Polk had an old flatbed pickup truck, and Ben had strongly advised they take it; Their best driver, Vaughan, was behind the wheel and the rest of them were piled into the back, armed with mana rifles and a shoot to kill attitude. They drove along at a brisk clip, Vaughan expertly found the optimal route between potholes and highly uneven asphalt. They had entered dangerous territory ten minutes ago, their certainty granted to them by the status window that had appeared in front of each of them at the same time, nearly causing Vaughan to crash.

You have entered the Mana Wilds

Zone information: Dungeon spawn have invaded this zone. Defeat them for unique rewards. The native environment has been affected by the increased mana levels, causing accelerated and enhanced evolution in the Mineral, Plant, Animal, and Elemental kingdoms.

Safe Zones: The 'Green House', owned by Ben Mikalski. This area is a designated safe zone, and all monsters will avoid it. There is no guarantee of safety in a safe zone, be advised.

Zone Quests: Defeat the dungeon spawn; Thin the herd; Outward Expansion

“I think we should do some quests,” McCrea said, breaking the silence. Nobody had said anything since they had received the notification, each expecting a horde of rampaging demons to erupt from the ground or the horizon at any moment. So far, nothing.

“Trust me,” Ben said “I'd like to. But these Mana Wilds weren't here yesterday, and neither were these Zone Quests or dungeon spawn. Casimer gave us a free pass through the dungeon so that I could come and talk with him about something important. We just had the global announcement, and I'm pretty eager to get some answers.” McCrea eyed him and then laughed.

“Let's take a vote,” he said into the walkie talkie that let him communicate with Vaughan. Everybody turned to him “All in favor of doing a quest, say aye.”

“Aye,” Everybody said, then looked at Ben.

“Aye,” Ben memed, laughing “Sure, why not. But only if it's on the way, all in favor?”

“Aye,” everybody said again, including McCrea. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and began scanning around. They drove on, and soon the mountain was in sight, it's peak rapidly rising out of the horizon.

“Question,” Louden asked, grabbing everyone's wandering attention. “That mountain's fucking-” she paused and collected herself “Its pretty big, right?”

“Did you just catch yourself swearing?” Polk cut in, looking very concerned “Are you ok?”

“I nearly died yesterday,” she said “and I've been examining my, how to say, life choices. They don't paint a pretty picture. That's not important though, sweetheart,” she gave her a side hug, and Polk returned it.

“Yeah,” Ben said, “The mountain was about eighteen thousand feet last time I checked. It's only gotten bigger. I bet you're wondering, how the hell can't we see this thing from town?” Louden nodded, still hugging Polk. “Long version or short version?”

“We've got time, don't we?”

“The space around here has been well and truly warped by Casimer. Imagine everything in the world is sitting on a level plane, like a flat sheet, hang on,” he said, and pulled a skill ball out of his backpack and crushed it. His eyes started to glow like there was a flashlight behind them “This skill is called Illusion, it lets you create holograms from your thoughts. I've only got about twenty seconds, so let's make them count.” In front of Ben, a blue grid appeared in the air, parallel to the ground. “This is regular space, it's flat and direct, the distance between any two points is the same. This,” he said, and a pit sunk in the center, going deep “is the dungeon. There's only one way in and out, this road. You can't approach it from any other direction, you'll just pass right over it,” he said, and a layer of space covered the top, covering it, “You can't see it from above, you can't see it from the sides, you can only see it from this direction.”

The group stared at the projection for several long moments before it winked out of existence.

“That is an oversimplification, mind you, and I'm comfortable telling you that I've only conveyed a general idea. A physics expert,”

“You mean a physicist,” McCrea cut in.

“Yeah, a physicist,” Ben said “They'd probably be able to explain it better, or put a bunch of holes in what I just said. None the less, that's basically what's happened.”

“So, it is kinda underground,” Louden said, a bright expression on her face “like a dungeon. I mean, I thought it was weird calling a mountain a dungeon, right? Dungeons are underground.” She said that last part with absolute certainty, like it was really important to her. Ben coughed, then nodded his head.

“Absolutely.”

“Contact,” Vaughan said over the radio, “On our two.” They all looked ahead to the right, and saw their first monster shambling about. It was huge, like an inverted cone, flat topped with six rubbery, tentacley legs. McCrea stared at it through the binoculars and made a sound of disgust. He handed them to Ben.

It was an enormous, corpulent, fleshy creature with no visible mouth, covered from top to bottom with eyes. From the eyes, the occasional bolt of light could be seen, burning scraggly desert shrubs and rocks. The creature seemed to be attacking anything that wasn't bare ground indiscriminately. Ben repeated McCrea's sound of disgust and handed the binoculars to Polk, who looked at the creature, made the same sound of disgust, and gave them to Louden, who looked and repeated the sound.

“Yeah,” Polk said, finger on the trigger “No. That thing's gotta got.” She took the radio “Vaughan, we're taking that thing out, over?”

“Copy,” he said, taking it in stride. Everybody got their weapons ready, and Ben stared at them like they were aliens.

“I think you're all taking this a little too in stride,” he said, a bewildered expression on his face.

“I think you need to nut up or shut up,” Louden said, and fired a warning shot at the creature. The attack fizzled out long before it reached it's target. Ben shook his head and took the radio.

“All right driver, start circling that thing and we'll start shooting. I don't know what it's capable of, so the moment our shots start connecting, I want you to maintain that distance, over?”

“Copy, over,” Vaughan said, and turned a hard right.

“Cycle your shots,” Ben said “Don't shoot till it's your turn. You've got unlimited ammo, but not unlimited mana. Don't burn your weapon out, and don't burn yourself out,” Then he smiled, the situation finally resolving itself into something he was familiar with “and most importantly, lets have fun, all right? Vaughan,” he said over the radio “Begin psychological warfare.”

Polk's flatbed had very powerful outdoor speakers installed on it, a gift from Louden several years ago on one of her birthdays.

“Hey Ben,” Vaughan said over the radio “I'm changing the plan,”

They had agreed on Flight of the Valkyrie as their choice of psychological warfare. Instead of that, Ben felt his body clench up involuntarily when he heard that Goddamn voice.

“Hello my dear friends! Well here I am on record at last,” It was Living in the Sunlight by Tiny Tim.

“My car!” Vaughan shouted, his voice cutting through all sound, head out the window “My rules!”

Ben hated this song. Everybody else in the group loved it. There they were barreling towards some interdimensional monstrosity, and instead of appropriate battle music, Ben got this.

“Fuck it!” Ben shouted, and started firing full auto, screaming the lyrics as he did so. Vaughan was also screaming the lyrics as loudly and as off key as he possibly could. When it came to singing badly, nobody could outdo Vaughan.

“Wooooo!” Polk shouted, and joined in, firing controlled bursts.

The monster began to scream, a psychic scream of pure agony at the music. Ben knew it was the music, because none of their shots had connected yet. It started firing back, slowly walking towards them, it's shots also falling short.

“My friends are fucking insane!” Louden screamed, and started firing as well.

“Contact in t-minus five,” McCrea yelled “Four! Three! Two!”

He never made it to one, and the creature began to buckle as the sustained fire of the vehicle finally hit. The smell of burning flesh and the sight of yellow, pus-like blood only served to fuel their adrenaline rush.

“Foolish Sub-Creatures!” It projected outward, it's voice like a deep boom of a bomb “I am Vis-Tar berok, the ravager!”

“You're dead!” McCrea punctuated his intelligent rebuttal with a full auto, sustained fire that threatened to burn his rifle out. A red bar appeared above it's head and began to plummet. One of it's legs gave out, and it toppled over, the sight of it's enormous flat top revealing a circular mouth full of rings and rings of razor sharp teeth.

“Nasty!” Ben said, and began firing into it's open mouth.

It was over in under a minute, the creature giving out a final yell, then falling dead. Ben expected it to vanish, like Casimer's monsters, but the body laid motionless, glowing.

“Pull it over,” he said into the radio “Lets loot this thing and get moving.”

The jeep came to a stop in front of the corpse, and they all piled out.

“Ok, everybody pose,” Louden said, pulling out her phone and a-

“A fucking selfie stick,” Ben, Vaughan and McCrea all said at once, disgusted.

“Boys will never understand. Now get into the shot or I'll shoot you,” she said, totally serious. They all huddled together, the Dungeon spawn's lifeless body towering behind them, holding magic rifles, and posed with big smiles on their faces. “Cheese!” She said, making a duck face and taking several photos.

“Damn I'm good,” Vaughan said, looking proud of himself, then kicked the body for good measure. All he got for his effort was a boot covered in gross slime. He didn't seem to mind.

Ben reached out and focused, then a status window appeared.

Convert?

Ben willed it to be so, and the body vanished, leaving several vials of yellow liquid and a large white book behind.

Vial of Yellow Ichor

This substance is the blood of many denizens of the Legendary Plane of Infinite Wild Magic. It has a number of uses in Alchemy and the forging of equipment.

You are the first known discoverer of this item in your world.

Congratulations, you have been granted The Boon of Discovery. Item is automatically identified and all effects are buffed to their maximum possible value.

This is the first item drop of its kind in the world! Automatic legendary and Grand legendary effects added!

Name: The Blank White Book. Rarity: Original. Rank: Perfect.

This item unlocks the Limited, Unique class of Sage (1 of 7), and will be consumed upon use. The SoHA class system is not operational yet. Due to this, the use of this item will be modified until the system is fully online. This book grants the ability to record and grant skills. Skills must be manually added. This is the original, and only Blank White Book.

This item can be Soul-Bound! Beware of thieves until this item has been bound.

+500% Duration of granted skills

+200% Rate of skill growth

+100% chance of successfully learning a skill from this book

+200% charge rate from Mana crystals

This book can accept monster and dungeon cores for the purposes of charging.

This Book has a zero percent chance of being consumed on use.

This book can contain both active and passive skills

This book can be used to attach a skill to an item

This Book can hold an unlimited number of skills

Skills recorded in this book have a very small chance of spontaneously evolving to a more advanced tier.

This book allows every user to permanently select two skills for unlimited use, without restriction. There is no limit to the number of users who can use this ability.

“Dude,” Ben said, reading the item description out loud. “Game changer. First, we've got to decide who gets this beauty. Second, We've got to get back to my place, right now.”