Jack’s st moments were not of fear, nor pain or hate. Instead, he graced the world with a parting smile and drifted away, onward to wherever his next life took him. The man who had always been filled with shame was now at peace.

  Lucius knelt down, closed Jack’s eyes, and began to tidy the body to the best of his abilities: he combed his hair, brushed his clothes, and even dabbed a bit of makeup on his cheeks - something to make him look more vibrant and less, well, dead. A gentleman was always well equipped for these types of scenarios. You never knew when someone needed to be spruced up.

  Laying there, one would mistake the good Jack to be merely sleeping.

  “Your story was a ravishing one, Mister Thames,” Lucius said. “It is because of beautiful souls like you that I am reminded of why I love humanity. Bravo, I mean it with all my heart.”

  It was a story with many twists and turns, emotional highs and solemn farewells, but through it all the young Jack carved his pce firmly in Lucius’s memory. The gentleman had seen to the conclusions of many people before, but this one was unique even compared to them. Jack faced the murky dregs of his true nature, yet rather than be consumed by it, he accepted himself - and atoned for a life spent in lethargy.

  A sprout once unnoticed amongst the masses—now bloomed into a man truly special.

  “You remind me of the humble Dandelion: a flower common as there are stars in the sky. Some treat the buds as pests, yet they are resilient all the same. Even when the winds of change blow away your seeds, somewhere, someday, you shall take root and blossom anew - free from the past.”

  It was a shame Lucius could not bury him. The flowers sprouted from his corpse would have been such a lovely sight to see, but as this mysterious game had to continue. At least here, Jack could remain undisturbed along with his treasures.

  Lucius could have taken his ring, it was admittedly very pleasing to the eye, but stealing from the dead was not a pastime he fancied much. Certainly not. How unmannerly! Lucius wasn’t a scoundrel; a man’s code was more important than any material gain could ever be. That was what it meant to be a gentleman - both inside and outside.

  But where one chapter ended, another began. Lucius felt a thrill swell inside him; his adventures had scarcely just started, yet already he came across a masterpiece. What other beautiful souls will he encounter? What exciting realms will he journey through? Time waited for no man, and Lucius couldn’t wait to discover where next his two feet would lead.

  Firstly, he had a charming little duo to find. While Marco and Mili didn’t need any pruning, their company was quite pleasant. And besides… the gentleman needed actors for his drama troupe, and whether willing or not, the pair made for a lovely ensemble he could manipute, pardon, ‘encourage’ to help with the next main character he wished to bloom.

  Thus with a hearty bounce in his step and a final farewell to his beautiful friend, Lucius sauntered away and stepped out into the dark halls of the maze once more.

  After a few minutes, he heard his fellows wandering around the corner. Suffice to say: the two of them were on their st legs. Hunger was a terrifying thing.

  “Just where… the heck… is the damn exit?” Mili groaned.

  She looked more like a corpse than Mister Thames. The past day had not been kind to her, and it was the same for Mister Bernardi. His once rotund, yet brawny, stomach was now practically skin and bone.

  “We must be goin’ in circles…” Marco said. “I never was good with directions.”

  Milo’s belly rumbled, and she stared at Marco with a new, deranged light in her eyes.

  “Hey, big guy, you think I could nibble on your arm a bit? It looks real lean and juicy. I could just… chomp down on it.”

  “Sorry to let you down, but I still need that arm.”

  Mili gnashed her teeth and tackled the old mobster. He didn’t budge an inch.

  “This is unfair! You’ve got enough fat stored in there to st you weeks.”

  Marco chuckled and pushed her away. “This fat got burned after doin’ all the fighting. I reckon I won’t taste that good.”

  Mili reluctantly scuttled back. Even whilst dizzy and starving, the thought of eating something unappetizing seemed far harsher a fate than just outright dying. “Fine, but I call dibs if you bite the dust. Maybe I’ll turn you into jerky or something.”

  “Ya need salt for that. Tell you what: I’ll make sure to cry a bucket’s worth just for you. If I’m gonna be dried into a hunk of meat, it sure as hell ain’t gonna be a bnd hunk of meat.”

  The two ughed and tried to stay cheery, but it was clear they didn’t have long before madness settled in. Mili’s words were becoming more and more serious by the minute.

  Fortunately for them, a certain someone knew the way to the exit. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to meet them naturally - without arousing suspicion of course.

  Lucius hurried on ahead and hid in the empty treasure room where Mister Bernardi’s armor was discovered. The room should coincide with the duo’s path, so he merely needed to wait a couple of minutes before he heard their footsteps again.

  Now was the time to show off his acting skills.

  “Ugh… Ogh… Agh…”

  Lucius loudly gasped and cried out to the world in a dramatic chorus of pain and woe. It was a visual that would have brought Shakespeare to tears, but as this performance was meant only for two.

  “What the heck? I must be going nuts… did you hear that, big guy?”

  “Yeah, something’s here. It doesn’t sound like one of those things - too clear for that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it resembles—”

  “Lucius. But that can’t be right. Can it? Gosh, what am I saying… this has to be a trap or some kinda funky hallucination.”

  “Only one way to find out. I think it’s comin’ from behind this wall. You ready?”

  “Yeah, ol’ Cassie’s ready to smash.”

  The pair fiddled with the entrance for a moment, seemingly tapping on each individual brick, before finally nding on the right one and opening the way.

  “Holy crap.”

  “Now ain’t that a miracle.”

  Inside was the very man they thought dead. Lucius sat against the corner and sucked in his chest to appear more frail, more sunken. When the two met his eyes, he weakly waved towards them and put on a pitiful smile.

  “Mister Bernardi? Miss Mili? Oh, how… how truly fortunate we are to meet again. I had almost lost all hope.”

  Mili practically leaped off her feet and dived head-first to entrap Lucius in a big hug. “You’re alive! You’re really alive…”

  Lucius uttered a hoarse ugh. “Indeed I am, much to my surprise. I thought my end was near when Mister Thames attacked me. Two stab wounds would be enough to silence any reasonably healthy man, but it would appear I am more resilient than I thought.”

  Marco walked over and put a solemn hand on Lucius’s shoulder. The old mobster’s face was riddled with guilt. “I-I’m gd, Lucius. Truth be told I already wrote ya off as dead in my book, so I didn’t bother tryin’ to look - not even for your corpse. What an ass I am, right? Maybe we would’ve found you sooner if…”

  “Perish the thought, Mister Bernardi. The fault belongs to no one: not even Mister Thames. It was due to my own stubbornness that I ended up this way.”

  Mili frowned and quickly jumped up to scan her surroundings. “Speaking of which, did Jack bring you here? I don’t think you can even walk, lookin’ like that.”

  “Yes, but that was many hours ago. It is a wonder why he didn’t finish me off then; instead, Mister Thames hauled me over his shoulder and began to wander the maze without a purpose. He muttered some odd ramblings about voices in his head before dropping me off here. I do not know why, but before he left, the man mentioned something about ‘avenging me’, which was quite curious considering I was right next to him - injured, yes, but nonetheless alive. But I suppose he wasn’t in the right mind to be thinking straight.”

  Marco grimaced and shook his head. “Yeah, not in the right mind is right. It must’ve been right after he left you here. We actually got into a scuffle with each other, and…”

  He held his breath, before letting out a deep sigh. Marco looked too choked up to speak, so Lucius did it for him.

  “It is alright, Mister Bernardi. You need not continue. I have an idea as to what might have occurred.”

  Well, not just an idea. Lucius saw it happen right before his own two eyes after all, but that was a secret best kept hidden.

  “... It’s going to be the three of us from now on, Lucius,” he said, eventually. “That alone is more than I could have ever asked for.”

  Mili nodded her head, giddy at their reunion, but her expression soon turned despondent. “That’s great and all, but we’re still kinda lost, y’know. At this rate we’ll all starve to death before we even get a whiff of the exit.”

  Ah, this is where I come in.

  “I’ve already seen it, though.”

  Marco and Mili’s eyes almost bulged out of their heads.

  “What?!” they said in unison.

  “It’s true. I saw it while trapped within Mister Thames’s grasp. He passed by it then, unaware, but I remember it quite clearly. In fact, it shouldn’t be all too far from here.”

  Mili dropped to her knees and csped her hands into a prayer. She didn’t seem like the religious sort, but for this moment the woman made an exception.

  “Jesus, Buddha, Zeus and Odin…” she chanted. “Whatever deity’s out there, you’re a real one. I mean it.”

  Mili sprung up and did her best to lift Lucius up. She failed, so Marco had to take over, but the bubbly musician was all smiles nonetheless.

  “Come on, what’re we waiting for? Let’s get out! Get out! We can finally get out!”

  Marco and Lucius gave each other a knowing eye, before ughing to themselves and following after her.

  Lucius pointed the way and navigated them through the maze. The end was in sight. All they had to do was walk just a little bit farther, and the white door leading out of this nightmare would finally be within reach.

  But of course, things could never be that simple.

  The three of them stopped in their tracks, and turned around.

  “oOoooOooOoOOo…”

  There, far out behind them, was the Horned Exile in all its hideous glory.

  It was not attracted by any noise, nor did the party give any cause for it to appear.

  It simply found them by chance. Poor luck - that was all it was.

  Poor luck.

  Mili’s eyes twitched. Her face distorted into a look of pure rage and malice the likes Lucius never thought possible. And then, she snapped.

  “... You know what? Screw it.” Mili pulled out her guitar with a bloodlust that made even the battle-hardened Marco shiver. “I’m gonna take you down if it’s the st thing I do.”

  She strum a chord and channeled all her electric might into the heart-pounding melody of her war cry. The Horned Exile rushed forward; Marco tried to pull her back, but was repelled by a discharge of static.

  With one st, guttural scream, she sent forth a bolt of complete destruction.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Bolt upon bolt, barrage after barrage, the entire maze drowned in a never-ending storm of thunder. The force shook the two men to their very bones. Mili did not stop; she did not want to stop. Here, right now, the monster was her sworn nemesis - and she would not rest until it was obliterated.

  “Someday, I’ll conquer the nd and have you syed! Bst away, bst away, you’ve given me too much to tolerate.”

  The only sound that could be heard amidst all the chaos was Mili herself. She sang with all the might of her soul, hurled her wrath in lyrical barrage of melody, harmony, and sheer intensity.

  “Rise from bed my darling, so I can see you again. So I can kill you again!”

  Even when her throat grew hoarse, even when blood began to drip from her eyes, she did not stop until the Exile was scorched from top to bottom in a dark charcoal bck.

  It wasn’t moving. The horror they had run away from all this time was now reduced to a burning pile of ash.

  “Good lord,” Marco said, carefully scooting toward Mili. “You’re real terrifying when you want to be.”

  Mili didn’t respond, and instead fell limp straight into the old mobster’s arm.

  “Sorry, big guy,” she wheezed. “You’re gonna have to carry the both of us.”

  “Compared to what ya did, this is nothing.”

  Marco lugged her over his other shoulder. He looked quite humorous, carrying two fully grown adults as if they were children, and began to walk away from the site of Mili’s rampage.

  Lucius was very, very surprised - and somewhat baffled. This so-called tutorial revolved around running away and hiding from an unstoppable threat. Sure, Mili’s power was quite impressive, but was it truly that simple to eliminate the core hazard of this realm? Surely not. There had to be more.

  And indeed, his suspicion was proven correct. After Marco marched a few paces away, the Exile’s body began to twitch, and shudder, and change. A giant, fleshy growth erupted from its chest and expanded in size, swelling until its dripping cartige filled the far corners of the walls. It pushed against the ground and ceiling, oozed forward in disturbing, wet squirts, and consumed all in its path—What else could one call such a thing but a ravenous slime?

  This was the true form of the Exile. Like a parasite, it tched onto the bestial chimera and controlled it from the inside. This was not a thing that could have ever been killed: it had too much muscle, too much sinew. Its form was composed of a never-ending tide of rotting human remains.

  Marco took one good look at the thing, and then ran off as fast as his legs could carry him.

  “Where am I going, Lucius?!” he shouted.

  “This way, Mister Bernardi! Just a little bit more!”

  The Tide of Rot rapidly chased after them, encroaching upon each and every crevice of the maze. To slow for even a second would spell death. Marco had not the luxury to calm the fire burning in his lungs.

  There was only a single football field’s worth of distance left now. The way couldn’t be any simpler; just continue straight. Run like the wind.

  “Here! To the right!”

  Marco swerved in pce, his boots screeching from the friction. The door was right there. The rot was right next to his heel.

  “CHARGE!” Mili screamed.

  Marco rammed into the door with all his strength, and then… silence

  All was white, save for a familiar screen.

  >[Congratutions! Pyers Lucius Rose, Marco Bernardi, and Faye Kasai have successfully cleared the Tutorial!]<