A couple more monsters attacked before Solomon finished eating, but they were small and easily dealt with. Disassembling them didn't result in cores that were worth much, but he was happy for every grain of potential gunpowder in his inventory.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder where this zone's version of the big furball he'd had to fight earlier was lurking. It was convenient for the two of them if the thing was smart enough not to pick a fight it would lose, but that level of cunning could be a danger in the long run.

Solomon shrugged as he finished the last of his trail mix. For the moment, he was hardly in a position to mark every monster as it spawned. He could note the oddity, but he didn't have the time to search the whole local zone just to satisfy his curiosity. Taming the wilderness was a task for the future.

He pulled a canteen from his inventory and took a long drink of water. Finished, he put it back, patting the full canteen on his belt for reassurance as he did. If he somehow got stuck in extended combat again, at least he wouldn't go thirsty. Refreshed and recharged, he headed over to where his mount was waiting, unnaturally still.

Kanmi called out to him just as he was about to pull himself into the saddle. "Hey, are you going to add me to your party or what?"

Solomon stared at him for a moment, confused. Finally the penny dropped and he remembered one of the more annoying parts of the tutorial. "Oh, the party system! I forgot all about it."

It took a little digging through the interface, but eventually Solomon was able to invite Kanmi to his party. Kanmi accepted, prompting a long-delayed system message to appear.

Congratulations! You've made a friend and formed your first party!

The party interface will allow you to see the status and location of other party members! You also share credit for combat encounters!

A green X appeared on Solomon's mini-map, corresponding with Kanmi's location. A small pair of bars in the corner of his vision next to a little picture of Kanmi's face presumably indicated the state of his HP and MP pools.

At some point Solomon was going to have to dig through the options and figure out how he wanted to display all the information the system was feeding him. For now, the defaults worked well enough, but anything more and his vision was going to start to feel cluttered.

Solomon took a second look at the interface, then re-read the dialog box before dismissing it. He frowned. "That's it? I thought we'd get party chat at least."

Kanmi chuckled. "You think the System would miss the chance to sell you a communicator? Partying up is already useful as it is."

"I guess," Solomon said. "Keeping track of each other could be important in a big fight."

"That is handy," Kanmi said, "but you'll probably get more out of the combat credit sharing."

"How do you figure?" Solomon asked. Without a mechanic like experience points, he didn't see how a stronger fighter could help power up a weaker one. Your skills were your skills, no matter who was by your side.

"Your skills so far are all about killing stuff directly, right?" Kanmi asked. He continued without waiting for a response. "How did you think craftsmen got their grid points?"

"I thought they were just out of luck," Solomon admitted.

The system, in both word and deed, seemed to seek out a blood-soaked world of constant conflict. Solomon had assumed that the skill rank system was just another outgrowth of that philosophy, inasmuch as you only earned skill levels when you killed monsters with your skills.

"Come on, somebody's got to make sweet weapons for guys like us to use," Kanmi said. "You can't get by with vendor trash forever."

Solomon shrugged. He could have mentioned that he'd made his own weapons, but some instinct had him wanting to keep his own skill load out under his hat.

"Anyways, if you ever commission a guy to build something that really tests his limits, he'll insist on partying up with you afterwards," Kanmi continued. "You kill something using his gear and he gets the skill level to blacksmithing or whatever."

Solomon wondered what other little wrinkles were hiding in the depths of the system. Although Kanmi's tone suggested the subject was of little more than academic interest, it was good to know that people could get something out of it without having to turn themselves into capable killers.

"Not your area of focus?" Solomon asked.

"Nah, I'm here to get paid and get laid," Kanmi said. "You think I wanna go home and brag to some girl about the size of my workshop? Chicks dig warriors, man."

"That's not quite how it works here on Earth," Solomon said.

"Not yet," Kanmi said. "Nobody's got time for some sensitive hipster when a gribbly is trying to eat your face."

Solomon shook his head, then pulled himself up into the saddle. "Come on, I want to make Glide before nightfall."

"All right," Kanmi said, gracefully leaping atop his own mount. "My first Earth town. I can't wait."

Calling Glide a town was being generous. Solomon had only ever thought of it as a place to pull off the highway and get gas and snacks on the way to the national park. There were around a thousand people living there, maybe two. On the bright side, he didn't think it was the kind of place that wouldn't panic too much over losing power for twenty four hours. While the town itself wasn't too important, he was looking forward to human contact.

He was also a little curious about how far other people were getting in terms of dungeon exploration. Solomon thought the warning messages on the dungeon would keep most people away, but there had to be some daredevils out there who insisted on giving it a shot. He wasn't worried too much about Glide, but when it came to the bigger cities he was afraid somebody might have gotten through to the final round and lost, turning their zone over to the alien invaders.

As with so much else since the system had crashed into his life, all Solomon could do was keep moving forward one step at a time.