I walked out of the nearest CityCenterTM Suppliers with a backpack full of rations, a few brand new sets of clothes, and a refillable water bottle. The dungeon didn’t like the newfangled technology, so I didn’t bother grabbing any specialized equipment or electronics.

  Guns would be useless, of course. They stopped injuring or killing people when they reached Initiate rank. Not only that, but you couldn’t bring any outside weapons into the dungeon with you. This extended to knives as well, even the small pocketknives that would barely do any damage.

  The employees of CityCenterTM Suppliers hadn’t been all that friendly towards me. But that was to be expected at this time of night. In fact, I was just lucky there was a superstore within walking distance that was actually open.

  I set off towards the nearest metro station. It would be open no matter what time it was, and I had quite the ride ahead of me.

  The Great Dungeon was on the opposite side of the city, at least a five-hour metro trip away, with all the stops along the way. It used to be about an hour before the dungeon, but when the Great Dungeon had been discovered about eight hundred years ago, the city had rapidly quadrupled in size. And it had grown even more since then. Now, even a direct route would take a much longer time.

  And, I forgot to mention, you also had to pay for it.

  That was one of the big reasons a lot of people never took the metro. It was expensive, especially for a daily commute. But, since Falkirk city was so large, there were still plenty of people willing to dish out that price. Even in the middle of the night.

  The attendant who took my ticket—paid for, of course, who do you take me for?—was a nice lady. She even attempted to flirt with me, which I was not used to in the slightest. I was used to people being a little standoffish. But I had new clothes, and that made all the difference.

  People are like that sometimes.

  As the metro slid out of the station, I chose a seat at random. The cabin was borderline empty, with only a small spattering of people loitering inside.

  One quite obviously newlywed couple, were staring straight into each other’s eyes like this was some kind of show. Man, I really don’t know where the starry-eyed lovers trope came from. It isn’t a common experience at all. Blegh.

  Other than them, there were only two other people in the whole car. One was an old lady who looked as though she hadn’t slept in the last few weeks, and the other was a man sitting in the far corner.

  The lady was uninteresting. But the man? He was uninteresting too.

  Yeah, I live a boring life. Full of disappointments.

  I had purposefully chosen a seat next to one of the doors so I could lean against the divider. It was more comfortable that way, and I didn’t really want to socialize at the moment. Not that there would be much interesting in the way of conversation, but I didn’t feel like talking. I was still riding the money high.

  I wouldn’t have that money for much longer, but that was alright. I would be inside the dungeon. You didn’t need money in the dungeon. At least, for the first little bit you didn’t.

  And if you needed a weapon to fight monsters? Tough. Stoop to the level of regular humans like the rest of us and punt the little suckers. Or make a club from tree limbs. I don’t care.

  Where was I? Ah, right. So, I was leaning up against the divider. And it was uncomfortable.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the metro before, but nothing in it is really designed for comfort. It’s all designed to be as cheap as possible, while still safe, and to gift the traveler with as many aches and pains and contusions as it possibly can.

  Those plastic seats? Designed perfectly to give you the maximum amount of back and butt pain. Those bars? Slippery to the point of unusability. Those little handles hanging from the ceiling? They’re just low enough to hold your arm at an unwieldy height, and to nearly yank your shoulder out of its socket as the train slows to a stop.

  And the floor? I won’t even mention how much dust, grime, and general refuse has gathered there. Disgusting.

  And I was sitting smack dab in the center of all of it. My only comfort was the slab of plastic I was able to lean my shoulder and head back on. I fit snugly into that corner, and I was going to stay there til the end of the trip if it killed me.

  There, in that position, with my head leaned back into the corner and my legs crossed to avoid the left one being smushed against the seat by the right, I finally fell asleep.

  The body really is a funny thing. Mine told me one thing while meaning the exact opposite. And then it went and did that exact opposite on me when I least expected it. It probably snickered at me too. Worst of all, it woke me up at each and every stop along the way.

  Eighty-six. I counted.

  Finally, after all those stops, I reached my destination. The Great Dungeon. The largest dungeon in the world by half, having been fully completed by only a select few over the centuries. All of whom were dead by now, what with the Ezgendi war going on and all.

  I tromped off the metro with bags under my eyes, still tired. Amazing, since I had slept for most of the trip. ‘Most’ being the key word.

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  This station was a lot nicer than the last one. The other one had had mold in the corners and filthy white and blue tile walls with chrome benches. It had also had that people smell. You know, the scent of thousands of unwashed bodies.

  The one I stepped into, however, was nothing like that. It was older, cleaner, and overall just better. There were windows in the walls, courtesy of the severe elevation change, and the walls had carvings in them. And paintings.

  A crimson border with golden roses rounded the entire room. There were statues of all the natural Paragons set at the corners, complete with golden plaques denoting their classes, class skills, and titles, and behind each was a mural of their greatest feat of strength.

  There was Aurelia Regan the Stormbound Mistress, Castor Dale the Nation Feller, Dimitri Petrov the Worldblade, and last but not least there was Hades Falkirk the Myrmidon of Valor, after whom the city was named.

  Aurelia was a formidable storm mage who specialized in crowd thinning. Her class skill, Vicious Tempest, was a spell that allowed her to summon an unfathomably wide thundercloud that struck any enemies within its boundaries with debilitating lightning. She was the third natural Paragon to emerge from the dungeon.

  Castor was an earth mage and brawler hybrid who was completely unable to be stopped once he gained enough momentum. His class skill, Rolling Stone, allowed him to coat himself in armor made entirely of the rocks around him. Every hit he made and every hit his armor blocked completely contributed to an ever-growing avalanche of strength and speed that had seemingly no limit as far as anyone could tell. He was the fourth to emerge, nearly a decade after Aurelia.

  Dimitri was a swordsman. Pure and simple. His class skill, Worldblade, for which he was titled, gave him a bonded sword and allowed him to control all of its properties. He could lengthen it, widen it, make it heavier, enchant it, and do all of those things in reverse as well. This was particularly funny when he lengthened it to the size of a stadium, made it incredibly sharp and light, then handed it off to a new initiate. That new initiate proceeded to wipe out an army with a few swings of the sword. Dimitri was the second to emerge, about half a century before Aurelia.

  And then there was the last, the first natural Paragon to emerge from the Great Dungeon by over a century, and by far the strongest. Hades Falkirk walked out of the dungeon clad in simple bronze armor with a bronze shield and a bronze-tipped spear. They had no enchantments, being made only of adequately leveled bronze.

  Hades used no magic, no skills save his initial five. But he was unbeatable. Not even the other three natural Paragons could defeat him, even teaming up. His class skill, Hoplite, was simple. It granted him greater strength, resilience, and mobility, and it allowed him to train his spear to a higher degree than normal. That was it. No special abilities, no tricks, nothing. And that stumped everyone.

  Yet he rarely ever fought. He was completely impossible to provoke, and he only did what he knew to be right. That is what led to his title, the most famous one of all. He was honest, kind, and a monster on the battlefield.

  I shook myself out of my stupor, looking around the station more thoroughly. The benches were made of wrought iron, with plenty of cushion, also embroidered with red and gold roses.

  Golden braziers lined the walls, all alight. Either they had a very diligent staff, or they spared no expense in gathering ever-burning coals from the dungeon. Impressive, either way.

  The way out was a pair of oaken doors set into a grand archway. They were bound together with wrought iron, like the benches, and the handles were loops made of the very same. However, as I moved to pull them, the doors swung open of their own accord. Even the doors here were enchanted.

  I stepped out into an impossibly green courtyard and stopped, stunned. Marble paths crossed the yard in a cross, leading up to a fountain at the center. It had three ornamented tiers spilling crystalline water that reflected the light of dawn.

  At the top was graven a curious symbol. It was a pair of v’s overlaid on to of one another, one being inverted so that they formed a diamond shape in the middle. At the center of that shape was a single dot.

  Beyond the fountain there was a broad road, cobbled from some kind of white stone. That road led into the near distance where there was a massive obsidian obelisk with gold filigree. Which was absurd to even say, as the gold veins must have been at least two feet wide. There was an arch set into the base of it, and beyond the arch was… nothing.

  It was a darkness so black that not even the light of the sun would ever reach in. A darkness that seemed to reach out and capture your attention, leeching the color from the world around it ever so slightly.

  The obelisk was gaited round with a fence made of wrought iron, likely decorated with even more intricate details.

  But perhaps most notably of all was the symbol on the obelisk. Made of gold so vibrant it could only be enchanted, and set in the exact center of the obelisk’s monolithic mass, was the symbol from the fountain.

  This was the Great Dungeon. And boy did it live up to its name.

  I had seen other dungeons before, minor and major. The minor ones looked like a basic building, just a little bit grander in scale. Major ones looked like steel towers reaching towards the sun. But this? This surpassed them all.

  Well, there was only one way to go now, and that was forward. Toward the towering dungeon backed by the rising sun. It was quite a sight to behold.

  I walked along the path, admiring the manicured flowers and the fountain, before passing them and heading along down the road, the length of which I had misjudged by a lot.

  It was overwhelming, and I tried to take in every detail. But there was just too much. The statues, the gardens, the rolling hills and forests and lakes in the distance, far beyond the dungeon.

  Even my sarcastic train of thought stopped in its tracks.

  After half an hour of walking through the jaw-dropping landscape, I reached the gate. It was at least thirty feet tall, and even more detailed than I had thought.

  I was met by the gatekeeper, an elderly man with graying hair and the beginnings of a lazy eye. He examined me, taking in my cheap(ish) clothes and likely quite messy hair before speaking.

  “I am afraid we do not give tickets out for charity here, young man. It takes quite a lot to maintain all this finery, you know.”

  Me? Charity? Absolutely not. I opened my mouth to make a sarcastic remark.

  And was interrupted by another voice. “Poor man! Good to see you. I had hoped you would make the smart decision with the coin I gave you.”

  The gatekeeper started in shock. “Young master! You know this man?”

  I turned towards the voice, which I recognized, and found myself staring into the bright and energetic eyes of the drunk noble from the bar this morning. How had he gotten here? Last time I saw him, he was nearly sleeping in a pool of his own saliva.

  “Indeed I do, master gatekeeper. He is here on my coin, after all.”

  Ah. I pulled out the gold coin from my pouch and flicked it to the old man. It made a nice ping before flipping end over end and landing perfectly in his wrinkled hand.

  “Very well.” He said, and bowed to the two of us before stepping back. “You may go on in.”

  “Thank you.”

  The gate swung open, activated by some odd mechanism I couldn’t see, and I walked forward to where the young noble waited for me.

  He shook my hand vigorously while introducing himself. “Hi there! My name is Roland Gables, what’s yours?”

  “I’m Felix Bernadon.”

  “Nice to meet you, Felix. Welcome to the Great Dungeon, and my family’s estate.”