The mayor bristled, but didn’t immediately respond. When he did speak he said, “Honorable adventurer Bek. I am well aware of your corporate sponsor. Also, if you would look up the fifty weeks in the past year, only three have gone to local groups. Most have even stopped bidding, which is likely why this group took their chances while your team was off world.

  “We don’t grant any preferential treatment to locals, but I might remind you that Anwich needs the credits which are raised each week if we are to keep growing. You do want to have a comfortable base of operations here, don’t you?”

  The rocky man looked over at his smaller counterpart on the far side. She was no more than three feet tall and her skin had a pink hue much the same as the natives of Galen had a blue tint. She generally looked humanlike otherwise.

  “Mayor, my superiors have authorized me to offer a ten-year contract for the exclusive rights to your dungeon. In return, we will guarantee a presence from the Transhek Corporation, not just on Galen but specifically in Anwich. That will protect you from monster waves and dungeon surges better than any local adventurers ever could. They will even send an Uncommon as a liaison. And of course, we will pay you 100,000 credits and generate tax revenue for you.

  “Sure, you might get more by continuing to get bids on the weekly entrance, but it wouldn’t be guaranteed, and it wouldn’t come with the safety that only a B rank corporation can provide. This is a very generous offer. I suggest you accept it.”

  She leaned forward, placing the round sucker like tips of her fingers against the mayor's desk. He thought the intimidation she was clearly going for was likely lost because of her small stature, but since their world had been inducted when he was a mere boy, Grazo was used to dealing with a variety of lifeforms.

  “I can’t make that decision on my own. I’ll have to speak to the city council.”

  The rock man started to grumble, but the pink woman held her hand up. “No, Bek, let him follow the process. That will make it more official in the end when they agree.” Then she looked back at the mayor and said “They really don’t have any other choice.”

  The mayor breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone, but outside his office the two corporate adventurers looked at one another. Bek grumbled, “He’s an idiot, Resha.”

  She nodded. “I know, but the bigwigs really want this spot. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. I just want my turn at the loot. Now, though, we need to do something about teaching the locals a lesson.”

  Bek got a hopeful look on his stern rocky face. “Want me to turn some carts over or something?”

  Resha sighed. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of arranging an accident for the locals that stole this week’s slot. We all know how dangerous dungeon diving can be.”

  It took a moment, but Bek finally got a wicked grin on his face.

  ____________________________

  Far away on a world wreathed in shadow as the third eclipse of the day happened, Morvarg was taking a rare rest. The leaders of his world didn’t know what to make of him, but at least they had started leaving him alone. The kill squads had been annoying, but ultimately had only fueled his powers further.

  He lifted a heavy mug of ambrosia to his lips and savored the taste. Some of the spoils from other worlds were too good to live without.

  Then his peace was interrupted as one of his followers stepped into his personal chambers. “Lord Morvarg, our source on Earth indicates that a new candidate is trying for their fifth Forerunner spot and is on his first challenge.”

  “What of it? They are barely holding onto third place. A new Forerunner won’t challenge our dominance. Give him a little time to grow stronger. If anything, it’s Jiang that I’m interested in. The boy learned his lesson though, and won’t confront me. We’ll need to set up a way to trap him. He at least has grown enough to make him worth harvesting.”

  The servant lowered his head. “Yes, m’lord. It shall be as you will.”

  Morvarg leaned back and sipped his ambrosia again. Monsters gave more power than killing mortals did even if the essence drained from mortals tasted better. Their despair and helplessness sweetened the flavor. Forerunners, however, were the sweetest of all. They gave both power and a delightful taste. He sighed in anticipation.

  _____________________________

  Meanwhile, on Earth, Anika Patel and Nuri Khalid, two of Earth’s Forerunners met in a small café in Marrakesh. As they sipped tea, Nuri finally said, “Thanks for coming to me. I’ve got some family stuff going on that makes it difficult for me to leave home.”

  “I can’t stay long. I need to be back in India for my next challenge, but I get it. I respect what you’re doing with all of your family obligations. It can’t be easy with your culture… no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just… never mind. You know how hard what you do is. You don’t need me to remind you.”

  “It is as Allah wills; we all must overcome. We just have to remember that we are fighting for more than ourselves. Family helps to keep me grounded. It would be easy to lose our heads given everything that we can do,” Nuri responded.

  “My village does much the same for me, but things are changing so rapidly where I am that I doubt most people have even noticed the changes in me.”

  “That’s for the best. Why make them worry before Allah’s judgment is passed? Either we shall prevail, or we will enter a greater crucible of testing.”

  Anika nodded. She was uncomfortable out of her leather armor and magical gear, but the mana on Earth wasn’t sufficient to sustain it, even if there was an increase in the amount of leakage. “I presume you wanted to talk about the new candidate.”

  “It has to be a family member of Dan, or he wouldn’t have even been able to begin the challenges. I know that Dan and Jiang didn’t get along, but I found him to be a competent Forerunner. Hopefully, his replacement will be the same, but I’ve wondered if we haven’t been looking at this the wrong way. Allah wants to test us, but perhaps part of this is a test of our charity. Up till now, we have always let the candidates learn things on their own, yet only you and I are left from the original five Forerunners, and we ended up with Jiang and Emil.”

  “So, you want us to help this new candidate… or test him?”

  “Can’t it be both?” Nuri asked.

  Chapter 14- Finishing

  The humming sound grew and then sharpened quills suddenly grew out of every inch of the fox other than its face. They blasted out just as quickly as they had appeared. Quills were now embedded in rock walls of the den and often exploded as they hit the surfaces. Stone had been blasted apart and ricocheted around the room from the impact of some of the quills.

  Out in the tunnel both Nevin and I had heard some quills whistle by, but neither of us was hit. Our companions inside the room were not nearly so lucky. Dori had been able to press herself fairly flat to the ground and even then, she got hit by a couple and banged up by exploding debris rebounding in the cavern.

  Nevin said, “I’ve got Dori, you heal Crag.”

  I followed the command. This was battle and I wasn’t going to second guess him when I was a total noob. Crag was in worse shape. His backside was torn up by a number of quills, but Healing Grace was already stacked on him and restoring 5 HP per second from my previous casting. The instant heal effect served to close some of the wounds and doubled the per-second healing.

  With my Mind stat as high as it was, I could afford to cast my healing spell thirteen times back to back and still almost gain enough mana per minute to cast it again. So, I simply chained it onto him twice more, patching him up the rest of the way and adding a potent heal over time effect.

  Dori and Crag went back to work, and before my spell had a chance to run out again, Crag had driven the spiked end of his hammer through the top of the monster’s skull. It collapsed, and I started to walk into the room, but Dori held up her hand in a clenched fist.

  I might not be from this place, but I recognized a universal symbol to stop when I saw it. I froze in place till about three seconds later, Dori laughed, “Nah, it’s okay. This beast isn’t supposed to have any after death effects. I was just messing with you.”

  The others laughed, so I joined in with a weak chuckle before adding, “It might have been funnier if I had known that after-death effects were even a possibility.”

  She shook her head. “It’s gonna take a while for me to get used to the idea of you being completely ignorant.”

  Crag laughed but said, “Not ignorant, just a Forerunner. He isn’t meant to know everything. That’s why he needs to assemble a team of more experienced natives to help him learn his way through the multiverse.”

  Nevin added, “While they ride in his wake to glory. Don’t forget that part.”

  I groaned. “Not sure what you all are expecting from me, but I’m happy to help as best I can.”

  “Oh, you already did. Trust me, you already did,” Dori said. There were notifications popping up in the corner of my vision, but I ignored them all as I saw where she was pointing. The boss’s corpse was still laying there, but around it were two silver chests, a gold chest, and a ruby red chest.”

  Crag saw it at the same time and mumbled, “Mother of Mercies, shag me sideways.”

  I would have really thought the translation program was suspect at that point, but I was too excited by the idea of four treasure chests. Of course, I just had to ask the noob question. “What do the colors mean?”

  “They mean that we just made our deposit back and more,” Dori said absent-mindedly while she continued to stare at the chest.

  Nevin looked at me. “Copper chests are for basic items which, as you can see, we didn’t get any of. That’s fairly normal, we were told that this dungeon mostly gives common or uncommon chests. Silver is common and of course gold is uncommon.”

  “What about the red chest?”

  “Ruby red is for rare, emerald green would be for epic, and sparkling diamond for legendary, although there are some other types of unique chests, but too many to talk about now. Suffice it to say that rare loot is going to set us up for the push to evolve our class.”

  “And there’s one item in each chest, or what?”

  Nevin shook his head. “There will be a number of things in each chest. Some may be credits; some may have trade items like gems. There will likely be some type of crafting good in at least one of the chests, and likely a magic item or two between all the chests. But the most valuable items would be spell scrolls, ability books, evolution stones, or class shards.”

  “Wait, don’t you all already have your class shards?”

  Dori finally tore herself away from the chests, “Oh my sweet, sweet noob. Yes, but in order to evolve your class to a common or higher you need more shards. Most everyone can get to common with enough work. It takes four basic shards to make a basic class, or sixteen of them to make a common class, but it will be lower quality than if it was made with four common shards.

  “Basic shards drop at a reasonable rate, but even common shards are one in a hundred monsters if you’re lucky and then you have to get the right kind of shards. Uncommon, or the stars forbid, a rare shard, would be something you might adventure years before you got as a drop outside of a dungeon.”

  “Oh, so you need to get four common shards by level thirty to upgrade your class?”

  “Something like that,” Nevin answered. “You have to wait to level thirty if you’re using any basic shard. If you get four uncommon shards, you can do it at level twenty. The same with an uncommon class at level seventy-five, if you’re using common shards, but you can do it at level fifty if you have four uncommon shards. That is what sets the true elites apart.”

  I nodded along. “What about the other things you described? Spell scrolls, I think I understand, those just teach you another spell, right?”

  Dori nodded, “Yes, although they also give people who don’t have the right shard combinations for that spell, the chance to cast it. But, if it’s used like that then it can only be done once as it consumes the scroll. Ability books are manuals which will teach you new passive or active abilities, and evolution stones can be used to evolve the rarity of a spell or ability. Supposedly, there are even some which can evolve a trait, if you are lucky enough to gain one. Most adventurers never get a trait, but then again, you’re a Forerunner.”

  “Candidate,” I said.

  She shrugged, “To those of us on already inducted worlds it’s the same thing.”

  All of this made sense, but I still wanted to listen to the details because who knew where it would deviate from my video game based expectations. “What about the boss? Can I loot his body?”

  “It won’t have anything on it, and it can’t be auto-looted. In fact, I’m half-way surprised it hasn’t disappeared yet. The loot from defeating bosses comes in the chests.”

  I winced. This was where things might get awkward. “Uh, I think I might know why it hasn’t disappeared yet.”

  Nevin was suddenly very curious and the other two were staring at me as well.

  “You see, when I first found out about all of this, I fought this monster squirrel which had been mutated by mana.”

  Dori said, “I’m from this world and I’ve never heard of a squirrel. Are you sure that’s what it was called?”

  “Uh, it wasn’t in this world. I didn’t even know anything about the multiverse or induction or anything. Mana was leaking out of the portal that brought me here and it changed some things in my home world. The squirrel was one of them.”

  Nevin asked, “So you’re saying that a creature was changed on a non-inducted world?”

  I nodded.

  He whistled, “Interesting, that shouldn’t be possible, but I’m hardly an expert.”

  Crag chuckled in a deep low tone. “Yeah, not an expert at all, but you read everything you can get your hands on about mana theory and monster formation.”

  I watched the interplay between them. From what I could tell they were the kind of friends who could razz each other without it being offensive. “I’ll tell you more about it later, but anyway, the thing is that when I fought it, I got covered in its blood. That led to me getting a title. I’m not sure if that’s the same thing as you meant by a trait…”

  Dori cut me off, “It’s not.”

  “Anyway, I got this title, Blood Bather. I know, it sounds pretty gross… well it actually is, but if I get covered by enough blood from a creature after I kill it, then I get a chance to get an evolution based on that creature type. The only reason I haven’t accepted the evolution yet is I didn’t know if it was going to be a good thing or a bad one.” I shrugged my shoulders before continuing, “I didn’t want to end up turning into a spined fox.”

  They all laughed at that. Nevin said, “I don’t blame you. All of this has to be so strange to you, but if it’s truly a title and not a trait, then you don’t have to worry. Titles are purely rewards from the system for unusual or special things you do. Traits are aspects of yourself which come out under extreme circumstances. Traits may or may not be good, but titles are always good, although pretty much only the corporate elite know how to get them.”

  “Well then, do you think it would help if I bathed in the blood of the boss? Would that make the evolution more powerful?”

  The three adventurers looked at one another, then Dori shrugged before Nevin answered. “I wish I could tell you, but none of us have titles. It just isn’t the sort of thing that we ever expected to get. To tell you the truth, we are dreaming of evolving our class to uncommon then finding a quiet town somewhere that we can be paid well for keeping it quiet.

  “Crag likes to gamble, so preferably somewhere with nerid races. Dori is into cooking, so perhaps a town with some reasonable restaurants, and I just want to perform magical research in my twilight years.”

  I listened, ignoring the untranslated word and assuming that Crag had a thing for the horse track. “So why not just do that now?”

  Crag was the one to respond this time. “You really are from another world. Galen placed third in our own induction competition nearly sixty years ago. We are still in the settling phase of a dungeon world, and nothing is peaceful. In order to get the kind of jobs we’d want, an uncommon class and around level 100 is the least we’d need—that and some decent savings from dungeon diving.”

  “Okay, so working towards retirement. I can respect that. Before this all started, I was too young to even worry about it. I hadn’t even finished college yet.”

  Crag slapped Nevin on the back. “Oh, looks like you’ve got some competition in the school department. Maybe he’ll turn out to be an egghead like you.”

  “Just because I don’t think the best solution for every problem is smashing it with my hammer, doesn’t mean that I’m an egghead.” His words were sharp, but the expression on Nevin’s face was playful. This was obviously a long standing joke between them.