I hadn’t noticed the uptick in foot traffic at first. Usually, the hustle and bustle went in both directions. But that had changed on my way back to the tavern. Everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction as me now.

  When I finally arrived, over a hundred players stood outside the damn place.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  “That Frank,” a familiar-sounding kobold said as he pointed at me. “I knew it be him. Frank showed us starter Instance earlier.”

  The group that followed me earlier today wasn’t half as large as the one I was staring at now. Also, I just noticed the kobold guy spoke with a Russian accent.

  Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of players, I thought. But in reality, it wasn’t that many; it just felt like it.

  A zombie of my word, I shrugged, lassoed my finger, and shouted, “Here we go!”

  A gaggle of players followed me as I climbed the stupid quarter-mile tunnel to the exit.

  The hatch squeaked as I opened it. Dry air rolled over me. Warm, but not oppressive. The afternoon sun was well on its way toward the horizon.

  I stepped onto solid ground and found myself face-to-face with another waygate, which I swear to God was not there before.

  “Dick, please tell me this hasn’t been here this entire time?”

  “Ah, I see you’ve managed to unlock the first town amenity.”

  “I did what now?”

  “As players collectively complete the weekly quests from the notice board, the town unlocks new upgrades. Amenities tend to unlock in a random-ish order. It’ll be different for every town. Player Town 111 has unlocked a second waygate. Now, you won’t have to climb down or up to enter or exit.”

  I sighed. It’s not like we couldn’t already waygate to the center of town.

  “Just another gold sink for schmucks,” I said. “Also, I’d rather work on leveling up my Climbing skill.”

  “Okie-dokie,” Dickhead said.

  I walked up to it and touched it. Just in case some jackass ever blew up the one inside the town.

  Waiting for everyone would’ve taken forever, so I told them to pass along the message to touch the waygate and catch up with the rest of us. While I didn’t wait for anyone, I did walk a bit slower than usual.

  It took an hour for everyone to finish climbing up, attune to the waygate, and rejoin the group. So far, it’d been a long day. I could feel it catching up to me.

  Curious, I brought up my Main Menu and checked on my Mana.

  Mana: 100% (219/219) reduced from (292/292) due to Tired.

  I saw the debuff and checked the rest of my stats to see if it affected anything else. It didn’t.

  “Dick, are there any other debuffs like Tired?”

  “You Know Who refers to them as states, and you’re always in one of four: rested, tired, fatigued, and exhausted. Technically, you can also be unconscious, asleep, or energized. But for the sake of simplicity, I’ll just go over the four.”

  “I’m guessing rested is the default state?”

  “Sure, you could think of it that way. You have full access to your Mana while Rested. At Tired, like you are now, you have access to 75% of your Mana. At Fatigued, you’ll have 50% of your Mana, and Exhausted only lets you use 25%.”

  “I’m guessing Unconscious and Asleep use 0% of your Mana?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “And what about Energized?”

  “That state grants you 125% of your Mana. But your No Rest for the Dead trait allows you to ignore most of the states due to your minimal Mana requirements.”

  I liked the sound of that. It meant I could push myself longer than most without too much risk.

  My resource node was closer than I thought. It took us a couple of hours to reach it. Another waygate stood beside the portal to the resource node. A dense forest awaited me just beyond the portal.

  I groaned as I watched the kobold walking my way. He’d better not ask me to help him clear the stupid resource node. I was ready to tell him off when he introduced himself.

  “Hello, I am Vladimir.” He held out his little paw-like hand.

  I shook his hand; he already knew my name.

  “Thanks for this. I wonder if you’d like to do another?”

  I frowned. “Sorry, Vlad, but I’m out of maps.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Vlad smiled. It was creepy. His teeth were all crooked and sharp. “You misunderstand. I have map. You want come with me to it next?”

  “You’ve got a map?”

  That was a nice surprise.

  Vlad stepped back, holding his arm out to the group. “We have five map.”

  “Shit…” I chuckled. I honestly didn’t think I’d get anything out of this, but it looked like map-sharing was a thing we were doing.

  “Hell yeah,” I said, figuring I could always use the waygate to come back later. “Lead on.”

  I stepped to the side and gestured for Vlad to show us the way. He flashed another toothy grin and scampered off while I got in line for a free resource node.

  I could practically hear Dickhead smiling at me for working with other players. Sharing maps was one thing, but he could frank right off if he thought I’d share any of my loot or experience.

  We came across our first NPC patrol. I heard the rhythmic clatter of marching metal before I saw them. My hand shot up as I made a fist, signaling everyone to stop talking and walking. But none of those jackasses paid me any mind and just kept following Vlad.

  They were all a bunch of undisciplined yahoos that didn’t know what a damn hand signal was. But it didn’t matter. There were only a dozen of them, and we were well past a hundred.

  The patrol might have been dangerous had I been solo, but the mob of players made quick work of them. The NPCs looked like knights, covered head to toe in shiny steel armor. Each of them had a sword and board that they drew immediately.

  I had to give them credit, though: not a single NPC so much as flinched as a sea of monsters descended upon them.

  Like a wild herd of buffalo, they charged. The wind buffeted my shoulders as they bolted past me. Hooves, claws, and feet of every kind pounded and shook the ground. Even a few shadows darted overhead as those with wings took flight. Every one of them vying to get to the metallic-wrapped snacks first. I didn’t even have to lift an undead finger.

  Honestly, it was awesome. I felt like a commander with my very own army of darkness.

  I also hadn’t realized how many monsters ate humans. They’d literally torn the NPCs to pieces. Nothing but bits of armor and padding remained.

  I frowned. This was exactly why I worked alone. It would’ve been nice to have gotten at least one of their heads. I still hadn’t healed since my last boss fight.

  A few of the players had taken stabs or gotten slashed before the NPCs went down. One goblin was a shaman, I think. Either way, she waved a staff while chanting some mumbo jumbo. A wispy green vine of energy snaked out of the staff and into the wounds of a player. The flesh knitted together as they were healed.

  “Hey,” I called to the goblin as I approached. “You mind topping me off with a bit of healing?”

  “Sure thing, doll,” she said.

  She could keep the pet name, but I’d listen to that accent all day. I didn’t know what it was, but I loved a good Boston accent.

  “Do a li’l twirl for me,” she said, mimicking with a finger. “Need ta see where yer banged up first.”

  I sighed, held up my arms… and did a twirl.

  “Yeah. Uh-huh. Slower. Slower. That’s it.”

  I felt like a jackass and was pretty sure she didn’t need me doing this shit. I dropped my arms and asked, “Can you help me or not?”

  “Listen, doll. It’s been two days since I seen a proper man. Everyone here is either all warty, furry, or slimy. But you’ve given me enough for the old bean-bank, so let’s get you topped off. Hold still.”

  She waved her staff over me and chanted while I stood there feeling like a damn gigolo. Her energy vines focused on my sewn-up shoulder. It’d barely been hanging on after getting clobbered by The Executioner.

  “Done.”

  I rolled my shoulder. I still felt tired, but my body was good as new. For a split second, I debated the benefits of having a healer with me. But the sexual harassment? Yeah, not worth it. Even if her accent was.

  Vlad wiped the blood from his mouth with his forearm and grinned. “Players strong together.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but I hadn’t changed my mind on grouping up.

  We resumed our march and arrived at the Instance within the hour. It was another resource node. The wavy image in the portal showed a quarry of some kind on the other side. It was probably for stone; I was pretty sure metals came from mines.

  I tapped the waygate, and another player took over driving our little monster mash.

  He was a green slime, about the size and shape of a melty fitness ball. His name was Bob, and he talked funny: only a few syllables at a time, which came out as literal bubbles. At first, I thought it was hilarious, but it grew old quickly.

  We didn’t find any patrols on the way this time. Dickhead said they’d gradually increase in frequency over the first week.

  I could see the top of the next waygate and was running out of time to ask about something that’d been nagging me for a while now.

  “So, Bob, I gotta ask. Why slime? Like, what’s the appeal?” I just assumed it was a sex thing. But even I wasn’t crass enough to just up and ask him.

  I had to wait for all the bubbles to pop to put his response together.

  “The greatest… fighter… once said… Empty… your mind… be formless… Shapeless… like water. I am… the cup. I am… the bottle. Now I… can flow… or crash.”

  …Bruce Lee was not on the bingo card. Way better than a kink, at least. But I’d seen too many slimes and oozes to count. No way all of them were Enter the Dragon fans.

  Hell, I’d have been surprised if even half of them had heard of the movie before. Damn shame, too. Kids these days don’t know what they’re missing.

  * * *

  I tapped the waygate, like all the others, but noticed this portal looked like an Instance Instance. The portal depicted a dense tropical jungle with an Aztec pyramid in the distance. I didn’t know if it was actually Aztec, but I also didn’t know anyone else who built pyramids in the damn jungle.

  * * *

  By the time we reached the last location, everyone was exhausted. Unable to keep their eyes open, some players even had to gravekey back early.

  We’d only run into one other NPC patrol, and it turned out even easier than the first. A dozen archers in leather stood no chance against a hundred bloodthirsty players, even when they constantly retreated to maintain distance.

  They might have been able to outrun slower classes like mine, but the smaller monster classes were scary quick on their feet. And it didn’t matter that our group was mostly fatigued; adrenaline was more than enough to sustain a thirty-second skirmish.

  * * *

  We had finally arrived at our last location. I tapped the waygate and was glad to be done for the day. In total, we ended up with five resource nodes and one Instance. Tomorrow I’d have to clear out a forest, quarry, cotton field, and two old mines. They shouldn’t take long if I use the waygates. If there was enough time, I wanted to give that jungle temple Instance a shot too.

  But I was ready to sleep like the dead. Or undead, whatever. I gave Vlad a nod, which was a warmer goodbye than I usually gave. Then I hit my gravekey and poofed.

  [Exiting the Tutorial. Please wait…]

  [Welcome to your Lair.]

  I shuffled into my bedroom. When I was close enough to the bed, I face-planted onto it. I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow, not caring that I hadn’t undressed.

  Day 3

  A new System message greeted me when I woke up.

  [The Wage Hour has claimed: 60 gold. Total gold: 5,257.]

  “What the…” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. “Dick, what the hell is a Wage Hour? And, more importantly, why the frank is it taking my money?”