The health food store was underneath a five-story black brick building. It contrasted with the off-yellow bricks around his four-story building. Bagel had never even gone to the second floor or above.

  He didn’t want to look up like a tourist, but no one was paying attention. He quickly checked, and both were intact.

  Good.

  The door was firmly shut. He meowed at it to open, but the door wasn’t having it. It also looked locked.

  This was entirely expected. Bagel could see the appeal. It was just one long hallway behind a portal. Thankfully, the aperture of it was on the far wall, away from his building. It glowed an ominous purple, like an off-brand cat food bag. His first problem was that he couldn’t access it.

  He needed a second opinion.

  Janet popped up.

  “Oh! Hey, boss, that is definitely an instanced dungeon. We’re going to need to send some deck-bearers through that. It’s got to be cleared regularly, otherwise we risk things getting out of control.”

  “Instanced dungeon?”

  The drone floated closer to the door.

  “Now, if you wouldn't mind, would you please tell the classroom what an instanced dungeon is?” Ashley said, the brown-haired girl putting her hands on her hips.

  Bagel regarded her with a neutral expression. He was still trying to figure out where she lived, but he knew it was close by.

  “Ashley, you can't be this dumb,” Kate said, stepping out. “Oh, hey, cat.”

  “My name is Bagel,” he said. “I would appreciate it if you called me ‘Bagel’ or ‘His Lordship.’”

  “You're so funny, cat,” Kate said, flipping her hair.

  “Look, that is my Bodega cat,” Ashley said. “And anyway, tell me about this damn instanced dungeon. What the heck is it? It's right by my apartment, so I might as well figure it out. Is it dangerous?”

  “Short answer: yes. I don’t know how many cards you’ve got—or, if you’ve got any,” Kate said, sneering. “They’re temporary dungeons that the System puts up, and they’re there to give you experience points and cards and loot, and I cannot wait to get in there and get what I deserve.”

  There was something between the two girls, but Bagel was not going to investigate that at all. “Janet, if I go inside the instanced dungeon, will my workers unsummon?”

  “It’s unclear. Based on the distance, it looks like that should not be an issue. There have to be rules about instanced dungeons that I'm not entirely sure myself about, but the great System picked to put one right here, I can't imagine why it wouldn't let you go in there. You should at least be able to go through, and if I can go through, then the two workers you have right now should remain.”

  Bagel thought about his options. Without the door open, he needed help to get in.

  It looked like the girls had a plan.

  One of the girls had to open it up so he could get access. But if it can take Janet, and if she could use her lasers offensively, that'll be one thing, but not being able to take his workers while they minded the shop meant that he was going to have to pick another thing. Plus, one energy was already taken up by the Bodega itself.

  “What happens if I let go of the energy that is part of the Bodega?

  “Well, first off, you know that I'll disappear, and then the interface inside of the shop will disappear. You won't be able to collect cards and use them for credits. At least, until you head back in and reactivate it.”

  There was something about that which wasn't appealing to Bagel.

  “In order to get enough energy to summon more, you're going to have to level up. You're maxed out the way you are.”

  Bagel huffed. In front of him, the two women were giving each other death-stares as if their lives depended on it. It felt like a palpable hatred between the two, and he was not going to interrupt them.

  “If I go in there,” Bagel said, “I'll have the opportunity to make more cards, or find more cards, which I can sell, and then potentially I'll be able to level up, and get a perk or something that'll allow me to have another energy?”

  “That's about right,” Janet said.

  While he was talking with Janet, a Pizza Rat spawned. The barricade was still up, and the two girls both summoned creatures to attack it.

  Ashley summoned a swarm-token creature which attacked with abandon, and Kate summoned a totem which looked like it was nipping away at the creature itself. She also summoned her own Pizza Rat.

  Kate's Pizza Rat ran straight at the mob. And tore its face off immediately, going for the killing blow.

  Ashley 's summon just held itself up in the air for a moment, before going in to mop up the remains of the Pizza Rat.

  Having its head knocked off was not the killing blow for this Pizza Rat.

  Of course it wasn't, but it was something that caused a lot of consternation for the onlookers.

  If the vomit on the sidewalk was an indicator, no one had seen a headless mob rat. Ashely’s Pizza Rat destroyed the mob.The two of them stared each other down.

  “Are you going to take the card?” Kate said. “Apparently it was your kill, despite all my effort.”

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  “Just like you took my spot at the audition? Yeah, I think I’ll take that. This doesn't mean that we're even.”

  Ashley walked over and grabbed the card. She looked at it for a second, putting it into one of her pockets. She was, of course, not turning away from the other girl the entire time. This made her walk over suitably awkward.

  “That's not very ‘girl-boss’ of you,” Kate said before being cut off.

  “I don't care how fucking ‘girl boss’ it is of me, Kate. God, you're such an asshole. Hey, guy, do you want to do this instanced dungeon with me”

  It was clear that she was speaking to him directly, and he thought about it for a second. Having an actual human do the dungeon meant that he could see another deck in action.

  It also meant that he would be a little bit safer.

  He didn't know if she would let him ride on her like a mount but he could ask. If not, he could get a worker or a cook to join him. Something told him that the cooks might be better fighters than the workers.

  “I'll probably have to close down the grill, but I can do that. Do you want to split the loot 50/50?”

  Ashley smiled down at him. "I think that is a good deal, and I will take that."

  She moved to the door, trying to pull it open. When it didn't open, she brought out a little stick that had apparently just been resting in one of one of her outer purse pockets. She had the door open within thirty seconds.

  “How about we split the loot three ways?” Kate said. “It looks like this is the first time the dungeon is going to be run, so we might as well do it together.”

  For the first time, one of the girls sounded uncertain. Bagel summoned his cook mentally, and as the one girl was getting the door open, he got up on top of it and mounted its shoulder.

  “Is that…?”

  “This is my summon,” Bagel said. “I use it as a mount. I could instead ride on one of you, if you prefer?”

  “That will not be necessary,” Kate said. “Didn't you just—isn't this the guy that was cooking food behind the counter?”

  The cook nodded. “All orders are complete,” he said evenly.

  “See, he did all of his work before I sent him over here. And I have Janet, who has laser powers.”

  “Boss, you know that my lasers are kind of limited, and I had to get really close to do some real damage, right?”

  “We split the loot three ways? What happens if there's not a divisible amount of cards in there?”

  Both girls shrugged. It was clear that they were going to be utilizing his mercantile prowess in order to fix this problem.

  “Boss-boss,” Janet said. “You could be the mediator and just go by the value of the things that we have out there. I can help you evaluate the cards, and then we can give them a fair offer, or trade based on what actually happens. You’re bound to get some cards and some credits for going to this dudgeon.”

  “Are you both okay with me maybe mediating any disputes? If we don't have an exactly even split of loot? I will be able to evaluate some of the cards and give you a price. Especially because I'm out here selling my cards at certain prices, anyway.”

  Both girls started again.

  Ashley fully opened the door to the former health food store.

  Just because the portal was purple and gray didn't mean that the actual interior was going to be either of those things, and upon stepping inside, Bagel was happy to see that Janet was still able to interface with the real world, and people were still buying cards through his other worker.

  Counting the Bodega is one of his energy, his cook was another, and the worker was a third, Bagel had three of his four available energies out on the field.

  He drew upon his hand, just in case, and every card in his hand was worth one energy. He could spend it, and then the card would go away to be reshuffled when the deck was emptied. He could not support his Bodega while he was out, though, and he couldn't have spent his worker or his cook while he was out. So that left him with a seven-card deck.

  Over time, his hand would get bigger than a max of five cards, though he started with three. Both of the girls had three cards.

  Kate had a turtle with an area of effect beacon on it. It was very slow moving, at least in comparison to how he moved. To be fair, it kept pace with the humans as it walked into the dungeon, which looked like the base of an apartment building.

  “Is this an apartment-themed dungeon? Is that what's going on here?” Kate said.

  It looked like a lobby, complete with paintings and a red carpet, and a little place for a receptionist. There was even an elevator on one wall, though it was ripped open, and it looked like the elevator opened to the abyss. Next to that elevator was a stairwell, and he guessed that that was where they were supposed to go.

  Two Pizza Rats, because of course there were Pizza Rats, waited in the center of the lobby as if they hadn't gotten close enough to be interacted with. Ashley sent out a swarm of little creatures towards it. She was obviously trying to see if her little tokens could take it down. At the same time, Bagel looked for a way that he could get in on the action.

  “Janet, can you laser their eyes?”

  “On it, boss,” the AI said. The drone floated up and around, blasting the rats with what looked like a harmless little laser. It was distracting them while Ashley's swarm came up for the assault.

  The girls’ attacks had such synergy between the two of them.

  He was surprised that he knew the word ‘synergy,’ as he was already thinking about effective ways to put the two of them together in battle against a foe—like three or four Pizza Rats. Within thirty seconds, the Pizza Rats had fallen to Ashley’s swarm, as well as the Totem Turtle.

  Kate was definitely holding back on this, as if she was waiting for some sort of chance to lord it over the other girl.

  “Do you have any other spells or card powers besides the turtle?” He asked.

  “It costs me two energy to maintain this, and it's got a lot of hit points, so I think this one's worth it. I can periodically do other attacks that are area of effect spells, but I don't want to waste all my energy all at once, especially when there's only two of them.”

  He nodded, understanding how he didn't want to exhaust all of his cards at once.

  The room itself had a stale smell, as if nothing had ever existed before, and that the only thing that had a smell was himself and the two women. It was similar to how the summons didn’t smell unless you got close to them.

  Bagel pawed at his mount, urging it to move forward. The cook had a battle knife that had, until now, been a work knife. It was the kind of knife that Bagel supposed was used to chop a sandwich, though he’d never seen quite that prismatic color. He approached the elevator shaft to make sure that what he was seeing wasn't real. His summon tested it. His knife just slashed through nothing.

  “Don't go in there,” Bagel said, staring into the abyss. “It looks deep.”

  They got two cards from that exchange, though neither one was a Pizza Rat card, which caused some consternation.

  “It's a Healing card and a… what is this, a Restock card?” Kate said.

  “Dibs on the heal card,” Ashley said.

  There had to be a way to divide up loot that was fair for them, but it looked like the three of them were going to have to work it out. He definitely wanted the Restock card. If for nothing else than to sell it, the, Healing card would be nice.

  If the only thing this dungeon had was Pizza Rats, and all they did was give things that were not Pizza Rat cards, then he would be happy. He had seen enough of the mobs before, but seeing as how he could kill some of them and make different cards, that was something that he would definitely appreciate.

  "You guys want to head to the stairwell after we check behind that counter there?"

  "I'm on the counter." Kate moved closer and began pulling at drawers. She came up triumphant. “There are two cards here, and they're both heal cards. So I guess we can all have one if we really want to. I certainly want one. I assume that the cat does too, if only just to sell. It looks like a good utility card.”

  “If there are three of them then it is the easy way to split them. One each, though I imagine that there are going to be a few floors to this dungeon. You don't have a special card or skill that lets you know more about the dungeons?” Bagel regarded the blonde girl.

  She placed the two cards into her pocket and then moved to the stairwell to join him. The turtle was already moving its way up, and he was right behind it. Upon closer inspection, it had metallic sides and he was very interested in its stats.

  At least, this felt familiar.