I have become myth, then? --3.8 Seconds Post-Intergration.

  Not a heartbeat after he spoke, his reality returned to chaos. It was the aftermath of his inward light exploding out -- the goopy remains of beasts lay splattered throughout his segment of the atrium.

  The sound and sensation of the world came back to him -- the distant yet disarmingly close roar of a fight between a mechanized soldier-bot and their foes, inching globules of black slime; closer to home, a warmth spread in his hands, which jolted his realization at how cold he had been while conversing with the statue. Reviewing his own condition, he realized the heat spreading through his senses was more than mere warmth. It was a full-scale reinvigoration!

  "System Access Re-established," the voice of Sire Augustford sounded in his ears. From his inner body, he felt then saw spiritual essence illuminate his chest from the inside out as though he were an ornamental light. The light faded, leaving only the disbelieving faces of his co-workers in its wake.

  "Clark -- it is I, the dungeon's Spirit-Consciousness," the voice of Sire Augustford and-slash-or-the System AI told he. "I melded into your Augustford System Link. Consider my functionality as the Spirit -- and your service to me -- as one in the same with your System Link and your commitment to the store."

  Although Clark didn't want to overthink it, especially as his mental capacities hadn't yet fully returned to him after being dragged from one layer of reality to another, he wondered how it would be with the dungeon's Spirit-Consciousness being his 'fake person' assistant. "Aren't you, like, a sentient being?"

  "Do not worry about my ontological status. Worry about keeping yourself alive, whippersnapper," the Spirit-Consciousness turned Artificial Sentience told him... "Oh my... aspects of my personality seem to have been adjusted to better suit this body. Pay this no heed, Clark -- enemies are surging. Prepare for battle."

  From the defeated slimes burst more hostiles. This threat was as short-lived as it was sudden -- with a wave of his outstretched hand, the floor singed, bubbled, then boiled. A cacophony of death wails signaled his victory ending the engagement before it began. All that was left of the unfathomable foe was a smear and a stench from wherever the pitch-black viscera once occupied. "Whoa, what was that?"

  "Answer: an aura ability: my energies as the dungeon spirit are flowing into your body and pulling your latent potential to the surface. Additional: This is beside the point. More hostiles are forming and multiplying at rates far beyond your abilities to contain. If you do not reach the evacuation elevators in approximately thirty-minutes, you will be overwhelmed and killed by the surging enemy."

  Hearing how he had so little time to salvage his existence, Clark needed no additional encouragement and waved his two new co-workers to follow him as he bolted into a dead run. Though the System gave him notifications, possibly relating to the defeat of the slimes, he did not have the time to read the messages, not with his limited reading abilities, and dismissed it, knowing he could look at it when he wasn't fighting for his life!

  "You guys hear the System?" he asked his co-workers, the blond-boy and broad-shouldered woman.

  "No! It is down for us. Are you saying your System works? What is happening? Why were you ignoring us?" the female of the two remarked.

  "Yeah, it is," he told the two. "And sorry for ignoring you? I didn't realize I was... I was between realities, or something. The statue spoke to me. Now, I'm a champion of sorts and--"

  "Whatever!" the blond-boy interrupted. "You're special. Where are we bloody going?!" The blond-boy's voice turned to a scream as anger filled him.

  He opened his mouth to reply but his System Link pinged up his bluescreen for him as he ran. When it did, his reality jerked; in his mind's eye 'static' before a pop-up read [Re-initializing].

  "I-uh," he said stupidly to the boy trying to multi-task with questionable results.

  "WHERE ARE WE GOING?!" the boy again said, gripping him by the shoulders.

  Clark shrugged the boy off. He pointed to a now visible sign reading 'Emergency Tubes' with a bright red arrow pointing toward the location. "We're going over there!"

  The static faded from his mental eye once he spoke. He looked again to his blue-screen. A rudimentary radar-style map appeared below his status read out. His position on the map was represented by glowing 'X' whereas his objective was represented by a glowing dot. Clark adjusted his finger, so it was properly pointing (vaguely) in the direction of where the map told him.

  Half-way across the atrium, more groups of monsters materialized, pulling themselves from the ever-spreading black ooze to crawl and hiss before them, and exactly as the Dungeon Spirit had told him would happen. By now, the monstrous forms coming from the ooze vaguely resembled humanoid shapes imp-like in their frame. At least a couple of dozen surrounded them on all sides.

  Clark readied his fists for a fight. Thinking of how he hadn't told his co-workers of the timetable to get out of the atrium, he grumbled the truth. "Maybe now is a bad time to tell you, but -- my System helper says if we don't get out of here in twenty minutes, we're cooked."

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Cooked? As in, dead?!" the blond-boy yelped.

  "Correct -- " Clark said, the floor shaking and cracking as more black ichor welled up from between the tiles like kitchen grout.

  "Then we best be getting out lives out of this place! The most direct path is through these monsters. Children, use me as your shield. I will clear a path for us!" the woman said as she picked up a piece of concrete and used it as a shield as she plowed through the small horde of monsters.

  Clark obeyed the woman's wishes and followed in her wake. On his shoulder, the blond-boy's hand grip him tight. They were like a train plowing clean through some robber's hastily erected blockade.

  "Now what?" the woman asked with a quivering voice. Clark saw what she meant. Ahead was the final bit of the lobby before the emergency elevators. Regrettably, even this place was now overwhelmed with black ooze. From the ceiling came another large ichor teardrop. Then another... and another.

  Before long, the whole space was soaked and submerged -- the few Augustford mechanized infantry who had been fighting the good fight were now helplessly buried. The relentless drip of shadowy gore claimed the chamber as silence settled over where bullets once flew.

  "I think I have an idea!" the blond-boy shouted.

  "We can jump across the muck -- look, we can use the collapsed walkway chunks as islands!"

  Looking where his blond co-worker indicated, chunks of collapsed walkway spilled onto the path from the main walkway's collapse. The Spirit is right. If we don't get out of here and soon, we're done!

  Clark clambered upon one of the large pieces of the walkway. He was helped by the blond-boy, whose lithe form allowed him easy access to those troublesome spaces normal sized people couldn't fathom. "Don't think too much about how you leap. Just line up your jump and go for it!" the blond-boy said. "Just line it up!"

  With the atrium collapsing by the second, every millisecond spent 'lining up their jumps,' was a gamble on life. Clark had an easy time of it -- as he had plenty of experience in making difficult leaps while on his journey to Augustford Central. The woman, however, had a much harder time; her large body slowed her advance, forcing her to make many numerous jumps for every one of his and the blond-boy's leaps. Several times, he and the blond-boy were forced to scurry to help her from a ledge she had particular difficulty in clearing.

  Near the end of their island hopping, and but a few jumps until they reached the other side, and were able to climb onto an elevated part of the lobby which had not yet been overtaken by the goo, their journey almost came to an end: a black geyser spurted from the ground in violent jets, threatening the holy sanctity of Clark's head and how safely it sat upon his shoulders. "Shet!" he cursed. He held his team back. "On my mark -- we leap together!"

  Through their great effort and careful timing, Clark and Company cleared the remainder of the ever amazing and ever-expanding atrium ooze pond; Silly of management to think such an attraction would help with employee retention, Clark sarcastically coped. Though their uniforms were stained with sweat and dark splotches, their prize, the grand reward of surviving their first day on the job, was more than worth the laundry coin.

  "Ouch!" Clark quipped as he landed hard on the atrium's 'shore,' or that part of the atrium where the goo hadn't yet managed to penetrate -- but was trying with all its might to claim. Clark miffed the jump, but he recovered, preventing a worse injury. One thing was certain -- he sure as heck did not want to make a medical claim after only one day! Terror attack or no, the Adjuster Office would not take kindly upon such a bill. Continuing their rushed route, Clark praised the gods when signage indicating the escape tubes came into sight. He shoved through a pair of double doors and then down a staircase. Half-way down, he felt a rumble. "Guys! The stairs are cracking!"

  His warning managed only leaving his lips when the stairs collapsed. With the steps underneath their feet disintegrated, Clark and Company fell upon the floor like grain sacks. A chorus of pained 'Acks!' and 'arghs!' echoed through the chamber as debris buried them.

  He hadn't any time to react. It happened so fast. He heard the woman shout, "I'll protect both you babes!" Then she had grabbed hold of him before pulling him to her body along with the blond guy. That was all he remembered before the world spun and he lost sense of his orientation.

  He fell. To the floor, toward the pile of cracked concrete. Darkness, pain, the pressure of his co-workers near him, compressing him; darkness.

  With slow graduations, Clark regained his senses. He heard ragged breathing; his body was contorted -- no, compressed. There was a weight above him, compelling him to the ground. It was the lady. The epiphany on what transpired came to him late -- the lady used her formidable body to protect them from falling wreckage.

  "Is everyone okay?" she asked Clark and the other boy. With great effort she extracted herself away from them, pieces of destroyed masonry sloughed from her back and body like forest bramble after a productive foraging.

  Clark said he was good as did the other boy, though he looked far worse for wear after nearing getting crushed to death.

  With their bodies battered and their limping acute, Clark and they had no choice but to continue their journey to safety. They couldn't stop now or let their injuries get the best of them. To their backs was death. That much was clear. And so, they limped to the finish line.

  They emerged out from the underfloor passage and came into a new space only accommodatable for perhaps half-a-dozen people. Practically a supply closet by Augustford size standards.

  Typically, a space like this would be ordinary. With doom fast approaching, the space looked better than typical. It looked fantastic.

  For, to their left, nearly hidden, was a solitary, unused escape tube. Many other tubes had been overrun with the disgusting monster gunk. "Everyone into the one good tube if you want to live!" he shouted at the one tube chamber with a blinking green light.

  The youth and older woman piled into the elevator tube without hesitation. Clark was hot behind when, from the passageway they had just come from, he felt a pull.

  Compelled him to look back, what awaited him sent a chill down his spine.

  An armored knight forged of the monster ichor marched inexorably down the corridor, toward him. Unlike the seething tide of monsters which sprung up from whence the knight walked, this new foe was no mindless beast. As the knight strode, its helmet remained level and locked on Clark's sight; whatever the knight was, it was intelligent.

  The Knight held Clark's gaze, preventing his legs from moving. The knight and he seemed to be all that existed. Everything else faded to white. Clark could do nothing but keep the knight's gaze; before long, even something as solid as armor dematerialized as his vision penetrated the imperceptibly tiny reams between the black goo; between he and the knight nothing remained -- all sensations had been pushed aside other than a vague feeling of his body being moved; Otherwise, it was only he and this dread. Beyond the armor, he saw the Knight's face. It was one of irradiating yet featureless silver. Not what Clark expected; less expected was the words the knight said to him: "Help me," before reams of darkness and color returned.

  Sweat cascaded down his face; time blurred; his limbs shook; his pits no better. He gasped for air. He asked his terrified co-workers, "What happened?"

  Have You've Had a Work Frenemy?