Markus.

  “Oi! Markus! You good over there?”

  “Yeah, just another chest, like the others…” Markus called back, almost sighing as he closed the lid of the box filled with untarnished copper. The fourth box, to be specific. The fourth box of the fourth room…

  “Gods, I’ve never been so lucky as when we took you into our team!” Bright procimed, wrapping the older boy in a merry hug as their squad took yet another pause to try and figure out what they’d take and what they’d leave behind.

  “He’s like a lucky rabbit’s foot…” Martha muttered, her voice less the amazed and appreciative tone it had held only a few weeks prior, now sounding like she was some traumatized war veteran, looking over a battlefield with exhausted eyes. “Too much like one, actually…”

  “Oh, don’t be a miserable cunt, Marty—”

  “Martha…”

  “That’s what I said!” Bright grinned, winking at Markus as the younger man gave him a firm shake of his shoulder before sauntering back toward the others.

  “Aye… she’s got a point, you know…” Korvin compined, staring listlessly at the pile of loot they were already tossing into a haphazard collection. None of it was objectively bad, but it was, in some way, overshadowed by what they already had. “Not to compin about our abrupt change of fortunes, but it just feels a trifle excessive, no?”

  “It does.”

  “Does not!” Bright shot back, gring at their sorcerer, who was gring right back at the party leader and ranger.

  “Do you understand what karma is?”

  “Nay.”

  “Well, it means that—”

  “We’re all filthy rich?”

  Martha scowled at her boyfriend, who gave her his best winning smile in turn, heading over to her and grabbing her ass—which she tolerated, much like a household cat.

  “Look, all I know is that, since we took on our friend Markus, we’ve been drowning in coin and loot enough to move out of that shithole Stiptee! We have an inn on Providence now! We eat steak and cheese every night, drink wine like it’s ale, and have been gaining levels like there’s no tomorrow!”

  “And you don’t think any of that’s strange?”

  “I’m actually with Martha on this,” Markus offered, stepping away from the chest at his feet to join the others who were sorting their veritable ocean of goodies. “This is what? The seventh time we’ve come in here and been showered with fortune?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Zeek sniffed, the rger d filling all the extra packs he’d brought with him this time around. They’d all agreed that, at this point, they were basically cherry-picking what they wanted to take back to town. Their shares had become entirely separate due to the sheer volume of loot they simply couldn't carry. “Me mum’s bum leg is only a single pack 'o treasure away from enticing a carver to fix her up! You all can say how distrustful you are of the situation; me? I’ll be gd to keep indulging in the finer things in life, thank you very much.”

  “You’ve made enough money to fix your mother’s leg three times over…”

  “Aye, but the announcement will make one heck of a birthday present, now, won’t it? My siblings won’t be able to top me for the rest of their lives!”

  “See?” Bright ughed, giving Martha another affectionate squeeze before she finally had enough and pushed him away. “Zeek’s on the side of common sense! Why do you three always want to look on the dark side of things?”

  “Because it’s too good to be true?” the dark-haired and heavily eye-shadowed girl muttered, a sardonic twist to her lips fighting back a snarl. “Because the dungeon is clearly doing something weird? Because the mage we decided to add to our team after watching him sprint out of the dungeon like a crazy person is unquestionably the cause of it all?”

  Markus winced at that, briefly meeting Martha’s dark gaze.

  She didn’t like him… or trust him, or really have much of any sort of high opinion of him.

  She’d even been against his joining, but had been outvoted by Zeek and Bright, with Korvin on the fence but ultimately voting in favor of his joining. Nor had she been thrilled about giving up her monopoly on the best caster-based gear, even if they were now literally drowning in it.

  And, despite how much fortune the others were convinced he was bringing them, she alone had been immensely distrustful of him, even as they were thrust into the realm of the middle css simply from the absurd luck they were having.

  The thing was, Markus wasn’t even sure what to think of it all.

  In his head, the answer to their windfall had a possible expnation that he would not be sharing with anyone, no matter how weird things got. And that answer came with a single picture in his mind.

  He could still recall the way she’d held him in the park… how she’d kissed him, how she’d—well, those thoughts weren’t exactly proper for the situation at hand, but needless to say, it sometimes felt like the dungeon was in his back pocket.

  Contrary to her challenge, Markus felt his resolve to meet her demand somewhat undermined at every turn, at least regarding the difficulty he’d expected.

  Rather, his time in the dungeon spent trying to better himself had been much more akin to a romp through a field of daffodils. The cavern showered him with—well, what almost felt like affection.

  And the effects hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  Markus was far from the only one in the group to remark that the fights they experienced, fancy magical equipment or otherwise, cked a certain bite that he definitely remembered experiencing.

  Heck, even compared to his previous team, the ease with which he and his new comrades dispatched the dungeon’s monsters felt almost like they were fighting toddlers at times.

  The thing was, the system finally seemed to be catching on, and as of te, the experience they were gaining had definitely decreased. The orbs they received weren’t worthless, but given that he was now pushing the ninth level, with the others not terribly far behind, and enchanted gear allowing them to tear through the pce with brutal efficacy, things were certainly slowing down again.

  He’d hit another pteau, one that was simply not so easy to overcome now that he was reaching the point where the dungeon’s monsters no longer posed much of a threat.

  For most, even those nearing the tenth level, it could still be a violent and dangerous pce to delve. Though supposedly tame, the dungeon was still a dungeon.

  Yet, an individual didn’t typically acquire as many magical artifacts as were now yered upon his own person. Even a novice would tell you that, in the business of killing monsters, artifacts could make or break your chances of success.

  He’d seen poor teams stuck at the highest level they could reasonably achieve with no better prospects simply because they’d never gotten a lucky break. He’d seen brand new adventurers who struck the jackpot, leaving their first delve with new tools that would kick start their careers as professionals as they surpassed those less fortunate.

  Then, there was whatever the fuck was going on with his new team.

  Despite spending nearly all his waking hours in the pce and entire months having gone by, Markus had yet to encounter the strange woman—err, the strange monster—that had wiped out his previous comrades.

  However, it sometimes felt as though he were being watched by some intangible entity, even guided by it.

  An example, of course, could be seen in the sheer absurdity of the situation. And yes, they had, in fact, attempted to discern if the dungeon was paying out so generously to everyone and had since learned that wasn’t the case.

  Something undeniably odd was certainly transpiring, but quite honestly, Markus felt like he’d been left out in the rain, exposed and vulnerable, and told to just stand there and wait until the guard was ready to arrest him, all while forced to hold his fccid dick in hand.

  Initially, he’d thought some sort of contact would arrive sooner rather than ter, given the present circumstances, and yet, with each passing day came more uncertainties.

  Did the monster not want to see him?

  Was she, perhaps... angry with him?

  Was he still not good enough?

  Granted, it wasn't like Markus had yet reached the double digits in level, but he’d felt as though he’d been progressing quite well! He was certainly moving leaps and bounds compared to the year he’d spent in a suppression squad.

  Where once he’d gone into the dungeon only when required for work, education, or living expenses, now he nearly lived in the damned thing.

  “Well…” Bright abruptly announced, looking from person to person while plucking at his suspenders. “I’d say we’ve done quite well for ourselves today! Why don’t we knock off back to Naidenes’ pce where we can rest our weary feet and partake of some fine musical ambiance?”

  “You want to leave already?” Martha snipped, hesitating as though her lips had moved faster than her own brain, then scowled even deeper with a sigh. “No, don’t answer that. I agree. My back’s already killing me.”

  “Seconded!” Korvin chirped, yawning as though they’d been at it all day, when, in truth, it was hardly even early afternoon.

  For a moment, the greediest and most loot-hungry of them all momentarily considered the pile of valuables they’d all tossed away, shifting beneath his heavily den packs before he, too, sighed and raised his hand. “Yeah, alright… Don’t really think I can carry much more anyway…”

  All eyes inevitably drifted to Markus, who, unlike the others, wasn’t so keen to call it quits so early in the delve. Heck, the zy bastards were giving up before they’d even gotten to the first boss!

  Did someone say spoiled rotten?

  While Markus was indeed carrying quite a lot in his pack, not above taking the opportunity to swell his bank account with coin, he had ulterior motives for being here that no longer existed as a simple desire to 'get rich.'

  Clearing his throat and shrugging his backpack, he tightened his grip on his staff and offered Bright a confident smile. “I’m actually going to stick around, clear out a few camps, you know, pull in some more experience…”

  “Seriously?” The ranger gawked, looking at him like he was some loon. “Well… I certainly wouldn’t want you to get yourself hurt while all alone in here—”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get myself killed,” Markus ughed, cpping Bright on the shoulder. “Go on! Go have fun. I told you all that I was trying for level ten, but I don’t mind you all wanting a little break. We’ve been going hard for weeks now…”

  “You heard the golden goose! Let’s take a break!” Korvin stated, already turning to head back to the entrance.

  “Haven’t even been able to properly enjoy being rich… I’m with Korv on this one. I’ve got a backlog of stuff to pawn off anyway… could take a day—or two—to actually turn all this loot into damned coin…”

  Martha stared at the pair of teens who were already happily chatting as they headed down the tunnel, gncing at Markus and Bright before raising a hand to her temple and rubbing it deeply. “They’re not even waiting for us…”

  “I’d say the decision’s already been made, love. Don’t take it personally.”

  “We’re the team leaders, aren’t we? Shouldn’t they be waiting for our final decision?”

  “Don’t let it get to you! The ds are just burned out, that’s all. It’s nothing personal.”

  “And we’re all just… okay with…” Again, Martha paused, her persistently narrowed eyes darting to Markus as though she couldn’t help it, this time managing to cmp down on her somewhat abrasive and quick-tempered thoughts, but the gesture wasn’t lost on him.

  What she wanted to ask was if they were all okay with letting their meal ticket out of their sight.

  While she didn’t like him, she obviously didn’t like the idea of giving up their supposed lucky charm, either.

  For his part, Markus met Bright’s gaze, and the two of them shared a short look. Then, the other man cpped his hands and boisterously cleared his throat. “Well, if Markus wants to hang around, who are we to stop him? He’s perfectly competent and has been at this longer than we have!”

  “But—”

  “He’ll be fine, my love! You worry too much, you know that?”

  Martha bristled as her boyfriend corralled her in his arms, her lip twitching, eyes little more than slits as they focused on Markus while she stood there for a moment, unwilling to be moved.

  Not really able to help but get a little jab in, the young mage merely widened his smile, waving at her with all the friendly cadence he could offer. Much to his delight, the overzealous camaraderie he exuded and its underlying subtlety was not lost on the woman.

  She scowled, baring her teeth, but finally allowed herself to be pushed along.

  Bright peered over his shoulder, one hand finding its way back to Martha’s ass, with a grin. “Don’t be spending all night in here, blud. It’s not good for the old sanity, eh? A good night’s rest and a fine meal aren’t going to nip you like the gobos, either.”

  “I’ll be careful!”

  “Aye, I know you will.”

  And with that, Markus watched the duo disappear down the tunnel, standing there, still leaning on his staff, wondering if he’d ever see them again.

  Nothing ominous was in the pipeline, but at this point, he’d been seriously considering how best to eke out whatever advantage he could get. Sadly for the others, assuming he actually was the reason for all their good luck, Markus had determined that the next logical step was to start coming in here on his own.

  It would be more dangerous, take more time, and nobody would be there to back him up, but then again, that was what the system wanted.

  He would not be rewarded by the universe for his unwillingness to expose himself to danger—at least not where experience and skills were concerned.

  The problem was that he could already see how ugly things might turn if he suddenly expressed his desire to part ways with the others.

  Money could do crazy things to people. He’d seen it time and time again. Heck, his own uncle had nearly ruined the family business when he’d decided he needed to be bought out of the enterprise, lest he start selling its assets all off to get what he felt was owed.

  He wasn’t sure if it would come to violence, but he didn’t exactly rule it out. Moreover, despite his own opinions on the matter, he knew there would be hurt feelings given how the others had taken him in.

  “Ugh… if only you had a second floor,” Markus sighed, reaching out to touch the dungeon wall as he headed toward the next camp of goblins.

  A lower yer would allow their team to pit themselves against foes that the system would presumably feel were more in line with their abilities.

  A lower yer would bring back a sembnce of adventure to it all!

  Sadly, working as a team had its own drawbacks. One of those was experience.

  It was a double whammy: not only was experience lost by working with others, but what did drop was, fairly so, split among all those involved on an orb-by-orb basis.

  It wasn't perfect, but it was often the only real way to do things. But, as much as he appreciated the team helping him get back on his feet, he wasn't married to them.

  Surely a few months spent together was a perfectly reasonable span of time to part ways once goals no longer aligned, but again—

  “Money…”

  Markus sighed, the soft tap of his staff echoing through the cavern, its wooden cck only drowned out by the familiar jabbering of an equally familiar group of goblins.

  “Tac, Whack, Kole, and Izzy… how we doing?”

  The quartet of goblins all paused, each gncing his way at the entrance to Urk’s distant hut.

  While the dungeon’s yout might change, its boss rooms were rather uniform. At this point, he’d encountered these critters enough times over the years that he’d actually named them.

  Well, to be precise, Hueburt had been the one to give them names… and even then, he got them mixed up from boss to boss half the time anyway.

  The memory of the big, rger-than-life warrior gave him pause, his mind fshing back to the sight of him screaming as he burned in the pyre. Their desperate battle against a foe they had no business encountering all coming back in a wave of guilt and nausea.

  He hadn’t ever gotten along with Hue… not really… but remembering the way he died…

  Markus shook himself, fingers that were already bzing with the subconscious beginnings of a fireball simply fizzling out as he ground his teeth, staring at the yipping goblins as they worked themselves into a small frenzy.

  “Fuck… what am I even doing?”

  A beat ter, his fingers were instead coated with frost, nearly a dozen pinky-sized shards of ice suddenly springing into motion as they peppered two of the goblins with brutal frozen slivers.

  One outright died as a shard passed through its eye socket; the other simply dropped, wheezing as several projectiles successfully perforated its lungs.

  The third and fourth had a moment to peer at their fallen comrades before, without rhyme or reason, they abruptly reset.

  Suddenly, it was as if neither had ever seen him, or even cared that two of their number were lying on the ground, one dying, the other dead.

  Not for the first time, Markus gazed upon the bizarre sight with a stretched frown, unsure if it was the dungeon that was broken, or him, or maybe something else.

  Despite there being no sport in it, Markus quickly dispatched the others, his fingers sending more ice their way in a barrage of two more spells.

  The magic shredded the green bodies with ruthless dispassion, wet thwacks of blood interspersed with the crunch of icicles as they crumbled against stone, accented only by the rasp of breaths and keening wails that followed.

  Thankfully, ice spells were fairly cheap in dark and damp caves, as the environment was rather suited for the magic to manifest. They weren't strong in any sense of the word, but the spell was perfect for chaff and was quickly becoming a personal favorite in his repertoire.

  Fireball was still his most aggressive spell, but ever since that day, fmes had been an iffy prospect for him.

  He’d used the magic since his team’s demise, but watching the goblins burn while still alive sort of rattled him whenever he imparted incinerating death upon the tiny creatures.

  Granted, slivers of ice filling them with holes couldn’t be pleasant, but at least those didn’t cause his mind to fsh back to Hueburt’s dancing form as it charred and crisped, filing arms slowing bit by bit until he’d simply curled up in a ball and stopped moving...

  Again, Markus had to shake his head, spping his face with cold fingers in an attempt to dislodge the gruesome images of his coworkers as they’d all in sin, still in their silence.

  Part of him thought himself an absolute loon for coming back in here.

  Part of him questioned his sanity for not just willingly seeking out the monster that had done the deed...

  But, admittedly, he fantasized about her each and every night since. All his private hours were spent with pictures of her face in his head.

  It was like she’d mind-fucked him or something! The sheer number of moments within a day where his heart raced with thoughts of her boisterous ughter caused his chest to tighten and his hands to flex as he tried to parse why he was acting so strangely!

  Was this what love was?

  This irrational, confusing, awkward, frustrating, and omnipresent emotional shitshow that was forever living rent-free in his head?

  He hated it!

  And yet, at the same time, he craved it, hungered after it like a desperate man or a starving orphan eyeing the stale bread chucked into dumpsters by the local baker.

  With a shiver, Markus roused himself, clearing his throat as he walked over to the defeated goblins to cim their cores.

  He didn’t even bother to see what, if anything, they might have on them, simply stepping over their corpses as he idly considered the next chamber.

  Urk’s chamber.

  Silently, Markus stared through the moderate gloom, eyeing the whispering shadows cast by a slow transition to bluish-purple fmes as one got closer to the dungeon’s resident goblin shaman.

  As far as bosses went, Urk wasn’t anything special. As the technical first boss of the dungeon, his capabilities reflected that.

  The only magic he was aware the goblin possessed was a sort of curse that made one clumsy, though he supposed the slight miasma that could induce coughing and slight irritation to the eyes, as though someone was cutting a fresh onion, could be counted among his skills.

  For the most part, it was the shaman’s guards that could be a nuisance, the trio of them proving quite deadly for any newcomers not expecting to be debilitated.

  Sure, such things were clearly stated in the guidebook, but Markus could count on one hand, all the people he personally knew who’d actually read the thing past the first dozen pages.

  With narrowing eyes, he began walking toward the encampment, frost already forming over his hand and staff, his gaze fixated on the creature he intended to sy before it even had a chance.

  Then, without warning, the entire dungeon began to shiver!

  Rocks crumbled from the ceiling, the ground quaked and toppled him to his knees! The entire cavern seemed to grind as though pressed against a tectonic pte as madness ensued all around him!