Bel beams and waves as Verve arrives at the dungeon entrance. "Youmade it!" she calls, and snatches him up in a hug. He rexes againsther. "Lils is busy so she misses out."

  "That sucks," Verve says, returning Bel's squeeze. "Tell him I say 'hi.'"

  "Nope!" Bel chirps. "PM her, she'll be thrilled."

  Verve ughs. "Fine."

  Bel releases him and gestures at Sasd. "This is Sasd. Sassy, Verve. Verve, Sassy."

  Sasd sticks their hand out. Or, rather, paw out. "Sasd," they say.

  Verve blinks. In the videos Verve watched, Sasd pyed a six-foot tallmuscle man. The person standing in front of him is a four-foot tallbrown mouse.

  Verve takes the paw. He shakes.

  Sasdchuckles. "This is my alt. One of them, anyway. Can't go around with mymain all the time or I'd never get anything done."

  Verve nods, slowly.

  "Do you have alts?" he asks Bel.

  "Nope, Lils made me promise to get sponsors with this account first."

  "And who are you?" Sasd asks her. "You're familiar but…" They trail off.

  Bel grins. "Mysterious and adorable!" she says and strikes a pose.

  "I see," Sasd says, amused. "You sure we can do this with three people?"

  "Totes," Bel says. "You watched my vid, right? Only me and Lils did shit andwe got her down to the lightning trigger. Vervie has a whole new kit now and destroyed everyone at the guild yesterday, so he's taking Lily'spce. You're on healing."

  "We don't have a tank?" Verve yelps, significantly less chill than he'd like to be.

  "Don't need one," Bel says.

  "But—" Verve starts to say.

  "Lils wasn't doing the tank thing for most of the fight st time," Belexpins. "And the Knight barely scratched you in the second half. I'llbe offence, too, so she'll have us to ping-pong between and Sassy canheal any damage we eat." Bel grins. "Besides, we just need to get herto the trigger and prove I can beat it."

  "Still not sure I believe you," Sasd says. Their whiskers twitch.

  The three of them step into the dungeon.

  "Clear the way, Vervie!" Bel orders. "He needs the experience," she tells Sasd.

  "Can you send me some of your recordings?" Verve asks Bel as he takes outthe first mob. Bel appuds. Verve shoots her a look, beforecontinuing. "I think I could almost see it in some of the vids I watched, but without the full thing…" He trails off.

  "You were in her vid, weren't you?" Sasd says.

  Verve nods. "Yeah. So I can vouch for her knowing when the lightning iscoming. Oh, uh, I'm Verve," he says, realising that he never introducedhimself.

  Sasd pauses, frowning. "Your status is off," they say, implying they want — but not asking for — an expnation.

  Verve gnces at Bel. Bel shakes her head. "Secret," Verve says, fshing a grin back at her. "But I'm level fifteen," he says to Sasd. Hestabs the st of the monsters before the stairs. "Make that sixteen,"he amends as he gets a level up notification.

  "Turn them on for the Mega Knight," Sasd says. "So I know when to heal you."

  Sasd probably thinks he and Bel are weirdos. But they aren't running around as rodents.

  "Weeeeak," Bel says. "The healer you get us better not need handicaps."

  Sasd frowns. Verve didn't know mice could do that. "Noted," they say.

  "You're finding us a healer?" Verve asks.

  "Yep!" Bel says. "That's the trade. I get Sassy past the lightning, Sassy gets us a healer."

  "Most people would want the screen time," Sasd says, wryly.

  "Most people don't have screen recording," Bel points out.

  "Which you use to share videos with… how many followers?" Sasd returns, face expressionless but a twinkle in their eyes.

  "Four!" Bel chirps. "And you are one of them. Don't think I didn't recognise that handle."

  Sasd turns what was probably a ugh into a cough. "Focus," they say and fling buffs at Verve.

  *

  Sasd can't pin down who Beldonna is.

  They've run through every woman they knew in Necroshock and she doesn't seem like any of them. But she's familiar.

  They're sure she pyed Necroshock. No one who started with World Vector couldpin down the values of the Mega Knight's hits like she had. Not withouttaking more than a day to put the video up, at least.

  With how she cut her voice out of her videos, they'd thought they'd know her as soon as she spoke. But either she's modded her voice between the video andnow or they never encountered her.

  Except she's too good!

  She has to be a top pyer. And they know all the top pyers. But, again, they would remember someone as obnoxious as her.

  They have to find her a healer. A void healer! A healer aligned with the death goddess.

  They had thought she was yanking their chain, ciming there was a visualcue before the lightning. But then she'd put up her video. And yeah,Sasd had absolutely thought it was a weird gag. But she brought along this guy today and he's good. Inexperienced, definitely. But he's getting better, and adjustedinstantly to Sasd's buffs. And he didn't hesitate when he confirmedshe could do it.

  That she found someone with so much promise is more proof she knows her stuff.

  They're still puzzling over who she could be as the gate to the boss chamber cngs down behind them.

  They buff Bel as well as Verve.

  Verve calls, "Thanks," with a grin and dashes towards the Knight. Bel got that right, too — he is a total sweetie.

  Sasd takes a position behind one of the pilrs, keeping time in their headand listening for the other two eating shit or the Knight coming towards their pilr.

  Only when they need to reapply the buffs do theystick their head out from behind the stone. They cast the spells andrisk watching how Bel and Verve handle the Knight, for a few secondsat least.

  Verve is good. Bel is better.

  After they catchBel using her spear on the Knight's foot to shove herself away, Sasd pulls back behind the pilr. The best spear-user Sasd called in toface Mega Knight had bitched to them afterwards about the marble floor,since it stopped him from using his usual cheesy movement shortcuts.

  The next time Sasd reapplies the buffs, they see Verve push himself offthe Knight with his spear, just like Bel had. Like it was easy.

  Not long after that, Bel yells, "Back, back, back! It's coming."

  Sasd pushes off the pilr and dashes to the wall.

  As Sasd puts one paw on the stone, Verve collides with the wall a fewmetres away. Bel bounces after him like she has all the time in theworld. She spins to watch lightning consume the field.

  They can't believe it.

  Before this, they'd dabbled with the idea that it was a matter of getting HPand void defence high enough that the lightning left you alive to healup, or getting strong enough to beat the Knight before it triggered. But every time they thought they'd worked it out, it was like the Knight knew they thought that, and vaporised the field. They'd even tried cheesingit by splitting the party in half. One half attacking, the othersticking to the sides, since the lightning didn't reach the edges.Except it did whenever they tried that approach.

  "What now?" Beldonna chirps, one hand on her hip, the other spinning her spear over her hand.

  "We should beat it," Verve says like he's stating the obvious.

  Sasd nods. "What was your spoiler note?" they ask. When they didn't know ifBel was legit or not, they hadn't stopped to wonder what it could be,but now they're curious.

  Bel hums. "I think I need more than just a healer from you for that," she says.

  The Knight stays at the ready in the middle of the room.

  Sasd snorts. "Is it something it's possible to work out without you telling me?" they ask.

  "No," Verve says, at the same time as Bel says, "Sure."

  "You'd have to be her," Verve expins, a touch of exasperation in his tone. "She thinks the light is easy to spot."

  The Knight begins to move.

  Sasd grits their teeth — a curious sensation with rodent dental structure."Fine. We'll discuss what you get afterwards." They're pretty sureshe'll make them pay out the nose.

  She grins. "Don't use anything but fire and physical."

  "Unless you've got an earth Ultimate," Verve adds.

  "That fighter used water," Sasd says, thinking back to Bel's video.

  She nods and skips towards the Knight. "And most likely that wipe is inescapable. Once we can really y on the damage, there might be anachievement for triggering it, then bursting her down. But she probsrecovers a bunch of health when it triggers, so we can't count ongetting her to a sliver, spshing her, then tapping her out."

  "Bet it's when she eats the pyer," Verve says between attacks. "That she recovers the health."

  "Probably," Bel chirps.

  Neither of them lets up their assault. Sasd buffs them.

  Now they're past the lightning, the Knight's attack patterns change. Itstarts using the cws of its other hand to ssh in its blind spot, and lightning crackles from its fingers. The lightning clips Verve. Half of his HP vanishes.

  He doesn't falter.

  Sasd lights him up, bringing his HP to just under full.

  The Knight locks its gaze on Sasd.

  "Watch out!" Verve and Bel say at the same time.

  Sasd spins to the side, behind the pilr. Streams of purple lightning crackle past.

  Bel fires off three fireballs in quick succession. "Over here, darling," she calls.

  "We're getting there," Verve says, shooting fire of his own.

  Frowning, Sasd pokes their head out from behind the pilr.

  Lightning spills from every seam in the Knight's armour. Bel and Verve dart inand out of it. They nd one hit, then dash back as the other dashes in. Every move loses a small chunk of their HP to the electricity.

  Sasd heals them.

  "Back!" Bel yells. Before she's finished the word, Verve calls, "Light changed!"

  Sasd retreats.

  The Mega Knight screams.

  Sasd cps his paws over his ears. The sound doesn't care. It stabs straight into his brain.

  Verve drops to one knee, his spear cttering to the floor as he covers hisears, too. Bel holds her spear ready. Her shoulders heave but shedoesn't try to block the sound.

  Their HP bars trickle lower.

  "There's a drain effect," Sasd says, though they can't hear themself over the scream.

  Bel pushes off. She sprints at the Knight. The lightning surges. Her HP drops faster, but she doesn't die.

  Sasd heals her. They heal her again. And again.

  She reaches the Knight.

  The Knight doesn't attack her, but its helmet twists to face her.

  The scream continues.

  Bel jumps.

  For a moment, she's suspended in the air, her spear ready, the lightning surrounding her. She glows purple.

  The Knight's visor lifts.

  Bel stabs.

  *

  The annoying thing — the really, very, intensely annoying thing — is that Lex is horny. Again. And it's not sexy, or fun, or anything that he likes to be when horny.

  After seeing Northly, for ck of a better word, become an NPC, Lex couldn't ask Sage to go on auto and keep him company. Asmuch as he knows it's different because Sage is a person and Northly is a character, seeing Sage act like a character — like an NPC — would set his teeth on edge. He wants to cling to Sage, not some NPC who looks like Sage.

  So, he's horny and Sage had to leave him. They stayed as long as theycould, but he wouldn't let them call in sick to work. As tempting as itwas, he's not in danger. Just lonely. And horny.

  He cps hishands on his thighs and stands. One upside to his dick shrinking is it's now difficult to tell when he has an erection. And his boobs are cute.

  He looks stupid. But they are cute.

  "I really like them," he says, quietly, to his cleavage. Sage might have a point, saying he's not cis. Though it still feels different. It's likehe used the wrong hair dye but likes the colour better than what hechose. Except the colour is tits.

  What he needs is: a distraction. To that end, he makes his way to the adventurers' guild. A harriedlooking person with a pair of curled horns jerks their head up as Lexenters.

  "Hi, I'm Lex," he begins.

  They cluck their tongue."Only newcomer parties at the moment. Newcomers won't party with you,"they say and return their attention to their stack of papers.

  Lex blinks. "Why not?"

  "Newcomers party with newcomers. They don't like us ordinary folk. Not when there's plenty of them about."

  He never turned his status back on, he realises. Tentatively, he asks,"And there isn't anyone like us wanting to do some dungeon runstonight?"

  The staff member raises their head to narrow their eyes at Lex. They're yellow.

  "I'm new to adventuring," he says. "Sorry, if I said something stupid."

  "That was newcomer talk," they say. "No one but them folk treat putting your life on the line so casual."

  Lex nods. "Sorry. Was some of them who thought I should try it, actually. I just want to get some experience, so I can take a hit while calling for help."

  He thinks he did an okay job covering his mistake, but the staff member's frown deepens. "Best be careful chatting with them.They're weird folk. They talk of death as if Vuide will refuse thementry to the void should they find themselves at its precipice."

  Lex nods. "They can vanish, too. And go somewhere that isn't this world."

  The staff member nods in return. "What's your level, ss? I can see about finding you an area that matches your skills."

  The door to the guild sms open before Lex can respond.

  "Welcome back, Newcomer Triceratops," the staff member says to the catfolkperson who enters. With one hand on each tusk, she drags a boar twice as wide as the door frame behind her. She heaves. It slides a footforwards. Its massive shoulders reach the entrance. She heaves again. It moves scant centimetres. Its coarse hair rubs against the doorway. Shedrops it.

  Her name is Triceratops.

  Now the boar isfirmly wedged in the entrance, she approaches the counter where Lex is.She stands two steps behind him. She waits patiently. A smear of bloodruns from her hairline to her cheek. She's taller than him.

  "Go ahead," Lex tells her, stepping aside.

  She nods and steps forward.

  "I finished my quest," she says.

  "As I have told you before, you do not need to present your evidence to the desk. Please take it to the processing area in the back."

  Triceratops nods.

  "Tell me you understand," the staff member says, eyes narrowing.

  "I understand," she says.

  "Well, you said that the st time," they say and shake their head. Theyscribble some notes on a form which they then tuck into a box to theside of their desk. They pce a handful of coins into a small dish andslide it over to Triceratops.

  "Thanks," she says, and collects the coins. "I would like another quest, please?"

  The staff member brightens up. "I have just the thing," they say and turnto retrieve another form. "No monster remains required," they mutter asthey leaf through the stack of paper. "Here you go." They sp the formonto the counter and scrawl the details down. "You are to work with Lexand assist her in raising her level. Is that acceptable?" they ask Lex.

  "Uh, yeah," Lex says. "Absolutely. Is that okay though? I'm not even registered as an adventurer."

  "I will make it okay," says the staff member, perhaps more forcefully than they intended. "Raise her to level twelve. Do not do anythingdangerous. Do not bring monsters to the city. Do not pce her in harm's way. Do not cause disruption when you return."

  Triceratops nods. "I understand." To Lex, she says, "I am Triceratops. Call me Trice." She's level seventeen.

  She doesn't smile, but Lex does as he says, "Lex, pleased to meet you."

  She nods, and steps towards the blocked entrance.

  "Can't you just—" Lex begins as she raises a boot. She kicks. The boar shootsacross the street. "Put it in your inventory," he finishes. If shelistened, Lex can't detect any sign of it.

  "Though her manners leave something to be desired, she has yet to fail a quest," the staff member says.

  "Thank you, for looking out for me," Lex says, trying to convey his sincerity. "What's your name?"

  "Jade," they say.

  "Nice to meet you, Jade," Lex says, and waves as he hurries after Trice.

  *

  Trice moves like a predator. Lex can't put a finger on exactly what it is,but something about how her hips and shoulders move makes it clear thatshe is the top of the food chain.

  But her ears and tail look soft.

  "I like your voice," Trice says, breaking the silence the two of them had fallen into.

  "Thanks," Lex says, flushing.

  "It's rumbly," she says.

  "I haven't started training it yet," falls out of Lex's mouth before hecan really consider whether that's something he should mention.

  But Trice only says, "I like it."

  "It doesn't really suit me any more," Lex mumbles towards his cleavage.

  For the first time, she slows, and looks at him properly. Her eyes lingeron his chest, before rising to meet his. "You don't like it?"

  He shrugs. "I want it to suit me," he says, nearly whispering.

  She nods, looking through him.

  "I think it suits you. Lots would suit you," she says.

  Lex smiles weakly. "Thanks."

  They continue, making way once more in silence. Trice keeps watch betterthan Lex, her feline eyes perhaps more sensitive to movement and herears more sensitive to sound.

  She comes to a halt as they stepinto a small meadow, covered in grass that reaches the middle of Lex'scalves. Thin animal tracks weave through it and back into the forest,dipping towards rge thistle bushes on their way. Lex nearly walks into her.

  "Here's good," she says, and equips the rgest axe Lex hasever seen. Its head is the size of Trice's torso. Its handle more like a pole weapon than melee.

  "Here?" he asks. "What's he—"

  He doesn't get to finish the question.

  Trice blows into a whistle, looped around her wrist on a string. A rattle like a hellish maraca sounds.

  From the shadows at the edge of the clearing, a dozen eyes catch the light.As his eyes adjust, Lex realises they belong to giant boars.

  "Fight, please," Trice says and unches herself at them.

  The boars erupt into the grass. Their hooves send clumps into the air as they gallop to meet her.

  They're huge. The one that Trice had dragged into the guild must have been thesame size, but — on its side and dead — it didn't have the gravitas that these do.

  Lex equips his sword.

  *

  Lex realises he messed up as he pulls his sword out from behind the firstboar's fore-leg. He was already turned on. But now… A level upnotification pings, and another, and another. With each one, a wave ofarousal surges. Now, he's really turned on.

  He grits his teeth and turns to face the next boar.

  It charges.

  Lex lurches out of the way, off bance and ungraceful, only just keeping his sword in his hand.

  The boar's tusks gouge the defeated boar's side as it sms into it. Thebeast squeals and shakes its head, desperate to free itself, but onetusk catches on the inside of the pig's hide. The boar bucks and tossesits head. A strip of skin pulls up from the flesh of the dead boar. Onefoot of meat is revealed, then two, until the writhing boar hits on theright angle and its tusk slips free.

  Lex swallows, all too aware that his soft, human skin would tear like paper compared to the thick, boar hide.

  It's just a game, he reminds himself. I can't actually die. Not unless that's a fun bonus BOUND BY THE VOID grants him.

  Lex jabs at the boar's eye. The point misses, gncing off the animal's hard skull. It leaves a thin red line but nothing more. Shoot.

  "I don't know that I can handle this," he calls to Trice.

  He's been so busy dealing with the animals targeting him, he has no idea how she's fared.

  The boar charges him again.

  He shoves his sword between him and the boar. Its tusk gnces off theft of the bde. He imagines he can smell its breath. He imagines thetusk skewering him. He imagines smiling as it crunches his bones between its—

  Trice's axe strikes downward. She cleaves it from above,then stands on its shoulders and brings her weapon down again. The boarbuckles. She hops down beside Lex.

  A level up notification pings.

  Lex buckles, just like the boar did. But he's still alive. The boar isn't. He's alive. Still alive.

  Northly isn't.

  He's crying again, he realises. Messy and sweaty, in a field filled with carcasses the size of SUVs, he sobs.

  Trice pces a hand on his shoulder. She rubs in a small circle. Lex fallsonto her, pulling her close. His chest heaves as he struggles to get air into his lungs.

  And through it, he's still horny.

  His sobbing evens out, his breaths calm, and he slowly releases Trice.

  She watches him.

  "You were really cool, killing those boars," he says, voice raw and even less like how he wants to sound.

  A tiny smile rises to her lips. "You got one," she says.

  He snorts. "You got five."

  "Had practise," she points out. She pauses. She watches him. The pink tip of her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip. "I can smell you," she says, simply.

  Heat floods his face, still red from crying.

  "Sorry," he all but squeaks.

  "I can help," she says.

  He studies her eyes, trying to find in them what, exactly, she means by that.

  She means exactly what she said.

  He remembers Sage, telling him not to come. He shakes his head.

  "Later." He swallows. "I need to get permission first."

  She nods, like that's no surprise at all. "Later," she repeats, and blows into her whistle again.