Selena leaned forward. “And you need to understand that we are going to take the terms of this contract very seriously.”

  He grinned. “You’re scary—all of you are—but I’m past being intimidated. I don’t ever betray the secrets of a guild member. As otherworlders, I can understand how you’d have more secrets than some. Is there something else I should know?”

  I smiled. “I’d have to say yes. We’re going to show you what we really look like.” I nodded at Selena, and she undid whatever alteration she had made to reality.

  Her beautiful lavender skin was fully on display, and she sighed. “Holding that for a long time is kinda frustrating. It leaves me feeling like I have a muscle cramp.”

  If Clay was freaked out by Samvek or Selena’s appearance, he didn’t show it. “I have no idea what worlds you could come from, but then again, I don’t know much about any worlds beyond Aerth.”

  Samvek held out his arm, and the two men grasped forearms. They were both men of action, and I could see my mentor was already taking a liking to Clay.

  When they released arms, I continued. “Some questions may arise about our abilities, but at least for now you’re going to have to refrain from asking them, except as is necessary for the dungeon dive. We also may ask questions that you believe any child should know the answers to, but that can’t be helped. I won’t explain now why that is, but perhaps as we get to know each other better, I might.”

  We had already discussed it back at the inn, and had decided not to reveal we were from an entirely different system. We didn’t know how that would be taken, and frankly Clay didn’t need to know. Keeping secrets was never my favorite thing, but I had too many questions about this system, the Lawgiver, the fey, and everything else to risk sharing too much. Our true forms would have to do for now.

  We went over the wording for his oath until we were all content with the terms before making the oath on the Great System, but I wanted to make sure he understood something. “I know Selena basically said this already, but I wanted to remind you that we won’t be depending upon the system to enforce your oath. I’m starting to take a liking to you, and I’d rather we not have to be enemies.”

  “Me too. I probably wouldn’t last very long in that situation.”

  “Not long at all,” Samvek agreed. “Let’s get moving.”

  With that, we began casting buffs, or at least I did. The others had some limited buffs that were more for use in battle, like Samvek’s Haste spell. Selena’s favorites weren’t buffs as much as situational modifications.

  The main buff we were going to rely on was my Area Flight. The hope was that we could simply bypass a number of levels. I would also cast Team Builder’s Physical Buff. The rest I’d leave for later.

  I led off with the stat buff because I wanted to see how it would affect him. “Okay, this should increase your physical stats. Please let me know how it affects you. It’s a very minor buff for me and my team, so I don’t always bother with it, but it might help you.”

  Selena snorted. “Only Silas would say that extra stats weren’t worth having.”

  Samvek agreed. “He’s beginning to understand, but still isn’t fully aware of just how unusual he is.”

  Clay didn’t comment, but I could tell that he was paying careful attention to our banter. I’d meant what I’d said when I told him I was starting to like him. I hoped that would continue.

  When I cast it, his eyes grew wide. He showed me the notification.

  Silas Renner, an outsider, has cast the spell Team Builder’s Physical Buff on you. You gain the following stats:

  Strength +60

  Agility +120

  Durability +120

  Endurance +60

  Interesting. He must not have a Dexterity or Vitality stat, so the spell had added an extra boost to his Agility and Durability. There was also the fact that his system identified me as an outsider. I should have thought about what information he might get that way.

  “Uh, this is insane. These are almost a third of my base stats without gear.” His excitement was palpable, and by the way he was running around and jumping, he clearly wanted to test out the new stats at the first opportunity.

  I didn’t bother to mention that the spell gave me less than a one-percent bonus in the stats it affected. “Okay, get ready. I’m going to cast one more spell. It will give you the ability to fly very fast.”

  Selena laughed. “Very, very fast.”

  “Very, very, very,” Samvek added with a hint of laughter in his voice.

  I sighed. “The point is that I’m going to need you to be very careful with this buff. I don’t want you to accidentally fly into a wall and turn yourself into a smear on the windshield.”

  “That last part didn’t translate over for some reason, but I’m confident I get the gist.”

  I cast Area Flight on the group. Simple math said that since the spell allowed everyone under its effect to fly four times as fast as my maximum running speed, it would allow us to move at approximately 114,000 miles per hour, or over 31 miles per second. I doubted his durability would hold up to that, and if the dungeons were as durable here as they were back home, running into a wall at those speeds would be bad, even for me.

  His eyes lit up as he lifted off the ground. I was glad to see that he seemed to have no difficulty controlling his direction or speed. Within seconds, he was moving around like he’d been flying all his life. We gave him a couple minutes to get used to the ability, after which he was navigating the twists and turns of the once slug-infested catacombs at hundreds of miles per hour. If we needed to move faster, I’d have to make sure he was encased in force shields.

  With that in mind, we headed for the stairs, breezing through the next ten floors without so much as a battle. We didn’t encounter any resistance until we hit the boss chamber on the hundredth floor. We passed cat monsters, dog monsters, scorpion monsters, and bunny monsters, along with elementals and a floor full of traps. None of them even noticed our presence, but I made sure to keep the shields up just in case.

  It led me to wonder about why there was such a short list of animals upon which the majority of the dungeon monsters were based, as apparently it wasn’t a phenomenon unique to our system. It was only a stray thought, but that was how my mind worked sometimes.

  On the hundredth floor, the final boss was a flesh golem, clearly made of several different monsters. It stood twelve feet tall and was probably eight feet wide at the shoulders. Each arm ended in a different appendage, one crablike and the other an oversized human hand, perhaps from an ogre or a giant.

  It was level 101, but not the perfect match for Clay we were looking for. Without being asked, Selena assumed the task of Clay’s protector. I put up a force construct to keep any stray monsters out of the boss chamber, then stood to the side to observe. I wouldn’t be needed for this battle, and with my Hell System class upgrade, I was more than a little interested in what made this golem tick.

  I watched with a hint of pride as my friend and mentor went to work taking the golem boss apart.

  Samvek didn’t rush the fight. I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t like it had taken long to get here—we’d crossed each floor in little more than a minute, even with having to find our way. But running didn’t sit well with me, and even less so with Samvek. Now, he wanted to savor this battle no matter how foregone the conclusion was. I was all in favor of that, as it would give me more time to examine the golem.

  He circled the flesh golem with measured steps, spear held low and loose, watching how it moved rather than how it attacked. When he severed the crab-like arm at the shoulder, the limb hit the stone with a wet thud and kept crawling forward, pincers snapping. The golem didn’t slow or even stagger. It simply rebalanced its weight and kept advancing.

  “Interesting,” Samvek muttered.

  He took the other arm next, slicing clean through the other shoulder. The severed limb slapped to the floor and dragged itself forward, fingers clawing uselessly. The torso continued on without hesitation, legs pumping with relentless momentum. There was no regeneration, no knitting of flesh, but also no loss of function. The thing did not care how many pieces it lost, only that something remained moving. I smiled. What are you going to do, bleed on me? I thought in my best British accent.

  At that point, Samvek went from warrior to butcher.

  He dismantled it methodically, carving through joints, hips, spine, and neck with precise, efficient cuts. Each strike reduced the golem’s mass into smaller components, and each component continued to writhe until it was broken down again. Only when the pieces were reduced to chunks no larger than Samvek’s forearm did movement finally stop. The golem twitched its last twitch, and the dungeon fell quiet.

  A notification pulsed into existence.

  You have completed the 100th Floor of the Endless Dungeon.

  Dungeon Progress Confirmed.

  Primary Boss Defeated: Flesh Golem (Level 101).

  You already possess comparable titles, so no new titles are awarded.

  Samvek stepped back, spear lowering as he regarded the scattered remains. “No regeneration,” he said calmly. “No pain response. No central control. It was persistence, not resilience.” He glanced toward Clay. “A good opponent for someone learning how to kill ideas instead of bodies.”

  Clay stared at the floor, then let out a slow breath. “Be that as it may, I’m not sure the hundredth floor would be a good place to bring newbies.”

  Samvek shared in the laughter.

  The remains of the golem dissolved into motes of light as it was absorbed back into the dungeon. I watched carefully, but I was going to need to see it many more times to form any real conclusions. Besides, my current focus was on the oversized treasure chest that was rising up from the floor. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be a complete waste of time. There was only one way to find out.

  Chapter Eleven: Power-Leveling Makes the Best Friends (part 1)

  It was Selena’s turn to open the chest. It was bigger than she was, but size could be deceptive. There was no guarantee this was something good. When she looked inside, the expression on her face didn’t exactly inspire hope. “At least there’s two items this time.”

  She pulled them out. One appeared to be a crystal like the one that took us to the ninetieth floor. Identify was acting up again, but with enough focus, I got a description.

  Crystallized Key of the Ways (Artifact): A fragment of something which was once much greater. The user of this key may enter a pocket dimension of the dungeon set to match the level of the party that initially gained this crystal. Uses remaining: 5

  That was promising. If it took us to a dungeon that was in the 260s, that should definitely earn us XP, and hopefully even some good loot. The next item was just a ring.

  Ring of Fire Mastery (Epic)

  Charged (this item requires mana from the user)

  Will +15, Perception +10

  As long as one level of mana is channeled into this ring, the user’s fire-based spells and traits will operate at 125% strength and efficiency. (Experimentation required to quantify the mana requirements.)

  I wasn’t sure what it meant by ‘one level of mana,’ and my system didn’t seem to know either. That was fine. It wasn’t like any of us had fire magic, so I guessed this would be something to save. The stats on it were pathetic, but maybe the boost would make it good enough for Cece to use, assuming it was compatible. At least I’d return from another universe with a souvenir.

  I turned to the group. “Ready to keep going?”

  Everyone nodded, then Samvek reminded me of the task at hand. “We still need to find a breakthrough monster for Clay.”

  We went through the next seven levels in a rush without finding anything appropriate. There weren’t even any treasure chests, and our only loot was the occasional silver or a rare gold coin, which, while valuable here, weren’t really going to matter once we got home.

  On floor 108, we got some surprises, the first being our surroundings. The motif of the dungeon completely changed. So far, it had been underground caverns that would have been home in any 16-bit dungeon crawler from the old days. But this floor, somehow, had an open night sky. The moon was only a thumbnail-sized sliver against a dark purple backdrop with a smattering of stars that formed no constellations I’d ever heard of. The land was a little more familiar, especially for someone from the Midwest—it was nothing but tall fields of corn as far as the eye could see.

  “I’ve read about this one,” Clay said. “Supposedly there are scarecrow mages on this floor. The monsters here have been the end of many parties. They like to ambush with heavy magical attacks, but word is they are fairly easy to kill if you can get in close.”

  I took that as my cue to refresh the buffs. Then, I started speaking the words for My Friends Sing My Praises—My Enemies Dread the Sound with the intent to buff Clay, but it struck me that it would debuff enemies as well, which wouldn’t meet Clay’s qualifications for advancement. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about that one,” I said as I let the spell drop. “It would boost you but hobble them, which I don’t think would pass muster with your Great System. Still, it sounds like the monsters on this floor are perfect for you. We just have to make sure you can get close to one of them.”

  He smiled. “At the speed I can fly with your magic, they won’t stand a chance.”

  Samvek clapped his hands. “Good. Then let’s thin out their numbers. I can feel a few hundred of them stretching out around us.”

  “But we can’t use your lightning or other chain effects,” Selena added, “because if you burn the fields, you might damage the one Clay needs. I guess this will be up to Silas.”

  I rolled my eyes, but reached out with my senses. Samvek was right. When I paid attention, it was easy enough to sense where the enemies were, and they ranged between level 98 and 108. Anything on this level would be perfect for Clay.

  Once I got the lay of the land, I went to town. Clay’s description of the scarecrows had been spot-on. It barely took any effort to destroy them with my force constructs. Heads flew across the cornfield like popcorn in a hot pan, trailing straw and greenish blood in their wakes.

  Because the scarecrows were ambush predators, none moved. They waited for their prey to come to them. And it made sense. They were creatures of the dungeon, created on this floor, for this floor. But with Perception as high as mine, none of them could hide. All they could do was await certain death in the form of one of my force constructs.

  Soon enough, I had the floor down to just one remaining monster, a level 101 scarecrow mage. I gave Clay its location. He was going to have to do this on his own. I couldn’t promise him I could resurrect him if he died. He needed the threat to be real, and besides, I couldn’t be sure Celestial Restoration would work the same in this realm. Still, I cast it on him, and a notification told me it would give him a radically heightened regeneration rate for the next few minutes. At least that part worked.

  Then we sat back to watch the battle, or sense might be the better word. My growth to this point had been so fast, it was sometimes difficult to remember that I didn’t need my eyes to tell what was going on.

  Clay didn’t rush in, at least not initially. I knew he would need to use speed to his advantage, but he cut his flight speed down until it was barely faster than a walk, skimming just above the corn so the stalks whispered instead of snapped. The scarecrow mage stayed perfectly still, hunched in the center of a shallow rise, its hat tilted forward like a mockery of vigilance. From this distance, I could feel the spellwork coiled inside it, layered and ready, but blind to anything that didn’t announce itself.

  Clay circled wide, using the rows as cover, and I felt his heartbeat slow as he slipped fully into his element. He was a true rogue, a blade in the dark, and he was on the hunt. When he was finally in place, he flashed forward with the maximum speed he could control. It was probably only a thousand miles per hour or so, but still faster than the monster could react.

  The scarecrow twitched a fraction of a second too late. Clay struck from behind, dagger driving clean through the back of its neck and out the front in a single, committed motion. There was no flourish, no hesitation, just force and intent focused into one perfect line. The mage convulsed as its spell collapsed inward, green light sputtering out like a dying flame.

  It tried to turn. Clay didn’t let it. He ripped the blade free and drove it again, this time severing whatever passed for a spine, then kicked the body forward into the dirt. The scarecrow hit the ground and came apart, straw and that sickly green blood spilling out together as the magic anchoring it finally failed. The field went quiet, the corn swaying gently as if nothing had happened.

  For a heartbeat, nothing changed, and the whole situation felt rather anticlimactic. Then, light exploded around Clay, and I felt something in him change. When Identify triggered a moment later, he read differently. It was like he’d formed a new class core, or whatever the Fey System equivalent was.

  Clay Turner

  Tier: Grandmaster (rare-epic-legendary equivalent depending upon level)

  Level: 101

  Class: Grand Assassin

  A moment later, another notification popped up.

  You are being offered a new quest by the Fey System. You are not obligated to take this quest, but it might further some of your objectives regarding other quests. Rewards for this quest will be solely determined by the Fey System.

  Hmm. It wasn’t going to show me what the quest was unless I agreed to receive it from the Fey System. Fine by me.

  New Quest: Impress the Dungeon

  You have been noticed. The Endless Dungeon is aware of you. For now, it shields you from other observing eyes, but that won’t last for long. Impress the dungeon by showing it the range of your abilities, while bringing Clay Turner to level 150.