'Brom Jones? Guy's a natural disaster pretending to be a human.'

  - Guard Sergeant Johannes 'Jonesy' Avery

  It was the heads. It was always the heads. Brom caught the pike pole and yanked the walking corpse toward him, putting his fist through its skull and shaking the squirming debris off when he pulled it back. These things looked like rejects from the rated R version of Davy Jones' crew.

  +10 XP

  So dungeon mobs did give more XP. Good to know.

  The horde surged through suddenly. The light guttered, the tunnel walls weeping water, the storm outside flashing like it needed a seizure warning. For a second, Brom was back in the goblin crush, he grabbed and punched, grabbed and punched. Shells snapped, tentacles tore, and fins flew. "I'm getting really sick of this fucking smell." That briny rot stench, way worse than any low tide. The death stench of the sea was just starting to become the thing of his nightmares.

  Which was perfectly fine because at this point, Brom was starting to become the thing of aquatic monsters' nightmares.

  [Wave One Complete!]

  He tipped his head back, putting his hands on his hips and blowing out a breath. Then he looked back toward the entry to see what the officers were doing. "You guys okay?"

  "...you serious? Asking like we're not just riding the bus back here." Ramirez gestured to all of them. "I mean I think Quincy thought about firing an arrow at one point and I debated if maybe I could shock one of them but..." She shrugged. "You seem to have this."

  "You guys getting XP at all?" Brom picked little bits of flesh and other debris off his jacket. Did he have to wash the comfort coat? Was there a special process for magic items, like dry clean only? He should have checked the tag.

  "Yeah, we're getting XP. Looks like ten a pop. Pretty good numbers, honestly. We might actually get a level out of this place." Jonesy looked a little excited, nudging his teammates and trying to perk morale up. "They don't seem to be too tough. Maybe you can swap spots with us, let us take on Wave Two? I mean, you don't look like you've taken any damage."

  Brom had been a machine, just using one corpse after another to deflect blows as he'd crushed skulls. Thankfully, in the dungeon, corpses dissolved into drops the moment they collapsed, although it didn't stop poor Brom from being covered in foul-smelling blood and bits. All of their inventories were sporting materials from the 'Drowned Dead'. The most common seemed to be 'Brined Flesh' while other delights like 'Waterlogged Fingernails' were far rarer. Brom had even acquired a single 'Drowned Man's Final Breath', which looked pretty valuable.

  He tried to clean himself off using the water walls of the dungeon, surprised when that actually worked. "Yeah, sure, I'll take a back seat on this one. You just gotta destroy the head. I can't really estimate how strong they are, my physical damage is a little absurd right now." He tapped his belt. "This thing boosts my body stat to a pretty high number. Got it from the Event Dungeon rewards."

  [Wave Two Commencing!]

  Brom knew his physical damage was pretty absurd. He'd had a high body stat right off the bat. He'd solved every problem he'd encountered so far by taking his hits and dishing them out in return. His fists were rated E for Everyone after all. But it wasn't until Logan drove his longsword through the head of the first Drowned Dead that Brom knew what the difference was. Because he saw a health bar. That attack had only taken a quarter of the thing's HP. It took another sword hit, an arrow from Quincy, and Ramirez shocking the shit out of it before it fell over.

  "...fuck."

  Brom and Logan said it at the same time, more of those zombies stepping out of the water wall.

  He couldn't just stand back like he'd thought, quietly he stepped up next to the others. "Look, I'm not just going to punch them out. That's not going to be helpful for tactics. What if I just, I don't know, hold them? Logan can stab on his side, Ramirez and Quincy can split damage. That would be more realistic, right?" Now really wasn't the time to be discussing it, but with Brom able to snap a fist up and turn a skull into a fine mist, he bought them the breathing room for the conversation.

  It was a valid point, too, not every team was going to have a ringer on it. The whole point of this was to figure out tactics, to figure out the structure of this dungeon. To find out if it was repeatable and, if so, to figure out the tactics for a safer clear. Brom's suggestion was a smart way to do it, he had a huge health pool to play with, so the fact that he didn't have a shield or any way to dodge the damage wasn't going to be as big a problem.

  "Let's do it." Jonesy's voice was firm. "Take right, Logan roll left! Ramirez! Quincy! Swap back and forth. Rotate for mana recharge and arrow respawn. Let me worry about health, you guys just focus on the mobs."

  It worked well. Despite having some longer range weapons like the pike poles, the Drowned Dead were largely mindless. They didn't have attack patterns to memorize or special moves. They just came straight for you, stabbed once, and then got into grapple range and tried to bite. Brom had picked up one of them, ignoring its struggles, and turned it sideways to use like a tower shield against its fellows. He kept an eye on the left side, ready to whip the zombie in his hands like a club and help out if need be. But now that they were in the groove... it was smooth as butter.

  [Wave Two Complete!]

  "How many waves you think there are, Sarge?" Quincy's curls were damp with brine and sweat, and he rubbed his wrists. He hadn't fired this may arrows at any point before, and the ache in his arms was ferocious. More practice was clearly needed.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Jonesy finished healing up Logan and shrugged. "No idea. That's one of many things we're here to find out. At least we seem to recover between waves." Their action points and mana refilled in the calm between moments of chaos.

  Brom felt a little bad for them. None of his abilities required action points. They activated on hit. Sure, he could choose not to use them, but that wasn't the same as choosing to use them. It would be silly to charge him a point to not do something. But he was starting to realize that Quincy was never out of arrows. Was that an Archer passive? Was it a magic quiver? Was it his skill? He wasn't going and picking them up, but he didn't seem to be worried about it. Maybe he should ask TJ about it.

  That made him wonder, how was his nephew doing? He hadn't talked to him since he just left him after the Event Dungeon. That was a pretty dick move now that he thought about it, feeling guilty. TJ was probably dealing with his own demons resulting from that. He'd probably wanted some comfort. Brom had just noped out and ditched him. Worse, TJ's home point wasn't Brom's house, there was no way for him to just fast travel out there. It was easier for Brom to seek him out and spare the teen having to make the journey along the ruined road.

  Hey there, Player dude! I'm- woah, fuck I'm late! You already started! Uh, shit, sec-

  Brom froze for a moment. He was used to the disappointed voice from the self-checkout register System. The one who always felt disappointed in him or had maybe just decided he was stupid. This voice came through the same pathway in his mind and had that same sort of faux person quality to it, like a guy reading through a voice filter to tell you that 'All agents were busy, please stay on the line' or that 'your call was important'. Except that guy seemed to have spent the previous evening getting high with the homies and was now a little toasted as he spoke.

  Alright, we're back! For the Viewers just tuning in, our man is in the middle of Drowned Depths Dungeon! It's your classic three-stage battle dungeon featuring horde waves and a champion for Stage One, a puzzle challenge mini-boss in Stage Two, and finally a double-phase final boss in Stage Three. We're just wrapping up Wave Two out of Three, and look at him, being a team player down there! It's nice to see him growing as a person, don't you think?

  There were no words. None at all, listening to the voice in his head addressing the invisible audience that was now watching him.

  ...wait. Shit, I was on the wrong mic the whole time! Bro, forget you heard annnnny of that, k? I'll be right back.

  [Wave Two Complete!]

  Brom dusted his hands off as the drowned dead he'd been using as a shield dissolved like all the other dungeon corpses. He stood there with hands on hips, lost in thought, not really listening as Jonesy and the others discussed how things had just gone. Tapping fingers on forearms, he looked over toward them. "Hey, have any of you ever heard from the System after the Tutorial? Like, does it talk to you like it did then?"

  Quincy shook his head. "Nah, just the pop-ups." He glanced at the others and then back to Brom after getting the affirmative. "Why, does it talk to you?"

  "I was just curious. My Tutorial was pretty awful. I didn't learn how to do anything, and I just wondered if it ever talked to us again so I could, like, get a do-over. I'm still finding new parts of the HUD and tripping over how to use them even now." It wasn't that Brom wanted to lie to the Guards, but there was just a weird little part of him that was worried that exposing the fact he had this System connection might not go over well for him. He'd rather ask first.

  "That's pretty rough." Logan chimed in thoughtfully, still massaging his wrist. It had started to go a little numb from all the hacking and slashing. "Like, mine was pretty normal. First, a walkthrough and breakdown of all the tabs and panels. An introduction to stats and skills, and how they work. Then bash ten skeletons to death and get my quest rewards."

  "Mine was a little different, but that's because I'm a Healer who didn't get any offensive abilities. Contrary to pop culture, the basic heal doesn't kill the undead, cool as that would be. I had to heal a goblin that was fighting the skeletons until they were all defeated." Jonesy shrugged. "Creepy little thing, only came up to my knee. Head was like it was hinged in the middle, all these teeth..."

  Yeah, that rang plenty of bells for Brom. He definitely remembered the horde of goblins and their weird blue cheese and honey blood. He was very certain at this point that blue cheese had been ruined for him for life between the blood and that clubhouse banquet.

  "Sounds like exotic nightmare fuel. Then again, both this dungeon and the Event one were full of pretty awful things. I want just one dungeon where I'm not coated in foul-smelling blood and entrails by the end of it. It's sorta becoming my MO, and I didn't sign on for this image." Brom wasn't a vain man, although TJ's encouragement over the past year had him taking more care in his appearance, but he felt the glow up the System had given him was really being wasted when he came home every day coated in gross gore or garbage.

  [Final Wave Commencing!]

  With groans, the Guards began to stand and take their positions. One more wave to go. From what the new 'System' had been saying, there was a champion in this wave. Probably a little bigger, fatter health pool, maybe a few interesting moves? Planting himself in position on the right side of their formation, Brom could only wait and see.