The ticking clock flashed in my mind. A year from now, would any of this even matter? Galen had experienced their own induction as a dungeon world, little more than seventy years ago. Now, it was little more than a medieval society with magic. And, if the cryptic system warning was any indication, the smiling faces of these young people would vanish as swiftly as a summer breeze in the face of dungeon monsters. Within two short years, half of them would likely be dead. Many of the others would fall after that, as the chaos of dungeon monsters spread across the Earth.

  This impending dread, while palpable, made our current situation feel as insignificant as a grain of sand. However, wasn’t that the very reason I was here? For the color, joy, and carefree fun? I could feel tension rising in my shoulders and I took a breath to relax. This was a weird moment to have such an obvious epiphany, but I had been running around trying to power up and protect myself. I really hadn’t had much time to self-reflect. My life was on the precipice of draining away, but I needed to put things into perspective. For the past two years, my life consisted of responsibility. From taking care of the bills, appointments and errands for dad all while maintaining my grades. Then becoming an almost step-in parent for Cece when mom couldn’t get out of bed for weeks. There were things worth saving and fighting for. But in order to do that better, I needed moments of levity, an escape away from the very real fear of a painful death. A happy memento to remind me what I was fighting for.

  My gaze drifted to April. She was huddled with the other cheerleaders, their eyes nervously flicking my way. Was it so wrong to believe that they represented an untapped reservoir of experiences, fun I'd never had before, and desperately wished to taste before the world descended into a horrific nightmare?

  The stark truth was, if I faltered in my duties, the entire planet would become nothing more than a mining resource, its population decimated. With a bitter chuckle, I pushed away thoughts of those lucky few enslaved to work in the mines while the rest simply died with the destruction of the Earth. Lucky ones… what a morbid thought.

  My internal reverie was abruptly halted as two coaches approached. Their interaction from earlier had caught my attention. The older one, tall and sinewy, with a runner's frame, broke the silence. “I’m Coach Wilson from the cross-country team. I don’t suppose you’re Silas Renner?”

  Confirming his guess with a nod, I said, “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  He replied, “We were informed that you might show up to try to walk onto the team. Some family lawyer or another mentioned it. His firm is a hefty donor to the university and provides substantial services to the board of regents. I was told to be accommodating, providing you could actually run.”

  My brow creased in mild surprise. “Oh, I wasn’t aware they’d given you a heads up. It's been a while since I ran competitively. Last I checked, I clocked in under 29 minutes for my 10k. I feel like I’ve improved since, though I haven’t bothered to verify.” There was no need to disclose that a magical system had significantly enhanced my physical prowess.

  His features grew grave, “That’s a promising time, however, we now face a predicament. Despite your connections, the university has stringent policies against violence. It pains me to say this, but once I report this incident, it’s doubtful you’ll continue as a student here, let alone on the cross-country team. Our student-athletes are expected to embody the highest standards.” He cast a significant glance at the huddle around Chad, his tone sharpening, “Even if certain teams don’t take it seriously, I do.”

  An urge to retort surged up, that as a chosen Forerunner, I should surely be fit to represent a university. However, I choked back my anger, accepting my fault in escalating the situation. Truthfully, in a similar situation, I might have acted in the same manner.

  Facing him squarely, I started, “I understand, Coach. You’re merely—”

  The burly football coach interjected, “Now hold up a minute, Jeff. The boy’s clearly got a knack for this, and I can’t see losing that over a friendly squabble. I'll have a word with my boys, but I’m certain they’ll vouch it was all in jest with...uh Silas…” His gaze hardened on me, “Isn’t that right?”

  Before I could formulate a response, he plowed on, “Before you reply, I want you to consider this. Your dodging skills could be quite an asset on the football field. Why wear yourself out running aimlessly when you could be part of an actual game?”

  Although his arrogant dismissal of running irked me, a part of me was intrigued.

  “Besides,” he continued, “Chad was our number one running back, and he might be out for a couple of games with that elbow. Don't you think you owe it to the team, the fans, even the university to at least give it a shot?”

  A sea of scowls from the football players contrasted his proposition, yet, perversely, it only deepened my interest.

  Taking a moment, I asked, “Can I mull it over, Coach?”

  Coach Wilson sighed audibly. Meanwhile, the football coach introduced himself, “I’m Coach Johnson.” With a roll of my eyes, I thought, Of course you are.

  He pressed on, “Jeff, can we agree that if the boys admit to roughhousing, there's no need to get the dean involved, right?”

  The long-faced cross-country coach didn’t hide his displeasure, “Fine, but I don’t want him on my team. His bruiser mentality would mesh better with yours, anyway. He'll fit right in with your team.”

  With a harsh snort and a final glare at Coach Johnson, Coach Wilson abruptly turned on his heel and stalked away, his thin frame disappearing from my line of sight. His long strides easily took him out of earshot, leaving Coach Johnson, myself, and a group of football players standing awkwardly on the churned-up turf.

  "Boys," Coach Johnson boomed, turning to his grumbling team, "get back to your drills. And remember, what happened here was just a friendly rough-and-tumble. Got it?" The players gave mumbled assents, shooting sour looks my way as they lumbered back to their scrimmage.

  He looked back at me. “This is what happens when our field is being repaired and we have to share space with a bunch of runners.”

  As the grunts and hollers of football practice restarted, the blonde curls and sparkling eyes of April and her cheer-leading squad appeared at the edge of the field. They moved with a sway and bounce that turned heads, their smiles wide and mischievous.

  "Hey, Silas," April cooed, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "You would look completely awesome in a football uniform." The cheerleaders giggled like songbirds.

  "I don’t know," I replied, but Coach Johnson cut me off.

  "Now, Silas," Coach Johnson said, putting a heavy arm around my shoulder. "Don’t be hasty. You've got agility, speed. You can be an asset to our team. Give it a shot, son."

  His voice was as smooth as buttered corn. His words were tempting. Yet, something in me was pulling back. I had just run a marathon around Chad's attempts to land a punch. Now his coach wanted me for the team. That was hardly the type of loyalty I was looking for in those around me.

  I chewed my lip, glancing at the football players grunting through their drills, then to the cheerleaders, their skirts flitting as they practiced their routines. My gaze met April's. Her smile was a touch softer, a question in her eyes. Dang, I was weak, but this might be my only chance. Things were going to go to hell soon enough.

  "Can I think about it, Coach?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

  Coach Johnson patted my back, his laughter booming across the field. "Of course, son. Just remember, this could be the chance of a lifetime. We won’t have practice tomorrow, but we’ll be back on our field on Wednesday. Show up at 8 am and expect to get the workout of your life."

  A chance of a lifetime? The words rumbled around inside of me. The change of 392 days was more like it. But as the cheerleaders fluttered around me, their laughter filling the air, I knew my decision wasn't going to be an easy one. What would it hurt if I enjoyed myself a bit before the end of the world as we knew it?

  Chapter 31- Squirrel Motif

  Earth Countdown: 391 days, 14 hours, 49 minutes.

  The rest of the day flew by, although Cece wouldn’t stop questioning me about the way a couple of the cheerleaders were talking to me when she found me. They’d invited me to a party tonight, but I had to turn them down. In some ways, that was harder than fighting monsters, but midnight was when the portal would open again and I had to be ready.

  Cece had called me an idiot, although I’m not sure if it was because she wanted to go to the party herself or if she thought I was a fool for turning down some hot girls. The truth was that the further I got away from them, the more I questioned why I had even gone down that route. I needed to sort this out, but for now, I needed to hit the dungeon again.

  I headed out to the shed after watching some tv till around 10 pm and before long; I found myself in the gate room checking the jobs board.

  You have bound yourself to the world of Galen. Additional missions will be made available for that world, but first you must complete your remaining challenges.

  Do you wish to proceed with the Healer Challenge or the Mage Challenge?

  I didn’t know where the system was going to send me for either challenge, so that couldn’t play a factor in it. Thus, it came down to the fact that the Healer Challenge was already eighty percent complete. I just had to keep two more people unharmed without healing, or perhaps the same person through two different encounters.

  I chose the Healer Challenge and then waited. There was still a little more than an hour till the portal opened, so I decided to look at something I had been putting off. I reached into my spatial containment and pulled out the Trait Evolution Stone I had looted.

  As I did, I couldn’t help but look at the other items in my storage. Based upon the messages from the system, all Forerunners eventually got a basic spatial storage ability but I had received a boon which upgraded my ability to the unique ability Save for Winter. Now that I understood the system a bit further, I pulled up the description again.

  Save for Winter (Unique): Create an extra-dimensional storage area. This ability will supplant the regular basic boon all Forerunner’s received of an extra-dimensional storage space. Your space will begin at 10’x10’ or 100 stackable slots, whichever is less. Some items will take up more than one slot but will be stackable.

  The extra-dimensional storage space created by this Boon has the following added benefit. The longer an item stays inside your storage without being removed the greater the potential for upgrades. Basic potions can become common and so on.

  I tried to focus on the description and after a few minutes of fumbling around, unsure if anything was happening a further explanation came up.

  Unique is a rating separate from the standard system. A unique ability can be of any grade from Basic to Legendary. There may be other abilities similar to it, but no other being in the multi-verse will possess the exact same ability.

  The rating of this unique ability was determined randomly as part of the Boon which created it. It has been set to Epic.

  I reread those words twice more. I didn’t have any other Epic abilities. Based on what I’d been told even having a Rare ability at my level was a huge advantage. This also made me re-evaluate the value of a Boon, if one had done this. I might need to select that for my next inheritance reward.

  For now, I focused on Save for Winter and once again, after several minutes, was able to gather more information.

  Basic Items will be upgraded to Common within 1 day.

  Common Items will be upgraded to Uncommon within 10 days.

  Uncommon Items will be upgraded to Rare within 100 days.

  That is the normal limit of the upgrade function, however, the unique aspect of your ability adds two additional effects which only apply to consumables.

  All consumables will upgrade 50% faster with a minimum of 1 day.

  Rare consumables will be upgraded to Epic within 500 days (after reduction)

  Days will be based upon Earth Standard Time. (EST)

  I verified that by looking inside the spatial storage. I had initially been given two basic healing potions, one basic mana potion, and one basic stamina potion, of which I had used one of the healing potions.

  Now, in those same slots, I saw the upgraded versions.

  1 common healing potion

  1 common mana potion

  1 common stamina potion

  I checked out the common and uncommon items I had obtained and none of them had been upgraded yet, nor was there any indication of how much progress had been made on them. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I was beginning to believe that this ability might just be OP.

  From the value that Dori and the others had placed on even uncommon items, I had to believe that rare items would sell for a fortune there. It definitely got my mind racing. Consumables? Hmm… that must be part of the squirrel motif. Who would have ever thought that I’d be glad to have a power based upon one of those lawn rats?

  Now, though, I had an obvious target for my Trait Evolution Stone. Assuming it worked the way I hoped, it would either upgrade my Forerunner trait as a whole or at least one of the abilities in it. I didn’t want to hope that it would upgrade all of the Forerunner traits. What was the old saying, pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered? Yeah, that would be pushing my luck.

  Still, I pulled the Evolution Stone out of my storage and looked at it.

  Trait Evolution Stone (Rare) – this item may be used to upgrade one of your traits or in the case of a trait with more than one ability, one of the abilities of that trait. The stone will be consumed in the upgrading process.

  I looked at it, Identify confirmed what I had expected. Now, I just had to weigh the options. It was a consumable item. If I put it back into my spatial storage, it would upgrade in 500 days, although the timer restarted as soon as I pulled it out.

  Earth would have been inducted into the multiverse by then. I had essentially given up on the idea of ever climbing back to the first spot. I didn’t know what that said about me, but I knew for sure that becoming a dungeon world as bad as that might be, was vastly preferable to becoming a mining world.

  Sometimes saving something for the best possible upgrade was the right call. But how many times had I played a game, struggling through various portions of it only to have a bag full of useful items that I never used because the ‘time just wasn’t right’. Here there was no respawn, so I couldn’t take that chance. I needed every advantage I could get now.

  I had two traits, Forerunner and Lifer. While boosting the XP bonus from Lifer would have been useful, it would only be useful while on Galen and judging from the earlier message, I didn’t know how often I’d be on Galen, so Forerunner it was.

  The stone was roughly an oval disc that was two inches long at its widest part. I held it in my hands and sent a small amount of my mana into it. Activating it turned out to be very instinctive.

  When presented with the options of traits to upgrade, I chose Forerunner and was in turn prompted to upgrade one of my four abilities.

  1) Identify (Basic)

  2) Translate (Common)

  3) Loot (Common)

  4) Save for Winter (Unique/Epic)

  I tried to choose Save for Winter but groaned at the notification I got.

  An evolution stone may not evolve an ability of a higher grade.

  Maybe I should have saved the stone. Well, it was active, and I got the sense that if I didn’t use it now that I was going to end up losing it. So, I thought about the abilities. So far, Translate had worked just fine. It had trouble with idioms and certain expressions, but that wasn’t enough to use the stone on an evolution.

  I looked closer at the two other abilities to see which I might want to upgrade.

  Identify (Basic)- this ability will allow you to learn additional information about people or objects and in some cases, system processes. It requires a significant amount of observation. Grade disparity increases the amount of observation necessary.

  Loot (Common)- this ability will allow you to automatically loot any target killed by you or your party without requiring the use of any crafting skills such as skinning. It will also provide a small chance of improving the quality of the loot obtained.

  I thought about the two and weighed the pros and cons. Information was an invaluable asset, but it wasn’t nearly as sexy as loot. I kept trying to force myself to use the ability on Identify, but in the end, I just couldn’t. I reasoned that better loot was going to help keep me alive, so it was an acceptable choice, but really my reasoning was the desire for more and better loot.