Chapter 91: Dungeon Party

“Ah, the pouch.” As Sean’s bag materialized, Jason patted an identical item on his hip. “If I’m being honest, this is the exact kind of magic shit I was hoping for from the Apocalypse. I can’t help but think it’s all downhill from here.”

“Yeah, this is a game changer.” As cool as the bag was for daily living, giving Sean a better option for weapon storage was going to be a huge deal all by itself. “I do have some more notifications, though. Sorry.”

“No, I totally get it. Take your time.”

Sean immediately moved on to the bonus-round prizes, reserving the exit rights for last.

They Say I’m Half-Horse (Achievement)

You have killed a centaur, a frankly horrifying piece of Earth mythology that’s half horse, half man, and yet still somehow no one ever asks uncomfortable questions about reproduction and butt-wiping practicalities.

The Apocalypse System doesn’t pretend that it’s going to attempt to answer those questions. But if a centaur can be a man with horse characteristics, so can you. No, not like that. This is a kid-friendly show, Sean.

Effects: +5 VIT, Slightly improved movement speed when walking and running in straight lines.

Snake Smasher (Achievement)

You destroyed a giant scalemail snake, an enemy intentionally designed to counter pretty much anything a combatant of your level can dish out. Without even checking, the Apocalypse System knows you are the type that did it by being tricky rather than using overwhelming force. No problem. Dead is dead, and you came out on top.

Rewards: Slightly improved resistance to blunt force trauma, slashing damage, piercing damage, and elemental damage. Vial of soporific poison (10x)

Soporific Poison

Puts things to sleep. There are different grades of this toxin that you wouldn’t understand. Since it’s the Apocalypse System’s job to make sure you understand what you are holding, the best way to think about it is that this stuff will put almost anything you are likely to encounter right now to sleep. The only caveats are that you need find a way to expose your victim to enough of it and they haven’t built their poison immunity to higher-than-average levels.

Smaller doses have a numbing effect.

“Good stuff?”

“Very good. But the next one is going to be weirder.”

“How so?”

“I kind of mixed it up with the audience a bit.”

Jason cocked his head to the side, then appeared to decide it wasn’t worth delaying Sean to dig into the details of that statement just yet. He waved him back to the notifications while Sean dug back into the last two notifications.

Crowd Slayvorite

You might be wondering if the arena crowd was something the Apocalypse System meant for you to kill. It wasn’t. You might further wonder if even a single other competitor put as much as a scratch on a single spectator in the stands, intentionally or otherwise.

They didn’t. That was only you. Whatever you might think of the offworlders’ attitudes towards violence, it didn’t even occur to them to leap the wall and wreak havoc-by-snake-proxy on hundreds and hundreds of people.

In recognition of your unique and totally normal behavior, the system has created a minor reward specifically geared towards other non-standard tastes you sometimes exhibit.

Reward: A lifetime supply of Plug Mud (Base upgrade, dispenser)

There was one last message, arguably the most important of all the notifications swarming Sean.

Apocalypse Competition Exit Rights

You came to vie for power, to fight, grow, and gain rewards. But what if you have those rewards already? What if you feel strong enough? What if, and I’m just putting this out there, you are tired of things trying to behead you?

Then you can leave. It’s as simple as that.

Activating your Exit Rights in a relatively safe environment will result in a bunch of confirmation windows. Truly, a lot of them. But once you’ve clicked yes on enough of those, you will be transported to a mundane, relatively peaceful system planet with reasonable enough opportunities for a person of your new-found skills.

You will retain all your stats, your possessions, any rights and achievements you obtained which are not restricted to be Earth or Challenge specific, and will receive an achievement related to your performance in the competition up to the point you exit. Specific to you, your base and all its contents will travel safely with you, including its current non-you occupant.

The Apocalypse System trusts that you understand this is a one-way ticket. To make it explicit, there’s no returning to the competition or the Earth in general once you exercise this right, barring truly exceptional separate circumstances.

“Ok, done,” Sean said. “Thanks for waiting.”

“Good loot?”

“Yeah. And lots of achievements. I’m not sure I’d say it was worth it, but…”

“I get it. It’s good to get paid,” Jason said. “Anyway, not to hurry you up, but the others are waiting. We need to talk about this.”

—

Sean wasn’t inconsiderate enough to go to this meeting alone when there was another person on his team who was affected by his decisions. After a quick trip to the base to get Brett, he and Jason ran to the tavern to meet with the others.

Brady, Brendan, and Spike were already there when he arrived. Sean looked around for the aged battle bard, not seeing him anywhere.

“If you are looking for Scott, he’s not here. Or in the town, that we can tell.,” Spike said. “I don’t know for sure, but—”

“He’s probably dead,” Brady interjected. “There’s no use ignoring it. It’s almost weirder that so many of us survived.”

Spike nodded, frowning. “Probably, yeah. It’s unfortunate, but not unexpected. Which leaves just the six of us on team Earth. With recent developments, Jason and I thought it would be a good idea if we talked about it. So everyone knows what to expect.”

Everyone nodded along. It made sense. The tactical situation hadn’t rewarded them for teaming up much yet, but that didn’t mean it would never happen. If nearly everyone was leaving, that would leave a much different tactical situation for anyone who remained.

“So, show of hands,” Jason said. “Is anyone sure they are leaving, right now?”

Nobody raised their hands.

“Is anyone sure they are staying?”

Sean raised his hand. He wasn’t down for the count yet. Spike and Jason both also raised theirs.

“The rest of you are on the fence, then,” Spike said.

“I am.” Brendan spoke up. “I’m sorry. What happened to Hayden shook me up. I’m just not sure, right now.”

“It’s fine, Brendan,” Brady said. “Nobody is under contract here. I’m not sure if I’m staying either. I came here to get stronger and now I’m stronger. Probably pretty damn strong for my level. But I’m specialized. I do distractions. I barely got through that last challenge. Don’t really feel like dying over this, unless there’s some great intel that the next challenge is easy.”

Spike held his hand up. “Listen, I get it. And you are right, it’s fine. If anyone wants to leave, they can leave, as far as I’m concerned. This is more to level-set, to know where we stand.”

They talked it over for a while. It didn’t thrill Sean to know that fully half the allies he started the day with might be gone by the time he went to sleep, but he understood. He had talked to them all a bit, by now. Most of them had stumbled into better-than-average powers or weird outlier situations to get here, and then just decided to see how far they could ride it out. Leaving when things got too hot made a lot of sense for them.

Spike and Jason were a little more committed to the cause, but as far as Sean could tell, that was because they grew up as nerdy kids for whom, all of this was a cool sort of opportunity to live out fantasies they had picked up from anime. They wanted to get as strong as possible and were romanced by the excitement of it all, but they weren’t like him.

Of the people present, only him and Brett were really truly committed to seeing the competition through to the end. And Sean had to admit that this made them the crazy ones, people who were taking unnecessary risks just to screw over the offworlders and to pursue a probably impossible dream of doing something to save the planet.

In the end, it seemed like both Brendan and Brady were more likely to go than stay. Brady made it clearer, but Sean could see Brendan trying to talk himself into being brave and failing. He understood. It was what it was.

Then, with a simple notification, the system made threw a wrench into things, at least for a while.

Break time!

It’s hard to enjoy everything this space has to offer with the ever-looming prospect of a surprise trial on the horizon. Until now, most competitors have made only a single trip into the area outside the village, which is understandable. You wouldn’t want to get whisked away to a trial already injured, or be returned from a trial half-dead and still expected to finish up the goals of a System Space.

To make that easier on you, the system is offering you three sundowns worth of assured rest. The rest of today, tomorrow, and the daytime hours of the day after tomorrow are a guaranteed no-trial period, one you can spend however you like. You can rest, hunt, shop, or anything else that pleases you.

After that, all bets are off. Enjoy!

“Well, that changes things a bit,” Brady said after reading the notification. “At least for me. The proving ground should have been the hardest of the dungeons, right? And we took it out of order. If there’s no risk of getting sucked into a trial, I’d probably be down to raid those spaces before I go.”

Brendan looked unconvinced. “We don’t really know what’s in those. It’s still dangerous.”

“Maybe, but we’d go in as a team,” Spike said. “Or at least I think we could. I’m not exactly sure.”

“You could. I’ve had my ear to the ground this whole time,” Brett said. “I’ve been talking to the vendors. The offworlders pretty much ignore that they are real people. They say things in front of them. There are three obvious dungeons out there, and all three of them give the option of exploring them as parties. The System seems to expect that.”

“Huh,” Jason said. “Well, yeah. Spike and I were staying anyway. I think both of us would be interested in raiding the dungeons.”

With Brendan still appearing undecided, Jason looked to Sean. “Is it okay if I tell him? What you told me about the last trial?”

Sean nodded. He had no problem with anyone knowing he had done well, at this point. Any strong offworlder was already probably gunning for him, anyway.

“Sean beat the fifth level of that last trial,” Jason said. Brendan’s head whipped up.

“For real? The fifth?”

“Yes. It was a big stretch, but I survived it somehow,” Sean said.

“Shit. I only got through the fourth.” Spike took a puff off his cigarette. “And just barely. And here I thought I was the big Earthling in the village.”

Jason shrugged, then went back to trying to keep things on track. “I’m only saying this so you know we have a ringer. Right now, Sean is the strongest of all of us. It’s not a guarantee, but if he’s there, the dungeons should be doable. Probably.”

And that was that. For the first time, Sean was going to a System Space on purpose and backed by a full party. And if he had anything to do with it, they were going to screw that dungeon up.