So here we are, getting ready to try out a Dungeon we came across.

  Except for Mich, sitting on a rock just outside the entrance while scandalously watching us girls put more clothes on.

  [ UNCOMMON WEAPON EQUIPPED: KATANA OF THE DADDY-LONGLYCANTHROPE - 37 PHY ]

  Adjusting the sheathed katana’s position on my waist to something a bit more comfortable than the default, I set that as the new default.

  I then nod in approval at the thoroughness of my preparations, double-checking everything before raising my voice. “Alright, let’s go.”

  Rachel waves the hand she’s not wriggling into a glove. “Wait, hold on a sec! I’m not ready!”

  Which is when Ross catches up to us. “Sorry, got distracted by what I thought was a fossil, but was actually a rock. I still took it, of course. It’s a cool-ass rock. What’re we doing?”

  Rachel looks back at him. “Dungeon.”

  “Oh… Again? Why?”

  I stare at them in utter bewilderment. “XP. Loot. Do I need a third reason?”

  Ross sighs in resigned exasperation. “Ooof course that’s what this is… Alright, gimme a minute to get set up.”

  Probably just to keep me from bothering them until they’re done, Mich waves me over to the rock he’s sitting on. “Come on, let’s leave them to their business and chat while we wait.”

  A little disappointed at how spot-on my assumption was, I meander over there. I look at the rock. Then at Mich. Then next to him where he’s patting an empty spot on the rock.

  [ RARE CHAIR DEPLOYED: BENCH HALF ]

  Instead, I sit down on an actual cushion. “Mkay… What about?”

  Mich winces at his life choices before summoning his own chair and sitting there instead of the rock while trying in vain to distract me from the fact that he’s doing that. “I was kinda hoping you could provide the topic.”

  I blow out a puff of air. “Then I guess…” What I was thinking about before we spotted the dungeon? “Know anything about Mod Stones?”

  “A bit. Not an expert, but I think I’ve got the rules down. What’s on your mind?”

  “I got one the other day from killing that Ursula bitch right before she could off Rachel.”

  Rachel waves over at me. “Thanks again for that by the way!”

  I wave back. “No problem! My pleasure, even.”

  Seriously. That was fucked up what Ursula did. I kinda even wish I could kill her again right now… Maybe she’d even make me.

  Taking a moment to brood, I rip myself away from that as I turn back to Mich. “That’s my second Mod Stone, actually. The other’s a Random. The new one says it’s specifically for Uncommon Mods, but I don’t really know what that means. Or what Mods even are in the first place. I mean other than the angelic arresty ones.”

  Mich seems to really make an effort to think through how to explain. “What they do is pretty simple on a base level. On top of all the rest of what they can do, every piece of Equipment or Skill has one Mod Slot. No more, no less. And each one has a relatively wide selection of Mods you can unlock to change their functionality in some way. Things like shockwaves, fire rate, STAT boosts, that kind of stuff. And Mod Stones are how you unlock them.”

  I latch right the fuck onto the obvious standout from what he just listed. “Okay, great. I’ll just mod all my armor with Speed STAT boosts then.”

  “Oh… Yeah, no you won’t.”

  “And what, exactly, is gonna stop me?”

  Mich chuckles at the aggressive tone. “The entire way the System is set up, for one. Only Accessories have STAT increase Mods. So you can only really boost a STAT by one that way.”

  “Oh. Well, that seems pretty pointless. Don’t Accessories grant shit like flight or whatever?”

  “I’d say it depends on your situation. What would you rather have? Flight? Or your Speed not reduced by more than half?”

  I throw him a blank look. “What kind of comparison is that? You said it can only be a single point. Obviously, doubling my Speed is more important. But I’d also take flight over a single point in Speed any day. Which, I might add, is like my favorite STAT.”

  “Okay then, hypothetically, What if you invested so much in Defense that you were stuck at 15 points in Speed?”

  “But doesn’t everyone start with 16 in every STAT?”

  “Of course they do.”

  “Then what are you even talking about, Jaaa-Mich?”

  Apparently neither knowing what to do with that, nor up for the conversation regardless, Mich ignores the slip-up. “Remind me, what’s your level and highest STAT?”

  I feel my heart pounding as I’m pretty sure I have to try way harder than Mich to move past what I just almost called him. “Um… 6 and 25.”

  Mich seems to do some math in his head.

  After a moment, his eyes widen. “Actually, nevermind. Neither of us will have to worry about it for a long time. Maybe my priorities are off on this one.”

  “Woah woah, woooah there, hold the fuck up. This sounds like the kind of shit I need to watch out for in the long term. What, exactly, are you talking about?”

  “You know, you’re lucky that I talk to people while you’re out here by yourself, hitting stuff with that big metal stick you call a sword. But as I found out three stops ago from a very pleasant Wandering Maxlevel named Todd, It all comes down to milestones.”

  “And milestones are..?”

  Mich sighs. “It’s when a STAT reaches a certain number. That being 16, 32, or 64. Each of those is a massive step up from just one point below. I’d almost suggest you get a STAT accessory to take your Speed from 31 to 32 whenever you’re short that one point. But if I know you, your Speed won’t stay at 31 long enough for the cost-benefit ratio to be worth it. Point is, if a STAT isn’t within one milestone of its pair, the lower one gets locked one milestone below where it actually is. So, if you get to 64 Speed and your Defense is under 32, it’ll effectively be locked at 15. Even if it’s actually 31.”

  Oh… I wasn’t expecting my heart to just break like that. But I’m overcome with the need to make sure. “And… Will it stay that way?”

  Mich shrugs. “Todd and I didn’t really get into that. But it does logically follow that your calculated Defense would stay at 15 until, and unless, its true value reaches 32.”

  He eyes my dejected ass. “Oh, don’t look at me like I crushed your dreams. That’s actually where accessories come in. They’re calculated last. Even after STAT Adjustments. So only an accessory can take you from 15 to 16. But, again, there’s only one Mod Slot for anything, including accessories. And you said you’re going all-in on Speed, right?”

  Not paying much attention to whatever Mich is saying, I absentmindedly nod while frantically re-thinking a lot of assumptions I made based on other assumptions that it turns out aren’t true. If things keep going the way they are… So I can minmax Speed or Physical Strength. Not both. So which one would I… But I already know.

  A bit of resigned build-planning later, I come back to myself. “Sorry, I lost you for a minute there. What were we talking about?”

  But Mich is just as zoned out, watching Rachel arrange her hair with a tiny mirror while Ross tries to hop into a battle harness he bought for some reason.

  After watching that for far too long, Mich shakes himself out of his weird trance and sighs as he looks back at me. “But, I suppose if we’re talking about STAT boosts, what you’ll really be want are Runes, not Mod Stones.”

  I feel myself tense at the realization that there’s yet another set of numbers to keep track of. This is already confusing enough… “Is this finally the last System thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  Mich shrugs. “How the hell should I know?”

  I try to come to terms with no end to turtles before asking the obvious. “And runes are..?”

  “Do you have any Uncommon armor?”

  “A left boot, yeah.”

  “Perfect. Are you inspecting it in your inventory?”

  “No. Of course not. What a weird thing to assume.”

  “Well, do it.”

  “Why?”

  Mich sighs. “Just do it, please.”

  [ UNCOMMON ARMOR: LEFT CROC OF THE ANUBAE ]

  I look blankly at the complicated schematics with dozens of numbers that seem to relate in some way to the slipper. But, as usual, I don’t know what almost any of them mean. “Okay… So what am I looking for?”

  “Apart from the Armor Effects and the Mod Slot, you should see a circular outline off to the side of its System Display.”

  “I don’t really know what…” Oh. “Actually, yeah, I see that. I just thought it was part of the decorative display you get from higher-rarity stuff. So what’s the circle for?”

  “That’s a Rune Slot.”

  I nod knowingly. “I see…” But also sarcastically. “So?”

  “So, you can put a rune in there.”

  I nod knowingly. “I see…” My sarcasm overflows, flooding the entire conversation. “So?”

  “You know, if you’re gonna ask me to teach you these things, the least you could do is not make it feel like pulling teeth.”

  I slump in my chair. “Sorry. Bad habit. I’m trying to get over it. But… Well, you know. So what do Runes do?”

  “Why would that be a habit-Actually, you know what? Never mind. A Rune adds one to a single STAT.”

  My sarcasm evaporates and my hard-won attention is won hard. Now that’s what I’m talking about…

  Mich relaxes as he seems to spot my newfound attentiveness. “Not only that, but at the highest rarities, equipment comes with Three Rune Slots each. So, while you can’t do anything about it with Mod Slots, you can increase any STAT by three per fully slotted armor or weapon. Accessories don’t have Rune Slots. You can probably guess why.”

  Even with that tiny bit of bad news, my answering whisper is still reverent. “Woah…”

  “Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Fuck yeah, it is. So what’s the hold-up? Let’s go grind for them shits!”

  Mich shakes his head. “Not really a viable option, I’m afraid.”

  “Goddamn it, stop getting my hopes up like that!” I groan out a disgruntled near-silence to calm down a bit. “Okay, why?”

  “Because those kinds of Runes are incredibly popular. And incredibly rare. And therefore incredibly expensive.”

  I immediately revert to exactly how excited I was earlier. “Oh! So they’re at least common enough that they’re for sale? How much are they?”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘for sale’. A few of them do pop up on the Auction every now and then. But let me put it to you this way. If all of us liquidated everything we owned that wasn’t a starting item, and we pooled it all together, we still wouldn't come even remotely close to affording a Speed Rune.”

  Ross and Rachel grumble in annoyed agreement.

  I look over at them. “Wait, how did either of you know about Runes when I didn’t?”

  Rachel gets up. “Mich told us about them while you were off doing whatever you did for all of yesterday.” She twirls her staff. “I’m ready, by the way.”

  Ross somehow manages to stretch his newly encumbered arms. “Me too.”

  With renewed determination, Mich gets up and faces the dungeon entrance. “Then let’s go.”

  Penetrating the purple haze-bubble-thing, the open tree copse transitions directly into a rotted hole. At least there’s no maggots… I wasn’t looking forward to seeing those in here. But I hit the narrow definition of a jackpot in that regard, as there isn’t a sign of life in the whole place. There aren’t even any defining features besides a nearly identical texture of a long-dead wood ceiling, floor, and walls.

  Carefully at first, we proceed down the corridor faster and faster as we become more and more sure our path through the dead tree is stable.

  Eventually, that path forks.

  Without breaking stride, I walk down the left fork even as everyone else stops.

  Ross calls after me though. “Are we sure we should go that way?”

  I neither turn nor slow. “It’s a dungeon. No telling where the treasure is. So we’re going everywhere, right?”

  Rachel perks up at that. “There’s treasure?”

  Even as I approach the next corner, I don’t need to raise my voice with how echoey this place is. “No idea. Won’t know until we check, will we? In the meantime, we might as well just keep going left. Once we check the leftmost dead end for treasure, we can move one to the right. Then another and another and so on until we naturally make our way down that other fork you’re so in love with. Depth-first search is classic dungeon traversal methodology.”

  As though taking that as a self-deprecating cue, I jerk to a stop halfway around said corner.

  Coming up from behind, Mich seems to spot my ironically fresh hesitation. “What’s wrong?”

  Holding my sleeve to my mouth while I back away, I try to talk through a hacking cough. “What do you mean ‘what’s wrong’? It smells like death is what’s wrong.”

  Rachel retches from even further back. “Oh god… Yeah, that’s rancid. Should we turn around?”

  I lurch a defiant half-step forward before doubling back through a dry heave. “Yes. Yes we should.”

  Doubling back down the other fork instead, I quickly despair at the same smell emanating an even shorter way down this path now.

  Ross whines through a plugged nose. “Try another path?”

  I taste quesadilla through the ineffective filter of my sleeve. “No other paths to try. They all smell like… Oh god.”

  Turning the corner, we finally see it. There’s no more question of where the smell’s coming from.

  Some kind of dripping slime lizard thing is aimlessly dragging itself across the rough, decayed floor.

  It leaves a black slug-like trail that shows hints of red whenever it snags on the splinters jutting out sporadically from basically every surface in the dungeon. The poor thing has apparently been here for a while. The entire tree-dungeon-equivalent of a room is less coated and more drenched in the same thick red-tinged black goo.

  [ MONSTER TARGETED: SLIZARD ]

  With an increasingly distinct taste of quesadilla rising from my throat, my despair only deepens as I realize how much better that is than what I was already tasting on the air.

  As soon as I remember how to process stimuli, I turn in a minor panic to Mich. “You’re up I think. Arrows please. Lots of arrows.”

  Nodding severely, he knocks an arrow and looses it while swallowing a retch of his own.

  As a red ‘20’ rises from the impact point, the Slizard’s back left leg sloughs off as though from a rotted corpse. Smells like it too.

  In fact, we all audibly gag as the previously trapped scent reaches us.

  Rachel is the first to actually puke.

  But far from the last as the thing’s dismembered leg starts spinning at the middle joint. That leaves its lower half to hang and drip red-veined black slime while the upper part spins like a helicopter to whirl towards us, splattering everything nearby.

  That, specifically, is when the rest of us vomit.

  I convulse so hard that it turns to laughter at how hard I’m shaking, along with maybe a little shock-induced insanity. “WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FLYING FUCK???”

  Rachel cries out in horror. “MICH!!! OH MY GOD HIT IT AGAIN!!!”

  Ross’s battle harness continues to do exactly as much good as I thought it would in here. “BEFORE IT TOUCHES US!!!”

  Through watery eyes, Mich aims and looses an arrow that flies right past the helicoptering leg to wetly thunk into the newly legless Slizard.

  On impact, another leg slides free like a perfectly cooked lamb shank from the bone. It splatters slime and blood everywhere, but especially downward as it lifts off just like the first.

  Rachel’s screaming cry transitions into more of a regular one. “Tha-hat’s not what I me-he-he-heant..!”

  Ross sounds about ready to cry himself. “KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT-”

  Mich visibly fights the urge to lurch before nocking another arrow. “Don’t have to tell me twice…” The arrow he’s aiming glows brighter and larger as he pulls it further and further back.

  Finally releasing the string, a gently glowing, otherwise normal arrow takes a bit of the big shining one’s size and luster as it’s fired out. Then another. And another.

  A total of seven arrows shoot out of the shrinking central one before it becomes the eighth.

  Four arrows plunk into the sticky abomination, each answered by yet another limb falling off and subsequently propelling itself into the air by a spinning middle joint. The exception being the head, held aloft and upside-down by a whirling spinal cord.

  But the grossest thing by far is what’s left behind. Despite each limb having detached practically on its own, the cuts were anything but clean. Everything around the holes was eviscerated as each limb practically ripped themselves free.

  The final four of Mich’s eight-arrow barrage bounce off the pulsing mess of a gaping wound-filled torso shimmering with a translucent blue barrier as each arrow pings away.

  Ross continues offering up the same sage advice. “-KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT-”

  Rachel just runs, matching his cadence to a T. “-NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE-”

  I’m up against the wall as far away from any of that thing as I can get, busting a different kind of gut. “O-ho-ho-ho that’s so groooss!”

  Mich blinks at his suddenly ineffective arrows. “It says… Oh. Apparently, it’s immune to ranged damage now.”

  I stop laughing. I gulp. I instantly regret gulping.

  Mich turns to me despite my fervent wish that he wouldn’t. “Looks like you’re up, Swordsman.”

  “YEAH, I KNOW WHAT IT FUCKING LOOKS LIKE!!!” I try to center myself by shaking my head clear of the cold sweat and misdirected rage. It doesn’t work.

  But the six nightmare-fuel organic drones don’t seem to care as they inch closer and closer.

  Okay, don’t panic… Don’t panic…

  I put a hand on my sword hilt.

  …Alright, now what?

  Having accomplished as much of a plan as I could make just now, I start to improvise.

  [ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]

  At that, my mind goes blank. My gaze transfixed by the spinning limbs now close enough to spatter me with… “Oh god get away get away get awa-”

  [ COMMON ACTION: AURA BURST ]

  A shockwave blasts out from my whole body at once, doing precisely nothing at this range. But it certainly passes the test of being ‘literally anything’. Which is decidedly, and sadly, better than I’ve done so far.

  Not giving myself time to second-guess this, I leap forward, fueled by a visceral fear that waiting even a moment will only make the whole thing harder, messier, and exponentially worse. So, mind in the gutter, hand on my sheathed sword’s hilt, I run straight for the pulsing mess that used to be a torso.

  I’m not shy about mashing my panic button for a second, third, and fourth time as soon as I enter the range of the first, second, and final group of helicoptering limbs that curve towards me as I approach.

  [ COMMON ACTION: AURA BURST ]

  [ COMMON ACTION: AURA BURST ]

  [ COMMON ACTION: AURA BURST ]

  I put each of the airborne gore sprinklers out of my mind as I register them splattering into, and skidding across the hollowed-out tree’s wall, ceiling, or floor.

  As soon as I’m just barely within two sword-lengths of the torso, I draw.

  [ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]

  Ignoring the water getting flung everywhere by my permanently wet katana, I promptly and efficiently and frantically and desperately beat the ever-loving shit out of this thing! “AAAH!!! AAAH, OH GOD OH FUCK OH SHIT!!!”

  I don’t bother keeping track of how many times I hit the disgusting pile of goop from as fast and far away as I can.

  Just as the head gets close enough for its whirling spinal cord to fling some sort of gross bullshit onto me, I deactivate the only thing that makes this even slightly tolerable.

  [ RARE TOGGLE OFF: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]

  I’m left panting, exhausted, and oxygen-deprived from trying not to breathe in this place. Extremely careful not to let my fatigue and dizziness fuck this up now, I carefully resheath my katana, knowing that a miss basically guarentees getting splattered.

  [ IAI QUICKDRAW BONUS DAMAGE: 3,534 ]

  Each airborne limb goes from spinning to limp and falls wherever its momentum takes it as the throbbing torso explodes, showering the entire room in itself like history’s grossest grenade.

  I can just barely make out a two-digit golden number in the middle of all that. But I can’t actually read it. Nor would I care to if I could.

  I just stand here, shaken to the core as I whisper to myself. “Oh my god…”

  Mich seems to notice I’m having a hard time. “Everything okay?”

  I can feel my eye twitching. “That… Was the worst thing I’ve ever… Anythinged…”

  “Yeah… Do you need a break? Or are you good to go again? Now that we know what we’re dealing with, we can form a plan of some-”

  “AGAIN???”

  Mich looks apologetic, but resolved. “We only just started the dungeon.”

  I taste quesadilla. “Nope.”

  “You wanna back out?”

  “Yep.”

  “But the rewards-”

  Midway through his sentence, I make a beeline for the exit. “Don’t give a fuck, nothing is worth that.”

  Mich calls after me, his voice echoing throughout this whole gross-ass tree. “I didn’t think you were one to just give up like that-”

  I run back and get right up in his face. “Motherfucker…” I eye Ross in the corner, clutching his knees and rocking back and forth. “You wanna take a vote?”

  Finally noticing him, Mich relents. And together, we help a traumatized Ross to his feet before walking out of the cave. As soon as we do, the beatific environment puts the experience into, in several ways, a fresh perspective.

  I inhale as deep as I ever have.

  A few long breaths later, I break the ensuing silence. “So you wanna go back in there?”

  Mich shudders, clearly awash in the same dissonance. “I take your point.”

  Together with the help of a minimap teammate icon, we walk the roughly half-mile to where Rachel ran after she escaped the tree.

  But she apparently doesn’t want to talk. Or move. She would clearly prefer to just lay there in bed, silently looking about as defeated as a person can be.

  I just stare at her. But soon, my gaze moves to Ross. Then to Mich. Then to myself, still sporadically covered in slime and blood and…

  I look back at the other three. Aren’t we supposed to be heroes?

  I look down at myself again, feeling less comfortable in my own skin than I ever did when I was alive. And isn’t this supposed to be heaven?

  My mind races back to a Skill option I saw several times, but always dismissed as too trivial for the point investment.

  In a moment of clarity, I realize just how wrong I was.

  [ UNCOMMON CORE TOGGLE GAINED: CLEANLINESS — EFFECT 1: ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS YOU INTERACT WITH WILL NOT LEAVE ANY MARK ON YOUR PERSON OR CLOTHES — EFFECT 2: ANY FOREIGN MATERIAL NOT PART OF AN ACTIVE EFFECT WILL SLIDE OFF YOUR BODY — COST: MP DRAIN ]

  And now none of my CLASS or CRAFT Uncommons are selectable. Another clue. Just need a little more data to be sure… But I’m out of Skill Points. And me with a dungeon to erase…

  [ UNCOMMON TOGGLE ON: CLEANLINESS ]

  “Ahhh…” It feels like there was a layer of slime covering me a second ago. Which, of course, there was. But even without the literal slime, it’s like there was a thin membrane of raw sewage engulfing my whole body like vacuum-sealed cellophane. I just never noticed it. But now that it’s gone? The absence is impossible to miss.

  Coming out of my self-preservation-inflicted denial, I want to cry all over again. “Hey, guys?”

  No one replies, but everyone turns.

  “Do you mind staying here for a bit?”

  Ross looks at me like I’m crazy. “Why?”

  Rachel shudders before managing a single weak croak. “What..?”

  Mich gets back up. “I’m coming with.”

  Ross and Rachel perform a one-word duet. “WHAT???”

  Ignoring them, I flash Mich a wry grin. “If you can keep up…”

  Mich folds his arms. “Just how far do you think you’ll get without the ranged support?”

  “I was ‘gonna’ Aura Burst six times to get the torso free, and then smack the shit out of it till it died while Aura Bursting every time a limb got close.”

  “Oh, interesting. And Aura Burst is free to cast, is it? Because Cleanliness sure the hell isn’t. I assume that’s the Skill you just got? I have the same one, so I know what it looks like when it cleans you up. That thing drains MP like a sieve, you know. Just how fast do you expect to get this done?”

  My heart drops as I consider my passive regen. “I guess… You can come.”

  Ross’s arms shoot upwards. “I’m out!”

  Rachel weakly raises one. “Me too.”

  Mich and I look at each other. And then to the other two. “So this is it, then?”

  Rachel snorts. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. I’ll be in and around Welcome Hill whenever you’re done.”

  Ross’s shoulders relax. “That’s where we were going next, right?”

  “You’re joining me?”

  “Of course I am. Not about to hang around these two masochistic psychopaths if they’re about to be anywhere near that disgusting tree.”

  With another shudder, Rachel turns to Mich. “I gotta agree with Ross on this one. I’m still up for the trip to Central, but you can count me 100% out of anything to do with that Dungeon.”

  Can’t say I blame them. “I understand. And I agree. I was never much of a hero myself. But here I am in Heaven anyway. Figure the least I can do is return the favor and wipe that slime-rotted hellhole from the face of it.”

  Mich smiles down at me as he stands next to where Ross still hasn’t moved from. “Ditto, kiddo.”

  I groan at the almost-pun.

  Then, Mich and I deathmarch back to the dungeon.

  And we beat everything in that hellhole. Including the boss, called a ‘Slimodo Dragon’. Differentiated from the smaller Slizards by its size, power, speed, and a fun acidic disintegration effect added onto the grossest shit that never should’ve been.

  Once it dies, we vote to wipe the dungeon off the map, teleport back to the cave entrance, and do the whole thing again.

  And again and again.

  Eventually, we’re both too tired for another run.

  So we go to sleep just outside the massive, long-dead tree.

  Then we get up and do it all again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Aaand…