Don't get me wrong. I was upset about my father's death. He wasn't a bad father. I wish he'd talked to us about how he was feeling before acting, though. And now I had to use the last bit of money left in our savings to pay for a funeral and burial.

  My siblings needed closure, and it would be nice to have a place to sit and talk to myself and think while pretending I was talking to my father's spirit. I mean, I know I seem gruff and shitty, but I would still talk to him.

  I just wouldn't expect a response. Not unless I performed necromancy on him or something. While that would be fun, I couldn't afford the schooling or the fines for desecrating a grave and disobeying the natural laws of life and death and all that.

  As far as my siblings were concerned, it had finally sunk in that our father wasn't coming back. They were beginning to mourn, just like they had with our mother, but that had been a long process, so I expected this one to take a while, too.

  That meant I was on my own for running the shop for a while. Brent wouldn't be coming around to sweep anytime soon. Delia was taking it the hardest. She had been young when our mother died, so she didn't have the previous experience to lean back on.

  I assured them everything was going to be alright, and that I was going to fix everything, because that's what you do with younger siblings when everything is about to fall down around your ears. You lie, and you hope that it's true.

  "Really? Are you going to bring mom and dad back to life?" Delia asked.

  "No, I'm not quite that amazing," I said. "I'll make sure we survive and I'll feed you hungry little munchkins."

  I tickled her, and she giggled.

  "Stop, that tickles!" she said.

  "That's the point," I said, "but I will stop if you wish."

  "Gwen," my brother Brent said, "can I come sweep tomorrow?"

  "No," I said, "you rest and just deal with our recent loss. When you're ready to come back, I'll tell you."

  "Are you sure you can do it by yourself?" he asked.

  "I'll be fine," I said.

  I wasn't going to be fine. Well, I would be if tonight's journey went well. The woman who was going to take me through the dungeon and I waited until after I closed the shop to head to the nearest dungeon. It was only an hour's walk south of the town.

  It was called the Necromancer's Catacombs of the Undead. Spooky right? Originally, it had served as the catacombs for a kingdom long since lost to time. Then, as the story goes, a powerful necromancer bent on the destruction of the kingdom entered the catacombs and brought them to life.

  He led an army of the undead to destroy the kingdom and everyone in it. The only thing left of the kingdom now were the catacombs buried deep underground. The necromancer apparently still lives at the bottom of the catacombs as a lich, but no one has ever made it far enough down to even fight him, let alone defeat him.

  Every so often, a horde of skeletons will exit the dungeon and attack the town. Which is why people tried to adventure into them as frequently as they could to quell the hordes of skeletons that continued to come out of the place.

  We were two such adventurers. Well, Valda, my companion, was an adventurer. I was just there to supply her with gear and pick up loot. Or so I thought.

  My father had ventured into the catacombs in his own younger years, gathering gold and resources. He had done quite well for himself in there, and that is the money he used to marry my mother and open the shop. Those resources were dwindling in recent years and he wasn't the same man he was twenty years ago. He didn't have the ability to go back in.

  I figured it was one of my best chances of gathering crafting materials. We could always hunt and forage out in the wild for materials as well, but there was no place nearby more dense with resources than the catacombs.

  There were rare bugs that wandered the catacombs, mushrooms, lichen, enchanted jewelry that elite skeletons wore, among other things. There were even rumors of enchanted artifacts at the bottom of the dungeon.

  When we were about to enter the catacombs, I saw a hand-painted sign outside that said, "Don't go in there. There's skeletons." Ignoring the helpful sign, Valda and I walked down the steps to enter the wide open doorway to the catacombs.

  Our footsteps echoed on the stone floor as we walked. We came to a junction with multiple tunnels.

  "Which way should we go?" Valda asked.

  "I don't know," I said, "but wherever we decide, I'm going to keep a log on how to get back."

  "Good," she said. She pointed at the far right tunnel. "Let's go there."

  "Ok," I said.

  I made a note in the notebook I brought along. Before following her down the tunnel, I lit one of the torches I brought along. Warm orange light spread through the tunnel as we walked.

  It started with sarcophagi lining the tunnel on the left and right. Most of them had been opened and were empty. I grabbed a few mushrooms and scraped some bioluminescent lichen off the wall, put them in a cloth bag and placed it in my pack.

  The floor was littered with bones. We crunched on them as we walked. The first enemies we came across were unarmed skeletons. They just kind of reached at us as they walked like zombies.

  Valda gasped for a moment and froze.

  "What are you doing?" I said.

  "I don't know," she said. "I can't move."

  "Yes," I said, "you can."

  I grabbed her weapon arm and swung it in front of her. It hit a skeleton's skull and smashed it to pieces. That seemed to break her out of her trance.

  Valda smashed the remaining skeletons to bits with the mace I gave her from the shop. Skeletons were vulnerable to blunt force damage more than slashing or stabbing. And you couldn't hit them with arrows. They'd go right through.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I hadn't brought a weapon for myself, but I supposed I could use one of the ones I brought for Valda. I didn't know how I would swing a war hammer while holding a torch in one hand and a notebook in the other though.

  I clicked through the system interface as we walked. I wanted to see if I could find an analyze ability that would allow me to see enemy names, descriptions, and health bars. I found it under the options menu.

  There were instructions on how to do different things and even a tutorial mode. I didn't know how distracting the tutorial mode might be, so I kept it off. I just skimmed through the instructions to find an analyze mode.

  I found out that it was actually a clickable option in the display menu. I clicked to turn on the 'display stats' option and suddenly a bunch of neon blue words and outlines cluttered my vision.

  Then I realized it was just because I was standing too close to Valda. When I stepped back, I could see the stats without it making me blind. Above Valda's head was her name (Valda Steelheart), level (1), her health bar (100/100), mana bar (10/10), and her stamina bar (100/100).

  It also said she was a fighter class, which I already knew. Nothing else was displayed. I looked through the display menu more and found a 'highlight collectibles' option and clicked on it.

  A yellowish-orange glow highlighted a ton of materials that I was missing in the dark. I started collecting everything I could see until I saw my pack was half full. I stopped after that. I figured it might be better to wait until we were further in to collect more valuable items.

  As we ventured further into the depths of the catacombs, we encountered other enemies, such as giant rats and skeletons with weapons and armor. There were also these huge dark blue beetles that I made Valda kill for me.

  They didn't attack us, but the display showed them as collectible items, so I figured their carapace could be used in potions.

  "Why are we killing these things?" Valda asked.

  She crushed another beetle with her mace.

  "Because I can use them as crafting materials," I said.

  "Uh," she said, "ok, I guess."

  I picked up another vanquished beetle, placed it in a bag with all the others and put it in my pack. I eventually figured out, looking through the instructions some more, that there was an analyze ability.

  You needed to have the 'display stats' option on and then you just had to stare closely at a material or item and a name and description would pop up next to it.

  I checked one of each of the materials I had picked up and they all said they were used in various potions and elixirs. Most of them were just for making higher-quality health, mana, and stamina potions, but the midnight beetle carapaces could be used to make dark sight potions. Dark sight allowed you to see even in pitch darkness.

  Some races had it automatically—like elves—from what I learned in school. I analyzed the weapons and armor that the skeletons were using and they were useless or poor quality.

  The worst were labeled as 'rusted'. I supposed that the weapons and armor would get better the further in we went. Valda's arms shook occasionally, but I couldn't tell if it was from fear or exhaustion.

  "Do you need to rest?" I asked.

  "No," she said, "I can keep going."

  Her heavy breathing told a different story. I grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to the ground as I sat myself.

  "Sit," I said. I popped the cork on a bottle of green liquid and gave it to her. "It's a stamina potion. It's only common quality, but it should help you regain your strength."

  "Uh, thanks," she said.

  She drank the potion and I could tell she instantly felt better. She began to stand up, but I pulled her back down. I pulled out some jerky, bread, and water.

  "Eat," I said. "Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a food and water potion, yet. You have to eat and stay hydrated."

  "Why are you being so nice to me?" she said.

  "Many reasons," I said. "You're my lifeline. If you fall, I fall. Also, you seem like a decent person, and I don't want to see you keel over to something preventable, like hunger or exhaustion."

  "Uh, thanks," she said.

  She bit into the bread and a look of relief and pleasure spread across her face. After that, she devoured the food and drank heavily from my canteen. Don't worry, I had several hanging off the sides of my pack and there was more food where that came from.

  I would have eaten myself, but I wasn't hungry yet. I hadn't been doing much work. I just drank some water, and I was good. I came prepared, and while I have no training with weapons, yet, I'm no slouch. I can carry a lot of weight.

  The first thing I'd probably make when I got back, though, was a bigger pack with more straps so I could haul more loot. I hated that I was having to leave loot behind.

  "So, where are you from?" I asked.

  "Skimbal, just like you," she said.

  "Well, I know that," I said. "I mean, what's your background?"

  "Building houses," she said. "Family business."

  "Oh, nice," I said. "Same here. My father passed the shop onto me when he died."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "You seem so young for that."

  "I am," I said. "But you move on."

  "Yeah," she said, "I guess so."

  After we ate and rested, we got back to it. We ventured further into the catacombs. We came across stairs down every so often, as well as forks in the road, so to speak. I made sure to catalog every turn. We were going deeper and lower in the labyrinth of tunnels.

  As such, we began to encounter tougher enemies. The skeletons were faster and more skilled with their weapons and the rats were bigger and more ugly. Valda had leveled up a couple times since we started (3), but she didn't seem to notice. I supposed that the stat boosts were automatically allocated for her, since she had no system interface.

  She seemed to get better at swinging the mace too. I analyzed her more closely and stats popped up around her. Her strength was a 6, her dexterity a 5, her constitution a 5, her intelligence a 2, and her charisma a 3. Under skills, next to 'bludgeoning weapons' was a 3 and (apprentice).

  Nice. She must have improved her skill since being in here. With her not having any weapons or armor coming into my shop, I expected her to have zero experience as a fighter, and she did.

  Since there were no system interfaces, choosing classes in this society was like choosing a profession. You just said you wanted to be a certain class and then you did it. Some classes you had to have an aptitude for, like a sorcerer, but that didn't mean you had to choose that class. You'd just be an idiot not to.

  She must have just chosen one day she was going to be a fighter and then came to my shop and did it. I wondered why she quit the family business. Maybe I'd ask her that later.

  I drilled down further into her stats and found an experience progress bar. It didn't say how many experience points she was gaining, but it told the percentage of progress towards the next level. Her progress towards level 4 was (28.4%) and her progress towards journeyman skill in 'bludgeoning weapons' was (11.2%).

  I must have had my own experience bar, so I checked my levels. I was still level 1 but my progress towards level 2 was a whopping (5%). I guess I shouldn't be surprised since I wasn't fighting and I wasn't making anything. The things I assumed would level me up. The (5%) must have come from gathering materials.

  We finally hit skeletons with actual useable weapons and armor. They were all labeled as 'Delphian steel'. I wasn't sure what that was, but it must have been good. Otherwise, it wouldn't have a name.

  I started strapping the weapons, especially the swords, to my pack. I was going to take them back with me and see what I could do with them. They had tons of nicks and scratches in them, so I figured I'd have to hammer and sharpen them, but they should sell with a good makeover.

  Stats:

  Strength: 5

  Dexterity: 4

  Constitution: 3

  Wisdom: 4

  Intelligence: 6

  Charisma: 2

  Resources:

  HP: 65 hit points

  MP: 120 mana points

  Stamina: 65 stamina points

  Proficiencies:

  Bartering: Apprentice (3)

  Appraisal: Apprentice (3)

  Repair: Apprentice (3)

  Alchemy: Journeyman (4)

  Blacksmithing: Journeyman (4)

  Enchanting: Apprentice (3)

  Tinkering: Apprentice (3)

  Woodworking: Apprentice (3)

  Artifice: Apprentice (3)

  Leatherworking: Apprentice (3)

  Stoneworking: Apprentice (3)

  Glassblowing: Apprentice (3)

  Textiles: Apprentice (3)

  Papermaking: Apprentice (3)

  Pottery/Ceramics: Apprentice (3)

  Jewelcrafting: Apprentice (3)

  Inscription: Apprentice (3)

  Brewing: Apprentice (3)

  Cooking: Apprentice (3)

  Herbalism: Apprentice (3)

  Architecture: Apprentice (3)

  Engineering: Apprentice (3)

  Shipbuilding: Apprentice (3)

  Cartography: Apprentice (3)

  Ritual Magic: Apprentice (3)

  Calligraphy: Apprentice (3)

  Painting: Apprentice (3)

  Sculpture: Apprentice (3)

  Spellcrafting: Apprentice (3)

  (And More)(Far too many to fully list)(Will come up in the story as they become relevant)

  Abilities/Spells:

  Analyze: Ability to analyse people, objects, and creatures, and learn information about them, such as identification, classification, level, abilities, health, etc.