The notification arrived with the morning light.
[Training Dungeon Available: Corrupted Transit | Rank E][Recommended Level: 2-4][Entry Locations: Subway Station (Downtown), Bus Terminal (Westside), Train Depot (Industrial District)]
Riri sat cross-legged on the penthouse floor in yesterday's tactical pants and a threadbare tank top. The honey-gold interface hovered inches from her face while particles drifted lazily across the text. Her coffee had gone cold. She tapped the notification and the details expanded.
[Corrupted Transit: A decrepit subway station infested with low-level corrupted creatures.][Objective: Clear all enemies OR defeat the Station Master.][Time Limit: 6 hours]
E-Rank. Level-capped at 5. The kind of dungeon built to separate Players who kept their heads from Players who didn't.
System #2's interface pulsed cheerfully.
[Recommendation: Form a party! Training Dungeons are excellent opportunities for teamwork and social bonding!]
Riri dismissed the prompt with a flick of her wrist. She'd spent three days watching the other Players in the building gym. They moved in clusters, gravitating toward the loudest voices and the biggest egos. A woman with System #9,847 had tried to recruit her the previous morning, her gaze moving across Riri's face with the careful attention of someone cataloging a collectible.
Riri had smiled politely and kept walking. Solo was cleaner. No one to manage, no dynamic to correct later. Her stats were built for it anyway.
The System's gold particles swirled.
[Are you certain about entering solo? E-Rank dungeons have a fatality rate for first-time Players. And even with the Prep Period revivals, death is not painless...]
"What's the fatality rate for Players with my stat distribution?"
A pause.
[Insufficient data. You are the only host with this build.]
"Then I guess we'll find out."
Riri pushed to her feet. Her body moved the way it always did now, light and responsive and slightly too coordinated, like wearing shoes that fit perfectly after years of the wrong size. She crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sprawled below, steel and glass catching the early light. Three hundred thousand Players out there grinding stats, forming alliances, stockpiling gear.
One dungeon. Prove the build works. Then reassess.
She pulled her gear from inventory with a thought. The black tactical pants, reinforced boots, and leather jacket materialized in sequence. The combat knife appeared in her palm, blade matte and utilitarian.
[Inventory Check: Combat Knife (Common) x1, Health Potion (Minor) x3, Stamina Tonic (Minor) x2, Ration Bar x5, Bottled Water x3]
She'd spent her starter credits carefully over the past three days, prioritizing consumables over gear. She strapped the knife to her thigh and checked the edge with her thumb. Sharp enough to pierce, but she'd need to aim for soft tissue.
"Closest entry point?"
[Downtown Subway Station: 0.8 miles from current location.]
Close.
She pulled the hood up and let it shadow her face. The jacket's weight settled across her shoulders, familiar now after three days of constant wear. She checked her reflection in the window glass once: small figure, oversized hood, knife at her thigh.
The door closed behind her with a soft click.
The building lobby was empty, automated doors sliding open as she crossed the marble. Outside, the air was sharp and clean in the way only completely abandoned cities managed. No exhaust, no food carts, no sound of transit. Just wind moving between towers that had no business being this quiet.
She walked.
The streets were wide and well-maintained and entirely wrong. Prep City looked exactly like a city should look and felt nothing like one. The architecture was correct: intersections, storefronts, transit signage. But the storefronts were System dispensaries and dungeon lobbies, and the transit signs pointed toward Gate locations instead of neighborhoods. Every surface a little too clean, a little too deliberate. The way a stage set looks convincing until you notice the edges.
Other Players moved in small groups on the far side of the street. She clocked their gear without slowing. Mostly melee builds at this stage, axes and reinforced bats and short blades. One group had matching jackets with a guild name she didn't recognize embroidered on the back. Early days for guild formation, but not surprising.
She kept her hood up and her pace steady.
The subway entrance materialized at the end of a sloping block, concrete steps descending into shadow with yellow caution tape fluttering across the railings. A faded transit authority sign hung crooked above the archway: DOWNTOWN STATION - TEMPORARILY CLOSED.
Temporarily. Right.
Riri stopped at the top of the stairs. The air rising from below carried a wrong smell: rust, stagnant water, something organic gone sour beneath it. Three other Players lingered near the entrance. All mid-twenties, gear that looked freshly purchased. A woman had a crossbow strapped to her back. One man carried a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. The other had dual machetes.
The woman with the crossbow noticed Riri first. Her gaze traveled from the hood to the knife to Riri's face. Something shifted in her expression, half pity, half calculation.
"You going in alone?"
Riri nodded once.
"You know it's E-Rank, right? Monsters cap at Level 5. Probably fifty to a hundred enemies total." The woman gestured to her companions. "We're running it as a three-man. You could join us if—"
"I'm good."
The baseball bat guy snorted. "Suit yourself. Just don't blame us when you're screaming for help that isn't coming."
Riri descended the stairs without answering. Behind her, the machete guy muttered something about suicide missions and pretty corpses. The woman shushed him.
She'd check the leaderboard later.
The stairs went deeper than normal subway architecture allowed. Fifty steps. Seventy. The light from street level faded to a dim glow and then vanished entirely. Emergency lighting kicked in, sickly fluorescent tubes bolted to the ceiling at irregular intervals. Most were flickering. Several were dead.
The smell intensified. Decay. Old blood. Something chemical and acrid underneath, the kind of smell that lived in the back of the throat.
At step ninety-three, the stairwell opened into the station proper.
[Entering: Corrupted Transit | Training Dungeon - Rank E][Time Limit: 6:00:00][Objective: Clear all enemies (0/87) OR Defeat Station Master (0/1)][Warning: Retreat is prohibited once dungeon is active.]
Eighty-seven enemies. Riri's pulse kicked up. She pulled the knife from its sheath and let her eyes adjust.
The platform stretched ahead: cracked tile, peeling advertisements for products that no longer existed, support columns casting long shadows between the emergency lights. The tracks ran left and right, disappearing into tunnels that exhaled cold air in slow, rhythmic pulses. Like breathing.
No trains. No commuters. Just shadows and the distant sound of something scraping against concrete.
Movement flickered at the edge of her vision.
Riri turned her head slowly. Twenty feet away, something the size of a housecat crouched on the platform edge. Matted fur. Too many teeth. Eyes catching the fluorescent light in shades of yellow-green.
A health bar materialized above it.
[Corrupted Rat | Level 3][HP: 45/45]
The rat's nose twitched. Its head cocked at an unnatural angle, vertebrae cracking audibly with the motion.
Then it lunged.