The permit clerk knows me.

This is bad news. It is clear I have returned to this checkpoint frequently enough in the past week that I have registered to her as the kind of person that makes her think. She looks at me. Looks at my stats on the permit application form. Looks at me again.

"Solo," she says. Not a question.

"Solo."

"Floor 1."

"Floor 1."

She stamps my permit with the same expression as the first time we met. The one telling me she is doing her job and part of her job involves keeping adults from making decisions she believes would be stupid. "Extraction via Checkpoint will be activated if you use the emergency rune located on all of the walls. Three taps."

"I know."

"Just double-checking."

I take my permit and walk to the entrance.

The important thing about floor one with Daren was that Daren took care of everything, led the way, and I tagged along collecting 4 EXP every time he took down an enemy. I never really saw what Floor 1 was like since all of the danger was absorbed by the more capable character accompanying me.

The problem with Floor 1 without Daren shows itself very quickly after I cross the entrance.

The glow moss is the same. The cold, wet air is the same. The low ceiling and broad hallway and the smell of mineral water are the same too. The difference lies in the quietness that now fills the place – before, it was quiet in the usual, neutral sense of the word, but now there is a sense that it has intentions.

I bring up my character stats by reflex.

---

> **KAI** — NPC Unit #4471

> Role: Childhood Friend *(Supporting)*

> Rank: Unclassified

> STR: 12 / AGI: 15 / INT: 20

> Skills: Friendly Conversation / Moral Support / Observe

> EXP: 37/500

---

Thirty-seven. Over a week into this city and all I have are 37 EXP and no weapon. Meanwhile, the corridor stretching ahead of me requires a minimum STR of fifty.

I begin moving.

The first Skitterer rounds the corner at the thirty-second mark.

I do not have a weapon, I have AGI 15, and a skill called Footwork I that I have not unlocked yet, but the general idea here is that when it goes for the nearest living thing I should attempt to not be a stationary living thing.

I step left.

The Skitterer misses by about four inches and slams into the wall. Reorienting itself at a breakneck pace, faster than anything I remember witnessing while observing Daren fighting. Without the sword in hand the speed feels different. I feel like the speed.

I step right. It tracks.

This cycle repeats for a while.

Here’s the thing. The only way I could deal with the Skitterer at all is because I cannot kill it. No weapon, STR 12, and Moral Support are all insufficient to that end. What I can manage to do, apparently, is not get myself killed by it, which involves a separate set of skills that AGI 15 barely covers.

I keep running and it keeps following me and I run again and there is enough space in the corridor and although it is really fast the Skitterer isn’t unpredictable. At least not more than most things in life. There is time, however slight, to see where it is going before I have to dodge.

I run around a dungeon corridor trying to not die in a chase with dog-sized eyeless arthropods.

This is not a combat tactic. Nor is it a good survival tactic. But the EXP counter is doing something unexpected.

---

> **EXP Gained:** 2

> **KAI** — 39/500

> **New Skill Prompt:** Evasion I — unlocked via practical application. Add to skill tree?

---

Before I can think about how absurd it is to suddenly have a new skill because I am running away from something in a dungeon corridor, the Skitterer makes another move. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

I dodge. The screen changes and I pause because the Skitterer almost caught up.

Evasion I? I’ve gained a level? I didn’t even know I needed it until now.

The skill installs itself into existence as Observe once had – new room opened up, and something that used to be absent appears here and now. The feeling of my movement changes somewhat immediately after that. Not dramatically, but just a tiny bit differently from how it was before, almost like the difference between a guess about where your feet are, and knowing it for sure.

The Skitterer strikes again.

I move and it runs into the wall, then I pick up the first thing my hand could reach – a fist-sized rock I have been fumbling with for a week while sitting in rest nodes, trying to figure out Daren’s relationship meter. Then I throw it.

STR 12 throw. The rock hits its target, and makes noise only.

But that sound surprises the Skitterer, and gives me half a second of extra time to think.

I throw another one. Same effect. Half a second.

This time, I throw the rock harder, and it strikes the exact same place on its carapace, making a completely new sound that it produces – neither cry of pain, nor anything else, just recalibration, apparently. Then the Skitterer starts scurrying backwards by two feet.

Then I throw the last one.

The Skitterer retreats around the corner.

---

> **EXP Gained:** 8

> **KAI** — 47/500

> **Combat Log:** Enemy routed — non-lethal. EXP decreased.

> **Note:** Strike pattern detected. Skill eligibility flagged.

---

Eight EXP for routing a Skitterer by throwing stones until it got away.

I stand in the corridor, breathing harder than I would like, and stare at the notes in the combat log at the bottom. Strike pattern detected. Skill eligibility flagged. Apparently, somewhere deep in the mechanics of the game, there must be a branch in the skill tree related to hitting the same target in the same spot with a certain regularity, and I have stumbled upon it.

I continue to explore.

Next forty minutes are quite enlightening when you have something trying to kill you right now.

Three more Skitterers are routed, without being killed – the amount of stones thrown and corridor geometry vary. My STR 12 arm and Evasion I help me get rid of them, although the latter is probably more of the problem. The fourth enemy is a Stoneback Beetle, who won’t leave despite of throwing the stones, as it neither stutters nor moves. Thus, I have to wait until it loses interest, what took me six minutes, but eventually did happen.

---

> **EXP:** 71/500

---

Seventy one. Double the EXP I had upon entering, entirely by way of surviving and chucking stones at things. I notice that the skill tree has highlighted three new skill eligibility notifications that I have yet to explore. I have Evasion I unlocked and can feel it starting to scale.

I locate the resting node.

I sit on the rock outcropping where I saw Daren resting and examine my hands. No equipped weapon. No combat skills of consequence whatsoever. STR 12 and AGI 15 and a clearer idea of what it means to go from nothing to having actual combat utility.

What it means is being hunted by a beetle for six minutes.

I pull up the wiki page. It is still being generated in relation to Lyra. Vorn’s tracking flag on me is currently active. Daren’s UI is somewhere in the city — 849, B-Rank, stress fracture still flagged in Observe.

I unlock the three new skill eligibility prompts.

---

> **Practical Unlock — [Throwing I]**

> Active — Ranged attack through object throwing. Damage low but consistent, STR + AGI scaling.

> *Unlocked through: repeated application*

>

> **Practical Unlock — [Pattern Recognition I]**

> Passive — Identifies attack pattern after 3 observations. Increases the window of time during which a player can effectively dodge.

> *Unlocked through: sustained evasion sequence*

>

> **Skill Available — [Fast Learner]**

> Passive — EXP gain +25%

> *Requires: INT 20 ✅*

---

I consider my options.

Throwing I is a skill for something I’ve been doing regardless of whether I had the skill before. Pattern Recognition increases my effectiveness at dodging. Fast Learner is going to speed up anything else I want to do, something I’d seen as early as Chapter 5 but opted against unlocking due to other priorities.

There really aren’t any other priorities here. 71 EXP out of a total of 500 at this point. Vorn is actively flagging me and reworking his approach in response to it. I have 71 EXP and rocks.

I select the first prompt.

Skill Unlocked — [Fast Learner]

Then the second:

Skill Unlocked — [Throwing I]

Afterwards, I rest again for some time and listen to the noise of the dungeon around me. I remember that someone above me somewhere is working on a new plan of action regarding myself and I don’t know what it is and the wiki entry is still blank. The corruption meter is static and pending is not the same as safe.

It is just pending.

The loose stone from the floor goes into my hands as I rotate it around.

After that, I stand up and start walking towards the door.

Now I’ve earned seventy-one EXP and unlocked two skills that I can use to convince a Skitterer it has made the wrong choice in life.

It’s not enough.

At least, it’s better than what I had this morning.