Travis's Journey Through the Apocalypse

Chapter 5

Tree house

Beth had found a duffel bag, and we were using that now, as well as the kid's backpack I had found earlier. So, the order of our little ragtag group was me in front with the duffel bag slung over my shoulders, Janet in the middle. We had made her some crutches so she could keep up. She was hobbling along pretty well. Beth was bringing up the rear with the backpack over one shoulder. I had given her the bandleader baton I’d found in the music shop, and I could tell she appreciated having a weapon.

We had been walking for about three hours, had hidden from two packs of those crazy Savage Ripper Bunnies, a pack of wolves, and made it to what looked like must have been the Claremont Hotel. I guess we’d been walking up Claremont Avenue this whole time. Damn, my sense of direction was totally thrown off, but that kind of helped me get my bearings.

The Claremont had been a fancy hotel before the integration. It didn’t look like many of the buildings had survived, but the fences were still up, and it probably would be a great base camp if it wasn’t taken already. Now, an occupied Claremont could work out for us if they were friendly. My experience in this post-integration world was that if there were people in there, they were more than likely people we did not want to meet.

As we got a little closer to the Claremont Hotel, I gestured for the women to follow me to the gas station across the street.

“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?” Beth said.

“Does that look a little weird to you? Look at the hotel or what’s left of it. Doesn’t some of the fences look patched up, and the gate looks like somebody built a barricade in front of it.”

“You mean there might be people in there, other survivors?” Janet said and looked hopeful. Me and Beth looked at each other.

“I think there’s probably people in there. They’re probably survivors, just not necessarily the survivors we want to meet.” I said.

“Yeah, I’m not so keen on blindly trusting anyone anymore after what happened to us the first time,” Beth said.

“That’s kind of what I’m thinking, too,” I said.

Janet’s face fell a little in disappointment. But she hardened her resolve a second later.

“Then, what do we do? What if they actually are good people who could help us, and we walk away because we’re too scared to find out.”

“Is that a risk we’re willing to take?” Beth interjected. I thought about it for a second, trying to think of what the best solution was.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea. Let me know what you think. If one of us can get up in one of these trees, maybe we can see inside and find out what the fuck is going on. Now, if there’s a ton of medical supplies in there, a bunch of blankets, and people on cots all laid out, then cool.

We’ll go up to the gate, and we ask for some help. If it’s a whole different situation in there, then we get the fuck out of there, stick to the original plan, and make it to the hills.” They both thought about it for a second. Beth nodded her head in the affirmative, and Janet did the same a moment after as well.

“Well, I’ve got the highest Strength, and I climbed a few trees in my day before the whole integration. So, I don’t mind doing it." They both agreed, and in the next minute, I was at the top of the tallest tree I could find, about 20 feet away from where the two women were still hiding. I could clearly see into the tennis courts and a little bit further into the hotel property.

There were some retrofitted school buses that looked like they had plows mounted on the front. One of them had a gun sketchily mounted to the top. I kept looking around and saw a bunch of people walking up the driveway towards the hotel. Something shiny kept glinting off their hands, and I realized they were all chained together. This was bad. It was super bad. And I was definitely not McLovin’ this situation.

I shimmied down the tree. Enough puns for now. And ran back over to the women. I tried my pun on the women, and Janet just stared at me, not really understanding, and Beth called me an idiot.

“So, it’s really that bad? Or were you just joking around for the sake of that stupid pun?” said Beth. I winced but told her,

“No, yeah, it’s horrible in there. Like, I’m pretty sure they got a full-on murder bus, and I saw a bunch of people in what looked like chains being led up to the hotel.” “Yeah, that’s horrible, what the fuck? And you were making a fucking joke about it?” Beth said.

“It was a good pun. I didn’t wanna waste it.”

“You really are a moron”, said Beth. “

Okay, so yeah, great, I’m a fucking Moron. Can we just get the fuck out of here now?”

Just then, we all heard a loud scraping noise as the gate down the street from us began to open. We heard the roar of an engine getting louder.

“Fuck, we got a hide.”

“Did they see you?” Janet said.

“No, they didn’t see me. I think they didn’t see me.” Shit, did they see me? As we all ducked down between a fucked-up car and a wall, one of the murder buses ripped past us. There were five people on it, and they all looked like Mad Max cosplayers. What was their fucking deal?

They’d been waiting for the fucking apocalypse to hit and had all their Mad Max cosplay shit in a box under the bed? And When the shit hit the fan, they, like, squealed with joy and popped that shit on.

They definitely hadn’t seen us, but we definitely had to get the fuck out of there before someone did. It took us about thirty minutes to make our way slowly and safely around that crazy house of Mad Max enthusiasts. Now we’re up at the top of Fish Ranch Road. It’s a winding, stupid road, but it took us to the top of the hill pretty quickly. At that point, it was getting a little late, so we decided to head North down a road that scatted the top of hills with a great view of the bay. We had decided it was time to find a place to stay for the night.

The first house we came across looked like it might be slightly safe enough to stay in, but it had blood and scratch marks on the door and walls. We thought it might be better to avoid that one. The second house we stopped at was where we ended up staying for the night. The top half of the house was even with the street, and all collapsed pretty much, but there was a downstairs around the back, and it was surprisingly good. There were no signs of any critters that have been staying there recently.

we started to make ourselves at home. We started cleaning up the mess that was in the lower half of the house. We also started looking for anything we could salvage from the wreckage. Everything was going fine and dandy when Beth let out a short scream then she slammed her hand down over her mouth. Janet and I both turned to look at what was going on. I couldn't see anything, and I don't think Janet could either. She had the same confused look on her face that I assumed I had on mine.

Beth was slowly backing up towards us. I mean, I just met Beth, but she didn’t seem like the type to freak out over nothing. Something scared her, and I didn't think Janet or I were going to be less than overcautious now, so we both just stood still as Beth headed towards us slowly. When she reached us, her eyes were wide, and her face was pale. I started to ask her what was going on when the window and wall in front of us exploded inward towards us.

“Bear!” That was all I heard Beth say before the crashing of broken glass and the shattering of lumber filled the air. “Fuck” I screamed as wood and glass shards cut into my body. Before the dust could fully clear, I looked around, and I could see Beth and Janet nearby, dazed but alive. Next, I looked over to what had once been a bay of windows and a wall. There was a bear in the room looking around as if trying to find something. I gulped at that. It was probably looking for us.

I tried to think of what I could do. There had to be a way out of this. The bear was sniffing the air, but as I watched it move around a bit, it looked like it was drunk. Then I saw its eyes. They were bright yellow. Its eyes were glowing a sickly yellow. It looked wrong like something fucked this bear up. Oh fuck, is there space rabies? That would totally suck. The last thing we needed to run into was a rabid bear.

I looked over at Beth and Janet, and they were looking at me with what the fuck are we going to do looks on their faces. I slowly and quietly crawled over to the woman. I almost fucked us when my foot hit a piece of wood that then slipped and made a little noise. I froze, but the bear's head had already snapped up, and it took a few steps forward, smelling the air. Then it let out a terrifying road that almost had me shitting my pants. I had managed to make it to Janet and Beth after that, but our time was running out. This guy was about to kill us any second now.

“Okay, I got a plan,” I said to the two of them. Beth Just nodded for me to go on. I was about to start telling the two of them my plan, but that was exactly when the bear decided to make its move. Beth and Janet booked it to the left while I threw myself to the right. There was another cloud of dust, and the bear was snarling at its failed attack. Well, not totally failed.

My leg had a long, deep scratch running down it, and blood was dripping down my leg. Fuck that hurt shit, no time. I had a clear shot from where I was to the broken open wall, and I ran towards the exit. When I got to the wall, I turned and looked at the bear. It was smashing some debris and getting closer to where Janet and Beth had hidden them, stuffed themselves to hide.

I looked around me and found a good-sized piece of wood. I hefted it up, and I was shocked by how light it was, but only for a second before I threw it at the bear. I hit the bear with the piece of wood, and it turned towards me, teeth, beard, and snarling. Oh fuck. That might not have been smart. The bear charged at me. I saw this, turned, and booked it. I was running full tunnel vision, and I could swear I could feel the hot breath of the bear behind me at one point. I made it to the fence and the back of the property and used a rock and a tree branch to volt the fence.

Immediately after landing, I turned to the left, already running. It was a good thing, too, because a second later, the bear barreled through right through the fence, sending wood splinters flying. I covered my head but kept running. I knew I didn't lose the bear because I heard it roar and then felt the ground shake as the bear turned to follow me. I thought I was fucked, but as I turned down the side of a house, I saw a good-sized log of wood, probably used to split logs.

I prayed my strength would be enough as I reached down and grabbed it. Then, with all my strength, I tossed it down the hill. I then threw myself into the crawl space under the house and rolled a few times. After my last roll, I made myself as small as possible and held my breath. I watched as the bear took off down the hill, but I waited another minute just to make sure it was really gone. I pulled myself out from under the house then causally made my way back to Beth and Janet. It took me a little, ran farther than I thought. When we all finally made it back up, we gathered our stuff and found another place to stay.

the next place we chose was better hidden. It was a similar situation as the last spot, but this time, we found a downstairs room that had been almost totally enclosed in rubble.

We had to dig a bit to get in, but once we were done nothing was coming in. It was all worth it to feel safe. We went through the same procedure as the last place as well. Clearing it of debris and organizing the the things we could salvage.

After we were done with that, Beth lit a Sterno and heated a can of beans, the same kind with bacon in it. This time, we didn’t have any plates, so we had to kind of take turns drinking it from the can. we did work out a watch schedule for the evening this time. I would sleep first, for about six hours, or till about 2:00 am. Janet and Beth would take their turns to catch some Z’s. The women woke up around 7:00 a.m., and then we would have breakfast and start the day.

Our watch schedule worked out, and we went unmolested that night. As we were eating breakfast, I got the idea that I wanted to propose to Beth and Janet. I had this idea in my head about building a treehouse in the woods. I always loved the Swiss Family Robinson story and thought, hell, it was a good idea. I didn’t know if it was a sound long-term plan, but I liked the idea. It seemed like the safest option nowadays to be off the ground. At least, that was where my head was. But I didn’t know if Beth and Janet would go for it.

After breakfast, I got ready to make my big pitch. You got this, man. It's a cool idea. They're gonna love it. Have confidence in yourself man. I shook my head to hype myself up. Janet and Beth looked at me like you okay? So I decided it was pitch time. “So, Beth, Janet, okay, I have an idea. I wanted to spitball with you guys.”

“Sure, what’s up, Travis?” Janet said, sitting down on one of the boxes we were using for chairs while Beth was putting out the Sterno. She looked over and nodded, showing that she was still listening.

"Okay, so nowhere is really safe, right? But hear me out. What if we get a bunch of materials and kinda build a treehouse out in the woods? Make it high enough so hopefully, nothing will bother us and fuck with us. we could use it as a kind of home base. What do you think?” I got ready for them to call me dumb, stupid as hell, and for them to tell me that it was a generally stupid fucking idea. They both kind of looked at me for a second without saying anything. Beth was the first person to speak.

"I love it! That’s a great idea! We had a treehouse in our backyard growing up, and we were in that thing all the time as kids. I’m down.” Janet looked between the two of us, threw her hands in the air, and said, “Fine, I guess we’re building a treehouse.” I smiled at Beth and Janet. We had a plan, and we were going to figure this shit out together.

That day, me and Beth spent time rummaging through the nearby houses pulling planks off walls, trying to save nails so we could reuse them. We lucked out and got a bunch of really great planks and probably saved about 100 nails. Also found some rope and a hammer in another house. It was only like 150 feet, but it was pretty nice to find it. At one point, that fucking bear came back, and we had to hide till it wandered off. Beth thought it might have smelled us because, at first, it started walking towards where we were hiding. There had been a lot of disgusting shit on the ground, so Beth had got the bright idea that we should cover ourselves in the filth so as to avoid the bear. It worked, but we smelled like rotting garbage for the next two days.

We eventually washed ourselves in a non-working hot tub we found in someone’s backyard, and that definitely helped deal with the worst of the orders, but it still sucked so much. I was glad I was alive but had started wondering if I should have just fought the bear.

The smell was that bad. We brought our materials back to the place where we had spent the night. Janet had been healing there, and when we got back, the first thing she said was, “holy shit! You two smell. Nope, get the fuck out of here. Clean up, then come back.” We both used some water from our stock pill to clean up a bit so Janet would let us in, but like I said, it still didn't do much till she took a bath later that day.

Janet had something weird to show us after we got as clean as we could. Her foot looked like it had started regrowing the flesh that had been torn off her foot. It was kind of gross, but there was definitely progress. That kind of tripped us all out for a little while.

“Didn’t realize we’d be able to recover from injury like that, that’s kind of trippy. I don’t want to have to do that myself, honestly, but at least it’s good to know if we get a serious injury, it will just take time.” Beth said, and Janet and I couldn't help but agree with her.

The next day, I finally found a spot that looked out over the San Francisco Bay Area and got to see the true level of destruction that had hit us. Beth and I had been headed out to do some scavenging, and the second house we entered had an amazing balcony that hadn’t collapsed entirely. There had been about half left standing, and when I climbed up, I could see everything.

The world around me that I had known was gone. I mean, the land was there, and the water and the general shape of things were right, but the devastation was unacceptable. No human structure was untouched. Well, at least from where I was standing, there didn't seem to be anything recognizable. It was a scrap yard the whole thing. I knew that wasn't true. I mean, I had seen many partially standing structures, but from here, it looked like complete and total destruction.

I had to take a few minutes and got lost in the scene. After a while, I looked over and saw Beth standing next to me. “It’s awful. I mean, it's just all gone.” Beth said softly. Not looking away from the view. I didn’t answer her immediately, but I turned and looked at the view again myself. After a minute or so, I answered her. “ it’s a blank slate, awful yes, completely, but humanity is like a relentlessly, and it's time to rebuild. To forge a new world on the ashes of the old, and that's exactly what will do.”

After another moment, I turned and looked at Beth. She was looking at me with a hard look on her face. Then she spoke, “You know what? Then that's exactly what we’ll do. Will get stronger. Strong enough to keep people safe and create a new home in this world. Well, use the new power given to us by joining the greater system and make a truly safe place for humanity in this new life. So come on, let's get back to it. We got a civilization to rebuild.”

I looked at her for a second, then down at the hand she held out for me to grab. I looked at Beth again, then smiled and said, “Let go.”

we got to it, scavenging for some more materials the rest of the day. It was near the end of our scavenging days that shit got a little out of hand. We were scavenging in a house on the way back to our home base, and we were just digging around in the low light when something jumped out at my face. I hadn’t seen it hiding in the dark corner of the room, but when I got close enough, it fucking attacked me.

I managed to get my hands up and grab the two paws that we’re grabbing for my face. I managed to catch them, one in each hand, but its feet had claws, too, and we were kicking out at my chest, causing deep scratches and blood to start soaking through my shirt. Beth came running in with the baton and smacked the creature in the back of the head, and it fell down, stunned for a second. Then jabbed the pocky end right into its head. The thing stopped moving after a second, dead.

“Thanks, Beth. Fuck, that thing came out of nowhere.”

"Yeah, what happened?”

Beth started looking around the room as if something was about to pop out. I opened my battle log real fast. “Your temporary party has killed a young Moreland Scorer. These creatures are not normally violent unless they feel threatened in their dens. When approached, they will fight and attack you with unmatched ferocity, so stay away from them, and they’ll stay away from you. You don’t want to run into a mature one of these, that’s for sure.”

“Okay, the battle log entry didn’t say anything about it being a pack hunter, so I don’t think we should expect any more to pop out. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.” Beth said, and I nodded in agreement.

I took the load of wood we had scavenged and the nails and headed back to what was our home base for the moment.

By the time we got back, Janet was walking around on her newly restored foot. We both stopped and looked at her in awe.

“It’s back! It’s like all the way back”, Beth said. Janet looked over at us.

“Yeah, good as new, little tender to the touch, but that’s starting to go away too now. It’s crazy. I can’t believe my foot is back together, but shit, Travis, are you okay? Your chest, we should clean those wounds.”

The alcohol burned when Janet cleaned my wounds. I took my shredded shirt off and put the hoodie on. It was great that we could self-repair now, but our clothes weren’t afforded the same luxury. If this were going to keep happening, I’d be better off running around naked. At some point, my skin will probably become tougher than any pre-integration clothing would.

We had gotten back a little after 1:00 in the afternoon, so I thought we had enough time left in the day to go maybe try and scout a place to build this treehouse. Beth was eager to get started, and Janet said that she wanted to come with. She had been getting restless, waiting behind as we scavenged, and she also didn’t really want to be alone anymore.

She had told me that it was kind of freaky when Beth and I were both out scavenging, and she was just sitting there by herself. Me and I agreed, and about 20 minutes later, around 2:30 p.m., we headed out. It took us about 30 minutes to get truly into the hills and the forest that surrounded them.

Noises were everywhere, and it was honestly freaking us out a little bit. We decided on a grouping of three large trees that were relatively close together and were only about 15 minutes from the road into the woods.

I got up to a good section of the tree about a hundred feet into the tree. There was a space where there was a good amount of branches, but about 6 feet between where the next set of branches started. I cleared away some smaller branches here and there. With my stats, everything went a lot swifter than I anticipated. I had brought the rope up with me so I could raise and lower resources as needed. I lowered one end of the rope down, and Beth started tying boards to it.

It took us the rest of the day, but by dusk, we had a solid 8 x 10 platform up about one hundred feet in the trees. We had to make multiple trips to get all the boards, and honestly, that was our biggest bottleneck in the whole process. Beth managed to climb up, but it was a little bit difficult for Janet, so Janet decided that if I could pull her up with the rope, she’d get up that way. I was totally fine with that and hoisted her onto the platform.

It was actually a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be. When we were finished there was about another hour until it was truly dark. I turned to Janet and Beth, “So I think we kind of have a decision to make.”

“What’s that?” Beth said. They both turned and looked at me.

“Do we head back to where we’ve been staying or try to sleep up here for the night?”

We had most of our stuff with us already, but it was getting kind of chilly up in the trees until we had proper walls. I didn’t know how cold we'd get up here. It would probably be a little more comfortable at the old place, at least for tonight. Beth was all jacked up on the treehouse, however. Janet really didn’t look eager to do the whole lowering her back down with the rope thing.

“We’ve got the blankets with us, right?” Beth asked.

“Well, yeah, we’ve got pretty much everything with us. We didn’t really have much to begin with.” There was only a little bit we’d left behind. Stuff we had salvaged from the place we'd been staying most recently.

“We can get all that stuff tomorrow if we really want to go back for it,” I suggested. We probably had enough wood to either build a roof and a wall. We’re definitely going to have to scavenge more of that, too.

Beth wanted to stay up in the treehouse for the night, and Janet was more or less on her side. I caved, and we started getting ready to spend the night.

That first night up in the treehouse was terrifying. The thing kept swaying back and forth in the wind, and there was a lot of wind. That night was really freaking cold as well, and we all kind of ended up huddled together for warmth.

Not to mention the sounds. The forest was full of sounds. Crazy new animal sounds that we’d never heard before permeated the night air. There were bird calls, of course, but there were tons of other screeches and howls that just tore through the night. We had formed the same watch schedule the night before, but by 12 o’clock, nobody had fallen asleep. I don’t think anyone was going to get any sleep tonight.

At 6 a.m., the sun finally broke into the sky. We all looked exhausted. None of us had slept a wink. There were rings under the women's eyes, and I’m fairly sure I was looking about the same.

“I’m just gonna say it, worst night sleep of my fricking life,” Janet said into the quiet atmosphere of our sullen morning. Me and Beth both looked at her, and then we all started laughing a little.

“Yeah, I’d say last night fucking sucked.”

“I think it’ll be a lot better once we have some walls and a roof over our heads,” Beth chimed in.

"It better, or I’m going back to the house, and I’m just gonna fucking sleep there…screw it”, I said. Janet nodded in agreement with a little grin on her face. Beth rolled her eyes at us.

"Fuck you two! I promise, come on, this was the plan. Let’s follow through, at least.” she said, but she was still smiling.

“Okay, okay. Let’s all go get some more wood and nails, and let’s finish this place up.” I said and chuckled. Beth and Janet nodded.

Took us the rest of the day to get enough supplies to where we felt comfortable. We could at least start on the roof and maybe one or two walls.

We got back to the house, where we had a stack of wood from yesterday’s work. We scavenged a lot of good planks again and left them at the house we had been staying at before we made the move to the treehouse. We had to make short trips back all day and then carefully raise it all up onto the platform we had built the day before.

Janet had found another hammer in one of the houses we had been pulling boards from, so now we were moving twice as fast. Beth had actually gained two levels yesterday when she killed that fucking creature who jumped out at me.

Beth Holloway’s Stat Sheet

Level: 3

Race: Human

Experience needed to next Level: 245/480 XP till next Level.

Strength: 11

Dexterity: 12

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 10

Constitution: 9

Luck: 6

She had basically done what Janet did and put 2 points in Constitution, 3 points in Strength, and 1 in Constitution.

Beth Holloway’s Stat Sheet

Level: 3

Race: Human

Experience needed to next Level: 245/480XP till next Level.

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 12

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 11

Constitution: 11

Luck: 6

She said she could definitely feel the difference, and I guess I knew what she meant. Things were just easier; I mean, physical things at least were. You could carry way more than you could previously with each point of Strength added. It felt as if I was at an arcade with one of those punching bag things. I would break anyone’s high score by now, probably blow them out of the water, actually.

Every time I climbed into the treehouse, I felt like a little monkey. Felt like I kind of just floated up the tree. It was super cool! That also meant that building the treehouse went extremely quickly, and we actually ran out of materials before dark. We had two walls and a roof, and the starting of a third wall. We had left an opening as a window on one wall, and we were planning on doing the same on the opposite wall when we got there.

That night was significantly better than the night before. The wind was infinitely cut down by the walls we constructed, and with the watch schedule, everybody actually got some sleep that night.

It had been a week since we finished the treehouse, and it was starting to look a little homier. Janet and Beth had gone out every day to scavenge for things, and we actually started to accumulate a good amount of stuff. Everything was either partially broken or repurposed for another job, but it was definitely getting there. I found an axe in one house and started sharpening sticks into spears about 5 feet long and an inch and a half wide. I tempered them in a fire to harden them as well.

We’d been doing fairly well. We only had a few encounters with the new creatures of this world, and only a handful of those got to the point where we had to fight rather than manage to get away. We had a good stack of food, a bunch of cans in one corner, and a bunch of cases of water sitting in the other corner. While Beth and Janet had been scavenging in the close by neighborhoods, I’d been making trips into the forest. I really wasn’t going too far from the treehouse.

The first day I went out, I pretty much just stayed within eyesight of the treehouse. But by day three, I was about a 15-minute walk from our camp, deeper into the woods. The woods had evolved in a magical way. It felt like the shadows were constantly changing and moving, and there was a feeling in the air of an ecosystem in full swing. The sounds, the new plant growth all around.

I had been up in the state park that these forests were a part of before the integration of the wilderness in the park became tame. Almost as if you could have walked around, and maybe I mean, if you were really lucky, you might see a mountain lion, but that was it. Now, these woods felt like you were walking through a rainforest. There was new life and new growth everywhere, and that tame feeling was gone.

the forest was dangerous now, and the hairs standing up on the back of my neck made that very clear to me, as well as the many creatures I saw and had to avoid. I had been crouched in some bushes, bushes that I double-checked weren’t trying to kill me…that was an awkward moment, let me tell you. I’m glad no one was watching that.

Sitting there, I watched as a pack of what looked like bear lizards, that was the best comparison I could make, were drinking from a small pond. I was up on the top of a ridge, and they were down in the valley. There were probably fourteen of them and a couple of little ones running around. Giant, furry, lizard-like creatures. they almost looked like a bear and a lizard had a baby. There was a big greenish-blue, fluorescent ridge running down their backs that looked like it was made of scales.

They had an extremely long tail of scales till it met the butt of the creature, but then continued and turned into a furry coat. The dewlap under its jaw was covered in fluorescent blue and green scales, just like the ones running down its back. Gathered around the small pool of water, some of them would drink while others watched for danger, making sure no predators were nearby.

At one point, a creature that kind of looked like a dinosaur, basically a mini-T-Rex. I couldn’t tell how tall it was from this distance, but it didn’t appear to be more than 4 feet tall. Stumbled into the clearing, and its intent was to get a drink from the pool. When it saw the bear-lizard things, it froze and then took off. One of the bear lizards screamed into the air. It was like a lizard screech but at a bear’s volume, sending shivers down my spine. The whole pack stopped drinking from the pool, pounced on the little T-Rex, and started ripping it apart. They were super aggressive.

One of them was in the process of tearing the little T-Rex creature's head off. Another one started snapping at the bear lizard next to its face, then bit it, leaving a deep bite. The bear-lizard that had gotten bit then lunged at the one that attacked. They got into a brawl for another two minutes, only ending when one of them was on the ground not moving.

Their claws were no joke. I watched them for about another 40 minutes. For a second, the little T-Rex creature wandered towards the pool. this time, however, the T-Rex creature started running away as soon as they saw the bear lizards. They noticed the little creature and tore after it. The T-Rex thing booked it, but as it got closer to one part of the ridge, it stopped as if it physically couldn’t go any further. It tried to run around what appeared to be an invisible bubble.

The moment the little t-rex ran into the invisible barrier, it stopped. I thought the little thing was gonna be dinner. The bear-like lizards seemed to recognize the barrier as well, turned, and ran away from it. The little T-Rex creature ran off in another direction and managed to get away. Yes, it was his lucky day. I chuckled to myself, but what was it that made all those creatures freak out?

It was another hour before the bear lizard creatures cleared out, leaving the area devoid of any monsters for now. I decided I was going to make my way down and see what that barrier-like thing was.

I entered the area where I thought the barrier probably would be. As I got closer, I started to feel like the humidity around me had gone way up. The air actually felt like there was a weight to it. As I reached the area where the little T-Rex creature and the bear-lizard monsters had refused to go, the feeling in the air reached a crescendo, but it didn’t feel bad. In fact, it felt great. I felt like I was a little high. Endorphins were firing off, and an exclamation mark in the corner of my vision was flashing. I focused on it.

You have found a Dungeon! Dungeons are creations of Mana and our Mana-rich areas. You may feel a sense of euphoria when you’re close to them, and you may also notice a higher Mana recovery rate while in close proximity to or in a Dungeon itself.

Dungeons and the creatures living outside of them don’t mix well, and therefore, there is a 15-foot safe area that naturally occurs outside of a dungeon. This can be larger or smaller, depending on the size of the Dungeon you have found. My next notification was a “Title gained! Explorer 1. Congratulations, you are one of the first 100 residents of your planet to discover a Dungeon. Plus 3 to all stats.”

My next notification just told me what the Dungeon was called. “You have discovered the Dungeon of the Wondering Howler; do you wish to enter yes/no?" I selected “no” for now. I had to get back and tell the woman. This might’ve been the windfall we were waiting for.

This looks like a low-level Dungeon to me. I used to farm Dungeons all the time when I played video games back in the day. This could totally be our way to power level a little. Maybe they could get that title, too, since we could use all the stat points we could get. Were we about to become badasses?