“Oh, Frank. I tried to warn you not to open that treasure chest.”

  “Well, you could have been quicker about it,” I snapped. I was more pissed that my favorite jacket had gotten torn up and was missing a sleeve.

  “It’s a good thing you’ve got that Undead trait.”

  “Why, what’s my Vitality at?”

  “Let’s just say it’s also a good thing you didn’t land on your head.”

  I tried to open my Menu and look for myself, but it wasn’t responding.

  “What the hell? My Menu won’t open.”

  “It’s an NCA, remember?”

  I tried to argue. “Yeah, but I’m not in combat…”

  “You’ve got to wait five minutes after the last hostile action for combat to end. Lucky for you, there’s still some brains left over.”

  Dickhead was referring to the mess in the room’s corner. The blast had knocked GodFather out of my hand. He had shattered, smearing brains all over the wall. I’d have to scrape it off and pick out the bone fragments if I wanted to eat.

  “Also, grab your dismembered arm and stick it in your inventory. We can have it reattached once we get to town.”

  “My inventory?”

  “Sorry, we were supposed to cover the basics before the World Dungeon started, but you were uh… indisposed.”

  “Can I access my inventory now? Or is that another NCA?”

  “Go ahead; you can use it in combat. And it’s intuitive, like your Main Menu. But…”

  I didn’t like buts. “But what?”

  “Inventory is one of those things that grows with levels, like Vitality and Mana. So… yours is going to be limited.”

  “How limited?” I asked, bending down to fetch my own arm.

  Dickhead had been right; my Inventory sensed I wanted to store the limb, and it poofed out of my hand.

  “Ten slots. You’d normally get an additional slot every level. But that would fall under your class progression, which you don’t have.”

  “Great…” I said sarcastically.

  With another thought, my severed arm poofed back into existence. I wielded it like a limp bat and gave it a couple of swings. It would serve as a blunt weapon in a pinch.

  “So, if I have a bunch of weapons and—”

  Dickhead didn’t even let me finish.

  “No,” he said. “A cooldown prevents you from abusing the inventory. It starts at one second, but You Know Who will quickly ramp it up in combat if it thinks you’re trying to cheat. It’ll reset to one second after you’ve left combat.”

  “How do inventory slots work?”

  “Each item or stack of items takes up one slot.”

  At least I wouldn’t have to play inventory Tetris with weirdly shaped items.

  I went over to the splattered mess on the wall and sighed. This would’ve been a lot easier if I had both my damn arms.

  I was glad it was only Dickhead and me in my Lair. No one else needed to watch me lick the franking wall clean like some brain-addicted crackhead. Apparently, I didn’t have to pick out the bits of bone; they went down without a hitch.

  By the time I’d finished cleaning the wall, my Main Menu was working again, so I went and checked my Vitality.

  Vitality: (4%) 29/715

  I’d eaten roughly one-third of a brain off the wall, which should have healed for more.

  “Was I at negative Vitality? Jesus, the System tried to kill me! I mean, I understand the booby-trapped surprise for franking with the rules, but straight to murder? No warnings?”

  “You Know Who takes cheating very seriously.”

  I was wary of opening the last chest. “Is it going to try to kill me again?”

  “Doubtful. Universe-firsts are far too rare. There hasn’t been one in the last dozen World Dungeons. It should be safe, but you’re going to have to kick it with all your might.”

  I sighed, stepped up to the Lair Terminal, navigated to the Rewards submenu, and tapped on the Celestial treasure chest.

  The voice sounded even more excited this time.

  “Baddest Blood! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy… we haven’t had one of these magnificent bastards in a long time! You’ve been extra naughty, but I’m so damn impressed that I’ve decided to be nice. For you, Frank, the sky is the limit. I know you’re down an arm, but your real problem is you don’t have a leg to stand on, so here’s a personally crafted feat just for you. You have earned a reward for being the first player to kill another player in any Tutorial, ever. Enjoy your new title: Murderhobo!”

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  I turned around to find a knee-high crystal chest. Rainbow prisms danced across the walls as it glistened in the dim light.

  I thought about building that stupid bed and taking a nap until this whole damn thing was over. I wasn’t interested in fighting for my life, or un-life, out there. Not when I could just kick back and chill in this Lair.

  But my curiosity got the better of me, and I kicked the shit out of that crystal chest.

  [You’ve gained: A unique feat—Limit Breaker. See Account Unlocks for more details.]

  I guess it made sense not to include everything in the loot notification.

  [You’ve unlocked a World-First Achievement! All that Glitters.]

  “Aw, I was hoping for another Universe-first,” Dickhead said, sounding a little disappointed.

  It was like World-first-ception, but I was more than happy to take the recursive win.

  “Hmm,” Dickhead said. “I’m surprised there weren’t any credits in that celestial—Holy shit, never mind! That feat is amazing! You need to see this.”

  I navigated to a new category that appeared in my Main Menu: Account Unlocks.

  There was only one entry.

  “Is it going to teleport me again if I click on this thing?”

  It was dangerous navigating the Main Menu without confirmation prompts, and I had learned my lesson. If I ever got out of this World Dungeon, I’d never complain about a confirmation box ever again.

  Dickhead said, “No.”

  I tapped on Limit Breaker.

  “Push past your limits.”

  -the System

  Limit Breaker is only active while at class level cap.

  Gain 1 FrankUp coin after earning Combat XP.

  FrankUp coins are unique.

  FrankUp coins require Lair environment to use.

  Using a FrankUp coin adds +1 to your choice of attribute.

  Using a FrankUp coin adds a stacking 5% chance of unlocking a new feat.

  New feat chance resets to 5% after triggering.

  All bonuses granted by Limit Breaker are also account unlocks.

  It sounded pretty good, but I was a bit confused.

  “How does that work? I thought I couldn’t gain any levels.”

  “You can’t. But nothing’s stopping you from increasing your attributes and getting more feats.”

  “Feats?” I asked.

  “That’s what they call traits for classes. They change the way things work. Like trading one thing for something better. Usually.”

  I frowned. “It sounds like normal leveling to me, but with extra steps…”

  “Let me put it this way. Every other player needs to grind more and more experience to hit the next level. Their progression will slow to a crawl after a few levels. But you’ll be able to just go out and get another FrankUp coin. We’ll have to test to be sure, but I’m pretty sure even one point of combat experience would work.”

  That sounded broken as frank. I waited for the other shoe to drop. In my experience, anything too good to be true usually was.

  “Is combat experience hard to get?”

  “No, that just means only killing NPCs will count towards your next FrankUp coin. Players earn experience from different activities: building, crafting, gathering, refining, almost everything earns experience. But your feat only works with combat experience, so that’s what we should focus on.”

  There he goes again with his ‘we’ this and ‘we’ that bullshit. Whatever, it’s not like I could stop him from tagging along in my head even if I wanted to. Besides, he was helpful in explaining shit.

  “Is there an attribute cap?”

  “Nope.”

  “So I could get like over a hundred?”

  “Oh yeah. But I’d bet you’d get another Universe First if you hit a thousand in any attribute!”

  Limit Breaker looked like a train ready to take off without any brakes.

  The novelty of getting a shiny new toy wore off, and my cynicism kicked in.

  “What’s the point?”

  My question seemed to confuse him. “The point of what?”

  “The World Dungeon. Why shouldn’t I just stay in this Lair until it’s over?”

  “Don’t you want to save your planet?”

  “Frank no. I couldn’t give two shits about the damn world or any of the assholes on it.”

  “What a terrible thing to say…” He sounded hurt.

  “Listen, no one ever did me any favors, so I don’t owe them a damn thing. People have been burning me since the day I was born. At least my mother had the decency to split right after I’d slipped out, unlike my jackass of a father. That asshole used me as a punching bag, right until I was big enough to punch back.

  “Then it was one foster home after the other. They probably weren’t all bad, but I had no luck with them. If it wasn’t some pedophile looking to show me, on me, where he’d like to touch, it was another loud-mouthed military dropout who couldn’t hack it. Jackasses like them needed to take out their inadequacies on kids to feel like big men again.

  “They left me alone once they spotted the look in my eyes. I was a ball of hate and rage back then with plenty to spare. But it never failed to catch them by surprise when I didn’t just sit there and let them treat the other kids like shit. I ended up more trouble than the check was ever worth. That’s about the time they’d call the cops to take me away again.

  “Also, it didn’t matter what shithole they sent me to; it always ended the same. I grew up on bloody noses, broken bones, and shattered homes. A quick buck—that’s all I ever was to anyone. So, I’ll ask again. What’s the franking point?”

  I couldn’t even vent properly, and I was getting real tired of being corrected by that franking profanity filter.

  I hated it. My hand formed a fist. I hated it so franking much!

  My fist slammed into the wall hard enough to crack it. It wasn’t much, but I felt the release valve vent just a little.

  “Whoa there, big guy,” Dickhead cautioned. “You’ve gotta be careful when using more Strength than your Toughness. You’ll hurt yourself with Self-Damage.”

  Great, I thought. Just what I need, another bullshit mechanic.

  I took a breath to calm myself.

  Thinking about my childhood always put me in a bad mood.

  “Listen, Frank, I can’t give you a reason to keep going. You’ve gotta figure that out for yourself or it’ll be hollow when you need it most. And I won’t lie to you. As your manager, I get a cut of your earnings. But I hope you’ll believe me when I say you’re more than just a paycheck to me. You’re my way to fight back against all of this.”

  I figured he wasn’t helping me out of the kindness of his heart, but at least he was upfront about it. Honesty is all I’ve ever wanted. Well, that and my favorite franking word back.

  Dickhead continued, “I’ve been where you are. I was a player once, back when DungeonCore brought the World Dungeon to my planet. Then an Off-worlder won everything, dusted my world for materials, and left us with nothing.

  “I don’t even have a home anymore, Frank. But you still do. You may think you won’t regret it, but you don’t know how you’ll feel when it’s gone. And by then it’ll be too late.”

  It was a fine pep talk; I’d give him that. Locker-room worthy at the very least.

  “It doesn’t matter what your reason is, Frank. Only that you don’t give up. What about that kid you were asking about? Taylor, was it?”

  I sighed. Why’d he have to bring her into this?

  “She doesn’t need me,” I said. “I’ve already franked up her life enough.”

  I chuckled at a passing thought and jokingly said, “Don’t suppose there’s a quest to turn off this damn filter, is there?”

  Dickhead was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Not a quest…”