It didn’t matter whether I paid now or later; I’d pay the same. I was done with the scarcity mindset and bought nine more hearthrunes. The System settled my tab as I walked out the door.

  [You’ve spent: 1,782 gold. Total gold: 3,301.]

  [Your Bartering skill has increased to level 3.]

  Man, did I love seeing those little skill-up notifications.

  I swung by the clothing stall and picked up another shirt and a leather jacket.

  [You’ve spent: 10 gold. Total gold: 3,291.]

  Next, I stopped by the doc’s office to get my arm sewn back on.

  I was sitting on the exam mushroom-shelf-table-thing when Dr. Patchwork said, “It looks like you’re barely holding it together, Frank.” He frowned after he finished assessing my injuries. “Honestly, if you weren’t undead, you’d be dead. You want me to heal you up too?”

  I chuckled at his joke. But he gave me a deadpan stare, waiting for me to answer.

  “What do you mean? Of course I want you to heal me up. Isn’t that part of the limb attachment?”

  He shook his head. “It’ll be another 495 gold.”

  “Jesus, you’re bleeding me dry here.” I debated telling him no, but I only had one human head in my inventory, and I’d recently learned I couldn’t eat just any brains.

  “Fine.”

  He did his thing with my arm and stuck me with a syringe, injecting me with a sickly green concoction. Afterward, I looked at my twice-sewn shoulder; it was red and angry from the doc cleaning it up. I pulled on my shirt, slipped on my jacket, and paid my tab on the way out.

  [You’ve spent: 591 gold. Total gold: 2,700.]

  This shit is getting expensive, I thought. Maybe I should’ve kept those potions of healing.

  I changed my mind, deciding to return to my Lair and use the FrankUp coin before my next guardian fight. A single attribute point was unlikely to change the outcome, but a new feat might. Ultimately it wouldn’t have mattered, since there was still a four-hour cooldown between uses and I wasn’t about to wait that long between clearing each resource node.

  [Exiting Player Town 111. Please wait…]

  [Welcome to your Lair.]

  I took the coin out and flipped it on my way to the Lair terminal. The usual System prompt appeared.

  [Choose one attribute to increase.]

  [Strength]

  [Dexterity]

  [Toughness]

  [Perception]

  [Willpower]

  [Fortitude]

  Once again, I chose Dexterity.

  [Your Dexterity has increased to level 13.]

  I frowned after reading the next notification.

  [New feat chance increased to 15%.]

  After I got to the terminal, I brought up the Freelancers’ submenu, selected Jesus, and sent him to gather timber. I wasn’t sure if there was anything else I had to do. I wanted him bringing back supplies, not wandering the halls, dowsing himself in milk because I didn’t tick a damn checkbox or something.

  [Freelancing - Objective: Clear a resource node and assign a Freelancer, complete.]

  [You’ve gained: 1 Common chest.]

  [New objective: Build a refining workshop and assign a Freelancer.]

  I was running low on gold, so I’d continue the questline when I had more money.

  “Dick, do I have to escort Jesus to the node?”

  “Nope, he’s already teleported.”

  “I didn’t give him any hearthrunes. How’s he supposed to get back?”

  “That won’t be an issue; he’s bound to your Lair and has a gravekey of his own. He’ll gather what he can for four hours, return to empty his inventory, and then repeat the process one more time for the day.”

  “Jesus only works eight hours a day?” That came out harsher than intended.

  “Yes, because each Freelancer is an actual person and not just some NPC you get to boss around.” He sighed. “However, I’m contractually obligated to inform you about the work ethic setting in your Lair terminal. It’ll let you set the workday anywhere between four to sixteen hours a day.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said half-jokingly. “I’ll make sure Jesus doesn’t work on Sundays.” I’d also leave the workday alone. Besides, I hated having to work ten hours or more a day. As long as they gave me a solid eight a day, I wouldn’t touch the setting.

  Speaking of getting back to work, I took out a hearthrune and dropped it.

  [Exiting your Lair. Please wait…]

  [Welcome to Safe Harbor.]

  I hoped the bullshit resource node guardian was a fluke; just a shitty combination of race and class. Either way, I was about to find out.

  * * *

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  There was a line to use the waygate. Vlad, the kobold, turned around when he heard someone come up behind him.

  “Frank! Good to seeing you. How goes resource hunt?”

  “I’m on my way to clear my second.” I figured I should at least warn him about the furry bastard. “Hey, take a group when you clear the forest. The guardian is—”

  He interrupted me with a toothy smile and said, “Cleared.”

  Before I could ask how, he stepped onto the waygate pads and poofed. Not that it mattered, but I wasn’t entirely sure I believed him. The little guy was just a kobold. Whatever, he probably had help.

  A familiar-looking grandfather clock sat on the side of the road, between two stalked lampposts. Either someone in this town was hoarding broken antiques or the damn thing was following me.

  I stepped onto the pads, selected the next waygate and got sent on my way.

  [You’ve spent: 50 gold. Total gold: 2,650.]

  Barely a moment after getting beamed up, I strolled through the silvery event horizon.

  A stone quarry waited for me on the other side of this portal.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, stepping through it.

  [Exiting the Overworld. Please wait…]

  [Welcome to resource node: granite.]

  I liked that the name of the place told me what I’d be extracting from it. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need another headstone soon.

  The portal dropped me on the upper ring of the quarry. The place was massive. Layer after layer of stone terraces circled downward in wide rings, each step cut sheer from the granite with a chisel. The walls showed raw gray streaked with white veins.

  Dust clung to the air, dry and chalky, carrying the faint tang of mineral grit with every breath. A few scraggly weeds clung to cracks near the upper ledges. The floor of the pit lay far below, a sunken bowl of rubble and broken blocks that looked more like a graveyard of fallen monuments than building material.

  “Wonder what kind of asshole I’ve got to fight here?” I asked.

  Then the asshole bleated behind me. I spun around to see a fuzzy shadow fly right at me. I couldn’t tell whether it was real until the last second, when the shadow gave way to a damn goat that bulldozed into me.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered when the sneaky asshole head-butted me off the top terrace.

  As I fell, I barely had enough time to slip out of my jacket and toss it into my inventory before I landed with a crunch.

  Fifteen feet wasn’t enough to shatter every bone in my body, but it was enough to rattle them.

  “Jesus, Dick, what the frank was that?”

  “I only caught a glimpse before it hit you and I lost the feed. But if that stealth was a clue, I’d say we’re dealing with a kid-napper.”

  I grunted as I pushed myself to my feet. “Say again?”

  “A mountain goat with a level one rogue class.”

  “A sneaky goat?”

  “Exactly.”

  The sneaky asshole might be impossible to see, but it could be tracked. I heard it first: the clatter of falling rocks sliding down the terrace faces. I glanced up and found the source of the sound. Or at least I thought I did. The damn thing had gone invisible again.

  Once it stepped off the wall, I couldn’t tell where it went. I scanned all around me, searching for any signs or sounds of the kid-napper. The shadow would come for me again; I just had to be patient.

  His sneaky ass was hard to pin down. The clack of his hooves echoed throughout the quarry. For all I knew, he was running laps around me, searching for the perfect moment to strike.

  “Come on!” I taunted.

  I hated waiting for a fight. If I knew it was coming, I’d just as soon get it over with. I caught a bleat on my left. Barely a moment later, the sneaky asshole appeared and dragged a horn across my thigh, lancing me open like a knife.

  I cursed, but not from the pain. The sneaky asshole had just ripped my new pants. I growled in frustration. I really needed to find some armor.

  The kid-napper came back at me immediately, giving me a matching gash on my other thigh. It was like he could teleport and just kept dashing at me, from left and right, front and back. He came at me from every angle. My jeans were basically short shorts when he finished his dashing attacks.

  I needed to narrow down his angle of attack; then I could get my hands on his damn horns and beat his kid-napper ass.

  I eyed the edge of the terrace, wondering if he’d take the bait. Backing myself up to the ledge would remove a quarter of his options to strike at me.

  Frank it.

  It was that or let him saw my legs off one slice at a time. I positioned myself a foot from the ledge, braced myself, and waited.

  Like clockwork, I saw the shadow darting at me again. My hands flew up, ready to take the sneaky asshole by the horns.

  His stupid goat head appeared exactly as before, but grabbing onto his horns was a lot harder than it looked. I missed. He didn’t.

  I landed hard on my back. The resulting dust cloud swallowed me up as I read the notification after bouncing my damn head off the ground.

  [Your Intellect has dropped to level 20.]

  I dusted myself off and tried it again. But this time, instead of trying to grab the sneaky asshole, I hopped as high as I could to hurdle him.

  His horns came mighty close to an HR violation, but I spun around the moment my boots hit the ground. I grinned as I watched that visible, bleating son of a bitch crash into the terrace below.

  I spat at him and said, “How’s it feel, asshole?”

  He shook his stupid wall-eyed face, snapped his head up at me, and let out a bleat. Then he went invisible again. I heard him coming back up and readied my boot.

  Just when it sounded like he was right in front of me, I swung my size-thirteen at him.

  I caught him under the chest as he let out a surprised bleat. The sneaky asshole reappeared in midair, just as I’d hoped. I leapt after him, following him to the terrace below.

  He broke my fall as I landed on top of him. I groped under me, looking for anything to hold on to.

  I winced, hoping he was actually a she, as I’d found her udder and squeezed tight. But I was pretty sure goats had more than one teat.

  He screamed in my ear as I crushed whatever was in my grip. One of his horns found my eye and poked it. Instead of getting blinded, I got a notification.

  [Your Intellect has dropped to level 19.]

  I slipped my arm between his head and mine. With his neck grappled, I released his fractured member and grabbed his horn instead. It took me three tries, but I snapped it off. Using his own horn, I stabbed him to death.

  He struggled and bucked against me, but I wasn’t having any more of his shit and held him down until I saw the notification.

  [You’ve earned: 300 XP.]

  [You’ve gained: 1 FrankUp coin.]

  [You’ve unlocked: resource node: granite.]

  “Franking, finally,” I said, getting to my feet.

  I glanced down. I was drenched, literally still dripping with blood, like I’d just completed some satanic ritual.

  “Dick, do these bodies… despawn or something?”

  I knew my Jesus wasn’t the real Jesus, but I was still concerned about the optics.

  “Yep, when you leave, the Instance closes and everything gets wiped.”

  I had another FrankUp coin to use, but it would have to wait until my gravekey came off cooldown. Instead of wasting another hearthrune, I climbed my way out of the quarry to use the portal and waygate to the next resource node. That took a while to find all the ladders.

  * * *

  I read the System message as I got beamed up and sent to the next resource node.

  [You’ve spent: 50 gold. Total gold: 2,600.]

  I stared at the white-flowered fields just past the portal, wondering what sort of classed-up beast waited for me on the other side.

  Sumo alligator? Ninja lynx? Sorcerer snake, or maybe a knight ape?

  “Only one way to find out,” I said, stepping into the portal.

  [Exiting the Overworld. Please wait…]

  [Welcome to resource node: cotton.]

  On the other side, I discovered the white flowers had actually been tufts of cotton. They went on as far as the eye could see in every direction. Over to my right, I heard the crack of a whip.

  I couldn’t believe the System’s gall and said, “You have got to be shitting me.”