sell your ass just to survive. Understood?”

I knew what I had to do in an instant. Blending into the crowd and shuffling past like nothing was happening wasn’t an option. Even if these guys were the Selected of the Selected, they couldn’t get away with acting like that. Otherwise, they’d eventually lose all control and turn into complete psychos. Alright, now I was just making excuses. The elf girl was hot, and I wanted her. What better way to make her acquaintance?

“I don’t think this girl wants your company,” I said, taking a few fast paces toward the group. I don’t like fighting, but I’ve never run away from a fight either. In the neighborhood where I grew up, fighting was the way you made peace. If you knew how to fight, nobody bothered you. If you didn’t, you were everybody’s punching bag. I’m not proud of my troubled youth, but I was never a punching bag. I even signed up for boxing classes so I could get the skills I needed as fast possible and live in peace. I managed to get quite good at it — I’ve never liked wasting my time. Besides, I felt pretty sure that serious violence wasn’t allowed on the space station. Even these two had shoved the elf up against the wall with a certain amount of restraint.

“Who the hell are you? Keep moving, zero! You don’t want to mess with the Celestial Clan!”

“I’ll go, but she’s coming with me.” I put my hand out to the elf girl, only now realizing that I could understand both her and this pair of thugs perfectly, even though they obviously weren’t human — the long fangs protruding over their lower lips weren’t a regular feature in our world. Still, there was no trouble with communication. Let’s put that down to the System’s integration program.

“Get out of here, asshole, before I finish you off right now!” A knife appeared in the toothy dude’s hand. It appeared so fast it made me think the psycho knew how to use it. We were roughly in the same weight category, so I wasn’t too worried about a fist fight, but with a knife involved all my experience told me I needed to run. Where I come from, only complete psychos pull knives, and their own people beat the shit out of them for it afterward.

“What an interesting little toy! Where did you get it? And why do you look different from the rest of us?”

The low, powerful voice made the toothy guy turn around. One of the giants had left the crowd to join us. He was a seven-foot block with strange gray-green skin that looked like stone. At some point, he’d been dressed like the rest of us, but now only the pants remained. Either the T-shirt had ripped to pieces, or it had never fitted over his head in the first place. His bare chest displayed a mountain range of powerful muscles, and I realized I’d been comparing my ex’s waist with the wrong creature. In fact, not just the waist but my whole ex would be a more fitting comparison for this monster’s arms, and even all of her wasn’t enough.

The giant came up to us and, with a move impossibly fast for such a massive creature, grabbed the toothy guy by the arm, lifting him off the floor. The dagger clattered to the ground, but nobody rushed to pick it up. The giant cast aside the toothy dude and with a paw — I couldn’t bring myself to call it a foot — slid the knife over to him.

“Pick it up. I don’t need a little toothpick like that.”

“Leave us alone, char-ra! This is none of your business!” said the second toothy dude, as the first one had gone crimson with rage and clearly couldn’t get his words out. He was clutching helplessly at a space on his belt where, if I understood correctly, he’d normally find the real weapon he’d relied on in his own world. Here, on the newcomers’ base, however, weapons like that weren’t permitted. How did I know that? It felt like someone had had a good dig around in my skull and uploaded a certain amount of essential information. If only I could understand exactly what information, but apparently it was only going to come in flashbacks like this.

“My business is whatever I want it to be. Two against one, and with weapons too — that’s just not fair.” growled the giant and came to stand beside me. “Now, that’s more like it! Two against two. We’re ready, let’s go!”

“Alright, char-ra, you asked for it.” Finally, the first toothy dude had got his voice back. For some reason, fighting with the mountain of muscle didn’t appeal to him. “System! I request that these newcomers be deprived of training. I want them to understand once and for all that nobody gets up in the Celestial Clan’s business.”

“You do not have the authority to deprive newcomers of training,” said a voice from thin air that suddenly turned into a hologram of a toothy girl. Apparently, every species had their own assistant. “According to the rules, all newcomers must go through initial training, and you, as members of the Celestial Clan, are assigned to lead it.”

“In that case, I have another request!” Clearly he wasn’t going to let it go. “As an admin, I have the right to assign newcomers to places of settlement. I want these two to be sent to one of the unexplored areas of the planet, as far as possible from Mirgrad. Look at them, they’re already fully prepared to perform their duties. They’re strong and powerful, and there’s nothing for them to do in the capital. They’ll just take up space and spend all their time in the taverns. Let them fulfill their destiny immediately! These two will be far more use to the system in unexplored lands!”

“Your request is denied,” said the hologram after a brief pause. “The group cannot be separated.”

“They’ve already been assigned to a group? I don’t care, I’ve seen more than I can stand of these idiots. Send the lot of them!” The toothy dude was furious now. “As an admin, I have the right! If this point-eared bitch doesn’t want to obey me, then let her go explore the world with these freaks!”

“Is the Celestial Clan prepared to grant these newcomers a starter bonus for this unconventional beginning to their mission?”

“Yes, I’ll sort it out with the head of the clan myself! Did you see what these newcomers did? They attacked an admin! You get killed for less where I come from!”

“Your request has been granted and the relevant information submitted to the Celestial Clan,” announced the hologram. “The starting point for the unnamed group of unnamed newcomers has been assigned. Administrator, your training session will begin soon. Please do not be late for it.”

Your group has been established. Participants:

Human, system designation: 527-20887, local name: undefined.

Char-ra, system designation: 211-944588, local name: undefined.

Elf, system designation: 44-1788933, local name: undefined.

“See you at training, zeroes!” spat out the toothy dude, picking up his dagger and slamming it into its sheath. He strode off into the crowd, shoving creatures aside as he went. His friend went after him, giving an extra shove to anyone he’d somehow missed.

“Max,” I said, holding out my hand to the giant. He stared at my fingers uncomprehendingly. Apparently, this wasn’t a common greeting on his world. I pulled my hand back and hurried to explain: “I was called Max before I ended up in this godforsaken place. I don’t see any reason why I should renounce my name and…”

Before I could finish, yet another shiny notification lit up in front of me.

Name accepted. Local name: Max

“Gor,” growled the giant. His rumbling voice had an unsettling quality. It was like talking to a monster. But even if Gor did look like a monster, he was a lot more like a human being than most of the guys I knew from my neighborhood.

“Aelyria, but you can call me Lyra,” said the elf when Gor and I turned to her. Judging by the way her pupils dilated, she also got a notification from the System. Apparently, that was the last straw, and Lyra collapsed on the floor sobbing, covering her face with her hands.

“Why me? Why, why, why? There are so many elves in our world, why am I the one?”

“Because it’s the fate of the strong.” Gor wasn’t trying to comfort the girl, he was simply stating a fact. “It’s our duty to be strong and our fate to struggle. You have to be strong, Aelyria-but-you-can-call-me-Lyra!”

“I don’t want to be strong!” said the elf, jumping to her feet. “I’m a model, you great unfeeling lump! Just a model. I have to be beautiful and make others happy with my beauty. I should never have been taken. They promised! They swore! My agent said he’d take care of everything, but here I am. Here in this place that nobody has come back from for two thousand years! I should not be here! I don’t want…”

Lyra burst into tears again, burying her face in Gor’s stone chest. The giant turned his head to me — nothing in life had prepared him for this kind of thing. As far as I could see, in Gor’s world they believed you had to be stoic and strong to cope with the annual misery of your disappearing companions. Judging by the clothing and weapons of the toothy dudes, who bore a passing resemblance to orcs, there was nothing hi-tech about the world we were being sent too. It looked like it was going to be more medieval in character, and brute force would be the deciding factor. In that regard, Lyra and I were lucky the System had assigned Gor to our group. At least there was some hope of surviving. However, the thing about dispatching us to unexplored lands was making me nervous, the same way the word “employment” had earlier. So, this world still hadn’t been fully explored? Would it be like those parts of the Amazon where no human had set foot? Or would it be even worse. That toothy SOB had seemed a little too happy when the System confirmed his request to send us to the middle of nowhere.

“We have to go,” I said, noticing that the stream of creatures had thinned out considerably. The main crowd of Selected had already reached the training point and we needed to get moving.

“Gor, pick Lyra up and carry her. She’s not in any state to move herself. You both heard what the system said, nobody misses training. If we don’t get in there without a really good reason, we could be declared incompetent and unfit to live. The System told me something like that. So let’s move. Lyra, how are you doing?”

Her only answer was to sob louder. Dropped into the real world, the model didn’t know what to do. Give Gor his due, though — he nodded, carefully picked up the hysterical elf, and fell in behind me. We even had to jog a little to catch up with the main crowd, but we made it in time. The hall or rather stadium that surrounded the central podium was vast. Finally, we saw something technologically advanced — a huge wide screen was showing the two already familiar toothy dudes. They were standing on the podium, frowning out at the crowd. Apparently, they were thinking what nasty surprises they could spring on all us newcomers. At a very rough estimate, there were around twenty thousand creatures in the stadium, and the vast majority of them were still staring vacantly into space. Clearly the sedative was still doing its job.

A gong sounded and the doors to the stadium closed, cutting off the already dwindling stream of creatures. Not everybody had made it to training, but that didn’t seem to bother the System. In fact, when it came to the lives of the so-called Selected, the System seemed pretty indifferent.

“Everybody, listen up!” The amplified voice of the toothy dude rang out. “I’ll say this once and once only. You are all Selected. Your planets have been discovered and recorded in the System’s general register. Every year by your local time, a thousand beings from your world are chosen randomly and assigned to one of the infinite number of primordial planets. You will end up on Planet X-592, which we call Vilion. Your task is simple — you’re going to collect silirium. What that is and how you collect it, you’ll find out when you get there. It’s not my responsibility to talk you through it now. What I do need to tell you, though, is this: all beings of the System fall into two classes, which define their path in our world. As soon as you arrive on Vilion, don’t even think about breathing until a member of our clan comes and tells you what to do! The Celestial Clan will give you true strength! Our instructors will keep an eye on you and assign you to the class best suited for you to help us fulfil the System’s requirements and to bring glory to the Celestial Clan! System, training is complete. You can check, I’ve explained the basics.”

“Initial training confirmed,” announced a mechanical voice. “Transfer process for newcomers to Planet X-592 begins in five… four… three…”

“I hope you don’t die straight away!” was the last thing I heard before the space around me began to go blue. If that was a training session, then I’m a bald hedgehog. Why bald? Because I’m allergic to the regular ones.

Chapter 2

Attention:

In accordance with initial settings, the place of your appearance on this world has been selected randomly in the unexplored part of the planet.

Your Nameless Group has been granted a start bonus pack of essential items and access to the interactive assistant system.

Welcome to Planet X-592!

To return to base, the group must collect 300 units of silirium.

THIS SPATE OF MESSAGES from the System — or whoever or whatever was behind that name — blocked my vision and went nowhere until I’d finished reading them. It was only when I’d looked at the final word that the darkness surrounding me was replaced with vivid living colors. In this case, the colors were predominantly green and accompanied by rich smells. I knew I should get up on my feet and start doing something, but my heart was beating so hard I couldn’t move. Only a little over three hours ago, if my sense of time could still be trusted, I was at home on Earth and definitely not expecting to end up on some godforsaken planet in the company of an elf girl and a giant of the char-ra race. The only thing that stopped me from losing control were Lyra’s terror-filled eyes. She was looking at the world around her like a rabbit looking at a boa constrictor — haunted, helpless, and pitiful. There was no point in me being scared like that too. I’d have to find time later to be afraid.

Gor was already on his feet, digging around in a small crate. A crate! Finally, the meaning of the words I’d read hit me. The giant was going through our bonuses, taking all the best stuff for himself. A hard life had taught me one thing — the only person you can rely on is you, and even then, only so far. I had no idea who Gor was and what ideas he had about our bonuses. Until that moment, I’d never interacted with occupants of other planets — somehow I’d never had the time. What if the giant decided he was the strongest, so everything we’d been given belonged to him?

“What’ve we got, then?” I stepped forward and was able to see what Gor was doing. He didn’t twist his body around to hide the contents of the crate. Instead, he moved to let me get closer.

“Just some junk,” he growled. “No clothes, no water, no weapons, no food. A few kinds of string, some sticks, and some sharpened stones.”

“That was all that we could get past the restrictions on Vilion for you,” said a familiar female voice. A few meters away from us, a being the size of a football filled with lightning appeared. I’d seen a few videos of ball lightning made by 3D effects wizards, and this was something similar.

“Who the hell are you?” said Gor, frowning. The effect on the char-ra’s was fascinating. He never looked particularly friendly, but when he frowned it was enough to make anyone around him feel uncomfortable.

“You can call me the System, which will make it easier for you to adapt to the world of Vilion. For the next twenty-four hours, I will be here with your nameless group to answer your questions and explain the basics of existence on this planet.”

“Water, food, and weapons — where do we get them?”

I was beginning to like the char-ra more and more with every passing minute. I even felt a little bit ashamed that I’d suspected him of trying to cheat us with the supplies. Rather than succumbing to hysterics like our pointy-eared friend, who was still staring into space with terror-filled eyes, Gor had already checked out the bonus crate, understood that there wasn’t much useful in it, and was now asking the right questions. I was no survival expert, but even I could see that if we didn’t have food and water, we wouldn’t last long. That wasn’t to mention that we were deep in the forest in unexplored territory. Why hadn’t it been explored? Was it just laziness, or were there good reasons not to explore it? While all these questions were only occurring to me, Gor had had time to think about them and ask them.

“You can make weapons using the materials provided,” answered the System eagerly. “You can get food and water in the forest. There are numerous animals here, both small and…”

“Achoo!” The sneeze burst out of me as soon as my nose finally worked out where we were. Tears sprang to my eyes, my nose started running like a waterfall, and within a few seconds I’d turned from a normal, healthy human into a very sick human.

“A mouse!” shouted Lyra suddenly and jumped up like she’d been stung. All her confusion was gone in an instant when she saw that at first glance harmless creature. At second glance, it didn’t look so harmless after all. It was the size of a dog, and not the kind of dog you normally find in the arms of some superior-looking woman with botoxed lips, trembling at every sound and secretly dreaming of an early death so it can return to its doggy heaven. No, this was more like the scarier kind of street dog, ready to tear up the whole neighborhood for a few scraps and bones. The mouse looked at us with interest, as if considering which was the best way to approach such tasty prey. A notification appeared in front of my eyes:

Common Forest Mouse, Level 1

Seriously, “common”? If this overgrown mutant was “common” then what size were, for example, the wolves here?

The System was demonstrating its usual “usefulness”, showing what was already obvious. But it didn’t show what that flower growing next to the mouse was, did it? Although surely it should. It was a pretty plant, something like our cornflower, but red rather than blue.

I was torn from my peaceful contemplation of the flower by Aelyria. On seeing the gray mouse, the elf girl didn’t just scream and shout, she took action! Apparently having finally gone completely insane, she leaped over to where Gor was standing, grabbed a heavy stick the dazed giant had taken out of the crate, and shouting “Die, monster!” dashed forward to the mouse! It was a shock to all of us, including the mouse. The forest creature clearly wasn’t expecting to see a crazy elf, and it paid for its lack of foresight — Lyra’s first blow broke its spine before it could even flinch. However, the elf girl didn’t stop there. She kept on battering the corpse, taking out all her anxieties on it.

“Gor, we have to stop her,” I said, wiping my nose. The fact that she’d turned the mouse into pâté wasn’t making anything easier, and it didn’t look like she had any intention of stopping.

“Each of us copes with the pain of being torn from their families in their own way,” growled Gor philosophically. “If this makes it easier for her, let her keep going. Why are you sneezing?”

“I’m allergic to animals. Not all of them, just the ones with fur. That’s why I almost never left the city — we have those fluffy pests everywhere on our world. System, why wasn’t I cured of all illnesses during the adaptation process?”

“Those are the conditions for collecting silirium,” answered the sphere promptly. “We cannot make changes to the original body of the collector, otherwise the defensive mechanisms of the planet where silirium is collected will destroy the altered body. We lost a lot of beings and resources before we understood this. The only thing we have the right to do with collectors is to add an automatic container for collecting silirium and a mechanism for communication with the System that displays information in front of your eyes. I, for example, am not actually here. What you are seeing is an image generated in your own consciousness.”

Yet more lies! And there was me thinking I was the first person in history to see ball lightning without taking psychotropic drugs first. What an unpleasant disappointment!

“How can we open the container?” Gor continued to ask precise questions that would help us survive.

“Using the container for manual collection is not possible in the initial stage. Only automatic collection is available.”

“Initial stage? So there are other stages?”

“The universe is infinite and so are the planets with the material that we need. The starter planets like Vilion are used for the preparation and training of newcomers and are considered comparatively safe. The probability for a newcomer of dying here is only twenty-five percent. Or, in your case, slightly higher — ninety-nine percent. The System needs skilled silirium collectors, so maximum attention is paid to newcomers.

“What is silirium and where do we collect it?” Gor continued his interrogation.

“Silirium is a material gathered from the animals, plants, or minerals of the planet. Pay attention to that dead animal. An almost imperceptible pale-blue cloud has formed around it. That dust is the silirium which you have to collect.”

“Hold on a minute!” I said, raising my hand. “Am I the only one who has a problem with the ‘slightly higher’ probability — a mere ninety-nine percent?”

“That is your lot,” said the System emotionlessly.

“Have the Mandalorians been here?” I stared at the ball suspiciously.

The system clearly wanted to show us something, but couldn’t. The frantic Lyra kept pounding the mouse into the ground. A lot of time had gone by already, but the elf girl wouldn’t let up, which was a testament to her excellent physical fitness. Clearly a model’s beauty required sacrifices and a dedicated workout regime in her world too. I had to shout.

“Lyra, stop!” I screamed and sneezed again. “Throw that rat away or I’m going to die! Lyra, you’re on camera! Pose!”

Incredibly, the last phrase worked. The elf girl froze, took a deep breath, ran her hand through her hair, and looked to one side. For some time, she stood still, occasionally shifting her stance as if she were posing for an invisible camera. Or whatever elves use. With that thought, I willed myself to hold off my sneezes long enough to ask:

“System, why can I understand elves and char-ra? We’re from different planets, we have different cultures, everything’s different. But we can talk like we grew up in the same city, just different neighborhoods.”

“That is part of your adaptation. The behavior, language, and cultural identity of each collector are adapted to the System’s universal standard. Furthermore, every collector feels as if they have always acted this way.”

“You mean you dug around in our brains?” Lyra had stopped posing and turned to the lightning ball — even though it was a trick of the mind, the ball was still in the same place for all of us.

“The System has raised all of you to the universal standard. Please notice that the blue glow around the level one destroyed animal is now clearer. Touch the dust with your hand.”

Lyra looked at the fake lightning ball angrily but did as she was told. A notification appeared in front of my eyes:

Silirium +1. Total: 1

“That is how you collect the material that we need. Once your nameless group has gathered three hundred units of silirium, you will be able to return to the start base and rest. The rooms you awoke in after your adaptation are reserved for you for the entire duration of your time working on the world of Vilion. While at the base, you can talk to other collectors and exchange information, receive the bonuses you have earned for successful work, and agree to exchange materials when you return here to Vilion. You can do everything that normal workers would do on vacation.”

“Do you teleport us or is it only our conscious that is transferred, while our bodies stay here on Vilion?” I asked.

“Neither of those is correct, but with your level of development the true explanation would be incomprehensible. Put simply, you are a single projection for all worlds, but the place where you are most present now is this world, where you will be collecting silirium. All items created or collected by you on this world become an integral part of you. They will be displayed when you are on the base, but you will not be able to trade them there. You will only be able to demonstrate them to others and agree to trade them here on the initial planet. On the plus side, nobody will be able to take them from you on the base, which reduces the chances of loss.”

“Max, do you have to?!” said Lyra as my sneezes once again interrupted the system. Even though its words were sounding in our heads, the System behaved too realistically, reacting to the situation. But there was nothing I could do about it. Too many doctors had already thrown up their hands and admitted their helplessness. I just have some weird mutation that prompts the reaction. The only thing that helps are allergy pills, but where would I find them on Vilion?

“Stand still!” Lyra came up so close to me that I felt my heart flutter. The beautiful elf girl in the baggy pants and sack-like T-shirt looked incredibly sexy. “I know you’re human, but you look like an elf. Maybe it’ll work. Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know.”

When Lyra’s hands touched my face, my stomach nearly flipped with excitement. Her skin was unbelievably soft, her touch gentle and sensuous. Her fingers began to run across my face like it was the keys of a piano. When she’d finished, she stepped away, and I let out a disappointed sigh. Being close to her was thrilling. It was a good thing my pants were so loose, or it would be clearly visible just how exciting Lyra’s closeness had been.

“How do you feel now?” asked the slightly blushing elf, trying not to lower her eyes. So, the pants weren’t loose enough after all. I didn’t feel the need to blush, so I took a deep breath and waited for the sneeze to come. But it didn’t.

“It’s only temporary, not more than a day,” said the elf girl, noticing my astonishment. “We models constantly have photo shoots, travel, and fans. Sometimes the latter are so unpleasant that you have to take care of your health.”

“Unpleasant and health?” I asked, happy that I wasn’t sneezing after every word.

“It’s an allergy like yours. If a male elf isn’t compatible with a female elf on a physiological level, the girl will have a fiercely negative reaction. So we came up with a way to suppress it using that massage. It doesn’t last long, but it’s enough to get down the catwalk. Hey, what’s that noise?”

She was talking about some kind of gong that sounded immediately after her words about the massage.

“You will find out soon,” said the System mysteriously. “I do not have the right to provide that information. All I can tell you is that there is nothing threatening about that sound.”

“Nothing threatening is good,” said Gor, taking the bloody stick from Lyra. “Let’s get back to the important questions — water, food, and weapons. Silirium is gathered from animals, which means we need to kill three hundred mice before we go back to base.”

“I don’t know about water, but I’ve been thinking about food,” I said, pointing upwards. There were some kinds of fruit growing on the branches high overhead. “Judging by the number of seeds around the tree, the animals around here eat those. That mouse didn’t come here to hunt us. It didn’t even know we existed. It was interested in the seeds lying everywhere. That means the fruit can be eaten. That’s food and water if they’re juicy enough.”

“Good thinking,” nodded Gor. The giant grabbed the tree and tried to shake it, but there was no reaction. The tree kept standing stock still.

“We should try hitting them with something,” I said. “The stick?”

“It won’t work,” said Gor, looking dubiously at the stick. “It’s too light. I won’t be able to throw it so it doesn’t get stuck in the branches. Let’s do it another way. Max, do you know how to shoot a bow and arrow?”

“We’ve got a real live elf right here, so why ask the human?”

“What’s your problem with elves?” asked Lyra in confusion.

“There are elves in my world’s fairy tales and they’re all natural archers,” I explained. “They also say all elves are beautiful, and I can see they weren’t lying about that.”

My banal compliment had no effect on Lyra. Words like that meant nothing to a model of her attractions. Lyra kept looking at me uncomprehendingly.

“Thank you for calling me beautiful, but you’re completely wrong about the bow! Nobody in my world goes around with ancient weapons like that. Besides, Max, just look at these hands!”

Lyra displayed her tiny slender fingers, with a manicure that any influencer in our world would envy. Nails like that had no place in the forest.

“These fingers are meant to handle jewelry, sign contracts, and help my colleagues out with massages — but definitely not to shoot bows. You do it.”

“Gor?” I turned to the giant. “It’s your idea, why don’t you shoot?”

“Just look at these hands, Max!” The char-ra mimicked Lyra’s gesture perfectly, showing me the splayed lumps of meat that were his hands. It would be hard to describe those fat sausages as fingers, especially as each of them ended in a long, thick claw like a bear’s.

“I’m a warrior! I’ve spent all my life training, honing my skills, and toughening up my body. In my hands, any blade will sing songs and explain to my enemies that it’s a mistake to mess with Gor. But I don’t know how to work a bow. The bow that I can shoot with hasn’t been invented yet. You found the fruits. You said we could eat them. Now you get them down. That would be the right, manly thing to do.”

“But we don’t have a bow. Or did I miss something in the crate?” I had my back against the wall, but I wasn’t going to give in yet. My archery skills were suboptimal, to say the least. Yes, I’d held a bow at an archery range a couple of times and even fired a few arrows that flew wide of the target, but that was the extent of my experience.

“That’s no problem,” said the giant, easily bending the sturdy-looking stick into an arc. Taking a roll of twine from the crate, Gor quickly and quite dexterously fashioned a makeshift bow. It was crude but serviceable. Next, he took another stick from the crate to serve as an arrow and tied a narrower thread from a different reel to its end.

“That way the arrow won’t get lost,” explained Gor, handing me the weapon he’d made. “Try it!”

I had a lot to say about how shooting with a bow like that was impossible, but the System’s words about our miniscule chances of survival were still ringing in my head. Just one percent. By complaining and demanding perfect equipment, I’d just be reducing the chances to zero. So, I needed to pull back the bowstring, aim, and fire. Simple, I guess.

“Great shot, Max!” said Gor, holding the other end of the narrow thread in his hands. “Now do the same thing but aim at the fruit. Hitting the tree trunk is great, but it’s not the target. Keep going.”

Gor pulled on the thread to retrieve the arrow, which was tangled in the branches, and handed it to me, nodding encouragingly, as if to say, “Go on, we believe in you! If you don’t manage it, we’ll eat you!” When you have a giant like that looming over you and grinning to reveal shark’s teeth, it’s hard to think about anything else. I would have to shoot a second time. And a third time. Tenth. Twentieth.

On the twenty-first shot, something bad happened — the bow broke. What’s more, even I couldn’t understand how it happened. I hadn’t put any particular strength into the shot. Gor’s face was a sight — complete incomprehension as to how a fragile human had managed to snap an apparently sturdy stick made his expression so comical that I stopped feeling scared of him.

“Any handmade object has an inherent fragility,” explained the System. “If you use the object repeatedly without repairing it, it will break. Those are the laws of Vilion.”

“You mean, if we find a bow growing on a tree here, it won’t ever break?” I asked, looking hopelessly at the broken pieces in my hand. It wasn’t just the stick that had broken, the string had snapped too.

“There are no bows growing on trees in Vilion,” answered the System, taking my question completely seriously. “However, if you complete a Dungeon — correctly written with a capital letter — you may receive a bow as a reward.”

“Dungeon?” Apparently, all three of us said the word at the same time.

“A location divided into different levels and populated with various creatures. Officially, Dungeons are considered the best source of silirium. Newcomers who reach Level 5 progress further through Dungeons.”

“What are these levels and how do we increase them?” Gor’s question was once again right on target.

“Levels are the organism’s adaptation to the world with silirium. However, I am not authorized to tell you about this right now. Please wait until a little later.”

The System fell silent, forcing us back to the business at hand. Gor looked doubtfully into the crate and pulled out another stick. With a few deft movements, he fashioned another bow and handed it to me.

“We don’t have all that many resources, Max. You need to pull yourself together and make an accurate shot. If the second bow breaks, we’ll have to keep going hungry and hope that we manage to find some other kind of food. The mouse won’t do, as there’s practically nothing left of it. Go on!”

Motivation is a wonderful thing. No, I didn’t get a hit immediately — only on the twelfth try. But I did eventually get a hit. The arrow pierced the fruit, and the string allowed us to lower it and pull it off the branch. The fruit held on tight but was no match for a mighty yank from Gor. Down flew a fruit the size of the char-ra’s fist, into our waiting arms. Gor stopped our long-awaited food from smashing and gently placed it on the ground. We gathered around it with our mouths watering. The unknown plant gave off a fantastic smell. Surely nothing poisonous could smell so sweet. Still, I decided to be careful:

“We need to test it. I’ll take a little bite and if I don’t die in half an hour, then we can eat the fruit.”

“You?” Gor looked at me like I was an idiot. “I have spent my whole life toughening up my body, including my stomach, because you never know what you’ll be forced to eat. If anyone should conduct this trial, it’s me. Because I’m a warrior!”

There was no sense in arguing with what was obviously true. Gor broke off a small piece and put it in his mouth. The fruit looked so juicy and sweet that I almost started drooling. And it wasn’t just me — Lyra had her eyes fixed on the food too. Apparently, it was the model’s mealtime. They all strictly time their diets, don’t they?

Gor started chewing, but it was impossible to tell from his face what he was feeling. Our warrior had certain issues with his facial muscles. Anger, frowning, and confusion were all well within his range, but joy and pleasure were far beyond him. Once he’d swallowed, he turned to us and said:

“Tasty. Very nice and tasty. Juicy. Not sticky, but juicy. That will help solve our drinking problem, at least for today. The flesh is also…”

Suddenly, the giant fell silent, and one of the three expressions crossed his face — confusion. His eyes widened, and we all heard the unexpected rumbling sound that could only have come from his stomach.

“Oh dear…” Those weren’t words I’d been expecting to hear from Gor. The giant jumped up and look around wildly. The gurgling in his stomach grew louder and louder. “I’ll be back soon! Don’t eat it! I have to find cover!”

The giant ran headfirst into the forest. The gurgling sounds gradually receded until we could no longer hear them at all. Gor gave a loud shout:

“Can you see me? Am I well hidden?”

“You’re well hidden, we can’t see you!” I shouted back, genuinely concerned for Gor. Him being poisoned was the last thing we needed. The gong sounded again, but nobody paid it any attention this time. To avoid anyone else making our giant friend’s mistake, I tossed the fruit away.

“Well, I suppose we can conclude that this particular plant is not fit for consumption. The main thing now is that Gor recovers. Lyra, you don’t have a massage for upset stomachs, do you?”

Before I could get an answer, the gong sounded for a third time, and notifications from the System appeared in front of our eyes, accompanied by its cheerful voice:

“Congratulations to the members of the nameless group on receiving your classes! Now that you are fully integrated into the world of Vilion, I can answer any questions you have, so ask away!”

Members of the nameless group have completed their initiation.

Human, Max. Classes received: Hunter — Druid

Elf, Aelyria. Classes received: Berserker — Healer

Char-ra, Gor. Classes received: Engineer — Scout

Chapter 3

“WTF?” WAS ALL I COULD SAY as I read the description. “What sort of flippin’ druid am I? Alright, I get it with Aelyria, but Gor just got the shits, ran into the bushes, and now he’s a scout! And me a druid?! Are you completely nuts?”

However, my impassioned speech was completely ignored by the oversized firefly, which was now apparently getting so emotional that it was shining brighter.

“Wow! You’re doing so well!” The flying ball glowed with pleasure. “In the vast majority of cases, outcasts spend the first twenty-four hours not on gathering information about the world they’ve arrived in, but on pointless efforts to negotiate with the System. You are showing maximum productivity! I just love working with newcomers like you!”

“How do you change your class?” said Gor, coming out of the bushes with a face gloomier than a storm cloud. It looked best to steer well clear of that mass of muscle, but that didn’t stop me. Because there was now a new expression on the char-ra’s face — abject confusion about what to do next. When the giant got back to us and flopped down on the ground, staring into space, I went to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Next to Gor, I looked like a little kid trying to comfort a grownup, but there was nothing else I could do for my companion. What’s more, my other hand was on Lyra’s shoulder, as she was in the same state of shock. The elf girl, her eyes filled with horror, was staring not at the forest, not at us, and not at the system, but at her own hands. Or, to be more exact, at her manicure. On the nail of her index finger, there was an ugly scratch that she’d just noticed. From what I could see, it wasn’t going to be easy to find a beauty salon in our forest.

“You cannot,” explained the System eagerly. “According to the conditions for the collection of silirium, collectors receive their class once and once only. That is one of the few conditions that we cannot change. You’ve made your choice, which means that I can devote the rest of my time with you to your preparation.”

“I’m a warrior!” Gor roared. The giant wanted to jump up, but it was as if my hand on his shoulder was pressing him to the ground. “My hands are my weapons! Fighting is my vocation!”

“Until the second level, the divisions between classes aren’t particularly noticeable,” said the flying ball. “If you want to fight, go ahead and fight. Nobody will stop you. However, after the second level, any collector of the warrior class will be able to knock you down without any great effort. When class abilities are unlocked, you’ll understand all the joys of your class!”

“You mean right now we can’t use our class skills?” I asked, as my two companions were clearly in no mood for conversation.

“The first level is designed for your adaptation to the world, so your abilities are locked. However, your class’s combo bonus is available immediately. Perhaps we should start with Aelyria. Berserker and Healer give her the ability to work with auras. This is a separate skill tree that’s already available.”

“What?” said Lyra, finally tearing her eyes away from her damaged nail. Judging by her blank stare, she’d missed everything the System had said. However, the glowing ball turned out to be surprisingly friendly and patient.

“In the lower section of your vision, you will see a flashing point. Concentrate on it.”

“Woah!” said Lyra, dumbfounded, as a small dome formed around us. The golden sparks floating in it penetrated our bodies, but without doing any harm. On the contrary, I felt like I had new energy. I felt good and I suddenly wanted to do something, to make something.

“Until the second level, Aelirya will only have access to the Aura of Sanctification, which gives an insignificant boost to health and power. However, everything in this world comes at a price. Any use of your abilities requires silirium. Activating the aura, which will last for thirty minutes, consumed one unit of silirium. The more complicated the ability, the more expensive it is to use. Collectors have to balance their use of silirium for their own needs and the amount they reserve for the System. If you spend it all on yourself, you will never return to base and be able to enjoy all its benefits.”

“You mean we don’t have anything left now?” I said with a frown. “So silirium is like mana for our abilities? Then how do we check how much we have? We can’t access our containers.”

“It’s not entirely correct to compare silirium to mana, but overall you’re right. As for checking your supplies, you have a minor limitation compared with other collectors. You are considered a single group from the start, so only the leader of your group can have access to information about it. You will therefore need to think of a name and choose a leader who can interact with other beings on behalf of the group.”

“I’m a warrior!” said Gor. “I never studied diplomacy. I negotiate with my fists.”

“I can work the catwalk. I can smile and wave. I love being attractive to people, but I hate talking about anything serious,” said Lyra. “I had an agent for that, and he handled everything.”

“There aren’t any agents here,” I told her. “If you hadn’t noticed, we’re a gazillion miles from our home planets. We’ve been kidnapped, shoved in some godforsaken jungle, and forced to work! Are you getting the idea yet?”

“God, you’re boring, Max!” The elf girls wrinkled her nose. “You’re just like my agent. So that decides it — until we get out of here, you can be my agent.”

“Are you insane?” The gorgeous elf girl had suddenly lost all her glamor.

“Oh, don’t start! That’s it, I’ve chosen you, so be proud of the fact you’re working with a star like me! Come on, sort everything out — name, leadership, what else do we need? Do what it takes to keep the System happy.”

“I agree,” Gor took Lyra’s side. “A warrior and a model can’t be leaders. That’s your duty, human.”

“WTF? No! You’re not just going to dump all the stuff you don’t want to do on me! I refuse!”

“The choice has been made,” said the flying ball. “A majority of the unnamed group have voted for the human Max as their leader. Max, you’re now the official leader of the as-yet unnamed group.”

Something flashing and translucent appeared in the bottom part of my vision. If I concentrated my sight on it, the point unfolded to become a small panel where the members of the group, their classes, and their levels were listed. Saddest of all, next to the line “Silirium:” there was a great big zero. The panel was translucent and didn’t block my vision, and as soon as I started looking at something else, it disappeared. It was a neat trick, sure, but what good was it to me?

“I reject the leadership position!” I announced, but unexpectedly the System chimed in:

“Is that the official name of your group, leader?”

“I’m not the leader!”

“So, is that the official name of your group?”

“Why don’t you all just mind your own business?!” I was roaring at everyone around me now, letting my rage flow free. Unlike Gor, unperturbed and ready for any adversity, or the elf girl, who I had come to realize was a very shallow person even if she was beautiful, I understood clearly the amount of trouble we were in, right up to our ears. No weapons, no clothes, no resources, somewhere in unexplored lands — it was a great start to a story that ends in death. I’d played various computer games in my time, but even gamers were nicer to newcomers than this.

“Is that the official name of your group?” The system clearly wasn’t going to back off. Taking a deep breath, I looked at my companions.

“Alright, dammit, I’ll be the leader then. You want a name? Fine, from now on our group will be called The Selected.”

“Name accepted!” A new panel appeared in front of my eyes with the group’s information. At the top was the new name, and next to it was a six-figure number that was mostly nines and eights.

“That is the general rating for groups on starter worlds,” the system explained, noticing my interest in the figure. “It’s calculated as the average rating of all members.”

“What’s it for?” I asked, reluctantly assuming the role of leader.

“To improve your motivation and help you understand who you’re dealing with and who you should avoid. This rating has no special bonuses associated with it. Now we’ve decided the leader and the name of the group, let’s return to class combo bonuses. As you’ve already seen, Aelirya has obtained the ability to activate various temporary auras. Next comes Gor. The combination of engineer and scout is quite interesting, as is the related bonus — the char-ra gets the ability to break down special items and turn them into silirium. I should note that this is one of the few abilities of the System that does not require payment.”

“I’m not an engineer, I’m a warrior!” Gor muttered again, but the System ignored him.

“On the world of Vilion, special items are anything that collectors make themselves, take from monsters, or pick up in Dungeons. Let’s take a look at how the skill works. You still have the bow you made. Gor, in the lower part of your vision there’s a flashing point. Focus on it.”

Gor frowned and even began moving his hand as if trying to poke the point, but nothing happened. Finally, he got the hang of it, and the System continued:

“Pick up the bow and use your breakdown ability.”

A blue glow appeared around the giant, and soon the bow disappeared. I opened the group panel and checked for changes:

Silirium: 1

“You mean that for one unit of silirium, we just destroyed our only weapon?” I asked incredulously, but the System once again ignored any question it didn’t want to answer.

“The quantity of material that you extract depends directly on the sophistication and level of the item, while the ability itself has limited application. You will discover all the details as you progress. So, that covers two members of the group The Selected. Now we come to the human Max. The combination of hunter and druid is rather typical and would normally imply the ability to temporarily control animals and make them your companions. However, this is not an entirely typical situation. The leader of the group gets extra bonuses unavailable to normal members, so you have the ability to turn any beast you find on your way and are able to tame into your permanent companion.”

“Are you serious?” I didn’t even want to shout anymore. I suddenly realized exactly the mess I was in. “One mouse came along, and I couldn’t stop sneezing. Are you suggesting I get myself a permanent pet and just die?”

“Every collector decides for themselves whether to use their class combo bonus,” said the System calmly. “I’m here to give you knowledge about the world around you and, as you can see, I’m doing an excellent job. Human Max, you can now see a flashing point in the lower part of your vision. Open it.”

I did as I was told and saw a new panel with the title Companion. According to the description, I was allowed to have one Level 1 companion. But that was where the description ended, and it wasn’t clear what I had to do next. The System came to my aid:

“Close by, roughly ten yards to your right, there’s a mouse. You need to tame it. Look around until you see the animal.”

The mouse, or rather the giant mutant outsized freak, really was to my right. As soon as I caught sight of it, a Tame button appeared on the Companion panel, and floating next to it was a projection that said, “Common Forest Mouse, Level 1.”

“When you activate the taming function, the animal will begin to act aggressively. Its only desire will be to destroy whatever is trying to tame it. Your task is to prevent it from doing so for a certain period of time, while maintaining the active taming phase. Go ahead, human!”

The order was so direct that I almost followed it. But at the last minute I tore my eyes away and the Companion panel disappeared.

“I’m not going to tame any hairy animal!” I said. “Otherwise, I’m just going to die.”

“On the world of Vilion, there is a great number of animals with no fur covering.” The system was clearly unperturbed. “You can use your ability by yourself whenever you’re ready. That, I think, is everything you need to know about class combo bonuses. I’m now prepared to answer your questions.”

“What about levels?” I asked. “What are they and how do we raise them?”

“Levels are the degree of the organism’s adaptation to the hardships and adversities of the world of Vilion. There are too many different emissions here that have a negative effect on undeveloped bodies. For example, if you enter any Dungeon before you reach Level 2, there’s a ninety percent chance that you will die from the aura there. Until you reach Level 5, there is no problem with leveling up. Just being on Vilion adapts your body and thus raises your level. However, it’s only possible to reach Level 10 — the maximum level — in Dungeons. Those who wish to get away from the starter worlds and go where their strength and skills will be appreciated try to reach Level 10 as soon as possible. Although the levels themselves give you nothing, they determine the list of abilities that you can use and the power of those abilities. For example, Aelyria’s aura, which you saw earlier, at Level 10 is capable of covering the entire area, restoring your allies and suppressing your opponents. Development is the basis of existence on the world of Vilion. In fact, it’s the basis of existence for all silirium collectors.”

“You called us outcasts. Why? If we go into explored territories, will we be hunted down?”

“Probably only by the Celestial Clan. Their chief has already contacted the System to overturn the administrator’s decision. That admin overstepped his authority when he deprived you of your right to general development. However, it’s impossible to reverse the decision, as the Celestial Clan was forced to pay for the actions of their administrators.”

“A few sticks, stones, and string counts as pay?” asked Gor, obviously unhappy with our supply situation.

“That is the System’s starter bonus for silirium collectors sent to unexplored lands. Your bonus from the Celestial Clan is a Level 2 Dungeon key.”

“A key?” I said, confused.

“One does not simply walk into a dungeon. In reality, they don’t exist in this world. They are separate zones, which can be accessed from anywhere. All you need to obtain that access is a key. Keys can be found all over the place, in ore deposits, in the bodies of animals, or just lying on the ground. Most often, however, keys are bought from the System.”

“Didn’t you say that nothing can be brought into this world?”

“The part of the System that trades in keys originates in this world. It’s also responsible for rewards in Dungeons, issuing extra tasks and the rewards for completing them, and a lot of other things that happen right here on Vilion. Where that part of the system came from is of no relevance to your mission. You just have to know that it exists, and that you can and should work with it. To gain access to the System, you have to visit one of the major cities of Vilion and complete integration. Straight after that, you’ll be given your bonus Level 2 Dungeon key.”

“Now we’re getting to the interesting stuff. How many clans are there altogether on Vilion?”

“Four major clans and a few hundred minor ones. Each major clan runs its own city, which is its power center — the Celestial Clan in Mirgrad, the Godlike Clan in Olympus, the Best of the Best Clan in Stellar, and the Stone-Cold Killers Clan in City. Those are the main leaders on Vilion.”

Right… The first three clans sounded a little pretentious, but there was clearly something not quite right about the fourth if they couldn’t even think up a name for their city. Where they schoolkids? On the other hand, they were one of the top four clans. I made a mental note to find out more about those freaks.

“Why were the Celestial Clan there to greet us if there are four major clans on this world?”

“It was their turn this year. Every year, the clans take turns to pick up the newcomers and help them progress. Unfortunately, only Level 2 collectors and no higher can be admins, so sometimes there are unpleasant situations like yours.”

“Where is the nearest major city?”

“I cannot answer that question, as you are in an unexplored area of Vilion. If you survive and allow the cartographers to poke around in your brains and create a map of the area, you will receive a good reward. Exploring worlds is one of the most important tasks, especially on a new world like Vilion.”

So, what else did I need to find out? The class business was more or less self-explanatory, as were skills. It sounded something like our computer games, with a hard limit on progress. Levels also made sense. As the leader of the group, I had access to a visual display. Above each of our names was an empty bar that had slowly begun to fill up. If I’d wanted to, I could even have calculated how long it would take us to get to Level 2, but I really didn’t. I’d asked about the wider world. I’d asked about silirium. What else could the System give us? And what kind of System was it anyway? It was just an echo of the intelligence that had sent us to this damned planet in the first damned place.

“Have you got any questions?” I turned to Gor and Lyra. The giant shook his head, but the elf girl immediately piped up:

“To think you didn’t want to be leader, Max! Even a complete idiot could see it’s your thing! You got all the information so quickly and so clearly, it was awesome! There’s just one thing I’m not entirely happy about — as my agent, you should’ve asked about my basic needs. But never mind, that can be corrected. I’ll teach you how to do the job properly.”

“I’m not your agent!” I shouted furiously. So much so that Gor took a step toward Lyra, as if he wanted to protect her from the angry little man.

“If you keep shouting like that, you soon won’t be! Did you even see what happened to my finger? I scratched it! The main thing now is to find out where I can get a decent manicure. My hair could do with a quick fix too. Look how the air here is ruining it — it’s all dry and brittle.”

The elf girl was clearly off in her own little world. If she’d been in shock when we first got here, she’d now regained her composure and was just continuing to act the way she’d acted in her own world, getting everyone around her to do her bidding, so that they would make sure the great catwalk star was as comfortable as possible.

“I’m not your agent,” I said again, but more calmly. “If you’ve got any complaints, take them to the producer or your union. Don’t you models have something like that? Ah, who gives a damn? Gor, we need to scout the area. We have a problem with food and water that needs to be solved.”

“Got it, boss,” said the giant, making me snort with frustration. The word cut like a razor blade — like a razor blade in a very sensitive place, too. I had never liked being in a group. In our neighborhood, I was considered a loner, and a loner who — thanks to the boxing — was best left in peace. What’s more, I’d never wanted to manage anyone’s life, to tell one and all what they had to do. Particularly not when my group consisted of a terrifying giant who could snap my neck with a tweak of his left hand and an elf girl who couldn’t think about anything apart from her broken nails and her need to dump responsibility on the nearest bystander. Her agent, her leader — anyone except her. Because she was used to being fabulous, not solving problems. What a fantastic group!

“Actually, there are plenty of manicurists and hairstylists in this world,” said the System unexpectedly. “The leaders of the big clans like to look perfect when they appear before newcomers. As they’re unable to do it for themselves, certain newcomers who enjoy working with hair and nails receive particular classes specialized in the beautification of other beings.”

“Max, we have to get to a city!” said Lyra immediately. “Organize a transfer, get my standard rider!”

Suddenly, I understood. The elf girl hadn’t accepted the fact that she’d been kidnapped and she was happily creating her own reality in her head. She wasn’t in the jungle on some unexplored planet, she was back home, taking a walk in the park. She had her agent with her, her bodyguard, and only the fans were missing. But this was a private event, so they’d been asked to keep away. Of course! Just a simple escape from reality. Because if you actually had to face the truth, you’d go out of your mind. Shouting at Lyra was dumb and pointless. She still wouldn’t understand why her agent was unhappy. Should I play along? Fat chance! But what I could do was just ignore her craziness until she found her way back to our harsh reality.

Gor was gone for five minutes. Finally, I heard the sound of breaking branches, and our giant came out into the clearing. A scout? Fate couldn’t have played a crueler joke on the poor bastard. It was going to be fun watching eight feet of pumped-up meat trying to hide behind a tree.

“There’s a lake nearby. The water’s drinkable. I noticed splashing, so there’s fish too. We’ve got string and sticks, so we can make a rod and catch something to eat. It’ll be enough for now. We’ll think of something else later.”

“Excellent! System, can you tell us anything else important before we head off to explore the world?”

“You’ve already been explained the essentials, the rest will come in good time. You have less than twenty hours more in my company, so use the time wisely. In my experience, some outcasts even choose to sleep, which is a complete waste of the System’s gift.”

“Lyra, we need to go,” I said, moving unwillingly over to the elf girl and sensing how, as I got closer, certain body parts sprang to life. Proximity to that much hotness had a serious effect on my libido. Lyra turned to me with strangely clouded eyes and stared blankly in my direction as if she couldn’t see me. The elf girl was completely out of it. She was not accepting the reality around her.

The only tool I had in my arsenal for clouded eyes like that was a slap in the face. Not pretty, but in most cases it would bring you out of a stupor like that. However, I never had the chance to put my brilliant plan into effect. I started to draw back my hand, considering how much strength to put into the blow, when I heard the crack of branches to one side. Turning quickly, my eyes fell on a black monster the size of a large pony. The monster was swinging its tail fiercely, pounding its sides. Furthermore, it was already crouching to leap in our direction. The notification system worked superbly, and in front of my eyes I saw:

Feral Panther, Level 2

The small translucent ball that for some reason called itself the System was almost jumping for joy:

“The day really is turning out perfectly! You got your classes, you named your group, and you received a lot of interesting answers to your questions! Now all you have to do is pass the entrance test and show you have the right to exist as outcasts on Vilion, able to make your own way without any clan. A Level 2 wild animal is the perfect candidate for you to demonstrate your initial abilities on. As they say at the local arena, ‘Fight time!’”

As if hearing the words the ball was generating in our heads, the massive panther gave a thundering roar and dashed toward us. Just like us, it wanted to eat. The only difference was, it had every chance of getting what it wanted.

Chapter 4

“GET BACK!” CAME A RESOUNDING BATTLE CRY — and, as the panther leaped, so did Gor. The giant was an imposing slab of meat, like Hercules descended from the heavens to stand in the black cat’s way. In his hands, the natural born char-ra warrior held a stick and a sharp stone from the System’s gift box. Going up against a panther that had grown to the size of a small horse with weapons like that was dumb, but Gor wasn’t going out without a fight. He’d prepared his whole life to meet a worthy opponent face to face. To meet them and…

And get sent flying. The panther didn’t even pause in its jump, it just let out something that sounded like a meow. But a special kind of meow, the kind that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. The result was no less terrifying than the sound — eight foot of pumped-up living meat was sent flying like it was shot from a catapult. Gor went soaring backwards into the forest until we heard a heavy thud coming from a distance. In the face of this dangerous adversary, my half-frozen mind could only wish the giant a speedy recovery and the lack of a broken spine. It seemed pretty obvious that a broken spine would be an impediment to survival in this world.

“Aaargh!” Lyra was back from the land of dreams, and her piercing shriek became our next weapon. The elf girl saw the panther and couldn’t think of anything better to do than scream. Basically, she was doing what she’d been trained to do — using the full power of her voice to attract the attention of defenders. Unfortunately, there was nobody nearby to defend her. Instead, there was another meow, and her gradually fading shriek also went flying into the forest. Another distant thud reached my ears, and suddenly I was one on one with the panther, which had stopped about a yard from me. The animal’s gamey smell hit my nostrils, and all Lyra’s healing magic went straight to hell.

“Achoo!” I was poleaxed. Tears sprang to my eyes and a waterfall of snot came flowing out of my nose. My tongue even started to swell, and I was clearly in the throes of a severe allergy attack. In a few seconds, my condition got as bad as it had ever been. Sneezing again, I looked at the motionless silhouette in front of me and muttered:

“If you want to eat, tuck in. Just do it quick, or I’m going to die here! If you don’t want to eat, then get out of here! Otherwise, I’ll just die anyway. Go on, get lost! Tsk, naughty cat!”

“Hey, what is going on?” said the unhappy voice of the System, “You must use your strength to show your right to exist on the world of Vilion! Fight! Human, tame this beast! This is your chance to show your capabilities!”

The animal’s scent became a little less stringent. I wiped my eyes and saw that the panther was standing slightly further away from me and pounding its sides with its tail. The beast looked scary and dangerous. There was no question of trying to tame it, as soon as I started the process, the panther would go crazy. From somewhere in the forest came sobbing — the elf girl was bitterly bemoaning her fate. Pointing a finger at the panther, I ordered it:

“Stay right where you are and don’t even think about coming any closer! Do you see what being anywhere near you does to me?”

The cat gave another meow. This one was very different from the previous ones, though. It was an abrupt meow that had sent Gor and Lyra flying, as if the panther were activating a superpower, but now the sound was long and low, as if the fearsome beast was unhappy about something. Nonetheless, it did as it was told, as if it actually understood what I’d said. Fully aware that I was being ridiculous, I pointed toward where Lyra was sobbing.

“Why did you do that to her? She’s small and delicate! And you? You’re not just huge and strong, you’re also Level 2! We only just got here, you know!”

“Max, stop chatting to the animal!” The System was getting angry. “You’re supposed to attack it! Talking to monsters is against the rules!”

“Where does it say that?” I turned to the projection of the ball that my mind was creating. While everything else was blurred, the ball was bright and clear.

“Alright, there is no such rule, but it’s not logical!” The System wouldn’t give up. “You are collectors. The monster is a source of silirium. Your task is to destroy the monster and collect the silirium. Simple! No need for conversation!”

“If there aren’t any rules, then leave me alone,” I said, waving the creation of my inflamed mind away and turning back to the panther. I continued to point at the bushes Lyra had been flung into.

“You made this mess, so clear it up! Bring my companions back here, then we’ll talk.”

“Level 2 monsters can’t talk!” The System was getting frantic. “That is definitely written in the rules! Furthermore, beings that are not pets or System objects cannot talk!”

“So, you’re saying my pet can talk?”

“That is not the matter we should be discussing right now. Attack the monster! What is going on?! Does that panther understand you?! That’s impossible! It’s a regular Level 2 monster! What on earth is going on in the unexplored lands? I have to submit this information to the Vilion planet database. In thirty years, we’ve had no information about anything like this.”

The translucent ball raged on, astounded by what was happening. To be honest, I was equally confused. The black blotch that had been in front of me had vanished, and in a few moments, I heard another hysterical wail from Lyra. Then came the sound of branches cracking, and from the bushes emerged the majestic panther, holding in its teeth the screaming elf girl.

“Spit her out! And remember, don’t come anywhere near me!” I continued to give orders. The panther let go, and Lyra rolled on the ground. From the look of her, she hadn’t been seriously hurt, but her journey in the panther’s jaws had not been a positive experience. The System had given us all a shapeless beige t-shirt and pants, but it turned out this uniform wasn’t particularly tough. Lyra’s outfit was now just strips of rag. The System had of course put underwear on her, as it had on me, but the underwear couldn’t hide all the elven model’s delights. Despite the appalling state I was in, I felt my body responding in a way it really shouldn’t be. The wailing stopped as it dawned on Lyra that she wasn’t going to be eaten. Trying to switch my attention to something else, I again gave the monster instructions:

“You have to get the other one too. Then we’ll talk.”

When the panther had fulfilled my first request, which had come out as panicked babbling, I realized that it could understand me. Perhaps not every word, but it definitely understood something. I also realized that the beast wanted something from us, otherwise it would’ve torn into us long ago.

“Did you tame it?” asked Lyra in a dazed whisper. She wasn’t concerned by the state of her clothing. She didn’t even notice. Apparently, she’d exposed even more flesh on the catwalk in her time.

“No. I need your help or I’m going to die,” I said, as I realized with surprise that I wasn’t sneezing anymore. Lyra’s Aura of Sanctification had returned with her, and the gold glow had begun to seep into my body. It didn’t cure me instantly, but I felt a lot better.

“That technique only works once every three days and it doesn’t last long. Max, why isn’t the panther killing us?”

“Because it needs us for something.”

The sound of branches cracking was heard again, and the panther’s ass appeared from the bushes. The monster, straining all four legs and leaving a deep groove in the ground, dragged Gor out by his leg. The giant wasn’t moving. The panther left him a few feet outside Lyra’s aura and moved away. The golden glow was working — the monster’s proximity hadn’t caused any critical damage to my body. It would work for Gor too. Lyra and I rushed over to him without a clue what to do, but we didn’t have to do anything. The great warrior of the char-ra people opened his eyes and jerked into a sitting position.

“You don’t look much like the beautiful, full-figured warrior women I was promised after my death,” he growled. Frowning, he ran a paw over the back of his head and froze in a slightly comical pose as he stared at the panther. The black predator was still pounding its sides with its tail, but not showing any other signs of aggression.

“Gor, you must demonstrate your strength and attack it!” The system started to goad Gor into action. It hadn’t worked with me, and there was no point even in trying with Lyra, so only the char-ra remained. Unsure of what was going on in the giant’s head, I decided to exercise my rights as leader. After all, they were the ones who insisted I do it.

“Gor, stay where you are. That’s an order. The panther is here because it needs our help.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help a Level 2 monster!” The System was still in a panic. Apparently, it found the unusual situation very unsettling. “Either you fight and win, or you turn into food! There’s no other option on the world of Vilion. Those are the rules. Collectors on the starter worlds have to demonstrate their capabilities in order to reach the next level. You’re not demonstrating your capabilities and you’re wasting the precious time we have together talking with a dumb animal, rather than with the pinnacle of creation, i.e. me!”

“Do you want us to follow you?” I asked the panther, ignoring the flying ball. As an information source, it already didn’t seem that useful, especially since it had started trying to goad us into outright suicide.

The panther gave an indefinable, drawn-out meow and then in a single leap was back at the edge of the tree line. If it had leaped like that at the start, we’d have died instantly.

“Gor, can you stand up? Great. Grab the crate with supplies — nobody but you can carry it. Lyra, you go ahead, we’ll be right behind you. Let’s follow the white rabbit, even if it’s not white and nothing like a rabbit.”

On receiving clear orders, the Selected began to move. Both Gor and Lyra were used to receiving orders, one from their commander, the other from their agent and whoever it was who directed catwalk shows. If someone was speaking in a calm voice and giving clear orders, then why not follow them? It was easier than having to think for yourself.

Walking through the thick forest barefoot was an adventure in itself, but I did my best to ignore it. We just kept walking, picking our way through the thick undergrowth. I looked sadly at the timer on Lyra’s active aura. There were only five minutes left before it vanished, leaving me to face my problems alone again. We still had the unit of silirium needed to activate the ability, but I had no idea if it could be activated again as soon as it vanished or whether, like Lyra’s massage, it took time to work again.

“It’s so beautiful!” said Lyra in an awe-filled whisper, and for once I was a hundred percent in agreement with the elf girl. It was incredibly beautiful. When the last bushes were behind us, we found ourselves at the edge of a steep cliff. Three hundred or more yards below us began the green sea of the forest, stretching out to the horizon. I couldn’t see any paths or steps or any other way down the cliff. It was like some giant had long ago been playing in his sandpit and made a three-hundred-yard mud pie that we’d been dumped on top of. I wondered if this mud pie had the same steep sides all around, or if there was a way down somewhere along its perimeter. The reason I wondered was because, far away in the forest, I could see some wooden structures. They didn’t look much like human dwellings, more like roosts for birds maybe, but either way, they were made by hand. Seeing as all sorts of species were taking turns to run this world, maybe one of them lived in structures like that. Here and there over the forest, columns of smoke rose, showing that somebody had lit bonfires, but the most momentous landmark was a vast black pyramid on the horizon. Against the green of the forest, it looked like any ugly stain.

Noticing that we’d stopped, the panther growled unhappily. It moved to the very edge of the cliff and began to beat its sides so fiercely with its tail that it became painfully obvious it was asking us to come closer. Somehow, around fifty yards below us, on the sheer rockface, a twisted tree had grown and was clinging on to life with all its roots. Where that half-withered stump got water from on the cliff was a mystery to me, but that wasn’t what caught our attention. Crawling along the dried-out branches, howling frantically, were five dots, four black and one beige.

The panther once again gave a long growl, and it felt to me like this time there was a pleading note in her voice. Somehow, those five little panthers had fallen down there and managed to cling on to that tree. Getting them back up was something the feral black cat couldn’t do for herself. And that was why she needed us.

“They’re so big!” said Lyra in surprise. Well, at least the fairy tales hadn’t lied about that — elves really do have great eyesight. “Wow, just look at the size of their claws!”

“The cubs are scared,” said Gor. “We’ve got rope. I can lower Lyra down there, but the scared cubs will attack her. She looks wrong and she smells wrong. They’ll treat her like an enemy.”

“Me?!” It had taken Lyra a while to work out what Gor was proposing. “Why me? I’m not going down there! I’m scared of heights!”

“I can’t go down there because you two won’t be able to hold me. Max can’t pick the animals up because he has an allergy. If we don’t help that beast, she’ll eat us. That means there’s only one option left. It’s fine to be afraid of heights, but right now you need to be afraid of getting eaten by the big black animal that’s standing right there and thumping its sides with its tail. We have to hurry — the kids could get so scared that they try to climb up. If they fall, they’re going to die. The beast knows that. She’s smart as well as dangerous.”

“Alright, we don’t have time for discussion and persuasion,” I said as I saw Lyra’s aura had less than a minute left. “Aelyria, take five steps forward!”

She obeyed at first, almost running into the panther before realizing what she was doing. The poor girl froze next to the beast, scared even to breathe, but I had an excellent plan how to solve the problem with her smell. Lyra would probably kill me, but that would come later. First, we had to complete this initial quest.

“Panther, you need to lick her! Give the elf girl your smell, so your kids don’t eat her. You need…”

I was interrupted by another hysterical shriek from below, and the huge cat began to lick Lyra, covering her in a thick layer of spit.

“That’s enough, now step back!” I said nervously as the aura’s final seconds ticked away. “Gor, make a harness for Lyra and tie the crate to her. We’ll only have one chance to get them all back up. As they’ve given us ropes, let’s use them.

The dumbfounded model, who had just seen her life flash before her eyes, didn’t even flinch when Gor wrapped the ropes around her, lifted her up, and gently lowered her over the cliff edge. Even though the panther had moved away, without Lyra’s aura my allergy had returned. There on the edge of the cliff, the black cats had been everywhere, and their fur was all over the place. Apparently, it was their favorite spot. For that reason, I only caught flashes of the cat rescue process — Gor lowered Lyra to the tree, the elf girl spread out her arms, and the little panthers clambered their way into the empty crate. When Lyra appeared again at the edge of the cliff, she activated her Aura of Sanctification and brought me back to life. Our only silirium, which we’d got for breaking down the bow, was gone. If we didn’t come up with a plan, in thirty minutes I would be in serious trouble.

Gor seized the crate and put it down on the ground. While he was helping Lyra get back up to the top, four black kittens the size of your average sheep hopped out of the crate one by one. Did I say kittens? The fangs on those cubs meant the four of them could easily have torn us to pieces. Which is what they would’ve done if their mother wasn’t there to stop them. She issued a commanding meow that made the cubs press their ears to their heads and slink off. Wait, was there one cub Lyra hadn’t managed to save? I frowned — I was sure I’d seen five wriggling dots, four black and one beige.

At that exact moment, the beige one decided to announce his presence. Poking out from the crate was a hideous little face, without any fur whatsoever. Compared to the black cubs, this freak was so small that it could actually be a normal kitten, not some overgrown monster fed on forbidden meat. A sphinx? Here? On an alien planet?

Seeing the fifth cub, the panther growled again, and not the way she’d growled at her kids. This time her voice was filled with menace. The freak peeking out of the crate clearly had nothing to do with panthers. It pressed its ears to its head and meowed pathetically. Wiping off the panther’s drool, Lyra went over to the crate and pulled out two long bald tails.

“That’s all that’s left of its parents,” she explained, pointing to one of the panther cubs. “That one had the bald cat’s paw in his mouth. They must be some kind of sick animals. I’ve never seen a cat wandering around without any fur before. It’s gross! Look, even the panther thinks so. How about we give her this freak? Let them eat it and put it out of its misery.”

“What did you save it for, then?” I asked, taken back by the suggestion.

“I didn’t have much clue what I was doing down there. When the little panthers started sniffing me, I thought that was the end of my career. Then I started putting them in the crate, and that bald one got up on the very edge of the tree. The black ones were down there because of it. They wanted to eat it, like they did its parents.”

“But they didn’t eat it in the crate.”

“That’s because I was holding it in my arms. Eurgh, it’s gross even thinking about it. It’s like a rat. Disgusting! Just look at its face. Seriously, Max, look at it! How could you live with an ugly mug like that? The poor things must’ve been hit by some kind of radiation and lost all their fur. It’ll be a kindness to let the panthers eat it.”

I went over to the crate, where the little kitten was huddled in one corner. It really was just a normal sphinx from my world. It looked so terrified that Lyra’s proposal sounded truly awful. Inhuman even, but then again, she wasn’t human.

“Gor, did they have any bald animals in your world?” I asked, turning to the giant.

“Not like that, no. My world is harsh and has lots of cold. If an animal loses its fur, it dies. That is the world the char-ra warriors are born into.”

Under the bewildered gaze of the group, I bent down and lifted the kitten out of the crate. As soon as I pressed him to my chest, there was a sound like a tractor starting up — he was purring. I took a few steps away, leaving Lyra’s aura. I felt bad — there was too much fur from the panther cubs on the clifftop — but I didn’t feel worse than I had done before. Even though I had a kitten in my arms. Yes, I had a terrible allergy, but it was an allergy to something in animals’ fur. This sphinx didn’t have any fur, and no fur meant no allergy. This was a great chance to test out my taming ability.

“We’re keeping him,” I said as I came back into the dome. Turning to the panther, who had been staring at my kitten with a vicious look the whole time, I added, “He’s mine! We got your cubs back, but we won’t let you kill this one. We’re taking him with us.”

Her disappointed growl confirmed that she understood what I was saying. With a snort, she prowled over to a nearby withered tree trunk and knocked it over with a single blow from her powerful paw. She let out another meow, and all five of the black killers melted into the green forest. We were no longer of any interest to them.

Gor went over to the place where the tree had been standing and froze, staring at something in the ground. The look on his face was so weird that Lyra and I hurried over to join him. A pit had been hidden under the trunk, and lying in it like broken, discarded mannequins were hideous corpses. Judging by the state of them, they’d been there for a while. Weirdly, I was the only one disgusted by what we saw. Neither Gor nor, more surprisingly, Lyra seemed to have any problem with the sight of dead bodies — so much for being a delicate flower. Although, as far as I could tell, Lyra wasn’t looking at the bodies. She was looking at the cloths. Yup, the corpses had clothes on them, and not the sack-like garments the System had given us, but real clothes. Like a true warrior, Gor was looking at the weapons, while my attention was caught by two sizeable sacks that were lying by the bodies. I was praying that they contained what we needed most right then — food.

“No, this is definitely against the rules!” After staying quiet for so long, the System began to protest again. “First you find an intelligent panther, now the remains of some goblins in full combat gear, and with provisions too! If this keeps up, then a chest of silirium is just going to drop out of the sky in front of you! Where are the fights? Where’s the proof of your strength? Where’s the triumph over adversity? Wait, I get it! Now I understand. This is all in preparation for your real trial. I’ve investigated where you are right now, and I know what is in store for you. In this world, there is barely a single creature that doesn’t know about the Black Pyramid of Sharraja! Now I see where you were deposited and why. That panther isn’t the trial awaiting you. No, no, no, that will be the hoard of goblins guarding the remains of their god! Now, that is interesting. A lot more interesting. Right, stop wasting my time, get down there and start fighting those goblins!”

“Could you stop trying to provoke us into doing something stupid and get on with your main job?” I said angrily as I continued to stroke the kitten. “What is the Black Pyramid of Sharraja, and why does everybody know about it? What are goblins, and how do we fight them? Come on, System, time to show why you’re actually here on this world. Gor, I need your help. We still have a stick and a rope left. Make a bow and break it down. I need a unit of silirium. I’ve got a pet now.”

Chapter 5

“YUK! PUT THAT FILTHY LITTLE THING down! You’re supposed to tame a fighting animal that will become your faithful comrade and helper in battle with other beasts. You have to collect silirium, not just tame the first animal you come across. Hurry up and chase after that panther. That’s who you should be taming. Or at least, one of its cubs. It’s your duty.”

The ball seemed to be gradually losing its mind. First it had tried to turn me against the panther, now it had a problem with the bald kitten.

“My duty?” I looked grimly at the glowing ball. “My duty to whom?”

“Weeell,” the shining orb paused for a second as if considering its answer. “To yourself! To your group! When it comes down to it, to us! You have to get rid of him… it… her…”

The ball flew in to take a closer look at my little pink bundle.

“Him,” I said authoritatively, turning the meowing kitten to face the ball, so it could see the two pieces of conclusive evidence. Quite sizeable pieces for such a small animal, too.

b#*@&$а Kitten, Level 1

That was all, and the color of the lettering was… hmm… weirdly iridescent.

“What does that mean?” I asked the air with a frown. “And what’s with the strange color for system notifications?”

“Disorder, disorder, disorder, such disorder!” A note of hysteria was creeping into the System’s voice. “Report… Investigate… Eliminate…”

The ball paused again, then suddenly shouted, “KILL HIM!!! IMMEDIATELY!!!”

“Yeah, sure,” I giggled.

Silirium: 1

Gor had broken down the bow. Right, where was that button? That’s the one: “Tame.”

Attention! Collector Max has begun the process of taming b#*@&$а Kitten, Level 1. It is necessary to maintain control of the subject for 60 seconds. Beginning countdown: 60… 59… 58…

The kitten suddenly hissed and started trying to scratch me. But at its size, it was out of luck! I just grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and smiled as I watched it howl in frustration and flap all four paws wildly. And its tail too, of course.

In the meantime, I thought about what I was doing, although the hysterical cries of the System, which was now spinning around me, made it hard to concentrate. I had to admit, there were two reasons I’d decided to tame the kitten. First was the System’s displeasure. I don’t like it when someone is obviously trying to get me to submit to their will. I’m not a kid and I can manage for myself. Second, where else was I going to find a bald animal? Anyway, here I was, holding the kitten at arm’s length while it yelped and waved its paws and tail all over the place. Around me swooped the System’s ball, baffled by everything that was happening, also shrieking indignantly.

Gor stood calmly watching, as unflappable as an elephant, with his arms folded across his chest and a smile on his face. At any rate, I’d gotten used to calling that fearsome grin a smile. Lyra was also watching thoughtfully, but not smiling. I, on the other hand, couldn’t wipe the enormous grin off my face. For the first time since I’d been “selected”, I was having fun.

03… 02… 01…

Attention! b#*@&$а Kitten, Level 1, has been trained by collector Max. You must now give him a name and choose the direction of his development. Beginning countdown: 60… 59… 58…

“Hmm,” I frowned. “What should we call this fleabag?”

The answer was silence. Thinking my team hadn’t heard me, I repeated the question.

“Hey, is anybody listening? Any ideas what to call this little bald guy?”

“It’s your pet, so you should name it, commander,” said Gor, shrugging his shoulders phlegmatically.

“I don’t like cats anyway,” Lyra snorted and wrinkled her adorable nose contemptuously. “I’d prefer a dog, a little tiny one! A chihuahua would be perfect! Could you get me one, Max?”

I had to stop myself from slapping my forehead in response. System, give me strength! Oh, wait…

“System, what’s this ‘direction of development’ that I need to choose?”

“This is outrageous! I shall complain! I can find nothing of the sort in any of my databases!” The ball was ranting like an angry old lady. I even felt a little sorry for it, but not for long.

“Hello, operator?”

In one hand, I held the unnaturally frozen kitten. With the other, I snapped my fingers in the air to attract attention.

“Direction of development, what is it?”

“Huh?” The System came to exactly the way a human would. “Direction of development? That’s very simple: attack, defense or support. Those are the standard development paths for any pet, but what exactly that involves depends on the specific species of animal.”

“Well, what specifically can this little bald fucker do?” I asked, and immediately a window popped up in front of my eyes.

Attention!

A b#*@&$ Kitten, Level 1, has received the name Little Bald Fucker from collector Max

Yes/No?

“No!” I shouted.

Attention!

A b#*@&$ Kitten, Level 1, has received the name Fucker from collector Max

Yes/No?

“No, stop!”

Attention!

A b#*@&$ kitten, Level 1, has received the name Little Bald from collector Max

Yes/No?

Attention! Time remaining to choose direction of development: 10 seconds

09… 08… 07…

“System, for Christ’s sake!” I shouted, sensing that something irreversible was about to happen. “What’s going on with this development thing?”

“Unfortunately, I have no information about this animal in my databases. Therefore, optimal direction of development cannot be…” The system continued to mutter monotonously, driving me white with rage.

Meanwhile, the figures were running down before my eyes.

04… 03… 02…

“Attack!” I shouted desperately.

Congratulations!

A b#*@&$ Kitten, Level 1, has been tamed by collector Max.

Given name: Little Bald.

Direction of development: Attack.

“Well, thanks a lot for the help,” I said to the System, which was still acting weird, muttering something under its breath, accompanied by beeps and squeaks.

I began to wonder what the basis for my choice had been. Probably, it was the way the little pink guy looked. Sorry, I meant “Little Bald”. With capital letters, too. Why not defense? Because he wasn’t a tortoise with a thick shell. He’d get stamped on before anyone could even notice. And support definitely wasn’t a cat’s role. Besides, we already had Lyra for that.

“Meow!” said Little Bald, and his description popped up in front of me, highlighted in blue. Right, allies were green, enemies were red, and my own pet was blue. Almost exactly like in the computer games. Except in the games, you had a map too, and it was easy to check for approaching enemies or your remaining allies. It was a pity we didn’t have one of those.

Anyway, this was the description:

Little Bald

Species: Dracat

(Collector Max’s pet)

Level: 1

“What the hell’s a dracat?” I spun the kitten around in front of me and noticed something unusual. “Wait, seriously?!”

I ran my fingers over two little pink wings, like the wings on a plucked chick, that stuck out of Little Bald’s back. They looked… well, strange.

“Ve-e-e-ery interesting!” The System froze again, then floated closer, apparently recording everything on video. “That was a desperate decision, Max. We’re prepared to help you with your problem. When you arrive in the explored territories, we’re prepared to buy this dracat from you for a significant sum.”

“Significant means how much?” asked Lyra, suddenly interested.

“The evaluation will be performed after the beast is in our possession. But worry not, the sum really will be worth your while.”

I looked at Little Bald. Little Bald looked at me.

“Meow!” he said, and I understood that the little drakitten had no desire whatsoever to be in the “possession” of the System and its unknown accomplices.

“Not for sale,” I said, “And that’s final.”

“Max, what the hell?” Lyra jumped in. “We could buy armor and weapons, get my hair and nails done — yours could use some attention too, by the way.”

“Men don’t get manicures, woman,” piped up Gor. “Not if they’re real men, anyway.”

“Real men!” snorted Lyra and folded her arms. She thought for a second, then made eyes as big as the cat in Shrek and said simperingly, “Max, come on, ple-e-e-ease!”

“We don’t betray our friends, or trade them for that matter!” I forced myself to resist her feminine charms.

“Meow!” Little Bald looked triumphantly at the elf girl and suddenly stuck out his tongue. It turned out his tongue wasn’t very catlike. It only flashed out for second, but I could see that the end was split.

“Well, well, well,” I said, scratching my head.

“I need to recharge,” interrupted the System again. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

Then it disappeared.

“What do we do now, commander?” I was more and more impressed by Gor’s calmness.

“Yeah, ‘commander’, what now?” Unlike Gor, Lyra couldn’t say the word without inverted commas. “How about getting something to eat? And not the way Gor did!”

“Don’t make demands, woman! You only have the right to request!” said the giant, furrowing his heavy brow.

“Did I ask your opinion?” said Lyra furiously. “What? Are you one of those misogynists?”

“Misogynists?” said Gor with genuine surprise. “I’m a warrior, and a warrior must always obey his commander’s orders.”

“Meow!” Little Bald let us know what he thought of the situation.

“Shut up, all of you!” I barked, and suddenly everyone fell silent. “First of all, we need to get down from this cliff, and try not to kill ourselves in the process. Then we need to find out what the Pyramid of Sharraja is, work out what goblins are and how to fight them, and also discover where we are and how to get to the nearest town with collectors in it.”

There were three pairs of eyes staring at me, almost unblinking. Beautiful green female eyes. The dark-brown eyes of the char-ra giant. And the sky-blue eyes of Little Bald. Of course, none of them had anything useful to add to my list, but the dracat at least tried.

“Meow!”

I sighed and stroked his bald head.

“Hold on!” I suddenly remembered and turned right around to stare at the “mass grave” that the panther had “discovered.” Little Bald had so completely taken my attention that I’d forgotten about the big cat’s surprise parting gift.

“Right!” I said, raising my and pointing my index finger straight ahead. I had absolutely no desire to dig around among the corpses myself. “Go take a look what’s there!”

Believe it or not, this time my companions obeyed my orders without question. Apparently, Lyra’s curiosity was more powerful than her unwillingness to do anything for herself, and Gor was just Gor — if there was an order, he was going to follow it. To do otherwise was evil, or maybe misogynistic. Gor began to root in the sacks, while Lyra crouched down by the corpses.

I came closer, absentmindedly stroking the cat as I watched them.

Goblin Scout (dead)

This time, the inscription was gray. I was beginning to get the hang of the System’s color scheme. So, gray meant dead. Noted.

“Eww!” Lyra was trying to get the blouse off the goblin, but it crumbled to pieces.

“Achoo!” she sneezed violently as the dust got up her nose. “How hideous!”

The elf girl scrunched up her nose as she pulled the rusty helmet off the goblin’s withered head. She spun it in her hands and then flung it toward the cliff edge.

Boxing wasn’t the only sport I’d done as a kid. I’d played football too. At the time I was agile and well-developed all round, so the trainer put me in goal. It was a shame he didn’t see the incredible diving save — in the style of the great Lev Yashin — that I performed to stop that piece of rusty headgear from flying over the cliff. Little Bald flew one way, and I flew the other.

“Max, what the hell? It’s junk!” said Lyra with a frown. Cursing loudly, I crouched down and rubbed my hip. This wasn’t the soft turf of the football field, and I’d landed on a sharply projecting stone. It really hurt. Still, I’d saved the…

Rusty Helmet

Rank: Junk

Additional properties: None

Interestingly, the inscription was also gray, as if to say that the item was also “dead”. In other words, absolute garbage.

“Are you a total idiot?” I asked her as kindly as I could.

“What do you mean?” The elf girl frowned and crossed her arms. “Look at it, it’s junk! It’s ugly and covered in rust. Besides, it won’t even fit on your head.”

“But it’ll fit on yours,” I said with a smile, and was taken aback to see the look of absolute panic on Lyra’s face.

“I’m not going to wear that! It’ll ruin my hairstyle! Besides, it stinks! So there!”

“It doesn’t really smell at all,” I said, taking a sniff. “It’s been lying there for a long time.”

“Ma-a-a-ax…” There were tears welling in her eyes. I realized the joke had gone too far.

“Hey, calm down. Nobody’s going to make you wear it. But we can break it down and get silirium. Did you forget about that?”

“I did.” The tears vanished from her eyes instantly and she pointed at the ground. “That cape looks to be in better condition.”

“Well, let’s take a look,” I said, holding out my hand.

Lyra took hold of the cape, undoing the brass buckle at the half skeleton’s throat and passing the garment to me.

Goblin Scout Commander’s Cape

Rank: Ordinary

Additional properties: Hidden

Now, that was interesting. The inscription was white this time.

“Will you at least wear the cape?” I asked Lyra.

“What’s hidden in it?” She’d seen the inscription too and wasn’t in any hurry to take the item back from me.

“How do I know?” I shrugged. “When the System gets back from recharging, we’ll ask.”

“What if there’s something nasty hidden in there?” she asked, continuing to stare suspiciously at the cape.

“Oh, come on,” I said, throwing the cape over my shoulders. “Go and see what else is in there.”

“But what about my manicure?” Lyra showed me her fingers.

“I don’t give a damn,” I said harshly. “You’re a berserker, the terror of our enemies and the strike force of our wonderful squad. Get used to it.”

Lyra muttered something under her breath but kept on looting.

In the end, we found a few more things, but unfortunately, they were all rated Junk. Three Rusted Swords, four Rusted Knives, two more Rusted Helmets, and a pair of Leather Moccasins — everything else crumbled to dust. It was frustrating.

Astonishingly, Lyra grabbed the moccasins and put them straight on her little feet. I wasn’t complaining, as they definitely wouldn’t have fit my size tens, let alone Gor’s enormous hooves.

Talking of which, Gor had even less success. Only one of the sacks didn’t crumble to dust instantly, and the contents were all some kind of garbage that bore no relation to food. Well, not anymore, anyway. It had all been lying there much too long. Except…

“Commander?” Gor was handing me a canvas pouch.

I untied the string and looked inside. The System kindly informed me:

Uncut Precious Stones

Inside the pouch, there really were little different colored lumps of glass. I was no expert, but I knew from Wikipedia that rough and cut stones were two completely different things. When still rough, they often looked dull and unprepossessing, just like these ones.

I had no idea what they would be worth in this world, but if they were “precious”, they had to be worth something. We just had to find out how much and, most importantly, who we could flog them to.

“Alright, take what you need,” I said, nodding to the pile of junk.

Lyra picked up a sword, and then another sword.

“Are you ambidextrous?”

“What?” She looked at me with big, uncomprehending eyes, but she handled the rusted steel with surprising dexterity.

“I mean, do you know how to fence with two blades?”

“No, how would I…” the elf girl began, and then stopped, struck by a thought.

She shifted into a strange pose, with one sword raised high above her head and the other at the level of her chest. Suddenly, she let loose a flurry of blows, attacking an invisible enemy. Ha, if only! Her movements were slow and crooked, but nonetheless, she knew what she was doing.

“Wonderful!” she sighed as she came to rest.

Gor then picked up two swords too and tried to repeat Lyra’s movements, but one of the swords slipped out of his grip and I barely had time to dive to one side as it came flying toward my head.

“Hey, stop!” I shouted as I pulled myself back up. That damned stone had got me in the other hip this time, and I was limping on both legs. “I think I know what’s going on. Gor, put down that sword and pick up the knives.”

Gor did as he was told but muttered unhappily: “I’m a warrior!”

“I don’t want to disappoint you, my friend, but not anymore. The System has other plans for you. Go on, pick up the knives.”

Gor sighed, but he did pick up the knives.

“Go on, throw them at that tree,” I said, pointing.

Still frowning, Gor followed my order. His eyes widened with surprise when the knife buried almost a third of its blade into the trunk of the tree.

“How come?” he murmured.

“It’s simple — classes. Classes decide everything.”

The giant’s face cleared as he took on board what I was saying.

“But what about you, commander? There’s no weapon for you.”

“Right,” I kicked at a dried-up stick that had apparently once been a goblin bow, but hadn’t withstood the ravages of time. “Life is pain, Gor, life is pain. But never mind, we’ll find me something useful sooner or later. Break down that garbage now, we can’t use it for anything.”

My word was his command, and half an hour later, I got the final notification:

Received: 2 silirium. Total: 14

Yup, the “Junk” items, unlike “Homemade” stuff, were worth a whole two units of silirium each. We kept two swords, two daggers, a shoulder bag, and the cape and moccasins. Gor turned the rest into silirium. Except for the precious stones, obviously.

Things were looking up. I now had seven hours of life in Lyra’s aura ahead of me, and we hadn’t even got down the cliff yet. I crouched down in front of Little Bald, who had spent the whole time watching with interest what we were doing.

“I think the System said we have to learn how to communicate. But how?”

Little Bald suddenly scurried off to one side, turned, and looked me questioningly in the eyes.

“Meow?”

“I think he wants us to follow him, commander,” said Gor, scratching the back of his head.

“Yeah, I’m not an idiot. Come on, my brave warriors, follow me!”

And off we went after Little Bald.

At first, the dracat raced agilely through the tangled vines far faster than we could manage, stopping regularly to wait and meow irritably. After a while, however, he understood that he needed to slow down and let us get through the undergrowth at our own speed.

“Hey, Lyra, tell me how come a delicate flower like you didn’t faint at the sight of those corpses?” I asked as we walked single file through the forest. Gor went first, tearing up the vines, Lyra after him, and I brought up the rear.

“What do you know about the modeling business?” Lyra answered my question with a question and a strange smile.

“Nothing, to be honest.” I shook my head, which brought a new kind of smile to the elf’s beautiful face, dismissive and patronizing.

“The modeling business is brutal. Girls push each other on the catwalk, trip each other, and sometimes throw each other off the runway. It’s not unknown for that to end up in broken necks, so you can’t shock a model with corpses,” she said in a calm, businesslike tone. Then she saw my mouth hanging open and quickly added: “But, of course, that’s nothing to do with me! I don’t stoop to dirty tricks like that. And those two accidents I was accused of causing were nothing to do with me. Nobody could prove anything! Do you believe me, Max?”

She was back in “cat from Shrek” mode. I chuckled.

“I don’t really give a damn what you did in your past life. What matters is how you act in this one.”

“Excellent words, commander,” said Gor, who had been listening attentively to our conversation.

At that moment, we emerged at another cliff edge, presumably on the opposite side of the plateau from where we had saved the panther cubs.

“Meow!” Little Bald sat down in front of a strange stone gate, out of which twisted and curled murky, sour air. Making sure that we were watching him, Little Bald then ran over to the cliff edge.

“Meow!” he cried again from there.

I went over to the edge and looked down. I had to squint, but right below us was another stone gate like the one behind us.

“Maybe a teleport?” I suggested, “Hey, why not? I’ve played RPGs before and I have a fair idea of how these things work.”

“Not exactly,” said Gor, shaking his head. He seemed puzzled.

I looked closer. An inscription appeared above the stone:

Double-ended Dungeon, Stationary

Level 2

Status: Open

I frantically tried to remember what the System had said about Dungeons. Nothing good, I was sure of that. Guaranteed death. And you needed a key, except in this case you didn’t. Those goblin scouts that had climbed all the way up here had done it all for us. So… Goddammit, where was the System when you actually needed it?!

Chapter 6

“ERM, COMMANDER? There’s, erm…”

When you hear worry in the voice of a creature eight foot tall that has spent his whole life training to be a brilliant warrior, it’s time to drop everything and run. While we were waiting for the System to recharge, I’d been sitting on the edge of the cliff, carelessly swinging my legs over the edge. Turning when Gor spoke, I very nearly leaped the three hundred yards to my death. Standing by the entrance to the Dungeon was a creature whose very existence directly defied the laws of physics.

Panther, Level 7

The black death that appeared in front of us was the same height as me. This vast monster with shimmering fur filled me with such terror that my mind went completely blank. Near me, Lyra squeaked, turning into a little blonde mouse. Unable to think of anything better to do, the elf leaped over to me and pressed herself against me in search of protection. That would’ve been fine by me — the beautiful girl was wearing nothing but the trophy moccasins and the underwear the System had issued her with — but the pointy-eared idiot almost knocked me into the abyss. Clutching at rocks, I glared evilly at the elf girl, but she’d already closed her eyes and buried her face in my chest. Our berserker’s battle was over. I heard a nervous meow, and Little Bald followed Lyra’s courageous example, although he didn’t threaten to knock me off the cliff. He just snuck under my t-shirt and froze there, like he was hiding. Only Gor stood his ground, ready to take the first blow. Nonetheless, we all knew already that our gigantic friend wasn’t going to take anything. All those eight feet of pumped-up meat were good for was flying prettily. And it wasn’t like the giant’s former strength had been replaced with new agility or other skills. For now, Gor was neither strong nor light on his feet.

The vast monster opened its mouth, and the carcass of some unknown animal flopped down onto the rocks. Next came a menacing roar that made the whole mountain shake. The monster’s hackles rose and he crouched, ready to pounce on us. However, the nearby bushes stirred as several more black cats came out on the cliff. It was that same Feral Panther, Level 2, with her cubs. Instead of joining her mate, our panther stood between us and, pressing to the ground, began to wag her tail furiously, all the while continuing a speech in cat language. It went something like, “Meow, meow, grrr, grrr, hiss, hiss.” Her mate roared again, so deep this time that it felt like the earth would shake on the other side of the plant. I was glad I was sitting down, but I was pressed to the stone so hard that I almost turned into a pancake. Gor was still standing, so he fell, his mighty legs crumpling like matchsticks. Our defender pressed herself even harder against the stone, but she didn’t retreat. She went on hissing and growling and making other noises no self-respecting panther would make.

It was the four cubs that decided everything. One after the other, they joined their mother. They couldn’t growl like she did, but they could hiss and meow. The male was clearly not expecting to have his own kids growl at him. Roaring once again, the massive panther picked up the carcass it had dropped and moved to one side, away from the Dungeon. With its prey between its teeth, it roared again. The feral panther turned toward us, and I swear she was trying to say something to me. Pulling himself up from the rocks, Gor was the first to understand what the wary beasts wanted:

“They want us to leave their home, commander. The only way out of here is through the Dungeon.”

“Where we’re going to die,” I muttered to myself. However much I didn’t want to, I nonetheless pushed Lyra away and got up onto my feet. My legs were shaking as if I’d just run a half-marathon. I’ve never run a half-marathon, but I imagine that’s what it feels like.

Gor didn’t say anything, but by the way he was looking at the recently appeared monster, it was clear he believed we would definitely die here if we stayed. The cold gaze of the Level 7 panther didn’t promise anything good. He’d be happy to put his current prey aside and sink his teeth into three tasty Selected. Furthermore, his family were bound to join him and were unlikely to mourn us. That’s animals for you! So, we would definitely die here. As we would in the Dungeon, but the System had given us at least a minimal chance of surviving there.

“We’re leaving. Lyra, you go first, I’ll follow, and you take the back, Gor.”

“But the System said it was dangerous!” said the elf girl in a frightened voice. “There’s radiation down there. What if all my hair falls out? Look at your Little Bald. I bet that’s where he came from. Do you want me to look like that?”

“So, you vote that we become panther food, then? No? Well then, get moving. Gor, grab a few stones just in case. If all else fails, you can try throwing them.”

Everyone hesitated, but only until the panther roared again. The mountain began to shake, stones could be heard tumbling somewhere, the trees bent over, and we went running to the Dungeon entrance. The shimmering veil accepted us, wrapping us in a terrible cold, but this disappeared a moment later, and the top of the mountain was replaced by a grim, gloomy cave. Lyra’s aura kept working, protecting us from the dungeon’s radiation. That’s what I’d been counting on. While we had silirium, we would live. As soon as it ran out, we would die. That was the kind of exciting life the selected lived.

However, despite the sanctification, I felt nauseous, as if I’d eaten something bad. I heard a plaintive meow, followed by such a serenade from Little Bald that it sounded like he was trying to learn how to speak. Clearly, the dracat didn’t like it here either. Nor did anyone else in the group. Raising my head, my eyes fell on the beautiful outline of Lyra’s firm thighs as she dropped to her knees in front of me. It was a nice view, but I didn’t feel aroused, because the elf girl was puking, even though we hadn’t eaten since our previous lives. Gor, as might’ve been expected, was holding on somehow. He was even still on his feet. Swaying like a birch tree in a gale, leaning with one massive hand against the wall, but still standing.

I sat down with difficulty and turned around. The exit, which was also the entrance to the Dungeon, was still there. My attention was drawn to the icons of our group, which I had long since pulled to the front of my vision. It was nice to think that everything around me was just a computer game and not our harsh reality. Any moment I would wake up and find I wasn’t selected, I was just a regular young urban professional.

Anyway, my attention had been caught by the XP bar. If previously it had barely moved and, in all the time we were up on the mountain, it had hardly shifted away from the edge, then now it was moving like a crazy snail that had just seen… Who knows what the hell snails can see or what would make them move faster, but our XP bar was definitely moving forward. Digging into the group leader settings, I saw an image of Little Bald next to me. The Dungeon aura was having the same effect on him as it was on us regular collectors. The cat was beginning to level up.

Uninitiated collectors detected.

Data analysis underway. Solution found.

The Selected group has been assigned the following task: Integration with the Vilion System. Reach the nearest town with an altar or the central hall of any dungeon. Time to complete task: 52 hours. If the task is not completed, the Selected group will be eliminated.

“I’m back!” The air warped as the flying ball of the exterior System formed. “The time that was absent will be added to our… Hey, wait, have you already talked to the Vilion System? Without me? So, your very own system goes away for a while and that means you can just cheat? Wait, where did you find the Vilion System anyway? In a Dungeon?! Why on earth did you come in here?! Get out of this place at once, while your bodies can still move! You’re going to burn up in here!”

“Hi to you too,” I answered. Lyra had stopped trying to expel make-believe food from her stomach and was now lying on her side, quietly wailing. Little Bald was wailing too. The cat felt so bad that his eyes had rolled up in his head and his tongue was hanging out, making it possible to confirm that my pet was only distantly related to a normal cat. That kind of forked tongue was more suited to a snake or a monitor lizard. Or a dragon, if you were that way inclined. But there weren’t any dragons on my world, so I had nothing to compare it with.

“So, get up, get moving, and get out of here while the portal is still working. It could close at any moment, and then there would only be one way out — completing the Dungeon.”

“This exit isn’t going to close.” It was hard to talk, but it was possible. “This is a stationary Dungeon with two entrances. Have you heard of one of those?’

“Of course I have!” said the System in confusion. “What kind of dumb question is that?

“Well, we’ve never heard of anything like it!” I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t manage it. “Instead of explaining everything and helping us, you ran off and ignored your main function. When we get back to base — and we will get back to base — I’m going to ask the System that sent us here why the hell part of it doesn’t perform its duties.”

“Hey, why are you being like that? We were getting on fine, Max.”

“We were getting on fine before, until you left us all on our own to face a Level 7 panther.”

“Did you try to tame it?” If the System had had eyes, it would’ve been looking lovingly at me. “Well done you! A Level 7 beast is much stronger than that dracat of yours. I had to consult some external databases to get any information about him. It turns out that he’s nothing special, just a bald cat with a few upgrades. But why can’t I see this panther anywhere? I can see that bald thing, but where’s this Level 7 panther? Are you trying to make a fool of me, collector? Talking of which, how come you’re still alive?”

I didn’t want to answer. The progress bar had already filled up by about ten percent, which meant sooner or later there had to be a jump forward. The most important thing was that Lyra didn’t pass out completely. Without her aura, we’d die down here. That was as obvious as the fact that the copy of the System we’d been given was as dumb as a rock. I was willing to bet we were her first outcasts, and she had no idea what to do with us. We’d probably dragged her away from her favorite TV series and forced her to do some work, which was why the flying ball was acting so crazy. Rather than help us, it was obviously trying to do us harm.

“Gor, can you walk?” With difficulty, I managed to pull myself upright. The giant turned his eyes to me, revealing there was another emotion he experienced: pain. It turned out the char-ra wasn’t made of stone either. I picked up Little Bald, who had been whimpering for all that time. Throwing my pet over my shoulder, I made my way over to Lyra. The elf girl’s eyes were clearly just saying, “Kill me!” There was nothing else she was capable of thinking about.

“System, how do we make our adaptation easier?” I turned back to the imaginary ball.

“Get out of this Dungeon,” came the perfectly reasonably answer that was perfectly useless to us. Apparently, the System saw something in my eyes that scared her, because she went on to explain:

“You’ve only just arrived in Vilion and you don’t have anything. At some point, Aelyria’s aura will run out, and you will die if you don’t get a move on and get out of this place. Level 1 collectors shouldn’t be in Dungeons. It’s a ground rule. Alright, enough already! Stop looking at me like that! The only way to make your adaptation easier is to redirect some of the radiation to a foreign carrier. But where would you find one here? What you need is some precious stones, and if you can find them in a stationary dungeon, that’ll only be on Level 3 or more likely 4. In the state you’re in now, you’ll never get that far.”

“Gor, show her!” The giant pushed himself away from the wall, bent over to our crate, and pulled out the trophy bag with uncut precious stones in it. Pouring them out onto his huge palm, he showed them to the ball.

“Where did you get those? Seriously, you really must’ve been born under a lucky star! Those are excellent examples of exactly what you need. Quickly, swallow two of them each.”

The demand seemed so insane that we didn’t even bother to argue. Gor selected two of the biggest gems and shoved them in his mouth. Swallowing them with difficulty, he looked at us in a daze. Slowly, as if he couldn’t believe it was happening, the giant let go of the wall and stood up straight. He wasn’t swaying anymore.

Swallowing the stones turned out to be quite the adventure. Covered in dirt, fondled by countless goblin hands, and then left for years in the panther’s stash, they didn’t look appetizing. Furthermore, without water, the gems showed little inclination to go where they were supposed to, but eventually I got them down. The second stone had only just dropped into my stomach when the nausea suddenly left me. My surroundings were still pressing in on me, but now they were doing it from a respectful distance. Pulling the mewling Little Bald off my shoulders, I shoved the very smallest of the gems into his mouth without a clue how I was going to make my pet swallow it. As it turned out, that wasn’t an issue. I heard the unpleasant sound of a precious stone being crushed. The dracat was chewing the stone like it was an ordinary chunk of meat. A second stone followed the first one, after which I heard a long and grateful meow. My pet jumped down onto the stones, spun around like it was someone else entirely who’d been suffering an instant before, then began to lick himself. And of course, like most of the tom cats in my world, he focused his licking on what made him a tom cat. I made a mental note to stop Little Bald from licking himself in the future.

“Come on then, tell me where you got the precious stones,” demanded the System as soon as Lyra had swallowed her dose. We had severely drained our supplies, and there were only two small stones left.

“They were used by goblin scouts to get up on that mountain via the stationary Dungeon,” I answered, and immediately asked my own question: “So, do we now have to go around forever with stones in our stomachs?”

“If you’re only planning to live for a few more hours, then yes. But they’ll come out sooner or later, depending on how your organism functions. Or they might not come out. A char-ra’s stomach is quite capable of digesting them. That’s enough, Selected, it’s time to move on. Those stones will only work for a few hours, and in that time you’ll have to get out of this Dungeon. Ahead of you are hordes of goblins and the Sharraja Pyramid, so you can still demonstrate your strength and earn enough silirium to be able to get back to base.”

“If we don’t complete our integration with the Vilion System in three days, we’ll be destroyed,” I reminded her. “Where is the nearest town with an integration altar?”

“That’s what happens when you hook up with strangers! Instead of waiting for me, you crawl into some Dungeon! Who asked you to do that? Well, that’s it, in three days you’re dead! Because to get to the nearest town with an altar takes around two months on foot. I see nobody gave you any means of transport. So, spend your final days being useful and collect as much silirium as you can. That way, when another collector finds your goblin-chewed bodies, they’ll be able to take your supplies. Your sacrifice won’t be in vain, and…

“System, shut up.” I looked at the group. “Does everybody understand that we don’t have any choice, or do you need further explanations?”

“The central hall of the Dungeon?” asked Gor. “That will be a worthy battle. I am a warrior, even if I am an engineer now. It’s better to go out fighting than to hide like a coward in the bushes!”

I looked over at the elf girl: “Lyra?”

“Lyra what?” she pouted. “If we stay here, we die. If we leave this passage, we die. If we go toward the goblins, we die. If we don’t complete our integration in three days, we die. There’s too much ‘we die’, and the only ‘we survive’ is if we complete this damned dungeon in three days. What do we need to do?”

“The effect of the stones will wear off in a couple of hours.” There even seemed to be a note of gloating in the System’s voice now. “If you stay in the Dungeon, you die.”

Well, well, well. Did that mean the System had no access whatsoever to our stats? As far as I could see, the progress bar had already filled up by fifteen percent and was still confidently moving forward. Sure, by swallowing the stones, we’d slowed the progress down significantly, but even so, we still needed a maximum of two hours to reach Level 2. Wait, I had a question for the System.

“When we reach Level 2, do we need to do anything? Like tap some invisible buttons or something?”

“Level 2? What are you on about, Max? It takes collectors a month to get there!”

“That’s not an answer!” I was getting angry again, “Just state clearly and without any of your bullshit what we need to do when we reach the next level!”

“Choose your first ability,” said the ball pissily. “Alright, let’s spend your precious time talking about something that you’ll never get because you’re going to die before then. Level 1 is the level when your body adapts to the world’s radiation. It normally takes a month, but it can go a little faster if you use special artifacts obtained in Dungeons. As far as I can see, you don’t have any of those. In reality, there are no clear boundaries between levels. It’s just a visual representation of how your body is adapting to the world and its possibilities. As soon as you reach Level 2, your adaptation continues, and your body can process the energy of silirium without rejecting it. In much the same way that Aelyria now forms her aura. The System that you cheated on me with will allow you to choose one ability each, and also enhance or improve your class combo bonus. New auras, better breaking down of items, and new pet abilities. So, are you happy now you’ve wasted your time? Instead of collecting silirium…

“System, shut up! What are Dungeons and how do you complete them?”

“Should I shut up or should I tell you?” The flying ball was apparently really angry now.

“Just give us facts, without any suggestions or opinions.”

“The Dungeon is a multi-level labyrinth that exists outside the standard dimensions of the world of Vilion. The task for those who come here is to complete all the levels one after the other, by getting down to the central hall. There you will find a battle awaits you with the owner of the Dungeon. If you win, you get access to a reward. If you lose — which, in your case, is the only possible outcome — you die, and all the silirium you’ve collected goes to the owner, making them even more powerful. Every level is packed with monsters, traps, and other entities that take the lives of useless collectors.”

“As well as hidden rooms with rewards, loot from monsters, ore, and deposits of precious stones,” I said, adding a few spots of light to the gloom. It was all so similar to the computer games I was used to that it gave me a strange feeling. Had some people actually made contact with that thing that had flown up to our planet, and then used computer games to prepare us for our future challenges? When I came to think about it, all the hit games of the last twenty years had been dungeon crawlers.

“If you already know everything, why ask me? You’re just wasting my resources!” Yes, the System was definitely pissed. I guess nobody had cheated on her with another System before. Well, there was a life lesson there.

“Does everybody understand our task? Great. Lyra goes first, I’m behind her, then Little Bald, and Gor brings up the rear.”

“Why me first? Let Gor go first. He’s big and nobody will miss him!” The elf girl looked with horror down the dark corridor. A feeble light emitted from some stones, but it clearly wasn’t enough to feel comfortable. In fact, it was probably just the right amount to create an atmosphere of terror and desperation.

“Because you’re the only one of us with a warrior class.”

“Little Bald knows how to attack too. Why doesn’t he go first?”

“Meow!” The dracat eloquently explained what he thought of the suggestion.

“Meow what? We’re all equal here, and I have my nails to worry about. One of them’s already damaged, if you don’t remember.”

“You have two swords and… Of course! Gor, get that thing out. System, what is this?”

“So, your brains have already completely melted from the Dungeon’s aura, right?” the flying ball said rudely. “For the particularly challenged who can’t put what they see and what’s written together, I’ll explain: it’s a goblin scout commander’s cape. It’s an item of ordinary rank with a hidden property. Do you get it now?”

“Do you get it now?” I mimicked the System, who was really beginning to get on my nerves. “No, we don’t get it. What’s a hidden property and how do we discover it?”

“So, you want me to do everything for you now? Alright, I will. Just my luck — apparently they gave some complete blockheads for my first assignment. Pay attention, collector. In order to discover the properties of any item, you have to use the item. Incredible, isn’t it? What’s more, the property will have a different value depending on which of you puts that cape on. This is not set in advance. The local System believes that any item found should be useful to its owner, so it won’t be like you’re a miner and all the items you find boost your useless attack against monsters.”

“It’s mine!” Before we’d had a chance to say anything, Lyra rushed over to Gor and grabbed the looted cape. Finally, she was paying attention to the state of her outfit. Actually, it was our attention she was paying more attention to: “Enough of staring at me without any clothes on. I need this cape more than you do.”

So saying, the elf girl threw the cape over her shoulders and fastened the buckle at her throat.

“Oh…” Her voice was muffled. “System, what should I choose here?”

“The choice of parameter is made by each collector at their discretion, depending on their requirements. Work out what you need most right now and choose that property.”

“Really? Alright then, seeing how ugly this cape is, I’ll take this one!”

Goblin Scout Commander’s Cape

Rank: Ordinary

Additional property: Doubles your attractiveness

It was incredibly hard to find words to describe the feelings that rushed over me when I looked at the stunningly beautiful elf girl. Mostly, my mind was filled with obscenities and other things you couldn’t say in polite society. Instead of increasing her attack or her defense, that… that model had increased her attractiveness!

Lyra read our silence in her own way. Swaying her gorgeous hips, she went to the crate and took out the two rickety goblin swords. After making a few circular motions, the happy elf girl looked at me:

“Alright, I’ll go first! Which way, commander? Who would you like to stun with my beauty?”

Chapter 7

MY HEAD WAS STILL FILLED with obscenities, but so many of them had piled up that they were trapped in the corridors of my synapses and none of them could actually get out. I even managed to calm down a little. Just enough to stop myself from chasing after the “doubly attractive” elf girl and giving her a lecture about how important every item, every ability, and really anything at all that we found on our way was. As my old man used to say, “Shit happens.” We have to work with what we’ve got. Talking of which, what’s this?

“What’s this, a map?” Surprised, I stared into the space in front of me. Before my eyes, there had appeared a classic section of cave with the “fog of war” further on. “Why didn’t we have this before?”

“Because this is the specialty of that know-it-all bi… Hmm, I mean the Vilion System,” muttered our own dear System disapprovingly. “It’s just showing off. She’s got nothing else to spend her processing power on, the show-off.”

“Well, I like it! Well done, Vilion System!” I said loudly, smiling at the air around me, and was rewarded with further discontented mumbling from the ball.

“Wait, Lyra, stop. Lyra? Lyra?!” While I’d been chatting with the System, the elf girl had already headed off around the corner. Gor stood nearby, examining his surroundings with interest and, like a well-disciplined warrior, doing nothing. Sometimes, just obeying orders could mean sitting on your ass.

“Follow me!” I barked and ran forward.

Gor came tramping after me. Lyra might have been nothing more than a vain, empty-headed model, but she was our vain, empty-headed model, and who knew what was waiting for her around the corner? As it turned out, not. Much.

“A mushroooom!” Smiling dumbly, Aelyria was crouched down and looking at a little fungus that was sprouting from a crack in the rockface and glowing blue,

Minor Cave Mushroom

(contains silirium)

“Let’s take a look,” I pushed Lyra aside and ruthlessly yanked the mushroom from its crack.

Extract silirium?

Yes/No

Take mushroom?

Yes/No

“Get extracting, then,” said the System, appearing suddenly and clearly still unhappy, either because of our interaction with the other System or simply because of the situation we were in. “Three hundred units of silirium aren’t going to collect themselves, and you won’t get back to base any other way. It’s time to start justifying all the resources that have been spent on you, by which I mean me.”

“But why is there a choice? What’s that for?” I wasn’t in a hurry to do anything. I continued to turn the mushroom in my fingers and stare at it. I even sniffed it. Nothing unusual, it smelled like a mushroom.

“What a bunch of basic collectors I got!” grumbled the System. “No desire to think for themselves, they just want to be a burden on the poor System. Everyone else gets proper outcasts — they appear, they die, and they free up resources. But these ones are trying to survive for some reason. Why is there a choice? Because you’re a druid. You have this special ability to interact with plants, including fungi.”

“You’re the basic one,” I snapped back, but without any real anger. I was beginning to treat the System like my ex — bad-tempered, vindictive, and over-dramatic, but basically harmless. Well, most of the time. “So, how do I interact with them?”

“You’ll find that out on Level 2, when you get your choice of abilities.” The system’s tone seemed to soften a little. Apparently, she actually enjoyed teaching collectors things more than she enjoyed grumbling at them. We may have been her first outcasts, but our ball sincerely loved her work. Grumble but teach, that should be the external System’s motto.

“Right, I’m tired of just calling you System,” I said decisively. “Now we’ve got two Systems, we need to tell you apart. From now on, I’m calling you Grumbler. Gor? Lyra? All in favor, raise your hands.”

“Hey, what’s all this about? You can’t go give the System names!” protested the ball, but it was too late, two hands had gone up in the air.

“Unanimous! The Selected group dubs its spherical hallucination Grumbler! Write it down in the minutes.”

In response, I heard something inarticulate and not very teacherly. Laughing, I decided to finish dealing with the mushroom and selected Take.

“You were told that you needed to collect silirium,” complained Grumbler, though her heart clearly wasn’t in it anymore.

I looked thoughtfully at Gor, then at the mushroom in my hand, then at Gor again.

“I’m not going to do it!” There was fear in the giant’s eyes. He started shaking his head and looking around. “There aren’t any bushes here! Where am I going to hide?”

“But who else can do it?” I said in surprise. “Lyra and I could die.”

“You think I couldn’t?”

“I guess you could too.” I sighed and threw the mushroom into the crate to save for better times or, more precisely, for Level 2.

I turned back to Grumbler: “Remind me again, what did you say about the Dungeon?”

“That you’re all going to die here?”

“No, not that. About monsters, traps, and other entities other that take the lives of useless collectors.”

“Oh, yes. It’s just like I said, they’re all here, hee-hee!”

“Grumbler,” I said, looking suspiciously at the ball, “why do I get the impression that instead of helping us with adaptation, you’re actually trying to kill us? Are you glitching?”

“I’m not glitching, I’m…” If the ball could sigh, that’s exactly what it would’ve done. “It’s just that, when I’m in the area of influence of another System, I’m a little… How can I put this… My cognitive abilities are somewhat blunted.”

“You mean you get dumber?” I asked sweetly.

“No!” the thing thought about it for a while. “I mean, yes. Or no. It’s different, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand alright.” I did sigh, then turned to my companions: “Well then, what have we got? A dumbed-down System, an impassable Dungeon, and fifty-two hours… actually, fifty-one and a half hours not to die in. And we have enough silirium for Lyra’s aura for six hours, after which we’ll die too. So, any suggestions, wishes, or interesting solutions?”

After a second of intense thought, Lyra said: “Let’s go look for mushrooms. They’ve got silirium to keep us going.”

“Great, Lyra!” I nodded. “If only we knew how many of those mushrooms there are. Still, it’s a good idea. Nonetheless, that will only put off our death for a while. Gor?”

“We must move forward and, if called on, die like warriors,” the big man boomed emotionally. “Dying not like warriors is unacceptable!”

I laughed.

“Great notes and an awesome plan. What about you, Little Bald?”

“Meow?” said the dracat questioningly, and this time he didn’t go anywhere, he just stood looking at me with his big blue eyes.

“Grumbler?” I turned to my last hope. “Gather your thoughts together, please, and tell me everything you know about the Dungeon. And please be quick about it.”

“Why must you keep pestering me? I already told you everything. You’re going to…”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re going to die.” Grumbler was irritating enough, but dumb Grumbler was absolutely infuriating. “Where is the Dungeon’s central hall located?”

“In the center, obviously,” said the flying ball flippantly.

I sighed again. It was really, really difficult to keep my cool.

“How do we detect traps and how do we find stashes?”

“Next you’ll be asking me how to kill monsters,” snorted Grumbler. “The usual way, with your eyes and legs and arms. But I wouldn’t try to find the central hall if I were you. As I said, that’s where the Dungeon’s main monster is, and you have no way of overcoming it. So, just keep going along this wall, find the second exit, and get out of here. You’re lucky this dungeon is two-sided, as you don’t have to kill the boss to exit.”

“We get out of here, then what? We’re still going to die,” I said with a frown.

“That is the fate of all losers who are unable to adapt to the dangers of a new world.”

It was like I could seem Grumbler virtually shrugging her shoulders.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the Mandalorians that made you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“How could they, with their level of development?” answered Grumbler blithely. She stopped to think for a second, then continued: “Sorry, but I have to go and recharge again. With these extreme conditions, I hope you understand…”

Again she vanished. I couldn’t say I was particularly upset. She hadn’t been any use and she’d been getting on my nerves more and more. We’d do better by ourselves… until we died. Goddamn System!

“Alright,” I said, looking at the map. On it, Gor and Lyra were marked as friends with green dots, while Little Bald was blue. It was just as I’d expected. Wait, or had the Vilion System read my expectations? Actually, it made no difference — it was easy to use. And there were no red dots visible, which was good. “Let’s move on. Slowly but surely. Keeping looking under your feet and either side. Gor, you go first.”

“Commander?” frowned the big man, adding hurriedly: “Oh no, I’m not against obeying your order. Even though… It’s an honor for a warrior to lead the group. But what changed? We already worked out that Lyra is our main strike force.”

“What’s changed is that we’re in the Dungeon, and there are traps and stashes here. You’re not only an engineer, you’re also a scout. Logic dictates that you’re the most suitable candidate to find them. Is that clear?”

“Yes, commander. We’re lucky you ended up in our group and have the necessary leadership skills,” said the big man seriously. I ground my teeth, Lyra giggled, and even Little Bald quacked something in his dracat language. Still, we moved forward. Slowly but surely, as I’d said. Gor was in front, Lyra behind him, Little Bald was on me, and we brought up the rear of our small but proud squad.

The fog of war gradually cleared from the map. Strangely, however, there were no junctions, just a gently meandering corridor with low ceilings, an uneven floor, water dripping from the ceiling, and the occasional glowing stone.

The first junction, which we reached after forty minutes, had a surprise for us.

“Commander?” Gor had stopped and was staring in the corner.

“What is it, Gor?” Unceremoniously barging past the curious elf girl, who was already sticking her inquisitive nose where it didn’t belong and blocking my view, I looked down the passage.

In fact, it could hardly be called a passage at all. It was more like a small recess or niche. Furthermore, it was immediately obvious why that was the case — it had been completely filled with rocks. It would appear the ceiling had given way. As well as the bits of stone, there was something else in there.

Gnome Miner (dead)

The poor guy had been completely covered in falling rocks, so that only his feet were visible. In what looked like strong boots.

“Veeery interesting,” I said, and crouched down in front of the dead body, reaching for the laces.

Tough Boots

Rank: Junk

Additional properties: None

Unlike the gnome’s trousers, the boots didn’t turn to dust, so I pulled them off the dead body, wondering as I did so at how calm I was. Apparently, I’d already accepted the rules of the game, and my brain had begun to perceive the items around me, even the ones I had to take from dead bodies, as loot. And, as everyone knows, loot is great!

The boots were a little tight, but when I stood back up, I felt something like fleeting happiness. Walking barefoot over land where there were branches and twigs everywhere or stone floors with sharp edges was not my idea of fun.

“We’ll find you something too,” I said to Gor, “but now let’s dig, my friend.”

I nodded to the half-covered corpse, and the giant got to work, using his hands like a powerful excavator. It was a pity we hadn’t been able to make him our tank, but for now his innate “race bonus” was still in place, and he was still much stronger than me and Lyra combined. At least, until we leveled up. In order not to just stand there like some great leader and point my finger while my team was working, I began to help shifting the stones further away to make it easier for Gor to work. After about fifteen minutes, we were done. I examined the two items we’d collected as a result of our excavations carefully. The first was pretty straightforward.

Miner’s Pickaxe

Rank: Junk

Additional properties: None

It was just a simple tool and, judging by the second item, it was fairly obvious what it could be used for:

Lump of Ore

(Contains silirium)

Extract silirium?

Yes/No

Take ore?

Yes/No

So, what do we know? There’s silirium in beasts and monsters, some plants, and even minerals like this lump of ore. Keep thinking. If Grumbler offers us the chance to take the ore, that means it has some other use too, right? Like with the mushroom, which I should check again.

I reached in the bag and pulled out the mushroom.

Minor Cave Mushroom

That was all. What had happened to “Contains silirium”? It had gone. Apparently, the local System had come up with a light version of Gor’s “breakdown” skill. But the System’s service for the processing and extraction of silirium was only available for a limited time the first time you picked the item up in your hand. What happened after that? I had no idea, but I could guess. I assumed the silirium didn’t actually leave the object, but to extract it later you would need special skills that — hopefully only for now — I didn’t have.

I put two and two together: there was a pickaxe and there was a lump of ore. That meant there was more ore elsewhere, and we could collect it. Right at that moment, Lyra had to renew her aura, reducing our stock of silirium to eleven units, so I chose the “Extract silirium” option.

Received: 1 silirium. Total: 12

Well, that felt a little better. I took hold of the pickaxe and swung it around a couple of times. It wasn’t as hefty as the ones I remembered from my world, definitely lighter, and it reminded me of something. When he drank, and especially when he drank with his old mates from his army days, my old man would have fits of nostalgia. They’d dress up in the blue berets and striped shirts of their paratrooper uniforms, sing songs, swim in fountains, and sometimes put on shows. They’d throw knives and axes, showing off their skills. One time they almost hit the woman next door, who came into our yard at just the wrong time, after which Mom banned that particular entertainment. But those jolly uncles in blue berets had managed to teach little me how to throw an axe.

I looked around for a target.

There was a rustling sound, and around the corner of the underground corridor came a strange creature that looked like a beetle, but one about the size of a regular dog, and with mandibles that were outsize even for its outsize body.

Cave Beetle, Level 2

“Here they come,” I thought, and for the first time a red dot appeared on the map — just to make it clear that the bug didn’t like us.

“Aaargh!” I screamed, deftly flinging the pickaxe at the beetle.

It flew beautifully, just the way it was supposed to, spinning perfectly and burying itself sharp-end-first deep into… the wall just above the beetle.

“Missed!” For some reason, Lyra felt the need to state the blindingly obvious.

I couldn’t argue with that, so instead I picked up a stone from the ground and lobbed that at the beetle. This time I was more successful. The stone landed right between the bug’s horns. The freak didn’t like that and rushed to attack.

“Lyra, go! Keep it occupied. Gor, you try to creep up behind it and stab it in the butt with a dagger. Little Bald, if there’s anything you can do, do it!” I’d summed up everything I knew about fighting tactics in RPGs and sent my brave warriors into battle. Now I just had to add a little motivation: “Get the bastard!”

Weirdly, this time they both did as they were told. Even Little Bald understood what to do — he jumped off my shoulders and settled down next to the wall, eagerly watching events unfold. Well, at least he wasn’t getting in the way.

Lyra swung her swords fiercely and went to meet the bug first. When she made impact with its mandibles, she was visibly shaken, but she kept on her feet. The force of the blow confirmed what Grumbler had said about levels, though. The bug might’ve been much smaller than us, but it was Level 2, so dealing with it wasn’t going to be easy.

Lyra danced around, swinging her swords, while Gor tried patiently to get behind the beetle. However, he was tripped by a sweep from one of the bug’s legs and went crashing to the floor. I tried to get involved too by throwing more stones. Surprisingly, I even hit the target now and then.

Gor got back up and angrily kicked out at the beetle. He must’ve weighed about ten times more, so by the laws of physics the bug should’ve promptly flown off into a brighter future. That didn’t happen, however. Judging by Gor’s desperate hissing and the fact he was hopping on one leg, you’d think our giant had kicked a concrete wall.

Fortunately, Lyra was still slashing at the beetle, but either its chitin was tough, or her swords were blunt, or she just had no idea how to fight a bug like that. It was probably all of the above and much more besides. My stones didn’t appear to be doing any damage to the beetle whatsoever so, like a true leader, I dived into the fight too. The bug was determinedly advancing on Lyra, so I ran past them and yanked the pickaxe out of the wall.

“Get in there and help, or we’ll all be dead!” I barked at the hopping big man, who responded immediately to my order.

With three of us, things got more interesting. Lyra was doing a great job of intercepting the beetle’s attacks, but the little bastard managed to bite me in the leg. My short selected life went flashing before my eyes. It was incredibly painful! The horned bastard had torn my pants and my thigh. The stone floor of the cave received the first drops of blood, and sadly it wasn’t the blood of our enemy.

Attention!

Debuff received: Light wound to right leg

Debuff received: Bleeding

Really? I wouldn’t have noticed. For some reason, the sight of my own blood made me more angry than scared. We were three brave adult collectors, and we couldn’t kill one overgrown beetle. At that moment, the bastard was distracted by Lyra, and I was able to take a good swing at it.

“Aargh!” I brought the pickaxe slamming down and managed to pierce the beetle’s shell, although my arms almost fell off from the blow too. It really felt like I’d slammed into a concrete block. And the bastard was still alive. Spinning around like a whirling top, it pulled the pickaxe out of my hands and, deciding I was the main danger, pounced at me, knocking me to the ground. Its huge mandibles appeared before my eyes, all ready to bite me in the throat…

“Yeeeeee!!!” Lyra shrieked, leaping in our direction and jabbing both her swords down into the bug’s damaged shell. They pierced straight through it and pinned the beetle to the ground. I gulped: the swords had ended up just inches from my widely spread legs and even closer to my most prized possessions.

Cave Beetle, Level 2 (dead)

Received: 2 silirium. Total: 14

“Th-thanks,” I stuttered.

“Any time, Max, any time!” Clearly pleased with herself, Lyra struck a victory pose and spun her swords a couple of times. Suddenly, she looked distracted. “Oh, what’s this? I’m Level 2! Yeaaah!!”

I too saw that our XP bars had finally made it to the finish line and were flashing brightly to attract our attention.

“So, what have we got here that’s interesting?” drawled Lyra thoughtfully, looking “within herself.”

Despite the pain in my leg and my ribs where the beetle had landed on them, that was the moment I jumped desperately to my feet. I could see all too clearly the berserker’s cape and its doubled attractiveness. If I left the elf girl to choose her first ability on her own, we’d be dead even sooner than Grumbler was hoping for. Gorgeous, but still dead.

“Lyra, stop! Don’t do anything and don’t choose anything! Seriously, don’t! Gor, the same goes for you too.”

“Meow?” interjected Little Bald out of nowhere. The dracat’s XP bar, like ours, had reached the end of its first race.

“Meow to you to,” I muttered. Making sure that nobody had done anything they shouldn’t, I took several deep breaths to calm my nerves, then sat down on the cold stone and gave my orders:

“Now, calmly, without making any choices or confirming anything, read out everything that you can see. Gor, let’s start with you. What are your engineering and scouting options?”

Chapter 8

“I DON’T LIKE THIS!” Lyra protested till the end. “Have you seen these fingers? These nails? What sort of shield am I supposed to carry, Max?”

“A big, impenetrable one!” I wanted to scream, but I realized that shouting was no way to deal with the model’s mule-like stubbornness. Lyra was used to being shouted at by everyone — colleagues, agents, fans, rejected admirers. That gave me an idea.

“Lyra, do you have an allergy to me?” I asked, hoping that the sudden change of subject would distract her from the main issue and then she’d do as she was told.

“It’s only a reaction to members of my own species,” she snorted, giving me a strange look. “Animals and other creatures can’t trigger my incompatibility allergy, obviously.”

“Meow?” added Little Bald.

“Oh, come on! No, I don’t have an allergy to you either. Max, I don’t want to carry a shield.”

“Our commander clearly told you what you need to do, woman,” said Gor. “So do it! It’s not a question of whether you want to or not. It’s a question of survival.”

I nodded gratefully to Gor. That was someone I could rely on not to cause problems. Our giant had done exactly what I asked of him. He’d read out everything clearly, then just as calmly chosen what I suggested. With the elf girl, it had been nothing like as straightforward. Lyra wanted to show off with two swords. She told us about some popular movie in her world where the heroine ran around with two flaming swords, explaining to her enemies why they were wrong. It turned out the heroine also wore a classic armored bra matched with a thong, so I had some reservations about how true to life the movie was. Waving two swords around might look cool on the screen, but real life, when every careless movement could be your last, was different. I had to dig through all the starter abilities available to berserkers, until Lyra finally read the words I was hoping to hear:

“Shield Strike.”

At last! If you used Shield Strike, then you had to be carrying a shield! I’d already begun to think that our group would end up without a classic tank, which seemed like automatic inclusion on the list of groups that weren’t long for this world. Our battle with that basic beetle had shown how weak and ill-adapted to this life we were. If it hadn’t been for the pickaxe, the bug’s teeth would’ve gone through us like a knife through butter. And all because it hadn’t been concentrating its attention on Lyra. For some reason, however, the Berserker class didn’t offer anything to do with defense. If you wanted attack abilities, take your pick — the local System offered Lyra every kind of attack you could possibly imagine, but none of them were much use to us. Even this Shield Strike wasn’t really a defensive ability. My one hope was that at later levels there’d be some way to point it in the right direction.

I asked the elf girl to read the description again.

“Shield Strike: You rush forward and slam your shield into the enemy, stunning them and applying the Stupefaction debuff. Cost: 1 silirium. Radius: 3 yards. Requires a shield. Well, Max, I don’t have a shield.”

I turned to the giant: “Gor?”

“I’ll make one,” said the char-ra and began to break apart the beetle’s chitin. For me and Lyra it was just some useless bug, but for Gor with his new engineer’s abilities, a bug was a source of all sorts of useful stuff.

“But Max!” wailed Lyra, making her final effort to get her way. She even produced some tears to show just how much she didn’t want to run around with an ugly shield. It had no effect on me. If I had to choose between survival and beauty, I was picking the first option. The cape was more than enough already.

“Lyra, choose Shield Strike. Right now. That’s an order from the commander of your group.”

“Oh, fine!” The tears instantly dried on her cheeks as finally the line that I needed appeared in her status. She turned her back on me demonstratively to let me know what a vile despot I’d been.

The System had given each of us two free skill points, although they didn’t really work like the skill points I was used to from computer games. Basically, we could either get one ability from each class, or one ability from either class and a boost to our bonus combination. It sounded more complicated than it actually turned out to be. We didn’t even have to think that hard about what to choose, because as I heard the list of available abilities, the choices made themselves.

Aelyria:

— Shield Strike (1): You rush forward and slam your shield into the enemy, stunning them and applying the Stupefaction debuff.

— Healing (1): You let the power of silirium flow through your body and expend the energy released on restoring the integrity of your or another’s body.

— Aura of Sanctification (1): A golden cupola that forms a healing aura for your allies and a slowing aura for your enemies.

Gor:

— Foraging (1): Allows you to collect useful ingredients from monsters’ corpses. Passive skill.

— Trap Disarming (1): Allows you to disarm traps you find.

— Breakdown (1): Breaks down items to give you silirium.

Max:

— Direct Hit (1): You deal damage to the enemy, inflicting Bleeding on them.

— Taming (2): Allows you to tame a companion and develop their abilities.

Little Bald:

— Fire Spit (1): Your pet spits a fiery ball of pure napalm at your enemy.

That was the pretty picture we now had of our group of The Selected. What’s more, it all seemed useful and there was nothing I’d want to get rid of. The Druid abilities didn’t impress me at all, so I decided to spend a point on leveling up Little Bald. Happily, the dracat had even more attack abilities than Lyra. I had already begun to worry that I was the most useless member of our team, as I had nothing to shoot with. But now I could point Little Bald at the enemy and let ‘em burn.

“Lyra, could you turn off your aura?” I asked. The elf girl looked at me like I was crazy. Even Little Bald gave a concerned meow. Nobody wanted to experience the debilitating aura of the dungeon again. I had to explain:

“We’re at Level 2 now. The force of the Dungeon doesn’t affect us anymore. That’s only on Level 1. If we feel bad, we’ll activate the aura again, but there’s no reason to waste silirium now.

Biting her lip, Lyra did what I asked, then screwed up her face, waiting for the wave of nausea. It didn’t come. The elf girl opened her now happy eyes, but rather than celebrating with her, I came out with my catchphrase:

“Achoo! Dammit, activate it again!”

The panthers had used this Dungeon regularly and had left bits of fur everywhere they could. Even places where they couldn’t, you still found fur. I’d happily been thinking my allergy was gone, but now it had come knocking again, we needed to activate the aura.

“What about this?” said Lyra, reaching out an arm in my direction that began to glow like a lightbulb. Suddenly, I felt an incredible sense of wellness. The wound on my leg healed up completely, but even more importantly, I got a new message that made a dumb grin spread across my face:

Buff received: Allergy Block. You will not be susceptible to allergies for 12 hours.

Silirium remaining: 13

“That’s much better,” I said gratefully to Lyra, and jumped to my feet. I don’t think I’d ever felt as healthy in my life! Even the back pain that I’d gotten so used to that I thought it was innate had gone.

“Your shield!” boomed Gor, destroying all the charm of the moment. A look of such horror appeared on Lyra’s face that you’d think she’d just been sentenced to immediate execution. She hadn’t even looked at the Level 7 panther with as much dread as she did at Gor’s handiwork. The giant had done his best, of course, but he hadn’t been able to clean all the remains of the bug’s innards off the inside of the chitin. Furthermore, once he put a rope on the chitin, the System decided that those scraps of flesh would be integral parts of his terrible creation.

Hideous Shield of Bloody Flesh

Rank: Junk

“I am not taking hold of that thing!” whispered Lyra. I couldn’t argue with her, Gor’s handiwork was, to put it politely, unusual. In fact, it was truly disgusting.

“There isn’t any other chitin. It’s either this or nothing!” It appeared our giant had finally taken offense at something.

“I choose nothing, then!” insisted Lyra, but I was able to come to the giant’s aid:

“Lyra, take the shield! Red dot!”

“What?” The elf girl followed the direction I was pointing in and suddenly fell silent. Another beetle had come to pay us a visit, just as hideous, huge, and dangerous as the last one. At first, the bug didn’t pay us any attention. Sensing the smell of blood, the monster scuttled over to the remains of its relative and began to devour them with relish.

“How disgusting!” Lyra turned white as a sheet and literally snatched the shield from Gor’s hand. “Give me that! Right, how do I use this... Ooooh, aaaargh!

Her hysterical shriek was accompanied by a mighty blow. Lyra had taken the shield with two fingers, as if she was scared to hold on to it, and without really thinking had activated her ability. It worked just the way it would in any computer game — the shield saw an enemy and rushed towards it, carrying its owner along in its wake. Lyra wasn’t ready for the dash, so she flew after the shield screaming at the top of her lungs. Gor’s handiwork slammed into the bug and crumpled into pieces. It only took one blow to smash the Junk item. On the other hand, one blow was enough to put an end to the beetle, too. The bug lay motionless on its back and a blue cloud of silirium formed around it. Another monster turns up its toes, not that it ever had any toes.

“Are you alive?” I hurried over to Lyra, who was lying on the floor with her eyes closed, breathing heavily.

“I want to do it again!” was the unexpected reply. Lyra sat up and, having checked herself for injuries, she continued in the same surprising vein: “Gor, make me a new shield! And make it stronger this time. I don’t care what it looks like, as long as it doesn’t fall apart straight away.”

“I don’t have enough materials,” said Gor. He went over to the beetle and, with one deft movement, as if he’d been doing it all his life, pulled off a big piece of the tough chitin.

“I don’t care.” Lyra took my hand and pulled herself to her feet. “If it lasts for two strikes, that’s already great. I’m going to fly! Max, find me another bug.”

It looked like that pretty, pointy-eared head must’ve hit the hard, cold stone. The elf girl was experiencing too many emotions at once after using her ability. It shouldn’t be like that. On the other hand, what did I know about berserkers? Only that they ate mushrooms and dived into the thick of the battle. We had a mushroom and we had a berserker, so all we needed now was the thick of a battle. But somehow I didn’t want to let the elf girl do that — in most cases, berserkers were a single-use weapon.

“Lyra, use your healing ability on yourself,” I told her. Her two clear green eyes looked at me as if I’d gone crazy again, so I had to insist: “This is an order from your commander. As your agent, I insist that you heal yourself!”

“You should’ve said that to start with. I knew you’d become my agent. And…” The elf girl suddenly shut up as the warm wave flowed over her. The madness left her eyes and she swallowed loudly. When she glanced at the beetle Gor was working on, our strike force turned green, her face now matching the color of her eyes, and once again she was doubled over. It was even a good thing we hadn’t eaten yet. Lyra really was a little too sensitive.

“Gor, we need to find food. Can we eat these beetles?” As soon as I asked, the sound of Lyra’s retching got louder, accompanied by groans. Apparently, Lyra wasn’t keen on eating beetles, but didn’t have the strength to explain this clearly.

“Meow?” Little Bald shoved his face into the bug with interest, but immediately snorted. The dracat turned around and demonstratively began to “bury” the body. That was all that could be done with the beetle. There was no question of eating it, which Gor promptly confirmed:

“Not much meat, it’s tough, no fire. I’m not trying it.”

“You won’t have to. What about that shield?”

“This one’s better.” Gor held out another Hideous Shield of Bloody Flesh to the elf girl. “We’re running out of rope. We need supplies. We need everything.”

“We’ll get it,” I said. “Lyra, how are you doing? Can you walk? We could stand here until we turn blue, of course, but in fifty hours we’re going to die. Either we conquer this Dungeon, or we die, and I don’t want to die. Gor?”

“A living warrior is stronger than a dead warrior,” confirmed the giant.

“Let’s go,” moaned Lyra. Even green and disheveled, she was still incredibly beautiful. Apparently, the cape worked on allies as well as enemies.

There were no more beetles. They must have been a couple, and as soon as we killed the husband, his wife came to see the body and go on chewing at his brains. For some time, we continued along the meandering passage, which now jinked from side to side like a rabid hare, until finally we reached a junction. Judging by the fur, the panthers used the right corridor, which meant it would lead to the exit into the forest — the forest where there were goblins and all sorts of other creatures. If Grumbler had been with us, she would definitely have told us to go right and earn as much silirium as we could before we died. But once again, the flying hallucination wasn’t with us, so I took the strategically correct decision:

“We’re going left. The main Dungeon is that way.”

Nobody objected, and only a couple of minutes later, we were standing at the edge of a huge cave. A wide black hole could be seen at the opposite end. Presumably that was where we were headed, but we couldn’t make a heroic dash for it straight away — there was an obstacle in our path. This time it was a five-foot-tall monster beetle that was methodically chewing some two-legged body with its monstrous mandibles. Judging by the legs, it was a gnome, like the one we’d found at the entrance to the Dungeon. The single red dot on the card showed that the beetle was all alone in the cave. Where it had gotten the gnome from was a question that we didn’t expect to get an answer to.

Senior Cave Beetle, Level 2

“Lyra?” I whispered, trying not to distract the beetle from its meal. Somehow, I didn’t want to end up in the gnome’s place.

“What?” The elf girl looked at me in bewilderment, then at the beetle, then at me again, then once again she turned green. Wide-eyed, she whispered at the top of her voice: “I’m not going there! That hideous thing’s taller than me!”

Hearing these uncomplimentary words, the beetle turned and slowly made its way in our direction. My heart sank. It’s not every day you see death with two scythes in its mouth coming toward you. There was nothing left of the gnome whatsoever. The level boss had eaten him whole with all his clothes. We backed away, moving almost in sync with the monster. He approached, we retreated. Maybe Grumbler was right? Maybe we should get out of this dungeon and look for happiness somewhere else? Maybe a miracle could happen, and we could reach a town with an integration altar in three days? My head was filled with a thousand reasons why we should turn around and try to beat Usain Bolt’s world record, but suddenly they all went straight to the back of my mind. It turned out there was one true warrior in our group.

“Meow! Meeeeow! Mewowowowow!

Silirium: 4

The dracat didn’t want to retreat. Possibly, he didn’t even know the meaning of the words “tactical withdrawal”. Shrieking at the top of his little lungs, my bald cat rushed to meet the beetle and, stopping a few yards from the advancing bug, began to work his magic. It was quite a show. From Little Bald’s mouth, one after another flew eight fiery drops roughly the size of ping pong balls. Unlike me, Little Bald was a great shot, and all his rounds sunk into the bug’s chitin, flaming brightly as they began to burn through the monster’s defenses. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to notice the damage — it was just too thick-skinned. Turning away from us, the Senior Cave Beetle faced Little Bald, clacked its mandibles, and sent a wave pulsing through the air that lifted my kitten up into the air and lobbed him at the wall. There was a pitiful meow, and my pet slumped to the floor unconscious. I had no idea the bug could pull that sort of thing! The level boss scuttled toward the dracat ready to gobble him up, but I had different plans.

“Lyra, go!” I shouted, almost shoving the elf girl in the bug’s direction. “No man left behind!”

“Eeeeyah!” shrieked the flying girl. Minus one silirium, but Gor could be proud — the shield held! Slamming into the enemy, Lyra was shaken, but kept her feet. Placing the chitin shield in front of her, the elf girl was almost completely hidden by it. However, the monster was in no hurry to attack. It stood there, swaying on the spot and not even clicking its mandibles.

“Lyra, keep your shield up! Gor, pickaxe! Get that bastard, he wanted to eat Little Bald!”

My shouts were entirely unnecessary. Gor was already next to the frozen bug and brought down the pickaxe with all his strength. It bounced off the chitin like it was hitting steel. In fact, it was literally repelled by some kind of force that sent Gor flying to one side. He really was a lot weaker — and lighter — than he looked. Curled up in a ball, Lyra hid behind the shield. She even had her eyes closed, as if that could save her. The fact that she had a sword as well as a shield in her hand didn’t seem to occur to the elf girl. She didn’t appear to be thinking about anything anymore. The stones that I threw at the boss bounced off it without doing the slightest bit of damage. I grabbed the second sword from the crate, ready to join the fight, but I froze before I’d taken a couple of steps. The legs of the Senior Cave Beetle gave way and it slumped to the floor. There were eight brightly flaming holes in the monster’s chitin. Little Bald’s spit balls had found their mark. The boss twitched a few times and stopped moving.

“Lyra, healing!” I shouted, rushing to Little Bald. I carefully picked up the dracat hero and carried him over to the elf girl, whose eyes were still tight shut. “Lyra, shift your elven butt! Healing! We’re losing Little Bald!”

“What? Right!” She got her bearings, and again a snow-white beam flowed from her hand. The dracat twitched and mewed unhappily. There was a horrible crunch, and my pet’s sides straightened out. The level boss had managed to smash his ribs. Little Bald opened one eye, looked around, saw the monster, said something unintelligible in dracatian, then deftly leaped down and, as if nothing had happened, set to licking himself again. He’d almost died, but he didn’t want to look dirty.

“Gor?” It was only then that I realized the big man wasn’t with us. The maps showed he was on the other side of the bug’s corpse and he wasn’t moving. Had the monster really managed to hit him? Getting to my feet, I saw that the giant was sitting next to the boss with his head hung in sorrow. If he’d been able to, he’d have been crying too, but warriors never cry.

I went over to him: “Are you alright?”

Gor looked at me, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“It’s awful, commander. I’m useless. You’re a great commander, leading our squad. Lyra will be a great warrior, taking blows. Even Little Bald showed he was useful. He’s only a kitten, but he fights like a lion! Only I, the born warrior, can do nothing. The pickaxe bounced off so hard it almost killed me.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Gor,’ I told him. Psychotherapy was the last thing I’d expected to be doing. When I got back to Earth and they asked me how I’d spent my time as one of the Selected, I’d be able to tell them that I’d majored in char-ra psychotherapy. “If it wasn’t for you, nothing would’ve worked out. Just look at the amazing shield you made. It was good enough to withstand Lyra’s attack, and that’s saying a lot. But that’s not even the main thing. You say that Little Bald won us this session, right? Where would he have got the silirium from without you? Eight spits, that’s eight units of the very silirium that the great collector Gor gathered for us by breaking down junk items. Just because you’re not fighting face to face with the enemy doesn’t mean you’re not useful to our group. It’s thanks to you that we’ll be able to get back to base. So, chin up and let’s get going. The silirium from that monster isn’t going to collect itself.”

“Why me?” asked Gor, taken aback.

“Because you have the passive Foraging ability. What if it affects silirium as well as materials? We won’t know until we try.”

Silirium: +16. Total: 20

Had it worked or hadn’t it? I had no idea what the logic behind the calculations of the resource that Grumbler wanted were. It made sense that significantly more dropped from the level boss than from a regular beetle, but why sixteen all of a sudden? I couldn’t see the logic. Not that it really mattered, the main thing was we had plenty. If we kept going like this, then we could get rich and flee this planet in two days. Let the local System come looking for us, there’d be nobody here to kill.

“Ma-a-ax!” Lyra put so much feeling into her voice that I had to jump up again and go running around the huge corpse of the dead boss. The map didn’t show any danger, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t any. What if Little Bald had taken his licking too far and bitten off his prized possessions?

“Max, is that normal?” Lyra’s finger was pointing over to somewhere near the beetle. I turned around, ready to use the rusty sword that was still in my hand, and froze. Not far from the bug, a pile of translucent items were glowing green. Wait, was that loot? Real loot? I couldn’t control the huge grin that spread across my face. I was beginning to feel a whole lot better.

Chapter 9

THE IDEA THAT SOMETHING like a flamberge could drop out of a dead rat had always seemed idiotic to me, but the game-makers of our world saw things differently. Considering that practically all our games prepared people in one way or another for this world, there had to be something similar going on here. For example, we’d already been introduced to the concept of the “spatial bag” that automatically collected our silirium, and that showed that the local System was on very familiar terms with space. I didn’t even want to think about where the beetle might have been hiding a two-handed, six-foot-long broadsword, but whatever they were comfortable with was fine by us.

Nonetheless, I approached the glowing pile with a mix of excitement and apprehension. Experience had shown that the “external” System had all kinds of tricks up her sleeve. It remained to be seen what her “ugly sister” had in store for us.

“Sooooo, what’ve got here?” I reached out my hand, then examined with interest the list that scrolled down in front of my eyes. The pile divided into separate objects.

The first item was predictable:

Goblin Scout Commander’s Cape

Rank: Common

Additional property: Hidden

It seemed clear that the goblins who used this dungeon as a passage often didn’t make it to the exit without losses. And, as far as I could see, the first people they lost were their commanders. Were these brave officers defending their troops with their lives? Who knows, that didn’t sound much like what I’d read about goblins. On the other hand, my knowledge of goblins came mostly from The Lord of the Rings. Hey, did they have orcs here too? We’d find out soon enough.

Goblin Ranger’s Dagger

Rank: Common

Additional property: Hidden

Wow, so the goblins had special forces too. I wondered what they called themselves. Probably something like the “green berets”. Hell, they might even have pale blue ones like my old man. In that case, maybe we’d find an enchanted striped sweater and bottle broken on somebody’s head. Maybe there just wasn’t enough space in the beetle for that.

Now, this was more interesting. The third item glowed a shade of green that we hadn’t seen before.

Jade Necklace

Rank: Uncommon

Additional property: Hidden

Additional property: Hidden

“Look at that!” was all I could say as I took the piece in my hands.

In fact, it was the last item — there was nothing more in the loot pile. Still, in comparison with the junk we’d come across so far, it was remarkably generous. Grumbler was still recharging, but I could put two and two together by myself.

I had a rough picture of the logic of the loot system. The higher the rank, the more cool goodies it gave us. I wondered what other ranks we’d find in the future. Also, it seemed clear that we wouldn’t be finding any flamberges or crossbows (which, of course, I really wanted) in beetles. Probably, the things you found in them were the things that they’d eaten. This particular bug appeared to have swallowed a few goblins. Or maybe more than a few, but this was all that its system hadn’t been able to digest. Thinking of which, why was there nothing but silirium from the bug itself? I remembered exactly what you got in all those RPGs — guts, hearts, and a whole lot more.

“Ew, no thanks,” I said to myself, trying to imagine what I’d do with a stinking liver. Gor could deal with the beetle — maybe he could break it down into its constituent parts and make something useful out of its innards. In the meantime, I put the necklace on. What? I’m the commander, aren’t I? I deserved some cool stuff too. Except, according to the local System, I didn’t:

Attention! Collectors cannot reveal the abilities of Uncommon items until they reach Level 5

I hissed worse than Little Bald. That was so unfair! Were they taking the piss? They gave you something good, then they immediately broke it. The bastards!

“It doesn’t suit you,” said Lyra authoritatively. She’d appeared at my side as soon as I laid a finger on the jewelry. “Your eyes are brown, and the stones are green. I have green eyes and it will suit me, so give it here.”

“With pleasure,” I said smiling and took off the necklace.

It really was green, and it looked like nothing more than a string of slightly undersized playing dice. Each of them was covered in signs of some kind, the meaning of which was indecipherable to me. With a contented look on her face, Lyra fastened the item around her neck, smiling in anticipation. A moment later, her face fell into a grimace of disappointment.

“Level 5? But why?”

“Just because,” I said grimly, turning to Gor. “The dagger and the cape are for you. Let’s work out what we need to get from them.”

“Thanks, commander.” Gor bent over the items, but quickly looked up at me with doubt in his eyes: “Maybe you should take the dagger at least? You’ve got nothing to fight with at all.”

“I’m glad you noticed that,” I said sarcastically, “But no, these things are for you. I’ll take the pickaxe.”

“Are you sure?” The big man was still dubious.

“Absolutely. So, what do we need?”

“What do we need?” repeated the big man.

It took a lot of willpower to stop myself from grinding my teeth. No, Gor didn’t appear to be a moron. It was just that his upbringing and his unusual logic apparently meant he naturally relinquished all initiative and responsibility for decision-making to his commander, in other words me. A strange being from a strange world. I took a deep breath and slowly released to restore my calm.

“Right now, there are two things we need…”

“Not to die and to find a hairdresser?” suggested Lyra. “No, wait, what about my manicure? That’s more important than not dying. Max, let’s say we need three things, okay?”

I slowly turned my weary eyes toward her.

“Oh!” she said and turned away, pretending that she was very interested in a large stalactite.

I took another deep breath.

“Remember what Grumbler said about stashes in Dungeons?”

“I do,” Gor nodded.

“But you haven’t seen anything promising so far?”

“Me?” Gor was genuinely surprised.

“Well, not me. And certainly not Lyra. You’re the scout, aren’t you?”

“Me? Erm… Yes, I am. No, commander, I haven’t seen anything. Sorry.”

“That’s what I thought. Look, you’ve got two items — the dagger and the cape. It would be logical to get something like heightened awareness or discovery from the cape. Maybe it’s called something else, but you get the idea, right?”

“Right, commander.”

“Great. The second problem is our exceptionally poor attack strength…”

“How about that?” snorted Lyra, without turning around. “You’re the exceptionally poor one!”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

“Not talking about me?” She finally turned around, her green eyes wide.

“You think the whole world revolves around you?”

“Well… it used to!”

“Well, it doesn’t anymore!”

“Asshole!” The elf girl pouted and turned away again.

“So,” I said, turning back to Gor, “we need to boost the dagger somehow. It looks alright, sure, but we have to make it better. Got it?”

“Got it, commander!”

“Then get on with it.”

Lyra was still pouting, but she didn’t want to miss this bit, so she turned back around and got ready to watch the show. Gor carefully picked up the cape with two fingers, threw it over his shoulders, and fastened the buckle.

Goblin Scout Commander’s Cape

Rank: Common

Additional property: Eagle Eye

“Hmmm,” I hummed, “that looks about right, but we’ll need to check. Now for the dagger.”

Gor picked up the knife, and the inscription above it flickered for an instant. Then, the following was added:

Sharp Goblin Ranger’s Dagger

Rank: Common

Additional property: Improved Penetration

“Hmmm,” I hummed again, but my mood had improved significantly.

With the right approach, it looked like you get yourself some good stuff. This was a pleasant difference from the normal RPGs I’d played, where you often got all sorts of junk that was no use to you or your friends. Here, you could “customize” items to suit you. In future, sure, the things you didn’t need could only be sold to your “classmates”, but that future was still a long way away.

“Gor, get looking!”

“What for?”

“Stashes, obviously!”

“Ah, oh! Understood, commander… But how?”

“Goddammit,” I muttered under my breath, then out loud said: “How the hell would I know? Look carefully. Feel with your hands. Use your tongue if you want, I don’t know! Leave no stone unturned! You’re the scout, so it’s your problem.”

“Understood. It’ll be done, commander.” Gor got straight to work.

“Found one!” he shouted just a few seconds later, after I’d picked Little Bald up and started stroking him thoughtfully, dreaming of our bright future. Somehow, I couldn’t ignore the dark spots that still covered it.

“What have you found there?” I asked, jumping up.

“Ore, commander, look!” Gor tapped a finger on the bare wall.

I squinted.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Right here!” said the big man, slamming the wall in frustration. There was a light cracking sound, then a picture formed before my eyes.

Silirium Seam

(Contains Silirium Ore)

“Should I get it?” asked the big man, flexing his powerful shoulders.

“No,” I said and took another deep breath. “Give me the pickaxe, I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?”

I was too tired to tease him anymore, so I just spelled it out: “I can’t find secret places and ore seams, but you can. The choice is obvious.”

Gor handed me the pickaxe, and my sentence to hard labor began. I pounded on the seam with all my might, and after fifteen minutes of intense exertion, I was rewarded with two lumps of silirium ore. I extracted the silirium from the ore and…

Silirium: +2. Total: 22

Hmm… Gor was shouting that he’d found another seem, but the exercise didn’t seem all that profitable to me. Genociding bugs looked more appealing. I’d never signed up to be a miner. I wasn’t some goddam gnome. Talking of which, where were all the living gnomes? Maybe I could sign up a couple of them to dig for silirium. Was that possible?

In the end, I called Gor back and asked him to “scan” the main hall where we’d taken down the Level 1 boss. My gaming experience told me that all the most interesting stuff was always hidden, just to make the players suffer more. Sure, we’d already received our reward, but maybe that was just a bluff, right? It was definitely worth checking. So I wasn’t just standing around, I went to dig at the next ore deposit. A few minutes later, Gor was shouting again.

“Found it! Commander, I found it!”

“Just coming!” I decided to finish digging out the piece of ore I was working on, but while I was doing that, I heard a crash, a rumble, and a cry of pain from the central hall. I ran in there with my pickaxe at the ready and saw the following picture: Gor was sitting on the floor with a bloody head, while Lyra stood over him casting her spell. Around them were the shards of a stalactite. The very big shards of a very big stalactite.

“What the hell?” I asked, once I realized it didn’t look like anyone was going to die.

“My fault, commander,” said Gor, embarrassed. “The trap was too complicated for me.”

“What?” My eyebrows flew up. “What trap?”

“It was Level 3, I guess.” Gor furrowed his bloody brow. “I mean, I found a stash. It even said ‘Stash’ on it. It was over there.” Gor pointed and I saw an indent in the rocks. “There were some ropes of some kind in there, but I decided they weren’t interesting, and I just took the lid off. Then there was a notification that said: ‘Trap disarming failed.’ Well… then that thing fell on my head.”

I looked up. Hmmm, if that kind of stone “icicle” had landed on me or Lyra, that would’ve been game over. Our small but proud team would be down one member. It really was a pity that we’d been messed up so badly with the classes. Gor would have made a brilliant tank. Still, there was no reason why we couldn’t keep disarming traps that way, was there?

“Maybe there’s another way?” said the big man pitifully.

“Wait, did I say that out loud?”

“Uh huh,” answered Lyra, who had only just managed to heal the skin on Gor’s head. “Let’s not do that.”

“Of course not,” I said automatically, “Alright, Gor, did you find anything? Was it at least worth it?”

“This was in the stash, commander.” Gor raised his enormous fist, unclenched it, and I was able to see a small ring, with a green glow.

Jade Ring

Rank: Uncommon

Additional property: Hidden

Additional property: Hidden

“Give it here!” said Lyra, quickly grabbing the ring and slipping it on her finger. “Green again — that means it’s mine. Oh! It says Level 5 again.”

I took another deep breath. That must’ve been the hundredth time. I was tired of all this deep breathing, to be honest. No miracle had occurred, and the ring hadn’t activated. Yes, it was made from the same material as the beads on the necklace, and yes, it really was green.

After spending two more units of silirium, Lyra fully healed Gor and he jumped to his feet, a little embarrassed but ready for further adventures.

“Wait, I don’t get it.” Finally, the adrenalin from the boss battle and the subsequent events had dissipated in my blood and I remembered why we’d actually come here in the first place — integration! Goddamn Grumbler, she was never around when you needed her.

“Maybe we should wait?” said Lyra.

I shook my head: “We haven’t got time. We need to get moving. This is just the first level, and in these Dungeons, if you remember what our flying ball said, there’ll be at least five or six. So, we have to keep going. The only question is, which way?”

Actually, it was a pretty stupid question. We’d noticed the gaping black hole in the opposite wall from the cave entrance long before. Four pairs of eyes immediately turned to stare into the gloom.

“Meow?” said Little Blood. Judging by his tone, the dracat really didn’t want to head into that gloom. There were no glowing stones visible on that side.

“You can meow at me over there. Yes, that’s where we’re going. Somewhere on that side must be the way down to the second level. Gor!”

“Why me?” asked the giant. “Can’t Lyra go first?”

“Hey, what sort of discrimination is this?” replied the elf girl.

“Quiet!” I barked. “Gor, you don’t have to go anywhere. What I need is a sling.”

“What?” The giant looked confused.

“You know what a sling is, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but… Where do I get one, commander?”

I was about to take a deep breath but stopped myself just in time. If I kept doing that, I’d get oxygen poisoning. Instead, I had to answer:

“You don’t need to get it, Gor, you need to make it. Are you an engineer or just out for a stroll? There’s a vast bug lying over there with nothing to do, so work out how to use it. I need a sling, so get to it, soldier!”

Maybe that was the only way to talk to Gor. Once he’d got a clear order, he got straight to business, and within ten minutes I had another example of his craft, fashioned from bug innards, in my hand:

Hideous Sling

Rank: Junk

Grunting, I knelt down and picked up some shards of the stalactite that had almost killed our giant. They would be the projectiles for my throwing weapon. Straightening up, I fitted the loop of the sling over one finger, placed a stone in the wide middle part, and looked around for a target. No, my old man never taught me how to use a sling. When I was a kid, I had a slingshot, but it wasn’t like we had all the options here. Making a slingshot would be too much for Gor’s giant paws, at least until he got the right tools.

I threw. I threw again. And again. Wow! I hit a stalactite about ten yards away from us, which cracked and fell to the floor. Obviously, it wasn’t the most reliable weapon, and it was bound to break pretty soon too, but still, I didn’t feel quite so naked in this alien — to me — world.

“Great throw, commander!” said Gor as he finished making a second sling. Like me, the giant well understood that his creations had their limits, so it was best to prepare for all eventualities.

“Well then, Selected, are we ready for the second floor?” I said cheerfully, picking up Little Bald and slinging him habitually over my shoulder. “Lyra, you go first. I’ll bring up the rear. Gor, traps are on you. Make sure our gorgeous elf doesn’t get hit by anything heavy. Forward march!”

There were no objections this time, and we headed to the dark entrance. Our fears proved groundless — as soon as we got close, it became obvious that there was no gloom there, the passage was just blocked with massive stones. Judging by how evenly they were laid, this wasn’t rockfall. It appeared to be handmade.

“There’s nowhere to go!” said Lyra, lowering her shield dejectedly. “Ma-a-ax, what do we do now?”

“Break it,” I said, getting a better grip on the pickaxe. “Stand back!”

“Commander, wait,” said Gor thoughtfully. “Something’s not right here. Give me a moment.”

The giant sat down on one of the stones, doing a great impression of The Thinker. He even propped his head at the right angle, gazing at the enormous pile. How long Gor was planning to sit like that was the mystery of the century and the entire char-ra race, but Little Bald had different plans. The kitten jumped from my shoulders, flopped carelessly on the rocks saying, “meowmeowmeow,” then walked to the wall and started stropping his claws and one big stone.

“Of course!” Gor’s face lit up. “There it is! Commander, pass me the pickaxe.”

I had no desire to argue with that mound of muscles, so I handed him the tool. Gor deftly jammed it in the crack between the stones and pulled. There was a click and, with surprising smoothness considering its size, the stone moved to one side.

“The entrance, commander!” roared Gor happily. “It was hidden, but I found it!”

“Meow!” Little Bald categorically rejected Gor’s claims, but there was no time for them to sort out the matter. Lyra frowned, clearly sensing something wrong, and raised her shield to cover herself and Gor. She shuddered as a deftly thrown pickaxe slammed into it. Without saying a word, we formed ranks — Lyra first, Gor behind her, Little Bald beneath her and me swinging my sling and bringing up the rear.

We heard the disconcerting patter of feet approaching. Lyra took a step back, and Little Bald hissed — she had stepped on his tail. Lyra squeaked and turned away from the passage. If you ask me, that was a mistake. The gloom in the passage grew darker and soon transformed into three short, bearded freaks. I couldn’t bring myself to call them men, although they had two arms, two legs, and one head. But all these attributes were so ugly and out-of-proportion that I was even glad I hadn’t eaten for so long. The local System came to our aid, identifying the red dots that were approaching us.

Gnome Miner, Level 2

What’s more, the gnome miners didn’t look at all friendly.

“Lyra, shield up!” I commanded. The elf girl was still looking at Little Bald as he licked his tail.

“Oh, right,” said our fighting unit, but she was too late. The trio of hideous but nimble gnomes, barely reaching up to Lyra’s breast, were already next to her. Their bloodthirsty eyes were focused on her, their pickaxes drawn back to strike, and I could literally already see how those stunted little bastards were about to turn our elf friend into mincemeat. And then something extraordinary happened — the three red dots disappeared from the map. But the gnome miners were still right there.

“Googoogoo,” was the incomprehensible sound that all three of them made as they fell to their knees before the elf girl, pressing their heads into the floor. Their pickaxes clattered to the ground, no longer required.

“Commander, what do I do?” Amazingly, it was Lyra not Gor who asked.

There was probably a lot I could’ve said about what was happening, but the map summed it up perfectly. Where the red dots had previously been, something orange appeared, and the System finally honored us with an explanation:

3 Gnome Miners, Level 2, have been enchanted by collector Aelyria, Level 2

Enchantment duration: 12 hours

To make them your fans, destroy the Gnome Matriarch

Chapter 10

“YOU CAN NEVER HAVE too many fans, but do they have to be so hideous? Max, do something! I do not like this.”

I could understand where Lyra was coming from. There were already twenty gnome miners standing around us and staring at the elf girl with adoring eyes. Judging by the way some of their mouths were hanging open, revealing rows of blackened shark teeth, things were not going all that well. Any second now, the little critters could completely lose their minds and pounce on the object of their adoration, ripping what was left of her clothes off her. Although, apart from the cape, the shield, narrow strips of cloth around her breasts and her hips, oh, and the green ring and necklace, Lyra wasn’t really wearing anything. There wasn’t all that much to rip off.

“I doubt anyone would like it,” I said, without a clue what to do. The twenty gnome miners might’ve looked like a class of schoolkids gathered around their teacher, but they were actually a genuinely threatening force. Each of them had a pickaxe and clothes, some were wearing helmets, a few even had chain mail. And that wasn’t to mention the clearly deadly knives that each of them had on their belts. Unlike us selected bums, the brotherhood of the second level of this Dungeon were formidably equipped.

“Right, that’s enough!” Lyra stamped her foot when the twenty-first gnome appeared from the passage and, setting eyes on the elf girl, joined the group. “Max, help me, please.”

She was almost in tears — being surrounded by a crowd of short-assed stalkers staring at your mouth was an unsettling experience. Gor was muttering behind me, but I tried not to pay any attention. It was something about how the gnomes should do battle for their women like real warriors, then only the best and bravest would have the right to stand next to her. I hoped Lyra couldn’t hear him, or she’d probably want to kill him.

“Attention everyone!” I shouted to get the miners’ attention. “Your beloved elf girl is tired and she needs to rest. So, it’s time to get going. Come on, off we go, no pushing. The show’s over, folks! You — yes you, beardy, stop looking at me like that. You heard what I said — this beautiful creature is tired. How wouldn’t she be when she has to work for free? That’s right, whoever wants to go on admiring her great beauty will have to pay.”

“Max!” Lyra cried out, but there was no stopping me now. I had a plan. I knew full well that the gnome miners couldn’t understand me. They were simple monsters that only vaguely resembled humans at a distance. However, like any monsters, they were quite capable of getting my tone and the general drift. Turning back to Lyra, I placed my sling and several stones in front of her, then sat down with my tongue hanging out, like I was now ready to admire her incredible beauty from the front row.

“Meow,” said Little Bald and, spitting out a small stone in front of the elf girl, came to sit next to me, scraping at the stones with his claws. If anyone called my pet useless after that, they were in for a slapping. That was the smartest dracat in the whole wide world, and the fact he didn’t have any fur made him even more precious.

Amazingly, it worked. First, one of the gnomes took a step toward Lyra and dropped a few lumps of ore on top of my sling. Settling in next to Little Bald, the gnome gave a meaningful “Googoo,” and his face broke into an equally meaningful grin as he got ready to watch the show. It didn’t take long for the others to catch on. In a few moments, a huge pile of ore had amassed in front of Lyra. In there somewhere were a couple of knives, a pickaxe, and even a helmet. They may all have been Junk, but at least they were items from the local System, so they wouldn’t break. The miners all sat down around me like they were waiting for something to happen. If it was a show they wanted, then a show is what they’d get.

“Lyra, we need a fashion show! Imagine you’re on the catwalk and make your sponsors happy.”

Silirium +122. Total: 144

The huge pile of ore vanished in a split second. Lyra unwrapped the miners’ gift, extracting all the silirium and immediately filling our “bin” almost to the halfway mark. The same again, and we’d be able to go straight from this gloomy dungeon back to the base. But that would be later. First there had to be a show, and Lyra gave a superb performance. Grabbing the ugly helmet, which looked more like a chamber pot, Lyra calmly fitted it to her head and walked along the row of gnomes, swinging her hips. It was… enchanting!

“Presenting for your attention a gnome helmet of junk quality,” she began, taking the helmet off her head and showing it to the gnomes. “An exclusive product that can turn any gnome into a great warrior. Just look at its rounded form, which perfectly emphasizes all the curves of the hips and chest. It suits me, doesn’t it? Then it will suit you too! And this helmet looks best of all when it’s worn with this pickaxe. So brutal, so powerful, you just want to pick it up in your hands and…”

The rest of Lyra’s performance can’t be described in polite company. She gave a convincing demonstration of why she was considered the best model in her world. When she’d finished stroking the pickaxe and pressing it to her face, even I wanted to buy the damn thing. To say nothing of the poor gnomes, who’d never seen anything like it before. Sure, they were monsters, and pretty dumb monsters too. But they saw a woman, they appreciated her, they sensed all her power, and they were ready to do anything for her. Jumping to their feet, the gnomes began to gesticulate wildly in the direction of the passage. They were bouncing and shouting, and one dropped to all fours and just howled like a wolf. Basically, it was complete chaos. But one thing was absolutely obvious and, as was his habit, Gor put it into words:

“The little ones want us to go in. Commander?”

“Well… There’s no sense in standing around here, we need to get down. If there is a passage to the third level, then it’s there somewhere. Lyra, wrap it up, your main sponsor has already left.”

“Left?” squeaked the elf girl, putting the pickaxe down. “He would never… Max, that’s not funny! Nobody ever left my shows early. I was the best.”

“The operative word there being ‘was’. Put on your helmet, grab your sword, and let’s go. Your army of fans is calling you somewhere.”

There was no doubt the second level of the dungeon was inhabited. The corridors we moved along had clearly been made by hand, rather than appearing naturally. Nor were they lit by simple stones. Instead, they had dim lamps about the size of Little Bald. But the most unpleasant thing was the constant noise. Hundreds, if not thousands, of pickaxes hammering into stone all over the level, combining into a single tooth-juddering sound. It didn’t bother our undersize guides, but we got the full pleasure of high-intensity sound waves in an enclosed space. It gave our ears a real pounding, and Lyra eventually had to activate her aura to relieve our suffering. This made the elf girl even more popular, and all the twenty-one gnomes bustled around her, insistently pointing forward. There was something important up ahead.

“Commander, there’s something wrong with all this.” After half an hour of walking through the second level of the Dungeon, Gor was beginning to look around nervously. While Lyra was in her element, given over completely to the thrill of the crowd, the giant and I were worried. Even Little Bald kept hissing and whining each time another party of gnomes joined our little group. In half an hour, we’d gathered a churning gnome sea around us. A hundred? There could well have been two. The bearded monsters, armed with pickaxes and shark teeth, followed our elf girl, seeing perfection in her. And they kept chattering, pointing further down the corridor.

“Here I am!” said a familiar voice, and Grumbler’s translucent ball appeared a few yards away from us. “Right, I’ve been updated, assigned additional resources, even given additional authority, so now I can… Are you kidding me? What the hell is this? No, screw that!”

With a loud clap that didn’t seem right for a hallucination, Grumbler vanished again. The mindless and ruthless external system, which had managed to seize hundreds of planets across the whole Universe, was proving rather useless and pathetic. However, she did deserve credit for something — her loud exit had a positive effect on us. Lyra stopped and gasped, suddenly realizing the size of the crowd surrounding her. Shoving aside a few gnomes, she rushed over to us and, for want of anything better to do, buried her face in my chest. Now she was hidden! Little Bald flicked her head with his paw a few times to get rid of her, but to no effect.

“Ma-a-ax,” she wailed pitifully, “I’m scared! Do something!”

The gnomes started making a racket — they clearly didn’t appreciate Lyra’s final maneuver. An extended “googoogoo” came from all sides. A few of the orange dots on the map even turned red, although they soon went back to being orange. The little guys were getting angry that the beautiful girl wasn’t acting to their instructions. That’s what fans are like, I guess. While their idol is acting how they want her to, they’re ready to worship her. But if she puts one foot wrong, they get dangerously aggressive.

“We need to move,” I said, pushing Lyra away from me with difficulty. The elf girl’s delicate appearance was deceptive — she was no featherweight. It felt like I was pushing a huge barrel of water away from me. “Up ahead there’s a boss. If we kill it, we take the second level.”

“But what are we going to do with them?” asked Lyra, straightening up. She looked back at the gnomes, who were all still chattering away, and shivered. “They’re all as gross as a hippo’s armpit!”

I had absolutely no desire to know where and under what circumstances she’d seen a hippo’s armpit. Even if it wasn’t actually a hippo and the name of the animal had been averaged out by the System as it dug around in our brains, the fact that Lyra had for some reason seen its armpit scared me.

“Get them to work for us, of course,” I answered anyway. “If twenty-one gnomes can pile us up with more than a third of our silirium target, just imagine how much a few hundred could load us up with. We won’t just get to return to base, we’ll get showers! Hot water, thick foam, aromatic oils, massages…”

“You know how to get a girl’s attention,” said Lyra with shining eyes. “For the sake of a bath, I’m ready to smile at every single gnome on this planet. Alright, let’s keep going. Where is this boss?

“Commander, we need to eat!” Such a direct request was unusual for Gor. “Or at least drink. Before I was kidnapped, I was doing resilience training. Then there was that fruit that was no kind of fruit at all… I’m hungry!”

“Lyra?”

“Lyra what?” she said tetchily, turning to face me. “What’s it got to do with me? Or did you think I was wandering around with my pockets full of food?”

The gnomes let out an approving roar when the elf girl threw off her cape to reveal her almost naked body. The miners’ union liked this. They approved. What’s more, I was pleased with Lyra too. Not because she was displaying her gorgeous body again, but because something had clicked in her brain, and she understood what she needed to do.

“Food! We need food!” she announced to the gnomes. Of course, they didn’t understand her, so she had to resort to mime. Lyra opened her mouth and began to push her finger into it, all the while moaning strangely. She even swallowed for some reason, with her mouth open. If that was the way to signal you wanted to eat or drink in elf world, I was eager to visit. To my eyes, what Lyra was miming had nothing to do with food. Judging by the wide eyes of the gnomes, they backed me up on this. The little guys were getting agitated and fidgety, and I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. The emotion that was beginning to flash in their eyes didn’t look at all like adoration. It looked like lust. And that was the last thing we needed.

“Lyra, listen to my command! Advance!” I said sharply, putting an end to the erotic mime show. My commanding tone had an instant effect — Lyra raised her shield and advanced down the corridor, shoving gnomes aside. They were quite literally taken aback by the Level 2 collector’s power. The seemingly fragile girl turned out to have a lot of inner strength. Once she’d broken out into clear space, Lyra strode forward confidently before coming to a halt and turning around with a concerned look on her face.

“They’re not following us,” rumbled Gor, stating the obvious again. Shuffling from foot to foot, the gnomes appeared unable to cross an invisible line. They kept on jabbering, waving their arms and pickaxes, and pointing somewhere, but they didn’t move forward. Which was quite strange. Actually, no it wasn’t. When yet another monster came around the corner in front of us, everything fell into place.

Junior Gnome Matriarch, Level 2

What did the system mean by “matriarch”? Was she actually the mother to any — maybe even all — of the gnomes around us? Was she their queen? The System really could’ve been a little more precise. Whatever she was, though, she certainly wasn’t like the female gnomes in most of the computer games that prepared people for their transfer to the System. In the games, they were sweet little creatures with pigtails, button noses, and spanners sticking out of their pocket. Reality turned out to be very different from those game-makers fantasies. The junior gnome matriarch was of nearly the same dimensions as Gor — close to seven feet tall, with bulging muscles, a hideous face, and three pairs of breasts lined up like a sow’s. This grotesque creature was dressed in rough leather and most importantly, unlike the other regular gnomes, this monster was armed. Her meaty paws held a battered two-handed broadsword, although given the size of those paws it looked more like a long dagger.

“Googoo!” roared the beast, and a hundred of the gnomes behind us vanished like the wind! In an instant, there were no more orange dots on the map. They hid away so well that not even the System could find them. The width and height of the corridor were ideal for wielding a two-handed sword with no restrictions, and that was exactly what this terrifying monster did. Roaring again, the junior gnome matriarch raised her weapon and rushed toward us, and even managed to use an ability at the same time. A sound wave came flying out of the monster’s mouth and pushed us back.

Stupefaction debuff received for 30 seconds

Aura of Sanctification blocks Stupefaction effect

“You shall not pass! These are my fans! You’re standing between me and my bath!” cried Lyra and, raising her shield, she dashed forward. There was a resounding crash, and Gor’s handiwork split in two. The junior gnome matriarch was clearly demonstrating that she was no worthless beetle that could only devour goblins. She was of a class that commanded a whole army of obedient dwarf miners. She was the one who was rightfully here.

Lyra was thrown to the side. Discarding her shield, she gripped the pathetic rusty sword in her hand. Next to the gnome matriarch, it looked like a toothpick. But rather than turning pale and quivering with fear, Lyra was roaring like a panther. The sound was disturbing, to say the least. The berserker in our elf girl had been roused and was ready to tear her enemies apart with her bare hands. But my plans for Lyra didn’t involve her dying at the vast sword of this atrocity that was, it appeared, quite prepared for anything our fighting force could throw at her. I adopted a more hands-on approach to commanding.

“Lyra, to me! Little Bald, all guns blazing! Gor, get looking!”

“Looking for what?”

“Find the monster’s weak spots. And when you find them, stick that dagger in! Lyra, by your elven gods, get over here! I’ve got a mushroom for you. Berserkers love mushrooms, don’t they?”

“Gimme!” said Lyra in a weird voice, appearing at my side in an instant. Her blood-filled eyes were terrifying — there was no trace of their usual green left. Never mind the green, there was no trace of intelligence either.

“Use your healing right now! That’s an order. Otherwise, you won’t be getting the mushroom. Gor!”

“Found it!” shouted the giant happily as his dagger went flying, joining a whole storm of fireballs. Little Bald wasn’t standing on ceremony, he was spitting them out at machine gun speed, but sadly the balls kept hitting thin air. Despite her measurements, the junior matriarch was a very agile moving target. For the time being, she’d managed to dodge the dracat’s fireballs, but Little Bald wasn’t giving up. He had no concern for the resources he was spending. How much was it? Ten units of silirium? Twenty? A hundred? Meowmeowmeow was all he cared about the cost of his attacks. My pet was doing his duty, keeping the monster away from us, and he couldn’t care less about anything else.

“Max? What the… Oh!” said Lyra in a subdued voice as she came to herself. The healing had worked, and her berserker madness had receded, but there was no time to celebrate the fact. The second level was shaken by a bloodcurdling shriek. The sharp goblin ranger’s dagger, boosted with improved penetration, had reached its target, sinking to the hilt into the junior gnome matriarch’s eye. I’ve no idea why that didn’t kill the beast, but instead of dropping to the ground, she stood in the middle of the corridor, clutching her eye and screaming. Presumably, the blade of Gor’s dagger was too short for the tip to reach her brain. Fortunately, the seconds she spent screaming were time enough for Little Bald to adjust his aim and send ten fireballs one after another straight into the monster’s chest. A moment later, the screaming stopped. It was replaced first by an unpleasant gurgling sound, then by silence, then by a resounding thwack as the monster’s body crashed onto its back, its one whole but lifeless eye gazing up at the ceiling.

“Little Bald, that’s enough!” I shouted, seeing that the dracat had no intention of stopping. The fireballs stopped flying, but the monster’s body went right on burning. It was like it consisted of dry kindling with heating oil poured on top. In a few seconds, the remains of the junior matriarch were blazing like a well-made bonfire. Unfortunately, so was all the equipment she had on her. It wouldn’t have been much use to Lyra or me, but it might well have fitted Gor. The only things that remained were that imposing two-handed sword and Gor’s dagger. The fire didn’t touch them.

Rusty Two-Handed Sword

Rank: Junk

It was a useless piece of ironware that none of us could use. We’d take it, of course, but only because we could break it down. Carrying something like that around wasn’t an option. After ten minutes, when our opponent’s body had burned through leaving nothing but black ashes, I went and touched the blue cloud.

Silirium +16. Total: 68

Sixty-eight… Little Bald had enjoyed himself! We would definitely need to level up his accuracy, or we’d never manage to collect enough silirium. Still, I had no right to be angry with the dracat — thanks to his spitballs, the junior matriarch hadn’t been able to get close to us.

“Max, what are we going to do now?” asked Lyra in a scared voice. “I don’t have a shield anymore.”

“Don’t panic, gorgeous, we’ll get by,” I said, looking toward the end of the corridor where orange dots were beginning to appear. The gnome miners were sticking their curious little noses out to see the result of the battle. Judging by the general “googoo” that was coming our way, they liked it. Picking up the remains of Lyra’s shield, I went over to the little guys, stopped close to the invisible border that they still weren’t crossing, and waved the pieces in the air, occasionally pointing at Lyra. There was no point in saying anything — either the short-asses would understand my mime or they wouldn’t, no amount of verbal explanation was going to help.

They understood.

Tough Gnome Warrior Shield

Rank: Common

Additional property: Hidden

I nodded my thanks to the gnome who brought the shield over. It appeared to be a one-time deal. When I pointed to the sword, to clothing, or to my sling, the gnomes would only goo and point behind me. Basically, one junior matriarch equalled one item. If you want more, kill the level boss. Then we’ll be your friends. More accurately, we’ll be Lyra’s friends, but we’ll tolerate you too.

“Lyra, come here. We’re going to work out what you need for a bright future. Don’t you dare try anything stupid, or you can deal with the gnomes yourself.”

Chapter 11

“AAAAAAARH!!!” I SCREAMED, grabbing my hair and trying to tear it out.

“GOOGOOGOO!!!” screamed the gnomes, drooling, dropping to the ground, and rhythmically banging their heads on the floor.

“Oh!” said Lyra, blushing deeply and pressing her shield — which had just turned a very pretty pink color — to her chest.

Tough Gnome Warrior’s Shield

Rank: Common

Additional Property: Your attractiveness is doubled

I flapped my mouth like a beached fish, my head filled with scenes of the instant and merciless punishments that I wanted to rain down on the beautiful elf girl right then and there. I had specifically told her not to try anything stupid! However, my thoughts of punishment kept getting twisted in entirely inappropriate directions. There wasn’t much I could do about it, her attractiveness had just doubled again right in front of my eyes and that… hmm… was somewhat distracting. If at first I really just wanted to punch her lights out, now I was giving more serious thought to kicking her ass… that round, bouncy backside…

For Christ’s sake, Max, get it together!

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Lyra, sweetheart, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!!” By the end I was shouting again, back in “righteous anger” mode.

“Max, I was waiting for your instructions, I really was. I just decided to change the color first. I mean, that wouldn’t change the properties, would it? I wanted something pretty, and the pink shield was super pretty. Who knew that would add a new property? I definitely didn’t. Gor, did you know?”

“Go-o-or!” I hollered nervously, not giving the big man time to answer the crafty elf girl’s rhetorical question, “Is it just me, or are those gnomes up to something?”

At that moment, the crowd of little freaks, still kneeling, began to shuffle slowly but surely forward, crawling towards our elf girl from all sides. It looked creepy — bug eyes, faces twisted in fanatical ecstasy, droll dripping to the floor.

“Where are you going, you little perverts?” roared Gor, stepping forward and blocking their path to Lyra.

“Oh!” The elf girl shifted her attention from her weary commander, i.e. me, and turned around.

“Lyra! Send them away, right now! Get them to go… anywhere but here!” I was getting nervous too — the gnomes blocked by Gor were beginning to blink red, and their blissful smiles were transforming into vulpine grins. They were looking more and more like hungry dogs blocked from reaching a full bowl of food, and the person blocking them could be in serious trouble.

“Where should I send them to?” fretted the elf girl, wrinkling her nose in an expression of unaccustomed thoughtfulness.

“Straight to hell!” I said the first thing that came into my head, but when I saw the bewildered look on the elf girl’s face, I realized I was just making things worse and quickly corrected myself: “To work! Send them to work. If they don’t collect enough silirium, they don’t have the right to gaze at your beauty. Only the ones who collect enough will get an eyeful. And the ones who collect even more… Actually, forget about that. Go on, get on with it!”

Hearing my instructions, Lyra paused for a moment, then confidently placed her shield in front of her, its bright pink glinting in the light… Wait, where was the light coming from in this cave anyway? Ah, okay.

“Hey, you guys!” Lyra shouted, turning to the gnomes who were still gradually crawling toward her, “What do you think you’re doing? Get away from me or I’ll… I’ll…” She stumbled, obviously trying to think of something she could scare them with.

Frowning and adopting a fighting stance, Gor was all ready to make the argument with his fists, but I stopped him.

“Lyra, just say that there’s work they need to do. They need to go find silirium, and in return they get to look at you.”

“Goo! Googooooo! Googoogooooo!” cried the gnomes, comically raising their hands while still on their knees.

“Listen to me! Listen to your ravishing Aelyria!” Lyra continued with, now with a hint of a smile — she’d clearly remembered her acting skills. “To work! Stop crawling like worms and go mine silirium. Otherwise, I will leave you for good!”

Judging by their reaction, the gnomes had been hit with a new shot of adrenaline. As one, they jumped to their feet, muttering something like “work-work-work-work”, and dashed off into the tunnels, leaving only dust and the echoes of crazy laughter behind them.

“See?” said Lyra happily, stretching and proudly flicking back here long hair, “We did it!”

“Did it?” I said skeptically, staring at her shield. “If they don’t come back with silirium, I’m sending you off to mine it! You’re just… too beautiful!”

“It’s not me, it’s the shield!” She feigned bewilderment. “It’s not my fault it turned out to be so attractive.”

Gor snorted, still rubbing the back of his head.

“Let’s just hope they don’t get in any trouble while we’re still here,” he said, glancing into the depths of the gloomy caves. “Those little bastards could easily hold a grudge.”

I nodded, trying not to think about what was awaiting those poor gnomes in this world. In the end, their perverted desire for Lyra just added to my worries.

“Alright, while they’re busy, we need to take a look around,” I said, turning my attention to the caves around us. “We need to go down.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes.

“What about eating and resting?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Damn, of course, eating!” I pointed back at Lyra. “It’s all because of your shield!”

“It’s not my fault,” she said, but hid the shield behind her back nonetheless. Of course, the shield still stuck out — she had a great figure, after all — but she’d made clear that she intended to protect her “precious”.

“I’m not going to take it away from you,” I said to calm her down. “I think we need to explore this floor. There may be more treasure we can find while our little workers are doing their job.” I tried to look confident.

Gor nodded.

“I agree. We can split up. Lyra, you should stay here and wait for their return. Max and I will explore the surrounding area.”

“Agreed,” said Lyra, clearly glad of the opportunity to stay in a safe place. “But if they bring something back for me, I hope it won’t be another shield. A sword would be good. A pretty one.”

I shook my head: “Don’t get your hopes up. If they’re not back before us, we’re not waiting for them. The clock’s ticking, don’t forget. Gor, get looking for stashes. Lyra, you stay here and hold the fort.”

Judging by the map, there were no further dangers on this floor. Well, except for Lyra, who could always pull some other stunt. That’s why I wanted to search without her.

“Here,” I held out Little Bald to Lyra. “To keep you company. Little Bald, keep an eye on her. If she starts getting up to her elven tricks again, shout!”

“Meow,” said Little Bald. I looked at him and took a deep breath. He might be ugly, but he was smart. Especially for a kitten of an unknown species. At least somebody in the group had a brain.

Understanding that time was getting short, Gor tugged at the belt that his few tools hung from and, frowning slightly, said:

“Alright, let’s start checking these caves. We’ll go down the right side first. I’m sure there’ll be a few stashes there. If we’re lucky, we’ll find something useful.”

We started to move along the narrow corridor, which glowed a dim blue color. Lyra stayed put, but I could feel her eyes following us. I hadn’t missed the fact that she’d sighed with relief when we left.

“Please, come back with good news!” she shouted, although we were already some distance away.

We kept moving and soon came to a small cave full of strange objects. Inside there were old chests, some of which looked quite hopeful.

“Wow, looks like we’ve found the gnomes’ storeroom. Let’s take a look what’s in these chests,” I said, pointing to one of them.

Gor grabbed the handle and forced it open. Inside there were worn-out rags and old gnome equipment that looked more like junk.

“Hmm, nothing useful,” he sighed, looking mournfully at the contents, “maybe we should just leave it?”

But I was already inspired. There had to be something useful, we just hadn’t found it yet.

“No, Gor, we’re not leaving anything. Break it down!”

“But, commander, it’s all their—”

“Break it down, Gor,” I said firmly. “Don’t you start getting flaky on me too. That silirium isn’t going to collect itself. Don’t forget you’re a scout, not some noble warrior. And you’re an engineer. Having doubts is above your pay grade. Remember the main thing: eyes on the prize! That’s your motto for now. So, get to work and make your commander happy with your skill at breaking down stuff.”

It worked, and our stocks were immediately filled up with twenty-three units of silirium. Once we were done with the first chest, we moved on one that was hidden in a corner of the cave. It was bigger and looked much more impressive.”

“Now, this is more interesting, commander,” said Gor, pointing at it. “Can you give me a hand?”

We struggled to lift the lid off the chest but were happy to find food supplies inside — dried fruits and pieces of cured meat, as well as several bottles of water.

“That’s more like it!” I said happily, grabbing a piece of meat and reaching for some water. “I think our lucky number has finally come up!”

However, just as I was opening my bottle of water, cracks appeared in the walls and sharp spikes projected from them, suddenly slamming toward us.

“Goddam, it’s a trap!” I shouted, jumping to one side.

A pin stopped barely an inch from my poor head. Gor had managed to stick a knife into the launching mechanism at the very last minute. Minus one unit of silirium for disarming a trap, and very nearly minus one pair of clean pants for me. My heart was pounding, and my hands were shaking. I wasn’t ready for this kind of thing.

“Goddam gnomes,” I gasped, pulling the cork out of the water bottle with trembling fingers. I raised it to my mouth and took a gulp. “Eww! Damn! What is this?”

The drink tasted like some kind of herbal infusion with a nasty aftertaste. It was also obviously alcoholic.

“May I?” Gor grabbed the flask, sniffed it, and took a careful sip. A broad grin spread across his face. “It’s karnak ale!”

“What?” I said, surprised. “Is that something from your world?”

“Yup, karnak ale,” said the big man incredulously. “The good stuff, too. It’s invigorating!”

Immediately, an inscription appeared on the bottle:

Karnak Ale

Rank: Consumable

Additional properties: Quenches thirst, invigorates

“Hmmmm, give it here!”

Gor gladly passed me the flask and I tried it again.

“Eurgh, gross!” I screwed up face and restrained myself from spitting it out. I could’ve done with some invigoration. The giant shrugged and held out his massive hand.

“Don’t worry, commander, karnak ale isn’t for everyone. To drink it, you have to be a true warrior, like me. This is all mine.

“You’re welcome to it,” I said, handing the big man the nauseating brew.

I then found a comparatively clean canvas sack and put the dry fruits and meat in it. Gor did the same with his precious ale, placing the flasks in another sack.

“Right, let’s get back to Lyra.”

“But, commander,” the big man objected. “We can go further and look for more ale… I mean, other useful stuff.”

“You’re not an alcoholic, are you?” I asked suspiciously, taking a good look at Gor. “They say there’s nothing worse than char-ra that can’t hold his drink.”

“Do they?” he asked in surprise.

“Do they what?”

“Is that really a saying you have?”

“Oh, it’s… Never mind. Just tell me, are you an alcoholic?”

“No,” said the big man, shaking his head vigorously.

“Swear on your mother’s life?”

“Do I have to?”

“Yup.”

“Alright, I swear I’m not!”

“Alright then, let’s go feed Little Bald and Lyra. I want to see what she thinks of that ale of yours.”

We headed back to Lyra, looking around carefully on the way. Gor was looking for stashes, while I kept my eyes out for further traps that wanted to kill me. We made it safely, but it was obvious that on the third level Gor would need to unlock his trap-locating ability.

When we stepped back into the cave, Lyra was waiting for us impatiently, polishing her shield while also holding it like she was afraid it would try to run away. An unhappy Little Bald was sitting nearby and frowning, expressing his disdain for the proceedings.

“What did you find?” she asked happily with an inquisitive look.

“Not much, but at least something edible,” I said, pulling the dried fruits out of my sack. “Are you up for a little snack?”

Lyra sighed happily and hugged her shield like it was her best friend in the whole wide world. But when she saw what I was offering her, she frowned with revulsion.

“I mean, I love dried fruits, and they’re good for you, obviously, but these… They’re really very dry and they smell weird. What kind of fruit is it anyway?”

“I’ve no idea,” I answered honestly.

Standing next to me, Gor also began to unpack the provisions he’d gathered, showing off the bottles of karnak ale.

“Lyra, try this,” he said, offering her one of the flasks. “It’s an invigorating drink. Maybe it’ll help calm you, and as you’re a warrior, you should appreciate it.”

“What, are we planning to get drunk down here in the caves?” she asked, grimacing incredulously. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

“No, we’re definitely not getting drunk. I just want a good la… I mean, to see what you think of it.”

Lyra carefully sniffed the flask and immediately flinched, shaking her head furiously. “I’m not drinking it!”

“All the more for me!” chuckled Gor, taking back the flask.

I was happy I wasn’t the only one. But what the hell? Why was the System giving us a useful item that we couldn’t use? Was this another glitch in the System?

“Let’s just eat, rest a bit, and then keep looking,” I sighed.

“What else is there?” asked Lyra, stretching to see.

“Here,” I said, passing her the gnarled brown strips of meat.

“Ew!” Our queen was displeased again, and I suddenly lost my temper.

“Ah, go to hell!” I offered the meat to Little Bald, who sniffed it carefully and then gulped down a piece without even chewing. He looked up at me, hoping for seconds and even wagging his ratty tail. “There, see? Little Bald likes it. Go hungry if you want, idiot.”

“I’ll have some fruit,” said Lyra with a pout, then took a shriveled purple lump that looked like a normal prune. It smelled much the same too.

As soon as we started eating, we heard a cracking sound in the cave. This time, it wasn’t mechanical, it was something much more ominous.

“What was that?” whispered Lyra, her long ears pricked.

I looked warily into the passage we’d just come from. Dark silhouettes began to appear in the gloom, and I could see they weren’t gnomes.

“Looks like we’ve got visitors,” I said, clenching my fists.

Gor stepped forward, pushing me aside.

“I’ll deal with it!” he announced, before noticing that there were several strange creatures making their way toward us. They looked like a cross between spiders and dogs, with long limbs and shiny black. And, of course, they were represented on the map with red dots. No surprise there.

“I don’t like the look of them,” I said, staring suspiciously at the creepy beasts.

“How many are there?” asked Gor, squinting and trying to count them in the gloom.

“Six.” I said, quickly counting the ones that were visible while stepping backward. I didn’t even bother to point out that he could just use the map and count the red dots. Gor would be Gor. Until his commander told otherwise, he’d just keep his head in the bottle. I mean, he wouldn’t think for himself.

“Fight!”

The spider-dogs seemed to have been waiting for the order. They came rushing at us, growling and shrieking. They ran just as fast along the walls as across the floor. One of them even scuttled along the ceiling. They were agile critters.

Finally, the System woke up and identified them for us.

Cave Hound, Level 2

Weird “hounds” they have here, but never mind.

“Form positions!” I shouted, grabbing a stone, fitting it to my sling, and beginning to swing.

Lyra kept here wits about her and put up her shield. It stood out sharply against the surroundings. It was so positive and life-affirming. Gor took out his knife and assumed a fighting stance. One of the predators jumped at him with unexpected speed, but…

Piaow, piaow

Fireballs shot past us, stopping the hound in mid-flight. The rest of the beasts were just as fast, but apparently brainless. Instead of ducking and diving from the incoming fire, they all just leaped into the air together.

And little bald had already learned to judge the trajectory of his spit. As I said before, at least one member of our group had some brains.

Piaow, piaow, piaow

The flaming hounds curled up into charred balls and dropped to the ground, where they continued to burn. They burned up fast, and soon a notification appeared before my eyes.

Silirium +12, Total: 76

Minus nine units, even counting what we’d collected.

“Meow?” Little Bald’s wheedling voice came from behind me. He was clearly waiting for praise.

“You’ll be the ruin of us, Little Bald,” I sighed.

“What do you mean, commander?” asked Gor, standing up for the dracat. “He’s helping, isn’t he?”

“And I didn’t have to get my shield dirty,” said Lyra with a smile.

“Yes, he’s helping, but at this rate we’ll never get out of here.”

I picked Little Bald up and looked into his pale blue eyes.

“My bald friend, where’s the dial that changes your fire rate?”

“Max, are you alright?” asked Lyra nervously. “He’s a living creature, he doesn’t have a dial like that.”

“Meow!” Little Bald confirmed Lyra’s words and looked expectantly at the sack of food.

“Alright, you earned it.” I put him down and took a piece of meat out of the sack. It disappeared inside the dracat at lightspeed.

“I’m not giving you any more,” I told him. “We don’t know how much longer we’ll be wandering through these caves, or whether we’ll find anything else to eat.”

“Meow!” Little Bald clearly wasn’t pleased, but I was firm.

Gor had to drink a whole flask of ale, then I rinsed it and filled it with water from a tiny stream that flowed through the next cave. We had refreshed ourselves and were ready for new adventures. Particularly Gor, who was almost dancing rings around us.

“What’s got into you?” I asked the big man suspiciously.

“It’s the ale, commander! I told you, it’s invigorating!”

I looked at the flasks sadly. I’d have liked a little invigoration too. But weirdly, I wasn’t tired. How long had we been there? I was still the same man I’d been before, but somehow… stronger?

“Lyra, activate your aura,” I said, and the elf girl obliged.

That felt even better. A little invigorating, even.

“Let’s get moving.” I stood up. “To the third level.”

“Maybe we should rest a little longer?” said Lyra lazily.

“Right, and wait for your fans. I can just see them dragging all that silirium here and lining up to… adore you.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice!” said the elf girl, looking at me suspiciously.

“Oh, really?” I feigned confusion. “Let’s go!”

Gor, almost hopping with all that invigoration, agreed:

“We need to be careful. Not all the creatures here are going to be as good-natured as the ones that were crawling after Lyra.”

“I don’t know about that,” shuddered the elf girl. “I don’t want to meet any more creatures, fans or otherwise.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s unavoidable,” I said as we reached the end of the passage the hounds had come out of.

The passage ended in steps going down, obviously to the third level. It appeared some of the hounds had run from Little Bald’s fireballs straight down them.

Chapter 12

“LYRA, YOU GO FIRST,” I ordered, glancing at the grinning Gor. The karnak ale had completely overwhelmed the giant. He’d said something about training before he was signed up for the Selected, so it was no surprise that a few drops of the “invigorating” drink had turned that mass of muscle into a frolicking baboon. The cave was lovely, life was good, and after all, we were Selected, so luck just had to be on our side. Alright, I made the last bit up.

The stairs were only a few flights down. The second level had greeted us with deafening metallic clangs and the thunder of breaking rock, and I was expecting much the same from the third. But no, this time there was no racket like that. All that we heard were energetic goos and gahs, as well as the muffled thuds of blows on wood wrapped in some kind of binding. Lyra froze, her eyes bulging with surprise. It was understandable: in front of us lay a vast cave crowded with gnomes busy training. Although somehow it didn’t seem right to call those bearded tree-trunks gnomes. They were almost the same height as Lyra, with shoulders as wide as Gor’s and muscles that seemed to bulge even more than our big man’s. How could I tell? Easy, this brotherhood of mighty warriors was dressed in outrageous leather costumes, like parodies of movie Spartans — hip straps, leather belts, all kinds of armbands, shoulder pads, knee pads, etc. Basically, anything that didn’t cover their swelling torsos and biceps. Each gnome held a flashing blade, clearly not Junk quality, that they were slapping against dummies. Once again, the System woke up late and finally identified them for us:

Gnome Warrior, Level 2

And of course, all the gnome warriors appeared on the map as pretty red dots.

“Now, that’s more like it!” said Lyra, striding forward confidently. What girl wouldn’t like tough, musclebound warriors in leather armor? She thrust out her shield and shouted:

“My name is Aelyria, but you can call me Aelyria the Beautiful! I come to before you to bless you with my beauty and show whoever is worthy… Oh, my shield! Ma-a-ax!”

Lyra’s distress was understandable — her shield had been hit by a small spear. One of the gnome warriors was training with this pointed stick and, seeing a target, had thought it would be fun to throw his spear at Lyra. The metal rang, the spear ricocheted to one side, and Lyra scurried back to us. The red dots began to approach us without turning orange, which suggested things weren’t going great. The elf girl’s charms hadn’t worked, despite being doubly doubled by the cape and the shield.

“Meow?” asked Little Bald, looking at me meaningfully. He even prodded me with his nose. Clearly paying heed to our last conversation, the dracat, who was sitting on my shoulder, had refrained from attacking immediately. We didn’t have enough silirium just to throw it around like that.

“Wait, we ought to give Lyra one more chance. Lyra, where’s your charm? Who did you make that shield for anyway?”

“Stop! If you don’t submit, you’ll be deprived of my beauty!” She stepped forward again, and ten pairs of eyes followed her. In fact, more than ten — in the far corner of the cave there was one more gnome holding three cave hounds on leashes. Those monstrosities were also staring at us and licking their lips in anticipation of a tasty meal.

The only answer Lyra got was another spear and a further reduction in the distance between us and the gnome warriors. Their wild eyes promised nothing good. Little Bald wriggled on my shoulder. He was already poised to attack but was waiting for my order. The gnome warriors moved closer and the three cave hounds were straining at their leashes, ready to devour us. I was about to give the command to attack when something extraordinary happened. Gor remembered that he was part of our group.

“Aren’t they funny?” he rumbled in a slightly slurred voice. “Stand back, commander! I’ll sort this out. I’ll speak to them warrior to warrior.”

Without waiting for me to respond, the big man gently nudged me aside with his shoulder — which almost sent me slamming into the wall — and stepped out in front of Lyra.

“Well then, which of you is the strongest? I, Gor, am ready to fight you man to man. Show me what you’re made of, warriors!”

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. The gnome warriors had already made it quite obvious that they weren’t welcoming unexpected guests. I was expecting another spear to run Gor through, but it didn’t happen.

What did happen was an even bigger surprise. One of the gnomes stepped forward, threw down his sword, and began to show off his muscles, while roaring something, presumably about his incredible prowess. What’s more, his red dot on the map now flickered between the threatening crimson and a much more pleasing orange.

“Me-uh?” said Little Bald from my shoulder.

“Me-uh indeed,” I agreed.

“Ha!” roared Gor. “You little beauty! I knew a warrior would understand another warrior. How about this, shorty?”

Dropping his weapon, our giant began to organize a kind of intergalactic Mr. Olympia competition, shifting through a series of increasingly extravagant heroic poses that showcased the full range of his bulging muscles. The gnome who had stepped forward understood what was going on. His dot on the map still occasionally flickered red, but for most of the time it was orange.

“Lyra, take off your cape,” I ordered, seeing that another gnome warrior was approaching us. He had also dropped his weapon and was stretching his shoulders as he walked.

“Max?” said the elf girl, her green eyes as wide as saucers. “I mean, I respect you as a leader, but...”

“Oh for god’s sake, take it off!” I pointed impatiently: “Put it on our great warrior! Now, berserker!”

“Finally, you recognize who’s the great warrior here!” Gor was completely out of it. Lyra took off the cape, under which she was wearing only two thin strips of cloth, and fastened it around Gor’s neck, having first removed the scout’s cape he was wearing. In the process, she took the opportunity to show off her pretty buttocks.

“Was this what you were waiting for? You men are all the same!” Lyra turned back to me and crossed her arms. But instead of enjoying the beautiful view, I was staring at the map, where only three red dots remained — those vicious cave hounds, which still wanted to eat us. The gnomes had forgotten about all that. Throwing down their weapons, the surrounded Gor, prodding at him and gooing happily.

That went on for some time, but then the cave hounds began to howl insistently, reminding the gnomes of who we were and what was going on here. Several of their dots began to flicker red again, and the gnomes looked agitated.

“Little Bald, take care of them,” I ordered, and threw our real greatest warrior in the direction of the nasty beasts.

“Meeeeeeow!” The dracat’s bloodcurdling shriek drowned out the cave hound’s howls for an instant. I wasn’t worried, however. What happened was exactly what I expected to happen. The little wings that were hidden on Little Bald’s wrinkled back opened up, and the uncontrolled trajectory of my throw became stabilized and then very much controlled flight. Sure, Little Bald still couldn’t take off by himself — his wings were still too small. But he could comfortably glide in a given direction, particularly if given the right acceleration. That settled the matter of the ugly cave mutts, and screw the cost in silirium. I turned back to Lyra, who was still busy showing off her assets.

“Lyra, give the shield to Gor.”

“Max, stop trying to get me naked!”

“Lyra,” I said, forcing myself not to yell, “give the shield to Gor, quick!”

Gor flinched at my order: “Commander, I can’t use that. It’s pink! A shield like that is unbecoming of a warrior.”

“Gor, don’t make me call Little Bald. Take the shield.” The insistence in my voice came from the red dots that were beginning to appear more and more often on the map. The cape alone wasn’t doing it. We needed backup. Seeing as Lyra had been dumb enough to make the shield, we might as well get the most out of it.

Finally, they listened to me, and the pink sheet of metal ended up in Gor’s enormous paws. The straps were too small to fit his arm, so he just held it, glancing around at the gnome warriors. It worked. The gnomes finally all turned orange and crowded around Gor again. The hysterical howls of the cave hounds no longer bothered them, and a few seconds later I heard the sound of Little Bald’s magic:

Piaow! Piaow! Piaow!

Little Bald spent only nine units of silirium on the howling monsters — three per head. I wasn’t all that worried anyway. I was more interested in what was happening right next to me. Gor appeared to be in a certain amount of trouble. The gnome warriors had surrounded our big man and were insistently stroking his muscles, gooing happily all the while. At first, Gor didn’t mind — the ale was still doing its job, so he was happy to show off his strength to the little guys. But the more insistent the gnomes became in their attentions, the clearer his eyes became. Clearer and more worried.

11 gnome warriors, level 2, have been enchanted by collector Gor, level 2.

Enchantment duration: 12 hours.

To make them your fans, destroy the gnome matriarch.

Ha! I wondered if Gor had read the bit about “fans”. I mean, I knew a couple of bodybuilders who were pure narcissists with no other interests. But here in the caves, it was all a little unexpected.

There was a note of fear in Gor’s voice: “Commander, what do I do?”

“Enjoy the attention!” I said mockingly. When you see leather-clad bodybuilders flocking to another bodybuilder, it’s hard to take things seriously.

“Enjoy it?! Commander, there’s not enough ale in the universe!”

“Gor, don’t be so closed-minded!” Lyra decided to join the fun. “That pink shield looks great on you!”

“Lyra!!!” roared Gor, and all the gnomes around him began to bear their teeth. Apparently, they understood who their idol was addressing and felt that her presence was preventing them from fully appreciating the magnificence of his pumped-up muscles.

Lyra squealed and dived behind me, pressing her almost naked body against my back. Dammit, I’m not made of stone. Even without the enhancements from the cloak and shield, Lyra remained very beautiful and desirable. When a girl like that, scared and half-naked, presses against your back, it’s hard to ignore. In my head, one lot of strange thoughts was replaced by another, less strange but still entirely inappropriate to the situation.

“Right, that’s enough!” I had to do something before we got into trouble. The dots were flashing red all too often again. “Gor, take out a bottle of ale and down it.”

“Commander?” The look on the big man’s face was pitiful, as if I’d decided to hand him over to the gnomes.

“Just do it!’ I said harshly. Sober, Gor was too deliberate and thoughtful, which was ruining my plans. As soon as he’d followed my order, I began to issue new ones: “Right, now you look fiercely at your admirers, and you tell them that they need to train more! If these warriors want to enjoy the magnificence of your muscles further, they need to work on themselves. Get to it!”

“Well, guys, erm… training time?” mumbled Gor. He clearly felt completely out of place.

“Gor, is that how a true warrior talks? Come on, fighter, listen to my order. I demand that you explain the situation clearly. We shall be given swords for training, and these gnomes will get to work on themselves. It takes real work to become Mr. Olympia. Or a governor, for that matter. Wait, scrap the last bit. Anyway, get on with it.”

“Swords?” squeaked the gorgeous idiot behind me.

“Gor!!!” I was really angry now, and unexpectedly my anger had the desired effect. Either that or the karnak ales had finally hit the spot, putting the big man back into the mood required.

“Hear me now, weaklings!” he announced, gazing out at the assembled crowd. “These are my instructions…”

We left the first cave only a few minutes later, leaving the gnomes training frantically away so that they would have the right to gaze once more upon their idol. In the meantime, each of us had picked up a junk belt, which gave no bonuses. More importantly, we had exchanged the rusty swords we’d taken from the goblin corpses for swords that, while simple, were at least common in rank, and also gave each of us something nice.

Gnome Warrior’s Battle Sword

Rank: Common

Additional property: Hidden

Actually, we didn’t all have swords — the one meant for Lyra I kept for myself, out of harm’s way. I just couldn’t trust the elf girl with any more equipment. Little Bald climbed unhappily up onto my shoulders and turned away from me in a huff. He hadn’t got a sword or a belt. I should probably do something about it, but right then there was nothing I could do. Maybe I could make some kind of collar for him? I’d have to think about it.

And so we moved on. Gor entered a cave, the red dots turned orange, I sent Little Bald flying off to deal with the two or three cave hounds, and then our big man did some inspirational speaking, which prompted all the gnomes to get training. We didn’t manage to get any new stuff, either weapons or gear. Apparently, the local System already felt we’d been amply rewarded. I had only one regret, which was that without his cape with the Eagle Eye ability, Gor wasn’t able to find stashes. I had no doubt there should’ve been several of them on this level — it was too unusual for them not to be there. So many caves, so many passages, so many walls. I did briefly consider getting Gor and Lyra to swap capes, but as soon as the big man began to take his off, the brotherhood of warrior gnomes around us began to get aggressive. The shield alone was not enough. Either Gor was a particularly unappealing specimen, or the entire char-ra race was just too ugly to start with.

“Ma-a-ax!” said Lyra in an uncertain tone as we were walking through an empty room. The elf girl had wrapped herself in Gor’s cape, the one with the Eagle Eye, in order to hide her delights from me, but I hadn’t had much hope of her finding anything. She was beautiful, and that was enough for now.

“You think there’s something there?” I asked. She was staring at a bare wall.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’ve got a strange feeling, like this wall’s different from all the rest, but I’m not sure.”

“No worries, gorgeous, let me at it!” The ale was showing no signs of leaving Gor’s fuddled head, which was why I still hadn’t spent any time selecting the sword’s property. Right now, this pair of alien halfwits would undoubtedly choose something completely useless. Then we’d just have to suffer and work out how to deal with it afterward. Alright, I had to admit the idea with the shield had worked out okay after all, but we couldn’t keep trusting our luck like that. We needed to adopt the most effective approach to developing each member of the team.

I really wanted to beat this into their thick skulls, but I wasn’t going to hit Gor because he was big and strong, and Lyra was a girl. Although… I always thought it was wrong to hit a woman whatever the circumstances, but the more time I spent with the elf girl, the more clearly I understood that sometimes a good slap was necessary, even just as a precaution. There wasn’t any other way to get through to her. Not in the face, though… Oh, for god’s sake, here we go again!

Gor began to run a vast paw — the one that wasn’t holding the shield — across the wall. Unexpectedly, something clicked, then hissed, and the big man was hit with a powerful stream of fire. Lyra and I leaped back. Little Bald meowed frantically, but Gor kept standing there, covering himself with the shield, which immediately suffered in the looks department, turning from pink to a shade of ashy gray. It did, however, perform its main duty, protecting our undertrained scout, treasure hunter, and trap master. Grumbler had said that System items weren’t tough, but what did that dumb ball know, anyway?

For some reason, she’d said nothing about the System’s traps. She’d met her match there, apparently.

The shield had suffered not only in the looks department. It had turned into a charred, useless piece of scrap. As had the doubly attractive cape — both destroyed by the terrible flames. Gor turned as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t. The flames had done plenty of damage to him too. His vast body dropped to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.

“Lyra, heal him!” I commanded, noticing the elf girl was in a stupor again. She wasn’t looking at Gor, she was staring at her things, or what was left of them.

“No, Max! Just look what he’s done. My shield! My beautiful pink shield. He…

“Lyra, Gor is going to die! Heal him, then we can talk about this.”

That seemed to work. The elf girl began to perform her primary duties. One dose of healing. Two. Five. Ten. It took twenty units of silirium, counting the cost of her aura, to get Gor back from “well done steak” to “not so bad, thanks for asking.” From somewhere in the distance came the sound of steps, and a red dot appeared on the map. It was moving in our direction from the corridor we had been headed towards, so it could be a new warrior gnome or, just as easily, the boss of this level. On the second level, that had been the junior matriarch, so here on the third it could easily be the senior matriarch. I had no desire to encounter her with one man down.

“Follow me!” I commanded, grabbing Gor and dragging him into the passage that had been opened by the trap. I had no time to wonder if the flames had only been the first part of the trap and there was more to come. The unconscious giant demanded all my attention. I was vaguely conscious of the fact that, along with the shield and the cape, the sack with karnak ale had also been consumed by the flames. Time to introduce prohibition to the Selected — keep away from the devil’s brew.

Down the corridor, we found a small flight of steps going down. The red dot was getting closer and the steps were getting louder, so there was no time to wonder where the steps led to. Little Bald meowed fiercely, offering to face up to the enemy and rain down fire on them, but we didn’t have enough silirium left to take on a serious opponent. What’s more, while the dracat spitting fireballs was great, it was Gor’s deft moves with his dagger that had actually brought the junior matriarch down. The big man was still unconscious, and we weren’t going into battle without him.

We tumbled down to the next floor. The sound of steps came closer, and I began to think the enemy was following us down. But no, the red dot kept moving on, then disappeared completely. Now I had time to look around. We had ended up in a small cave with one exit. At the center was a pediment with a beautiful chest on it. It was genuinely impressive, unlike the dusty old crates we’d come across so far. Judging by the look in Lyra’s eyes, she admired it too. It was solid, decorated with gold plates that bore an intricate pattern. Not just beautiful, it looked expensive, like a real treasure chest with real treasure in it. Most remarkable of all, the chest was glowing blue. Not gray, not white, not green, but blue. This was the first time we’d come across that.

Laying Gor on the ground, I carefully approached the pediment. I tensed up, finally realizing that there could be a trap here too and that it could easily kill me. On the other hand, I had no desire to miss out on the System’s gifts. In my understanding, the blue glow meant that there’d be something really useful here. Gulping, I lifted the lid, feeling Lyra’s hot breath on the back of my neck. She was standing right behind me on tiptoes, trying to see over my shoulder. There was a click, no smoke, and nothing else that suggested imminent death. The lid opened without issue, revealing the contents of the chest.

Jackpot!!!

Gnome Crossbow

Rank: Rare

***

Gnome Warrior’s Leather Garb

Rank: Rare

***

Gnome Warrior’s Massive Shoulder Pads

Rank: Rare

***

Level 3 Dungeon Key

“That’s mine!” Lyra jumped out from behind me and grabbed the warrior’s garb, although to me it just looked like leather straps.

“It’s not green,” I said sarcastically, but I didn’t object. I didn’t think Gor would mind, either, when he eventually came to.

“They’re prettier than this mess the System gave us,” she said firmly. “Commander, turn around, I want to try this on.”

“You weren’t shy in front of me before,” I snorted, but I did turn around. Back to the chest, where glowing blue there lay a crossbow. Now, that was my precious!

The only answer from Lyra was the rustle of clothing. I picked up the beautiful glowing item and snorted again. Of course, who could’ve doubted?

Attention! The properties of Rare items cannot be unlocked until the collector reaches Level 7.

You can shoot it, but you can’t use the bonus. Isn’t the local System great, may it rot in hell? Considering that, after reaching Level 2, our XP bar had only filled up by twenty percent, we weren’t going to reach Level 3 before we got to the end of the dungeon. We just didn’t have enough time. I was distracted from further gloomy thoughts by Lyra.

“Alright, you can turn around now. What do you think?”

I turned and immediately gulped. The scraps of beige material that the System had issued us with were lying on the floor. Standing before me was a stunningly beautiful girl in leather lingerie. Not only did the straps of leather not hide the delights of her body. If anything, they made them even more desirable.

“Better,” I said honestly. “Little Bald?”

“Meow!” said the dracat affirmatively, glancing into the chest in the hope that there might be something left for him. Sadly, there wasn’t. All that was left were some bundles of crossbow bolts, and those were mine.

“Commander, where are we?” Gor had opened his eyes. Judging by his expression, the healing had counteracted the effects of the karnak ale as well as the burns. Pulling himself up, Gor looked with surprise at Lyra, who was parading in her new outfit. His eyes turned to me, or rather to the glowing crossbow in my hands.

“Catch!” I grabbed the shoulder pads from the chest and chucked them to the big man. They would’ve fitted me too, but the Dungeon had given us one item each. Well, except for Little Bald, but he was my pet, so it was up to me, not the System, to find him something to wear.

“Gor, can you fix those?” I nodded to the almost destroyed shield and cape. The giant twirled the scraps in his hand and sighed wearily.

“I can restore the shield, but only partly. The bonus will still be broken. There’s nothing I can do for the cape. I think it can be fixed, but not here and not now. I’ll need tools for that.

Lyra cursed long and loud, but there was no sense to it. The items were temporarily (and possibly permanently) broken, but we were alive. That was the main thing, so it was time to move on.

“Do it,” I told Gor, and soon Lyra’s shield was back in her hands — dirty, ugly, and as simple as could be:

Tough Gnome Warrior’s Shield

Rank: Common (broken)

Additional Property: Your attractiveness is doubled (inactive)

Better than nothing. To keep moving, we needed defense.

“Now, Selected, we’re going to sit down and carefully read the skills the swords can unlock for us. Lyra… Actually, I’m not going to say anything. You understand already. Our task is simple. We need to find properties that will help us survive. Can we all do that? So, no more selfish whims. We’ve got more important things to think about right now.”

Chapter 13

I LOOKED AROUND at my team. Everyone looked a little weary, either morally (due to the lack of a manicurist and hairstylist) or physically (due to being hit in the face with a stream of flames) or because they’d been left out of the gift-giving (Little Bald was still pouting on my shoulder). But overall, morale wasn’t too bad. True, Lyra was still glancing occasionally at her broken shield like it was a piece of stinking garbage, her big green eyes filled with deep melancholy.

Gor was looking excitedly at our new treasure. His hands were itching to break something, whether it was an enemy or a chest full of treasure. Little Bald… Well, Little Bald was just waiting until someone needed him as a flamethrower again. Or gave him something to eat. I liked the dracat, he was easy to get on with.

“Alright, Gor, let’s start with you. What properties are they offering you?”

Gor happily pulled his sword out of its sheath, and the blade flashed in the dim cave light.

“Oh, yes! Now, that’s more like it!” He ran his finger along the blade. “The System says it’s a gnome warrior’s battle sword.”

“Yeah, I’m not blind. What properties does it offer?” I said irritably, pointing in the air to where they should be listed.

I was getting fed up. Things were breaking. Little Bald was burning through our silirium. The System, at least in its Grumbler form, had abandoned us, and it was a long, long way to the end of the dungeon. I’ve never been depressive, but everything that was happening seemed less and less enjoyable every minute.

“Errrrm,” growled Gor. Then he coughed and continued: “Gnome Power Strike — when hitting an enemy with low health, your damage is increased significantly.”

“Next,” I said. Gor wasn’t our tank or damage dealer, so we needed something else.

“Thunder Strike — Each blow has a chance to stun the target for two seconds.”

“Stunning?” I said thoughtfully. “That’s useful. There could be plenty of bastards that go down at the first strike. But you’re not a tank, goddammit. Still, it’d be good to have some control over the battle. Hmmm. Don’t do anything, just wait. Lyra, now you.”

I turned to the elf girl, who was standing with the sword in her hands and her eyebrows slightly raised. She was examining the sword dubiously. Unlike Gor, she clearly didn’t like anything too aggressive. She was fundamentally drawn to beauty, and that was what worried me. She quickly listed the available properties.

“Fire of Retribution — A chance to ignite the enemy, dealing extra damage for five seconds.”

“Hmm, what else?”

“Flame of Control — Every third blow slows your opponent’s movement speed.”

Lyra sighed and muttered to herself quietly:

“Nothing pretty…”

“Tsk!” I wagged my finger at her, and she sighed again. “Burning enemies? Slowdown? Those are both useful properties.”

“But not beautiful! These swords are absolute crap! You can’t even make them pink! How am I going to go around with such an ugly accessory? If the other models could see me, they’d die laughing.”

“Don’t you like fire?” I asked incredulously. “Or is it that it doesn’t suit your elegant image?”

“Fireballs are one thing,” she said, looking coldly at me and Little Bald. “But running around with a sword that sets people on fire — that’s not my style. I hate the smell of burnt meat. It’s gross!”

“Sure, sure, but don’t forget that style isn’t the only thing that’s important here. There’s also the small matter of surviving and helping the rest of us to survive too. You’re our frontline warrior and you need to destroy enemies. And first, you want to humiliate them!”

She looked at the sword and finally nodded, accepting my reasoning.

“Okay, but what should I choose then?”

“Nothing for now. Now it’s my turn.”

I drew my sword. The blade was covered with strange symbols that began to shine as soon as I touched the hilt. The System flashed up the information.

Gnome Warrior’s Battle Sword

Rank: Common

Additional property: Analyzing available properties…

Choice available:

Piercing Blow — Partially ignores enemy armor.

Shadow Damage — Surprise attacks deal double damage.

What do you choose?

“Hmmm, interesting,” I said, scratching my head.

So, the local System had told us that it had its own ideas about item properties. When we were choosing the property the previous time, for Gor’s dagger, there were far more options available. Here there were only two. We’d got the swords without fighting, without adventure, and without anything else heroic and exciting, so the System limited the bonuses.

I’d been thinking of making them not so much weapons as useful tools. For example, Gor obviously needed some help finding traps. Sure, a sword like that wouldn’t be much use in battle, but it would help keep us out of trouble. I’d have liked to have turned one of the others into a light of some sort, so we could always see where we were going. “Illumination” or something like that. A boy’s gotta dream, but the System quickly put an end to my flights of fancy. Probably to avoid any more pink shields. Imagine if she’d been able to get a pink sword to go with it… No, weapons were for humiliating and destroying the enemy, as I’d already told Lyra. It is what it is.

“We haven’t had to deal with anything with much armor yet, and I like the idea of surprise attacks,” I said thoughtfully, looking at Gor.

Judging by the description, a surprise attack should be dealt from behind, from invisibility, or from any other place that was completely unexpected for your opponent. Logically, that should be ideal for any sneaky assassin, but I couldn’t see how our big man was going to creep up quietly behind an enemy or easily hide in the shadows. Maybe there’d be some skills for him at higher levels? On the other, if we were only facing one opponent and Lyra was holding them down, then why not?

Just in case, I tried to get access to other offers from the System, but I was out of luck. No other properties were available. Never mind.

“Life is pain,” I grumbled like somebody’s grandpa, and chose option two.

Gnome Warrior’s Battle Sword

Rank: Common

Additional property: Shadow Damage — Surprise attacks deal double damage.

“Gor, choose the stun option.”

“Aye-aye, commander!” smiled the big man.

Gnome Warrior’s Battle Sword

Rank: Common

Additional property: Thunder Strike — Each blow has a chance to stun the target for two seconds.

Beaming from ear to ear, Gor swung the sword a few times, making it whistle through the air. He looked like he couldn’t wait to test it out in action.

“Lyra, choose Flame of Control.”

“Maybe Fire of Retribution’s better?” said the elf girl, scrunching her nose. “I set fire to the enemy, then he runs around flapping his arms and screaming. It’ll be pretty!” She began to smile, and her eyes rose dreamily to gaze at the ceiling.

I was even a little shocked. Apparently, that beautiful shell hid a terrible monster. No wonder the System had made her a berserker.

“Enough chitchat!” I barked, remembering how my old man used to talk to me when I was little. “Choose what you’re told right now!”

Gnome Warrior’s Battle Sword

Rank: Common

Additional property: Flame of Control — Every third blow slows your opponent’s movement speed.

“Now, Gor, give your sword to Lyra.”

Good on Gor, he followed the order quickly and clearly.

“Do I give him mine, then?” asked Lyra.

“No, you keep them both for yourself.”

“But what about me, commander?” The big man didn’t seem very happy with the idea that, of the three new swords, not one of them was going to him.

“You take this one,” I said, proffering him the hilt of my sword.

“Oh, cool!” said Gor happily as he read the description. “Now I’m like a real ninja.”

“Huh, do you have ninjas too?”

“Everyone has ninjas,” said the big man with authority.

“What about you?” I asked, turning to Lyra.

“Of course we do…” Lyra was caught up in trying out her new swords and answered distractedly. “Fruit ones, for example. And they sell them on sticks too. Mmmm, tasty! I wouldn’t say no to a ninja right now.”

“But what about you, commander?” said Gor with concern, while I was thinking over Lyra’s words. “Why does Lyra get two swords when you don’t even have one?”

“Me? Okay, look. Lyra, that’s finished for now,” I said, pointing to her scorched shield. “We can’t fix it down here.”

“Yeah, I get that,” she bit her lip. “But going without any defense…”

“Your aura and your swords are now our defense. You can’t rely on your shield anymore.” I looked at her seriously. “From now on, we’re going to avoid confrontation with gnomes. However, we have to remember that anything can happen. It’s a pity about your new ability. Shield Strike, I mean. Keep the shield on your back, it might come in useful. But two swords with those properties should allow us to control the situation. Slowdown and stun will give Gor a chance to creep up from behind. As for me, I’ve got my slingshot, I’ve got my crossbow, and I’ve got Little Bald.”

The dracat gave a proud and affirmative meow.

My two companions nodded, but without much confidence. Never mind, I hoped they understood. Now that we’d sorted out our weapons, it was time to keep moving. So, let’s see now…

As soon as I started thinking about our future, Grumbler popped up in front of me with a modest clap.

“Alive?” asked the glowing ball anxiously. Seeing we were in rude health, she repeated confusedly: “Alive… Pity. Alright, I’m off. I just need to wait a little longer and everything will be…”

“Stand and deliver, your money or your life!” I shouted.

Weirdly, that worked. The ball stopped and hung in the air, even flickering a little with surprise.

“What money? Oh, I get it! You’re going crazy from the aura. Don’t worry, it won’t be long now. Soon you’ll completely lose your minds and finally die and set me free.”

“WTF?!” I could feel the rage welling up inside me. This goddam energy ball was wishing death on me. “What do you mean ‘die’? What do you mean, ‘set me free’? You’re the one who’s going wacko!”

“Errrr,” the System lagged. “What’s ‘wacko’ and why would I go there?”

“Goddammit, System, stop thinking! I need clear answers to clear questions. Why do you need us to die?”

“Because you’re problematic,” said the System angrily. “I had to specially access the archive on outcasts in this world. At great personal expense, by the way. They even wanted to deactivate me.”

“Maybe that was because you abandoned us?”

“Hey, don’t let your imagination get carried away,” said Grumbler, but without much conviction. “Alright, yes, they did tell me off for leaving you on your own, but that’s not the point. According to the archives, ever since Vilion was included in the unified network for silirium collection, there have been three hundred and twenty-seven groups of outcasts. You are the three hundred and thirty-eighth. And, of all those groups of outcasts, only four have survived. All of them in the very early days of planet exploration. For thirty years, outcasts have been reliably dying in the first hours after they arrive on Vilion without putting a strain on System resources. But for some reason, you keep resisting and making me work!”

I clenched my teeth and suppressed my rage. Time, among other things, was not on our side.

“How many floors are there in this Dungeon?”

“There are five floors in all Level 2 Dungeons. After that, every level increase of the Dungeon adds an extra floor.”

Well, that was good news. We just had to complete the third floor and two more after that.

“What level are the monsters in this Dungeon?”

“The monsters are the same level as the Dungeon or one level higher, but only on the lower floors. Bosses can be two levels higher, but that doesn’t happen often.”

That was less good, but still manageable now that we’d reached Level 2. If we were still on the first level, Level 3s would be a problem. Hmm… What was I on about? Threes could still cause us plenty of problems. Come on, Max, positive thinking!

“Why do you keep disappearing? You’re supposed to help us, aren’t you?”

Grumbler began to stumble over her words:

“My resources weren’t calculated for the possibility that you’d start interacting with neutrals. Okay, you reached the second level of the Dungeon, but why didn’t the gnomes destroy you? There aren’t any neutral creatures in Dungeons! That’s the foundation the whole thing is built on. What’s more, next to every gnome, I could feel the influence of the local System... Really strong... It’s interfering. It’s upsetting the proper order. There’s too much power and energy being spent where it isn’t needed. Outcasts are going to die anyway…”

“Ah, you cheap-ass bitch!” I said, shaking my head. Suddenly, I wasn’t even angry anymore. “We’re not just going to die like that.”

“You don’t have a choice. The aura of a second level dungeon… You’re definitely going to die. I’m really surprised you’ve managed to hold on for so long. It’s obviously just to upset me and stop me from getting back to the main System.”

Despite everything, I was still surprised.

“Are you that dumb? Can you not see our level? Or do you just care so little that you’re not even paying attention to us?”

Grumbler “froze” again.

“Ohhh,” she said in a strange tone. “So, you’ve already reached Level 2? Wait, you’re not planning to die? Hmmm… Probabilities must be recalculated… Probability of collectors’ death reduced to… Approval of increased energy expenditure required… New inputs needed… Additional resources required…”

The ball even started to emit sparks. Grumbler was clearly not happy. There was a cracking sound and… the goddam thing vanished again! I stared at the empty space where the ball had been hanging a second before, then let out a torrent of curses that even got Gor and Lyra interested. There was no stopping me. Eventually, once I’d let off some steam, I took a deep breath and looked at the group.

“Alright, there’s no point shouting and cursing. We learned some useful stuff, and now we just need to reach the center, hopefully without dying. Personally, I have no desire to make Grumbler happy. Oh, and we only have forty-three hours to get there.”

What I liked about my companions was that they didn’t waste much time on thought. Gor recognized me as his commander, and Lyra as her agent. Little Bald? Well, Little Bald was Little Bald. The main thing was that they accepted my right to make decisions and agreed to abide by them.

We kept moving. Judging by the map, this secret passage ran parallel to the main corridor of this level of the cave. Red dots occasionally appeared on the other side of the wall, but we managed to avoid any encounters with the cave’s residents, which was perfect. I kept an eye on Lyra, just in case she did something stupid with her swords. She was an impulsive creature, and right then she was occupying herself as we walked by practicing all sorts of attacks and parries. The main thing was to make sure she didn’t hit any of us, so I kept my distance.

Gor kept moving up ahead, carefully checking each step to ensure he didn’t fall into yet another trap.

“Hold up,” he said suddenly before another turn, “There’s something here.”

As I approached, I saw he was moving some stones. A small stash opened up in front of us. Gor snorted happily and pulled out a few bottles with colorful labels on them.

“Those look like potions,” I said, picking up one of the bottles and examining the inscription. “The System says it’s an Energy Potion — Restores strength and invigorates. I wonder what it tastes like.”

I carefully uncorked the bottle and sniffed it. It smelled familiar, definitely not like karnak ale. I took a cautious sip.

“Ha, it’s like cola!” I smiled and drank down the whole bottle.

A pleasant warmth spread through my body. I felt my tiredness lifting and my head clearing.

“Here,” I gave one of the vials to Lyra.

She took it, uncorked it, and took a sip as I had.

“Not bad,” she nodded and drank down the bottle in a few gulps.

“What about me?” said Gor, holding out his hand.

“Wasn’t that fire trap invigorating enough for you?”

“Hey, commander, come on!” whined Gor.

“Alright, just kidding. Here,” I held out a bottle.

Gor drank it down in two swigs, then screwed up his face.

“How disgusting!”

“Well, it’s not that antifreeze you were drinking, sure.” I put the last two bottles in my bag for later.

After walking a little further, we hit a door with a small lever. Judging by the map, we now had to come out of the secret passage back into the main corridor. That was a shame. It meant the safe part of our journey was over. Oh, well. We waited until there were no red dots hanging around outside, then Gor opened the door.

We kept moving, trying not to make any noise. Then I felt Little Bald tense up. I froze too. There was something in front of us.

“Quiet!” I whispered. We all froze, listening for sounds from the neighboring passage.

Standing there in the gloom was a whole squad of gnome warriors. They were clearly getting ready for something serious. Their faces were tense, their armor and weapons were very different from the crap the training gnomes at the start of the floor had. Still, they didn’t notice us. They were listening to their commander, who was gooing away at the top of his lungs. I was pretty sure the gnomes were preparing for battle. With us? Surely not. Or maybe.

“Quickly and quietly,” I whispered, pointing out how to get around the fearsome-looking squad. I wasn’t even sure the doubly attractive shield and cape would’ve helped with that lot. These warrior gnomes weren’t training, they were already warrioring. Lyra nodded and began to move with remarkable agility, almost silently. Gor was less light on his feet, which made me wonder again what possible good he could be as a scout, but it didn’t matter. We got past them without being noticed.

“Listen,” I whispered when we were already a safe distance away. The sight of that gnome commander had reminded me that motivation was a big part of leadership. “I want to tell you guys that you’re doing great and I’m really proud of you.”

“Finally, you’re beginning to understand who you’re lucky enough to be working with. Keep it up, commander!” Lyra twitched her nose, and all the charm of the moment vanished. The elf girl would have to perform miracles before I gave her any more praise. We kept going, then Gor stopped again:

“Another stash!” he said happily, moving stones again to reveal a small chest. This time, it contained several scrolls.

I studied one of them.

“These are recipes for upgrades. Strengthening armor, increasing damage, hmm… The only thing is, I’ve no idea how to use them. Still, we’ll find out sooner or later.”

We took everything we could and moved on.

A few minutes later, Little Bald grew restless again, his eyes twitching from side to side. The corridor was gradually getting wider, turning into a big cave, poorly lit with blue lichen. I felt my stomach sink. With a wave of my hand, I got my companions to slow their steps.

“Is something wrong?” I asked my pet. He answered with a quiet meow and sniffed the air.

Then I saw her. In the distance, behind a big stone that looked a little like a throne, stood an enormous gnome. A female gnome. A gnome mother. Her massive form, wrapped in armor, glittered in the light of the torches. She was vast, and just the look of her struck fear into the pit of my stomach.

Gnome Matriarch, Level 3

There she was, the gnome leader we had to get rid of to win the loyalty of the gnome miners and warriors. The Level 3 boss was bigger than her deputy, but not as much as I’d feared. Still, that seven feet of muscle was as terrifying as a nuclear war. Her multiple breasts were encased in carefully fitted armor that consisted of chainmail with plates front and back. I thought regretfully of the armor-piercing mod that I’d rejected. It was like the System was playing games with us. In her vast hands, the matriarch was holding a massive hammer that looked like a blacksmith’s, but about half the size of Lyra. A blow from that would reduce the elf girl to nothing but a bloody spot on the floor.

The matriarch stood motionless, as if she was scanning us with her bloodshot eyes. Her armor glinted, and as I looked closer, I saw that her hammer was covered in strange runes and glittered with green light. An item with two properties. You could feel an ancient force emanating from it that turned my knees to jello. I couldn’t let my team know how scared I was.

“What’s the plan, commander?” asked Gor, still whispering for some reason. Apparently, the matriarch’s weird aura wasn’t just affecting me. Talking of which, Lyra had turned white in the face next to me and completely forgotten about activating her aura, although now was definitely the time it would come in useful. Little Bald was silent too. This didn’t look good.

“The plan? This is the plan.”

I raised my crossbow and aimed it directly between the matriarch’s little piggy eyes. Sitting up on my shoulders, Little Bald shook himself and let out a battle roar. It was like he could tell that this time we were facing more than just an opponent. This time it was a real test. If the only way to develop and progress on the world of Vilion was through intense effort, then now was the time to put some of that effort in. It wasn’t like we had any real choice — the clock was ticking, and we still had two levels to get through.

Chapter 14

“LYRA, YOUR AURA! Gor, look for weak spots! Little Bald, fire at will! Let’s get this bitch!”

I screamed at the very top of my voice. How could you not scream when the crossbow bolt you’d shot just hung in the air and then dropped powerless to the ground? Apparently, my plan wasn’t very well thought-out. In fact, who was I kidding? It was a useless plan. After getting my hands on a Rare crossbow and a dozen bolts, I thought I’d transformed into an unstoppable killing machine, but this Level 3 boss had different ideas. The gnome matriarch had some kind of energy defense that blocked crossbow shots, and without any particular effort on her part. So, my naïve effort to solve the problem with a single shot was dead in the water.

“Gar-ba!” roared the monster, tossing her hammer from hand to hand. The weapon, with its flickering green aura, looked scarier and, as far as I can tell, had gotten even bigger. Little Bald let fly with three fireballs, but just like my bolt they hung in the air. Goddammit! That beast had some kind of special defensive ability against ranged attacks.

“We can’t do anything at this range! Little Bald, stop wasting silirium! Lyra, advance!”

But advancing didn’t work either. It was now the boss’s turn to answer our attacks. The swollen hammer went flying up in the air and came crashing down to the ground, sending out a jagged line of what looked like lightning. I should probably shout some warning to the group, as that attack looked a lot like the rift in a game I’d spent far too long playing. But far too long was exactly what we didn’t have. The rift reached us in no time.

The stones under my feet exploded, raking my skin and sending me flying off to one side. In the corner of my eye, I could see Lyra and Gor flying too. Gor in particular looked dumbfounded — it took a lot to toss a lump of flesh like that up in the air. There were three ugly splatting sounds as we each smacked into the wall and slid to the ground. Like a true cat, Little Bald landed on his paws, and that was what saved us. The matriarch appeared next to us in the blink of an eye, raising her hammer to strike again, but the dracat didn’t let us down. A fireball flew at the monster and buried itself in her metal breastplate, making a blazing hole that began to spread. Up close, the matriarch’s defense didn’t work. We had a chance.

“Lyra!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. The shocked monster stared at the fire on her chest and began to slap at it comically. She managed to put it out, but not before Little Bald had showered her with a stream of more fireballs. I’d been hit hard and I had to lean against the wall. It felt like my half my spine had been crushed on impact. Breathing wasn’t easy either. Fortunately, the elf girl understood me correctly and, rather than going berserk and throwing herself at the matriarch, she got to work with her healing, first on herself, then on me, then on Gor, who was still slumped on the floor, watching the battle glassy-eyed. The bigger they come, the harder they splat into the wall.

“Gar-ba!” roared the monster, tired of dealing with Little Bald’s fireballs. Suddenly, the dracat took a turn for the worse. He stopped attacking and started to mimic Gor, by which I mean that his eyes got the same glassy look, his legs gave way beneath him, and he too slumped to the floor. This time, however, I was notified as to the problem:

The Suppression ability blocks your pet for 30 seconds

The matriarch swung her foot and Little Bald was sent flying. Now it was his turn to make an ugly splatting sound. I yelled with rage — how come there was a monster like this in a Level 2 Dungeon? This was way too difficult!

“One for all!” shrieked Lyra hysterically, suddenly losing touch with reality. Her swords flashed, and the gnome matriarch grunted in confusion.

With her eyes closed, the elf girl began to swing at the monster’s armor like a windmill. She didn’t care whether she hit the target or not, she was absorbed in the process. To be honest, so was I. There was no other way I could explain my stupor. Screaming at the top of her lungs and waving her swords widely and ineffectively like a rather dysfunctional windmill, Lyra still looked incredible.

At some point, she got lucky, and began to hit the matriarch on her arms rather than on her chest. All the charm of the scene was lost when the boss gave an angry roar. She shoved Lyra away with one huge paw and used yet another ability. A black cloud formed around her fist and she sent it flying straight at Lyra. The elf girl didn’t have a shield, so she took the blow directly on her chest. I was standing to one side, so I couldn’t see the damage that the matriarch’s attack had done, but I took some small comfort from the fact that Lyra didn’t stop fighting. She kept clattering away with her two swords, blissfully unaware of anything else that was going on. Finally, her swords’ properties began to take effect. The matriarch slowed down significantly and even periodically froze, with no more strength to move.

While I watched Lyra battle the matriarch, my hands were operating on autopilot, loading up my crossbow. Using the sling Gor had made against a monster like that would be stupid. The string was in the groove, I slotted the bolt into place, and then the matriarch got really angry. She even grew a little bigger, almost surpassing Gor’s vast height. Bellowing with rage, she lifted her hammer — which was now the size of my body — into the air and targeted Lyra. However, she didn’t get the chance to bring down the fatal blow. It’s hard to attack when you have a dagger blade sticking out of your mouth. When he came round after the Suppression debuff, Gor had crept up behind the matriarch and, forgetting that a true warrior only attacks from the front, had struck his blow. Incredibly, the monster kept standing and, forgetting all about Lyra, turned to face Gor. He grabbed his knife and was making ready to stab her in the eye, but she thrust her fist in his direction and used her black cloud. Gor swayed and started to drop, but he didn’t go down alone. The monster dropped with him. A crossbow bolt, fired at point-blank range and with the help of my Direct Hit ability, put an end to the fight. The matriarch’s massive body crashed to the floor, almost crushing Gor, and a blue cloud formed around it.

Silirium +24. Total: 47

“Is that all?” said Lyra in a weak voice. Turning around, I almost lost the power of speech. The evil girl was covered in blood, and not the gnome’s but her own. The black cloud the gnome matriarch had used had left deep gashes almost all across Lyra’s body. Her arms, her legs below the knees, her face, and her neck were all slashed up. Extraordinarily, although covered by nothing but strips of leather, her torso and her hips were unmarked. Apparently. the Rare armored bra wasn’t as simple as it looked. It did actually provide protection.

“Lyra, heal yourself!” I ordered the elf girl, before she lost consciousness. “Right now!”

Used to trusting her agent in everything, she obeyed. However, one dose of healing wasn’t enough. To fully get rid of the results of the gnome matriarch’s attacks, it took twenty units of silirium. The same amount again was needed to treat the passed out Gor — unlike Lyra, he had no armored bra to protect him, and the matriarch’s black cloud had turned his chest into a mass of bloody, ripped flesh. I really didn’t want to think what would’ve happened to our group is Lyra hadn’t been a healer. It was the stuff of nightmares.

Condition fulfilled: Enchant Gnome Miners

Condition fulfilled: Enchant Gnome Warriors

You have fulfilled all the conditions to activate the Conquest of Wild Gnome Dungeon quest chain. Do you wish to take part in the quest?

Time to decide: 30 seconds

I probably should’ve asked the group if they wanted to take part in yet another adventure, but it took just one look at Lyra and Gor to see they were in no state to make decisions. Even though their wounds were gone, both the elf girl and the char-ra were lying on the stones with their eyes closed. For the moment, they weren’t warriors. But Little Bald… Well, Little Bald was Little Bald. The dracat had sat himself down and got back to licking his most prized possessions, as if that was what gave meaning to his dracat life. It was useless asking any of them if they wanted an adventure or not right now, and there was no time to wait. And to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered. Besides, I was the commander, and that meant it was up to me to decide.

Conquest of the Wild Gnome Dungeon quest accepted.

Step 1: Free the gnome smiths trapped on the fourth floor of the Dungeon.

Time to complete quest: 12 hours.

If you fail, gnome miners and gnome warriors will turn hostile.

Well, of course, who could’ve doubted that the damned System would think up something like that? Twelve hours for the fourth floor? Why not? It was strange we’d even been given that much time. Three to four hours was probably more than enough. Who cared that we were tired and that we wanted to eat and sleep? That due to their drastic loss of blood, neither Gor nor Lyra had any strength right now? Those minor details didn’t bother the System in the slightest. Whoever wanted to conquer a Dungeon, particularly the Wild Gnome Dungeon, had to work tirelessly. Let your guard down, and it’s game over.

Getting to my feet with difficulty, I went over to the body of the gnome matriarch. The green glow of her hammer, which had gone back to its normal proportions, immediately caught my attention. But the difficulty I had lifting up the hammer meant I didn’t even bother checking its properties. None of our party could use it as a weapon — there were no hammer-throwers in the Selected. I should probably have taken the chest armor that Lyra was unable to penetrate off the body, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. All that I felt for that lump of porcine flesh was revulsion. Besides, the armor was rated as junk. So I left the breastplate in place. However, I did take the powerful ironware she’d used as boots and the bracers she wore on her arms. They were useless to me, but they’d fit Gor perfectly, even if they were junk too.

Going around the body, I looked indifferently at the small pile that was glowing green — the loot that the System had so generously left for us. My previous excitement was all gone. Somehow, I’d suddenly realized that the world around me wasn’t actually one of the computer games that I used to love playing. Everything that was happening to us was actually reality. And, right here in this reality, we could die just because we didn’t get the right armor soon enough or weren’t able to select the right skill to block the next monster’s weapons. We were given crumbs, both in terms of loot and in terms of abilities, and we were being asked to do the impossible — three hundred units of silirium to get back to base, three days to reach the final boss in the Dungeon, twelve hours to find and free the smiths… Right, this was getting me nowhere. If I was going to sit on my backside and pound my chest, wailing about the unfairness of it all, I’d get nothing done. It was a waste of time. My group was lying around helpless, and I was lost in my thoughts. Wasn’t it too late to start thinking now? I had a quest that needed to be completed. I had a group that needed my help. Thinking about anything else right now was dumb.

Jade Hairpin

Rank: Rare

***

Tough Gnome Boots

Rank: Rare

***

Tough Gnome Engineer’s Belt

Rank: Rare

I had three green items in my hands, one for each member of the group. Little Bald was going empty-handed again. The dracat paused from his important business, looked me in the eye, and gave a philosophical meow. What else was there to say? You fight side by side with everyone else, and all you get is a pile of hot buttered nothing. Without the butter.

Looking at my group, which was still completely out of it, I decided not to waste any time. I pulled on the boots, infuriated again by the fact that the item wouldn’t let me get access to its additional properties until level 5, then placed the belt next to Gor and the hairpin next to Lyra. The elf girl opened her eyes, saw something green and shiny, and reached toward it, but soon slumped back with a long groan.

“Come on, Little Bald,” I said as soon as I’d poured the remaining bottles of invigorating drink into Gor and Lyra, and left them provisions. They needed to get their strength up, and how could they do that without food? On that note, I fed the remaining supplies to Little Bald. The little pig was happy to eat it all, both the tough meat and the dried fruits. Then he looked at me searchingly, as if to say he really wouldn’t mind a spot more. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a spot more. We didn’t have anything else at all. That was the main reason I took Little Bald with me — somebody had to do the work around here.

The descent to the fourth floor was not far from the boss cave. The passage was guarded — dozens of grim and serious gnome warriors were at the ready to pounce on anything that dared to come up the steps. They paid no attention to me. For the next twelve hours, the Selected were going to be best friends with the locals. The dots on the map proved it — they had gone from orange to blue, the same color as Little Bald. It was like all the gnomes were my pets.

The fourth level greeted me with dampness and almost impenetrable gloom. The glowing stones were so rare down here that it suddenly felt creepy. There was nothing in the first cave, which we came into straight from the spiral staircase, but in the tunnel beyond it there were three red dots. Little Bald hissed quietly, sensing the enemy. Gradually, my eyes got used to the dim light. I could make out the corridor and also three Level 2 cave hounds. They hadn’t yet noticed me. Or maybe they had seen me but were doing their best to pretend that they didn’t exist and blend into the stone. They were remarkably good at it. If it hadn’t been for the map, I would never in my life have noticed them.

“Ready?” I asked Little Bald, who was sitting on my shoulders. Altogether, we had seven units of silirium left, so we had no right to throw resources around without thinking. One shot to one corpse. We couldn’t afford more. Raising my crossbow, I aimed at the biggest of the cave hounds and used Direct Hit. I probably could’ve managed without it, but I didn’t want to take any risks. The bolt hissed through the air, and I was nearly deafened by the piercing howl of two cave hounds as they suddenly realized that their leader was dead.

Piaow! Piaow!

Little Bald was perfectly effective. The dracat’s vision was clearly better than mine, and the gloom caused him no problems. The two flaming bodies of the cave hounds dropped to the ground, briefly lighting up the cave. No loot and no bonuses, just three glowing blue clouds.

Silirium +6. Total: 10

At least that was something. You spend three and you get six — I liked the math. So, that was how Little Bald and I proceeded — slowly and carefully. The fourth level turned out to be the domain of the cave hounds. They hunted in packs of three, and for a long time I couldn’t work what the hell they were hunting. As far as I could tell, the gnomes had no great desire to come down here. I finally got my answer after a few hours of hunting. As we came to yet another cave, I saw four red dots on the map rather than the usual three. Furthermore, one of them was moving forward confidently, clearly not caught in an ambush. Soon enough, the single red dot came level with the three motionless dots, and then they started moving too. When we got to the place of battle, everything was over. Of the four dots, only one remained, and it wasn’t a cave hound.

Cave Beetle, Level 3

The bugs that occupied the first floor lived on the fourth floor too. But there was one big difference. Up there, the bastards had been the size of dogs. The one down here was closer to a small pony, and it was hungrily devouring the remains of the cave dogs. The bug was in no hurry. Why should it rush if it had no enemies? The beasts that jumped from the ceiling had nothing that could damage the powerful chitin covering almost all the beetle’s body. Eventually, the Level 3 monster stopped stuffing its face with meat and began to stare at me as if it couldn’t quite work out what to do with me. However, its confusion only lasted a few seconds. Tossing aside the remains of the cave hound, the bug began to scuttle confidently towards us. It saw its target and nothing in its way. Apparently, I was a very appetizing target. Now it could eat its fill and die happy.

My crossbow bolt was shot off before I realized the level of the threat. It was followed by fireballs — Little Bald wasn’t going to be outdone by me. None of this did any noticeable damage to the bug, so we had to turn around and remember that tactical withdrawal was an excellent survival technique in extreme circumstances. Little Bald turned around and kept at his dracat business, spitting out one fireball after another. Several times, I was burned by a wave of cold — the bug was using some unpleasant ability. There was no blood, which was something. I had managed to run almost as far as the staircase to the third level, when suddenly Lyra went shooting past me with her shield in her hand. It was battered and burnt, but it still let our fighting unit use her Shield Strike ability. Which was what she did, stopping the cave beetle’s rapid advance in its tracks. She was followed by Gor, who was dragging a massive hammer behind him. The bug was distracted by Lyra and paid the price. Its chitin was already burnt through in several places, so one mighty blow from the hammer was enough to squish the monster. Selected — 1, Level 3 bug thing — 0.

“You abandoned us! You left us all alone!” Lyra turned around sharply and came stomping toward me. What’s more, I was sure that bug had been any more scary than the absolutely furious elf girl. If she went berserk right now, there’d be nothing to save me.

“That’s not how a commander behaves,” added Gor. “We’re a team…”

“Silence!” I ordered, not even thinking of feeling ashamed. “I did exactly what a commander’s supposed to do. The group was fed, watered, and left to recover in a safe place, while your commander went to scout out the area and collect silirium. Nobody was abandoned! We only have nine hours left to find a cave with gnome smiths on this level. While you were resting, I explored one half of the floor. There aren’t any gnomes there, so let’s go look at the other half. Lyra, why on earth did you think I’d abandoned you?”

“I…” The elf girl lowered her eyes and even took a couple of steps back. My old man was right, attack really was the best form of defense.

“I thought… I thought you’d left me. I thought you’d seen my craziness and left me, like everyone else I ever cared about in my life did!”

“What they called your craziness in your past life is what saves all our lives here. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” I went up to Lyra and hugged her. She sniffed, and then broke down in uncontrollable sobs. Apparently, the model’s life hadn’t all been fun and games, and it was no coincidence that she’d become a berserker. As she hugged me, she let all her pent-up emotion come flooding out.

Just two days ago, as far as we could tell, we had been living in our own worlds with no idea what being Selected would mean. Now we were standing in dark caves, battling with monsters, and trying to grab ourselves whatever items we could get our hands on that would do anything to increase our chances of survival, with no idea what to do next. Sure, we were collecting silirium, but we were doing it incredibly slowly. In the two hours I had spent exploring the fourth level, I had only managed to get our total up to thirty-three units, and that was with me and Little Bald taking great care with every shot.

“You know, I really like hugging you, but somebody has to find those smiths. We’ve got a quest and we need to complete it. Once we conquer this Dungeon, there’ll be plenty of time for hugs.”

“Promise?” Lyra stepped back and looked searchingly into my eyes. Wow! The look was piercing and full of promise, and it made every part of my body throb.

“What about your allergy?” I asked, gulping. Suddenly my throat had gone dry.

“I didn’t tell you everything about that aspect of elf life, human. We don’t just know who we’re incompatible with, we can also sense who we can be with. I can be with you. But can doesn’t mean will. When we’re finished with this Dungeon, then we’ll see. But not before. I’m still mad at you! Anyway, enough chitchat. Let’s find these goddam smiths. If they can’t fix my shield, they can go hang. Hell, I’ll kill them myself.”

Chapter 15

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the Dungeon’s fourth floor, the air was surprisingly damp, the moisture clinging to your skin like a sticky cobweb. This side breathed a different atmosphere — heavy and oppressive, as if the air itself was saturated with some otherworldly danger. The glowing stones weren’t just few and far between, they burned even less brightly, and their dim light barely filtered through the gloom that wrapped us in threatening shadows.

“Right then!” I said cheerfully, straightening my belt. “Welcome to the Hotel of Hideous Horrors attraction. We’re now on the minus fourth floor, so don’t expect any spectacular views. Entry is exclusively reserved for the Selected. I hope breakfast is included.”

“It doesn’t look like it,” said Lyra, glancing around in disgust. “Although I wouldn’t even want breakfast here, let alone dinner.”

“That’s enough whining! The commander makes a joke, and his subordinates laugh at it, or at least they pretend to find it hilarious. What they don’t do is start whinging and whining.” I gave her a sharp look. “We’ve got a serious job to do here, and you’re talking about breakfast. Remember what the System said? Find the gnome smiths. And try not to die while you’re at it.”

I said the last bit under my breath, so no one else could hear it. Because it really was creepy as hell. Little Bald sat on my shoulder growling softly, clearly sensing the threat. He was nervous, and that made me nervous because the dracat was rarely worried about nothing. We waited a few minutes, but no red dots appeared. The monsters preferred to hide rather than running at us with open arms. We were the ones who had to move. It was our standard formation, with Gor in front looking for traps and secrets, Lyra holding her burnt shield in the middle, and me, the commander, bringing up the rear and clinging white-knuckled to my crossbow. Gradually, the corridor became narrower and even darker. Red dots began to flash on the map, so we upped our pace. Now was not the time to draw attention to ourselves.

“There’s something up ahead,” whispered Gor, pointing to the left. He looked wary, and I could tell there was something wrong. We approached the turn with our backs to the wall. Glancing carefully around the corner, I saw a small stone chamber with three cave hounds standing in the middle of it. The beasts looked a lot bigger than the ones we’d come across up until then. Their smooth, shining bodies made them look like a cross between bugs and dogs, and their sharp-clawed paws were tensed in expectation, leaving deep grooves in the stone. The beasts stood stock-still in the middle of the cave, as if on the lookout for something. As far as I could see, there was no way to get past the cave without going through those terrifying and unfamiliar beasts. Were they the floor boss? Impossible! Bosses didn’t come in threes. Or did they? The System eventually decided to help and let us know what we were dealing with:

Acid Cave Hound, Level 3

“Acid?” I whispered. “What have we done to deserve this? Having too much fun, I guess. Oh well, we’ve got this. Little Bald, are you ready?”

“Meow,” whispered the dracat quickly, preparing to attack.

“Lyra, get ready. Keep your shield up and remember — they’re acid. They could be shooting something nasty. Gor, try to get at them from behind. We’re counting on you, but don’t pop up too early. I don’t like the look of these outsized abortions.”

I pulled out my crossbow and aimed at one of the hounds. I didn’t want to shoot for two reasons: one, it was a shame to waste bolts (I couldn’t always find the ones I’d shot), and two, it was pointless, as the hounds were too far away. Even using Direct Hit, I’d still more than likely miss. I was still a long way from being a sniper. However, it seemed logical to attack first rather than wait until those beasts noticed us. As there was no other way, I pressed the trigger. Their Level 2 brothers were easy to deal with, so how much harder could they be, right?

A lot harder, it turned out. The bolt was on target, but it never got there. I had the strong impression that the target heard the crossbow’s click and managed to react at incredible speed. The acid hound performed an unbelievable somersault to dodge my attack, and the bolted thudded into the wall behind. Damn, that was one more I wasn’t getting back. The beasts roared, suddenly aggressive, their eyes flashing with a nasty acid-green glint. The monsters crouched as if preparing to pounce at us, but instead they abruptly arched their backs, spitting ugly green blobs in our direction.

“Bastards!” I muttered, barely managing to push Lyra out of the way. Three stinking green blobs flew past us by fractions of an inch and slammed into the wall, hissing and giving off acrid smoke.

“Commander, they’re spitting!” The big man’s shock and concern were so sincere, I didn’t have the heart to shout at him.

“Change of plan!” I slung the crossbow behind my back and dragged Lyra with me. “Back around the corner!”

The acid hounds leaped into action, dashing toward us at remarkable speed. Their claws raked the stone; the hissing green liquid dripped from their jaws, burning the floor and leaving black stains. In a fight between those monsters and the bugs, there was no guarantee the ones with the thick chitins would win. I heard another unpleasant sound — the beasts could even spit while they were running. Fortunately, we made it around the corner, so their second attack hit thin air too. Still, it was getting hard to breathe.

“Little Bald, burn them!” I ordered as I started to spin the sling Gor had made me. There was no time to reload the crossbow. The dracat leaped from my shoulder, launching two fireballs in midair. I was about to say he was wasting silirium, but before the fireballs could reach the wall, the acid hounds were already around the corner. The first fireball hit the first beast in the face, causing it to howl in pain and forget what it was doing. The second flew right into the back of the next cave hound. Apparently, those beasts had some important organs there because it just dropped to the floor, lifeless.

The third cave hound swerved violently to the right, scuttling up the wall and then onto the ceiling, while still making directly for us at full speed. The stone shot out of my sling and, to my great surprise, hit the target directly, slamming into the head of the beast that was flying at Lyra. Sure, I didn’t kill it, but for an instant the acid hound was discombobulated and dropped to the floor. Shaking its head, the monster tried to get back on its feet, but then Lyra shot past me with her burnt shield, performing her party piece.

“Weeeee!!!”

The powerful blow put an end to the hound’s fun. It dropped to the floor and made no further effort to get up. However, unfortunately, it didn’t show any signs of dying either. The wild-eyed elf girl grabbed her sword and began to slash at the monster while screaming at the top of her lungs. The berserker had taken over Lyra’s mind, turning her into an uncontrollable Valkyrie. You could say that the elf girl moved with the grace of a dangerous predator, but that wouldn’t be true. Lyra moved with the grace of a hippo that fancied itself as a great warrior. She didn’t slash up the beast: she slapped it around with the flat of her blade, paying no attention to the quality of her blows and squealing all the while like a stuck pig.

It was such a horrific sight that I somehow forgot about the first hound, the one that Little Bald had hit in the face. Now it was back on its feet and already aiming at Lyra, hoping to take at least one of us out with it. The beast crouched, arched its back, and was ready to spit its toxic green blob, but suddenly Gor appeared behind it. The giant was brutally effective. There were no elegant moves, he just rammed his sword down into the base of the animal’s neck. Using the weight of his massive body, he thrust the sword in up to the hilt. The monster twitched and collapsed.

“Fatality!” I shouted happily. Finally, Lyra stopped desecrating the corpse of her victim and stood over the battered body, breathing heavily. I hoped those beasts didn’t have anything valuable inside them, as Lyra had turned her opponent to mincemeat.

Selected — 3, acid cave hounds — 0.

“Great work!” I told the team, while keeping a close eye on the map to ensure no other red dots had appeared. It looked like everything was clear. Our fight had been loud, but no other beasts wanted to risk making an appearance. Apparently, the acid hounds were at the top of the local food chain. Even the beetles didn’t come this way.

Silirium +12. Total: 14

Huh, we were in deep trouble with the silirium, constantly in threat of going into the red. Though, of course, we couldn’t actually go below zero. As soon as our stocks of this, err, was it a mineral? Who knows, but as soon the number hit zero, we were in trouble. All our abilities would switch off, and the only red would be the color of our freely flowing blood. How exactly did Growler think we’d get three hundred units like this?

“Ready,” said Lyra, putting her sword back in their scabbards. “Ew, Max, they stink! I need a bath. Look, I’m covered in this crap!”

“Get used to it,” I snorted, wiping my brow. “These beasts are just the start. Something tells me we’re going to encounter lots more interesting stuff before we get back to civilization. Gor, can we get anything useful from these carcasses?”

The giant got to work, nonchalantly using his knife to gut the carcasses. It looked horrific, and I’m not sure I’d have been able to copy Gor’s moves, but the big man was a great warrior, after all. He’s probably learned how to do even grosser stuff than that. Soon, there were two sacs of acid green fluid on the floor, alongside several teeth and claws. Gor even sliced off a chunk of meat to see if it could be cooked. On sniffing it, however, the char-ra flinched and threw it away. Lyra was right, the acid hounds really did stink.

“Look, commander!” Gor proffered me the two sacs of acid. “We can use these as grenades. We don’t even need to do anything with them, just throw them.”

This was good news — two acid grenades were bound to come even useful against a strong opponent. The only problem was, they were soft. If we put them in our bags, they’d just burst. However, Gor found a solution. Using the acid hounds’ bones and skin, it took him five minutes to come up with his latest creation. Dr. Frankenstein would probably have loved it and immediately accepted Gor on his course.

Hideous Carrier

The carrier was a stinking, modestly sized crate with no lid. It could be slung on your shoulders to keep your arms free. Lyra immediately refused to even consider carrying it. Gor looked embarrassed and said that it was too small for the like of him. Little Bald… Well, Little Bald meowed and jumped off my shoulder. He went to Gor and pawed at his leg, asking to be picked up. The big man laughed and put the treacherous dracat on his shoulder. That was how I ended up carrying Gor’s hideous creation. The carrier really stank, and it looked vile, but it did fit the two acid bombs perfectly. We put all our other junk in it too — two precious stones, a few pieces of rope, the seemingly useless mushroom. In fact, that was all the loot we had. We called ourselves Selected, but we were more like bums.

We kept going, moving deeper into the tunnels. The darkness stretched ahead of us, but instinct told me there was something important nearby. No further red dots appeared, but that just meant that there was some even greater challenge ahead of us. To be honest, we were getting used to it.

“Commander,” said Gor as we entered yet another cave that was just as empty as the two previous ones, “there’s something here.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, frowning. So far, Gor had done everything but lick the walls, but had yet to find anything on the fourth floor. I was beginning to think there weren’t any stashes there at all, so it was good to hear his words.

“I’m sure,” said the big one, taking a big stride toward the wall. Seeing we were about to follow him, he said: “Stay back! There’s a trap.”

Lyra gripped her shield tighter, like someone was going to take it away from her. Paying no attention, Gor slowly stepped over to the wall. The dark made it impossible to see exactly what the big man was doing, but the disappearing units of silirium showed that he was getting results — one unit meant one trap successfully disarmed. Gor needed three of our remaining fourteen units before something clicked, revealing a small opening in the wall.

We moved closer. Gor was beaming with joy — he’d done something he could never have done in his past life. His fat sausage fingers were agile enough to disarm a trap. It was a real achievement.

“You’re a real expert at finding worthless junk, aren’t you?” Lyra teased him, but you could hear the gratitude in her voice. We all knew already that whatever we found in the Dungeon could be what saved us. Inside this makeshift safe, there were a few elixirs and two simple cubes etched with some kind of scribbling.

Elixir of Stamina x4

Weapon Runes x2

“So, what’s this?” I said, taking one of the bottles and looking at its description. “It seems this thing will restore your strength. Gor? Lyra? How are you feeling? I definitely don’t need any, my strength is fully restored.”

“It doesn’t look great,” said Lyra, squinting suspiciously at the elixir. “Do they even have a sell-by date? I bet they went off ages ago. Nope, not for me.”

“I’m fine too,” said Gor. “Let’s not drink them now. What about the weapon runes?”

“It’s a weapon enhancement.” I read the description as I showed the cubes to the others. “The properties are hidden and you need the smithing skill to apply them. As far as I know, none of us has that, so we won’t be using them quite yet.”

“Aren’t we looking for gnome smiths here?” asked Lyra thoughtfully.

“You’re on the right track. We free them, show them these things, and then get them to pay off their debt to us. We’ll put them in the carrier for now.”

We kept going. On the way, we ran into a couple more acid hound trios, but we already had our tactics worked out, so the beasts caused us no problems. They also raised our stock of acid bombs to eight, and we did pretty well with silirium too, picking up eighteen units. Gor was hit by acid once, but Lyra quickly got him back on his feet.

Finally, as we came around yet another turn in the tunnel, we found ourselves in a cave that was almost completely covered in spiderwebs. We could see blue dots on the map, but it took some effort to find them — the gnome smiths were wrapped in translucent cocoons, hanging from the ceiling. The gnomes looked weak and emaciated. They had no armor, and their only clothing was loincloths, but they’d been carefully swaddled so that their heads remained free and they could breathe. Clearly their captor preferred its food fresh.

“Welcome to my pantry,” I whispered, approaching cautiously.

“What?” asked Lyra, also whispering.

“Forget it,” I waved my and unslung my crossbow. When you find a web, you can be pretty sure you’ll find the creature whose ass it came out of somewhere nearby. Judging by the size of that web, that wasn’t going to be a small ass. Suddenly, one of the gnomes opened its eyes and croaked:

“Help…”

“Jesus!” I said in shock, “It speaks!”

Seeing as “googoo” was the extent of the gnomes’ conversation upstairs, I hadn’t been expecting anything better down here. However…

Carl, Senior Gnome Smith, Level 3

Oh, right! So, this was a named NPC… I mean, gnome. Well then, we were going to free a talking gnome. Seeing as Grumbler had an allergy to this dungeon, maybe Carl would come in useful and be able to explain to us what exactly was going on here.

I examined the cocoons, wondering how best to get the gnomes out of them, but soon there was a strange scraping sound, and a huge red dot appeared on the map.

“Ma-a-ax!” whispered Lyra urgently. “There’s something moving. It’s not just gnomes here, is it?”

Apparently, the map was a privilege reserved for commanders. If my companions did have access to it, they certainly didn’t like using it. I looked in the direction the red dot was coming from and could see movement in the shadows. The System took a long time to give up the details, but eventually gave in when a vast monster the height of two men appeared from the shadows.

Giant Spider, Level 3

So, this was the floor boss! It was a really huge beast, covered in shining black armor, with terrible jaws that dripped a hissing green liquid. Its eight cold eyes watched our every move. The monster was in no hurry. What was the rush when this cave was a dead end? The trap had closed, and the mice were caught. Now it was just a question of working out which of us were the mice.

“Stick to the normal plan!” I shouted, raising my crossbow and aiming at the spider. “Little Bald, fire at will! Lyra, hold back. Gor, don’t forget your ninja skills!”

As if sensing the threat, the spider hissed evilly. A fireball flew toward, but the monster was too fast. It dodged neatly and scuttled up the wall of the cave. From its higher position, it then suddenly fired several sticky threads of web, aiming at Gor and Lyra. It missed too, as my companions leaped out of the way. The spider shuddered slightly, as if in rage, and dashed forward in the direction of Gor. The bigger the better appeared to be its logic.

Lyra jumped in front of Gor, and there was a resounding crash as the spider slammed into her shield. The charred gnome metal held, but the elf girl wasn’t strong enough and began to slip backward. With a whistle, one of my bolts buried itself in the spider, but without any obvious effect. The monster just kept bearing down on Lyra, its jaws snapping inches from her face. The vast opponent was attacking so hard and so fast, there was nowhere for Lyra to escape to. She crouched behind her shield, miraculously avoiding its jaws and legs. Little Bald kept spitting out fireballs, but the spider didn’t even think of turning around. If the balls were hitting him, then they were going out immediately. Apparently, this monster had some very effective fire protection.

So, fire was useless, physical attacks weren’t doing much good, what else did we have? Wait a minute…

I grabbed one of the acid bombs from the carrier. They weren’t really bombs, of course, just sacs of acid. Gor was behind Lyra, trying to hold her up. The elf girl shrieked as she hid behind the shield. Little Bald had stopped spitting, having run through our entire stock of silirium. The spider pushed on, the hard days behind him and the good times ahead. I was able to approach from the side unnoticed and even take aim. The acid sac flew forward, and the cave was filled with acrid smoke. Compared to Little Bald’s attack, the acid proved much more satisfactory. The spider began to tremble and slacken its attack. It even turned towards me, immediately getting the second acid bomb right in its face. I didn’t spare the projectiles — there were plenty of hounds on this floor, so we could always gather more. A third, fourth, and fifth sac went flying at the spider before I slowed down. The spider was no longer thinking of attacking. It remembered that it had urgent spider business elsewhere, turned around, and tried to hide among its webs. Gor was having none of it. With a powerful blow, he smashed one of the spider’s legs. It was the spider’s fault for turning its back on him. He might be a giant with a hammer, but he was still our ninja.

The acid went on burning through the spider’s body until the monster eventually flopped to the ground, convulsing briefly before it died. Lyra looked out from behind her shield, saw the blue cloud, and stretched out a hand.

Silirium +50. Total: 50

I couldn’t help but admire our disheveled but gorgeous elf girl. Getting to her feet, she began to tidy herself up, just as Little Bald was doing. The dracat was avoiding me. He knew that he’d spent all the silirium, so he was trying to keep out of my sight. But why would I be angry? Little Bald had done everything he could. It was my fault for not stopping him on time. If anyone deserved a dressing down, it was their feckless commander, who had almost let the enchanting elf girl’s beautiful face get ripped to pieces. I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from my brow, and said:

“You beauties! I’m proud of you!”

“Lyra’s the beauty, I’m just strong!” The big man corrected me calmly, and the elf girl was suddenly embarrassed and lowered her eyes. This sudden display of shyness was the last thing I’d expected from the elven supermodel.

“Gor, sort out the carcass. I bet there’s something useful in it. Lyra, a pile of loot should’ve appeared somewhere around here. Could you find it? I’ll go work out what to do with the prisoners.”

It was a time-consuming process. First, I had to cut down the cocoons, which wasn’t easy with a rusty sword. Then the cocoon had to be lowered down to the floor, and only then could the web be cut away to release the prisoners. Just dropping them from on high didn’t seem like the best plan to me. In total, I found nine gnome smiths hidden in the spider’s lair. By the time I’d finished this tricky business, Lyra had been given ample opportunity to examine all four green loot items, and Gor had already collected a pile of spider innards. I didn’t even want to think about what he’d found in there.

“Thank you…” said Carl with difficulty as soon as the web had been cut away from the final gnome. “We thought we’d never get out of here.”

Step 1 in the Conquest of the Wild Gnome Dungeon quest chain completed.

Step 2: Talk to Carl, Senior Gnome Smith.

“Tell me, Carl, how did you end up here?” I asked, employing all my diplomatic skills. I had no idea what the hell to talk to the gnome about, so I hoped he’d explain what we were supposed to do next. Compared to the other gnomes, Carl was more strongly built, with a thick gray beard. He looked older and much more confident than the others. Besides, the others didn’t talk. Carl stood up slowly, brushing the remains of the spiderweb from his shoulders, and looked around wearily.

“Water,” he croaked.

There was a stream only a few dozen yards from us, but apparently it didn’t appeal to the gnome. I thought for a second, pulled one of the elixirs of stamina out of the hideous carrier, and handed it to Carl. He accepted it and emptied the flask in three gulps.

“So, who might you be?” he asked in a hoarse voice, coughing and looking us up and down carefully. “How did we end up with collectors in our lands?”

“We are the Selected,” I answered, noticing that gnome knew what collectors were. “We were passing, we saw you gnomes were in trouble, so we decided to help. It looks like we were just in time.”

The gnome nodded, chuckling into his beard.

“On time, you say? Well, if that’s the way you see it, collector, it’s fine by me. My name is Carl and I’m the most senior of the smiths. Without your help, we’d have been left here to rot.”

“I think you’d have been eaten first,” I pointed out helpfully.

“Gnome, you’re a smith, aren’t you?” interrupted Lyra. “Can you fix this?”

Lyra showed him her charred shield. After its encounter with the spider, it was in even worse shape. In fact, it was a miracle the item was still in one piece. Carl was confounded by the elf girl’s question, and it looked like he was about to launch into a long discourse on the meaning of life.

“Lyra, wait,” I said. “Carl, what’s happening on this floor? Why are there so many hounds, beetles, and spiders here? And how come you know the collectors’ language?”

Carl frowned, screwed up his eyes, and rubbed his beard tiredly.

“We started having problems here some time ago,” he began. “At first it was just minor pests — the beetles. Then the spiders came. They pushed us back to the second level, but we got organized and fought back, reasserting control over all but the fifth level. However, these monsters seem to have joined ranks, and we can’t fight off the new mutants. They bred and filled up the whole fourth level. Then they started to creep up to the third. Well, then the worst thing happened… Some new kind of trouble appeared on the fifth level, and it’s just made these things even more bold.”

“What is this trouble?” I asked, feeling a nasty premonition begin to swell in my chest. Carl looked at me darkly. His voice became lower and gloomier:

“The main bug is hiding down there. She’s a vast Level 4 monster that controls all these filthy creatures. She’s the queen of the colony, and she rules over the bugs, making them attack us and expand her realm. If that monster isn’t killed, the whole colony of beetles and spiders will go on growing and keep moving up. However, if you manage to destroy her, we gnomes will become your allies and will serve you truly and faithfully. I can promise that as an elder.”

Step 3 in the Conquest of the Wild Gnome Dungeon quest chain completed:

Destroy the Dungeon Master. Time for completion: 24 hours

I exchanged glances with Lyra and Gor. This was our chance to get a foothold in this world and benefit from the support of a colony of gnomes, but fighting a monster like that was bound to be nasty. And we still didn’t have Grumbler around to help us.

“Well, we’ll just have to go down to the fifth level and sort out this queen,” said Gor firmly.

I nodded weakly. Gor sounded heroic, but… It wasn’t like we had a choice anyway. We had to get down to the bottom of the Dungeon whatever happened. We only had thirty-two hours until our initiation, so this new deadline didn’t make much of a difference.

“Carl, do you have any idea how to kill this beast? Level 4 means a serious opponent and, as you can see, we’re not exactly equipped like heroes.”

“You won’t overcome a beast like with normal weapons,” said Carl, thoughtfully scratching his beard. “But I’m sure you’ll be able to find something to help you take on the monster in our forges on the fifth floor. I’ll show you how to find them.”

“Thanks for the hint, Carl,” I said as soon as a red line leading off into the distance had appeared on our map. Whatever else you could say, the navigation system worked great. “You’re a senior gnome smith, aren’t you? I bet you know what’s interesting down there. So…”

“Max, that’s enough! It’s my turn now!” said Lyra, butting in again and shoving her shield in our faces. “Gnome, I need you to fix this. And it has to be pink again. Oh, and you can some pretty little flowers right here. Don’t look at me like that! Max, why is he looking at me like that? Doesn’t he want to do it? But I need this! Little gnome, come one, ple-e-ease!”

Carl and I both sighed heavily and almost simultaneously. He was just about to refuse when I proffered the two weapon runes.

“Can these maybe help us to deal with that bug?”

The gnome looked up at me wide-eyed. It appeared that he was more than surprised to see weapon runes in the hands of bums like us. I decided to further convince the gnome by showing him my rare crossbow:

“So, they will help. One rune here and the other on the shield. Can we do that? I can see from your eyes that we can. Well then, what are we standing around for? We only have twenty-four hours to take out that monster bug. Gnomes, it’s time to pay us back for saving you!”

Chapter 16

“YAAAAY! LITTLE GNOMES, you’re the best! I believe in you! Make me happy!”

Lyra’s joyful shrieks filled the entire third floor, which we’d had to retire to along with the rescued smiths. The fourth floor was far from completely cleared, but Carl assured us that the gnome warriors would take care of it. After the death of the spider and several packs of acid hounds, they’d have no trouble dealing with the rest. Carl took Lyra’s shield and the remains of her cape. Tutting, the senior smith summoned his assistants, and soon we found ourselves in a small workshop where they were already pumping the bellows. There was a huge amount of weaponry everywhere I looked, but all of it was useless junk, like the sword that hung at my waist. Carl’s assistants got busy with the cape and shield, while the smith himself picked up my crossbow and tutted again, this time shaking his head too.

“It’s a good weapon, but I can’t do anything with it. I’ve got the skills, but the tools I need are all still on the fifth floor.”

“Tools?” I said, looking around at the piles of different smithing instruments in the workshop.

“A hammer,” explained Carl. “In order not to ruin a beauty like this, you need a special hammer, of at least uncommon quality. You can’t alter rare items with simple tools, let along junk ones.”

“Gor?” I said inquiringly. The giant understood me immediately. The char-ra hadn’t been able to carry the hammer we won from the gnome matriarch around with him, so he’d left it on the third floor. He ran off, came back with it, and handed it to Carl, who was once again temporarily dumbfounded. His eyebrows shot up, and his chin almost hit the flaw.

“Will that do?” I asked, and Carl started nodding so vigorously that his head almost flew off. He’d only just stopped nodding when the following strange message appeared in front of me:

Secret condition of the Develop the Wild Gnome Dungeon Forge quest fulfilled. The current level of the forge allows you to create Uncommon items, as well as repairing and upgrading Rare items.

Attention! If you fail the Conquest of the Wild Gnome Dungeon quest, all materials used to level up the gnomes’ skills will be destroyed.

Miraculously, the hammer shrunk to a third of its size in Carl’s hands. Taking my crossbow, the senior gnome went off to make the adjustments to the weapon himself, but that wasn’t what concerned me. Far more interesting was the phrase “level up the gnomes’ skills”. What that meant was that if we could manage to defeat the Dungeon Master, in the case a Level 4 beetle, then we’d have a five-floor Level 2 Dungeon of our own, and in that dungeon would be a funny little gnome smith who knew how to make Rare items. Was that good? It was amazing! It was a pity that Carl was the only one here — I wouldn’t have minded a few more craftsmen. Maybe some enchanters or leatherworkers or something of the sort. Any and all of them would come in useful. But how could we get that? We’d got lucky with Carl, but it wouldn’t always be that easy, would it? I needed information and I’d already given up hope on Grumbler — that worthless sliver of the System was even less use than these junk weapons. Wait, what’s going here?

While we’d been dealing with Carl and his assistants, it had got crowded in the cave. Miner gnomes from the second floor had begun to arrive in dribs and drabs. On seeing Lyra, even without her attractiveness enhanced by magic items, they gooed happily and started to make a pile of the ore they’d collected since we last saw them. Their idol had told them to work, so the gnomes had gone to work. Having dropped their portion of ore in front of the dumbfounded Lyra, the miners sat down straight on the floor and began to stare at the object of their adoration like dogs looking at their master. First came ten, then another ten, then another. The pile in front of Lyra grew and grew, but the elf girl was clearly in a stupor with no clue what to do. It was time to go and help her. After all, I was her agent, wasn’t I?

Standing next to Lyra, I collected the pile of gifts with one wide sweep of my hand, turning them into dust. We couldn’t be carrying all that ore around with us, and we needed all the silirium we could get. Even so, I hadn’t remotely appreciated what thirty gnome miners were capable of:

Silirium +150. Total: 200

Fifty units from ten miners in one day! And there weren’t just ten of them, there were thirty. That was something worth working for.

“Lyra, we need to keep our workers happy with a proper fashion show. Get to it.”

On receiving a clear order, Lyra got straight to work. You could see she trusted her agent completely. Still in a kind of stupor, the elf girl put on a show that had the miners in ecstasy. And not just the miners, the smiths had put down their tools and were gazing at Lyra’s movements too. She didn’t currently have a cape, so the few leather straps that comprised all of her wardrobe could in no way hide the delights of her body. When Lyra stopped, the cave filled with appreciative gooing. The miners and the smiths all applauded, and even Gor muttered something approving.

“Right, now back to work!” I ordered, sending the miners back up to their floor. “That ore won’t mine itself. Get to it, my noble brethren! You’ll want to give twice as much for the next performance.”

It was nonsense, obviously, but the gnomes understood. Jumping to their feet, they scurried off to get more ore. If they brought us another hundred and fifty units of silirium in a day, I’d kiss each and every one of them. Actually, they’d probably prefer Lyra to do the kissing, wouldn’t they?

“Hey, why aren’t you working?” I asked, noticing that Carl and his assistants were still gazing at the happy elf girl. The smiths snapped out of it and got straight back to work, wielding their hammers at double speed. I sat down next to Gor and nodded at the pile of green items.

“Have you had a look at those yet?”

“What do you mean, commander?” The char-ra took offense. “You told us not to touch anything without you, so we don’t touch anything. Even Lyra hasn’t laid a finger on it yet.”

“Like I’d want to touch any of that crap!” snorted the elf girl, but she still came to join us. “Dibs on the boots! Seeing as I’m the one who’s responsible for beauty in our squad, I should get the most beautiful stuff. The junk that I’m wearing now doesn’t add anything to my attractiveness, but those boots look alright.”

“And the tough gnome boots of uncommon rank go the gorgeous Aelyria!” I announced in an auctioneer’s voice. Like any uncommon item, the boots had two properties that could only be accessed when the collector reached level five. By that point, we had reached forty-five percent on the adaptation scale, so we would only get to Level 3 after we had conquered the Dungeon. If we didn’t die first, of course. I didn’t even want to think about what would happen after that — it could take us several weeks to reach Level 4, and more than a month to get to Level 5. After that, our progress might slow down completely. We wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of the items any time soon, so for now their only purpose was to look good. Why shouldn’t Lyra get all the pretty stuff?

Gor got some mighty body armor that took the form of several leather straps with metal rivets — like an armored bra for boys, more or less. Miraculously, it integrated with his belt to form something like a leather loincloth or skirt, so the char-ra happily pulled off the beige pants he’d been issued by the System, delighted with his new outfit.

I was a little more fortunate — the body armor I got didn’t have anything like a loincloth. The simple and light mix of chainmail and leather gave me a false sense of being protected. The local System didn’t provide any stats about damage or defense, so I couldn’t say with any certainty that I was protected, especially when my ass was still bare, at least when it came to armor. I needed pants, I really did, but I didn’t have any and I wasn’t planning to run around naked and happy like Gor, who had no problem dressing in the Scottish manner. That much freedom in certain areas made me uncomfortable, so I wasn’t going to throw away the System-issue beige pants just yet.

The most amazing thing, however, was not that we’d once again got our hands on green items that were useless at our stage of development. What was different this time was that there were four items. No idea what had changed the System’s mind when it was allocating rewards for the fourth-floor boss, but this time it remembered to get something for Little Bald too. The dracat was busy with his usual grooming procedure when I called him over. He clearly wasn’t expecting to get anything and was already tired of getting angry with the System about it.

“Little Bald, come here! Let’s start getting you dressed.”

Decorative Scarf

Rank: Uncommon, pet item

Available properties: 2

I probably should’ve read the full description before I called Little Bald over, as the final line left me speechless. Wait, so if you’re a collector, then you can’t use Uncommon items until you reach Level 5, but if you’re some monster or pet, then all the properties in the world are available to you? Why did the System discriminate like this against the ones who were there to collect precious resources for it? Still, there was no point in getting angry about it. I’d save my frustration to vent next time Grumbler graced us with her presence. Now I focused all my attention on the properties available for Little Bald’s item.

To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. The scarf fully lived up to its name — “decorative” was really just a synonym for “useless”. There was nothing there that could help in a fight, and there was nothing there that did anything for the group, like an aura or whatever. There were lots of different properties, but the vast majority were connected to the pattern and structure of the scarf, the way it looked, and the way it could be worn. I had to really try to find two more or less useful properties:

Chameleon: The scarf takes on any color, blending with the surroundings.

Second Skin: The scarf enswathes your pet, keeping them warm in the cold and cold in the heat.

The two properties were fairly useless separately, but together they gave us lots of room for maneuver. In its normal state, the scarf would only wrap around the dracat’s neck, but if you activated Second Skin, it would cover him from head to tail, turning him into a weird-looking mummy. Except the mummy could move, and now it could also mimic its surroundings. It didn’t make him completely invisible, but spotting Little Bald became a whole lot harder. These were the little details our survival depended on.

“We’re done, collectors. Please, accept our work.” Carl turned from the anvil and showed off his craftsmanship. The idea that he should return the hammer didn’t seem to occur to him. The now reduced trophy hung from the senior smith’s belt like it had found its true home.

Lyra was the first to react. While I’d been dealing with Little Bald’s prize, she’d kept her eyes fixed on Carl. As soon as he announced the work was done, she sprinted over to her items. The repaired cape went flying through the air to land on her shoulders. Lyra put it on with the grace of a real queen. Twisting the pink shield in her hands and finding no fault with it, she broke into a happy smile. However, she was the only one smiling. While the cape was back to its old self, whole again and with its doubled attractiveness property restored, something strange had happened with the shield — it now had a green aura! The item had gone from Common to Uncommon.

“Lyra, could you show me your shield?” I asked.

“Oh!” The elf girl noticed that something was up. Her beautiful brow furrowed, and then she asked a very specific question:

“Ma-a-ax, why is it working like that?”

“Just give me the shield,” I said, barely containing by irritation and reminding myself that Lyra was beautiful. As everybody knew, “beautiful” wasn’t a synonym for “smart”. Very often, they were actually direct antonyms.

“No way, you’ll just break it again!” said Lyra, gripping on to her precious with two hands. “I’m never going to let go of it again! The gnomes worked really hard and now I have another property. An active one.”

“What’s the property?” I asked, taking a deep breath.

“Your attractiveness is doubled,” she answered happily and gave me the most innocent look.

“So, you have two identical skills?” I hissed.

“What? Max, why are you being so dumb? Of course not! The gnomes repaired my shield and got its pink color back! And look, they painted these gorgeous little flowers on it too! Aren’t they beautiful? Oh, you were asking about the properties. There’s now one more. It’s called Extra Thick. Now my shield has significantly increased toughness and won’t break when it hits something.”

Extra Thick… I was about to tell her that now it would match her skull, but I stopped myself. Lyra was Lyra and we weren’t going to get another one. Besides, I liked the fact the shield was significantly tougher, the same way I liked the glow that was coming from my crossbow. Carl was holding it in his hands like it was something incredibly valuable. Before its upgrade, my weapon had given off a blue glow, showing that it was a Rare item. Now that the smith had enhanced it with the weapon rune, the color had changed to purple. I was no expert in the color spectrum of items on the world of Vilion, but something told me that purple looked a whole lot better than blue. I was right:

Incredible Gnome Crossbow

Rank: Epic

Speed of projectiles doubled

3 properties unavailable until Level 9

“You’ve got yourself a great weapon,” said Carl, reluctantly handing over the crossbow. “It’s a pity you won’t be able to use its full might for some time.”

“Do you have any bolts for it?” I asked in a hoarse voice. It turned out that weapon runes added one unlocked property to any item, increasing their rank by one level. The Simple shield had become Uncommon, and the Rare crossbow was now Epic. Now I understood why Carl’s jaw had dropped when he saw the two cubes we’d found in that gnome safe. Those things must have cost a fortune!

“That we do,” nodded Carl. One of his assistants brought two bundles of ten bolts each. After handing them to me, the senior smith said: “That’s all, collector. We’re already done more for you than we promised. Now it’s your turn to demonstrate your strength and skill. The fourth floor is already being taken care of, so don’t waste any time on it. Head straight down to the fifth. But be aware that even the ordinary beasts down there are Level 3. And the floor itself is shrouded in darkness. We don’t have any lanterns, so you’ll have to solve that problem for yourselves. Don’t forget to visit our workshops — there should definitely be something left there. Oh, and a word of friendly advice: don’t go rushing off to fight the main monster. Take your time to look around the floor. We used to have storerooms down there, and you might still find something useful. Alright, collectors, it’s time to go. The clock’s ticking. If you don’t hurry, that monster will send another strong beast up onto the fourth floor, and we’ll be pushed back again, not to mention the warriors we’ll lose. As you can see, we don’t have that many left. One or two more attacks, and we’ll have no tribe left.”

The smith turned around and went back to his anvil, making it absolutely clear that the conversation was over. I looked at the group. Lyra was happily carrying her shield around. Little Bald was sitting on Gor’s shoulder with no desire to come back to me. While I had the hideous carrier on my back, the dracat refused to come anywhere near me. Gor was like Gor always was, calm and unemotional. Until his commander gave him an order, he could just relax.

The fourth floor greeted us with sound and fury. The warrior gnomes were running from cave to cave, destroying the remaining cave hounds, whether common or acid. They were incurring casualties in the process, however. A couple of times, I saw then carrying off an injured warrior toward the third floor. I couldn’t remember seeing a healer up there, so we put Lyra to work. For the price of a two or three units of silirium, the warrior would be back on his feet and ready for further action in no time. There was no immediate return for that expense, but we were investing in the future. If everything worked out, those gnomes would be our fighting force, so losing even one of them was unacceptable. We needed them all.

The passage down to the fifth floor lay beyond the cave with the spiderwebs. The warriors didn’t follow us — as soon as they saw the webs, they remembered they had important business elsewhere on the floor.

“Gor, go ahead,” I said, nodding to the darkening passage. Our eyes had already grown accustomed to the dim lighting on the fourth floor, but on the fifth there were no glowing stones at all. Carl hadn’t been lying, we found ourselves in complete darkness with no idea where to go next. Was this one more trial for the selected? To complete the Dungeon blind and with a strict time limit? It would be a great challenge for a well-trained and well-equipped squad, but for us four outcasts, dressed up in anything we could find, it was a joke. The problem was, nobody cared about our problems — if we didn’t destroy the beetle in twenty-four hours, we’d lose the dungeon. And on top of that, we’d die. At least that would make Grumbler happy.

There were no red dots on the map next to the entrance to the fifth floor, but there were plenty up ahead. They were divided into three groups, indicating that there were three passages ahead of us. There were more red dots in two of them than in the third, so the choice was already made for us. We didn’t want to get stuck in traffic.

“Lyra, wrap the middle of the rope around you,” I said, handing the elf girl the last part of the external System’s gift. “Gor, you take one end and wrap around you, I’ll take the other. That way, we won’t lose each other in the dark. As we don’t have any torches or lanterns, we’ll be going on touch. Little Bald, you can still see, can’t you?”

“Meow!” confirmed the dracat. The dark was no problem for him.

“Excellent, then it’s down to you to find the way. If you see we’re walking into the wall, then meow. Twice means we turn right, three times for left, and once for straight on.

“Meow?” There was a note of uncertainty in the dracat’s voice.

“You can do it,” I told my pet. “Grumbler said that dracats are intelligent animals. She even wanted to buy you. So, stop making a fuss. You’re going to be our eyes. Lyra, where’s my end of the rope? Gor, have you wrapped yours around you? Alright, Selected, let’s go! Little Bald, we’re going down the right tunnel, so lead the way.”

That’s when the fun began. The rope was short, and we kept stumbling and falling. Little Bald yelled like crazy trying to guide us. It was probably a good thing we were surrounded by impenetrable darkness, as I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see our progress. However, we improved quite quickly and began to shuffle forward awkwardly. After a few minutes, our movements were if not synchronized then very close to it. The dracat too proved a masterful guide whose instructions got clearer and clearer. Meowmeow, meow, meowmeowmeow: right, straight ahead, then left. Gradually, we got the hang of it and entered the right tunnel. The nearest red dot to us sensed prey and began to move. The System didn’t indicate what it was, so we could only guess what we were dealing with. By tugging the rope, I let Gor and Lyra know that we needed to stop. I waited until the red dot was five yards from us, then whispered:

“Little Bald, you can see the monster, can’t you? On my command, shoot two fireballs at him. Everybody, close your eyes. Little Bald — fire!”

It stung our eyes even through closed eyelids. The two blazing suns flew along the corridor and a piercing shriek came back to us. The monster didn’t enjoy our greeting. Opening one eye, I almost squeezed it tight shut again. Five yards in front of us was a vast centipede the width of a slide at your average water park.

Cave Crawly, Level 3

Little Bald’s fireballs hit the central part of the crawly, where in theory it’s head ought to be. Except I couldn’t see anything like a head or eyes on the beast. Here on the fifth floor, those organs weren’t needed. The monster didn’t have to see or think. However, it did have a mouth full of sharp teeth, which it chomped as it tried to put out the flames. The fireballs were gradually going out, so I decided to try a crossbow bolt enhanced with Direct Hit. I had no idea where the crawly’s essential organs were, but some past knowledge told me that creepy crawlies like that usually had their brains directly below their jaws, so that was where I aimed. The bug kept wiggling its head, trying to knock away the fireballs, so I didn’t feel any great hope that I was going to hit the target. Nonetheless, I was keen to try out my new weapon, so I fired.

What can I say, Carl had done a great job! The bolt shot out of the crossbow straight into the monster’s head. It didn’t fly so much as teleport. The bug clearly had some kind of defense, but it couldn’t stop the bolt. It went straight through the jaws to where I hoped the brains might be, and suddenly it was all over. The Level 3 cave crawly flopped to the ground and stopped moving. There was one less red dot on the map. Little Bald’s fireballs burned brighter, and soon the cave crawly corpse caught fire like the whole monster was made of some kind of fuel. The stench was indescribable, and we had to duck to get out of the smoke that was filling the tunnel. Ahead of us, we heard scrabbling noises — the crawly’s comrades clearly didn’t like this smokehouse effect. The red dots began to rush backwards and forwards chaotically, and two of them had the brilliant idea to start scurrying in our direction, straight through their blazing comrade.

“To battle!” I commanded, raising my crossbow. I didn’t have time to aim, the dots were coming too fast, but I didn’t feel any fear either. The tunnel was lit up, the enemy was identified, Lyra’s shield had been restored, and we had enough silirium for Little Bald to keep firing for several minutes. What else did the brave Selected need? Why, loot of course! And here it came, running straight into our arms.

Chapter 17

“I LOVE THE SMELL OF NAPALM in the morning,” is the most famous line from one very bloody but very interesting film that I first watched as a kid and then rewatched numerous times.

Of course, I’d never actually smelled real napalm, just read that it was a mix of gasoline and some other stuff. What I did love was the smell of barbecue. I loved the taste even more. But when was the next time I was going to get a barbecue?

Which is all to say that the smell I was smothered in was nothing like the smell of barbecue nor, I’m pretty sure, like the smell of napalm which that bloodthirsty officer loved so much. This smell was… Well, it was just disgusting.

Lyra covered her nose with her scarf, sneezing fiercely and grumbling in between. I tried to breathe through my sleeve, but my eyes were watering from the suffocating smoke. Little Bald hissed and swore in dracat, and only Gor was unfazed. I envied his stoicism. Apparently, there was nothing that could shock the big man.

Anyway, three of the centipedes had reached us, and we’d dealt with all of them successfully. Lyra’s shield didn’t break. Gor remained unscathed. Little Bald, the twisty little devil, had avoided every attack. But one centipede did get me. Already burned and breathing its last, it gave one final lurch, knocking me down and pinning me to the floor. For this reason, that remarkable smell didn’t just surround me: it was all over me. I stank as bad as… Actually, it’d be hard to think of anything comparable to that stench. Let’s just say it was gross. Worst of all, unlike on the higher level, there was no sign of any stream anywhere nearby.

“Max, could you… just keep back a little, please?” said Lyra gently. “It’s just you smell a little… slightly… really awful.”

“Silence in the ranks!” I shouted, remembering one of my father’s favorite terms of endearment. Surprisingly, it worked.

The elf girl muttered something under her breath, and I kept back a little anyway. Not because I was worried about my delicate companion’s sensitive nose, just because I was fed up with bumping into her repeatedly.

We had to solve the lighting problem. Although Little Bald was leading us fairly competently, I would’ve preferred to see everything with my own eyes. Getting him to shoot a fireball every few seconds was, first of all, not economical, and secondly, really not economical. We were collectors, after all, not spenders.

We moved forward slowly, stopping constantly to examine the forks in the large corridor. The marker that Carl had generated for me worked perfectly. The fifth level was huge and, if it hadn’t been for the red arrow that constantly floated in front of my eyes, we’d have got lost two hundred times already. The thing that bugged me, though, was that red arrow never stopped. It just kept curving this way and that, leading us into new corridors. We still had to get back and, unlike Ariadne, we hadn’t brought any thread with us.

We reached the first room, which Carl called the “backup forge”, without any further trouble. There were red dots flashing in the distance, but they clearly weren’t coming our way. Obviously, I was glad of that — I’d had quite enough of monsters for now. I had no idea what a “backup forge” was, but I didn’t really care either. Carl had said that we could find lots of good, useful stuff here, so it was worth taking a look. Exploring the space the old-fashioned way — with fingertips — I smiled. In the corner, in a huge pile, there were lumps of the coal that the gnomes had used in their burner.

My first thought was to light up the coal pile right there. But first, I had no idea how the ventilation system worked here — although, we hadn’t died yet, so it must work somehow. Still, I didn’t want to push it, and I also didn’t want to cause problems for my future employees if I didn’t have to. If we wasted all the coal now, how would they make all that cool stuff for us?

I therefore detached myself from my companions, asked them to keep still, and then took Lyra’s shield. She handed it over without complaining, but it was a good thing she couldn’t see what I was doing with her beautiful pink, flower-covered precious. She’d probably have had a heart attack otherwise. So, what was I doing with it? You’re right, I was using it as a shovel to make a little heap of coal in the middle of the forge. When I thought I had enough, I clicked my finger to get the dracat’s attention.

“Hey, Little Bald, get over here!”

“Meow,” he answered, and I understand from his tone that the fastidious little brat didn’t come anywhere near me until I’d washed.

I took a deep breath. Training my unruly pet was going to be a lengthy process, but this was clearly neither the time nor the place to start. Instead, I just pointed to my heap of coal, hoping the dracat was able to see it with his night vision, and said simply:

“Fire!”

Little Bald got it. He sent a fireball right on target into the coal. It began to burn with an even orange flame that finally allowed us to take a look around. Well, the backup forge looked just like a forge, funnily enough. I’d never seen a backup one before. I’d never actually seen a normal forge in real life either, but it was all like the pictures I’d seen on Wikipedia and in the various computer games I’d played — bellows, anvil, tools.

“Take a rest,” I said, waving my companions away. Myself, I wandered slowly around the room, examining the tools scattered everywhere.

It was all ranked as Junk. A few hours before, I would’ve asked Gor to break it all down for the precious silirium. But at that very moment, two floors up, Aelyria’s faithful fans were busy mining that silirium for us, so I had no desire to make things harder for the smiths who were going to come back here. No doubt they needed those tools for something.

At the same time, my heart ached to see the mess all around me.

I don’t know whether it was the beetles or the spiders or whatever other damn mutants were down here that had caused it. Maybe the scolopendras had been in here. Whoever it was, they’d really trashed the place. Some of the tools I was looking at were still hanging on hooks on the wall, but for the most part they had been tossed all over the place. The cabinets and drawers had also been ransacked.

I let my disappointment sink in and got used to the idea there’d be nothing of any value here. Still, there’s no harm in trying, as they say for some reason. After a few more minutes, accompanied by the chomping of Lyra and Gor, who were tucking into the meat and dried fruits, I saw a hint of green glow coming from under a pile of junk. Crouching down, I dug down and pulled out a small leather bag. Instantly, a notification appeared before my eyes:

Novice Engineer’s Tool Bag

Rank: Uncommon

Well, who’d have thought?

“Thanks for the grand piano in the bushes,” I said to the thin air, chuckling.

“What are you talking about, Max?” asked Lyra, suddenly interested.

“Oh, nothing.” I smiled mysteriously and scratched my head.

Actually, it was just a little joke, an old joke from a TV show that referred to some prop or circumstance in a drama that was so obviously contrived it had a surreal effect. Though maybe a grand piano was pushing it a bit too far. This was more like an upright piano, or even a cheap synthesize. Still, it was a whole lot better than nothing.

“Gor, catch!” I threw the bag to the big man. He quickly gulped down the lump of meat in his mouth, wiped his hands on his chest, and carefully caught the bag. His eyes widened.

“That’s really something, commander.”

“And you know what to do with it, right?”

Gor thought for a second.

“I wanted to say ‘no’. But you know what? Yes, I do know what to do with it. The information just appeared here somehow.” He tapped on his head.

I’d thought as much. The System had somehow uploaded the data directly into our poor brains. I really doubted that the elf girl had, in her past life as a model, learned how to deftly wield two swords and handle a shield properly. I’d only held a crossbow in my hands a couple of times in my life, but I was proving remarkably effective with mine nonetheless. In my past life, when I had tried shooting, I’d been so useless that my old man had been furious that his son would never follow his footsteps into the paratroopers. He was right back then, but it all looked a little different now.

“So, what can you do with them?” I asked.

“We-e-ell, I can disarm traps.”

“What about crafting?” I was already setting up a workshop in my head, picturing an interesting development for our group.

“I can make some things.”

“Like what? Weapons?”

Gor shook his head, gazing into the void as if he was searching within himself. In fact, that was probably exactly what he was doing.

“I can make all sorts of engineering stuff,” he said, thinking over every word.

“Stuff, eh?” I snorted. “Can you make anything right now?”

Gor quickly ran his eyes around the room, then realized that wasn’t enough. He got up and walked around, carefully examining everything. He stopped next to a pile of junk.

“I can make a trap… I think,” he said a little uncertainly.

“Can you or can’t you?”

“I can.”

“That’s great, but we don’t need a trap right now — that’s for defense, but we’re going on the attack here. Anything else?”

“I don’t know, commander, I don’t think so. Sorry, but I’m still getting used to the knowledge. It only pops out when I see something suitable.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s all good.”

“No, it’s not all good,” said Gor, glancing at my hand. “Could you not get that filth on me, please?”

“Oh, wonderful!” I said, rolling my eyes but stepping away from him. “Where the hell can I find some water here?”

It looked as if there had been water in the forge before, but one big vat was empty because it had a crack in it, and the smaller barrels were all upturned and empty too.

I pulled out the small sheet of metal on which Carl had carefully etched a map of the fifth floor. The red arrows were great, of course, but it would still be good to work out exactly where we were and where we were heading. The backup forge, the living quarters, the storerooms, the main passages — there were a lot of places and they were all somewhat chaotically distributed. Further down the corridor should be the living quarters and some smaller storerooms. That was the way the red arrow was pointing. Then, at the end, there was a large space that was marked “Main Forge.” Judging by its size and the fact that it was situated in the furthest depths of the floor, that was the room where the Level 5 boss was hiding. I could feel it in my gut.

We still had a little under twenty-four hours, so we could easily have rested a little longer. But for some reason I didn’t want to. The adrenalin was still pumping, and I’d never get to sleep stinking like that. Instead, we kept moving, sinking once again into the darkness.

We mercilessly disposed of two more scolopendras on our way to the living quarters. Miracles didn’t happen there, either. I’d been hoping to use the gnome’s furniture as fuel, but it turned out all to be made of stone too. That was why the gnomes hadn’t given us any torches — apparently there was a real shortage of wood in the Dungeon. There really was nowhere to get light from around here. The best I could find were a few cloths and scraps of leather that Little Bald set fire to. They smelled terrible, but they provided a little light.

So, no miracles. The living quarters were in a terrible state too. The poor gnomes had a major a cleaning job on their hands before they could move back in here. I took a quick look around, but this time the System didn’t reward me with any cool surprises. Actually, there was one.

I found what I guess served the gnomes as a bathroom or shower. It was a large space where a stream of water trickled out of a chute on the wall and disappeared somewhere through a drain in the floor.

“If you’ve got anything to smoke, now’s the time,” I told my companions. “It’s bath day for me.”

In place of soap, I used some kind of stone from the floor. I stepped on it by accident and almost went crashing down. It was slippery. Why would there be a slippery stone in the bathroom? There was only one possible answer — it had to be some kind of prehistoric mineral soap. It looked like some kind of pumice and it was hard to get a lather from, but it was amazing that it lathered at all. Beggars can’t be choosers when you smell like a cesspit. What’s more, this was the first time I’d washed since I’d been picked up by the System, so I was willing to put a little effort in.

There was nothing to heat the water, of course. But another of my old man’s tortures for me in my childhood was to try and toughen me up with cold showers. Naturally, as soon as I left home, I stopped torturing myself, but I could still cope with the cold. I didn’t even swear particularly loudly when I got under the water, just muttering a little under my breath.

After I’d washed, I did the best I could to clean my clothes. When I went back to join my comrades, I looked a whole lot better than before.

Lyra sniffed.

“I can’t say the smell has gone completely, but you’re clearly much cleaner.”

“Thanks. Maybe you guys want to wash up too?” I asked, nodding at the grime on their faces.

“Yeah, right!” said Lyra. “How am I going to wash here, with no face cream or eye cream, no moisturizing mask, no hair conditioner, no fluffy towel…”

“Alright, I get it!” I said, holding up my hand. “You’d rather go around with filth on your face than wash without a moisturizing mask.”

Lyra thought for a second, but couldn’t find any worthwhile counterargument, so just folded her arms and turned away demonstratively.

“Gor, you’re looking for stashes, aren’t you?”

“It’s hard to find stashes when you can’t even see the stuff that’s not hidden, commander,” sighed the big man. “But yes, that’s what I’m trying to do. And no, I haven’t found anything.”

“That’s a pity. Normally, the deeper you go in a dungeon, the better the stuff you find. I guess there’s something wrong with this one. Never mind, let’s get going.”

After half an hour of slow progress, I realized why we’d come across so few scolopendras. They were all here, right where the red arrow was leading us. To make sure that we understood where we were heading, it flashed a couple of times and then disappeared, leaving us with no more navigator. However, that was nothing compared to what awaited us ahead. It was like the map had gone crazy. A swarm of little red dots turned into one big one, which was located in a smaller branch of the passage that, judging by the metal map, was called the “Big Storeroom”. The question was whether we’d be able to sneak past the creatures that had crowded into the storeroom undetected. I didn’t want to find out just yet, so I announced a tactical withdrawal. Besides, the “Small Storeroom” was nearby too.

I sat down in a thoughtful pose and began to think. After a few minutes, I realized that trying to think in the dark was distracting. I found some more bits of trash and asked Little Bald to light them. When he’d done so, I saw what was around and gulped loudly.

“What’s the matter, commander?” asked Gor.

“Is that what I think it is?” I looked at the clear, viscous pool that began just a few yards from my cozy bonfire. “I was wondering what that strange smell was.”

“I don’t know what you think it is, but that looks like oil,” said Gor, moving closer. “It’s weird that it doesn’t smell more.”

I joined him by the pool and looked more closely, concentrating my gaze on the liquid.

Stone Oil

Type: Consumable

“Oil it is,” I said. “Who the hell knows what they make it from, but it looks just like… well, like oil.”

At that moment, there was a loud crack from the fire behind me and something burning floated through the air straight towards the oil pool. Once again, I was forced to recall my goalkeeping skills from when I played on the school team. With a flying leap, I grabbed the piece of burning trash and squeezed it in my fist, crying out in pain. Then I went crashing down into the pool of oil, sending it splashing in all directions. A few drops reached the bonfire and showed just how right I’d been to jump. If a spark had reached the pool… Well, that would’ve been the end of the Selected’s adventures.

“You’re filthy again,” said Lyra, shaking her head.

I barely restrained myself from letting a stream of invective flow in her direction. Instead, I got up carefully and, moving slowly along the wall, made my way to the exit.

“Wait here and don’t do anything. Don’t go anywhere near the fire. Turns out it’s double bath day.”

Nobody said a word.

The gnomes had to be surprisingly hygienic creatures because they had bathing facilities in every room, including this one. I wrapped a piece of cloth soaked in oil around my junk sword and formed a kind of torch — a guttering and smoldering one, but a torch nonetheless. Making sure that the fire wasn’t planning to spread to me, I went to the shower room to check whether or not I’d seen everything right the previous time. Yes, I’d been right — the water supply was one and the same for all the rooms. A small local channel was flowing down a long chute that appeared to run all along this side of the floor. The water here came out through several holes, like a shower. Sighing, I stripped off my still-wet clothing and once again dove under the icy water.

Have you ever tried to wash motor oil off with soap? Soap that’s more like pumice than soap? I don’t recommend it. Useless stuff. The one good thing was that the smell of the dead scolopendras had almost completely disappeared. That and the fact that, if a spark landed on me now, I’d no longer turn into a torch. So, when I returned to my companions, I already had a plan in my head. This was Plan B, of course, as I had already had a Plan A before that.

“So, here’s the plan. We’re going to keep moving forward, very carefully and slowly. You can all see that there are creepy crawly monsters there, and it looks like they’re the biggest on the floor. I’d really rather not even look in there to check their levels. Seeing as they’ve occupied the storeroom, let’s leave them to have fun in there and sneak past.”

There were no objections — the commander had issued clear orders and his subordinates were ready to follow them. When we got to the turn in question, I carefully peered around the corner, giggling to myself at the idea I could actually see anything in the thick darkness. The big red dot wasn’t going anywhere, which meant the scolopendras and other beasts were all crowded in here. We could hear the noises too — tapping and rustling, as if they were trying to get in somewhere. It was loud enough to feel confident they wouldn’t hear us sneaking by.

“Gor first,” I whispered.

The char-ra crept along the wall through the danger zone. We had agreed that, if something went wrong, he was to knock together the two stones he was carrying twice. If everything was okay, he’d knock once. We heard one knock.

“Now you, Lyra.”

The elf girl also made her away along the corridor successfully. Well, now it was my turn. What was the quest? To reach the end of the dungeon. And that was what we were going to do. The gnome warriors could deal with that insectarium later.

As I made my way along the corridor, I felt my mood lifting. There was danger nearby, but it was over there, not right here. If only it could always be like that. However, I hadn’t quite reached the safe area when I heard a booming voice issuing from the monster-filled cave.

“He-e-elp!!!”

The voice sounded female, but it was so deep that I couldn’t quite be sure. I had no idea who could possibly be hidden in there. Nor did I consider myself a hero — everybody knows that heroes are always among the first to die. Unless they’re the protagonists, of course.

I still didn’t feel confident that we were the protagonists of this particular story. The gifts from the System like Gor’s little toolkit were nice, but they weren’t big enough to make it feel like we’d truly been selected. For now, they felt more like gift bags. That’s why I decided not to risk it. However, the System had other ideas. The following message appeared before me:

Attention! The bonus quest New Hope is now available.

Rescue the last gnome matriarch. Reward: The gnome tribe will survive. It will be able to reproduce naturally. The owner of the Dungeon will get extra bonuses and be able to level up the dungeon and expand its size.

Do you want to accept the quest?

Time to make your decision: 30 seconds.

I realized I’d raised my foot to take a step and not put it down again. I was standing like an idiot with one leg hanging in the air, trying to process what I’d just read. Who was it who’d complained that Carl was the only gnome that could talk? Here was a special treat for me, but I couldn’t help but feel I was being set up. Be careful what you wish for. The time was ticking away, so I finally put my foot down and made the decision.

“Yes, I accept,” I whispered irritably.

Quest accepted!

Stretching my arms out in front of me, I kept going down the corridor until I felt something soft.

“Where are you putting your filthy hands? Go and wash before you start putting your hands all over me!”

My mind was still occupied with the information about the new quest, so it took me a while to realize that the “something soft” was one of Lyra’s breasts. And what irritated her wasn’t that I was grabbing her, but that I was grabbing her with dirty hands. I filed that away for later.

“Right,” I whispered, reluctantly withdrawing my hand. “We’re going to have to use Plan B after all. You keep going a little further, then wait for me. Don’t do anything. I’m going to take care of the scolopendras.”

“What?” whispered Lyra frantically. “Are you abandoning us?”

“Commander, we can help,” said Gor.

“Shhh!” I hissed, before their complaints got any louder. “Nobody’s abandoning anybody. This is Plan B, like I just said. You saw the bonus quest, didn’t you?”

“No,” said Gor with surprise.

“No,” Lyra confirmed.

Strange, maybe only the commander can see them? Never mind, there was no time to work it out. After all, I was the commander, wasn’t I?

“I’ll repeat the order: go ahead and wait for me. Don’t go off exploring. Got it?”

“But…” said Lyra.

“No buts. I’ll be back, I promise. Come on, get moving. Wait!” I realized the dracat was still on Gor’s shoulder. “Give me Little Bald.”

“Meow!” the dracat objected.

“Meow to you too! You’re an important part of my plan!”

I stretched out my arm and the dracat jumped neatly onto my shoulder.

“Alright, go! I’ll start counting, and you keep moving until I get to sixty. Fifty paces, no more! The main hall is only a bit further on, and we don’t want to go in there yet.”

I went back to the turn where the scolopendras were and took a deep breath. What are you doing, Max? You never used to be greedy, but something changed when you arrived in this world. For some reason, it feels like sooner or later we’re going to collect enough silirium and get out of this hole. But something tells me that’s when the real trouble starts. That somewhere out there, in the outside world, there’s something worse than these cute little spiders and scolopendras. Something with intelligence. Humans and other members of the two-legged insectarium who can cause us far greater problems. So, we need to prepare for that, really prepare.

With these thoughts in mind, I entered the passage and pointed a finger into the darkness.

“Little Bald, quick, three shots. Fire!” I roared like a real artillery commander.

The dracat didn’t fail me — three balls flew one after the other into the darkness. It was impossible to miss — the scolopendras were literally swarming. How many were there? Ten? Twenty? Who the hell knew? I wasn’t planning on counting them. The fire spread across the monsters’ shells, making them smoke and shriek.

“Well, my friends,” I said, waving with both hands, “have I got your attention now? Ba-ha-ha-ha!”

I’d never been able to do an evil villain laugh properly — it came out all wrong. But it had the desired effect — the beasts turned around, played dumb for a while, and then started rushing towards me. I ran. I had the feeling that I’d really leveled up my running skills in this cave. Either that, or I just really didn’t want to be eaten by gross monsters chasing after me. Actually, both of those things were probably true.

The most important thing was not to run straight into a wall. I had counted the number of paces to the required turn in advance, but with monsters chasing after me, my stride was longer, so I very nearly ran straight past the right passage. Fortunately, I had Little Bald to help me — he hissed and gave my right ear a bite. If anyone could’ve seen me, the sharp turn I made was worthy of a superhero movie. Rushing into the room, I ran past the burnt out bonfire and straight into the shower.

“Little Bald, it’s all down to you now. Now’s the time to show how smart you are. As soon as those bastards run in here, fire into the oil and come running back to me in this hole. Got it?”

“Meow?” said the dracat, without much confidence.

“One more time,” I said, a hint of desperation creeping into my voice, “do you understand my orders?”

“Meow!” This time, there was a lot more certainty in Little Bald’s voice. I even felt one paw twitch like he was trying to salute me. Although I couldn’t be sure of it, as at that moment I was pulling myself up into the water chute.

Little Bald lived up to my expectations. From behind, I heard the familiar piaow-piaow, and then a hot little meowing ball slammed into my back. Then there was light, followed by heat, followed by an explosion that shook the whole Dungeon. I was worried that the drainpipe which I was either crawling or floating along would collapse on my head. But no, the gnomes had built it solidly.

The flames came rushing up the chute. I hadn’t had time to crawl far enough along the pipe, so I dropped down flat into the water, pressing little bald to me. The roaring flames went straight over my head. The water didn’t boil, but it got pretty damn hot. Didn’t I say that I wanted a hot bath? Once again, be careful what you wish for.

We crawled out into the neighboring shower room and went back to our companions. There was almost nothing left of the small storeroom, just a blazing inferno. Our potential loot had gone up in flames along with the scolopendras. The blue cloud of silirium was still there to be collected, but all the skins, innards, and other stuff that Gor loved to pick up were completely destroyed. To hell with them, the main thing was that we were alive.

“It’s done now,” I said when we reached the place where the two green dots were waiting. “I love it when Plan B comes together.”

“Max, are you alive?” asked Lyra in a worried voice. “There was such a big explosion we thought you must be dead.”

“The commander’s alive!” shouted Gor. The char-ra and the elf girl simultaneously reached out to hug me. Or, to be more exact, Gor wrapped me, Lyra, and Little Bald in a massive bear hug. At that moment, I realized that in just a couple of days, our group had turned from a random collection of individuals from completely different planets into a group of friends who’d gone through fire, water, and stone oil together, not to mention all the hideous monsters of the Dungeon.

“Alright, alright, I love you guys too,” I croaked, trying to get out of their warm embrace. The fact that Lyra was pressed up against me was great, but the fact that, overcome by emotion, Gor was close to cracking my spine was less so. Eventually managing to break free, I added:

“We killed all the bugs, so it’s time to go and see who was asking for help back there. But don’t forget, the monster that Carl told us about is still up ahead. And sadly, we’re all out of oil now.”

Chapter 18

IF THERE HAD EVER BEEN ANYTHING of value in the space that bore the epic name of Big Storeroom, then that time was long in the past. The crowd of monsters that rampaged through the place had turned everything into worthless junk. Everything that could be broken had been broken. Everything that could be eaten had been eaten. Everything that could be shat on had been shat on. The smell in the room was so bad that even I — who had been forced to get used to the stench of scolopendra innards — felt sick. Lyra and Little Bald were the first to retreat from the storeroom. Gor held on, muttering under his breath the whole time, but only by sheer force of will, and only because his commander refused to give up. The fire still burning in the Small Storeroom gave us enough light to look around, so we quickly had to admit that Carl’s hopes for our staggering enrichment with something useful were unfounded.

The huge collective red dot had vanished and been replaced with a much smaller blue one. In the far corner of the storeroom was a cage, in which there sat a Level 2 gnome matriarch just as massive as the ones we’d previously destroyed. The only difference was that in this case there were vague signs of intelligence in her eyes. And, to judge by her screams, she knew how to talk.

The cage was wrapped in chains that were held together by an enormous padlock. The fifth-floor monsters hadn’t been able to chew through the thick links, but they’d definitely tried. The matriarch was covered from head to toe in some kind of gunk that must’ve been the saliva of a ravenous scolopendra that had climbed on top of the cage and tried to get at its potential food source that way. It hadn’t succeeded.

“So, who are you?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. I wanted to understand what to expect from the matriarch before we tried to rescue her.

“I’m Martha,” she answered. Well, well, another gnome with a name! “Are you planning on just standing there for much longer? I do need help, you know.”

“Where’s the key to the lock?” I asked, taken aback by her rudeness.

“Are you kidding me? How the hell would I know? If you haven’t noticed, human, I’m not taking a vacation here! The key is probably with the fat skank who locked me in here, may the cave hounds devour her! Who are you anyway and what are you doing here?”

“We’re collectors and we’ve come to help you gnomes. We’ve already rescued Carl.”

“Oh, so that idiot’s still alive, is he? Where did you find him? On the second floor, I bet, playing around with the junior matriarch, right? That piece of scolopendra dung can go to hell!”

“Actually, we found him on the fourth floor. He was fighting his way down here to the fifth, but he couldn’t get past a Level 3 spider. The beast took Carl prisoner, wrapped him in a cocoon, and was planning on eating him, but we managed to set him free,” I explained irritably, motivated by a sense of male solidarity. How dare this unknown woman insult our gnomes? Screw her! They were our gnomes and only we were allowed to insult them.

“Is that right?” she asked rhetorically, lost in thought. I was thinking too. The previous gnome matriarch hadn’t been carrying any kind of key. What did that mean? It meant that this quest had been created after we came down to the fifth floor.

The local System was improvising all kinds of unpleasantness just to see how tough we were. Hold on, if that was right, then we should be given the means to overcome that unpleasantness too. What had we received recently? Of course, that engineer’s kit that had so fortuitously ended up in Gor’s hands. We could, of course, run back upstairs, find Carl, and get him to break the lock and release Martha. But in that case, it wouldn’t be us who rescued the matriarch, it would be the senior smith. And the consequences of that would be highly unsatisfactory — there’d be no question of our Dungeon developing properly in the future. Wow, it was amazing how fast I’d got used to thinking of these caves as “our Dungeon”! We still hadn’t killed the big monster, but I was already talking about “our gnomes” and “our dungeon”. You’re getting ahead of yourself, Max.

“Gor, we need to pick that lock,” I said, pointing at the chain. “You’re our great engineer and you’re a spy too. It’ll be a piece of cake for you! I have faith in you, so get to it.”

“But commander, how do I do that?” grumbled Gor in surprise, showing me his fat sausage fingers, each of which was as thick as my wrist.

“You’ll manage it!” I assured the char-ra. “Think of it as a challenge. If you can overcome this opponent, you’ll make progress, but if you give up, I’ll never be able to call you a warrior again. Warriors never give up!”

That was my minute of motivation as a great commander. Gor seemed to get the point. He went over to the cave and began to examine the lock, turning it over in his massive paws. While the char-ra was dealing with the problem, I turned my attention back to Martha.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? While we’re working, you can tell us the entertaining tale of how and why you ended up here. And how you managed to survive. This fifth floor doesn’t seem like the best place for a relaxing stroll, and surviving here isn’t easy.”

“What would you know about surviving?” snorted Martha. After giving me a withering look, the creepy matriarch deigned eventually to give me an answer: “I was locked up here by that fat bitch, the one who runs the Dungeon.”

In terms of size, Martha bore a strong resemblance to my ex-girlfriend a year after we split up. I’d even had a sense of déjà vu when I first caught sight of her. Martha had grown and got stronger, then she and Carl, her biggest admirer, had decided to overthrow the current leader of the tribe of wild gnomes, who was not acting in the best interests of the tribe. The current gnome matriarch was ignoring the problems of the lower floors and only interested in enriching herself. So, Martha and Carl had rebelled against her, fighting for a better future for all the gnomes. I suspected what they were actually fighting for was a cozy spot on a safe level, but I kept my mouth shut. The rebellion had occurred a month ago and failed miserably. The gnome matriarch had decided not to kill her rival. Instead, she had gone down to the fifth floor herself, proving it wasn’t dangerous, and locked Martha up here, leaving her enough food for a couple of months. She’d done this to set an example to the other gnomes, so they’d never think of betrayal again. In fact, this was why we’d seen comparatively few monsters — the third-floor boss had destroyed most of them.

“Commander, I need to go back to the forge. There might be something useful there.”

“Take Lyra and Little Bald with you,” I said. Gor hurried out of the storeroom at remarkable speed. It really was hard to breathe in there.

“Why didn’t you go too?” asked Martha irritably. “Go on, get out of here!”

“Tell me, Martha, how come you know the collectors’ language? As far as I can tell, we’re the first ones to come here, and none of the gnomes has ever left the Dungeon.”

“Carl taught me. He told me learning something new would be good for me. The dumb fool! He’s not from here, he came here about twenty years ago. They say he turned up bloody and wounded, almost dead. Still, they patched him and got him back on his feet. And this is how that piece of scolopendra dung repays them!”

“Are you telling me that all that ‘googoogoo’ we heard on the higher floors actually means something? Do you gnomes have your own language?”

“Of course, we do. What you just said was, ‘the corridor is thick with hammers.’ Or was it not hammers? I didn’t quite catch the last ‘oo’. Was it long or short?”

Well, well, well, so there were several languages on Vilion. The one that the collectors spoke, implanted in us by the external System, and the ones the local residents spoke.

“How do I learn to speak gnomish?”

“You should get out of this storeroom, collector. The smell in here appears to be driving you insane.”

“That’s not an answer. Do you want us to set you free or not?”

“What do you need all that trouble for, collector? You don’t look like a scientist. An archer, a druid, and a summoner, maybe, but not a scientist. And there aren’t any other scientists in your group.”

So, Martha wasn’t as simple as she wanted to look. Her massive and aggressive face hid a fully-functioning brain that could understand collectors’ classes.

“This is a big world. If we free you now and kill the big monster, we’ll soon be traveling around it. Maybe we’ll meet some gnomes on the way, and they won’t understand us. What if they need our help, or something else from us? Carl was right, it is good for you to learn something new. Look at you — you learned the collectors’ language even though none of them have ever made it to this Dungeon before. And I’m sorry to say it, but you don’t look much like a scientist either.”

“You’re not going to leave me in peace, are you, you shithouse slug?

“Why should I? I need knowledge, and you’re hiding it somewhere.”

“I’m not hiding anything. There isn’t any more knowledge. There was, but it’s gone. Our tribe was once big and flourishing, but then the goblins turned up around here. Those little googoogoos, googoo them, sacked the whole first floor ten years ago. All the valuables that we kept there were lost. Our teaching tablets, our waystone, our books, our scrolls, everything that once made us a great tribe was destroyed in a single day, and we were turned into gnome hermits. We went wild! We don’t trade with our brother gnomes anymore, so we can’t exchange knowledge with them. Our tribe has degraded. The gnome matriarch who rules this Dungeon doesn’t care about any of that. All she cares about is sleeping more and eating more. She doesn’t even want to hear about developing the tribe!”

“She’s dead now,” I said, watching for Martha’s reaction. She froze, with a look of disbelief on her face, so I had to explain: “She was living on the third floor, a Level 3 gnome matriarch. A great big bitch with a huge hammer. We had to kill her. We had to do the same thing with the junior gnome matriarch on the second floor too. So, there’s no need to feel jealous about Carl anymore. You’re the last matriarch standing. If you become the leader, are you prepared to work for us?”

“If you get me out of here, the Wild Gnomes’ Dungeon will be at your service,” Martha assured me earnestly.

“I don’t like the way you keep saying ‘wild’,” I told her. “You didn’t use to call yourselves that, did you?”

“We lost the right to our tribe’s name when we lost our waystone.”

“So, this waystone, it’s…”

“I can’t find the right words. It’s…”

“A waystone is a device for transportation in the world of Vilion,” said Grumbler’s voice. I turned around to see the flying ball hanging a yard in front of me. “I’m back, collector! Oh, are you alone now? That was to be expected. I assume your companions have done the right thing and died. But why are you so very much alive? Never mind, we’ll put that right soon. Collector Max, don’t you see that monster in front of you? Kill it and collect the silirium.”

“Shut up, Grumbler!” I said. The ball flinched, apparently not expecting my reaction. I guess she thought I’d be pleased to see her.

“How dare you say such a thing to a representative of the main System? You’re… You’re… I’ll tell you what, I’m going to raise the amount of silirium you have to collect. How much have you got there? Wow, almost two hundred! Where did all that come from? So, you think you’re going back to base soon, eh? Not a chance! No more Mr. Nice System! Now you’ll have to collect five hundred units! So, you won’t be going back to that kennel of yours any time soon. That’ll teach you not to be rude to an authority figure.”

“Authority figure? You’re a worthless piece of garbage that just wants to get rid of us. Have you seen enough yet? Then why don’t you just leave us alone?”

“What?! One thousand units of silirium, Max! Understood? You won’t get off this world until you hand over a thousand silirium to the System. And if you somehow survive and find yourself another group, each of them will have to pay up a thousand units too. Oh, why is your group still active? What, they’re not dead? Oh, how disappointing!”

“Useless piece of cheap code,” I muttered, deciding to ignore Grumbler. She wasn’t any help with anything. Whether it was a hundred units each or a thousand didn’t make much difference — those amounts would both be impossible for our group to reach if we didn’t solve the issue of the Dungeon and its main boss, because we’d be dead. So, Grumbler’s rage was meaningless. No doubt she was going to vanish again in a minute anyway. Turning back to Martha, I continued:

“So, if we get the waystone back, the tribe of wild gnomes will get its name back and become great again?”

“Not immediately, but yes, it will,” said Martha thoughtfully.

“Then it’s a deal!” I said, quite certain that I was doing the right thing as I signed up for another insane adventure. “We’ll finish with this Dungeon, then go sort out the goblins. We can use the waystone too, can’t we?”

Martha thought for a while, then nodded. That was enough for the local System to react:

New Hope bonus quest updated:

Free Martha, Level 2 gnome matriarch, return the waystone and other items stolen by the goblins to the Wild Gnomes’ Dungeon.

Reward: varies depending on the final result.

“Getting in trouble again, are you?” muttered Growler angrily, but then suddenly changed her tone: “Ha! Did you notice how much I’ve changed? Last time I didn’t have enough resources, even the original System admitted that. But now you won’t be getting rid of me! I’ve got new firmware, new data, new everything! I even have a separate channel to communicate with the original System! That’s how I now know that you can sometimes come across neutral and even friendly beings in Dungeons. This process is called conquest! So, let’s see how far you’ve got. Wow, fifth floor? Not bad! Still, as it’s conquest, that means there’s a Level 4 boss ahead of you. Finally, it’ll take you off my hands!”

“Is that everything?” I said, looking at the ball. “Haven’t you had enough of us already? Twenty-four hours passed ages ago. Why don’t you just scurry back to base?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Instead of successfully dying like any normal outcasts, you decided to flounder around and get me involved in your dirty business! The original System informed me that I have to spend twenty-four hours with you without a break. So, you could say that your chance to enjoy my wonderful presence has only just begun.”

“Commander, I’m ready.” Gor chose that moment to return. Lyra and Little Bald stayed in the corridor. They still couldn’t bear to enter the storeroom. After glancing at the ball, the char-ra sat down in front of the cage and dropped a whole heap of scrap metal on the floor in front of him.

“What have you got there?” asked Growler, flying closer. “Oh, scrap and junk, as usual.”

“Get your nose out of it!” barked Gor, so naturally that the ball did actually shoot back as if it was really there, and not just a picture in our heads.

“Oh, like I care! Collectors, do you know the new conditions for returning to base? It’s all because of your commander.”

The furious ball started explaining the new rules, but soon there was a resounding click and the huge padlock slid open. It was a good thing I was standing next to Gor, or I wouldn’t have seen how his face changed. Usually, it was grim and warrior-like, with a look that said, “Come any closer and I’ll kill you.” But now it broke into a broad and joyful grin, as if the char-ra had suddenly discovered some secret nirvana. Raising his sausage fingers, the big man stared at them and then at the chain, as if he couldn’t believe that he managed to perform such a delicate operation as picking a lock. A very big lock, admittedly. Martha stretched her arm through the bars and began to unwrap the chains so she could get out.

New Hope quest updated.

Destroy the Dungeon Master, so the gnome matriarch can take their place.

The massive hunk of flesh that was known in this world as a matriarch was scary, particularly when she was towering over you and staring at you intently. I was already covertly scanning for escape routes when she said:

“Prove your strength, collector, and this Dungeon will submit to you. As for your request, if you truly wish to learn the gnome tongue, then so be it. I cannot teach you myself, but here on the fifth floor is our cemetery. Normally, we cremate our dead, but the bodies of those who have proved themselves truly great are kept by the tribe so that their memory lives on among their descendants. Along with their bodies, we bury whatever it was that made them great. The last matriarch committed a terrible crime — she desecrated almost all our ancestors’ graves to get more power. The only graves she didn’t touch were those of two wise men, because their power wasn’t in weapons or armor, it was in knowledge. One of those ancestors was buried with a language tablet. Find that grave and take this heirloom. I permit you to do so. That way you will understand the gnome tongue.”

“Can we solve the lighting issue?” I asked, suddenly remembering. I was tired of lighting fires, and it certainly wasn’t a reliable system.

“What do you mean by solve it?” said Martha, surprised. “We’re gnomes, we can see perfectly in the dark.”

“Would you believe it, we’re not and we can’t!” I snorted.

“You poor wretches,” sighed the matriarch sincerely and nodded behind me. “See that slime on the wall?”

“Where?” I asked, squinting.

“Right there!” said Martha, pointing at the wall.

“Right where?!” I was trying to make out something in the flickering light of the distant bonfire, but I couldn’t see jack.

“And stupid, too” sighed Martha, then quickly went over to the wall, pulled something off it with a squelching sound, and a second later there was some strange jello-like substance glowing in her hands.

“Hmm…” I tool a closer look.

Glowing Slime

“How does it, erm, work?”

“You squeeze it and it glows,” said Martha, shrugging her shoulders and looking at me like I was mentally deficient.

“Lyra can…” I began.

“Don’t even think about asking me to touch that gross stuff!” shouted the elf girl from the corridor.

“Gor?”

With his dependable fortitude, Gor went over the wall, pulled off another strip, and squeezed it between his fingers.

“It works, commander!” He said with a broad grin.

Martha looked at the big man and said in an unexpectedly girlish tone:

“Aren’t you brave?” She pouted her fat lips. “Well, handsome, will you escort a lady to the exit?”

It had been almost three whole days since I had first come across this representative of the char-ra race. These warriors had at first seemed impenetrable and almost devoid of emotion, but with every day Gor revealed new aspects to his character. He could smile (though it always looked menacing), he could frown, and it turned out he could blush too. And so hard that even the dim light flickering from the small storeroom couldn’t hide the deep hue of his face. The killing machine was embarrassed. The life of the selected was filled with remarkable discoveries.

“We’ll all escort you,” I said, “but only after you draw us a map of the fifth floor with the location of the graves on it. Can you do that?”

“What do you expect me to draw on?” asked Martha, not hiding her irritation. She was itching to get back upstairs and start ruling.

“You can do it straight on the ground. There’s a stick and there’s dirt, what else do you need? Growler, time to prove you’re useful for something. Can you memorize the map?”

“I’m a representative of the external System, not your personal notebook!” snorted the useless ball. “My function is to answer your questions, not memorize the useless scribbling of a useless monster. Even if it can speak.”

It was a good thing Martha couldn’t hear her, or she might’ve got angry. Although she was getting angry anyway — as she drew the system of corridors, she frowned and muttered something in gnomish under her breath. I’d bet anything there was nothing positive in those goos at all.

“You need to go here,” she said finally, jabbing at one of the farthest caves with her stick. “This is where the great ancestors of our tribe are buried.”

“Could there be anything there apart from monsters?” I asked just in case. Judging by Martha’s look, she had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained: “Anything like zombies, skeletons, or ghosts?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” answered the gnome matriarch. “It’s just the burial ground of our ancestors. There’s nobody there, not even monsters. There’s nothing to do there!”

This sounded dubious, but I wasn’t going to argue with Martha. We escorted her to the fourth floor and handed her over to the gnome warriors. The number of happy “goos” when they saw the matriarch was more even than the gnome miners had made during Lyra’s show. The gnomes had unexpectedly discovered that their tribe wouldn’t die and would go on living its wild life. And soon it wouldn’t be wild anymore either. I loved the idea of finding the waystone. According to Grumbler, it was a month’s walk to the nearest town, which didn’t sound like the best way to be spending our time.

“What’s next, commander? Are we going to fight the boss?” asked Gor as soon as we returned to the fifth floor. The familiar gloom embraced us again, but this time it didn’t seem so forbidding. Apparently, you can get used to anything.

“No,” I said, after thinking a bit. “Carl advised us not to go up against the boss until we’d cleared the floor. In any other situation, I’d ignore his warning and get on with it, but that was the local System speaking through his voice.”

“Nonsense!” said Grumbler, interrupting even though nobody had asked her opinion. “The system cannot influence intelligent beings! That’s basic knowledge that you learn in your first days here. If nobody told you morons that, it’s your own fault. Nobody speaks with anybody else’s voice.”

“So, before we go find that big bug, we’re going to make our way through the Dungeon and clear it out,” I continued, ignoring the angry ball’s nonsense. I couldn’t wait for the twenty-four hours to be over. It hadn’t been easier without her. “At the same time, we can get to the cemetery. Martha said there are two graves of scientists left there. One of them contains a tablet that will allow us to learn gnomish, and as for the second, we’ll see when we get there.”

“The language tablet is valuable,” said Grumbler, butting in again. “We’d probably be prepared to buy it from you. Even if it is for a useless race like the gnomes, it’s still better than nothing. If you’re lucky, of course, and manage to get it. And if you don’t die, which is highly unlikely, then I think you’ll find the price we’re willing to offer very tempting.”

“Max, is there a way to turn her off?” asked Lyra, and I could’ve hugged her. She no longer felt the need to ask how many manicures she could get if we sold the tablet. It wasn’t just me who found Grumbler infuriating.

“No, you can’t turn me off! All you can do is bask in my presence and be grateful for the external System’s generous gift!”

“Tell me, external System, how do people transport big loads of stuff on Vilion? Are there any particular artifacts here that can reduce the size and weight of objects? Some kind of storage space or anything like that?”

“Like I’m going to answer that sort of question!” snorted Grumbler. “It has nothing to do with the basic knowledge available to outcasts! You ought to be asking how to collect silirium for the glory of the external System, and not worrying about how to transport big loads! Well, who wants to know more about collectors? Ask away, I’m ready to answer any questions that aren’t prohibited.”

“Let’s go down the left corridor,” I said, waving the ball away with my hand. She could keep flying and babbling away. In twenty-four hours, she’d vanish and leave us in peace. “Lyra, you go first, shield up. Little Bald, follow her and fire at will. But don’t overdo it. Before we head for the boss, we’re going to check out this cemetery. I get the feeling that we really need to go there.”

Chapter 19

“LISTEN, DO YOU EVER shut up?” I asked irritably, looking at the bright ball of the external System. “You’re as much use as tits on a bull. Which way do we go here, left or right?”

Grumbler froze for a second, as if my words had left her tongue-tied, but then she answered indignantly:

“Should I shut up or should I tell you where to go?”

“Tell us, and then shut up.”

“Well, that depends on where you want go,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm.

I rolled my eyes and tried to get my thoughts in order so that I select the right words. She was hard to deal with. The System was making no secret of its displeasure that we were still alive. Furthermore, she clearly saw the time spent with us as a burden or a chore. And she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She had to keep telling us how she was wasting her time with us, even though are group had already literally been written off by the external System. Instead of collecting points with a new team, she had to waste another precious day on us.

Whether she meant to or not, Grumbler revealed to us that these little offshoots of the system that accompanied collectors were something like the big external System’s kids. And yes, working with collectors, they were able to earn themselves extra pluses. And what did they need these pluses for? Under the rules of the System, it meant they were assigned extra processing power.

What happened to these little Systems once they grew up? Grumbler didn’t know, because at some magical moment, all her levelled-up colleagues disappeared. By the System’s standards, Grumbler was practically a newborn baby, with minimum data and training capabilities. But coded deep in her was a desire to rise up the career ladder. As far as I could tell, she didn’t see much chance of that happening with us. But really that was her problem, wasn’t it?

“Listen, Grumbler, what is it that you actually want?”

“What do I want?” She didn’t even have to think about it: “I want you to die quick so I can be free again and get a new group of collectors who can develop and progress with faster. Closer to civilization and far away from intelligent panthers and friendly gnomes.”

“You see, the thing is, my dear,” I said, starting gently and trying my hardest not to swear at her, “we can’t always get everything that we want straight away. Me, for example, I want a proper meal, a bath, a cup of coffee, and the chance to go home.”

“And I want a manicure and a face mask,” added Lyra, even showing Grumbler her finger. “Just look at that scratch! It completely ruined my whole manicure. Somebody will pay for that!”

“You see?” I gestured to the elf girl. “Aelyria also can’t get what she wants straight away. What about you, Gor? What do you want?

“I want to fight,” growled the big man. He thought a little, then added: “To kill my enemies and to get stronger. To do what a true warrior is supposed to do.”

“Ahem,” I said, a little embarrassed, “I guess I asked the wrong person. It turns out Gor actually can get what he wants. Well,” I raised my index finger, “that happens too. However, the overwhelming majority of people can’t get what they want right here and right now. You, Lyra, and I are the overwhelming majority in this case. You can’t argue with that, can you?”

“It’s not actually correct to use the term ‘overwhelming majority’ when the ratio is three to one. An ‘overwhelming majority’ is…” Grumbler was about to launch into a long and tedious explanation, but I stopped her.

“Hold on, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Pay attention here, Grumbler. You want pluses from the System, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, that’s what I just said. That’s why I said that I want you to die, so I can fly off and find some new collectors.”

“Exactly. Now, this is the most interesting bit. Imagine that we don’t die, what happens then?”

“What do you mean, you don’t die?” Grumbler froze again for a second. “By my calculations, even taking into account your incredible progress and the fact you’ve leveled up, three Level 2 collectors can’t defeat the boss of this Dungeon. This isn’t a standard situation when you can just go in and win. This is a conquest. That means the boss here will be Level 4 — a real boss! You winning goes against the rules of logic and has a very low probability.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” I interrupted again. “Very low, but not zero, right?”

Grumbler thought again.

“For your understanding, if we extrapolate, it’s closer to zero than to any other value.”

“It’s still not zero,” I insisted.

Grumbler was forced to agree: “No, it’s not.”

“Alright, so let’s keep going. Look, if we don’t die, we kill the bug, we collect three hundred… No, sorry, thanks to your generosity, three thousand units of silirium, and we become the owners of this Dungeon with two talking gnomes. What comes next?”

“After that, you return to the external world, to base…” said Grumbler, thoughtful. She was beginning to catch on.

“You see! And what would that mean for you?”

Grumbler froze yet again.

“Oh! Oh, wow!” she said. “Considering what you’re doing is practically impossible, my reward would be significant. I could progress to… Oh, you don’t need to know that… But basically, yes, it would be awesome.” She sounded excited, but her mood soon dropped again. “But, as I said before, the chances are minimal.”

“Nonetheless, you’re assigned to us for twenty-four hours, right? By the way, how long until you leave?”

“Nineteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and forty-three seconds. Forty-two, forty-one, forty…”

“Hold on!” I said, stopping the System again as it took my request too literally. “You’re not going anywhere for now, right? And you won’t be going back to your external world any earlier, will you?”

“Not unless you die earlier.”

“Trust me, we’re not planning to die earlier. So, let’s assume that it’s within your power to increase our chances of winning a little.”

“How? I don’t see any way,” said Grumbler.

“With information,” I said, smiling. “Grumbler, we need all the information we can get. First, answer the questions I ask you. Second, please, stop making so much noise — it gives me a headache. Basically, let’s make a deal: you do your job to the best of your abilities, and I’ll put in a good word for you when I can.”

“Who are you going to put in a good word for me to?”

“I don’t know,” I said, pointing upward. “Maybe the head of the external System. Or the System that’s here in this world. The one you call internal, right?”

“Okay, but why should they listen to you anyway,” said Grumbler in surprise. “Have you already signed up to be a hero on Vilion?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “But is that even possible?”

“Theoretically…” Grumbler was thinking again. “Yes, it’s possible.”

“Right then, let’s agree that it’s a possibility. If we suddenly bump into your boss, then I’ll tell him that Grumbler is absolutely awesome, she helped us with everything, and she deserves loads of pluses. If you don’t help, then I’ll say you’re useless garbage, that you should be decommissioned, and that your kilobytes should be handed out to the poor and needy.”

“Hey, don’t be like that! We were getting on so well,” complained Grumbler.

“We are getting on well,” I said. “I’ve got used to your character already. So, let’s work together, alright? Shake on it?” I extended by hand.

“I don’t have any hands.”

“I know that. I mean figuratively. Agreed?”

“Alright, let’s try.”

“Great!” I said. “So, where do we go, left or right?”

“As I said, that depends on where you want to end up.”

“Not again!” I said, frowning.

“Well,” said Grumbler absolutely seriously, “if that’s your question, that’s the answer.”

“Show a little initiative. I don’t know… Like I said, try to be useful. And ask questions better.”

Grumbler mulled my words for a few seconds, then said:

“If you want to get to the aforementioned destination, i.e. the gnome cemetery, by the shortest route possible, you should go right. If you go left, then judging by the map that horribly fat gnome lady drew, you’ll find additional premises.”

“So,” I said, frowning, “I remember there was something about an alchemy laboratory. Where’s that? To the left?”

“Yes, the alchemy laboratory and one backup storeroom, some utility rooms, and an energy plant,” said Grumbler emotionlessly.

“Great, then we’re going left. Gor, there’s some slime by you over there. Grab it, that bit you’ve got’s almost gone out.”

“Got it,” said the big man, grabbed whatever the stuff was — a fungus, maybe, or a jellyfish — and squeezed it, after which his hand was shrouded in a pale-blue glow.

“Talking of which,” I said, turning to Grumbler, “can you appear in this world and give us a bit of light?”

“I’m not some flashlight, I’m a representative of the external System!”

“Grumbler,” I said patiently, “remember our agreement? We’re going to help each other, right?”

“I remember,” she said reluctantly. “But no, I can’t. Materialization in the world of Vilion isn’t currently on my list of functions.”

“Pity,” I said. “But never mind, we’ll manage.”

I grabbed another of those fungus-jellyfish things and squeezed. It lit up. The light wasn’t particularly powerful, but seeing as we were surrounded by absolute darkness, it was better than nothing. After just a few steps, Gor, who was at the front, stopped and crouched down.

“What’s there?” I asked.

“Commander, remember how I told you I couldn’t find any stashes?” asked the big man, his eyes fixed on the wall.

“Of course I remember. And if you’d ever found anything, I’d remember that too.”

Gor ignored my teasing and jabbed a finger at the wall. A thin flap of stone fell inward.

“That’s a stash, but it’s empty. I’ve come across quite a few of those on this floor. I thought I was imagining things, but no, somebody has gone through all the stashes and taken everything.”

“It was that fat matriarch that we put an end to,” said Lyra.

I thought about it for a second:

“You’re right… But if she did take all that stuff, then she hid it somewhere. She didn’t take it with her upstairs, did she? When we killed her, she didn’t have anything useful with her, did she? That means she made a stash of her own somewhere.”

“Where?” asked Gor eagerly.

“That’s just my deduction. I’ve got no idea where she dug her little hole if she did actually dig it. Probably on the same level where we killed her. We’ll have to ask Carl about it later. Still, it’s a nuisance. The lowest level should have the best loot. All we’re getting is a pain in the ass and empty stashes. How come, Grumbler?” I asked, turning to the System.

“Shit happens.” If Grumbler had shoulders, she’d have shrugged them.

“What the hell? Where did you learn language like that?”

Grumbler was a little flustered. “I interact with you and with your mind. And some of, let’s say, your memories and emotions are transferred to me.”

“You mean you can read our minds?” Lyra suddenly shrieked. “Well, stop it right now! I forbid you to read my mind!”

I looked at Lyra in surprise, not sure why she was freaking out like that. However, I was also interested in the System’s answer.

“I can’t read your mind,” said Grumbler. “It’s just that your consciousness belongs to the System, and I’m part of the System. So, I picked up a few things. And when we’re in close contact, there’s a constant exchange of information.”

“That’s as clear as mud,” I said. “Still, I like your reaction. It’s like you’re becoming more human. Anyway, let’s keep going.”

There was no cool stuff and no oil in the backup storeroom, just looted and broken bits of shelving and crates. The only thing that hadn’t been smashed, and in fact had survived miraculously unscathed, was a huge hermetically sealed barrel of dried meat in one corner.

At least Little Bald was happy. Seeing as we now unexpectedly had more than enough of this tough but nutritious stuff, I stopped and let the dracat eat his fill.

When he started hiccuping, I suddenly picked him up and threw him in the air. He hiccuped, flapped his little wings frantically, and managed to keep hovering. But it wasn’t easy.

“Meow!” he said indignantly.

“Meow to you too,” I said, holding out my hand so he could climb back on my shoulder. “Stop stuffing your face, or you’ll never be able to fly.”

“Commander, should we take that with us?” asked Gor, who was shoving the meat in his mouth as eagerly as the dracat.

“There’s no point. We know it’s here, so we can always come back. Nobody’s told us yet why all the silirium disappears somewhere and how we can carry big items around. Or, more to the point, lots of items. Basically, whether or not we get any nice bonuses like that in this world.”

I looked meaningfully at Grumbler, who flickered several times and was clearly thinking of saying something offensive, but eventually managed to formulate a reasonable answer.

“Collectors get the use of a space pocket at Level 9,” she said, still somewhat irritated.

Then she thought for a bit and added:

“But not all of them. In order to get it, you have to complete a specific quest or perform a particular feat.”

“Right, tell us more about that,” I said.

“I have nothing further to add,” said Grumbler.

Seeing me grimace, she quickly added:

“No, I’m not being evasive. I really don’t have any more information. I’m a fledgling of the System, and you’re my first collectors. So, I know that opportunity exists in theory, but I’ve never personally gone through it with my own collectors, and the information regarding it isn’t available to me yet.”

“I see,” I said. “Still, it’s good that it does in theory exist. If we’re going to rob caravans, we’ll need somewhere to put all the loot!”

“Rob who?” asked Lyra in surprise.

“Oh, never mind. Let’s keep going.”

Next came the utility rooms, where there was also diddly squat of any use to anyone. And then we reached the energy plant.

I stopped and stood, scratching my head thoughtfully. In the middle of a modestly sized cave, a stone pillar rose from the floor to the ceiling. Except that this pillar had a Frankenstein-like appearance, as if some crazy inventor had grabbed parts from some steampunk movie or the Middle Ages and mixed them with some 1980s computers. Big buttons, bulging screens — it looked ugly, but when I put my hand on the nearest keyboard — the keys of which were clearly designed for fat elf fingers — I received a notification from the System:

Energy Reactor

Status: Powered down

To power up, the reactor requires silirium.

Do you want to refuel it?

Without moving my hand, I turned to Grumbler.

“What does this power?”

“There’s not much information, but as far as I can tell, it’s for the lights, and maybe some other mechanisms like lifts.”

“I see,” I said, although as usual I didn’t really see anything.

To the system’s question, I answered loudly:

“Yes, I do.”

To operate the reactor at minimum power, please load 10,000 units of silirium

“How much?!”

The System took my expression of shock at face value and repeated:

To operate the reactor at minimum power, please load 10,000 units of silirium

“Yeah,” I said, pulling my hand away. “Bummer.”

Although what had I been expecting? I would have to ask Carl what the reactor was actually for.

“What else have we got long this corridor?” I asked Grumbler.

“The alchemy laboratory,” she said.

“That’ll be interesting to see, although I doubt there’s anything left there either.”

The first surprise was that the alchemy laboratory was the first room that still had a closed door. All the others were hanging open or smashed to pieces.

I carefully held the handle, pressed it, and pulled the door ajar.

“Dammit!” I jumped back and quickly slammed the door.

A fierce stench hit my nose, along with some kind of steam. My eyes welled up and it felt like a rash was developing on my face.

“Lyra, healing!” I roared.

The elf girl got straight to work, and soon I could see and think again.

“What’s in there, commander?” asked Gor.

“Some nasty shit. Steam or mist. As you can see, it’s poisonous,” I said irritably, then paused. “However, that means the scolopendras haven’t been there. And that means there should still be some stuff in there.”

“You’re so clever, commander!” said Gor.

I looked at him curiously. Was he taking the mickey? No, the big man was being absolutely sincere. Lyra said nothing. She’d been grumpy for the last few hours, constantly complaining about something or other. And she really didn’t want Grumbler reading her thoughts. That worried me. It looked like the hysterical mood she’d been in at the start of our journey was gradually turning into depression. An elf girl with psychological problems was the last thing I needed. On the other hand, she was on my team. If I had to work as a psychotherapist, then that’s what I’d do. But I’d do it a bit later and somewhere else. I hoped both of those conditions could still be met.

“Gor,” I said to the big man. “We’re going to go all the way over there. You open the door, preferably with your foot, and then run over to us.”

I was betting that Gor’s thick skin would withstand whatever that poison was a little longer than mine. The big man nodded his agreement, and we moved to safety.

Bam, bam, bam, bam! Gor kicked at the door, but it showed no sign of opening. The gnomes made good locks, and strong doors too. Either that, or Gor had suddenly grown weak.

“Hey!” I shouted.

Gor turned to me with an angry look on his face.

“Forget about it. Just open the door with the handle, give it a push, and run over here.”

“Alright,” nodded Gor.

He did as I asked, then came running to us.

“How are your eyes?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he answered.

“Ewww!” Lyra screwed up her nose as the smell from the room reached us.

“Right, let’s get out of here and let it air out,” I said, and we set off toward the cemetery. “I hope there’s not too much of that stuff in there and that it diffuses sooner or later.”

“What if it doesn’t?” said Lyra, staring at me.

“Then I guess we’ll die,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

“Max!” she said indignantly.

Well, at least she had a little more energy.

“Hey, I’m kidding, I’m kidding! We can’t die, we’re the Selected.”

“Exactly, we’re the Selected! Say stuff like that more often.” Lyra nodded, turned around, and walked away from me.

Surprised, I watched her go. Was the elf girl joking? It didn’t look like it. And apparently my words were enough to calm her down. What an extraordinary team I had. Was there any way to level up intelligence in this world? I was still pondering that important question when we reached our destination. I still hadn’t managed to decide what kind of elf girl it was better to have: a beautiful but dumb one, or a beautiful and smart one. There were too many possible variations of development, and the main question was, what did I want to do with the elf girl? I mean, in terms of the squad, not… I meant to say… Anyway, Max, that’s not where your thoughts should be running off to right now. What have we got here?

Here we had the first normally lit cave on the fifth floor. The glowing stones hadn’t been removed from this one, and their blue glow lit up the entire quite sizeable space. And there was some nasty shit here too, though not like in the alchemy laboratory.

The tombs that had once stood in neat rows had been ransacked mercilessly. The stone lids were lying all over the place, mostly in pieces. There were gnome bones scattered here and there. There were also some weapons and gear lying around, but it was all Junk rank. If the dead gnomes had been buried with anything valuable, it wasn’t here anymore.

That fat bitch had done a real job on this place. Even I felt a mix of irritation and satisfaction. Irritation with the mess she’d made here, and satisfaction in knowing we’d dealt with her permanently. At least we’d done something good.

“Max, I think it’s here.”

Grumbler had wasted no time and was now hanging over two untouched tombs in the center of the cave. They were slightly bigger than all the rest, and while all the rest were made of normal stone, these two were of some mineral veined with green. It was obvious that someone important was buried here, and strange that the gnome matriarch hadn’t touched them.

I moved closer and examined the symbols engraved on the lids.

“What’s written here?” I asked, scratching my head.

“How should I know? It’s all in gnomish,” answered Grumbler.

“That was a rhetorical question. Right, Lyra, grab your shield and stand here. And get your sword out. Me and Gor are going to lift the lid.”

“Why should I do that?” asked Lyra, although I was happy to see that, even as she was asking the question, she was getting into position, just as I’d asked her too.

“Well, what if a skeleton jumps out and attacks us?”

Wow, I hadn’t realized Lyra could jump that far. With a single leap, she was behind me and hanging on to my shoulders.

“I’m afraid of the dead…”

“Oh, come on,” I said.

Of course, it was nice to stand there and feel her two soft breasts pressing into my back, but I wasn’t pleased with the overall state of affairs.

“Assume your battle position, soldier!”

“But, the dead…”

“Forget the dead,” I told her. “Imagine that it’s a mouse and beat the hell out of it. With all your class hatred.”

“A mouse?” she asked thoughtfully, and a scary smile spread across her face. “I hate mice. But what do you mean by class hatred?”

“I mean like only you know how!” I said dramatically. “So, if something dead jumps out of there, just start smacking it around like one of those mice.”

“Alright,” said Lyra, assuming her position again, “with all my class hatred!”

“Okay, Gor, let’s lift it.”

“Commander,” whispered the big man, “I don’t… Well, I don’t really like the dead either.”

“Oh, shut up already!” I said. “There’s not going to be anything in there. It’s probably just a dead body.”

“Okay,” he said. We slid off the lid and placed it on its side.

There was a dead body inside, but it was properly dead and not planning on doing any jumping around. With one bony hand, it was holding a stone tablet similar to the weapon runes. I only had to stretch out my hand to become the happy owner of that almost certainly valuable item. As I did so, a notification came from the System, this time in bright red:

Warning, collector! Desecrating gnome tombs could lower your reputation with the gnome race. Think twice before taking such an action. Lowered reputation may lead to the whole race being hostile to you.

“What the…” I began, but I stopped and pulled back my hand. “Hey, System, does it not matter that the new gnome matriarch gave us permission? She literally told us we could go and take whatever we wanted. How can the matriarch’s permission ruin our reputation with her? Come on, sort this mess out!”

The letters flickered before my eyes. First, they turned into a normal white inscription, then they changed completely:

Data is being re-evaluated...

Robbing these tombs will not lead to loss of reputation with the gnome race.

“Quite right too,” I said.

“Max…” Grumbler, who was hanging off to one side, spoke in a whisper for some reason.

“What?”

“Max, what was that?”

I looked at her in surprise.

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“You just interacted directly with the internal System,” she said, still whispering.

“So what? Is that something unusual?”

“Yes, it is unusual… Very unusual…” she whispered thoughtfully, then just floated off into a corner. It looked like she had some thinking to do.

I decided not to worry about it. I stretched out my hand and pulled out the tablet. Immediately, I got an explanation from the System:

Gnome Tongue language tablet

Type: Consumable

Do you want to learn the language?

Warning: This item can only be used once and will disappear after use.

“No,” I said quickly. First, because Grumbler had promised to buy it, and I wanted to know how much she was offering. Second, because I definitely didn’t need to speak gnomish right away. I carefully placed it in my stylish hideous carrier. I really would need to ask Gor to make me something a little less ugly. Little Bald still gave the incredible artifact some very dirty looks.

I examined the tomb and saw that there was nothing else in it except for bones and torn rags. One tomb equaled one item. It wasn’t ideal, but we could live with it.

“Now let’s do the second one,” I said to Gor, moving over the second tomb.

He nodded silently. There weren’t any dead men running around, so Gor wasn’t worried anymore. We strained and lifted the lid.

“What’s in here?” Lyra had forgotten about her safety and was the first to stick her curious nose in the tomb. I saw something move and managed to shout:

“Lyra, wait!”

But it was too late. Twisting tentacles came flying out of the tomb, grabbed the elf girl, wrapped around her body, pressing her arms to her sides, and lifted her up in the air. Lyra dangled helpless in the twisting tentacles — or maybe they were vines — and her face rapidly turned blue.

“Gor, cut it!” I grabbed a sword too and started slashing at the stalk. Little Bald was getting ready to shoot fire at it, but I stopped him: “Little Bald, don’t even think about it! You could hit Lyra. She’s our only healer, so who’s going to make us feel better if you do that?!”

Then I saw the System’s notification flash before my eyes:

Stone Vine, Level 9

My heart dropped all the way to the floor. No wonder the tentacles were unaffected by our swords. The difference in levels was too great. They would be absolutely impossible to cut. The shoots looked more like cable than plant matter. Very damn tough cable.

We were in shock. We slashed. We screamed. Lyra was gasping for breath. At some point, I had the horrible realization that the elf girl was going to die, because there was no way we could cut through this goddam plant.

In a panic, I glanced into the tomb, to see where the vine was growing from. The shoots were coming directly from the chest of the gnome skeleton lying there. Except that when I looked again, I saw that it wasn’t from the chest itself, but from the amulet that was lying there.

With little idea what I was doing, I grabbed the amulet. Immediately, a notification appeared in front of my eyes:

Stone Vine Amulet

Scalable item

Requirements for use: Druid class

Checking…

Class confirmed

Checking…

Previous owner dead, binding invalid.

Collector Max, do you wish to bind this amulet to you?

“Yes, yes, goddammit!” I roared, and some complex patterns of code with all kinds of inscriptions ran before my eyes. Lyra was already at death’s door when I intuitively found the Retract button, jabbed it virtually, and the vines finally let the elf girl free, twisting back into the amulet.

Lyra groaned ominously and collapsed on the floor, clutching at her throat.

“Dammit! Gor, we need a stamina potion!”

The elf girl coughed and spluttered, but the potion went down. Her eyes cleared a little.

“Heal yourself, you idiot!”

Lyra had come to enough to apply healing to herself. Her face had begun to get its normal color back, and I sighed in relief.

“That’ll teach you to not follow orders!”

“Ma-a-ax…” she croaked pitifully, then suddenly hugged me tight, pressing her face into my chest, and burst into tears.

All my anger vanished. Besides, I’d been more scared than angry in the first place.

“Alright, alright, pointy ears,” I said, stroking her head. “It’s going to be okay. It looks like the local System has finally issued me a deus ex machina. Let’s go find that bug who thinks he’s the daddy around here. There’s only one daddy, and that’s me!”

Chapter 20

“GRUMBLER, WHAT IS THIS?” I asked, showing the amulet to the flying ball.

“It’s something that shouldn’t exist in the world of Vilion,” she said in a grim voice. “Why does everything with you people have to be different from normal collectors, eh?”

“Hey, we agreed to be nice to each other,” I said, getting angry.

“Yes, I know!” barked the flying ball. “It’s just… Okay, imagine this — you’re wandering around in your old world, minding your own business, when suddenly Gor springs up in front of you, along with Lyra and your dracat. What would you think?”

“I’d think I needed some time in the psych ward,” I said honestly.

“Well, that’s the situation I’m in here! I look at you and I don’t know if I should just go get reformatted immediately, or ask for extra resources, or just give up on everything, not try to explain this all logically, go with the flow, and see where this all ends.”

“I like the last option,” I said, just in case she was interested. “And if you could just start giving us advice too, you’d be invaluable. So, what is a scalable item, and how do I use it?”

This wasn’t an idle question. I’d seen what the amulet could do — create terrifying Level 9 vines that had almost killed Lyra. With a weapon like that, I’d feel as confident in this Level 2 Dungeon as a dad in a kindergarten. But when I put the thing with its shimmering red aura on, it was a washout.

Stone Vine Amulet

Druid class scalable item

Currently bound to collector Max (System name: 527-20887)

That was all the description said. No properties, no characteristics, nothing useful or important. Grumbler sighed like a real person and, making peace with the fact she didn’t understand anything, began to explain:

“As I already said, scalable items shouldn’t exist in this world. I sent a report and got confirmation, this is from the realm of the impossible. In fact, it’s so impossible that the information has already been shared with the heads of the four leading clans. The external System tries to ensure that its best progeny develop and get stronger. Anyway, if we forget about the fact that scalable items should only appear on second-level worlds, these are extremely useful things. What happens when you apply a weapon rune to any weapon? A random selection is made from all the many properties available to the owner, and then this property is fixed to the weapon, even when its other parameters are still locked. I can see you have two items like that — your crossbow and Lyra’s shield. How you ended up with them is another mystery, but that doesn’t matter right now. Anyway, a weapon rune can only be used once on a weapon, and the higher the level of the rune, the greater the chance of getting some really useful property. For that reason, Level 10 runes can cost several hundred thousand units of silirium. Those are what collectors go into difficult Level 10 Dungeons for. They’re what you have to struggle and strive to get. In the case of this amulet, it’s completely different — you don’t have to struggle at all, you just need to become the item’s owner.”

Grumbler paused as if she was clearing her throat. But I already knew what she was going to tell me next. I knew because one of the old dungeon crawler games I’d played back on earth had scalable items. It was only one game, and because of those very items, it hadn’t been a success. The players who managed to get their hands on one — or even better, two — of those items were so out of balance with the rest that it ruined the game. Grumbler confirmed what I was thinking:

“There also exist general enhancement runes that can be applied to any item, not just weapons. They’re a bit more expensive than weapon runes, but again, that’s not important right now. The point is that if you apply a rune like that to a scalable item, you can choose any property of your class. Any of them! The property will be the same level as the level the collector has reached and will continue to level up with them. You all saw what a simple vine can do when pumped up to Level 9, and there could be five abilities like that. Basically, it’s a Level 10 Legendary item customized for a specific class that gives you the chance to choose any ability. But there’s one thing that makes a scalable item even more powerful than a Legendary one. Yes, they both can hold five properties, but if you apply the enhancement rune to that item again, you can choose which property is no longer valuable to you and remove it, replacing it with something more useful. Whatever you need in the given situation. That’s why an item like shouldn’t be here in the starter worlds. It upturns the whole logic of the world and makes its owner far too powerful.”

“The item has a binding. What’s that for?” I asked.

“The amulet can be given to another druid, but that druid will receive the item clean, like it is now for you, without any properties. If you then take the amulet back, the properties you had on it will be restored. That’s what you need binding for, because it’s impossible to transfer your abilities to another collector.”

“So, you’re saying the amulet is useless now? How come I managed to retract the vines?”

“You completed the action of the previous owner,” explained Grumbler. “It’s not quite standard, but it doesn’t contradict the logic of the item. The main thing is that you don’t have any abilities now.”

“Fine, how much does a general enhancement rune cost? Any one will do, won’t it?”

“Yes, any of them,” confirmed Grumbler. “But I can’t tell you anything about prices. Until you have access to that local show-off’s store, I can’t see any figures.”

“Why is she a show-off?”

“Because everything that you receive in the Dungeons is what she wishes it to be. Maybe this is her way of showing that she can spin all the logic around here and do whatever she wants. Or she’s doing it to show that she doesn’t like outcasts. There’s been a war between the external and local Systems about outcasts for ages. The Local system is showing why they shouldn’t just appear anywhere, that it’s just the whim of the distributors. That’s why we think that everything that’s happening in this Dungeon is a result of the local System’s protest. She’s showing just how powerful she is in this world. If she wants to put a scalable item here, that’s exactly what she does. She’s demonstrating her strength, might, and resources. What do you call that if it’s not showing off? She should be shut down for that!”

“Well, at least she doesn’t leak information about us to absolutely anyone,” said Gor, unexpectedly taking the side of the local System. “She behaves like a true warrior. If you fight worthily, you get a worthy reward. As far as I can see, the external System is just a rat. It can’t do anything for itself, it just causes trouble.”

“Will they start hunting us?” asked Lyra glumly, still holding on to me tight.

“We-e-ell,” drawled Grumbler, clearly not ready to give a straight answer, “I don’t have that information yet.”

“Is there a price on our head?” I asked her directly.

“Yes,” she gave a straight answer this time, “a hundred thousand silirium if someone collects the amulet and hands it on to the Celestial Clan. The other clans haven’t posted announcements yet.”

“Meowmeowmeow!” said Little Bald meaningfully. I had to agree with him, we were in deep meowmeow.

“Does that mean it’s us against the whole world?” asked Gor.

“It does,” I told him.

“Ha!” laughed the char-ra, slamming his fist down on the lid of the tomb. “Commander, that’s awesome! Only trials can turn the weak into true warriors. You’re always saying that we’re selected! Well, let’s prove it. What do you say, Lyra?”

“What do I say?” answered the elf girl. “Max is my agent, and I don’t dump my agents.”

“Agents plural?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes, agents. I was the best, and my agents kept dying for some reason. One broke his neck, another died in a car accident, some just got killed. So, I got new ones. Sometimes I got through more than one in a month. The fashion world is a dangerous place, and anything can happen. Anyway, I’ll stick with Max until his final breath, and then we’ll see. A hundred thousand silirium is too tempting to ignore. How many manicures can you get with that?”

All I could do was sigh. Lyra was being completely serious, and it was disconcerting. Clearly, the cultural differences between our species couldn’t be smoothed over, even with the System messing around in our brains.

“Before we go to war with the whole world, we need to get rid of this local boss and integrate with the System. Look, Grumbler still doesn’t believe that we can kill a Level 4 bug.”

“You can’t,” confirmed the flying ball. “It goes against logic. On the other hand, you keep going against logic and you’re still alive.”

Before heading off to deal with the Dungeon Boss, we took another look at the alchemy laboratory. We had to run straight back out again. The gnomes had made an excellent ventilation system, so the toxic vapor hadn’t spread across the whole fifth floor, but we still couldn’t get close to the door. Our skin immediately started stinging and it felt like we had sand in our eyes. Four silirium’s worth of healing and the clear understanding that it was too early to go in there were all we got.

With the glowing slime, life on the fifth floor was a whole lot easier. We had plenty of time, so we spent two hours on the total genocide of every living thing. Scolopendras, bugs of all varieties, and even some kinds of snakes — we destroyed everything that showed up on the map as a red dot. Grumbler went on saying that no local System could talk to us through the words of living beings, but she did it more out of inertia than any firm belief that it was true. Too much had happened to us already that didn’t fit into her understanding of collectors. So, we followed Carl’s advice and systematically cleared the floor, filling up our stock of silirium. The old gnome matriarch had done her work down there, so we didn’t come across any strong opponents. Yes, they were all Level 3 and dangerous, but we were making progress too, and starting to work together as a team. There was nothing unexpected or unpleasant, just the precise work of collectors farming silirium. It was exactly what Grumbler wanted from us.

On the minus side, we twice found secret entrances, but both times the chests in the hidden rooms had been looted. Gor worked overtime trying to find at least some stash with loot in it, but to no avail. Which for me confirmed the idea that we really needed to go over the third floor with a fine-tooth comb. I could even say where — in the room where the boss had been. I’m sure that vile monster would’ve kept her valuable items close. The main thing was to make sure Martha didn’t find the stash before we got there. I had nothing against the new matriarch, and she was supposed to be on our side, but we needed the items more than she did.

Finally, the moment arrived, and we found ourselves at the entrance of the room known as the Main Forge. This was the place, according to Carl, where we could all sorts of valuable stuff that would definitely help us deal with the scary beetle. However, what the senior smith didn’t know was that very same scary beetle had set up shop in the Main Forge and was slowly but surely gnawing its way through all the metal items in there like they were delicious candies. Here in the forge, the dim light stones still glowed, so we didn’t need slime to be able to see there was almost nothing left of the forge. The monster had eaten it all.

Devouring metal had an extraordinary effect on the beetle. Judging by its glittering shell, all that metal had gone to strengthening its defenses. However, that wasn’t enough for the bug, so even its legs had started to develop extra growths. The Level 4 beetle was taller than me and Lyra, but shorter than Gor, and with the additional growths, its legs were wider than my chest. Trying to penetrate that with our swords was going to be all sorts of fun.

Having finished devouring the latest piece of ironware, the boss took a step forward. It moved at the speed of a drunk sloth, which is to say very slowly. You could even say that it was creaky, as the growths on its feet prevented the monster from running. Nonetheless, its powerful mandibles worked just fine. They had lost none of their speed or agility. The bug’s head suddenly stretched out like it had a neck, and the mandibles latched onto another huge hammer. There was an unpleasant metallic scraping sound as the metal began to tear. The strength of the Dungeon Boss’s jaws was incredible.

Wild Gnomes’ Dungeon Boss, Level 4

“How are we going to kill that?” asked Lyra in shock, glancing at her shield. Suddenly, she’d realized that if the boss scratched her precious, there’d be nothing left of it. All that beauty would go straight to hell.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” chuckled Grumbler. “This isn’t just the final boss of the Dungeon, this is the very embodiment of defense. To destroy a monster like that, you need a well-prepared raiding party. Just look at it, it doesn’t have a single weak spot! Powerful armor, active auras, a moving neck. The boss may be slow, but you’re going to be no match for it.”

“Auras?” I asked, frowning. “Which ones and how did you know they were there?”

“Unlike you bums, I’m a part of the external System,” said Grumbler proudly. “Furthermore, I wield greater resources than my colleagues. I can’t be certain of all of them, but I can definitely recognize the active auras. There are several of them. Stiffness, Weakness, Elemental Resistance, Suffocation, and I think I see Bleeding too.”

“Bleeding? Is that really an aura? I thought it was a state.”

“What I see is a cloud of metallic dust around its body. That works as an aura. You just have to enter the zone of effect and it starts to scratch your body. Your clothes too. You can’t win, collectors. There’s no way. That’s a true lord of ore, forged in metal.”

“Isn’t that too many auras for one creature?” asked Gor.

“You don’t even know about its abilities yet,” Grumbler snorted. “I can tell you two off the top of my head: Metal Absorption and Metal Distribution. That’s all part of defense. It’s still a mystery to me what the beetle attacks with. You’ll have to make it move, but I’ve no doubt this monster will have a surprise in store for you. One moment… Right, I consulted the database. Monsters like this have already been seen in Dungeons on Vilion, but only in Level 10 Dungeons. I was right, raiding parties were dispatched to destroy them with a minimum of forty collectors. To date, there have been six Dungeons with similar Bosses. Only two of those have been successfully completed. In the other four, the groups of collectors suffered losses and had to retreat, bringing the Dungeon crawl to an end.”

“But you said that the only way out of a Dungeon was by completing it, didn’t you?”

“That’s true for useless bums like you. A proper raiding party has personal teleports that transfer you to the place they are bound to. That’s how the Dungeon crawls became failures. Once you transfer out of a Dungeon, you can’t re-enter it. Ever. So… I can’t tell you anything about abilities. There were too many variations. Besides, the bosses there were Level 10, which is far ahead of this little bug. So, you’ll have to work it out for yourselves during the fight. You know, collector Max, I’m not being vindictive, but I have a suspicion I’ll be free long before the allotted time. Five auras and two defensive abilities. Plus it’s a Level 4 boss, which means it has five more opportunities to surprise you.

“So, altogether it has twelve?” I asked, frowning.

“Of course. Three abilities for each level,” answered Grumbler as if it ought to be painfully obvious.

“Well, why were we only given two abilities when we reached Level 2?” asked Lyra, understanding that we’d been cheated. Somewhere.

“That’s public information,” explained Grumbler. “Collectors get two abilities every level, while the creatures silirium is collected from get three.”

“But why?” Lyra persisted.

“What do you mean, why?” Grumbler was beginning to get angry. “Because those are the rules! Because collectors get too many privileges already when they arrive at base world. You have preparation and training, safe zones and a place to farm. You don’t have space for a third ability.”

“You mean the ones who go the standard route get all that?” Lyra asked, wide-eyed. “Not just access to manicures and hot baths, but also all kinds of bonuses?”

“System, how is that fair?” I asked into the air. “That’s not a question for you, Grumbler, so don’t worry. My question is for the local System! The one that’s responsible for this whole Dungeon. The one who invents the rewards. Why are our rights being so aggressively trampled? We’re outcasts and we’re deprived of all collectors’ bonuses. Furthermore, we’re not outcasts by choice, but because the distributors decided it. They’re only collectors, just like us!”

“Collector Max, you do realize that you’re talking to thin air right now, don’t you?” asked Grumbler just in case. “That show-off is omnipresent, of course, but…

Formulate your submission

“What?” gasped Grumbler, almost choking. The representative of the external System shrank to the size of a tennis ball and, like Lyra was wont to do, rushed over to hide beside me. “She’s here! I can feel her! Why are you able to talk to her? That’s not right! It’s against the rules! You haven’t completed integration yet. You don’t have any right to interact with her.”

“Seeing as we’re outcasts, we should be treated differently,” I continued, paying no attention to Grumbler. “We are deprived of the basic rights of collectors — no training, no communication, no exchange of items. And it’s not because we’ve done anything wrong, it’s just because some member of the Celestial Clan wanted it that way. We’ll deal with them later, but as all our opportunities have been limited, our base settings should be different too. Monsters get three abilities per level, and it would be logical if we got the same. Now we have to choose what to develop — our classes or our class combo bonuses. That should only be a question for those who live in the open world. We want three skill points per level.”

Your suggestion is being analyzed…

The result of processing is positive. Settings will be updated after integration into the System.

“Hey, why not now?” I asked, but there was no answer. Grumbler came out from behind me, but stayed close. It was like she thought that everything had finished and the local System had left. However, that wasn’t how I felt about it. If she’d left, then she’d be coming back again.

“Alright, after integration. But our group has another demand! It’s also based on something we’ve already seen. That Level 3 gnome matriarch that was living on the third floor of this Dungeon was able to use an Uncommon item.”

“There’s no limit on the rank of items monsters can use,” squeaked Grumbler and came rushing back to me. The local System had announced its presence again.

“Do I need to explain our demand, or do you get it already? Seeing as outcasts are treated like monsters, we should have the same rights as monsters. Our only chance of survival in the unexplored lands is to use anything we can get our hands on to its full effect, whether it’s Junk, Common, or any other rank. Otherwise, the whole concept of being outcast makes no sense. We’re deprived of the collectors’ basic opportunities, but we get something new. One thing would be the chance to unlock the properties of our items without waiting for Level 5, 7 or 9. What’s the point of hiding a Rare crossbow in this dungeon if it’s not available until Level 7? If we have to be outcasts, then we want to be able to use everything we can get our hands on. That would be fair compensation for our limitations.”

Your suggestion is being analyzed…

The result of processing is positive. Settings will be updated after integration into the System.

“Lyra, take your clothes off,” I said, and began to remove my own clothing. I’d done everything I could, and now we had to act according to our circumstances. To be more exact, we had to put into effect the only Plan A that I had because, unfortunately, I hadn’t come up with a Plan B.

“Commander, how can you suggest such a thing?” asked Gor, shocked.

“Do you want to do it right here?” Lyra looked less concerned.

“What I want to do right here is get rid of that beetle!” I said, waving my hand towards the phlegmatic boss, who was continuing to chew on metal. While we had been working everything out with Grumbler and the local System, it had unhurriedly gone on devouring item after item.

“Why do we need to get undressed?” asked Lyra, frowning.

“Didn’t you hear Grumbler? The beetle has this nasty Bleeding aura. It won’t just leave scratches all over us, it’ll ruin our clothing too. Are you ready to sacrifice your clothes? Your shield? Your cape? Your armor will be fine because it’s a Rare item, but everything else including your jewelry will be broken. Is that what you want? Because I don’t. That’s why I told you to get undressed. You and I are going to kill that beetle.”

“Just us?”

“Just us. Gor stays here. In this particular fight, he’s useless. As is Little Bald. If anyone’s going to take down this boss, it’s you and me.”

“Max, I don’t understand,” said Lyra in a frightened voice. However, she had followed my orders, appearing in front me looking absolutely dazzling. Her body armor, which consisted of the armored bra and a few strips of leather, covered absolutely nothing. Lyra was gorgeous. Even then, dirty, with disheveled hair and broken nails, she was still gorgeous.

“There’s nothing to understand,” I said, standing only in my shorts. On reflection, I threw the crossbow over my shoulder — nothing bad was going to happen to an Epic item in that aura, and the weapon could come in useful. The most valuable thing right now, though, was what I had in the hideous battered carrier. Gor’s handiwork had almost fallen to pieces, but it could still carry small items around, among which were the three acid grenades — the ones that we’d collected on the fourth floor. I cleared out the carrier completely, then put the three bright green bombs back. As I explained to Lyra:

“That boss is slow and it’s got thick skin. Its neck is long, but not like a giraffe’s. Our job is to jump onto its back and use the acid to eat a hole in its metal body, after which, we take Little Bald, put his ugly mug right up against the hole, and pour fireballs into its guts. The fireballs won’t work straight away, because Little Bald’s level is too low.”

“Meow?!” said the terrified dracat, as if he’d understood everything.

“It’s our only chance. We’re not going to get another. If the acid can’t eat through the metal, which can just throw up our paws and die. At least that’ll make Grumbler happy.”

“But Max, what do you need me for?” asked Lyra, still not understanding. “You can do that without me, can’t you?”

“You activate your aura and start healing us. I get the impression we’re not going to be very comfortable on the beetle’s back. What’s more, your aura suppresses monsters in some way. Maybe we’ll work out how. Are you ready?”

“It’s some kind of insanity,” said Grumbler, clearly unable to reconcile what I’d said with the reality of our situation. “You can’t beat a boss like that with some kind of acid!”

“Ready!” nodded Lyra, completely ignoring Grumbler.

“Gor, be ready to throw Little Bald to us on my command. Let’s go!”

I don’t think my heart ever beat as fast as it did in those seconds when I was running toward the Dungeon Boss. The slow-moving beast ignored our appearance in its space, continuing to chew on a smith’s hammer. I’d never been a great jumper, but the present situation didn’t require any great athletic feats — the bug was under seven feet high. With a run-up, I leaped and grabbed on to some kind of growth. The cunning elf girl had an even more effective method — she just used me like a ladder to scramble up onto the monster’s back, almost knocking me off in the process. However, she made it and then reached to jerk me up after her.

“I told you not to take anything!” I was about to get angry when I saw the berserker was carrying her two swords in her free hand. Lyra wanted to answer, but she didn’t have time before the boss finally struck out at us by activating its auras.

One time at the construction site where he was working, my dad gave me some glass wool to hold. He even let me squeeze it so that I’d learn once and for all not to just pick up anything off the floor. The effect of the Bleeding was something like swimming in a vat of glass wool. My whole body was suddenly covered in scratches. They were shallow at first, but with every second they got deeper and deeper.

“Ow!” yelled Lyra, activating her Aura of Sanctification. If it helped, it wasn’t that noticeable. The scratches kept appearing, although possibly a little more slowly. Next, I saw what the metal dust was doing to Gor’s handiwork. The hideous carrier was on its very last legs, falling apart right in front of my eyes. Realizing that I could miss my chance, I pushed the horrible feeling to the back of my mind and picked up the first acid bomb. I froze, trying to work out where the beetle’s weak sport was.

“Max!” shrieked Lyra, snapping me out of my stupor and making me jump back in surprise. The Dungeon Boss had finally decided to check who had had the nerve to climb up on his back. He didn’t jump, he didn’t run, he just stretched his head out towards us, contradicting everything I knew about beetles. They weren’t supposed to have necks as long as that!

But the Dungeon Boss did. His mandibles, which bit through metal with ease, snapped at the spot where I’d just been standing. If it wasn’t for Lyra, I’d have been chopped in two. Unlike its body, the boss’s head was extremely agile, and it came flying straight after me. But it bumped into a blade on its way. Lyra wasn’t slashing. Somewhere in her model’s brain, she’d had the sensible thought that slashing would have little effect. Instead, she stabbed. Metal clanged on metal, and the sword went flying out of her hand, but she’d managed to do the most important thing — the stun effect activated. The beetle froze. Only for two seconds, but that was enough for me to finally work out where to throw the acid.

The bomb went flying straight into the Dungeon Boss’s mouth. Then I followed it up with the other two.

“Gor, Little Bald now!” I roared in a distorted voice. There was an extended meeeeeow, and the bald body of my pet unexpectedly appeared floating beside me. With this tiny wings spread as far as they could go and flapping frantically, the dracat could just about hold himself in the air.

“Fire!” I ordered, pointing to the boss’s open mouth.

Little Bald managed to launch two fireballs, then everything got completely out of control. I hadn’t previously had the chance to test whether or not acid burns. Now I did, and I can authoritatively say that it does. It really burns! As soon as the fireballs reached the Dungeon Boss’s open jaws, there was such a fierce roar of flames that Lyra and I were thrown off the beetle’s back. Little Bald suddenly lost his ability to fly and plopped down on the ground not far from me, all fried like bacon.

“Lyra, healing!” I croaked, realizing slowly that I was no better off than my pet. Lyra was in the same state, groaning in pain, but she did as I said, healing herself first, then me, then Little Bald. Then we needed to move fast, because the Dungeon Boss was getting quite angry. There was almost nothing left of its all-devouring mouth — both mandibles had dropped off, its eyes were gone, and its face was torn apart. Still, the terrifying bug wasn’t planning on dying just yet. It was raging, stamping on one spot. It couldn’t move fast, but why would it need to if it could shoot steel balls? Which it turns out it could. Its mangled head swung blindly in different directions, launching the metal spheres with fearsome force in a desperate effort to destroy its attackers. The balls ricocheted off the walls and slammed back into its body, ricocheting again. Sooner or later, one of them would hit one of us, with irreparable consequences. If one of those hit you in the head, no healing was going to help.

“Let’s get out of here!” I shouted, and very nearly paid dearly for my thoughtlessness. It turned out the Dungeon Boss’s ears were still working fine. It heard my cry and immediately launched a long burst of metal balls in my direction. If I hadn’t started running straight away, grabbing Little Bald as I went, there’d have been nothing left of me. The balls slammed into the stone wall, fired with such force that most of them buried themselves deep in the stone, with only a handful ricocheting.

“Lyra, go around!” I screamed, then jumped forward to avoid the next burst of fire. The elf girl understood what I meant. Pulling herself to her feet, she didn’t come rushing over to us, which would almost certainly have been the end of her. Instead, on tiptoe, she began to step slowly around the bug, trying not even to breathe. I flung Little Bald back to Gor (the dracat, like a true warrior, flew in silence), then drew more fire to myself a few more times, getting the bug to turn around. It really did move slowly, and it looked as if it was getting slower still, but its attacks were still terrifying. Finally, Lyra reached Gor and grabbed her shield. A second later, the pointy-eared idiot began banging on it with her sword and screaming:

“Hey, you outsize bug, I’m over here!”

She didn’t have to wait for a reaction. The boss twisted its head sharply and launched a volley in Lyra’s direction. She didn’t run, she raised her shield in front of her, and she was almost sent flying when the steel balls smacked into it. However, the shield was tough enough to withstand the boss’s attack.

“Is that all you’ve got? Try again!” Lyra was obviously in a frenzy. If Gor hadn’t been holding her waist, the elf girl would undoubtedly have rushed off to attack the boss head on with her swords spinning. Another volley of metal balls slammed into her shield, but this time with Gor’s help she held her ground.

The Dungeon Boss clearly felt something was wrong. He turned his vast body and took a step in the direction of the crazed, screaming elf girl. It was a step that must’ve made the whole dungeon tremble. Then came a second, and a third. The beetle wasn’t in any hurry. It knew that down here on the fifth floor it had no worthy opponents. The fact that these irritants were still somehow alive was completely inexplicable. But now it was going to kill them.

Except that what the bastard didn’t understand was that it did now have worthy opponents. Grabbing Lyra’s sword from the floor, I ran after the bug and got back to my companions. Lyra went on screaming, and the boss continued to shoot periodically, but for now it looked like a stalemate.

“Gor, drag Lyra away! Lyra, keep screaming! Little Bald, fire ten fireballs in its face!”

Grabbing all our clothing, I shoved it in the almost broken carrier, then raised my crossbow and aimed at the boss’s head. Gor followed my orders perfectly, picking up Lyra, who was still screaming at the top of her lungs, and moving back down the corridor several paces. The bug stopped and began to shake its head like it had lost us. But then ten fireballs came flying at it one after another. They bounced off it onto the floor powerlessly, unable to catch on to anything, but that wasn’t what mattered. The main thing was that the boss once again understood where we were. It couldn’t see, but it could feel. I decided to give it another little sensory treat and fired my crossbow at the spot where its eye used to be. Sparks flew and the bolt crumpled against the monster’s strong bones. However, it had the desired result, and the boss began moving in our direction again.

We repeated the maneuver again and again. The boss would come toward us, we would retreat, then we’d launch a volley of fireballs and steel bolts — which, unfortunately, I was running out of. When we reached the corridor, the Dungeon Boss stopped for a while, uncertain whether to continue its pursuit. However, its mind was made up by a great shot from Little Bald that hit it right in its open mouth. The boss came out of the main forge.

“What now, commander?” asked Gor. He believed that I had already come up with a Plan B on the fly, which is why he was still confidently holding Lyra in front of him, shielded from the boss’s attacks.

“We’re going to the alchemy laboratory!” I said. “We can’t kill that monster ourselves, so let it choke!”

“You know what, that might actually work,” said Grumbler, reminding us of here presence. “Yes, it definitely will work. Extraordinary! Are you actually going to win this?”

Oh yes we are! My bolts had run out and our silirium was dropping toward zero — we had only thirty units left when we finally reached the right place. The Dungeon Boss wasn’t faltering anymore. It kept moving with the determination of a rhino, intent on killing and punishing. Or maybe punishing first, then killing.

“Run!” I shouted as soon as the toxic fumes began to sting my body. “Lyra, healing! Let’s go!”

The elf girl had long since returned to her normal state, but she hadn’t wanted to do her own walking. She liked being carried around in Gor’s arms like a little girl. The closer we got to the laboratory door, the worse we felt. If it weren’t for Lyra’s aura and healing, which she kept applying non-stop, I’m not sure we could’ve got past. However, we managed it, and the dangerous door was soon behind us. Unfortunately, we only had five units of silirium left, one of which Little Bald promptly used to send another fireball at the Dungeon Boss.

Everything went exactly as planned. The big blind body squeezed itself along the corridor. As soon as it came in contact with the toxic fumes, it decided that we were attacking it again, so it kept crawling, getting deeper and deeper into the poisonous cloud. The Dungeon Boss’s movements began to slow further. Its head wasn’t able to twist and shoot as agilely as before. However, the boss wasn’t planning just to give up and die. At one point, it gathered up all its remaining strength, stretched out its head, and began to emit a high wailing sound.

“That’s a summons!” said Grumbler, dumbfounded. “Yet another ability. The boss is summoning its children to come and help it.”

“Only there’s nobody to come and help,” said Gor with relish, finally putting Lyra down on the stones. “Carl was right, commander. It’s a good thing you listened to him.”

“It doesn’t happen like this!” Grumbler went on grumbling. “It just doesn’t! It’s against the rules. The local System isn’t able to get involved at that level.”

Not “show-off” anymore? Grumbler’s opinion of what was going on in the world of Vilion was changing incredibly fast. The boss’s death throes took some time. It couldn’t move back, only forward, and the closer it got to the alchemy laboratory, the worse it got. Finally, its long head stretched out, its massive paws slipped, and its body slumped to the floor, convulsing.

The Conquest of the Wild Gnomes’ Dungeon quest has been completed.

The New Hope quest has been updated: Martha, Level 2 gnome matriarch, has become the ruler of the Dungeon. Find the waystone to restore the gnome tribe’s name.

Next to the boss’s body, a small pile appeared, glowing blue — our loot for defeating the Dungeon Boss. However, we weren’t in any hurry to get our hands on it. We weren’t in any danger of losing the loot, but we could easily lose everything else.

“Grumbler, where does integration take place?”

“What?” the ball appeared to still be in shock from what happened.

“We have a quest. We need to undergo integration with the System of the world of Vilion, otherwise we’ll die. Where do we do that?”

“Follow me, I’ll show you!” Wow, had Grumbler decided to actually do her job? We had to squeeze past the boss’s body, wasting silirium on healing, but that wasn’t a problem because as soon as we got close to the body, we saw the blue glow:

Silirium +64. Total: 68

Lyra couldn’t resist grabbing the blue-glowing items as we passed. She couldn’t leave the loot be, even when threatened with death from the toxic fumes of the alchemy laboratory. Grumbler led us back to the Main Forge, where a small plinth was beginning to spin.

“This is the integration stone. Collectors, place your hands on it!”

Without a word, we gathered around the plinth and simultaneously put our hands on it. Even Little Bald jumped up onto the stone, as if it could help somehow too.

The Integration into the Vilion System quest has been completed.

The Selected group, comprising Max, Aelyria, and Gor, have been registered as residents of Vilion. They have been bound to the Wild Gnomes’ Dungeon location.

The stationary Level 2 Dungeon is now the property of the Selected. The group’s rating has been updated. Current rating among unaligned groups on Vilion: 1

The Selected receive a reward: access to the VIP Lounge at the external base.

Do you wish to use your reward?

There was so much text, I didn’t immediately understand that I was being asked a question. When I finally worked out what exactly was being offered, it was too late. The timer ran out and the System took the decision itself. Our surroundings flickered and the four of us suddenly found ourselves in the most luxurious room I had ever been in. However, we weren’t able to enjoy the beauty of the space straight away:

“Achoo!”

Both Lyra and I began to sneeze simultaneously. My eyes filled up with tears, my tongue swelled in my mouth. Allergies? On the base? What animals were there here? Lyra was sneezing no less than me but managed to help herself. When I fell to my knees, lacking the strength to stay standing, the elf girl’s gentle fingers touched my face and flitted over it, relieving my acute attack. Wiping away the tears, I saw a few yards in front of us the shocked sources of our allergic reactions. A magnificent elf, straight off the screen of some Hollywood fantasy movie, and a cat woman, covered in fur from head to tail. She too was dressed in the height of fantasy fashion, with beautiful plate armor, chain mail, and all sorts of expensive rings. They both looked elegant and exceptionally rich, especially in comparison to us dirty paupers, who hadn’t even had time to get dressed. The other two figures standing next to them looked equally refined, although rather more human.

“What—” began the furry woman in an exceptionally deep voice, but between us and this strange quartet, the projection of a pretty girl suddenly appeared.

“Greetings, leaders of the top clans!” said Grumbler’s voice. She sounded immensely proud, like a happy mom introducing her kids. “Allow me to present to you my wards, who by their heroic deeds have earned the right to rest in the VIP Lounge. Please give a warm welcome to the Selected! Yes, that’s right, the group that you’ve all put bounties on. Take a good look at them. Do you see what’s threatening you? Aelyria, come with me. You’ve been dreaming of a bath, haven’t you? Now I’m going to show you the king of all baths! If you’re not satisfied, I’m happy to stay with you for another twenty-four hours. Max, Gor, follow me too. There’s no point standing around here with these losers. All they can do is stare. Here on the external System’s base, you’re under my protection.”

With the heads of the four great clans of Vilion staring after us, we followed the smiling projection. At the last minute, I turned around and caught the look in the furry woman’s eyes. I didn’t like what it told me. That’s the way people look when they’re planning to kill you. Well, they could try. First, they’d have to find where we were, then it would take them a couple of months to walk there. In the meantime, we wouldn’t be standing still. That waystone wasn’t going to get away from the goblins by itself. Then we had to sort out the Dungeon. There’d been so much interesting stuff on the fifth floor that my hands were itching to try it all out. So, the evil looks of the heads of the clans didn’t scare me much. So what if they’d put a bounty on our heads?

“Max, are you coming?” said Lyra, loud enough that the heads of the clans could hear every word. “Seeing as I’m incompatible with that elf, and you and I are in perfect harmony, I want to show you everything that I was rated so highly for in my own world. Tonight, you’re not just selected, you’re selected by me. And the rest of the world can go hang!”

The next book of the series!

The Selected (Book 2)

End of Book One

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Condemned (Lord Valevsky: Last of the Line)

A Progression Fantasy LitRPG Series

MORE BOOKS BY YURI VINOKUROFF:

The Order of Architects

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Oleg Sapphire & Yuri Vinokuroff

The Hunter’s Code

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Oleg Sapphire & Yuri Vinokuroff

Kill to Live

A LitRPG Progression Fantasy Adventure Series

by George Bor & Yuri Vinokuroff

NEW RELEASES!

How I Built a Magic Empire

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Konstantin Zubov

The Last Portal Jumper

A LitRPG Progression Fantasy Series

by Konstantin Zubov

The Afflicted

A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure Series

by Konstantin Zubov

The One Who Changes the Future

A Dystopian Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Boris Romanovsky

An Ideal World for a Sociopath

A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure Series

by Oleg Sapphire

The Healer’s Way

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Oleg Sapphire & Alexey Kovtunov

Kill or Die

A LitRPG Series

by Alex Toxic

The Last Portal Jumper

A LitRPG Progression Fantasy Series

by Konstantin Zubov

The Dark Healer

A Historical Progression Fantasy Series

by Alex Toxic & Nadya Lee

Lord of The System

A LitRPG Progression Fantasy Series

by Alex Toxic & Furious Miki

The Strongest Student

A Portal Progression Action Fantasy Series

by Andrei Tkachev

A Shelter in Spacetime

A LitRPG Apocalypse Series

by Dmitry Dornichev

The Coming of God of Death

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Dmitry Dornichev

The Village

A LitRPG Progression Fantasy Series

by Dmitry Dornichev & Alexey Kovtunov

Living Ice

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Dmitry Sheleg

Ghost in the System

An Apocalypse LitRPG Series

by Alexey Kovtunov

Crossroads of Oblivion

A Portal Progression Fantasy Adventure Series

by Dem Mikhailov

The Goldenblood Heir

A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

by Boris Romanovsky

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About The Authors

VASILY MAHANENKO is a fantasy and sci fi author and one of the original founding fathers of the new genre of LitRPG - the MMO-based fantasy and sci fi. His debut novel The Way of the Shaman series took literature by storm in 2012.

Vasily dipped into his college-days insider knowledge as a hardcore gamer in order to create a believable world of the virtual-reality MMO game. His bestselling series combines fiction and video games, telling the story of Shaman and his friends stuck in the ruthless reality of Barliona. He used his more than ten years' experience as an ERP implementation project manager to approach his writing in a well-organized manner, working to a strict schedule, a set of deadlines and even a budget. The entire body of Vasily's works to date is available on Amazon now, with new books adding as he comes up with new fantasy worlds and stories.

YURI VINOKUROFF was born in 1976 in Sevastopol. An avid reader from an early age, he was especially fond of fantasy and science fiction. Already back then, he knew he wanted to write books rather than just read them.

But as it often happens, all of his time and energy were consumed by his successful career, his family and his French Bulldog breeding kennel. His professional activities involved designing and constructing power plants and facilities, which couldn’t be further removed from his teenage dream of writing fiction.

Still, Yuri didn’t give up. Eventually, he began writing for Facebook and even created a small challenge for himself, completing 100 posts in 100 days. It was there that he gained his first fans. During the 2020 lockdown, he used the opportunity to enter a major LitRPG competition. Although his novel didn’t win, it still went viral, soon followed by the rest of the series.