Shit, Meet Fan

Matt was half listening to his friend Bethesda as she rattled on about something her roommate had said before she left with him. He hated the idea of making a friend feel ignored but couldn't shake this feeling sending alarming tingles up the back of his neck. 'Something is wrong' was screaming from somewhere primal and ancient within.

It was at that moment as he slowed his car and began making the left turn onto their friend, Josh the DM's red dirt road when he spotted strange lights in the western sky far above the few clouds meandering around. The lights were unlike any natural phenomenon that could be attributed to swamp gas or human engineering. But, before he could even give that thought time to begin processing into further questions he felt something terrifying. It was like gravity turned off and then like every fiber of his being were being stretched apart into infinitely thin spaghetti strands going in every direction all at once as though it was instantaneous and so slow as to feel like at least a dozen eternities. The feeling disorienting on a level unfathomable by anyone who merely hears a description of it. For the briefest infinity he lost all sense of himself beyond that inner presence which witnesses our thoughts happening.

And then, as though the universe decided to snap it's fingers and press control+z on the changes to him, he felt a popping sensation and his perspective back into himself as though nothing had happened.

Except it clearly had, he noticed as he heard the sound of screaming coming from his own throat and his friend beside him. His vehicle was spinning down the dirt road careening towards a stone mailbox. Instincts took over as his hands moved on autopilot guiding the car out of the spin into a drift that he corrected as quickly as he could. During this he barely noticed the strange semi-transparent blue box filling most of his primary vision space.

Bethesda's screaming became slightly more coherent if not less loud in his ear as she said, "What system?"

Matthias shook his said, "I have no clue but I'm seeing it too!"

And just as he said that, the blue box in their eyes disappeared. He blinked, let his foot off the brake and quickly sped the 200 feet to Josh's driveway. He slipped over the bump at the end of the long driveway shrouded on both sides by untamed forest. Well, what little remained in the rural area that had seen a new subdivision built within 2 miles every 6 months for a couple years now. Just as he was slipping the gear shifter into park, they both heard a loud noise like thunder growling to the left. As their heads turned to see where that noise was coming from, they saw a massive goat as big as a VW Minibus charging out of the woods and ramming the car with it's horns, hitting it so hard the car flips up onto it's side as the goat bounds away like a rabid dog chasing a running rabbit. The two of them barely seeing it hop off into the forest again as they are thrown around the interior from the impact of it's hit.

Bethesda yells, "What THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"

Matthias chimes in after a pained 'OW!' from smacking the dashboard with his head in the tumble from his seat and onto Bethesda in the passenger seat now that it was the new down. "Not what I was trying to do. Such Ow, much suck." Then he angled himself around and had to climb up to the driver's door and out of his broken window, since the door itself was all smashed up from the goat-thing hitting it. After pulling himself up and through, he looked down at Bethesda, "Come with me if you want to live." And you know he said it in his best Arnold accent too, Bethesda completely missing the reference though says, "What kind of shit is that to say?"

Matthias blanches a little, "It's from a movie, sorry I make jokes when I'm stressed. And this shit is stressful. We need to hurry, I don't know what's going on but it's getting crazy." And while he's rambling all that, Bethesda grabs his hand and climbs up and out the window to perch atop the car with him. He reaches back inside under his driver's seat and grabs an expensive machete he got for himself after he got his new job last year.

Bethesda looks at him quizzically, "That's a big knife, but that goat was bigger. Like a lot bigger, not a little bit like when a girl is trying to be nice and say no that other guy she was fucking didn't have a bigger dick." She stopped talking as she saw his face, "I guess we both have nervous habits when we're stressed. Let's get inside Josh's."

They hop down from their perch on top of the car and hear a new noise unlike the thundering sound of that giant goat thing running and screaming like it was. This noise is more like a train horn, but higher pitch and quiet but getting louder. They both look around for danger and sprint towards the gate to the fenced in yard that leads onto the porch where the front door to the house is. Before they can reach the gate, they see flashes of colored lights from overhead and glance up to see honest to god spaceships of all shapes and sizes fighting in the skies overhead. One of them fires a blacklight ball at a big glowing red sphere that punches a hole right through it and into the edge of the moon taking a groove out of the roughly 2pm area if the moon were a clockface. Small, but noticeable with the naked eye, just a piece of the moon is gone. They blinked trying to process all of that, while they noise grew louder and louder in their ears, to the point it was painful to hear. They stop at the gate to the yard, trying to unlock it as the sound and the pain it is causing grows higher, when all the sudden something crashes into the corner of the house. The corner that Josh uses as a home office and game room. They see him through the hole in the wall, sitting at his computer with a dime sized hole in his head at the temple.

The hole begins to glow as purple and green flames, tiny in size but growing rapidly in coverage spread across his body and incinerate it in the blink of an eye. They stare at the spot he was just sitting as the ashen form of their friend begins to fall apart and dissolve from the growing wind.

"NO!" Bethesda rages at the universe, tears fighting with her anger at the unfairness of this moment, at the loss of life of one of her only close friends.

"Well, fuck..." Matthias croaks, his mind threatening to take a break from all the chaos of the last minute. "Boy Scouts said to always be prepared, but I didn't get the fucking manual for this shit!"

Their collective shock weighing heavily on them both, they don't hear the sound of more goat hooves until they hear some nearby trees snapping and starting to fall. Looking around for the source of the noise, their vision is once again covered with a semi-transparent blue box.

And before their eyes a grey stone obelisk started rising rapidly out of the ground between them and another goat coming from the woods. A strange light began radiating from the obelisk and swirling, somewhere between green and the color of the light emitted by a blacklight. The goat is pulled off it's feet into the light and disappears as Matthias see's Bethesda turning to wrap her arms around the fence, he reaches to do so too. The fence isn't made for this kind of pressure though and begins to shift, which causes them both to lose their grip and fly off into the air towards the light that was still swallowing up other goats and debris from nearby.

Matthias felt time stretch out into forever as he touched the light. His body felt like gravity passed through him and he turned inside out. He blinked, his eyes clearing to discover he had not in fact turned inside out. He was laying on the ground in a strange stone room. He thought it reminded him vaguely of some of the stone architecture he saw in Europe while adventuring there a few years ago. As his eyes and mind continued to wander about the room, he spotted Bethesda's tiny frame against the wall to his left. She was just sitting there, back against the wall staring at him blankly before she said suddenly, "Oh Hell No! Absolutely not! If I gotta play this game looking shit, I'm not sticking with this name. From now on, I'm Cleo Shepherd."

"What?" Matthias asked as he tried to get to his feet and felt dizzy a moment before powering through it and standing.

"There's a status screen, like those weird notifications before we got sucked into this room. But it has our names and a bunch of stats. I woke up a couple minutes ago. IDK where we are, I've just been playing with these screens in front of my eyes waiting on you to wake up. I was scared you were dead when I first woke up, and I'm not losing a second friend in the same day. So I was freaking out, then I noticed you were breathing so I sat back down here and then you woke up while I was playing with this status screen." Cleo said to him.

"So, Cleo. . . Okay what is a status screen?" And then he blinked in surprise as a new box full of information appeared in front of his eyes.

"OH," he said surprisedly after that. Cleo laughed, hard, "Yeah this is some magejosh game type shit in real life. I'd ask what he gave us but it all started before we got to his house and then he died in front of us. Oh. . . " Her tone drawing down to a morbid tenor with that last realization as she remembered what all has happened to them in the last couple of minutes.

"I can't believe he just dissolved in colored flames in the blink of an eye. It happened so fast, but it's etched in my eyes when I close them." Cleo said. "But if we're really in some kind of game world now like this character sheet screen in front of my eyes tells me, then I refuse to believe magejosh doesn't have an extra life saved and he's out there right now gonna show up and help us figure things out."

Matthias dismissed his status screen as she said this, looking at her and smiling as he says in a kind and warm tone, "Sure thing buddy, I'm sure you're right. But until then, we need to take care of ourselves. Let's figure out where we are. Are those doors?" He asks pointing to two walls that have door sized grooves etched into them.

They both moved towards one of the doors and noticed there was strange writing on it, yet they could clearly read it.

Bethesda reached for a circle on the door near where a door handle might be and touched it. Nothing happened from Matthias' perspective but she said, "What the shit? How do I get a level then?"

Matthias reached out and touched the circle on the door, and a notification popped up, followed by more as he cleared them.

Matthias willed his Status screen open again.

"It says we can't use the door until we're level 10, but doesn't say how we get to level 10. Mine still shows N/a on my Status screen." Bethesda said after watching him staring off into space for a few minutes.

Matthias slowly responds to her, "Yeah mine shows the same, but it says I unlocked achievements and some of those grant perks. I'm trying to figure out how to spend the perks it granted. My best guess is the way to get a level will be revealed as we unlock stuff. We must be in the tutorial right now or something."

"Oh! Perks, you just think it like you do status and it gives you a big ass list of options. Way too many options. I don't even know where to start," Bethesda trails off despondently.

And with that they waste at least a half hour just browsing options without another word. The silence only interrupted by a rumble from Matthias' stomach. Bethesda replied, "Me two homie, me two!"

Scene 2

Matthias moved over towards the other door in the roughly ten by twenty foot stone room they were in. "We need to check out this other door and see if there's food somewhere. That basin full of water from the spring in the wall is probably safe to drink but we left the pizza in the car. All my supplies are in the car. All I have is this machete and this knife."

Cleo digs into her handbag, producing two knives of her own. And her propane torch for her dab rig. "I have this, no snacks though, they were in the bags from the Dollar store in the back seat with the pizzas. I do have a bottle of water though. Just the one, half drank. But we can refill it there at least, " she said gesturing at the stone water basin against one of the walls in the room.

Matthias shrugged with a smile, "Better than not having anything to carry any water with. I almost picked this one perk called Supply Kit more than partly because it came with a canteen of water. I don't know what's going on, but I know what they told me in the Boy Scouts. Always be prepared, and we are woefully underprepared right now." He looked at the other door's label.

He pressed the circle and it clicked inwardly a half inch or so, then the door slid to the left revealing a loose forest scene with what looks to be a clearing ahead through some trees.

He looked over to Cleo, "Want to go check this place out, probably best to use the buddy system for now."

She nodded and moved to follow him, "Lets d&d this bitch!"

He laughed and they stepped out into the forest. Noticing the change in smells as they crossed the doorway distinctly he looked around to get a good sense of the surrounding area, scanning for movement and danger first. That's when a series of new notifications polluted his field of view again, which he dismissed as soon as they appeared. Something about new quests, "Did you get those notifications too?"

Cleo nodded, "Yeah, I'm looking through them now. Looks like we're in something called a Challenge Dungeon, that is Level 16. And we are meant to hunt beasts in the dungeon, looks like two for the first level, with space for more tasks waiting to be revealed. We also have to kill a boss beast in addition to our two beasts each. But also, this dungeon is being invaded by Hellspawn it says, and it will give us extra rewards for each one we kill."

Matthias thought long and hard as he looked around listening to Cleo. He moved slowly and quietly towards a strong looking branch laying a few feet away under a tree. It was maybe 8 feet long, almost perfectly straight naturally, with a nice sharp point on one end where it had broken from the tree above it. He pulled his knife and began whittling the point into a more solid wooden piercing point before moving on to cleaning the knots and small branches from its shaft. Cleo watching him and looking around them as he produced a crude wooden spear in a few more minutes than he wanted to admit.

"I got a couple skill levels in woodworking, a new achievement for crafting this spear, and something called a Path Point. You should probably try to do the same, better to have spears than knives when fighting beasts. Not that I know what this system thinks beasts are. Could be dragons or wolves, either way seems like a spear problem not a knife problem." Matthias says in his best radio narrator voice. That was one of the things people loved him for, his character voices and oration stylings. He leaned into it now, as something everyone didn't know was it was his way to deal with nervous energy building up inside him. 'As long as I can keep my cool I shouldn't black out. That would be bad right now.' That last thought not helping his stress levels in any way.

"Okay so just carve a point on a stick?" Cleo asked him, grabbing a nearby branch that was mostly straight and a little longer than she was tall.

"I mean, yeah basically. I just want the point to be solid instead of having thin edges that will lead to cracking the tip." Matthias explained as he started on another one while looking around the area a little further from the doorway. Thats when he looked back at the doorway and realized it opened out of a large tree, one of the largest trees he's seen in a long while. Easily about 12 feet wide at the base of the trunk where the doorway opens from. It was closed now, but still had the same outline and circle just like the doorway had on the inside where it was a stone room. 'Curiouser and curiouser' he thought.

They worked on spears until each had three to work with. Matthias was noticing the knife he was using was starting to rust while he worked with it. This was concerning him, because he'd never watched steel rust in front of his eyes. It wasn't so fast as to be breaking down yet. Just little rust spots appearing on it as he worked. He cleaned them off the best he could as he finished working and said, "Make sure to clean your blade off after that, and then lets go check out that area ahead with less trees. I'm not seeing any food or other beasts around this tree. I wonder if it is an effect of the safe room, like it pushes the creatures away from the doorway? Maybe, I don't know."

Cleo replied, "Is yours getting all rusty looking too?" She gestured with her knife as she asked.

"Yeah I'm not sure why it's happening so fast, but that means we have to take extra good care of our knives since we can't go to the store to buy new ones at the moment." Matthias reasoned.

"Really? You think amazon will deliver here?" Cleo sarcastically asked.

"Dork" Matthias said. They moved off towards the clearing ahead. The trees didn't look that different than those around Josh's driveway really, except that weird one that had the doorway. And as they approached the clearing it revealed itself to be a prairie field as vast as any rural area in Oklahoma. Far to the west, if the rules of the sun were the same at least Matthias thought to himself, were a set of mountains as big as those you might see driving into Colorado from Kansas, so tall they were capped in snow. To the north and south were just more prairie with rolling hills and various grassland shrubs. The forest stretched as far as they could see on this eastern edge of the prairie to the north and south.

"We should climb up a tree to get a better view of the area, maybe we will see something to hunt." Cleo said.

Matthias looked at the trees nearby, without some rope, there was no safe way to climb any of them. There weren't even any good vines nearby to try and make some makeshift rope with. There were a lot of long grasses in the prairie though. He shivered at the thought of trying to braid useful rope in any length from what is effectively long grass. There was a flash next to him. Cleo was holding a large leather and canvas hiker's backpack, fully packed with a canteen and bedroll attached to the frame of the backpack.

She smiled, "I spent a perk point on that Supply Kit. Seemed like a good idea, it comes with rope so we can climb this tree, and a climbing hook."

Matthias felt his stress levels rise a little more, then breathed deeply and said, "That should work, we can hook a branch and climb up pretty easily."

It took Cleo three tries to get it to hook, the problem was it hooked a small branch further out from the trunk than was safe for Matthias to try climbing up. She shrugged, "I can go up and just move the rope so you can climb up near the trunk."

"Be my guest," he replied. Looking up the twenty-five feet of rope she'd have to climb without anything but the rope to grip. He began planning where to stand so he could catch her if she fell.

She grabbed the rope, wrapped it around her body and looped it around her foot, effectively quick rigging an ascending safety rope grip like it was nothing and beginning to climb, adjusting the rope as she climbed so she had a footrest of the loop as needed. In no time she was up to the branch and unlooping the hook. She moved it to the trunk and retied it around a thicker branch a little higher up. She looked down and said, "Tell me that wasn't some Lara Croft shit, I knew doing those climbing classes was gonna help someday."

Matthias laughed as he said, "HOLY SHIT, that was pretty cool! Totally unexpected. Not trying to diss you, just saying I did not expect that." And with that he started climbing the tree with his feet walking up the trunk until he was pulling himself atop the branch. They both looked around from here and saw movement on the other side of some nearby low rolling hills.

There was a herd of big turkeys, really really big turkeys, that were picking at the grass in a little valley between a couple hills. But beyond the herd, creeping closer, was another of those giant goats from hell that had hit the car they were in earlier. Cleo seeing this said, "We can take one of those turkeys in the chaos of that thing attacking the herd," and rappelled down the rope too fast for Matthias to process what she'd said.

He blinked and scrambled down after her, giving chase to try and catch up before she got to the top of that hill the turkeys were on the other side of. 'I think turkeys can be dangerous in herds, I swear I heard that somewhere. We do not want to be in the middle of a panicking herd of birds.'

She was smaller and faster than him, not by a lot, but just enough he had to run full tilt to catch her before she got to the hill. He put his hand on her shoulder as she slowed near the hill. He whispered urgently, "Wait, if that thing attacks we don't want to get it's attention. It will scatter the herd and I bet they run towards the trees. We can climb up the tree again and throw spears down at one that runs under."

"Damn, that makes too much sense. Lets do that. But I want to get a closer look first, lets peek over the hilltop." Cleo says back to him quietly, then crouches and duckwalks as she nears the hill's top. Matthias sneaks behind her, cursing under his breath. They crest the hill though and he's glad he got a look. Those turkeys are as tall as or taller than him, one and all. And he's six feet tall. The goat thing is getting closer as well, though on opposite sides of the turkey herd as they were. It looks a little smaller than the one that hit the car, but still easily 10 feet long and as tall or taller than the turkeys. 'Except that one turkey twice the size of the others, we'll call him megaturkey."

"There are dozens of giant turkeys down there. We could get trampled out here, you're right we should get back to the tree and hope they run that way." Cleo whispers.

Matthias nods and together they sneak back down the hill and then run for the tree with the rope in it still. Just as they get to the rope they begin hearing a cacophony of noise from the direction of the turkey herd. The hill they had been atop is covered in fleeing turkeys as they stand there looking. Cleo races up the tree with Matthias quickly behind her, after tying off their spears to the rope so he can pull them up behind him. They barely get themselves pulled on top of the branches before the turkeys were hitting the tree line. Matthias scrambled to his feet and yanked the spears up. Cleo grabbed one and threw with a miss. Matthias threw one as well and hit the left hip of the oversized bird. It screamed in pain in such a way that they felt the sound vibrating their chests and heads, making them a little dizzy.

Cleo threw another spear at it, "Just shut up and die already!" she screamed as she released the spear then nearly fell from the branch. Her feet slipped and she planted her pelvis onto the branch with her legs straddling it. She hugged onto the branch with her arms to stop herself from falling further. The yelp that punctuated her slip and fall was so high pitched it blended with the strange yells of the turkey in such a way Matthias didn't even notice she yelled. He just launched his second spear and hit the turkey in the head through the eye. The noise ending immediately. This left just Cleo screaming. He looked down at her, "You okay little buddy?"

Her face scrunched up in rage, "How many times do I have to tell you don't call me 'Little Buddy'?"

"Oh, oops. Yeah sorry about that. I'll remember it eventually, I swear." He said with a half-grin. "So that means you're good though right? Soon as the others clear the area and we're sure the goat is not coming this way, we'll get down there and start cutting this guy up and cooking him."

She laughed, "Imagine selling those turkey legs at the Ren Faire!"

Matthias laughed at that, "You could feed a whole household on one of those turkey legs."

"You're gonna feed a whole hobbit with one of those for sure. This hobbit." Cleo chuckled.

They watched for a while and when they were sure it was safe they decided Matthias would carve up the turkey while Cleo kept a watch out above him from the tree. He went to work on the carcass and had the Supply Kit's tent roll as a field table on the ground where he could place the meat in strips to prepare it for smoking. He remembered seeing a hickory tree not too far back towards the doorway tree. The Supply Kit had a hand hatchet tool he could use for that. It took the better part of an hour to finish, and Cleo only had the patience for about twenty minutes before she wanted to come down. She gathered branches for use making drying racks and started digging a smoking trench based on what Matthias described they would need. By the time he was ready for smoking wood, she had a good sized trench going and makeshift meat drying racks propped over the trench. She was grateful their friend Josh had been so into crazy survival hacks and had introduced their gaming group to so many ideas over the years. She was lost in memories of their lost friend when Matthias said, "Lets go together after we pull this canvas full of meat up into the tree while we're gone. We need to get the right wood to use for smoking the meat so it tastes good."

Cleo grinned, "There's so many jokes with what you just said I'm not even going to touch them, they make themselves."

Matthias laughed, "Shut up, you know what I mean."

They moved back towards the hickory tree he remembered seeing off behind the doorway tree.

They found themselves at the root of the tree in about 5 minutes of walking cautiously while keeping an eye out for danger. Cleo had the backpack strapped onto her back, it was bigger than she was. But she carried it easily enough, which was only mildly disorienting to watch, Matthias mused to himself as they gathered branches and packed them into the backpack that seemed to work like a bag of holding. It really didn't have a huge amount of space left inside it, but it had some, especially after they had removed the tent and bedroll back in their tree where their meat was currently hanging wrapped in the canvas cover of the tent. He chopped a couple of the lower branches of the tree as well, before they were out of material that was easy to collect. He spotted something deeper in the woods though that might be better. "That's all of this we can get easy, I think that's a pecan tree back there though. If so, that would be good as well." He said pointing to a tree about 40 or 50 feet away from the doorway tree.

When they made it to the other tree, they discovered something else was already there eating the pecans on the ground. A small rabbit with a single horn on it's head. Matthias stilled immediately and put his finger over his mouth in the be quiet sign as he looked at Cleo then pointed to the rabbit. He knelt down on his knees and moved forward, spears gripped in his left hand held behind him, his open right hand palm out like you might hold food out to an animal. His tone gentle and even, "Hey there little buddy, you doing okay?"

The rabbit stopped munching on a pecan and tilted it's head to look at him with one eye. It scurried away from him after a moment, heading deeper into the forest. The undergrowth got heavier this way, obscuring visibility to follow the rabbit but Matthias couldn't resist. He hopped up into a crouch run after the rabbit. Cleo tried to follow, but lagged behind more from surprise than lack of ability to keep up.

Matthias gave chase for a few minutes before realizing he was moving too far from the doorway tree. He looked around for signs of the rabbit but couldn't see it anywhere. "Damn, I wanted to try out this pet bond contract, that thing was cool." Cleo traipsed up behind him through some brush at that point. He looked back at her, "We should probably work our way back. I lost the rabbit."

"Seriously? All that just to turn back now? Whatever, lets go." She said in a huff and turned, the oversized backpack slinging around with her motion nearly knocking him over. He dodged back, and then heard a clicking noise in the trees above him. He looked up to see a large tree-frog, neon green with orange spots. It opened it's mouth and spit an orange colored goo in his direction. He'd just dodged back from the backpack and hadn't regained his balance so when he tried to avoid the goo hitting him, he slipped and got hit in the shoulder and down most of his left arm. The moment it touched skin, it felt like his skin was warming up rapidly like it was cooking. It turned red wherever the goo touched. The pain rapidly ramped up to levels he's never felt before. He screamed out and Cleo arrived at his side, pulling him onto his feet and dragging him away from the frog as it spit another ball of goo their direction.

They ran. As fast as they could, Matthias' screams continuing to modulate with his ability to breathe and run. As he did so, with Cleo keeping him moving, the skin on his shoulder and arm began to dissolve, being scraped off by branches as they passed them. His shirt already dissolved everywhere the goo had touched. He'd already ignored the notification that had popped up when he'd been hit, but he could tell he was taking damage over time without reading it. He needed to get back to the safe zone, it had a healing buff. He remembered noticing that when he looked at his character sheet after waking in the safe zone. That was the only coherent thought in his mind as he ran. All else was pain.

Cleo was freaking out while they ran, she did not want Matthias to die but did not know how to help him either. So she kept him moving back towards the safe zone room. 'There's that stone water fountain against the wall in there, maybe we can wash off the goo.'

In mere minutes they were hustling through the opening doorway to the safe zone with Matthias' muscles still sizzling audibly as the goo kept burning his flesh away with no fire. Matthias dove into the basin full of water and scrubbed at the area of the goo on him. The pool of water went red from his blood flowing into the pool with his vigorous washing of the goo covered wound site. His screaming finally calmed to bitching loudly within a half hour or so. But remarkably, his skin was starting to regrow as well. It was slow but it was happening.

Cleo said to him when he calmed down from bitching for a minute, "We should revisit spending our perks now. I think saving them might not have been our best idea. The Supply Kit alone has been super useful. I saw a couple classes as options too. None of them looked right to me though, like not fitting of me. I'm looking at Tactile Enhancement right now though. It's a Lesser Perk. Since I already spent my medium on the Supply Kit. If I'm reading the description right, I think this one will make me better at crafting things by hand. Which seems like a good idea, as that's how things are made as far as I know when you don't have machines to make them for you."

Matthias took a deep breath, "Yeah, you're probably not wrong. I'll take a look now while I'm still healing my HP back to full." And with that, he closed his eyes and focused on the Perks section and brought up the Perks List. 'I wish there was a way to sort and search this list.' Then the display changed and a search field like he was used to appeared at the top of the list. He searched for 'Helper' and it autocorrected to Companion. The list got much shorter now. With only a few options, and only two of those really looking interesting to him. One was an AI companion, which made him think of J.A.R.V.I.S. and Iron Man, but it had a requirement of a computational device at least Tech Level 3 or higher. Both of their phones had stopped working though, they checked that when they woke up in the safe zone the first time. They don't even power on, just blank black screens. 'Oh well, this Spirit Companion option looks cool. It knows magic and may choose to teach you magical secrets bit in the description has me interested. I want to cast fireball too, though it says the spirit will have a random elemental affinity so no telling what I will get if I pick it. But it's only a Lesser Perk and it says I can ask the spirit to show itself to others as well. YOLO.' He purchased the perk.

A man with curly hair, dark and semi-shaggy, with a beard, wearing only a pair of sunglasses visible above the water said from beside Matthias, "You are an interesting one that is for sure Matthias. I'm Ari, your Spirit Companion until you die. Which seems like if you keep up what you've been doing shouldn't take too long."

Matthias nearly jumped out of the basin as his voice raised 3 octaves, "WHOA Where did you come from?"

Ari rolled his eyes, behind his sunglasses. Then, realizing the problem, pulled the sunglasses off and rolled his eyes again before saying, "You spent the Lesser Perk Point, selecting Spirit Companion, I got assigned to you. So I arrived." He shrugged.

Cleo looked at Matthias talking to the basin like someone else was sitting there with him. She grew worried, "You okay there Matthias, you are talking to the air."

He looked over at her, then to Ari, then her again. "Wait, you don't see him?" He asked, pointing to Ari who remained invisible to Cleo.

Cleo nodded negative, "See who? You're starting to freak me out Matthias."

Matthias looked away from her to his side, "Come on dude, I know you can show yourself to her, it was in the perk description. You can't leave me looking insane."

With that, Ari appeared in the basin with Matthias. He smiled at her, "Nice to make your acquaintance Miss Cleo, I am Ari, Spirit Companion to Mathias."

Cleo blinked. She hadn't said her name nor had Matthias. She was still more than a little freaked out about her experience changing it on her status screen. She'd argued with the screen and it had changed her name and awarded her a skill called System Interference. This guy knew what was on her Status screen somehow. 'To be fair, he just appeared from being invisible to just me not Matthias so he's probably got some fancy magic.' She smiled, "Pleased to meet you. Do you know why we're here and can't get out?"

Ari stood and pulled a robe from somewhere out of sight, slipping it on as he walked through the side of the basin like it wasn't there. He said, "The why is easy enough according to Matthias' logs you were drawn into a dungeon via some kind of defense protocol I've never seen. It seems to be some kind of base-layer system protocol I am unfamiliar with the function of. I can however explain why you cannot leave through the safe zone dungeon exits. They are a simple level-gated portal, to prevent low levels from wandering into them. Normally they would prevent people like the two of you from entering a Challenge Dungeon like this. But, you were transported through the Waystone network itself into a dungeon as a secondary effect of creating a simple one way bridge into a dungeon capable of containing Hellspawn. In other words, you got really unlucky."

Scene 3

"So, what does that mean? We can't get out?" Matthias asked Ari.
"Perish the thought. You simply need to use one of your perks to gain a class and level it up to level 10 without dying first. Then you can just escape through the entrance door." Ari explained casually.
"But taking a class will mean we can't gain as many skills, and skills are how we get path points." Cleo commented.
"And? A class will help you grow faster than random skills and paths will anyways. Just pick a class." Ari said dismissively.
Cleo studies his face a moment, turns to Matthias and says bluntly, "I don't trust him. He's a little too focused on us getting a level without feeling like explaining his reasoning. Besides, what kind of System Companion doesn't know the protocols that got us stuck in here?"
Ari's faces turns indignant at that statement, "I did not lie. A class is your best bet for survival. Or you can defeat the dungeon boss. Which of those two do you think you can realistically do?"
Matthias cuts in from where he's laying submerged in the water basin, "Can't we all just get along? Ari be nice, Cleo be nice. I don't want to rush into anything either way. Why don't you review our class options Ari so we can sort through the noise of too many choices containing descriptions of mechanics we don't even understand fully or at all yet."
Cleo's face turned a little red as she turned her eyes to face him, "Be. Nice.? What am I a dog? Don't you dare fucking answer that!" And with that she stomped outside the safe room and back into the dungeon.
Ari shrugged, "Problem Solved. Now have you considered the Beastlord Class? Given you are in a Beast type Dungeon, it could be prudent, especially given your origin of Beast Master."
"Damnit Ari, you're supposed to be helpful, not pissing off my friends. Cut it out and go apologize." Matthias said to his spirit companion pointedly.
Ari rolled his eyes, dropped his shoulders, and walked out the door into the dungeon. Matt watched him go and began to scroll through more perk options. "Regenerative Core, now that sounds like something I want." And without a second glance, he purchased it with his Medium Perk point. "What else do we have that can level up my combat skills? I do not want to die from fighting acid-spitting frogs or fire-breathing turkeys. Or that big evil demon goat. Man fuck that thing. Who dreams that kind of nightmare fuel up?"

---

Cleo tossed her Survivor's Backpack against the base of the tree they had tied the turkey meat up in the branches of. She pulled the hatchet and pulled a piece of the hickory her and Matthias had gathered before he got injured by the monster frog. At that thought she gripped the hatchet tighter and looked around her for any creatures stalking towards her.

Seeing nothing in the forest. She propped that piece of wood on a nearby boulder in the ground and began chipping it like Matt had said they needed to make the meat taste the best.

She attacked the log with strike after strike, letting her frustration bleed away with the wood chips falling away after each impact. 'What is going on with me? I know I'm freaked out about everything, but Matt didn't really deserve that.'

She struck again and again, slowly and steadily converting that log into tiny wood chips. She reached for another log and continued chopping.

"Stupid Boys always talking down to me cuz I'm short! Even the ghost Boi is Rude! I'm stuck inside a Dungeon apparently and have to live eating giant turkeys. I don't know if my Mom or my boyfriend are still alive. And Josh just FUCKING DIED!" That last bit came out in a strangled cry as she slammed the hatchet through the log she'd been chipping so hard it exploded from the impact and the hatchet cracked the stone beneath it. Cleo didn't even notice. She just slumped to her knees and cried as she stopped hiding her pain for a moment here alone in the woods.

At least she thought she was alone. She forgot at the moment that Ari could be invisible to her whenever he wanted, and he stood there watching her break down into tears. 'Best not to appear just yet, that cannot improve my odds of making amends as commanded.'

---

Matthias stood next to the water basin in the safe room attempting to practice patience as he wondered where Ari and Cleo had gone. After nearly an hour of spacing out in the water basin feeling the strange sensation of the magic in the safe room accelerating his healing he watched his current HP tick up to full while standing beside the basin air-drying as he waited the last few minutes out. He had half a shirt left at this point, and a small hole in this pants leg already he noticed as his anxiety from waiting caused his attention to pinball around the room until he landed on what he was wearing as he checked his skin's progress healing alongside his HP regenerating. 'You know, I think what made video game healing better was you didn't have to wait so long as a starting character to heal. And, you know, it didn't Hurt So MUCH.' He thought to himself.

He started stretching, thinking to himself, 'I need to grab my spear and go look for Cleo.'

---

Ari had waited for a while for her to finally stop crying. He'd been growing concerned all her noise was going to attract a predator and kept taking a walk around the area to check for danger. Seeing none, he walked back to her and watched as her sobs slowly died down. Then he'd appeared sitting beside her and spoke softly that he was sorry. He did well to help calm her and bring her back towards an emotional center. Then he inevitably made one of his bad form jokes that set her off again with boiling anger and overwhelming despair. Her face contorted into a visage of pain and rage as her voice became a monument to the old saying of giving someone a piece of your mind. He desparately backpedaled his words and pivoted to attempting to bribe her in an appeal to her greed so he could get her to say they had made up to Matthias, which was all he really cared about.

He had almost sealed the deal with her when he let his tone slip and then she got mad again. But he'd already sent the System Prompt containing his offer to her. Her anger flared. She reached out to the notification box and let her rage flow into it. She watched as the terms altered to favor her. One by one.

By the time she was done, he was required to commit to teaching her everything he knows about magic and continue to aid her learning until she masters all magic he has at least to his same skill levels. Additionally he's got to shut up when she says a code word. And the System has to bring back The Homie Josh. She pressed accept on the deal and Ari began to glitch out.

Matthias spoke up at this moment, "Hey Cleo, no Killing my Spirit Companion okay? I know I shouldn't have spoken to you like that earlier and I am sorry but please stop whatever you are doing to Ari."

Ari flickered, glitched worse, then disappeared in a shower of sparks.

Cleo blinked. Looked around and saw Matthias, "What Just happened?"

Matthias blinked at the shower of sparks where Ari had been, then noticed a System Notification blinking in the corner of his vision. He activated it. The screen showed: "Forgive her, she knows not what she's done. My gift to you both. - A" Before he could process that fully, he looked up to see Cleo swaying on her feet, her eyes rolled back showing only whites as her body convulsed slightly.

"Cleo!" He dropped his spears and lunged forward just as she collapsed, catching her before she hit the ground hard. Her breathing was shallow but steady, and when he checked her pulse it was racing like she'd just sprinted a mile. But she was alive. "What the hell did you do?" he whispered to her unconscious form, then louder to the empty forest, "What did any of us do to deserve this shit?"

Matthias's arms trembled as he lifted Cleo's unconscious weight, her head lolling against his shoulder. The rough bark of the massive tree scraped against his back as he settled against it, positioning her so he could watch for any sign of movement in her face.

"Come on, Cleo," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. "What did you do to yourself?"

His stomach growled, breaking the forest silence. The turkey meat hung above them like a macabre chandelier, still raw and useless. He glanced down at Cleo's pale face, then forced himself to stand. She'd be hungry too when she woke up—if she woke up.

He carefully moved her to the base of the big tree with the doorway, propping her against the trunk where he could keep an eye on her while he worked. "The meat isn't going to smoke itself," he mused and scanned his options. The wood chips lay scattered around the cracked boulder like confetti from hell. Matthias picked up the abandoned hatchet, testing its weight. The blade had actually chipped from her final blow. "Jesus, Cleo." He began gathering handfuls of the splinters, each piece sharp with the scent of fresh hickory and Cleo's rage. 'Girl's got some serious anger issues. Can't say I blame her though.'

---

The smoking trench fought him at every step. Matthias arranged the chips, struck flint to steel, cursed when the spark died. Strike, miss, strike again. Finally, a thin tendril of smoke began to rise.

"Still breathing," he muttered, checking Cleo for the fourth time in ten minutes. Her chest rose and fell with mechanical precision, but her face remained slack, empty. "Come on, wake up."

His hands shook as he reached for his knife and the pile of branches. He needed something to do, something to keep his mind from spiraling into panic. The blade bit into green wood with satisfying resistance. Shave, turn, shave again. The rhythm steadied his breathing.

"Just making some insurance," he told Cleo's motionless form. "Nothing scary's gonna sneak up on us. Not on my watch." Using his knife and the remaining good branches, he continued whittling points on dozens of small stakes, each about the length of his forearm. If he could make enough of them and scatter them around their little camp area, anything trying to sneak up on them would have a bad time.

The repetitive work of carving helped calm his nerves, and he found himself getting lost in the rhythm of it. Scrape. Turn. Scrape. The knife peeled away thin curls of wood that gathered at his feet like pale worms. Each stroke brought the point closer to perfect sharpness. Twenty stakes. Thirty. His thumb tested each tip until a bead of blood proved its readiness. Soon he had a pile of wooden spikes that would make a medieval battlefield proud.

"Okay, you bastards," Matthias whispered to the sounds of animals in the distance beyond the trees around them. He jabbed the first stake into the soft earth, angling it outward like a fang. "Come get some."

He worked his way around their little clearing, creating a defensive perimeter, angled outward like oversized caltrops, that would make any approaching predator think twice. The familiar motions from countless camping trips with his dad flooded back—his hands knew this work even if his brain kept screaming about demon goats and acid frogs. 'Dad nor the Boy Scouts really covered giant demon goats and acid frogs, but at least some of the basic skills transfer.'

A branch cracked somewhere in the distance. Matthias froze, stake half-buried, listening until the forest settled back into its normal whisper of wind through leaves. And then he noticed his fire had gone out in the wood chips again. 'Of course it went out.'

---

Meanwhile, Cleo's consciousness drifted like smoke through landscapes that weren't hers. Purple sky stretched overhead, painted with three moons that cast everything in shifting silver light. Before her, a boy who looked like Ari but younger—much younger—held his hands cupped around empty air.

"Ignis," the boy whispered in a voice tight with frustration. "Ignis flamma."

Nothing. The space between his palms remained cold and dark.

Cleo wanted to reach out, to help somehow, but she had no body here. She was just watching, just feeling the ache of his disappointment as if it were her own. The boy tried again, speaking words in a language that felt ancient and familiar on Cleo's dream-tongue.

"Ignis."

This time, a tiny spark flickered to life. The boy's face lit up with wonder as a flame danced steady and warm above his palm, casting golden light across features that would someday become cynical and sharp. But here, now, he was just a child learning magic for the first time.

The joy hit Cleo like a physical force, and she gasped—or thought she did—as the scene dissolved into another memory, then another, each one teaching her things she'd never learned but somehow always known. She could feel the magic flowing through her dream-self as if she was there, as if she was learning alongside him.

---

The wood chips caught properly this time, sending thin ribbons of hickory smoke curling up through the turkey meat hanging above. Matthias added another handful of splinters to the smoldering pile, watching the smoke thicken to the perfect density his dad had taught him. The meat would need hours, but at least now they'd have something to eat that wouldn't try to dissolve them first.

He glanced back at Cleo, still propped against the massive tree, her breathing steady but her face slack. 'Come on, wake up. I can't do this alone.' He turned back to tend the fire when a rustling in the nearby brush made him freeze.

Something small moved through the undergrowth, picking its way carefully toward their camp. Matthias reached for his machete, then stopped when he caught sight of what was approaching. The same horned rabbit from earlier poked its head through a gap in the leaves, its single spiral horn catching the dappled sunlight. Its nose twitched as it tested the air, clearly drawn by the smell of smoking meat.

'Well, hello there, little guy.' Matthias stayed perfectly still as the rabbit emerged fully from the brush, about the size of a regular cottontail but with that distinctive unicorn-like horn sprouting from its forehead. It moved in cautious hops, stopping every few feet to sniff the air and scan for danger.

The rabbit's dark eyes fixed on the smoking meat above, and Matthias watched in amusement as it tried to figure out how to reach it. The little creature stood on its hind legs, stretching as tall as possible, before settling back down with what looked suspiciously like disappointment.

Matthias slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife to slice off a small piece of still mostly raw turkey from the smoking rack over the fire nearby. Moving with exaggerated care, he tossed it gently a few feet in front of the rabbit.

The animal startled, hopping backward, but the smell of fresh meat was too tempting. After a moment of deliberation, it crept forward and nibbled delicately at the offering.

"That's it," Matthias whispered. "See? I'm not so bad."

The rabbit finished the meat and looked up at him expectantly, head tilted to one side. There was an intelligence in those dark eyes that reminded him of a dog waiting for another treat.

Matthias tossed another piece, this one closer to himself. The rabbit hesitated only briefly before hopping forward to claim it. Each subsequent piece brought the little creature closer until it was eating directly from his outstretched palm, its whiskers tickling his fingers.

'You're definitely the same one from earlier. Same white patch on your left ear.' He'd been watching for that marking, the one distinctive feature he'd noticed during their earlier encounter. This was definitely his little friend from the pecan tree.

The rabbit finished the meat in his palm and sat back on its haunches, looking up at him with what he could only describe as hope. Matthias grinned and reached for his inventory, the strange mental space that had come with the system. His fingers closed around the pet contract scroll he'd been saving.

"What do you say, buddy? Want to stick together in this crazy place?" He unrolled the parchment on the ground between them, the mystical writing glowing faintly in the forest light. With his other hand, he held out another piece of turkey.

The rabbit's ears perked forward as it studied the contract, then looked back at the food. It hopped closer, close enough that Matthias could feel its warm breath on his fingers as it delicately took the meat from his palm.

Instead of backing away immediately, the rabbit paused. It turned its head to study the glowing parchment, then looked back up at Matthias as if asking a question.

"It's okay," Matthias said softly. "It just means we're partners. No tricks, no traps. Just you and me watching each other's backs."

The rabbit set one small paw on the edge of the contract. The parchment flared with brilliant white light that made Matthias squint, and he felt something like an electric current flow through his chest, warm and strange and oddly comforting.

The sensation hit him just as Cleo's eyes fluttered open behind him.

"What the Actual Fuck?" Cleo's voice cracked as she tried to sit up straighter against the tree. "Why does my head feel like I got hit by a truck full of lightning?"

Matthias felt the pet bond settle into place, a new presence in the back of his mind that felt curious and cautious and definitely hungry. He looked down at the rabbit, who was now sitting calmly beside the dissolving contract as if bonding with strange humans was perfectly normal.

Hello? The voice in his head was high-pitched and uncertain, like a child testing out a new toy. Are you the food-bringer?

Matthias blinked in surprise. "Did you just say Hello? Can you actually talk?"

"Who are you talking to?" Cleo struggled to her feet, using the tree for support. "And why does everything smell like barbecue?"

Talk-sounds are confusing, the rabbit continued in his mind. This way is better. Clear-thoughts, yes? You have more of the good-meat?

"Uh, yeah, I've got more meat." Matthias looked between Cleo and the rabbit, realizing he was about to have two very different conversations simultaneously. "Cleo, meet Donnie" He paused, looking down at the rabbit. "Actually, what should I call you?"

Call-names are strange, the rabbit replied thoughtfully. But if you need mouth-sounds for the tall-one, I am... fast-hopper who likes good-meat.

"That's a bit long," Matthias mused. "How about Donnie? Like from that movie with the time travel and the creepy rabbit?"

Don-nie. The rabbit seemed to test the name in his mind. This is acceptable. Donnie likes this Don-nie sound.

"Matt, seriously, what the hell is going on?" Cleo took a shaky step forward. "You're having a conversation with a bunny rabbit, and I'm pretty sure I just lived through someone else's entire childhood in fast-forward."

"Well, see, funny story, this is Donnie." Matthias gestured to the rabbit, who was now grooming his whiskers with apparent satisfaction. "He's my new pet. We just signed a contract."

Pet? Donnie's mental voice carried a note of indignation. Partners, you said. Partners who share good-meat.

"Sorry, partner," Matthias corrected quickly. "Cleo, Donnie here is telepathic, apparently. He's been telling me how much he likes the turkey."

The short-one fell down-hard earlier, Donnie observed, studying Cleo with his dark eyes. She smells like... strange-magic. Old-magic. Different from yours.

"Different how?" Matthias asked, then quickly added for Cleo's benefit, "He says you smell like magic. Old magic."

Cleo rubbed her temples. "Great. Magic bunny rabbits. Because my day needed to get weirder." She looked around their campsite, taking in the defensive stakes and the smoking meat. "How long was I out?"

"About two hours," Matthias replied, then winced as Donnie's voice cut through his thoughts.

The burning-meat smell brings other hunters, Donnie warned urgently. Big-teeth creatures from the dark-places. They come when the sky-bright fades.

"He says we might have company soon," Matthias translated, standing up and scanning the treeline. "Something about big-teeth creatures."

"Of course there are more monsters," Cleo muttered, then stopped abruptly. "Wait, did you say two hours? Matt, how long have you been talking to this rabbit?"

"About five minutes, why?"

Time-flows differently when mind-bridges form, Donnie explained patiently. Especially with magic-touched ones. The short-one's dreams were... loud.

Before Matthias could translate that particular observation, a sound cut through the forest that made them all freeze. A human voice, raw with frustration and what sounded like pain, echoed from the massive tree just twenty feet away.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS THIS THING?"

Matthias and Cleo looked at each other, eyes wide with recognition.

"Was that—?" Cleo started.

"Josh?" Matthias finished, dropping his spears and taking a step toward the tree. "That sounded like Josh!"

The loud-voice from the stone-den, Donnie observed, his ears perked forward with interest rather than alarm. Familiar-sounds to you? Not danger-sounds?

"Holy shit," Cleo breathed, her face lighting up with hope instead of fear. "If that's really Josh, then maybe Ari actually did something right when I messed with that contract."

Another voice from inside the tree, definitely Josh's now that they were listening for it: "Why does everything hurt so much? And why did I grab my phone instead of my snacks as I went flying from my desk?"

Matthias started laughing despite himself. "That's definitely Josh. Only he would complain about his choices before figuring out where he is."

The loud-one sounds confused but not broken, Donnie noted practically. Good-meat will still burn while you make reunion-sounds though.

"Donnie's right about the meat," Matthias said, glancing back at their smoking setup, "but screw it. If Josh is really alive..." He trailed off, hardly daring to hope.

"Come on," Cleo said, already moving toward the doorway in the tree. "Let's go see if our DM really did respawn."