Apparently the big celebrations at the Orion guild were done with instant ramen, beer and watching something on the tiny wall-mounted television. My eyes would drift askew every few moments from the screen to Clarisse as this was the first time I was seeing her out of her witch's clothes, she wore a purple tank top and black jeans, but what I was really staring at were her ears.
Then the TV caught my full undivided attention it was now showing the top guilds in the world. Of course I didn't recognize a single one of them but the impressive footage they were showing was filling me up with envy.
The top ranked guild in the world was a British guild called 'Brittanica', they showed footage of their massive megaplex in California as well as their uniforms that made them look like superheroes. It cut to footage of them fighting in dungeons with laser precision and sharp battle tactics before giving an interview with a couple of their dungeon raiding party leaders.
Karson turned it off.
"Hey they might get victories all the time. But today Zane you did the impossible and brought us a miracle."
"Yeah to Zane." Clarisse said as her and Karson clinked my beer bottle with theirs.
My intense focus picked up on someone entering the basement and I leapt up to go meet them, finally after 2 days I could meet the last member of our guild, Skinny.
But what I saw was anything but what I had been building up in my head. He was green and massive, he wore a stained white shirt that had a beer belly sticking out from most of it. Casting my eyes down he wore brown and green checkered trousers with a belt that was clinging on for dear life and black combat boots.
He was a majorly obese orc. All I could do was stare at him.
"Hey who's this then?" Skinny said in a very rough thuggish voice.
"Ah Skinny this is the dungeon destroyer himself, Zane Mack!" Clarisse came over and introduced me and thank god because no words were currently coming to me.
"Hey how's it going lad?!" he exclaimed in delight whilst he shook my still-broken right hand up and down, I had to stop myself from screaming out in pain.
"You're the one I had to use some blackmail for huh?" He clearly took my wincing face from the pain to mean that I was upset that he had to go through so much effort. "Ah don't worry about it I tap that tanned geezer for things quite often so he should be used to it."
He slapped me on my back and nearly made me fall over.
"Sorry about the mess in here by the way. The interrogation room used to be mostly used for junk but I had to shift it out here so these two had somewhere to put the screws to you."
Well that definitely explained why this place looked so terrible whilst the interrogation room had fooled me into thinking I was in some massive professional facility.
"How'd your registration go by the way lad?" he asked and I showed him my new association ID card.
"Haha not the greatest picture is it?" My ID card had a photo of me that was taken without me being given any warning so I was mid-sneeze in my official picture.
Karson then came over and laughed with him and it wasn't long before we were all laughing and joking and drinking beer.
"You know the new guy got us a job today?" Karson said to Skinny, slapping me in much the same way but now that I was sat down had much less effect.
"Oh really?! That's amazing news! I mean I suppose he would have to given he destroyed our only other job haha!" Skinny elbowed me in the ribs from the chair he had pulled from the ex-storage room. Me, Clarisse and Karson could all fit on the sofa but Skinny had to sit next to me on the metallic chair instead, I felt kind of bad.
"Yeah don't get too excited though there was only one job I could get for us." I said chiming into the conversation, I didn't want anyone else to have to say it for fear they might oversell it.
"We're babysitting some Association researchers at this new dungeon in an amusement park."
Five o'clock in the morning. I hated even thinking about how early we all had to be there. Luckily with the money from the nose ring I was able to buy a phone and still have plenty left over so I had something to do whilst we waited. If the mood did get much lower though I would have to take out Dionysus' wine to boost morale.
I looked around at everyone, Karson was polishing his sword and armour over and over again, Clarisse was cross legged on the floor with her arm in her hand and Skinny was going over the items in his large bag over and over again.
It was the first time I was seeing Skinny in his dungeoneering equipment and he looked the part, he wore a heavy leather cuirass with a single pauldron and some arm guards. Underneath he wore cushioned trousers with leather kneecaps and boots. Of course he also had a giant bag he had to lug on his back that was light brown and I doubted anyone but him knew how to lift it.
I was the only one of our group who didn't look experienced, I had decided to put some of the nose ring money towards clothes as I couldn't walk around in someone else's year old gym wear forever. I wore a brown pullover hoodie with jeans and trainers. That was it until Karson rooted around in his inventory and produced some leather gauntlets, a pauldron and a kneecap for me to wear. Apparently it was what he used to wear when he first gained his system.
One other thing I had bought which was now keeping me propped upright was a spear. At first I had wanted a cool flashy sword or dagger but when Karson had given me some tips yesterday at the association I found the spear the easiest to wield.
On my phone I had been searching Orion guild to find out more about what the public thought of us and what I found was that we were the laughing stock of the world. We were posted in videos and articles about how we were the worst, whole forum posts and memes were even devoted just to making fun of us.
I was just scrolling through another article which called Karson a liar as a misfit who got exiled from his guild couldn't possibly have gained Excalibur, when I heard the crunch of a few people approaching.
"Ah yes you must be Orion correct?" Steve Field said, he was all dressed up in a cloak and everything but it was definitely him.
I wondered for a second why he didn't just immediately recognize me but I remembered that the last time he saw me I looked homeless and had a substantial beard which I had since gotten rid of.
"Yep it's us good to see you again Steve. I didn't know they would be sending you." The other three gathered around to say hi and introduce themselves to him.
"Yes well when I had put in an order for the Orion guild to take a job. Some other guilds as well as the association decided I should do the surveying as a punishment of sorts."
"Ah well it's good to see you again anyway." I said giving him a nice handshake with my left hand.
I would have spent money on a healing potion to fix my broken one but they were all so expensive I couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead when Clarisse gave me back my golden thread last night I simply wrapped it around my right hand as it was before.
"Yes you too uhh…"
"It's Zane Mack, this is Clarisse, Skinny and I'm sure you remember Karson from yesterday."
"Ah yes. Hello everyone I'm hoping that even though your reputation isn't stellar that you're performance is." I could now hear that in his voice he was less robotic than in the office but just as tired and depressed sounding. Don't get me wrong he was making an effort to try and sound cheery but it just wasn't coming across.
"So what is the deal with this new dungeon?"
Steven looked through the tablet in his hand and said, "It became a dungeon in the last couple of days but not much is known about it just yet. You know red tape and all that." He said to me, the one person who doesn't know about the red tape and all that.
We started getting ourselves ready for going in but before we could actually step inside Steven called out "O-Orion" which I think was his way of wanting to talk to us.
Skinny turned to him as he was right next to Steven at the back and said, "What's happening mate?"
"Is it true that your dungeon was recently destroyed?"
We all stopped dead in our tracks and looked at each other, we didn't know what to say.
Karson as guild leader decided to walk back to Steven and said, "Yes it is true. Why?"
"Well it's just 50% of the world's large manmade structures are now dungeons. If its possible to destroy dungeons we would all be so much better off."
Steven stammered quite a bit when he said this next part. "S-so h-how d-did you do it?"
All Karson could do was look back at me and plead for an answer.
"I was the one who destroyed the dungeon. But I figured the association wouldn't want to destroy dungeons."
Karson was staring down Steven again, "W-w-well we wouldn't-t want to d-destroy all of them. B-but there is overpopulation on Earth at the m-moment and not enough s-space."
I started to feel bad for Steven I was getting sweaty just looking at him squirm under Karson's gaze, a gaze I myself was familiar with. I was so glad me and Karson were besties now!
So I told him so when he walked back to the front of our formation and he let out a chuckle.
According to Steven if I could destroy this dungeon as well it would cut back on the amount of paperwork he would have to do but after I stared at him for a second he remembered himself and talked about the overpopulation thing more.
Personally I would have done it just to get free tickets to this amusement park, I mean it had 3 rollercoasters, a ferris wheel and a merry-go-round what wasn't to love.
"I'm thinking our plan here should be that me and Karson go on the rollercoasters with Steven and gain a good vantage point for all the monsters and potentially the boss." Clarisse said as soon as the barrier had gone up around us upon us stepping inside.
Glancing over at Karson I could see that he was nearly going green at the idea, him and Skinny could nearly be twins.
"Maybe me and Karson should go together. You know because this is my first non-forced time in a dungeon." I quickly said wanting to save Clarisse and Steven from being coated in Karson's vomit.
"OK sure. Skinny and Steven follow me."
This place was incredibly creepy with the lack of sunlight and people and the only sounds you could hear being theme park music. I decided it was time to see if I could get any more powerful so whilst I was just walking around behind Karson I looked at the OTO quests:
{Kill the Bird boss}
{Penalty: 5 seconds of time}
{Reward: Skill (Permanent)}
{Find the Arrow of Mistletoe}
{Rewards: Arrow of Mistletoe, 1 Skill upgrade (permanent)}
{Find out Clarisse's secret}
{Reward: Skill (permanent}
{Find out Skinny's secret}
{Reward: 1 Skill upgrade (permanent)}
{Find out Steven's secret}
{Reward: 1 Skill upgrade (permanent)}
{Find out Karson's secret}
{Reward: 1 skill upgrade (permanent)}
{Lie about any of your secrets (0/2)}
{Reward: Skill (permanent)}
Well I'm going to be honest the OTO quests this time were a little weird and very secret based. The Arrow of Mistletoe sounds familiar but I can't remember from where. The bird boss doesn't really narrow it down either are we going to be fighting a giant chicken.
"Hey Karson do you have a secret?" I asked just wanting to get this quest out of the way.
He stopped walking so abruptly I almost bumped into him.
"What was that?"
"I asked if you have a secret? Maybe one that you've never told anyone else?" I didn't realise how specific I needed to be for this quest.
He turned to face me and that same intimidating gaze was pressed onto me.
"How many times have we had this conversation?" I remembered him asking me this before as a joke but this time he was deadly serious.
"Never. This is the first and only time." His gaze didn't shift from me like he was studying me to see if I was lying. "I figured we could share them to bring us closer together."
"Have you been talking to anyone about me or something?"
"No I'm just genuinely curious."
He relaxed himself but his face was still dark and he pointed to a picnic bench near us.
We both sat down and I said, "So what is it?"
"Why don't you go first"
I needed to make up a secret as fast as I could maybe something about Tock or the destruction of the dungeon. No both of those would be hard to mess up.
"The reason I was in a coma was because I tried to kill myself."
{Lie about any of your secrets (0/2)}
"Because I hated my girlfriend."
{Lie about any of your secrets (1/2)}
At least we're halfway there.
"OK here goes. The girl I was training I was dating her."
"Wow that is a big secret."
"No! I'm not done… When I found her and had killed as many of those other guys as I could. She begged me to kill her and so I did…"
Holy shit that's a massive secret!
{Truth Skill (Dirt Grade) permanently unlocked}
"Man that wasn't your fault. Even if you continue to blame yourself I will never think any less of you."
He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and I consoled him.
"You're a great friend Zane."
"Thanks you too." I said feeling guilty inside that I was just doing this for personal gain.
We got back to searching after that but came up empty we searched every nook and cranny too.
No monsters were out here in the open. So I told Karson we should look for the relic, he didn't understand saying that they were really rare but my insistence and our now closer bond made him go with it.
If I was going to hide an Arrow of Mistletoe in an amusement park where would I do it?
We wandered around the perimeter of the park again: Haunted house definitely not, Hall of mirrors no way, Merry-go round no. Then it occurred to me whilst we were walking by the stalls again that an arrow is shot or thrown it isn't just stationary.
I checked all 3 of the game stalls and found a clue at the shooting gallery. The cans that were stacked into a pyramid had writing on the other side. Turning them all round and figuring out the anagram was a problem but it read 'Top of Wheel'.
I turned and looked up at the Ferris Wheel and thought I could very barely make out something green at the very top. Karson was already losing the colour in his face looking at it and I had no idea how I was going to get above where the cabs went.
This ought to be fun!