It took us four hours of driving to find the weapon reward room. The APC was great for crushing or otherwise ignoring mobs but the tunnels occasionally got too small and we had to store the vehicle and travel on foot. We were walking through one such tunnel when we finally got close enough to see the reward room on my minimap.

  The tunnel widened to reveal a small complex of short buildings. They looked like the type of generic military buildings you would see in a movie. Nothing moved and there were no red or white dots on the minimap. I scouted ahead with the drone and it quickly became clear that most of the buildings were just decorative, supporting the abandoned base aesthetic. There was literally nothing inside of them, not even flooring. The primary building of interest, the one my minimap showed as holding the reward room, had a sign reading “ABANDONED ARMORY” in rusted, metal letters.

  The doors were hanging open and we filed in, moving quietly. I kept my drone twenty meters ahead of us as we scouted the building. Dim lights flickered, illuminating rooms of corroded rifles, rusted vibroblades, and broken down security bots. As we neared the end of the building we saw a sign above the last room. Large, illuminated letters marked our destination clearly.

  Reliquary Room. Restricted Area - Keep Out

  “A bit on the nose, though I guess this is still a tutorial floor. I sure hope the dungeon design gets a little more sophisticated as we go down,” Parson said.

  We waited as my drone moved ahead to investigate. The area in front of the door was notably different from the rest of the building; it was lacking signs of deterioration and there were numerous circular plates on the ground that I was certain were covering point defense turrets. Sure enough, when my drone got within thirty meters of the door three, quad-laser turrets popped out of the ground and unleashed a torrent of red laser fire. I jerked the drone back, but not in time to save it. Three of the four repulsors were fried and the camera was ruined. I cursed; I hated it when I lost my drone senses. I pulled it into my inventory to let it repair itself.

  “That’s a lot of firepower,” I said. “Any ideas?”

  “This is a perfect chance to test the limits of my healing and our damage output,” Cascadia said. “I will engage the left most turret, activating my Supercharged ability the moment my shield goes down. We will all focus our attention on the first turret; with our combined firepower we should be able to destroy it quickly. I will continually draw agro, utilizing my heal burst, jet injectors, and if necessary, my jelly. The laser fire will be intense but with my dodge and healing I should be able to weather the storm while we take them out one by one. Ready? Let’s do this.”

  Cascadia started moving immediately but Parson stopped her.

  “Wait!”

  Cascadia lurched to a halt and gave Parson an exasperated look.

  “I swear to god Parson, this isn’t even a boss fight, we don’t need to do the dance.”

  “It’s not a normal fight either, things are different. Those turrets are way too powerful for standard mobs, and the setup is completely different too. Look. See that console next to the door? It is obviously the control center for these turrets. See the exposed power cable running to it? If we can interrupt that the turrets will stop working. And above the console, look, a camera. The turrets didn’t seem to have any sort of sensory modules, they must take commands from the console, which is making decisions based on the camera input.”

  “So what? Are you saying we should try to ignore the turrets and rush for the power cord?”

  “That would be better than trying to destroy the turrets but I don’t think it would be that easy, it looks like there are probably some secondary defenses that will activate if we get closer. But we can do better than that anyway. Stay back and watch this.”

  Parson took a few steps forward and pulled out a small cube and one of his incense sticks. His sqourse appeared a second later. He reached back and lit the incense stick on a heating element that was part of his respirator power pack and slapped the sqourse hard on the back as thick smoke started to fill the area. Just as the sqourse reached the kill zone and the turrets popped up, Parson hurled the oversized incense stick. It flew past the turrets even as they turned the sqourse to ash. He had time to throw another while the turrets were desecrating the corpse but his third attempt was blasted apart in the air.

  Cascadia and I coughed and retreated further back. We kept retreating as the smoke got thicker and thicker. We had lost sight of Parson so I couldn’t see what he did, but suddenly the smoke turned into a thick, black sludge and fell to the ground. Parson was standing right where he had been but was now completely covered in a black, slimy, coating. He casually walked up to the console and yanked out the power cord. He hit the door access panel and it slid open. Parson stood to the side and made a welcoming gesture.

  “What was that?” I asked. “We’ve never seen you do anything like that.”

  “I have an ability that lets me manipulate certain properties of gas and cloud effects and my respirator makes me immune to them. I filled the room with smoke, then increased the particle size and cloud humidity. It covered the camera lense and the console was blinded. Easy.”

  “Shame about the sqourse though.”

  “Yeah….It was probably not going to work long-term anyway. I had to keep them so strung out it was going to kill them sooner or later. I need to find a better way to go about it.”

  “I’m very sorry about your pet,” Cascadia said, her voice strained, “but I feel compelled to mention that if I was a viewer, I’d be feeling very dissatisfied right now.”

  “Well if I were a viewer I’d be feeling extremely impressed at the creativity and ingenuity on display.”

  Cascadia grunted with frustration and stalked into the room. The room was well lit with clean, white lights and had a line of six pedestals. The pedestals each had an item floating above them, surrounded by a buzzing containment field. There were also labels, naming the contained weapons.

  New Achievement. Ancient Armament.

  You have found a weapon reward room. The dungeon is full of generic weapons. Laser pistols, rail guns, energy swords, arc cannons, and so on. There is nothing wrong with that kind of weapon, they serve an important role in the dungeon. But these weapons are not those weapons. These weapons are anything but generic. And they serve an entirely different role. Choose carefully, the full power of some of these weapons exacts a high price from their wielder.

  Reward: You can lower the containment field of one reliquary without causing the neglected building reactor to go critical.

  “So, who gets this one?” Cascadia asked. “Gel got the vehicle, so Parson or I should get this one.”

  “I don’t know if I would say I got the vehicle since we all ride in it, and I don’t think we have to try to spread out the reward rooms amongst ourselves anyway. But I’m not really interested in this kind of weaponry, it doesn’t work with what I’ve got going on.”

  Cascadia looked to Parson.

  “I’m already spoken for,” he said, patting his living spine shooter.

  “It’s settled then, I’ll be using the weapon so I’ll be ch-”

  “Tentacle Staff!” Parson shouted abruptly, noticing the first item. I inspected the pedestal, which held a two meter staff with bundles of tentacles on either end. The sign read Eldritch Scepter.

  “I told you the first day we met you should get a tentacle staff, it’s fate. You have to choose it.”

  “And I told you that that was gross and I wouldn’t do it. Plus, this thing looks like it probably turns its wielder into a squid-person or something.”

  She moved to the second pedestal, which contained a long, curved sword that was wreathed in flames. It was called Ashbringer. It looked like it belonged in a Borant season. Next was the Seraphim Protocol. It was a pair of sinister looking, white, metallic, winglike claws. Looking at it sent a shiver down my spine. There was a set of fixtures and wires that indicated this was a cybernetic enhancement that would be installed into someone’s back.

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

  The fourth pedestal appeared to have an empty containment field. The sign said Pick Me!. The second to last pedestal had a preposterously ornate rocket launcher named The Final Proclamation, and the last pedestal had a set of five black rings, twirling about each other in the light. The sign read The Pentarch Lash.

  “You should definitely get the flaming sword. That’s badass,” I said.

  “Why would I want a flaming sword? You cut things with swords. It’s pointless.”

  “There are a few potential reasons,” Parson said. “Heat, smoke, and flames might obscure an opponent's vision, a superheated blade might provide superior cutting power in some situations, you may be able to deal internal heat damage with a cut or stab, it serves as a light source, and there is an undeniable intimidation factor, particularly with the drawing of the blade.”

  “You make a compelling case, but I won’t choose this. It’s too redundant with my staff and axe.”

  “You can just use it instead of the axe!“ I said.

  “The achievement we got when we found the first reward room said that it is about getting loot you can’t get in loot boxes. I’m sure we’ll have no trouble getting swords and axes.” She walked past the rocket launcher.

  “This probably brings something to the party we are currently lacking, but the same principle applies; we can find a boom device later.”

  She stopped in front of the wings. I imagined Cascadia with the long talons spreading from her back, skewering a line of mobs.

  “This one seems special. I could do incredible things with this kind of integrated weaponry. And I would look absolutely terrifying.”

  A thirty second warning popped up and Cascadia stepped up to the final pedestal.

  “The choice is clear though. After all, a girl can never have too many accessories.”

  She reached out and grabbed the set of rings from the containment field.

  “Now let’s get out of here. We are going to the nearest saferoom so we can open our boss boxes and sort through our achievements and then I am spending the rest of the day hunting, because if I have to spend any more time riding, I will lose my actual mind.”

  It was a short trip to the nearest saferoom and Cascadia spent it experimenting with her new item, which she had equipped on her left hand. The rings went on the middle segment of each finger, and the base of her thumb. They were black but had a distinctly mechano-organic feel. The description read

  Pentarch Lash

  +5 Strength

  +5 Charisma

  +5 Skill Levels to Whip Handling

  +5 Skill Levels to Intimidation

  All nanotech based skills, abilities, and items are 5% more effective

  These five rings were originally made for the members of the ruling council of an ancient technocratic society that made incredible advances in nanotechnology. One enterprising member of this council turned on his companions, eliminating them one by one and claiming their rings for himself. This ultimately led to the decline and destruction of their society, but this set of rings remains; the last surviving artifact of this technologically advanced culture.

  Each individual ring is composed of millions of neuroresponsive, variable density, nanobots. The Pentarch Lash can be shaped into many forms, but the most common technique is to elongate each of the rings equally and braid them into a whip. The nanobots have a sympathetic-quantum link with their user. This means the strength of the weapon, both its structural integrity and prehensile force, are determined by the strength of the user.

  Cascadia could extend each ring to a disturbing five meters, but when she braided it into a whip it was only about three meters long. She could control each strand as an extension of her fingers and after just a few minutes of practice she could shoot out the strands and braid them into a whip almost instantaneously. Parson wasn’t thrilled that she kept knocking over beakers in his mobile lab at the rear of the vehicle, but we both agreed that Cascadia had made a good choice. I had initially thought it was a stupid decision but the item had a lot of potential. Even just the stat increases and other buffs were pretty good on their own.

  The nearest safe room was a tutorial guild, so we separated from Parson to open our boxes. Instead of completely deactivating her new ring set, Cascadia shortened them to centimeter long claws.

  “Very femme fatale,” Parson said, before disappearing into his guildhall.

  “Do you think that the femme fatale thing translates for an alien audience?” Cascadia asked as we closed and opened the door to reveal our own tutorial guild. Jasper was waiting right in front of the door.

  “It’s about as close to universal as something can be in a universe as diverse as ours,” he said.

  “Do you watch us, like, all the time?” I asked.

  “I have an alarm configured to go off anytime either of you wake up. If you are awake, I’m awake and watching. I watch everything you do except when you use the bathroom. That way I have full context to be able to provide insight and guidance, which is my duty and privilege as a game guide. And the claw aesthetic is great, though it doesn’t match the elbow and knee pad look. But it does go very well with your earrings and tattoos! And at least it doesn’t clash with the vest and pants. You might want to consider some alterations to your hair style if you are really going to push the look. But none of that matters yet, you can’t really dial in an aesthetic until after race and class selection, which I am so excited for by the way. You guys are going to have amazing options, I’m sure of it.”

  “Your fashion advice is surprisingly insightful. How do we get the best race and class options?”

  “I….am not allowed to tell you that. But just keep doing your thing.”

  “You mean milking pigs all day?”

  “Ahhh yeah I don’t love that for you, but the money gambit is interesting. Because you can get around so fast and you were so ahead at the start of the floor, you haven’t fallen behind at all. In fact, I think you are still probably the most powerful pair in the dungeon. Maybe not the most powerful individuals, and certainly not the most powerful party, there are some really big ones, but you are absolutely top tier.”

  Cascadia did not look happy at Jasper’s assessment of our relative power level and she seemed frustrated as she sat down to open her boxes and achievements. Her mood was not helped when all she got from the boss box was a thousand credits. She also got a totally mundane choker from a “bully” box she received for intimidating the orcs, which she threw on the floor.

  “I’m going to find some mobs. You can catch up whenever,” she said, standing up and heading for the door. I raised a hand in protest but she was already gone.

  “Will she be ok?” I asked Jasper.

  “There’s nothing in this area tha-“

  ZAAAP!

  This shock was so powerful that Jasper was actually smoking a little bit.

  “Why don’t you just check your achievements and open your boxes.”

  In addition to the boss box, I had received one noteworthy achievement.

  New Achievement! Delivery Boy.

  You have been the delivery mechanism of an offensive ability created or activated by another crawler. You should keep doing this kind of thing. We like combos in this dungeon. Don’t feel bad that it places you in a decidedly subservient position to your fellow crawler.

  Reward! You’ve received a silver Good Helper box!

  The box had an engraving of someone on all fours, serving as a stepstool for another person. It opened and revealed a dark blue crystal, about the size of my thumb. I inspected it.

  Xylanian Crystal

  This little technomiracle is the traditional gift of a technopriestess to her most loyal parishioners. It takes no equipment slot and will automatically hover near you. Be careful no one grabs it. Provides the following benefits.

  +3 intelligence

  All healing effects are 25% more effective

  This wasn’t exciting, but it was very good. The boss box was better though. It gave me membership to the Protocol Matrix of the Floor Club and my first Protocol Matrix. I inspected the archaic looking data cube. It was covered in frost crystals and glowed with a blue light.

  Protocol Matrix of Endothermic Field

  Endothermic Field

  Cost: 10 energy/level

  Target: 10m x 10m x 10m/level area

  Range: line of sight

  Duration: Instantaneous

  Effect: lowers the temperature of every non-living object in the area.

  At level 1, this ability will cause water to freeze. Increasing levels will have more severe effects. The user can select what level to activate this ability at.

  Finally, I was getting some abilities to put my intelligence stat to better use. With the new crystal my intelligence was now twelve. Not as high as Parson, but still pretty good. My focus was still on my drones and turret, but diversifying a bit would be great.

  “That dungeon codex with the reward rooms is the most broken item I’ve ever seen,” Jasper said, as I activated the protocol matrix and equipped my crystal, which floated next to my head. “Reward rooms are supposed to be very rare, and you’ve already found two of them. Are you going to get more?”

  “That’s the plan. We’ll be chasing them after we finish filling the APC with barrels.”

  “Make sure you get to a pet room if you can. They are one of the most powerful assets you can get.”

  “It’s at the top of my list, I don’t intend to leave this floor without one.”