Oaths to Keep Pt. 09

A word from the author:

As is always the case, all characters portrayed are 18+ and entirely fictional.

If you have read your way here through the previous 8 chapters, I doubt anything in this one will shock you too much.

If you haven't, you really should. But I am not your real mom, so I can't tell you what to do. So if you are determined to jump in at this point, I guess you are one who likes surprises, and it would be rude of me to spoil it too much.

Still, expect graphic everything. Oh and anal sex. There will almost certainly be anal sex at some point.

Other than that, if you like the story, remember to vote for more by leaving one of those juicy 5 star reviews, a comment, favorite the story, or give me some feedback directly. It is what fuels my creative engine, so don't hold back.

-X-X-X-

Chapter 9

As soon as Carrie had left to gather her meager belongings, I turned to Amber, fixing her with a stern gaze.

"Now spill! What was that all about? And don't spare the details!" I growled.

Okay, maybe I didn't exactly growl, I had just gotten some amazing sex, so it was kinda hard to get all grumpy, but I did give it the old college try.

"Don't be like that, you know if I had asked you about it beforehand, you would have been too up tight and self conscious to agree to it. You might not get it, but this really isn't about you. It is about Carrie." Amber snapped back at me.

"About Carrie? How is any of this about Carrie?" I asked, quite confused by the direction the conversation was taking.

"Carrie can't stay here. There are a few guys here who have their eye on her, and have been getting more and more pushy. They have been waiting for their chance. Without me around to tell them to go fuck themselves, Carrie is easy pickings." Amber explained, turning towards me and meeting my gaze.

"You could've just told me..." I began, before I was interrupted by Amber scoffing at me.

"As if you would have let me bring her, if I just told you. You would've gone all white knight and went to beat up the idiots. No. Carrie can't stay and she wants to be with me. And you did say I would be in charge of your harem, so I expanded it. Now deal with it, mister!"

Amber actually poked me in the chest for extra emphasis, showing me this was clearly something she really cared about.

"But the oath was still a bit much..." I griped, even though I knew it was futile. I would bring Carrie with us. Giving her a chance was the very least I could do.

"The oath was exactly enough. Without her swearing herself to you, you would never allow me to bring her. As you probably guessed already, we have had some fun before. She likes me telling her what to do, so it would just have been cruel to bring her and not let her in on our fun."

"I guess you are right, I am just not used to you caring so much about someone, I guess I still think of you as Amber from highschool." I apologized.

"Of course I am right. Besides, having her swear to you like that should give us more buffs from that skill of yours, right?" Amber asked, a glint of greed in her eyes.

I laughed. Perhaps harder than I should have, but Amber looking at me like I had lost my mind just made me laugh even harder.

Of course she would have an angle, something had to be in it for her. She was a lot better than she had been, but clearly old habits die hard.

When I finally managed to stop, I wiped the tears from my eyes and caught my breath.

"Yes, Amber, it did indeed give us a bigger buff. Doubling my number of followers increased the level of my skill."

I called up the stats on the skill as I spoke. For my sworn followers the buff was now four additional stat points and four percent extra experience earned, if they were fully sworn. A more limited oath would give reduced benefits. For myself, I gained another point on top of that. Knowing Amber, she would not be happy I got more out of it than her, so I felt a little subterfuge was in order.

"I can give you another point in a stat, and you will gain experience even faster than before." I said, carefully not including myself in the sentence.

"Just one? Why not the three points we got from me, isn't Carrie worth as much to the System?" Amber complained.

"If it was up to me, you would both be worth a lot more than that, but it is not about what you are worth, it is about leveling up the skill. In the long run, the real prize is the additional experience gain, so while it might not seem like much right now, every extra percentage point will help us out scale everyone and everything the System can throw at us. The stats are just the cherry on top. A really really tasty cherry for now, I will admit. But just a cherry. So, where would you like your point to go?"

"Well, if it's just one, I want it in strength. I want to be stronger, but I don't want to bulk up, so I figure I put the magic bonus point in that, and it won't make me suddenly look swole."

She was certainly turning out to have a very unusual build for a thief, but with her badger items she had turned into quite the "off tank", and now her throwing knives were more about pure power than the critical hits most rogues would be going for. With the point from my Oathkeeper skill, her strength would be at a whopping eighteen. Only the strongest of pre-System athletes would have been stronger than that. Glancing at my own stats, I decided to also put at least one more point into strength myself, as I would rather not have Amber be physically stronger than me just yet. I was tempted to put both into strength to put me at nineteen, but the greatest benefit of that would be to my fragile ego. No, the last point had to go into constitution, I had left it as my dump stat for far too long, and it was starting to get dangerous.

Not just for the hit points it would provide, which had seemed miniscule at first, but for the far more practical reason of being able to keep running. When all I had to really worry about was goblins, it didn't matter that much, as I could run fast enough to break contact, before I would run out of stamina. With orcs now in the mix, I was a lot less confident I could rely on that tactic. No, I simply needed to be able to keep going for longer.

Of course the girls might also appreciate that, I added, chuckling to myself. Not that I really believed that raw constitution had anything to do with my sexual performance, but who really knew?

On the other hand, if Amber did keep growing my harem as she apparently had decided was her job, I might want to look into getting some sort of System skill or power to give me the endurance to ensure all my women were happy.

"Why are you grinning like an idiot all of a sudden?" Amber asked.

"No reason. Strength you say? Sure, coming right up."

I made the adjustments, both of us pausing for a moment when the wave of mana washed through us, affecting the change and boosting our stats.

Amber turned this way and that, giving herself a once over, checking for changes, even though she knew there should be none.

"Is my ass larger? My ass is larger. Tell me the truth, is my ass larger?"

I paused to parse my words carefully, not knowing if she wanted it to be larger or smaller. I was guessing she didn't want to suddenly have a fat ass, but I knew all too well from experience that when you thought you knew the answer, you were almost certainly wrong.

"I am fairly certain the magic of my skill did not change you in any perceivable way." I stated as flatly as possible.

"It IS larger, and you just don't pay enough attention to me to see it! Five minutes after having had a new woman on your dick, and I am already yesterday's news!" Amber stated, apparently spinning out of control.

It took me a moment to realize what was going on.

"Amber. Tell me the truth. Are you trying to stir up drama to make me forget you tricked me?" I asked, putting a bit of will into the words.

Amber froze up mid sentence, then her mouth started to move as if by an unseen puppeteer.

"Yes." She replied through gritted teeth.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. How about we just go catch up with Carrie instead?"

"I.. ugh... fine!"

I didn't really like using the oath against Amber, but I still felt like she had tricked both Carrie and I, so she deserved a little payback. Plus, I really wasn't in the mood for the drama.

-x-x-x-

"No, YOU don't get it. I am part of the mayor's crew now, I can do whatever I want to a useless eater like you. That's what she calls you, you know. And she is right. The only way for you to be useful, is to be a good little bitch and do what I..."

"Carrie! Time to go!" Amber called out, speeding up down the corridor.

We had passed a small group of armed guys as we entered the corridor, that seemed to be amused by what was going on. Most of the doors were closed, some were slightly ajar as someone inside was watching through a slit, but did not want to be part of whatever this was.

A big guy had his arm in Carrie's way, giving her no easy way to pass. He was wearing a leather jacket with bits of cutlery duct taped to it as a form of armor, big muscled build, but his pale white complexion told me it was likely from steroids and not because of healthy living. The fire axe strapped to his back told me he was not very used to using it, or he would have figured it was a really awkward place for a quick draw. His black hair was greasy, growing out of a crew cut, and added just the final touch that made him look like something out of Muggers Weekly. If the mayor was really letting someone like him walk around armed, let alone putting them on her 'crew', whatever that was, clearly things were not going well.

Another guy stood a few steps back, grinning at the whole spectacle. He was a lot less imposing, even if he was a few inches taller. He had an improvised club over his shoulder that looked to have been the leg of a table, wrapped with wire, for no discernable reason, other than to make it look more intimidating.

He seemed to be more focused on making sure none of the townies lurking from behind mostly closed doors got any ideas, as his gaze shifted around a lot.

I was about to rush forward to correct whatever notions they had about laying claims to Carrie, but Amber stopped me.

"I'll handle this, you make sure his posse doesn't get any ideas." she said just loud enough that I could hear it, but it wouldn't carry, just like we had practiced on our excursions about town.

I was about to suggest the opposite, but before I could disagree with her, she was already off like a rocket.

Carrie was carrying a large sports bag with a few blankets on top, and was clearly looking distressed. When Amber called her name, she dropped what she was carrying and tried ducking under the brutes arm, but he grabbed her by the neck and shoved her back against the wall.

"Stay put, bitch, you don't leave until I tell you what to fetch me."

Holding her in place with one hand, he turned towards Amber.

"As for you, you little..." He began, but Amber did not feel like letting him monologue.

"Mitch shouldn't you be out on the streets selling drugs to minors, instead of trying to rape young girls in a vain attempt to prove you're not gay anymore?" Amber growled at him, loud enough I was certain everyone in the corridor probably heard.

"Amber! I'm not raping..." Mitch began, before realizing he was walking into a trap.

"Greg is not here to protect you now, Amber, so if you don't fuck right off, I just might decide to take you too. You are not even supposed to be let back in, so no one will stand up for you!"

"You got that wrong, Mitch, I am the one here to stand up for someone, not the other way around.

As Amber bore down on Mitch, I felt the rest of what I had decided to refer to as his gang, come up from behind.

Not wanting to leave Amber out of my sight, I turned sideways and started to pour mana into my hand in the pattern of the Flaming Weapon spell, but with no weapon to focus the spell into, the spell instead made spectral flames appear around my hand and fingers, as the spell tried and failed to find a suitable target.

It was a bit hot, but fortunately not too bad, as the spell couldn't really manifest the fire fully without the requirements properly fulfilled. It still drained a bit of mana, and kept doing so as I flexed my will and refused to allow it to fizzle away.

"That's far enough, guys. Mitch is a big boy, he can handle this without you." I growled, my flaming fist drawing their attention in the dim light of the corridor.

They were a rough bunch, all of them armed in some way, but glancing at the fire I had manifested, they did not seem very eager to throw down.

"Let Mitch cook, he got this. We can beat up the boyfriend after." One of them suggested, and before they could do more than that, Amber made her move.

As she approached Mitch, he reached out to grab her, a move she easily dodged with her now ridiculous dexterity, flowing just out of reach, causing him to move slightly forward to catch her.

A quick kick to his knee made his step falter, at which point Amber grabbed his outstretched wrist with both hands, twisting and ducking under his arm before he could regain his balance, then pulled and let go, letting Mitch fall awkwardly to the floor, narrowly avoiding breaking his fall with his face.

Mitch, seemingly no stranger to violence, did not stay down, but rushed back to his feet, whirling to face Amber.

"Bitch, I was going to be gentle, but now I'm gonna be real rough, and then let the boys..." Mitch began, as he stepped forward and drove home a low blow right in Amber's midsection.

A blow like that would drive the air from most people's lungs, as well as take all the fight out of them, but Amber actually took it like a champ. Either she had remembered to clench her core like I had been teaching her whenever we could take some time to train her fighting skills, or maybe it was her massively System boosted constitution and strength that let her shrug off a blow from a much larger foe.

Whatever the reason, it brought Mitch dangerously close to Amber, which was an opportunity she did not let go to waste. With both hands she grabbed a hold of his belt, before she brought her knee up sharply, landing a blow that made every male in the corridor wince in sympathetic pain.

Mitch might have collapsed at that point, if not for the fact that Amber held him upright by the belt, as she was not nearly done.

As swiftly as she could bring her knee down, it went back up again, then again, then a final time. Mitch, having no more breath with which to howl in pain after the first two, could only whimper at that point.

His lackey was slow to react, but finally decided he had better step in, and started to close the distance with his weapon out in front.

"Let him GO! I will fucking kill you for this!"

I was about to call up a fire bolt to blast him, even if my accuracy would suck at that distance, and there was no telling if the rest of the gang would swarm me if I did.

Before I could, Amber turned slightly to keep Mitch between her and the lackey, before lifting him up by the belt, crouching down slightly at the same time to get under his weight, before pushing up with her legs to get him moving up, then shoved with all of her considerable strength, flinging Mitch right at the lackey.

Surprised, the lackey did not manage to dodge in time, resulting in both of them falling to a heap with the barely conscious Mitch on top.

"Let's go Carrie, we are leaving!" Amber snapped, blowing a few tangles of hair away from her face, as she glared at the men at her feet.

"The sheriff will hear of this..." The lackey tried to growl menacingly, but in reality it sounded a lot more like whining.

"That you two goons got beat up by a girl, while failing to rape another. Yeah, that will make your star rise for sure!"

Without waiting for a response, Amber turned and started to drag Carrie along with her.

"Guys, I don't think Mitch would want them to leave."

I couldn't tell which one of the gang members had spoken, but I felt like I had to nip it in the bud.

"FUEGO!" I roared theatrically, as I completed my spell, just for a bit of extra flair, as three fiery bolts came into being and flew across the corridor, right past the gang.

"I think Mitch would want some of you still able to help carry him to the doc, to have his nuts put in a cast." I suggested, turning towards them, my right hand put on the hilt of my sword.

"Holy shit, how is he doing that?" One yelped.

All of them backed away, and as Amber came back, Carrie in tow, they all stepped out of the way, eyeing me warily as I slowly stepped past them, before hurrying after the girls.

They, on the other hand, rushed to help their fallen leader.

This place was definitely getting a bit too lord of the flies already, and with overall morale of the townies clearly nearing rock bottom, I was starting to get scared things might turn real ugly a lot sooner than I thought.

-x-x-x-

Daniel was done with his breakfast when we found him back in the now crowded cafeteria. He was sitting with a tall brunette who was busy finishing her own bowl of stew. The rumpled uniform she was wearing marked her as a cashier from the nearby gas station, having probably made it to the relative safety of the highschool with nothing more than that, and the contents of her pockets.

From the look of her bowl, the short rations really were very short, and even if Daniel seemed to do his best not to stare at her bowl hungrily, she was still leaning over it protectively as she scooped down every precious mouthful. Daniel was talking to her as we approached, but when he spotted us he lit up in a smile and waved at us.

"John! Over here! There he is, see, I told you he would come find me. Us."

The woman spared us a glance and a brief spoon salute, before putting the spoon back to its proper use.

"Hi Daniel, who's your friend?" I asked, as we stepped up to their table.

"John, this is my... uh... Jennifer." Daniel began.

"Jenny is fine." Jennifer interjected.

"Happy to meet you Jenny. So, Daniel, are you about ready to go? Sun is up, and daylight is wasting and all that..."

"About that, I was talking to Jenny, told you what you did and all, and she wanna help..."

"She wants my help? Look, I do want to help everyone, but I only have so much mana, and..."

"No man, she wants to come help carry the stuff... you know... the stuff!"

Stage whispering like a pro, Daniel pretty much ensured everyone nearby heard every word, and knew he was trying and failing to be discreet.

With lots of faces turning towards us, I figured it was best to deflect their attention. The way they were being starved, if they figured I might have somehow stuffed a deer carcass in my pockets, I would get torn to pieces.

"Relax dude, I don't even know if we need more people to carry the latrine buckets, but sure, you can bring your... Jennifer." I said, putting extra emphasis on the latrine buckets part, while I held his gaze intently, willing him to get the message.

"Jenny is fine. What latri... " Jenny began, then got the idea as she glanced at me.

".. ne are we going to empty first?" she continued, pushing her now empty and licked clean bowl away from her.

"Uh. All of them, probably. Yup. I bet we have to do all of them. Sure wish we could get more volunteers." Daniel chimed in, perhaps overdoing it a bit. But it still worked. No one nearby wanted to risk being drafted for that particular duty, which I understood completely.

"Let's go then, unless you have more people waiting to sign up?"

"Nope, just Jenny. I wouldn't have told anyone, but she came looking for me with some bandages she had scrounged up, so when I told her I no longer needed them, I had to tell her the rest..."

"It's fine. Is she a fine upstanding warrior like yourself?"

"Not yet. But I'm trying to learn. It's just hard to train when you're so hungry all the time, but joining the watch is the only way to get more food..." Jenny answered.

"Yeah, I've been trying to teach her a few things, but really, my claim to martial fame is mostly from my size and my experience wrestling."

"Still more useful than my hours on the range with an AR-15." Jenny interjected.

"Well, maybe I can give you a few pointers, we got a few hours work ahead of us at least, before our work is done..."

"You guys about ready?" Amber asked as she and Carrie joined us. Carrie was no longer carrying her awkward bag, but seemed to have put on another layer of clothes, and from the way Amber's backpack was bulging, I could guess where the rest of her stuff had gone. A smart decision really, as the extra weight would hardly slow Amber down any. She could probably even put Carrie on her shoulders too, and be just fine. I might not like what the System had done to our world, but I was loving what it had done for us on a more individual level. I for one, would never have gotten this fit in my life, let alone in the span of a week or two, if not for the magic and leveling it had brought.

"Yeah, we are good to go." Jenny stated, getting up from the table.

Daniel just nodded and got up, picking up his modified stop sign and his dented aluminum bat that had been leaning against his chair.

"Ready."

"Great! Let's go then!" Amber suggested cheerfully. And by suggested I mean ordered. Without waiting for further input, she started to walk, clearly expecting us to follow.

I was going to have to have a chat with her about that later. For now I just rolled my eyes and followed. At the very least, her ass was looking particularly awesome today.

-x-x-x-

"Where do you think you are going?"

As we got close to the fence, one of the nearby cluster of militia members started walking to us, addressing us loudly.

He was a heavy set guy, probably in his late forties, balding, and scowling like he had just tasted something bad. Unlike most of the militia members, he was not decked out in mad max gear, but was wearing a ballistic vest of some sort, and had a gun strapped to his hip. He was clearly not suicidal enough to actually rely on it, as he was also carrying an improvised spear that was likely his main weapon against the goblins. The blue armband he was wearing seemed to signify some sort of rank, or perhaps it was just because he was older than everyone else present, that he felt he could take that tone with us.

"Out, obviously!" I stated, not really in the mood for more crap, after the run in with Mitch.

"Not on my watch, you're not! Mayor doesn't want people leaving!"

Daniel cut in front of me, breaking line of sight between me and the rude brute.

"Look, Andrew, we are not leaving leaving, we are just going out to fetch something. We will be back before you know it." Daniel said, his tone soothing the already ruffled feathers of Andrew.

"Yeah, I am sure you need to go water your plants and make sure you turned off the gas. No dice kid!" Andrew growled, clearly not in the mood to have his feathers unruffled.

"The meat in the breakfast stew. We are fetching more of that. So much of it, we have to be five people to carry it all. Might even have to go twice. You liked the stew, didn't you?" Daniel continued.

"Ah. The meat... Well, I guess if the cook told you to fetch more meat, it might be alright... The mayor was quite adamant though..."

Andrew was clearly struggling a bit, his stomach trying to overrule his instinct to obey blindly like a good little lackey.

Okay, I was probably not being completely fair, I am sure he was a wonderful man, once you got to know him.

"Enough meat for everyone for days!" Daniel insisted like he was trying to sell him a used car.

"Maybe mention to the cook how we helped you... I shouldn't be doing this... But I guess the mayor only really insisted we didn't let anyone useful out. I guess you are not long for this world anyway, no offense..." Andrew glanced at Daniel's hip, where his pants and shirt were still discolored from all the blood and pus that had spilled from the wound as I healed it.

"There you go, see, everything will be alright. We will bring back meat for everyone, and if we don't make it back, all you lost are some useless eaters, right?" Daniel said, laying it on a bit thick, even going so far as to put his arm around him and leading him towards the fence."

"Still think you should stay, but I guess if we don't get some fresh food around here soon, things are going to get ugly." Andrew grumbled, even as he helped open the fence for us.

Daniel ushered the rest of us out ahead of him, and kept talking to Andrew in a bid to keep him distracted.

"What about him, why isn't he in the militia?" Andrew demanded, as we moved past.

"Uh. You know. He has like a condition. Doctor's orders. You know how it is. Later Andrew." Daniel said, half shouting the last bit, as he hurried out the opening in the fence, before Andrew could change his mind.

-x-x-x-

"A condition? That's the best you could come up with?" I complained, when we had put the highschool behind us.

"Well, you do have that condition where you were about to kick his ass in front of everyone, which might have caused more trouble than it was worth. Besides, I didn't hear anyone else come up with anything. Not that I would have, over the noise of his stomach rumbling, once I mentioned the meat." Daniel said cheerfully.

"Yeah. Thanks for handling that man. I guess I was just so frustrated at how bad things are. Why are hardly anyone leveled up? Why aren't you?"

"I'm not even sure what that even means. I mean, I know what leveling is in games, and I know the System is supposed to make everything game like, but I don't think anyone really gets the practical side of it. The mayor doesn't want people discussing it, says its bad for morale. That everything will be back to normal soon, once the government fixes everything."

Daniel rolled his eyes at that last part, and gave me a 'what can you do about it' shrug.

"Besides, I did try to call up my character sheet, like that blue screen suggested. I think mine is broken. Just a bunch of nonsense."

"Like mine. John showed me it was because it was showing me my whole DNA and a record of every little thing I've ever done. You should let him fix it for you. I can try to untangle the girls' sheets while you do that." Amber interjected.

-x-x-x-

"So, you are saying that if I just punch stuff, I should do more damage than when I use an actual weapon?" Daniel asked incredulously, throwing another pebble into the nearby hedge. We had decided to take a break in someone's backyard, while Amber and I went over the nitty gritty details of character sheets and character classes. The tall wooden fence ensured we would have some privacy, and the snack bars Amber and I had produced from our backpacks ensured we had their full attention.

"Well... Yes. I think you got the monk class because the system your dedication to wrestling counted as a martial arts focus. Not because it thinks you look like Friar Tuck. So yes, I think it will be way more effective, if you just punch stuff. The bat is just some pre-System crap, so it might as well be cardboard from all the good it will do. Why don't you have whatever you selected as your starting weapon?"

"Shotgun." Daniel said with a shrug.

"Yeah, the whole unreliable ammo issue. The funny thing is, you might still have done better using it as a bat."

"Is it really that bad?"

"It is even worse, when you consider the armor you are wearing. Notice I was charitable enough to call it that. It slows you down, but as you might have noticed, it doesn't protect you nearly as much as you would think a steel plate would. Goblin spears can still poke through, maybe even the odd arrow?" I asked, glancing meaningfully at his Mad Max style improvised armor, the re-purposed street signs clearly worse for wear.

"I did think it was rather strange how often something got through, but it did stop some things, so I figured it was better than a t-shirt."

"In your case, ironically it might have been worse. As a monk, you are supposed to get some damage resistance and armor class naturally as you level, but you need to train it too. Wearing armor cancels that out. Unless it's meant for martial artists in the first place." I explained.

"How do you know all that stuff? I find it confusing as all hell, but you seem to get it, even if it isn't your class?" Daniel asked, looking longingly at the side pocket of my backpack, that he now knew held the snacks.

I rolled my eyes and emptied the pocket, passing everyone another snack.

"I read all the System messages and kept going deeper, but mostly I took it as a skill. Often when you level, the System offers you a skill based on what you have been doing, as well as something from your class, plus perhaps something completely random."

Daniel nodded.

"So, when I had been trying to read all the blue screens, I guess that is the reason I got offered System Knowledge when I leveled up the first time. I've not regretted picking that for one second, even if it does mean I have to read a lot whenever I have a spare moment." I explained, picking up the last chocolate bar, then when I noticed Daniel's puppy dog eyes following it, I broke it in half, handing him one section.

As we chewed the caramel goodness, I listened to Amber teaching the girls. She was perhaps showing off a bit, but she looked happy.

"But if I am a witch, shouldn't I be able to cast spells or something?" Carrie asked.

"I don't actually know, but I would guess so, at least you do seem to have one on your character sheet." Amber said, looking out into the empty space in front of her, a clear sign she was reading an invisible blue screen. Likely Carrie's character sheet.

"I am not a caster, though, so you might need to ask John how to actually do that. But you do have something called Witch Bolt listed under the spells section."

"I still don't see why I am a witch. I look nothing like one!" Carrie complained.

"Well, the System calls me a thief, so I figure it's all just pretty random. If not, how could it ever assign a caster class, it's not like anyone cast spells before." Carrie mused.

"At least you two got a useful classes, I'm just a fucking commoner!" Jenny cursed.

"Commoner! What the fuck kind of class is that? A fucking level one commoner! I am so fucked, its not even funny!" She continued.

"If you think you got it bad, remember I got kicked out of the highschool, because the System labeled me as a thief! But here I am, stronger for it. I even got the ability to change into a huge badger now! How cool is that?"

"Well, there was also the thing about you getting caught. Wait, what? You can turn into a badger? Can you show us?" Carrie asked.

Amber glanced at Daniel.

"Well, perhaps not right now. I have to get naked before I change."

"Yeah fuck that!" Jenny stated, glancing at Daniel.

"So she's your... Jenny?" I asked, turning my attention back to Daniel.

"We go back a while. She's the reason I made my way to the highschool. Came looking for her at the gas station where she works. Might not have gone otherwise. She's got my back, and I trust her completely!" Daniel stated, answering the question I didn't even realize I was asking.

I knew Daniel well enough that I felt I could trust him, but I only vaguely recalled Jenny from the highschool basketball team. Like most guys, I had paid far more attention to the girls beach volley team.

"Good. I was thinking, now that we got you outside the fence, perhaps we could get your classes on the right track, and maybe you would be interested in helping Amber and I explore this dungeon we discovered."

"A dungeon, huh?" Daniel asked, waggling his eyebrows.

"Not that kind. More like the dungeons in 'Dungeons and Dragons'. The kind with monsters and loot. And experience points to get you guys leveled up a bit, before we have to turn back."

"Doesn't sound safe. But what is, these days? Is that where we were headed, before you pulled us in here for a break? I mean, I doubt there are any deer in the middle of town."

"Heh, you noticed that, huh? Well done. No, actually I was planning on stopping by the town hall before we went anywhere else. With a bit of luck, the goblins are still recovering from their late-night activities. Even if there's a few scouts about, they won't bother a party this large."

"Sounds like they had a busy night?"

"Oh they got busy alright. With a few orcs, which is why I was thinking..."

"John, I talked with Carrie and Jenny, and we figured that we should swing by that dungeon I found, before we go pick up the deer. It's not like it is going to take us all day hauling the meat back to the highschool, we might as well get some more stuff done while we are out and about. I am sure if you ask Daniel, he wouldn't mind lending a hand..." Amber stated as she walked up purposefully. Carrie and Jenny were still sitting a few yards away, pretending to not watch the exchange. Jenny was fiddling with the slingshot that seemed to be her current weapon of choice, trying to make some sort of modification to it with a bit of thick wire she had found in the garage by the house, but both she and Carrie were watching Amber.

"The dungeon you found... Yes, that is certainly how that went down. As luck would have it, I was just talking to Daniel about it too. What do you say, Daniel, are you up for it?"

"What? All of us? I thought it would only be the two of us, isn't it a bit too dangerous to bring the girls?" Daniel replied, his face suddenly full of worry.

"Fuck you, Danny, if you think I am letting you put yourself in danger without me! I almost lost you once, and you only just recovered! If you are going, then so am I, and that's fucking final!" Jenny surged to her feet and joined the conversation rather explosively. Fortunately she remembered to keep her voice down enough that I guess it did not exactly count as shouting.

"I'm sorry Jenny, I didn't mean to almost get killed, it was an accident. Besides, you don't even have what John here calls a combat class, so I didn't think..."

"I know you didn't, but that's why God made you pretty, Danny. It is fucked up, but I don't fucking care what the System thinks, you and I both know I can fight! I am coming, and that's final!" Jenny stated, punctuating it by punching Daniel in the arm hard.

"I guess that means I am coming too then, if you are dead set on going." Daniel added sheepishly, rubbing his arm where she had punched him. I knew Daniel was pretty tough, so I figured he was acting it up a bit, so she wouldn't try to hit him even harder in the future. I didn't care much for how much she liked to swear, but I could tell she really liked Daniel, and I could easily understand how almost losing him to a stupid goblin arrow would have frayed her nerves.

"Well, you sure sound like a fighter to me, so it is a bit strange the System didn't grant you a combat class. What kind of fighting did you do before the System?" I asked, trying to get the conversation away from Daniel's recent brush with death.

"I was a part time firearms instructor out at the range. I was the best one there with the AR-15, but give me anything automatic and I'm your gal!" Jenny proclaimed, not swearing for once.

"Perhaps that's the reason the System decided to focus on what you did at your other job instead. Considering how much the System has screwed over firearms in general, giving you a class based on those might have been worse than giving you the Commoner class. At least that one is supposed to let you get access to a lot of cheap skills and let you level up doing them. Combat classes get very little experience from anything other than combat, which is why I refer to them as such."

"Fuck that! The way things are going, I need to be able to defend myself and Danny. I'm not going to be some helpless maiden, waiting for the goblins to finish killing everyone else. If I'm going down, I'm going down fighting, just like my dad taught me. Fuck."

Okay, I was starting to think that perhaps she was going out of her way to squeeze in an additional fuck or two. Not that I could blame her, I was too, but in a more literal sense. Maybe if I made sure to get her and Daniel some place reasonably safe and private for an hour or two, he could take her edge off a bit.

"Well, even if the System slapped you with a non-combat class, if you are going to join us for the dungeon, perhaps we can see about getting you a combat skill." I suggested.

"Don't you start, asshole, I got skills! Don't think I can't take you!" Jenny growled, stepping up menacingly, which was made awkward by me still sitting.

"System skills, not the ones you earned yourself. If we get you some sort of weapon skill with that slingshot of yours, perhaps it would be able to ring someone's bell, and not just go plink when you hit them." I said defensively, getting to my feet just so I could take a step back. While I was pretty sure she couldn't in fact, take me, I could tell she was not holding up nearly as well as she liked to pretend.

"And you can teach me how to use my slingshot better? I don't fucking think so!"

"I can't, but where we are going can. We are going to hit up the kiosk before we head to the dungeon."

"The kiosk? You need to get cigs and a pack of gum? Fuck that!"

"Ah, not that kind of kiosk, no. The System Kiosk. This one is a bit more sci-fi than what you are used to, but I guess it does have a lot of vending machines."

-x-x-x-

"Sci-fi. I don't think that word means what you think it means." Daniel stated dryly.

The trip to the town hall had been almost too unremarkable. I had expected at least one attempt by the goblins to intercept us, after having seen a couple of scouts on our way here. But after the last one caught a firebolt to the face when he peeked out from cover, they seemed to have just given up. I wasn't too worried about the goblins as such, but from the look of last night's events they would soon have orcs to back them up, and that might change things for the worse.

Then there was the complete lack of the minotaur. I would love to think he had somehow gotten himself killed, preferably after killing the asshole who had tried to sic him on Amber and I, but I doubted we were that lucky. I was adamantly refusing to say anything about it to the others, not wanting to jinx it. I was very happy that he wasn't here, when I had a bunch of level one newbies in tow.

Amber looked like she was about to say something, so before she could possibly jinx us, as she had in the past, I spoke up loud enough to drown out whatever she had been about to say.

"Yeah, no shit. This is not at all what it looked like the last time we were here. Then it was like something made from UFO parts, not this floating book library nonsense."

We stood at the entrance to what was the kiosk, inside the town hall.

The room that had once been the council chambers, and had been replaced by the very sci-fi silver and chrome terminals the last time Amber and I visited, had been once more replaced.

Now it looked like some sort of medieval fantasy castle library with huge vellum tomes floating this way and that as they flew from one shelf to another in some sort of elaborate dance of information.

Several lecterns now stood where the shiny terminals had last time we were here, a large open tome resting on each.

The lecterns were arranged around a large marble dais that was covered with what looked like all sorts of magical symbols around the edges and what I mentally labeled as a summoning circle in the middle.

Scattered about the room as if strewn at random, were candles of immense proportions. They were taller than any of us, and as large around as a tree trunk. They illuminated the chamber with their tall bluish white flames, which thankfully the books seemed to avoid.

"Arcane library. I think it is supposed to be an arcane library." Carrie supplied helpfully.

I gave her an incredulous look.

"What? I read. Or I used to, I doubt I will ever see my e-books again."

"I think I know why the System assigned you witch as a class. Any luck figuring out how to cast your spell yet? The way the System works, it might be something based on how you would expect it to work."

"No. I haven't managed it yet. I've tried random hand gestures and nonsense words while trying to will it to happen, like you suggested, but so far all I've managed is to make Amber worried I was having a stroke." Carrie sighed.

"Well, keep at it, it is only the first one that is hard, then it kinda falls into place. Maybe if we get you another spell or two, it will get easier. Something a bit easier to visualize."

"I don't know if it is a good idea to spend money on getting me any spells, when we don't know that I will ever be able to use them." Carrie countered.

I was not used to such selflessness, having spent a lot of time around Amber lately, so I found it rather refreshing. If anything, it made me more determined to help her.

"We WILL find a way to get you started. Try going over how the characters in your favorite stories use their magic, the System is supposedly basing all of this on various parts of our works of fiction, so it might be worth a shot." I suggested.

I stepped up to one of the lecterns and examined the open tome more carefully.

It was chained to the lectern with a brass chain, the thick parchment pages covered in symbols like those on the dais, and I had no clue what they meant. It was probably supposed to be some sort of spellbook, and I wondered briefly if I would be able to glean some new spells if I started to just copy the pages, but I dismissed the idea almost instantly, as I didn't have the time, even if I somehow had the means to decipher the writing later.

Fortunately, as soon as I started to wonder how to actually use it to interface with the kiosk, the page lit up and the writing changed, matching the interface from the last time we were here.

Whoever had designed it, had not put a lot of effort into making it user friendly. Everything was a mess of tables and lists that more than anything seemed designed to confuse and bewilder the user, than do anything actually helpful.

Only by calling up the search function, which as many things System related only appeared when willed to do so, did the interface become somewhat useful.

It meant that we were largely limited by our own imagination, like how pre-System your skills at googling stuff could only get you information on stuff you already knew enough about, to know how to ask the questions.

Since the last time we had visited the Kiosk, I had come up with a question I very much wanted answered. I was almost certain it should be possible, but even then it did take me a few minutes to find the actual menu for it. Ironically, it was far easier to find a menu that offered specific weather changes for a price, but finally I did find what I was looking for, and while it did hurt a little to spend money on something that wasn't strictly necessary, I did it anyway.

The dais lit up with a display of chaotic swirling patterns of pink, purple and green energies dancing and flashing around each other for several moments, until they vanished so quickly that the sudden contrast left me blinking at the afterimages they left.

Where the dais had been empty before, now rested five plates each with a piping hot steak dinner on it, complete with twice baked potatoes stuffed full of bacon and cheese, garlic bread, steamed vegetables, fried mushrooms, peppercorn sauce, on the side of each there was a nice salad with cottage cheese and olives, and finally, a large glass of wine for each.

Everyone had started to talk when the light show started. But when they saw the food, everyone fell silent.

"What are you waiting for? Let's get a decent meal for once!" I urged them.

We had to relocate our dinner to the foyer, as there were no actual chairs or tables in the kiosk itself, but that was easily done. Even though Amber and I had not been starving like the others, their enthusiasm at having some actually good food for once was contagious, and when everyone was finally done, I felt satiated and happy in a way I hadn't for a long time.

"That was delicious, John, and it is no complaint, but why didn't you get us any desserts while you were at it?" Amber asked, as she molded herself against my side in her post meal bliss.

"I considered it, I almost got us some strawberry shakes and ice cream, but then I thought to myself I'd rather have a larger steak, so I got that for all of us. I don't know about you, but I doubt I could cram down even a tic tac at this point."

"That's fair. You can always buy me ice cream the next time we go here." Amber purred.

"I'll do that, if you help me get everyone up to speed on how to use the kiosk. If you can find something for each of them to help them survive and be useful in the dungeon, see if you can find something they get discounts on, you know the drill." I muttered, my lips against the top of her head, as I enjoyed the post meal cuddle.

Daniel and Jenny had pretty much copied the idea, and were also leaning on each other as they enjoyed finally having a full belly once more.

Carrie had not seemed as eager to rest, instead going through the drawers and cabinets behind the reception desk, pocketing various items seemingly at random.

"Deal. But is it really a good idea to be spending money on Daniel and Jenny, when they are just going to go back to the townies, once we are done for today?" Amber asked, making sure her voice did not carry beyond my ears, as we had become accustomed to.

"Well, they are not back there yet. And even if they DO go back once all is said and done, I think it would be best if they had something to show for it. That should make it a lot easier persuading others in the future, don't you think?"

"I guess so, but I still think we should spend the majority on improving ourselves, you, me and Carrie."

"Of course, Amber, of course. How about we spend only about forty percent on Daniel and Jenny, then we can spend the majority on the three of us. Does that make you feel better?" I replied, planting a little kiss on Amber's head as I did.

"Yes, John. That sounds about right. I don't want to be a bitch about it, but I don't really know them, so giving them an equal share in our loot would just feel wrong."

There was a reason Amber had me do all her math homework back in highschool.

-x-x-x-

"There!" I said to no one in particular, as I finalized the purchase.

Arcs of glaring lights even more intense than the last time danced and flickered on the dais, every nuance of the rainbow seemed to fight for dominance, until as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone. Only their memory and the painful spots in my eyes remained.

Oh and the pile of items they left behind.

"What was that... oh what is THAT?" Amber asked, as she hurried over, the others right behind her.

I could tell Daniel was almost disappointed when he could tell at a glance it was not in fact, a strawberry milkshake with ice cream on the side.

"As it turns out, the System can give us more than just food, so I got us a few things I figured we need. Don't expect too much, it is really expensive to get anything enchanted, so it is just some basic stuff. But even that should be a nice upgrade." I said, as I started to pull the pile of items a bit closer.

"First, all of this is yours, Amber. A leather armor actually made to fit you. It should protect you a lot better than the goblin stuff, while not hindering you in any way."

From the look of her face, it might have been a diamond ring. Wearing the ill fitting goblin armor for a few days had made her appreciate how much better this would be.

"Next up, Daniel. This is apparently what a Shaolin monk would wear into combat. A reinforced robe, that while it looks a bit like a bulky long coat, should not only let you do all your flashy monk moves without hindering you, it should also protect you quite a bit. Probably more than that piece of garbage you are wearing. As you probably have figured out by now, wearing non-System armor is about as effective as cardboard. This length of wood is nothing other than what it seems. It is in fact a staff. A lot better than your dented old bat, and the shield was never going to be very useful anyway. I can show you a few basic moves, but I think once you get it going, your System skills might be superior to anything I can teach you. I wanted to get you something flashy like a katana, but those were really expensive, and I wasn't sure you could actually use those as a monk." I shrugged apologetically, as I handed him the pile of midnight blue fabric and the long oaken stick.

"Jenny. I wanted to get you a swear jar, but they were all out, so I got you something else you might have frequent use of. A repeating crossbow. It is no AR-15 for sure, but it should use a lot of the same skill set. Sadly bolts do take up a lot more space than your average 5.56, so I only got you 40 of those. It was really expensive, so try not to break it." I handed her the weapon, a rather intricate device of levers, cogs and springs in dark metal, that just screamed lethal weapon when you saw it. While it didn't say as much in the description, I felt certain it would add a significant bonus to any intimidation rolls, when she pointed it at someone.

Jenny took it, and immediately began checking it, like she might if I had handed her a loaded rifle.

"Carrie, since we don't really know how to get any value out of your class, I got you something that might be a temporary fix, but it is easy to use and can be useful in many ways. I present to you, the humble spear."

It really wasn't very humble, as far as spears go. It had a long wide head that made it useful for cutting as well as stabbing, though edge alignment would be a challenge for the casual wielder. At the base of the tip it had a set of steel wings to prevent a foe from impaling themselves to get at you, if they were determined enough. Thin strips of metal continued down the shaft about a foot or so, making sure it would be no trivial task to simply sever the shaft. Finally, on the other end, there was a metal cap that tapered to a blunt spike meant to make it easier to set the spear against a charge. The metal was some sort of almost charcoal gray alloy, that while lighter than ordinary steel, was every bit as strong. All told, the spear was about eight feet long. Not very long as far as spears go, but considering we were going inside a dungeon soon, I wanted her to have something that might be useful even at closer quarters.

"Also, I got you this hat. Maybe you just can't be a witch, without a proper witch's hat. I know you are not familiar with using a spear, but it is really easy to become fairly dangerous with one. Basically, just try to keep the pointed end between you and anyone you don't like, and you will be fine. With the extra points of strength you get from the oath you swore to me, you should be able to poke right through any goblins we meet, armor or not." I finished, as I put the wide brimmed witches hat on her head. It was made mostly out of black felt, with a leather band around the base, with a large silvery buckle. It did give off a bit of a halloween vibe, and I was almost surprised it didn't come with a pumpkin sticker on it.

"I am not sure how a hat is going to help me cast spells, so if I had not wanted one like it for years, I might have decided you were mocking me. What was that about my strength?" Carrie asked, as she put the hat on. It actually looked real nice on her. She would be one cute witch, once we got her geared up. She was already a gorgeous and incredibly sexy redhead that I could hardly wait to have again, but dressing her up like a sexy halloween witch would definitely add some spice.

If only I knew more about witchcraft in mythology or fiction, perhaps I could do more to help her. I guess I had been more about male protagonists, wanting to dream myself away to some fantasy world where magic was real. It was tempting to quote the old saying about being careful what you wish for, but I was not that much of a narcissist to think that whatever cosmic forces had aligned to force the System on us, had been swayed in any way by my idle fantasies.

"Oh, I thought Amber had explained it to you. I have a skill that lets me up your stats a bit, because you took that oath Amber suggested. Four additional stat points, or what you would get each time you level, that I decided to divide evenly between your strength and your dexterity for now, so you can handle the spear a lot easier. If I recall correctly, that puts your strength at fifteen and your dexterity at fourteen. Anything between nine and twelve is considered average, and the natural limit is supposed to be eighteen, but that was only true before the System. The boost lets you hit harder and move faster and more accurately. When you do figure out how to do your witchy stuff, we can always see about switching it up, but I for one like having some physical advantages, even if I am also a caster."

"Amber did mention you might up my stats, but frankly I didn't understand what she was talking about, I figured it was something to do with sex, and she was keeping some sort of tally. But that explains why my stuff felt lighter, I actually checked twice to see if I had dropped anything. " Carrie said, clearly not worrying too much about the two outsiders listening.

"Sorry about that, I should have made sure you knew. Getting your stats adjusted can feel quite weird. Anyway, here is a healing potion for everyone. Don't use them except in case of emergency. If we don't end up using them, I'd like them back when we are done. They were really expensive. That said, at level one it should bring you back all the way from the brink of death to the peak of health in a few moments. It is basically an extra life, or as close as we can come, so don't squander it!"

"I'll be taking the rest of the potions, everything else we just divvy up amongst us. It's the traditional odds and ends for your run of the mill dungeon run, so depending on how traditional that dungeon is going to be, it might turn out vital or completely useless."

Amber took a look at the pile, grabbing a sheathed knife from the pile for herself, even if she was already carrying a lot of goblin daggers on her person.

"You even spent money on rope? What's wrong with the nylon rope at the farm?" Amber asked.

"Well, first of all, it's at the farm, but it is also not System made, so I'd rather not trust our lives to rope that is set to be the lowest quality possible. Against any sort of System integrated damage, it would be about as resilient as cobwebs."

"So are we ready for that dungeon now, or do you have more detours in mind?" Amber asked.

"No. To both. I don't believe we CAN be ready, when we don't have any intel, but we had better go anyway. It is too juicy an opportunity to let it go without at least trying, and if it turns out to be too much for us, we will run away as fast as we can. So yeah, all our money is spent, we might as well go see about making some of it back."

-x-x-x-

"Is this supposed to be some sort of ambush?" Daniel asked me a bit louder than I would have liked. We had been working on teaching the newbies how to keep their voice from traveling while we made our way here, but clearly they still needed a bit of practice.

Not that there was much risk of the goblins hearing us, as they were still on the other side of a fence and a good hundred feet away. They were crouched low, hiding behind some large planters and a couple of trash containers. They really would have been very hard to spot, if they had been on the other side of said items.

"Yeah, I think so, but they are facing the wrong way. Clearly they did not expect someone to sneak in from the back." I replied low enough that Daniel was only barely able to hear me.

I lowered my head, and pulled Daniel down with me, not wanting the goblins to spot us by chance.

Gesturing for everyone to gather in close, looked at Jenny.

"Do you think you can put a bolt through the head of the one to the right? Maybe the one next to him if he is still up when you reload?" I asked her quietly.

She poked her head up over the fence real quick, then crouched back down next to me.

"Yes, I believe I can. But I would be more confident going for center mass. If you want me to hit both, that would be what I would recommend." She mused.

"No, go for the head. I want you to get used to going for head shots. Even if you miss once in a while, the critical hits are where it's really at! I don't expect to need you to get the second one, but like I said, go for it, if he is still around."

"So I take it not everyone gets their own goblin?" Jenny asked.

"Well, it's not like there is enough to go around. Amber, take the one on the left."

With that, I unsheathed my trusted arming sword, and with a hand on the fence, I leapt over the eight feet tall wooden fence with ease and hit the ground running.

No war cry, I did not want them to get more warning that absolutely necessary, but it took only a moment for them to hear my pounding feet bearing down on them.

Just as they started to turn, the one to the right jerked upright with a gurgle of pain, as a bolt was suddenly stuck in his back, just between the neck and the shoulder.

A dagger flashed past me, announcing that Amber had followed me over the fence, and struck the left most goblin right in the head, but sadly his crude helmet save him, both it and the dagger flew off at an angle, leaving him with a gash where the dagger had partially penetrated the helmet.

Her second dagger was right behind the first, and the poor little green warrior never even got to see who killed him, as the dagger struck him clean in the ear as he was turning. A critical hit at the very least, and as it turned out, a mortal blow.

Then I was on them.

Without slowing, I simply Sparta kicked the one in the middle sending him crashing head first into the planter he had been hiding in front of, making him drop limply to the ground. At the same time I twisted my torso and took full use of both momentum and my considerable strength, as I slashed low with both hands on the hilt of my sword, and cleaved right through the spear the goblin to my right was desperately trying to parry with. The blade cut through that as well as the leather armor he was wearing, then through his green gut, disemboweling him with a spray of green blood.

The momentum of the blow carried me to finally face the last unharmed goblin.

He was whirling around to face me, holding his shield and sword up by pure instinct, as his slow wits finally came to the conclusion that sticking around would be bad.

I could see the panic starting to widen his eyes, and the beginnings of a step towards retreat.

Then a bolt whizzed past me so close it would have nicked me, if I had twitched at the last second. While it did miss me, the goblin was not so lucky. With a wet smack, it embedded itself right in his right eye.

I was slightly annoyed that Jenny had taken that shot with me in the line of fire, but at the same time I was rather impressed she had been able to put it right through his eye like that.

It did leave the last goblin alive, if injured.

With the bolt in his back, he started to leg it, screaming his head off yelling something in his goblin language.

"Four!"

Out of nowhere, Daniel appeared, swinging his oaken staff like it was a very long baseball bat, striking the fleeing goblin with a blow hard enough to completely reverse his trajectory, as well as bash his little face in. If not for the fact that the goblin had already raised a ruckus with his yelling, I might have been a bit annoyed at Daniel yelling his warcry like that. Under the circumstances, I decided it was rather fitting.

"Jenny, loot the ones you shot, that way you get your bolts back. Just touch the body and think LOOT really hard, the System should do the rest. Whatever drops, grab all of it, we don't want to leave more signs of our little green friends than we have to!" I urged, even as I crouched down next to the one I had kicked.

I tried looting him, but when that failed to achieve anything, I discreetly ended him by twisting his neck sharply. While necessary, I doubted the newbies had yet grown so numb to killing, so I figured I might as well save them the anguish of even knowing I just killed a helpless goblin in cold blood.

Looting it without issue, now that it was actually dead, I got the usual low tier goblin junk. A couple of leather vambraces and a goblin sword. I figured the sword might do nicely as a sidearm to someone with a slender hand, so passed it to Carrie, when she caught up to the rest of us.

"Try not to get close enough to have to use that, but keep it just in case you do end up needing it."

"Will do, thanks John. Anything else you need me to do?" She looked a little shaken by the brief display of violence, her face a little green and her knuckles white on the shaft of the spear. I figured giving her an easy task might help focus her mind on something else and keep her from spiraling.

"Well, actually, try searching the bike shed over there for anything we can use to conceal the entrance. Maybe some tarp or spare plastic we can pile garbage up against, whatever you think could be useful. I'll get Amber to help me move some containers over there to make a wall around it, so we mostly just need something to make a roof of sorts. I don't want anyone or anything else wandering in, while we are there.

Amber's stealth skill was really starting to make a difference. I had not even caught a glimpse of her leaving, so I was a little confused when I looked around to ask her to lend me a hand, but fortunately she returned in short order, marching back in through the gate to the street as if she didn't have a care in the world.

"All quiet out there, no sign that anyone heard the loudmouth." Amber said with a shrug.

"Great! Now help me move these containers!"

She was not very eager to handle the stinking garbage containers, and I didn't blame her. They really were starting to get very ripe.

But then again, where we were going, we were likely to have to get used to the stench of decay, so getting an early start on numbing our sense of smell might actually end up being a benefit.

With Amber helping, it was not very hard to get the containers arranged as I wanted, both of our strength stats were high enough that we could pretty much just lift them into place.

Daniel and Jenny ended up assisting Carrie in scavenging the yard and the sheds for useful material that could be used as a sort of roof on which we could place more trash to round out the cover.

"You two make that look far too easy. Is that because of that extra strength Carrie mentioned?" Daniel asked me, as Amber and I had just lifted the final container into position.

"Some of it, most of it is just from levels." I shrugged.

Amber gave me a flat look.

"Stop underselling it. I get it, you don't like being in charge. Tough shit, everyone here is counting on you whether you like it or not, so you might as well own it. Yes, Daniel, if you swear a System oath to do what John tells you, which you're already doing anyway, he can buff your stats by quite a bit." Amber interjected, as she stepped up next to me, wiping her hands against her leggings.

Jenny stepped up next to Daniel, dropping a couple of rolls of large plastic bags she'd found somewhere, adding them to the pile of building materials, then put an arm around Daniel, clearly also wanting to hear what Amber was saying.

"Well, if that is all it takes, I don't see any harm in it." Daniel began.

Before he could continue, I raised my voice.

"Look, a System oath is not a small thing. The way the world works now, a System oath is quite unbreakable, so doing it just to get a bit stronger seems like a Faustian bargain." I explained.

"Not just a bit. I bet if Daniel got his strength topped up, he would be as strong as Dwayne Johnson. He is already a big guy, so add four more points to his strength, he should be right up there. You would like that, wouldn't you, Daniel?"

"Well, yes that does sound useful, and I am still not sure what the big deal is..."

"John is making it a big deal is all. Look, didn't your skill say something about a lower buff for more limited oaths? What if they swore to only obey inside the dungeon, then they could get the buff, and you won't have to worry about them once we are done?" Amber asked, rolling her eyes at me. She never had been one to consider that using others could be wrong.

Still, she might have a point.

"I guess that might work. I don't know how much of a buff it will give, but I guess we could find a way to word it, where it wouldn't be too bad..."

Daniel nodded, while Jenny looked a bit less enthusiastic.

"A limited time oath doesn't sound so bad. I don't think anyone else among us has a clue about what to do with that dungeon, so John was going to be in charge anyway." Daniel said, mostly to Jenny.

Jenny scowled at all of us for a few moments, then shook her head in resignation.

"Well fuck. John, you better not try anything funny, or I will fuck you up when it runs out!"

I did my best not to smile at her threat. With the difference in levels and stats between us, it was like a kitten hissing at a tiger. But laughing in her face would not do anything to lessen her misgivings about taking an oath to someone who was still very much a stranger to her.

Instead I did my very best to look scared, and waited a few moments to really let her scowl sink in.

"I wouldn't dream of it. If Amber wasn't doing her level best to shove the oath down your throats, I wouldn't even have brought it up." I reassured her solemnly.

"Fine!" She stated with an expression that let us all know that it was in fact anything but.

It took a few minutes to come up with the proper wording for an oath that everyone was happy with, but as soon as the words were spoken, I took a moment to check on my skill and what options were available.

I was happy to note that gaining new followers, even ones with a more limited oath, still counted to increase my skill. Having gone from two to four followers increased my skill to level three, and let me assign yet another point for each of my sworn companions, bringing it up to five. My own buff increased by two again, bringing me up to seven stat points total, making me a bit less unhappy Amber had pushed so hard to get it done.

Daniel and Jenny did not receive the full buff, as their oath was more limited. Instead of the five that Amber and Carrie got, they each got three points, which I guess was still a rather significant increase at their level.

My own points went into constitution. I had been in too many situations lately, where I had been too out of breath to properly curse my neglect of that particular stat. Before the System I would have faced weeks of hard work to fix that, now all I had to do was persuade people to swear an oath of fealty.

Amber went for a boost to dex, increasing it to an impressive nineteen, officially making it above the pre-System human limit. Carrie got her strength increased to sixteen, making her probably as strong as the thug Mitch that had been trying to abduct her when Amber intervened. I felt she should have picked dexterity, but I got why she wanted to be strong enough to handle bullies, even if I was determined that she wouldn't have to.

Daniel asked to have all of his points added to strength, while Jenny wanted two in dexterity and one in constitution. I wanted to put all three into dexterity to let her better aim her crossbow, but she explained that not getting winded as easily would probably do more for her aim, and in the end, I felt it was her choice to make.

More importantly, even if less visible in its effect here and now, the increase in experience gained for me and my oathsworn allies when we were in a group together, was now increased to seven percent. My hopes of being able to eventually outscale the apocalypse were higher than ever, and I briefly dared dream what it would be like to be able to take a day off at some point.

-x-x-x-

The basement door still required a firm hand to move, as the hinges were not really doing much more than keeping the door from toppling to the ground at this point.

Lifting and shoving the heavy steel door to move it out of the way, let out a waft of putrid air, thick and cloying with rot and fungus that made you want to just stop breathing.

Even Daniel who was halfway up the stairs to put a few finishing touches on the concealment we had placed around the stairwell was gagging at the stench.

I had been holding my breath, but even then enough of it found its way into my nostrils, that my eyes were still watering. Too late I realized I should have gotten something from the Kiosk for the smell, but that was too late now.

At least I got something for the darkness.

With a small effort of will, I pushed mana into my hand, as I focused on the idea of casting my newest cantrip.

The system took control briefly, and I found myself uttering a strange string of syllables and flicking my wrist, sending a spinning globule of glowing mist into the air.

It quickly condensed into a floating bubble-like globe that, while not very bright, shed a lot more light than the ectoplasm vials had. With a flicker of my will, I made the light go from a bluish white down to more of an orange glow, as it slowly floated up and hovered a few inches from the ceiling.

The light allowed us to finally see more than vague shapes in the dark basement, and what a sight it was.

The piles of garbage spilling from an open hatch to the building's garbage chute system were no surprise, nor the cloud of flies and writhing maggots that seemed to react to the light.

What was more surprising was how on the far side, where there should have been a door leading to the tenants storage units, the whole wall had been replaced by flagstones with a rough hewn wooden door set in it. A large brass ring seemed to make up for the lack of an actual knob.

Even more than that, was the actual dead bodies piled up in that part half of the room. No wonder it smelled like death in here.

A dozen rotting corpses dressed in rags lay unmoving, all seemingly having fallen as they tried to get away from the door that was no doubt the entrance to the dungeon.

At first glance my butthole clenched as my mind jumped to the conclusion that the dungeon had expelled its prior victims, like an owl would regurgitate the indigestible bits of the rodents it ate.

But too many things did not fit.

Why would a death dungeon, whatever that meant, expel dead bodies? Wouldn't it be more likely to use them as a resource, maybe animate them or something?

The next thing was the rags. They did not look like they had ever been modern clothing, and even if they had been, there was no way they would have decayed nearly as much in the fairly short time since the System came online.

"Stay back, this might be a trap!" I urged, somewhat needlessly. Everyone was still too busy gagging on the stench, to have stepped forward.

With my warning, Amber did take a step forward, holding her nose closed with her left hand, as she flung a dagger with her right.

Thunk!

Right in the skull of one of the dead bodies.

Except for the momentum imparted by the dagger, it did not twitch or react in the slightest.

Thunk!

Another skull suddenly sprouted a dagger, as Amber flicked another one. She really was getting scarily accurate with those. Her class bonus and her dex stacking up nicely, no doubt.

"I think they are dead." Amber stated nasally.

"Well, you have certainly convinced me. But then why are they there?" I mused.

"Maybe they were dying to get in?" Daniel suggested.

"I know I am." He continued.

"Alright, I can take a hint. Amber, would you please check the door for traps. I very much doubt there are any, but we might as well start things off on the right foot." I sighed, rolling my eyes at Daniel's attempt at humor.

I did find it quite funny, but that was probably mostly because I was starved for any kind of entertainment that was not in the form of having to kill stuff to stay alive.

Speaking of entertainment, once Amber had tiptoed past the corpses, retrieving her daggers on her way past, the way she crouched down to check for traps really put her but on display in the nicest way.

From the naughty wink she gave me when she glanced over her shoulder, I knew it was not by accident.

Sadly, it was not very likely I would find a way to suitably punish her for teasing me, before the whole dungeon run was over and done.

"No traps, captain!" Amber announced, as she twirled around to face me, and gave me her best approximation of a salute.

"Ah, no, we are not doing that. But thanks."

As Amber stepped aside, and everyone else was looking at me, I figured we had already settled who would be going in first.

I held my breath for a moment, as I pulled the ring. Then twisted this way or that. Glaring at it for a second as if that would help.

Then I pushed it.

It took a little effort, until it started moving, then it swung open the rest of the way quite effortlessly. I had expected a long groaning creak, but there was none.

"No hinges. Took me a while to notice I couldn't see the hinges. Figured the ring meant it pulled open, but nope..." I muttered by way of explanation, as I urged the light to move inside.

Past the open door was a large chamber with dozens of hewn stone pillars holding up a high vaulted ceiling. A stone lectern held a large open book and what appeared like a human skull with a small flickering candle on top. On the far side, an opening in the wall had been made to look like a big skull, where you would have to walk through its gaping maw to proceed in that direction.

All in all it would have fit in well inside a fantasy castle, but clearly would never have fit inside the actual building we were in, without some serious reconstruction that should have been apparent from the outside.

That alone answered one of many questions I had about this.

"Ooookay, it seems that when we step beyond the door, we are truly no longer in Kansas!" I said, sending my light through the door.

Or rather, I tried to.

At the very instant the light tried to cross the threshold, I got a blue screen popping up in front of me, and the world seemed to freeze.

'You are entering the dungeon of Castle Argh. Do you wish to enter as a party or as an individual?'

Funny how there was no option to just cancel. We had always intended to enter as a group, so I selected the party option, and felt the world lurch, like a ship in the moment in touches the quay.

Then we all stood inside a few feet in front of the book on the lectern. As if by an unseen wind, it flipped open to a page marked by a long black silk ribbon.

"Holy... what was that?" Daniel blurted out, while Jenny was busy swearing up a storm.

I felt proud that Amber and I both reacted by drawing our weapons and scanning for danger, and noted that Carrie seemed to quickly take her cue from either of us. She was clutching her spear more like she needed it for moral support, but at least she was facing outwards, in case an ambush would appear from behind the columns.

"I think we got pulled into a dungeon instance." I mused, taking a step toward the book.

"Instant? Yeah, I'd say. One second we were out there looking in, the next we were all in here." Daniel said, finally taking a clue from Amber and Carrie, as he brandished his new staff in more of a ready stance, and started to look around as if ready for trouble.

"Yeah, the blue screen prompt I got didn't give me any time to warn you guys. Sorry about that. But, no, I said it is an instance, like in a MMO. I don't think there is any danger in here, by the way, but good looking out everyone. Since we all got zapped in here, I think it is supposed to be fairly safe. Trouble probably only starts past the cheesy skull over there."

"Could've fucking warned us. So what's with the book?" Jenny asked, as she stepped up next to me.

Either she had not heard a word I said, or she felt bad she had not reacted as productively to the potentially dangerous situation as well as the rest. I didn't blame her, being an ace on the firing range probably did little to prepare you for a world where magic could teleport you and goblins were lurking everywhere to kill you. Well, I guess there were probably no goblins in here. Maybe a few goblin zombies or something.

"Not sure. Let's have a look and find out, shall we?"

The flickering candle on the skull by the book did not really help much with regards to providing sufficient light to ready by. The flame was sputtering and flickering and sent out a constant stream of acrid smoke. If this was a place held to the same standards as the real world used to be, then someone would have to come along soon with a fresh candle, but I felt certain this candle would be unfazed by such concerns, and just keep on sputtering on its last legs for as long as we remained here.

Bringing my own light over, what had appeared in the dim candlelight to be just a jumble of random letters turned out to be a jumble of random letters.

Not mystic sigils and runes of magical importance and power.

Just ordinary letters arranged as if in words, but completely without making any sense. The letters themselves started out very neat, but became more and more sloppy, until the last lines on page two were almost unreadable.

At the bottom of the second page, there were just two words, with the last letter smeared as if the one writing it had just pulled the pen all the way off of the page without lifting it.

I could almost feel the gears in my head turning. There was something to this. A message of some sort.

Flipping through the rest of the pages revealed nothing, as they were all blank.

"Whatever this is, I think it's the dungeon trying to tell us something." I mused.

"If so, it's fucking bad at it!" Jenny supplied helpfully.

"Well, the attempt alone says a lot, really."

"Like what?"

"That it is trying to communicate." I smiled at Jenny, who did not seem very impressed by my logic.

I nodded at Amber who gave me a thumbs up, as she finished checking for enemies behind the pillars. At least, that is what I assumed she had been doing. She had started to take a lot more initiative, after we had more people join us, and I liked it.

I walked up to the skull gate, which looked close enough to being a complete Castle Grayskull rip-off that I was amazed that the dungeon had not already been invaded by an army of lawyers.

Pausing to gather my thoughts, I then raised my voice and spoke loudly in the direction of the skull gate.

"Hey Dungeon. I am starting to suspect you are just a regular guy like us, turned into a dungeon by the System. With all the other fiction it is mashing together, it almost had to also try out some dungeon core stuff, right? Anyway, I know your job probably is to try to kill us, or at least set us up so we get ourselves killed. But I think you might want to take it as easy on us as you can."

I paused for a second, holding up my hand to indicate that I was not done, as the others looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"I figured this might be the case, and if the System has copied the whole dungeon core concept from fiction, I am guessing you need people to come here, to satisfy your hunger.

Well, bad news is, we covered up the entrance when we came in here, so it might be a while before you have any new visitors, if we don't leave here. Of course you might be able to change what it looks like on the outside, but I am guessing that if you could, you would have already.

Now, it is not all bad news. We want to play nice too. There are plenty of goblins wandering around town, so if you do need some death to fuel you, we could make sure to bring you a snack next time. Also, if you need stuff to copy for loot, we would be more than happy to help you out there too.

I realize that if I am not really just talking to myself, you probably have some limitations to communicating with us. I think I get what you are trying to do with the book, and I am going to try and look into it later."

I waited for a few moments, holding my breath as if the dungeon would answer me.

"The fuck was that about?" Jenny asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"The dungeon. I think it might be sentient. A person even. The Castle Argh reference. I think the System decided someone's class was Dungeon Core and put them in here to run things. Which could be real bad, if they just wanted to kill and eat us. But the book shows it wanted to communicate, even if it came out garbled."

"That sounds insane, John. Why would the System do something like that?" Amber said, giving me a strange look.

"Yes. All of this is entirely insane, but that's our world now. Who or whatever is controlling the System seems to find it amusing to have us live through a mash-up of our fantasy and fiction. I guess we should count ourselves lucky we weren't chosen to go to play vampires in their Twilight universe." I said, shivering visibly for extra effect.

Amber rewarded me with a short laugh.

"I guess you are right. As much as I liked going to high school, I'd rather not have to live that life for centuries. How did Edward stand it without literally killing himself? Nah, I'd rather keep on killing goblins for a living." Amber chuckled.

As she spoke, two faintly glowing red sparks appeared from the darkness of the corridor beyond the skull gate.

Then from the darkness came a single humanoid skeleton, one staggering step after another.

It was wielding what looked to be the femur of a less fortunate companion, but other than that it did not have any visible equipment.

When it appeared, everyone fell silent, and as if by some unspoken agreement, everyone stepped up next to me, waiting, as if for my command.

"Wait for it." I said, noticing how everyone seemed a bit nervous. Even Amber who had seen plenty of fights already, was a bit unnerved by the dead guy shambling our direction.

As the dead guy came near us, he stopped for a moment, clacking his jaw loudly, before he set into motion.

It ran straight at me, lifting its bone club menacingly.

"Daniel, try giving it a good kick." I suggested.

"Uh, sure thing, Boss."

"Not doing the boss thing!" I growled as he rushed forward to meet the lone skeleton.

With a swing of his staff more born of enthusiasm than skill, Daniel swatted the club out of the way, and followed the momentum with a high kick straight against the side of the skull.

With a loud crack of impact, Daniel kicked the skull right off of its bony shoulders, causing the rest of the skeleton to fall apart with a rattle and clatter of bones as they struck the flagstone floor.

For a long moment, we held our collective breath.

"Umm.. What was that? That seemed almost too easy." Daniel said, as he backed away from the mess of bones on the floor.

"Which part, the high kick, or killing that skeleton?" I asked, even though I knew which he meant.

"Both actually. I didn't think I could kick that high. Or that hard. I am pretty sure I split the skull into several pieces when I hit it."

"Yeah, that's what happens when you start using your class abilities, instead of trying to go against them. But I think this guy was a message. I think our host heard me, and wants to play nice. As much as he can, that is, so don't get complacent and lower your guard."

"No chance of that happening, I don't want any of those icky dead touching me. That is just too gross!" Amber stated, gingerly prodding a random rib on the floor with her foot.

"Even with the dungeon playing as nice as it can, I doubt you will get that wish." I sighed, and started to move through the gate, looting the fallen skeleton as I passed.

A handful of molars. Of all the loot I had gotten so far, this was the worst.

"Wait up! I just need to do something real quick!" I said, digging out a couple of coins from my pocket. One copper and one silver. I flung them down the corridor, watching them disappear in the darkness.

"Hey, why are you throwing away our money like that?" Amber complained.

"Call it an investment in better loot. I didn't want to have to track down the tooth fairy once we were done here, so I figured maybe the dungeon needed a few coins as a template for better loot. If the dungeon hasn't absorbed them when we pass, no harm done. If they are gone, perhaps we can see about dropping a few other items to give it more materials to play with."

"If that is the case, why not start by feeding it some of the goblin junk we looted outside? Instead you are literally throwing away money..." Amber shook her head.

"It was only a silver and a copper coin, sheesh. But good idea, let's drop the goblin stuff we don't need. We can always get more, not to mention we still have a pile of it at home." I agreed.

"Only silver, because we spent the last of the gold. Otherwise you'd have thrown gold at it too, I just know it!"

I just shook my head and kept walking. I probably would have.

The corridor was suitably damp flagstones with large moldy patches that definitely fit the theme of being a long abandoned dungeon complex deep below a ruined fortress above, and seemed to be exactly ten feet wide and exactly ten feet tall.

With such strict adherence to the ancient Gygax protocols, I almost regretted not bringing a ten foot pole.

More importantly, as we cautiously made our way forward, I did not see any sign of my coins, even well past where they could possibly have rolled on the uneven floor.

I might have missed them on the increasingly more uneven floor, but I was more convinced that the dungeon had absorbed them.

"Alright, it does look like the dungeon absorbs stuff that leaves our possession, so don't drop anything you want to keep. Amber, I like your idea about the goblin stuff, but let's hold off for now. I think we will drop all the stuff we don't want to keep right before we leave the dungeon, give it a parting gift. Then next time we visit, we can look into bringing it even better stuff to play with."

There, hopefully that would give the dungeon another reason to play nice with us. Carrot and stick. If we did not leave here, it might never have another group enter, before it starved, if the System had copied that detail from our fiction as well. On the other hand, if we did leave, we would not only come back, but bring presents.

It was not long until we reached another chamber, but far enough that it was once again made clear that this whole dungeon could never fit inside the building we had entered from.

The chamber ahead was very dimly lit with a faint bluish glow, but compared to my little orb of light that merrily bobbed this way and that on an unfelt breeze ahead of us, shed far more light.

As we entered the room cautiously, I noted that the light came from patches of bioluminescent patches of fungus on the walls and ceiling. The wall was much longer than it was wide, easily a hundred feet long, as well as tall. The room was divided in two by a moat of some sort, with a narrow bridge across. On either side of the room, twenty feet up, there was a ledge that seemed to be accessible via stairs on the far end, right by the exit that we probably needed to get to. On the far side of the moat, there were a couple of sections of what looked like crumbling walls that had failed the test of time, even if none of this was here a couple of weeks ago.

Of more immediate concern was the pack of undead on the far side of the stone bridge.

It was a mix of skeletons and zombies, about ten of each. For now they were just standing there, watching us.

"So, what's the plan?" Amber muttered, as everyone came up next to me, watching the small army waiting for us on the other side.

"It does look like quite a lot for us to handle." Daniel added.

"Well, just be grateful that they were not waiting in ambush until one of us was across the bridge. If, say the zombies were hidden behind those walls, where there still might be more, mind you, and if perhaps the skeletons were waiting up on those ledges to fling stuff at us."

The others looked at me, then at the undead squad on the other side.

"Fuck, dude, are you saying there are more up there?" Jenny piped in, the crossbow stock tight against her shoulder, as she scanned for unseen targets.

"No. I am saying I think that what we see is what we get. This could have been much much worse. It is not going to be a straight up walk in the park, but it could have been real bad. Especially for you level ones, getting peppered from above while trying to traverse a bridge that is what, two, two and a half feet wide." I mused.

"Yeah, the railing being about a foot high doesn't really help, if anything it is more of a tripping hazard." Daniel added.

Carrie was being rather quiet, so I looked at her to see if she had anything to add, and found to my surprise that she seemed to be whittling what appeared to have started out as an ordinary drumstick, but was now being turned into whatever it was Carrie was trying to make. A stake in case we ran into vampires, perhaps? Not a bad notion, considering this was a death dungeon.

I had of course made a few preparations of my own, but going into staking range of a vampire was not on my to do list. Maybe on my bucket list. At the very end of it.

"I think we should see if we can persuade them to come to us, rather than the other way around. Jenny, can you see if you can put a bolt in a zombie eye from this range? Everyone else, get ready in case they try to rush us."

As I gave out instructions, I moved to stand directly in front of the bridge, sword in hand.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you too! And you!" Jenny narrated, as she fired one bolt after another, working the lever on her crossbow with what was starting to look like well practiced ease. I guess some of her firearms training really did carry over.

Her first shot was a beauty! The zombie took it right in the eye as I had suggested, and true to the movie tropes, with anything poking into its brain, it collapsed as dead as it looked.

The next few shots were sadly not quite as effective, and by the fifth shot Jenny slowed down to aim more carefully, trying to finish off the ones she had only injured with the first shots.

"Easy, we just want you to motivate them to get over here, it's not like you have unlimited ammo... welp, there went two bolts we won't be seeing again." As I spoke a zombie tumbled over the edge into the mist filled abyss, two bolts stuck in its skull. Despite how it had looked with the first shot, a crossbow was definitely not anywhere near as perfect an anti-zombie weapon as a shotgun.

Jenny spared a moment to shoot me a dirty look.

"Let's see you do a better job then!"

At least she didn't curse for once, so I figured that deserved a little reward.

"Alright." I replied, taking a step forward, left arm out in front.

"Fuego!" I proclaimed, as I forced mana into the shape of a firebolt spell. I was taking a perverse delight in twisting my spells further and further from being cast the way the System wanted it, figuring I might eventually be able to cast them by force of will alone. For now I still had to say something, as well as make the flinging gesture that sent the three flaming projectiles arcing towards my intended targets.

The first struck the skeleton that stood right in front of the bridge on the opposite side right in the rib cage, the second struck a zombie low on the torso, the third shot went even lower and struck a second zombie on his thigh.

Not quite how I had envisioned them landing, but at that distance the fire bolt spell was not the most accurate.

Living targets would usually react quite dramatically to suddenly having a magical flame pierce into them, burning them, but the undead just stood there, mostly. The one hit in the leg staggered sideways into one of his buddies, almost taking them both down in a pile.

"No headshots, I guess the crossbow is better after all, huh?" Jenny gloated.

"Give it a moment." I said, pointing towards the other side.

The zombies I had hit were starting to catch on fire. Without the instincts of a living creature to extinguish themselves, and probably with a much lower moisture to fat ratio, plus the old rags they were wearing, they were lighting up nicely.

More surprising to me, was the way the skeleton suddenly lit up like the flames had found his secret paraffin stash, the flames engulfing the skull in a way that made me think he ought to have a Harley somewhere nearby.

The next moment he collapsed with a rattle, embers flying everywhere.

The blazing zombies managed to spread the fire among themselves, and for a moment I could imagine it spreading uncontrollably.

That is, the moment before all the burning zombies suddenly walked off the edge, letting themselves fall into the abyss.

Four more zombies gone.

Two zombies and nine skeletons left.

The two zombies jerked into motion, stepping onto the bridge and walking towards us, one right after the other.

The skeletons on the other side picked up rocks and seemed to ready themselves for action.

I got the distinct feeling something or someone had taken more direct control over them.

Fair enough, I had asked for the dungeon to play nice, not to roll over and play dead.

I took a couple of steps back.

"Carrie, Daniel. You have long weapons, see if you can keep them from stepping off the bridge on our side. Maybe send them over the side. Amber, Jenny, killshots only. If they die on the bridge, they will likely fall over the side, taking your ammo with them, so don't waste any."

"You got it, Boss!" Daniel agreed, and stepped forward, staff held like a slugger with an oversized bat. We were definitely going to have to practice proper staff forms, when we got an opportunity.

"Yeah, no, we are not going to be doing that. Nope." I said, trying once again to stop the idea of calling me 'Boss' from spreading.

"Aye aye Boss!" Carrie agreed with fake cheer, as she put aside her whittling project and moved forward with her spear.

I stayed close, ready to intervene, but I wanted to give them a chance to build up some confidence and some experience points, in what I felt was a fairly safe situation.

When the zombies were about half way across, the skeletons started to hurl rocks in our general direction. They were not exactly master marksmen, nor was their weapon of choice particularly dangerous. If they had been up on the ledges, and with us trying to cross the bridge, I would not have liked it one bit. A single hit at the wrong time could send someone to their death down below, assuming the moat was deep enough. It was conveniently filled with mist, so there was no way to tell really, except that I could not spot the flames from the burning zombies anywhere down there.

I heard someone curse from being struck with an errant rock, but that seemed to be the worst of it.

As the zombies came into range, Carrie took the opportunity and lunged at the leader. The zombie tried to ward off the stab by flailing its arm ineffectively, but the spear was lodged in its sternum before it even made contact with the shaft.

It did not seem too bothered by it, no surprise. Grabbing the spear with one hand, it seemed to try to just hold it in place, as it pushed forward. One inexorable step after another, it pushed Carrie backwards, until suddenly Daniel made his move.

"Four!" He yelled, as he stepped forward and swung his staff with all of his now System enhanced strength.

The oak collided with the zombie, flailing arm bashed aside before wood met skull.

A loud smack that should translate into broken bones, wood or both.

The zombie staggered slightly, until Carrie used the leverage gained from two hands on the spear to guide it against the low railing. From there gravity and Newton ganged up on the zombie, and it fell over the side.

Only by jerking on her spear at the last second, did Carrie manage to free it from the grasp of the plummeting dead guy.

I noticed Amber had also been ready to pounce on Carrie, in case the zombie tried to pull her with it.

With one zombie out of the way, Daniel moved forward and nailed the next with the backswing, staggering it, but sadly not sending it over the side.

Step after step, swing after swing, he forced it back, until its arms hung limply from its shoulders, the bones too pulverized for even necromancy to move.

The way it stood there, staggered but refusing to fall, I all but expected it to loudly shout 'Adrienne!' as it made a sudden and unexpected come-back.

Before it had a chance to, Daniel whacked it across the face hard enough to send it sprawling to the ground, unmoving at last.

During the brief fight, he had made it more than halfway across the bridge, as he forced the zombie back one staggering step after another. With the zombie now crumbled to a heap at his feet, he was now suddenly exposed to being pelted by the skeletons.

As one, they stopped their scattered and ineffectual throws at the rest of us, and instead focused their efforts on Daniel who was less than thirty feet from them at his point.

Even with their low accuracy, they managed to hit him more often than not. While not individually too bothersome, Daniel clearly found them painful in aggregate. Covering his head with his arms, he did the only thing he could think of at the time, and charged straight ahead to get off of the bridge.

Cursing loudly, I sprinted forward to join him, before the skeletons could overwhelm him.

Nine skeletons, even unarmed as they were, would be far too much for one man to handle. Eight skeletons, as a bolt found an eye. Eight turned to seven as a fusillade of daggers knocked first the jaw, then the skull of another.

"Fuego!" I yelled, not quite able to stop myself from showing off a little, even under the serious circumstances. A trio of flaming bolts, hastily aimed, flew across the short remaining distance as I ran across the bridge, leaping over the fallen zombie. One bolt flew right between two skeletons, off to hit the far wall. The next bolt hit the torso of one that was about to jump on Daniels back, the third blew the head clean off of the one that was trying to get in my way.

Daniel was trying to kick one, while another had grabbed his staff. A third was on his back, punching and clawing at him.

I shoulder checked another skeleton that was trying to join them, sending it rattling into the last one.

Not wanting to risk hurting Daniel, I grabbed the one on his back by its spine, and jerked it away with all my might.

It did not quite go as planned. Rather than pull it off of Daniel, I pulled out several vertebrae, leaving most of it in place as the most Halloween backpack ever. At least it seemed inert.

Before any of the others could join us on our side of the bridge, the fight was over, with the momentum in our favour, as well as actual weapons in our hands, the remaining skeletons fell in seconds.

"Holy shit Daniel, you were supposed to let them come to us, not chase him all the way to the other side. Are you okay?" I asked. Daniel looked winded and beat up, like a pinata dangling on a frayed cord. His hands, face and neck had a number of lacerations, some bleeding freely. It was either luck or the strange influence of the System that had prevented an artery from being nicked. Either because his hit points had been too high to allow serious injury, or because skeletal hands were considered too blunt to allow for bleeding status effects.

"I might have gotten carried away a bit. I was trying to do that short form thing you mentioned earlier with my staff, and I think it worked!" Daniel huffed, bent over trying to catch his breath. One hand was gingerly probing a gash on his cheek where a skeleton had clawed him.

"Next time, go for the noggin. Zombies can take a beating anywhere else, but beat the skull in, and they are done. You could've taken that last one out a dozen times in the time it took you to cross the bridge. Were you perhaps showing off a bit to Jenny?" I asked, lowering my voice towards the end.

"I guess I might have. A little bit. Also, you have no idea how frustrating it has been to help guard against the goblins. We can't really fight back when they are outside the fence firing arrows at us. We just try not to eat too many arrows, until one of our archers can return fire and scare them off. Or if they are attacking in several places, and no archer is available, we have to try and rush them. Then they just scatter before we can get them. Fighting something that didn't run felt so good, that I kinda forgot about the skeletons, until they were on me." Daniel replied.

He kept probing himself for damage, wincing whenever he found another sore spot.

"I don't think you have to worry about impressing Jenny, the way she looks at you, you would think you were already married. Anyway, how bad are you? What's your hit points like?"

"Yeah, she's got no one else left. Her dad got taken by the system, her mom died to goblins who got inside the fence, before we had it properly secured and manned. I held her while she pretended not to cry. I knew her a bit before. But now, I'd say we are close. Or getting there. So was the fight, according to my hit points. Don't have many left."

"Amber! Would you mind keeping an eye on the door, while I have the others bandage Daniel?" I called out.

"Sure, John. But won't it be faster if you just do it?" Amber replied, already moving towards the exit, readying a couple of daggers.

"I don't think we are in a hurry. If this place lives up to the tropes, there shouldn't be any wandering monsters coming our way. So I figured we might as well get the newbies patching up Daniel's wounds, before I heal them, so they can earn some points towards the first aid skill."

-x-x-x-

"You have to be kidding me! Is this some sort of Candid Camera American Ninja Warriors shit?" Daniel asked no one in particular.

"Fuck!" Jenny added.

"For once I agree with Jenny." Carrie piped in.

"Yeah, fuck this shit, tell me there is another way we can go?" Amber said, as she peered over the nearby edge.

We had been in high spirits after our short rest. I'd spent some mana to take care of Daniel's wounds, after Carrie and Jenny had both tried their best to patch him up with bandages. We had brought plenty, so there was no harm in wasting a few.

With that out of the way, I meditated a bit to replenish my mana, while Amber helped Daniel figure out how to finally level up. The fight had been just what he needed to get that crucial first level, effectively more than doubling his hit points, when he decided to invest a couple of points into constitution right off the bat. The rest went into dexterity, because he felt he needed to be a bit more flexible to really manage to land those high kicks.

I might have suggested strength, since the boost from the oath would not be permanent, but I was busy meditating at the time.

The high spirits lowered quite significantly, when we reached this chamber, and saw that most of the space that should have had a floor, instead held another mist filled void.

Tiny islands of flagstone floor rose from the mists like isolated pillars.

To get from one to another, you would have to decide for ourselves, which sort of agility display you felt like.

Twisting balance beams that got very narrow towards the end. What seemed like logs that would roll and shift when you stepped on them. A series of ropes dangling from the ceiling, where you would have to try and swing from one to the next. One route had steeply slanted blocks opposing each other, where I suppose you were meant to try and bounce from one side to the other, zigzagging to avoid falling into the mists. Then there was the section where you would have to follow a rather long route climbing some rope webbing up near the ceiling - a simple enough task from the look of it, but I suspected it would kill your grip strength, and then you, once you could no longer hold on.

There was no clear route, no singular path you were obviously supposed to take, which to me was the most demoralizing part. We were being forced to pick our poison, and none of it looked all that tasty.

"So what's the plan, John? You do have one, right?" Amber asked.

I gave her a flat look.

"You are not going to like it." I said.

-x-x-x-

The hunger pangs were not nearly as bad. Ever since their leader, John, had cast a few spells, I felt a lot better.

It was like that creature, my 'dungeon fairy' had said. I needed visitors to sate my hunger.

I had tried sending out minions to look for someone to lure inside, but I lost control of them almost as soon as they left.

Whatever happened to them, they failed in getting me any visitors. Losing them hurt me, made me hungrier, so I never tried that again.

But now I had visitors, at long last. Almost as soon as they stepped inside, I could feel my hunger easing.

Killing them, the creature had said, would be the best. Help me grow, feed me for a longer time.

But just having them here helped. The mana flowing through them gave me a little sustenance. More when they actively spent some.

It was so frustrating not being able to talk to them. The creature had said it was for my own good. That I shouldn't get to know my food. It really is a bloodthirsty little thing. I guess it is no surprise, seeing as it was spawned by the System, so of course it wants me to just do what the System demands.

Even if the System had turned me into a thing of death, a dungeon meant to kill and devour the unwary, luring them with promises of experience points and loot, I refused to let it rob me entirely of my humanity.

Besides, if the System just wanted a merciless killer, it could just have put Creature in charge. Yeah, it was petty of me, but I refused to call it by its name. If it wanted a name, it would have to behave more civilized.

Oh how it had raged when John told us how he had hidden our entrance. That if we killed all of them, it would be our last visitors. Creature did not like that at all.

It didn't object too much, when I had the skeletons leave their posts at the shooting gallery, as I liked to call it, and join the zombies by the bridge.

But when I tried to keep the skeletons from killing that large guy, Daniel, the one with the stick and the dark blue coat, it had seized control!

It tried to make all the skeletons focus on him and drive him into the pit, it wanted him dead!

I didn't know it could do that.

It claimed control by authority of the System, it said. Because I was not trying hard enough to do my duty.

I think it is lying, it was probably just because I was so weak from hunger. I don't think it is supposed to be able to take control when I am conscious, otherwise what would be the point?

It said we were supposed to be friends, back when I woke up, but I never trusted it. It is a loathsome little creature, and I hate it!

The way it sits there, perching on a skull near my pedestal, preening its tattered little wings like it was some sort of bird or butterfly. A vampire barbie with tattered bat wings. I would have nightmares, if I could still sleep.

It told me I could make myself a body, if I grow strong enough, but for now, I am just a consciousness locked inside a glowing crystal. Perhaps when I get a body, I will be able to sleep. Maybe I will be able to talk to someone, when I have a body. I miss talking to someone with a soul.

-x-x-x-

"This is the worst idea ever!" Amber complained.

"Well, I have yet to hear a better one. You are the one with the best physical stats, so if anyone can do it, it is you." I argued, helping her secure the rope harness properly.

"But won't the dungeon be mad that we cheat on its challenge?"

"I don't see a sign that says we can't make our own path. The way this is set up, how many of us do you think could make it across? Without cheating?"

Amber gave me a dirty look, then looked at the others. Her shoulder slumped a bit.

"Yeah, probably just me. Maybe Carrie, she is really athletic. So I guess we really are doing this." Amber sighed.

"Yeah, I guess we are. So any last words, err, questions?"

"Har har very funny. No. Time's up, let's do this, before I regret letting you save me from that badger."

"Leeeroy..." I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Let's do this!"

I tugged on the rope harness hard enough to lift Amber off of her feet, just to make sure everything was as tight as it should be.

I was no climbing expert, none of us were, but I did have a bit of shibari experience, thanks to my lost girlfriend Becky, so the harness might not exactly look like most would expect, but it should be quite secure.

Satisfied that everything was safe and secure, I stared at the coil of rope at Amber's feet.

It was all of the rope we had bought from the kiosk, tied into one long rope, that hopefully would be enough for the job.

Glaring at the rope, flexing my will, sending mana into the rings I wore, I made the end rise up like an angry snake.

That much rope was kinda heavy, but thanks to the weight limit increase from wearing a second ring, plus having a higher wisdom score, it was not too much for me to handle.

I could feel the strain on my will, as if the weight of the rope was pressing directly against my mind, as I forced the rope to rise diagonally towards the center of the ceiling.

The long winding webbing path crossed that point. I doubt most of us could have held on for that long, especially if we were trying to cross with all of our equipment. But I was grateful for the webbing just the same, it gave me something to thread our rope through.

I made it weave through several separate sections, in case one was rigged to drop when weight was put on it. If I had been in control of making a deadly dungeon, I knew I would have done something like that. Which is one of many reasons I did not want to play fair with the challenge.

Once secured, I had the end of the rope come back to me. I did breathe a sigh of relief, when it turned out that the rope was, in fact, long enough. We even had around ten feet to spare.

"Alright. Time to fly!" I said as cheerfully as I could.

Amber nodded, wiping her palms against her thighs as she walked forward with a determined expression on her face.

"I'd rather not fly, but if I do, make sure you catch me!" she said, as she walked out on the first challenge, the balance beam.

At a glance it was fairly simple, but it did not only get narrower the further you went, it also got a tiny little slant on top that could easily throw off your balance.

With her inhumanly high dexterity, Amber handled it easily enough, even the slight bend near the middle did not challenge her at all.

Every step she took, Daniel and I made sure to keep the rope tight enough that we could easily steady her, if she needed it.

Making it safely to the next platform, she took a moment to celebrate and steady herself.

A rope ladder fixed to the ceiling above was next, but only after she gave it a few hard tugs, in case it was rigged to come loose.

When it didn't budge, she started to make her way up there. With the lower end not attached to anything, it would still be rather difficult to most people, but to Amber it wasn't much of a challenge at all. She pulled herself up mostly with her arms, only using her feet when she wanted to shake out her arms.

Once up top, the real challenge remained. The monkey ropes. She would have to swing from one to the next.

Or that was the idea.

Instead I once again reached out with my mind, making the furthest rope bend up towards her. The more it bent towards her, the heavier it felt, but before it got to be too much, Amber caught the end of it.

"Alright, now climb to the top of it, once you are on it!" I shouted, once I felt her take the weight of it.

"I know, John. We went over this like five minutes ago!" Amber replied, her voice a little shaky. Facing monsters was starting to become a habit, but betting your life that a rope would not snap at the wrong time, was definitely still a new experience for all of us.

When Amber had gotten hold of the rope as high as she could reach, she let go of the ladder and swung away gracefully.

I let out a breath I had not realized I had been holding, relieved the rope was not rigged to drop, but seemed to be entirely secure.

The rope had not stopped swinging, before Amber started to climb it, all the way up to the top.

Once there, it was my turn again.

The rope closest to her started to sway towards her, as I set it in motion. Lifting it until it was within her reach.

Grabbing it, she pulled it close, holding both ropes in one hand, as she got out a dagger with her now free hand.

The dungeon rope turned out to be rather tough, but not impervious to the blade, so in less than a minute, she now had the now loose dungeon rope coiled around her body.

With that done, I once again took control of the end of the rope Amber was on.

I let the end of the rope float all the way to the platform by the exit, where I wound it around the stone arch that seemed to mark the finish line of the obstacle course.

I could not quite manage any fancy knots at that distance with my telekinesis, but I secured it to the best of my ability, and held on to the end, just in case.

"Go now!" I urged Amber, wanting to save as much time as possible on my daily allotment of telekinesis.

"Wheeeee!" Amber let out, as she wrapped her arms and legs around the rope, and slid down the length of it, as fast as she dared.

With the grace worthy of any athlete, she nailed the landing, and if this had been on television, she would have hit the buzzer.

And probably been disqualified for cheating.

With the spare rope tied to the bottom of ours, it was plenty enough that Amber could hold on to one end, while I pulled the original part back to us.

From there, it was a simple enough matter to secure each of us one at a time to the rope and have Amber pull us across.

Eat your heart out, American Ninjas!

-x-x-x-

"NO! They are CHEATING! Kill them! KILL! Let me send in the skeletons! LET GO of them, let ME KILL!" The dungeon fairy was raging, its tiny red eyes blazing with fury.

I could feel Creature tearing at my control over the skeletons in the next room, as the visitors cleverly bypassed the obstacles. Thanks to the mana I had gained from the visitors so far, I was no longer so weak that Creature could just take the skeletons from me, when I had already established direct control. Not that it wasn't a struggle, but I was not going to let go. If the skeletons rushed in, maybe they could shove that cute blonde off the platform.

I wasn't quite sure they would succeed, she did seem like she might be more than met the eye. Not that I didn't enjoy what DID meet the eye. If I had still had the parts, I think I might have been sporting a massive chub watching her efforts on the ropes.

Creature was furious with them for cheating, it failed to understand I had always wanted people to come up with creative ideas for getting past it.

Trust the visitors to come up with something I hadn't considered myself, but then, having someone able to manipulate ropes from afar was not something I was used to.

Whatever it was he did, the mana from it was very tasty! It mingled effortlessly with my own, and the longer he did it, the better I felt. For the first time in a week, I no longer felt desperately hungry!

What I would have done, if I was a visitor in my own dungeon, was a lot simpler, and admittedly relied a bit on knowledge they didn't have.

The pit wasn't as deep in this particular room, as in the first one, because I had to make the ceiling higher to make room for the obstacle course. It would have been a lot simpler to lower yourself down, walk across the room, and maybe use a grappling hook or something to scale the other side.

I had a couple of skeletons down in the mist to make it a bit more challenging, but that's the way I would have done it.

When Creature suddenly stopped wrestling me for control, I snapped out of my train of thoughts.

It was gone from my presence, so it must have taken control of something, but what?

I didn't dare let go of the skeletons to send my consciousness searching for the murderous asshole.

If I'd still had nails, I would be biting them. I didn't like that I didn't know what Creature was up to, but I felt certain it would not be good.

Fearing what he might come up with, I had the skeletons move down to interpose themselves between the visitors and the rest of my dungeon, focusing all of my attention and will on controlling them.

-x-x-x-

With my light moving ahead of me, I didn't so much move cautiously to avoid making noise. We were literally lit up like a beacon, compared to the weak bioluminescent glow that seemed to be the dungeon's choice of ambient light.

No, it was more because the floor was getting ever worse, more uneven, even wobbly at times.

With the occasional patch of slimy mold, it made it surprisingly easy for an unwary adventurer to twist an ankle.

A minor injury, for sure, but one that could easily turn fatal if it happened during a fight.

I am sure that the dungeon was quite proud about that little trick. Maybe add a trickle of water or mist, to make it even more treacherous, and it would be something to slow down even the most dauntless of dungeon raiders.

While I had been pondering the mysteries of dungeon craft, I had not been paying as much attention as I should have, so my first clue to something amiss was when Amber put a hand on my shoulder.

"What is that?" she muttered.

"What is.. Oh... that's odd."

It sounded like branches being smacked together, almost like Kendo practice. Not quite. Almost. Some more meaty thwacks as well.

Not wanting to rush into danger, we still increased our speed to find out what was causing the ruckus.

Turning the corner, we saw a limestone clad room that looked much like the inside of a bowling ball, complete with three large holes at the bottom. The sides seemed rather steep right outside the entrance, but not impossible to traverse. The exit was predictably placed right on the other side.

Breaking slightly with the bowling ball theme was a ledge ten feet higher up that traversed the entire circumference with a steep stair leading to the ledges on either side of the exit.

Placed intermittently on the ledge were small piles of what appeared to be limestone balls, exactly the size of bowling balls, as far as I could tell.

I would have been quite worried about traversing this room, if the dozen skeletons posted here had been up on the ledges, ready to send those limestone balls down to smash into anyone trying to make it past.

Instead they were seemingly having some sort of domestic dispute with a trio of large zombies.

The zombies were clad in what might be kindle referred to as bone armor, but looked to actually just be bones tied to them with what was probably sinew.

In addition to their armor, they were each wielding a femur in both hands, and were really laying into the skeletons that seemed to be trying to hold them back.

"Umm... What's the trick here? Why is it fighting itself?" Daniel asked, as we clustered together at the entrance.

"Looks like some sort of dungeon civil war." Carrie suggested.

"Must be a trap!" Amber stated.

"Well, you know what they say about traps. The best of them have cheese! Now, let's cheese this. Daniel, lend me a hand here!"

Placing Daniel against the wall, then climbing on his shoulders, Amber could then get on mine, and on to the ledge above.

In short order, we were all up on the ledge, in no small part due to the fact that most of us were a lot stronger for our size than we would have been, if not for the System and the oath.

"Now, let's go bowling!" I grinned, as I launched the first limestone ball down the side towards the scrum. Disappointingly, they did not have finger holes.

-x-x-x-

"Kill YOU for this! KILL!" Creature spat, as it flew straight at my crystal, its tiny fangs bared and its claws out.

I hardly felt it colliding with my core, and I doubted it really could hurt me, but I saw no reason to even let it try.

I might not have much mana yet, but I was no longer on the edge of starvation, unable to defend myself.

With an effort of will, I send a jagged bolt of electricity out from my core, blasting Creature across the room, shrieking and smoking.

He collided with the jagged rock face with a wet thud, before he fell down like a limp rag.

I couldn't truly kill it, sadly. Even if I somehow managed to find a way, it would respawn.

It was every bit as much part of this dungeon as I was.

Perhaps if I managed to grow strong enough to gain access to the System kiosk, it might have an option to replace Creature with something... less evil.

At least, it seemed to be out of gas for now. When it slowly picked itself back up, it seemed content to just sit there and glare at me.

I didn't mind. It was the most peace I'd had, since the visitors arrived.

I chuckled to myself at how the visitors had handled my bowling alley. I would have to move the ledge up higher for future visits.

I had not expected someone to turn the tables like that, Creature clearly hadn't either. It had been so mad at the skeletons and the heavy squad being smashed like that.

To me it just proved it was a viable idea. It made the room a lot more dangerous than what a few skeletons should be able to provide, without me having to spend my limited mana on actual traps. Those things got more expensive the more you got, unless you were some sort of trap specialized dungeon.

With Creature temporarily limited to only grumbling quietly, I finally had a moment to take a closer look at the coins the athletic sword guy had tossed me.

Turning my attention inward, the coins were now added to my loot templates. But more than that, I was happy to see that I now had access to copper and silver as a material!

I had played enough Skyrim to instantly want to make silver weapons, but I did not have any templates for that, sadly. I could make more coins, some jewelry, some minor trinkets.

Copper had a few more options, a helmet and chest plate, even a copper maul.

While I desperately wanted to make better loot, I decided to hold back. A few coins here and there would be easy enough. But what else could I do...

-x-x-x-

"Well, that went a lot easier than I thought it would." I said, as I looted the last of the zombies. It was just useless junk, as usual. A rat skull on a sinew necklace. More molars. A femur club with a handle wrapped in what might be generously called raw leather.

I took it anyway, maybe the System kiosk would pay good money for fresh dungeon loot.

"But why the fuck did one of them flip us the bird, before he went down?" Jenny asked, as she used the tip of her boot to flip a skeleton down the hole.

"No, don't! Loot them instead." I said, cringing at the waste. Maybe Amber was starting to rub off on me, if I was getting so greedy I grieved the loss of a potential handful of molars.

"Why? They only have junk anyway." Jenny said.

"Well, I am hoping they might start having something better soon, and we won't know if we don't check for it."

"How the fuck would they have anything better, they don't have pockets!"

Before I could get into the deeper details of the loot mechanics, Jenny stalked off to join Daniel by the exit.

The holes in the ground did not seem like a viable shortcut, except to a long nasty fall beyond the range my light would travel from me, so with the last undead looted, I too left the room, awkwardly climbing the steep incline up the side of the bowl.

The already damp corridor soon became even more moist. A layer of ice cold mist covered the floor, which was now annoyingly uneven causing us to slow down significantly. Getting Jenny and Carrie to light the small bullseye lanterns we had purchased at the System kiosk helped a little, the warm glow penetrating the mist better than the harsher glow of my orb.

Still, it was slow going, and I was worried what it would be like to have to flee back the way we had come. Going down, it was not as noticeable, but we had descended quite a bit since we entered, so it would be a long run at an incline and with treacherous footing.

So innocent a detail, but clearly meant to make it easier for the dungeon to keep those inside it wanted to kill.

Not that I am much of a religious type, but I did pray quietly that the dungeon did not change its mind about playing nice.

Before I could spiral too much into worrying about things outside of my control, I almost stepped off the edge to the next room.

The mist did not drop off as steeply as the floor did, so I almost didn't notice.

Inside the new room the path ended at a platform, and a ladder down seemed to be the only way forward. It seemed solid enough, if a tad slippery from the mist pouring down over it, and the ubiquitous fungus growing on it in places. The chamber itself seemed huge, at least the same size as the obstacle course, the bottom mostly covered in a layer of mist.

Here and there a small island of jagged flagstone wall poked through the mist, making it look like some sort of castle ruin down there.

On the opposite side from us, there was another ladder going up to a platform at about the same level as us.

It might have just been the mists swirling, but from where I stood, it looked like someone was moving down there.

-x-x-x-

My heart stopped when the one they call John almost stepped off the ledge.

Well, I don't have a heart anymore, but if I did, it would have.

It was not a terrible drop, only twenty feet, but having to fight my heavies with broken legs would not be an easy task.

I couldn't do much to help them here. They had already defeated three of my heavies, when Creature took them to the bowling alley, as I liked to call it. That still left nine here, which was better than it would have been, without Creature having stolen three to try and kill the visitors with earlier.

Pulling them out of here would just make it worse later. No, better to have them face them in the misty battleground, than have them reinforce what they would face later.

Just before they got close enough to make direct control difficult, I ordered one of them up on a pile of debris, to make it a bit more obvious.

If the visitors managed to handle these as they had all my other minions so far, they might be pleased that I'd had time to adjust the loot a little.

-x-x-x-

I descended as rapidly down the ladder as I dared. For all I knew, the end of it might hang over a bottomless abyss, to punish someone who got too cocky and tried to just slide down it. What a stupid way to die that would be.

The dungeon was not quite that devious, it would seem, as the ladder actually did terminate on solid flagstone, instead of dangling over an empty void.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, I whipped out my sword and started scanning the mists for threats.

With the mists moving and swirling as if stirred by an unseen wind, I felt myself getting very paranoid that an attack might materialize at any second.

The options seemed endless.

If I'd been the dungeon, maybe I'd have rat skeletons swarm the ankles of adventurers, covered by the mists. Would scorpion zombies be a possibility?

My sword lashed out at a particularly suspicious wisp that swirled near my legs, but passed harmlessly through the bothersome vapor.

Next Amber joined me at the bottom, then Daniel and Carry rushed down. Jenny would remain up top as our designated marksman.

"See one!" Jenny proclaimed from her perch.

Thwack! Thwack!

Two bolts fired in rapid succession struck something not very far from us.

Thwack!

Then a third, after a brief pause.

"Got one! Fuck yeah!"

Down among the mists, visibility was worse than it had been from up top, but I could barely make out the humanoid shape that suddenly fell to the ground by a section of crumbling wall about twenty yards towards the middle of the room.

As that one tumbled to the ground, a groan started somewhere, repeated from several positions until it became hard to pinpoint.

"Fuck! They are running towards you from several directions!" Jenny yelled, letting loose another bolt from on high.

"Shit, we can't let them run us over, we have to kite them. Follow me!" I yelled, and started running off to the side, making sure I was between the middle of the room and the rest of the party, so I could better ward off any threat trying to jump our newbies.

Daniel might not be as squishy anymore, but Carrie was still level one, so I did not want her to take any hits at all, if I could prevent it.

Running on the broken mist-covered ground turned out to be extremely difficult, but fortunately our enemies did not seem any better at it, so we managed to distance ourselves a bit from the furthest ones, while I tried to make a beeline for the one furthest away.

"Got another fucker!" Jenny yelled, as I distantly wondered how many bolts she could have left. I definitely should have bought her more. I dismissed the thought as the big boneclad zombie came out of the mists ahead, coming right at me with his dual wielded femur clubs.

"Fuego!" I yelled, whipping up my left hand to blast all three flaming projectiles in his face. One struck a little low, hitting the upper chest, another glanced off of a bone strapped to his head, and headed who knows where.

The last one struck him right in his open mouth, teaching him a well earned lesson about keeping his mouth shut instead of groaning at strangers.

The flames flared up and burned through his surprisingly flammable flesh in several places, and even before my sword struck his skull, he was already dead.

Daniel leapt past me with a surprising display of agility for someone his size, his leg extended for a kick, as he intercepted the next zombie that was rushing towards us.

It staggered backwards at the impact, whiffing its own clumsy swing, before Daniel started to pummel it with swift, short strikes of alternating ends of his staff. I was pleased to note that this time he did try to aim every blow at its skull, forcing it to block the attacks or have its skull smashed in.

Suddenly a dagger protruded from where its nose used to be, almost buried to the hilt in its putrid face.

As it crumbled, Amber gave Daniel a thumbs up.

"You are welcome! Get my dagger for me." Amber crowed, clearly pleased with herself.

Having moved to the far side, the remaining zombies were now coming at us more or less in a line, as far as the terrain allowed, allowing us to set up better to receive them.

"Wait for it!" I ordered, as the next one started to get a little too close for comfort.

When he was almost close enough to attack, I adjusted my aim slightly, then let loose the burst of mana.

One bolt struck him right between the eyes, lighting him on fire and killing him instantly.

The next two bolts were less perfect, as I tried to aim them at the last second at the next two coming our way.

The closer one took the bolt to its torso, while the one to the rear managed to jerk out of the way.

The one I hit just ignored the fact that it was on fire, and kept running straight at us, until it suddenly sprouted a dagger from the neck, then a spear was rudely lodged in its ribs, before a staff and a sword finally managed to crack its skull enough to finish the job.

It had bought time for its ally to rush us, and I took a painful blow to my left arm, as I was forced to parry the bone club with my off hand.

Before it could swing the other club, Daniel sent it sideways with a powerful kick, then rushed after it.

With two more coming up, I was forced to leave him to handle it for now, as I cast another firebolt spell as fast as I could, launching it frantically at the next zombie before he could run me over. It drained my mana dangerously low, limiting my options if the fight kept going much longer, but it did the job. One desperately aimed bolt struck him in the face, just as he started his swing, while the other two whiffed almost comically.

One bolt was all it took, however, and as he crumbled to the ground, I found myself alongside Amber, charging towards the next in line.

Behind him, another suddenly crumbled to the ground, and I vaguely registered Jenny cheering.

An arc of strange purple energy shot past me and hit the zombie, but other than illuminating him for a second, I could not detect any immediate effect.

Amber blocked his wild swing, sticking a dagger up through his jaw from below, but with the zombie jerking its head sideways at the last instant, it did not manage to penetrate the skull and end him.

Rather than risk getting in the way of Amber, I decided to clear her path a little, and with a two handed grip on my sword, I chopped down with all my strength, severing an arm at the shoulder, cleaving bone armor and rotten flesh alike.

Her next blow did end it rightly, a severe pommel strike to its forehead shattered its skull and what magic had animated it.

For a while, we stood there, breathing heavily, all of us scanning the mists for more threats.

When none materialized, we dared to slowly lower our guard.

"I think that was the last of them. I don't see any fuckers moving about." Jenny yelled.

"Also, I am out of ammo." She added a bit lower.

Taking a look at the two she had dropped, I could understand why.

Sure, the last guy only had two bolts sticking out from the side of his head, and one in the shoulder, but the next to last had six bolts total stuck in him.

I shook my head.

The crossbow had seemed an obvious choice for her, but against the undead it might have been better to upgrade that slingshot of hers to make it System grade. I hadn't known if it would extend to any ammunition she used, or if rocks would crumble like clods of dirt, if they had not been System spawned, and I really liked the sleek look of the repeating crossbow, so that's what she got.

"Alright, just yell and point if you spot more of them moving around!" I yelled back, as I moved to loot the nearest zombie corpse.

Other than recovering most of the bolts Jenny had put in them, a couple sadly now flagged as broken by the System, I was pleasantly surprised to find a single silver coin on one, and two copper coins on the other.

"It worked!" I cheered, holding up the three coins, making everyone else look at me like I had lost it.

"What worked, exactly?" Amber asked finally.

"I got the coins back, AND an extra copper!" I stated triumphantly.

"That's nice." Carrie tried, not quite getting what the big deal was.

"Call your fucking broker." Jenny suggested, rolling her eyes.

"So they CAN drop coins now! And you already made a profit!"

Amber clearly appreciated the significance a lot more, but then again she always did like money.

"And it confirms the dungeon can absorb and replicate stuff we drop. Or maybe not confirm, but at least strengthens my assumption that's how it works." I explained.

Daniel looked like he had bit into a lemon.

"What?" I asked, looking at him.

"If the dungeon is a living creature, like you say... Then we are basically traipsing through its digestive system right now. I am not sure I am quite comfortable with that."

"Not quite like that. If the System has copied the whole dungeon core thing, the dungeon gets mana or whatever out of us just going through the whole thing. And also a huge boost if someone dies in here, but I'm hoping it would rather have a regular stream of smaller meals, instead of just one big one, and then not be able to eat again. Now, if Jenny is done looking for errant bolts, perhaps we should get a move on?"

"I got twelve back, and with the fu... effing mists in here, I think that's as good as it gets."

I raised an eyebrow at Daniel.

"I think she's noticed how it bothers you when she swears. Don't worry she'll get over it."

-x-x-x-

"Why would the dungeon create a place for adventurers to rest, inside its domain? A safe zone even? Amber muttered, not wanting to spoil the relief the others seemed to feel at being able to stop being constantly afraid all the time.

"I really don't know. Maybe it is a System mandated requirement, maybe it just wants to be nice, or motivate us to hang out longer. But I don't think the pop-up could be faked. As long as a monster isn't already mad at us before we enter, it shouldn't be able to follow us inside. Like the safe zone at the town hall."

"I don't know that I care to trust that too much, we did get attacked inside town hall, remember?"

"Well, the safe zone is only supposed to keep monsters out."

"I am pretty sure that guy Bryan was a monster." Amber insisted, narrowing her eyes.

I couldn't really argue against that.

"Well, it doesn't hurt to keep our guards up." I agreed.

-x-x-x-

I was over the moon when the visitors left the battlefield chamber. Not because I wanted to be rid of them, but because the mists had caused them to lose a few items. A dagger had glanced off the bone armor of one of my heavies, and a bolt had passed straight through the gut of another.

The dagger had a bronze hilt and a pig iron blade. Better yet, the bolt was tipped with fine steel.

Adding those templates and materials to my unlocks was huge! I felt like I had won the lottery. Not the big prize, but you know, enough to get yourself something nice. Considering how shit my luck had been recently, I still felt a surge of relief, like things might be finally looking up.

I couldn't DO much with those materials yet, and I definitely didn't have any use for the bolts.

Thanks to the new materials available, more types of equipment had templates unlock, but to my disappointment a lot of stuff, especially things needing steel to make, was still locked behind the paywall.

I briefly contemplated asking Creature if there was a way around it, as it had on occasion been more helpful, even providing useful information. If it wasn't such a murderous asshole, we might even have gotten along.

It was with a sense of panic, that I realized Creature was no longer in the core room.

Creature could shield itself from my vision, when it did not want me watching, unless I focused directly on it, but with it already off to who knew where, I had no idea how to find it.

I rushed to check on the visitors, but they had just reached the safety of the guest rooms I had made, when Creature suggested we make some traps that would force visitors to stay until all their positive mana had been siphoned from them, perhaps forcing other visitors to come and risk a rescue.

A bit of research had revealed I could make safe zones to persuade visitors to hang out, and while they were usually meant for larger dungeons, there was nothing saying I couldn't have one.

So I set up a nice little campfire, because who can resist relaxing by a campfire? Now if only I could figure out how to make some of my mobs drop marshmallows as loot.

With the visitors inside the safe zone, I was somewhat relieved. Even if Creature was trying to control some mobs, there was no way it could make them cross the zone threshold, unless the visitors fell for some sort of provocation.

Just to make sure nothing really bad could happen, I switched my focus to my champion, clamping down on his mana flows, so Creature would not steal him from under my nose.

Certain that Creature could do nothing except fume in its impotent rage at the visitors, I set my mind to adjusting the loot tables a bit. I figured the angry one would love to find some more bolts, and even if she did curse a lot, I will admit I liked her grit.

-x-x-x-

The rest area wasn't some crazy luxury resort, more like an underground camping spot.

The central chamber had a small campfire lighting it up and spreading a warmth that was most welcome after wandering in the ice cold mists. It had been burning when we arrived, and I suspected that like the candle in the first room, it would not actually consume the fuel.

The floor was sand, and even if rocks of various sizes were the only furniture, it was at least something to sit on.

A trickle of crystal clear spring water poured from a crack in the rock and into a small pool that did not seem to overflow, even though no drain was apparent.

Three thick wooden doors each led to a small chamber with a sand floor and dimly lit with more bioluminescent fungus.

"Would've been nice with a bathroom." Amber pointed out, as we opened the last door to identical side chambers.

"Yeah, I get the impression the dungeon is somewhat destitute. Perhaps next time it can afford to add some more amenities. And some better loot. But at least it is a place to rest and get some mana back, so I can get everyone healed back up, before we move on." I suggested, pulling Amber close for a side hug.

She leaned her head against my shoulder for a moment, before moving away.

"Well, you go rest in there, I'll have a chat with Jenny about leveling up." Amber suggested, handing me a blanket from her pack.

"What? No pillow?" I chuckled, grabbing the blanket and moving to do as she suggested.

I took a minute to smooth the sand and get the blanket just right, putting my own pack down as a makeshift pillow.

I heard the door open and close. Then the feminine voice of Carrie reached my ears.

"Amber suggested I should help you relax."

"She suggested that, did she?"

"She did. Said she would have herself, but she doesn't trust the safe zone to remain safe, so she wanted to keep an eye on things."

While she spoke, she left her spear by the door and slowly sauntered closer. From the way she bit her lower lip as she approached, and the way she looked at me as she moved closer, her eyes taking in every part of me, before focusing somewhere just below the belt.

The way my cock started stirring in my pants, it was almost as if it could sense her gaze.

"I bet she would. Did she have any specific ideas in mind for how you should help me relax?" I asked softly, as I too let my eyes take in every detail of her.

She did look a little worse for wear, her copper hair a bit messy, her pants torn at the knee, her sleeves stained with zombie gore. But most of all I saw the sexy athletic redhead Amber had insisted on recruiting for my now apparently growing harem.

"I.. Uh.. She did. Sir. Quite specific. Said I should take care of your murder boner, Sir. So you can focus on something other than your cock and get your mana back faster." Carrie mumbled seductively, as she started to pull at my belt.

"Anything else?" I asked, grabbing her hands to prevent her from proceeding.

Carrie lowered her eyes, but not before I saw them sparkling with excitement and desire.

"That I should get on my knees and beg, if that is what it took to get to relax Sir."

I could sense her pulse growing faster in her hands, as I gave them a slight squeeze to reinforce the idea that she would not be able to proceed without my permission.

The truth is that I was indeed feeling a rising need myself, but it seemed clear to me that Carrie really did like to be told what to do, so even if that was not usually what I was into, I figured there was no harm in playing into the dominant role.

Also, even if it was not something I had done much, I will admit I did feel a spike of excitement at the idea of having her begging for my cock, as Amber had instructed her.

Before I could contemplate it further, Carrie sank to her knees and met my gaze with large puppy dog eyes, that sparkled with desire even as she did her best to express innocence and humility.

"Please, Sir, may I please be allowed to suck your cock? Please, Sir!" Carrie begged most convincingly.

"Hmmm..." I said, faking hesitation.

"I don't know that you have yet earned a reward..." I continued.

"Oh, Sir. I have been a good girl, Sir. I managed to figure out how to cast a spell when we fought the zombies in the mists, Sir. Please! Let me suck Sir's cock, use all my holes, so Sir can relax!" Carrie begged most convincingly, almost managing to look like she might burst into tears if I turned her down.

"Your spell? Well, that DOES deserve a reward. How did it happen?" I asked, relaxing my grip on her hands enough to let her continue opening my pants.

"The drumstick I was carving into shape when I had a moment to spare. I made it into a wand and engraved the name of the spell on it. Sir mentioned I should try stuff from fiction, and there was this book I read where they used something like that. May I please suck your cock now, Sir?"

With my pants undone, I let her pull them down, as I rid myself of my jacket and t-shirt.

"Just one more thing, what spell was it? I do recall a purple flash of something, but I didn't notice any effect." I asked, my cock hovering rock hard right in front of her face.

"Daze, Sir. It's supposed to make the target unable to do much for a few moments. It was spell with the shortest name, so it would have wasted less time, if it didn't work. Sir, may I?"

"You may, but get naked first!"

Almost as if by magic, she was out of her clothes almost before I could finish the sentence.

"Thank you, Sir!" Carrie breathed as her mouth opened and she engulfed my cock with her eager mouth.

It felt amazing to have her tongue massaging and swirling around my cockhead, while one of her hands wrapped around the shaft and started stroking me slowly but firmly.

My hands wove through her thick copper curls, pulling her head slightly towards me. When her emerald eyes met mine and she gave a little nod, I grinned at her and started to fuck her mouth with shallow strokes. I was in no hurry to cum, I mostly did it to make Carrie feel less in control.

Boy, did it work.

With her hand no longer required for my pleasure, it found its way to her c-cup breast where she tweaked her nipple hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

Her other hand found its way between her legs, where I could hear from the rapid slick sounds that she was already soaking wet.

It felt good to have her moan in pleasure around my cock, it made it seem like she was doing it more for her pleasure than mine. On the one hand it did make her less focused, making her rhythm a bit off, but she more made up for it by how much she seemed to be into it.

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself fucking her eager mouth faster and deeper, to the point that I almost lost control and came far too soon.

Carrie would probably not mind, it might even be what made her go over the edge herself, if I suddenly filled her mouth with my pleasure.

But I wanted more!

It was not many hours since I had last had her, but it had only whet my appetite, so rather than finish in her mouth, I managed to pull out at the last second, even though she briefly struggled to keep my cock in her mouth.

"... Please, Sir?" she begged softly, her pleading eyes looking up at me.

"No, I believe you did mention something about all your holes, and I think that is a wonderful idea!" I replied, shaking my head slightly to deny her permission to proceed.

"Yes, Sir, whatever you need from me!"

With my hand in her hair, she let me lead her to the blanket, making her lie back.

Even if it might seem a little bit less dominant, I too had a hunger to sate.

As she parted her legs for me, I lowered my face, kissing the soft skin of her firm thighs all the way from her knee to her soaking wet coppery pubes. Her folds were already swollen with desire from her earlier efforts, and as I made first contact with my tongue against her clit, she gasped in pleasure.

"Oh Sir... Mmmm." She sighed, her hips moving counterpoint to my tongue tracing patterns, as I lapped up the delicious taste of her. She was sweet and tangy and salty all at once, and entirely delicious. I always loved the taste of pussy, and I had been cheated out of a taste the first time, because Amber was calling all the shots, but this time I could indulge myself a little.

I took my time, licking and nibbling every fold, letting my fingers go exploring for her G-spot, until I had her almost vibrating with lust and I had to use my strength to hold her thighs in place, lest her gyrating hips throw me off before I reached my goal.

When she started to get even wetter, I knew she would not last much longer, and I started to lick her faster and more intensely, doing my best to push her just that little bit further towards bliss. Her hips bucked and her core twitched, but thanks to my superior strength I held her in place until she let go with loud moans, her body thrashing against the blanket and the soft sand floor beneath it.

"Siiir! Unghhh YES! UNGH CUMMING!!!"

Her cries of passion were music in my ears, even more so the taste of her cumming was nectar for my tongue. Even sweeter than before, I lapped it up and felt it fuel my own passion, my own lust, my cock throbbing with hardness and a need for somewhere soft and warm.

I kept licking her through her orgasm, reducing the intensity as she slowly started to come down from the clouds, until I felt her breathing steady and her fingers started caressing my hair.

I kissed her clit, and lifted myself up on my elbows.

"Enjoy yourself?" I asked playfully. I could not quite bring myself to call her names like Amber had done, I didn't really know her that well yet. Once I actually got to know her, I might be open to that sort of thing, if it was the sort of thing she craved.

"Yes, Sir. Did I do something wrong?" She asked, as she studied my face intently, my moment of introspection having thrown her off.

"I was just contemplating which hole to fuck, all of you is so sexy!" I said, giving her clit a quick lick for added emphasis.

"You can do me in any way you please, Sir, but Miss told me to ask you make sure to fuck my ass, so I can get used to it as soon as possible."

"She did, did she? With your first time just a few hours ago, aren't you a bit sore? It could hurt, if I fuck your ass again so soon..."

As I spoke, I could actually see her pussy getting more and more soaked, trails of her juices running down her crack, some of it collecting in the folds of her alluring pink little anus.

Her eyes got dark with desire, and she nodded slightly at my words.

"Yes, Sir. I do think it might hurt, but Miss insisted." Carrie said softly, as her legs opened even wider for me, her knees raising up slightly, putting her perfect asshole even more on display.

It did look very inviting, and if Carrie wanted it that much, I was certainly not going to turn her down.

"Well, we can't disappoint Miss, now can we?" I said playfully.

"No, Sir, she would not like that one bit. Will you please fuck my ass, Sir?" Carrie begged, already having figured out just how to pitch her voice to make me unable to deny her.

"I do believe I will. But first, I need to get nice and slick, and I know just the thing for it!"

I moved up until I rested on my elbows above her, my cock resting against her mound, my lips finally meeting hers in a passionate kiss.

For what felt like minutes, I kissed her greedily, as she rubbed her inundated pussy against my cock, her arms wrapped around me, holding me against her.

Finally, I broke the kiss, adjusted myself slightly, placing my cockhead between her slick folds.

"Sir... My ass..." Carrie mouthed, as I started to push forward slightly.

"I know, but first we need to get me nice and wet, and this is just the place for it!" I insisted.

That seemed more than enough explanation for Carrie, as she sighed in satisfaction as I started to enter her, and then pushed her hips up to meet me, ensuring I filled her in one long stroke.

"... Big..." She mumbled in my ear. It is one of those things we guys always love to hear, even if we doubt it, so it brought an easy smile to my lips, and I rewarded her with a few more long strokes, almost pulling out entirely, before pushing in as far as I could go.

I felt her tightening her core to heighten our pleasure every time, her tight grip enhancing my pleasure, almost making me change my mind and just fuck her pussy hard and fast, even if Amber had other ideas. At some point I was going to make sure they both knew who was in charge, but right now I found that even if Carrie's pussy was absolutely wonderful, I really did want to fuck her ass too.

The way she had reacted when I mentioned when I said it might hurt, awoke some sort of dark hunger in me. While I did want to harm in the least, the very thought that she wanted, desired even, to suffer a little for my pleasure, woke a need in me I never knew I had.

I slowly increased the pace, until Carrie was thrusting her hips against me with audible smacks, slamming my cock deep inside of her, her breath getting ragged and her moans of pleasure once again growing.

Then when I could sense she was about to cum, I pulled out.

"Siiir... Please! Sir..." She begged, her gaze momentarily confused at the sudden break.

I just grinned at her, as I got up on my knees.

As before, she had gotten exceedingly wet as she neared her orgasm, and I smeared some of her excess juices on her asshole, which twitched slightly at my first touch.

"Oh. Mmm... That feels nice, Sir." Carrie gasped a little as my fingers started to caress her tight opening, getting it nice and slick with her nectar.

When it glistened invitingly, I moved closer, letting my cock rest against her pink rosebud.

I met her gaze, and waited to see if she was ready.

Carrie grabbed her ankles and gave me a short nod, as she noticed my gaze on hers.

I started pushing, my hard cock struggling to part her unyielding opening. I had to squeeze the base of my cock to prevent it from just bending under the strain, but slowly I could feel her tight muscles start to give way.

Her breathing hitched a bit, her knuckles got white from the strength of her grip around her ankles, and she bit her lip. But at no point did she break away from my gaze.

When she sensed me easing up the pressure slightly, she nodded once more to urge me on.

"Remember to push out a bit, then I can go in a bit easier."

"Oh. Yes, Sir. I will try that." Carrie agreed, and almost immediately I felt her open up ever so slightly, as I started to slide in ever so slowly.

"Hnng... So big. So big!" Carrie moaned, her eyes still studying mine intently, even as my cockhead finally made it past her outer ring. Suddenly the intense pressure became a lot less, and to the music of Carrie's moans, I could slowly push ever deeper into her intensely hot rectum.

The soft walls adjusted slowly to my presence, once I had pushed every last inch of my cock inside of her, and lay down on top of her to get used to me inside her ass.

"Please, Sir. Fuck me as roughly as you like, Sir." Carrie begged, as I leaned in for a kiss.

Well, what sort of a gentleman would I be, if I denied a lady in need?

"Are you sure?" I asked, just to make certain.

"Please?" She insisted.

Needing no further invitation, I set about doing as she suggested.

Knowing that she was not experienced with being fucked in the ass, I started out slow. Fucking her with long slow strokes for a little while, alternating with sudden harder thrusts when I was almost all the way inside.

When she handled this without complaint, I started to fuck her at an ever increasing pace, while she did all she could to just hold on. Distantly I registered her nails on my back, and the way her calves pulled me inside of her even harder, while her moans grew more and more insistent.

Needing more leverage, I rose to my knees and clutched her thighs against my chest, pulling her hips towards me with every stroke, harder, faster.

Until I could hold out no longer.

With my change in position, Carrie's hands had found her clit, masturbating furiously as her moans turned into more of a howl.

The instant I felt her core tighten and pulse and she started to cum for real, I too felt my passion surge, my balls tighten, and I roared out in ecstasy as I started to shoot my pearly white cum deep inside of Carrie's colon.

For a few minutes, all we could do was hold on to each other, as waves of pleasure robbed us of control, until at last I had filled her with all the cum I was able to conjure, and my orgasm slowly subsided.

Even then, with every twitch of her core, I still felt spikes of pleasure as she squeezed my now almost too sensitive cock, her soft walls fluttering and twitching in response to her slowly receding orgasm.

Finally, I collapsed on top of her, and for a while we just held each other, kissing softly, gently.

When I lay down beside her on my side, observing her gorgeous body and face in the dim light, she looked a bit insecure as she noticed me looking at her.

"Was that good enough? Did it relax Sir?" Carrie asked.

"Carrie, that was down right amazing, and I think the only way you could get me more relaxed, would be to knock me out. How's the ass?"

She perked up a bit at my praise, and gave me a little smile.

Then it turned into a little hiss of pain, as she gingerly fingered her asshole.

"It hurts a bit, Sir, but I liked it a lot. Miss will be very pleased."

"Well, I hope she won't be upset if I mend you a bit, I don't want you distracted by various rips and tears while inside the dungeon. If that upsets Miss, I am sure we can give you some new ones later."

"I think I might like that." Carrie muttered shyly, nodding her head.

Well, I had been meaning to give everyone a heal before we moved on, to help them get over their aches and pains from all the challenges we had faced, so I might as well start with Carrie. I had barely enough mana for the spell, but perhaps it would help train my meditation skill faster, if I did it with the headache that came with nearly draining all of your mana.

At any rate, Carrie had very much earned it, so I let my fingers slide up her thigh, then rested my hand against her pussy, a finger on either side of her still gaping and twitching asshole.

It was not necessary, but I just felt like touching her there anyway.

With a bit of will and almost all of my remaining mana, I filled my hand with the healing energy of my spell, and sent it into her body in search of damage to repair.

Having leveled up the spell as well as increased my intelligence, I could now heal a lot more than the maximum hit points of any level one, so in moments it fixed her up completely.

Every bruise, scrape, tear or pain she had been suffering from, was suddenly and completely flushed from her system, as the magic coursed through her system and scoured away every injury or cause for discomfort.

Well, except for the fact she was still lying on the wet spot, but she didn't seem to mind that.

I lay down beside her, my head already starting to pound.

It was then I heard something crashing against the heavy wooden door, and something that sounded like Amber shouting something, only it was barely audible.

Those doors must be more soundproof than I had first thought.

I struggled to get back on my feet, feeling a bit dizzy, but clenched my teeth against it, grabbed my sword and rushed to the door.

-x-x-x-