Andrew sat on his home railings. He had been living there for three years. It was the first place he started renting as soon as he got his first pay check.
He was staring at the dungeon door, and the police tape wrapped around it. It meant something to him. Dalton was sitting on a chair near him, asleep.
He refused to go home, saying that he didn't want Andrew to do something stupid.
Dalton had confused him. Did Dalton really think life was going back to normal? With a change like this? Did he really think whoever set this up was going to be okay with us not going in the dungeons?
Andrew clicked his tongue. If he couldn't do anything at the moment, he might as well check out his reward.
He opened his hand and summoned a yellow card.
The moment he got the card, something felt off about himself, and not in the good way. That was the reason why he barely interacted with the reward.
It had the image of two people, with one person in front of him, but two opposite arrows, respectively over and under them.
He wasn't planning on messing with it while Dalton was there, but boredom was eating him away, and that was the only safe way to interact with something weird.
He focused on it and he felt an energy around him, and the world seemed... greyish.
He turned to look at the birds in the sky, and saw them flying. So time wasn't stopped or slower.
He jumped around, wondering if he was super enchanted, but that wasn't the case. Instead he ended up hurting his foot.
That was a bit odd to him, he shouldn't have felt pain from that. But he shrugged it aside.
He punched, hoping an energy beam would fly in the sky. Then he tried a light jump, hoping he would shoot up in the sky.
He couldn't fly. He calmed his excitement down and decided to use common sense. The internet. Then one second later before thinking that, he remembered, there was no way in hell the internet would have any information those cards already-- Then he thought about how clout hungry streamers and influencers are. Wouldn't they endanger themselves to report on everything related to those dungeons?
Yes, they would. The problem was only one thing, distinguishing misinformation from the real stuff.
Andrew pulled up his phone, went on twitter, and was immediately blasted with pictures and videos off dungeons in the sea, river, sky, in people home's, etc.
But he quickly reached what he wanted, a tweet and video with over 500,000 likes. That surprised him, he only saw elon hit those kind of numbers.
Before watching the video, he looked at the comment section, looking to see if someone was saying if the guy was lying or had the wrong information about some stuff.
For the most part, it seemed people agreed with the video, because of their experiences.
Andrew played the video. A tall white guy with blonde hair immediately started by saying, "Yo! Yo Yo!"
Andrew skipped the 'filler' and fast forward to the part where he was with about 50 people and they all had their cards out.
"Okay. Okay. So these cards, they are like power cards. Ability cards, I guess. In short, they give you specific powers. But they vary in quality by a lot!"
He had a row of 5 people of different ages in a line, the first chubby kid was anxious and jolly.
The influencer pointed at the first kid, "So for example, him. All he can do is see through things."
Andrew scoffed. He thought about his classmates back in highschool and how many of them would have been excited to have such a power.
He tried imagining the fun of it a couple of times before deciding he just didn't get it, yet. He grown okay with that, he had been the weird one for a very long time.
The influencer made one after the other demonstrate the power, and the quality indeed was very different.
"Anyway, let's move on to the wild stuff."
He coughed and asked someone to record him. Once they were holding the camera well, he backed off from it and asked, "You got my entire body?"
"Yeah."
The influencer took in a deep breath and something white appeared in front of him.
It grew bigger, and the wings unfolded. He summoned some weird creature. It buzzed around so fast it was impossible to catch on camera
"Now, that seems pretty cool, right? But here is the issue." His tone was serious. "I--
Andrew battery dead. He just stared at the phone in amazement. Of all times for it to die.
Andrew looked at the dungeon doors again, and then Dalton. Since the cards originate from those dungeons, perhaps there was some clue their on how to use his ability.
He secretly opened the inside door and silently closed it to not awake Dalton, then he sneaked outside and don his armor with a thought.
There weren't much policemen around since they were stretched so thin. They were also probably distracted by their cards and abilities too.
Andrew moved stealthy and run touched a dungeon door that was near a small blue house
[**Do you want to enter this dungeon without a team?**]
"Yes."
The door snapped opened, bathing him in its light and he stepped in.
[**Information bits: There are three steps of the system initiation. Foundation, Reconstruction and Absolute Unification**]
Then Andrew was in a grassy field, with grass shaped like cat tails waved back and forth.
*Unification? What's this, china?*
Reconstruction was also a bit worrisome. Did that mean the dungeons were going to disappear or that society was going to adapt and built around them? Perhaps the latter. That one made the most sense.
He triggered his ability, readied his ax and chopped down the grass in his way.
The first card, the one he would call the Knowledge card, could be summoned when he thought of it. He wondered if he should name it something else, since it probably was what was responsible for them being able to donned armor and so on.
He focused on the card and imagined it growing bigger, and so it did.
*Ha, that's cool.*
Then a weird bat made out water came flying towards him.
Andrew readied himself, and smiled. He sliced the bat into two and watched them erupt.
It seemed his ability didn't trigger anything weird. The grey filter over the world disappeared.
There was a duration with how long he could keep his ability active. He triggered it almost immediately and it worked.
What was the point of it going off if it could be turned on just as quickly?
Andrew went back chopping grass, hoping it would trigger more water bats, and it did.
**
He had killed almost every monster in the dungeon and still couldn't figure out his ability.
He tried screaming to see if he could trigger a sonic wave. He had the idea of teleporation, because of the imagery of the card, but that did nothing.
Andrew saw down on a pile of grass he had chopped down and wondered, what if his power was body swapping? That fit the image perfectly...
But what a disappointment that would be, since the person would have his body.
He looked at his knowledge card, seeing there were 4 more monsters left.
He got up, stretched his arms and then the number dropped to 3, then 2 then 1.
Either the monsters were killing themselves or there was someone else in the dungeon.
Andrew looked around, while focusing on hearing anything. The wind currents made that hard.
Perhaps he was being overcautious, wasn't a thought to Andrew. He was always overcautious, even when he was interacting with everyday people, as long as he wasn't familiar with them.
"Oh, you been there for a while?" A person behind him said.
He quickly turned around and saw a woman with a bow and arrow. Her long ginger hair was drenched from killing the water bats.
Andrew replied, "Yeah. That's why you didn't find much bats."
"I was really wondering why this one was empty. I thought someone hopped in here and left a while ago or something," she said as she approached Andrew.
Andrew didn't let his guard down. He wasn't a person that would fight a someone half his weight, finding it to be embarrassing. However he treated everyone with a weapon the same, a threat to his life.
She stood near him and took a deep breath of air. "I haven't breathed such nice air in forever."
"Ever went to the country side?" Andrew asked, trying his best to converse like an everyday person, despite having no interest in it.
"Grew up there, but been too busy with work for that."
"Relatable."
She asked him, "How long till you think this discover oil in these dungeons and make warriors like us actually career paths. I will quit my job in a habit."
Andrew actually thought about that question. Well the latter part of it, killing monsters as a career. It would probably pay meh since those monsters were weak.
Maybe the strong monsters were part of the other initialization.
Andrew answered, "I can see it being a thing."