The Cost of XP

The Thornwood Hollow dungeon was a three-hour walk from Duskhollow, and the inhabitants were right that it was within a Level 1-5 range, and they were somewhat underselling how bad a Level 1 experience it would be.

Ethan went with two inhabitants — Sira, the leather-wearing Rogue from the tavern, who turned out to be genuinely competent in combat in a way that made him understand why the game class had always felt underpowered; and a large, quiet man named Dag who had the stats of a Warrior and the personality of someone who'd been in too many fights to find them exciting.

"We don't get EXP," Sira explained, as they walked the forest road. "We exist outside the leveling structure. We can gain skill through practice, lose HP, die and respawn. But the System tracks progression only for Players."

"That's convenient for keeping you controlled," Ethan said.

"Yes." She said it simply, without resentment, which was somehow worse. "We noticed."

The dungeon entrance was a collapsed ruin on the edge of the wood — stone archway carved with the marker icon he recognized from the game, a geometric spiral that had always just been decoration and now felt like the actual seal on an actual door. When he stepped through, the System acknowledged it.

[ ENTERING: Thornwood Hollow ] Dungeon Rating: LVL 1-5 Recommended Party: 3-5 Players Current Party: 1 Player, 2 Inhabitants (Non-Scaling)

The dungeon ran three floors. Floor one: wolf-class creatures, standard, relatively manageable once Ethan stopped flinching at the contact and started trusting the stat screen. He found a rhythm — watch the HP bar, use the terrain, let Sira flank. Dag was a wall that things broke against. Ethan stabbed things while they were distracted by the wall.

╔══════════════════════════════╗ ║ KAEL_STORMHAND — LVL 1 ║ ║ EXP: 87/100 ║ ║ HP: 11/18 MP: 28/35 ║ ╚══════════════════════════════╝

Floor two: skeletal archers, which were worse, because they had range and Ethan did not yet have enough experience with the physics of his borrowed body to dodge consistently. An arrow caught his left arm. He felt it — not like pain exactly, more like a very loud version of pain, the body's notification system working correctly.

[ HP: 7/18 — WARNING: LOW HEALTH ]

"There's a health potion in my pack," Sira said, without looking at him. She was busy breaking a skeleton.

He found the potion — a real glass vial with a real glowing liquid — drank it, and watched his HP counter tick upward.

[ HP: 14/18 — HEALING COMPLETE ]

It tasted like copper and something floral. Not bad.

Floor three: the dungeon boss. The game had called this encounter "Thornwood Sentinel" — a large animated stone construct, slow and telegraphed. He'd soloed it at Level 12 from memory. At Level 1, with 14 HP, he lasted approximately forty seconds before it hit him hard enough that the world went gray and a message appeared.

[ HP: 0/18 — INCAPACITATED ]

He was on the ground looking up at the dungeon ceiling. Not dead, technically — the game had always had a downed state before death. He had ten seconds.

Sira slid past him and jammed a blade into a gap in the construct's hip joint, which was either a known weakness or very good improvisation. Dag hit it from the other side with a hammer that was doing genuine structural damage.

With six seconds left on his downed timer, Sira reached back and slapped a second potion on his chest without looking.

He grabbed it. Drank it. Stood up.

[ HP: 10/18 — RESTORED ]

The Sentinel fell at the eight-minute mark — not clean, not elegant, nobody looking competent. Dag had a deep gash across his ribs that wasn't closing quickly. Sira was limping. Ethan had been hit twice more and was at 6 HP, which the game was now rendering as a red border around his entire vision.

╔══════════════════════════════╗ ║ BOSS DEFEATED! ║ ║ Thornwood Sentinel ║ ║ EXP GAINED: +85 ║ ║ LOOT: Iron Shard Amulet ║ ║ Minor Mana Vessel ║ ║ DUNGEON CLEAR ║ ╚══════════════════════════════╝

╔══════════════════════════════╗ ║ LEVEL UP! ║ ║ KAEL_STORMHAND: LVL 1 → 2 ║ ║ HP: MAX INCREASED (+8) ║ ║ MP: MAX INCREASED (+12) ║ ║ Skill Point Earned: +1 ║ ╚══════════════════════════════╝

The warmth of the level-up hit him like a physical wave — genuinely warm, spread from the center of his chest outward. His injuries numbed slightly. His vision cleared.

And then something else happened.

It was like a sound going out of range — not sudden, not painful, just gone. A frequency he hadn't known he was perceiving.

He stood in the dungeon loot room and felt for it. Something was different. Something was missing.

"Are you all right?" Sira was watching him.

He tried to find what was gone. It took a minute.

"When I was a kid," he said slowly. "I had a dog. A beagle. I was —" He stopped. He was reaching for something and finding a shape where the thing should be, like pressing on a bruise that wasn't there anymore. "I can't remember his name."

Sira and Dag were very still.

"Is that supposed to happen?" he asked.

Sira sat down against the dungeon wall. She looked tired, and not from the fight. "We suspected," she said. "From the theory. The System uses memory as progression fuel for trapped Players. Leveling costs something the System can liquidate." She met his eyes. "You had eleven years of memories in this world before you came in. Eleven years of data about Veldara. The System is using that as XP substrate. But when it runs out —"

"It uses other memories," Ethan said.

"Yes."

He pulled up the skill point notification. He had one point to spend.

╔══════════════════════════════╗ ║ SKILL SELECTION ║ ║ (1 Point Available) ║ ╠══════════════════════════════╣ ║ [ARCANE BOLT] — LVL 1 ║ ║ Basic ranged spell ║ ║ DMG: 8-14 (INT Scaling) ║ ║ ║ ║ [MANA SHIELD] — LVL 1 ║ ║ Absorb damage with MP ║ ║ Conversion: 2 MP = 1 HP ║ ║ ║ ║ [IDENTIFY] — LVL 1 ║ ║ Reveals item/enemy details ║ ╚══════════════════════════════╝

He chose Arcane Bolt. He needed offense more than defense. He could feel it in the logic of his situation the same way he'd once felt it in the game — that instinct for the tree, for what the build needed to survive.

He thought about the dog whose name he couldn't remember. He tried the shape again. Nothing.

"How many levels to the System Core?" he asked.

"We don't know," Dag said. His first sentence in three hours.

Ethan looked at the dungeon exit and thought about what else he might be willing to lose.

"Then we'd better find out," he said.