Bren shot up at the sound and followed the movement into a deep bow. “Forgive us, my lady. As you said, we are merely tired and ill from walking in the wasteland. We truly need your help. Please continue. I’ll clean this mess. Ayn? Please get our guest, and yourself, a new cup of tea.”

  A set of complicated expressions flashed by on Irdli’s face. Much like with the fisherman, it seemed they’d hit an odd hitch in her programmed reactions, and she needed a minute to gather information from The System.

  Normally, Ayn would have taken the opportunity to stab her. She was obviously trying to kill them, although doing it through tea and bad jokes was a new one for Ayn. Regardless, the NRC seemed intent on doing its duty through non-violent means. That meant they might be able to defeat her without violence, and as much as Ayn liked to stab things, her party’s desperate lack of heals made the non-violent route a lot more palatable.

  Ayn moved over to the little kitchen area. Small counters lined two walls, and a washbasin sat in the corner. More cups lined one counter, with the teapot in front, while neatly placed glass jars full of unlabeled dried herbs lined the other. At the back of the kitchen stood a narrow, and rather plain, wooden door Ayn hadn’t been able to see from her chair.

  Irdli finished thinking. She rattled off jokes and puns, each one somehow worse than the last. It seemed her meeting with The System hadn’t given her much. With each failed delivery, the looks on the party’s faces soured further, and Irdli’s expression darkened. By the time Ayn returned with two fresh cups of tea, Irdli more resembled a wolf-man ready to tear out someone’s throat than the flawless hostess who had greeted them.

  Ayn held out a cup to Irdli, who promptly smacked it out of her hand. It crashed onto the floor, further dirtying the spot Bren had attempted to clean.

  “Wait!” Kayara yelled enthusiastically, taking her turn to jump out of her seat, hopping over the laid-out wolverine as she did so. “I have a better idea. Let’s take turns!”

  Irdli bared her teeth. “Do you think you’re better than me?”

  “Oh no. Absolutely not. But sometimes the audience is too tired to enjoy true art. They need to be eased into it by experiencing something simpler first.”

  “Simpler?” Irdli narrowed her eyes, but some of the tension bled out of her as she leaned back.

  “Yes. And dare I say, bad. A bit of bad entertainment helps prime the audience for the true artist. It’s easier to show than explain. May I?”

  “Fine. But only you, and if your grand idea doesn’t work, you’ll all regret taking advantage of my kindness.”

  Ayn swallowed a scoff. She doubted kindness was what the NRC was worried about. She had no idea what Kayara had planned, but the ranger seemed giddy about it. Whatever it was, Ayn hoped it worked, or they’d see the unkind side of the NRC. Ayn returned to her seat.

  “Get on with it,” Irdli said.

  Kayara nodded, then, with a straight face, said, “What does a sprinter eat before a race?”

  She paused. Irdli leaned in with anticipation.

  “Nothing. They fast!”

  Ayn sighed. Getting attacked was looking better and better.

  Irdli went still, her emerald eyes unfocusing as she processed Kayara’s joke.

  Ayn’s hands dropped to her weapons, every muscle tensed. She almost stabbed Irdli when the NRC burst out laughing.

  The effect was immediate.

  Irdli’s unblemished skin wrinkled and cracked, shriveling in on itself like drying fruit in a time lapse. White and silver turned to gray and black, yet still she continued to laugh. When the shriveling reached her face, Ayn looked away.

  Within a minute, Irdli’s manic laughter faded, leaving only the crackle of the fire.

  IRDLI DEFEATED

  DUNGEON FLOOR FOUR CLEARED

  PARTY WILL BE TELEPORTED FROM THE DUNGEON IN TWO MINUTES

  “What. The. Hell,” Bren said, eyes wide and locked on to the mummified remains of their host.

  Kayara laughed, and Ayn flinched at the sound. Unlike Irdli, she stayed hale and whole.

  “The herbs gave it away,” Kayara said. “Calming, and they leave you open to, let’s say, mirth.”

  “They make you laugh?” Ayn asked.

  “At just about anything. Great for pranks…or mummifying, it seems, if you happen to have a soul-sucking mob reliant on laughter nearby.”

  Kayara continued her explanation of how she deduced the boss’s weakness, but Ayn quit listening. She ran over to the little wooden door at the back of the kitchen. Like so many things she did, it was on impulse, and she regretted it as soon as she swung the door open. Piles of mummified bodies filled the back room, each with an unnatural smile frozen on their face.

  *****

  There was just enough time left for the image of Irdli’s victims to burn itself into Ayn’s brain before they teleported out.

  Ayn now slumped, despondent, in her chair inside the Crawler’s Guild. Her party members had noticed the look on her face. It must have been pretty bad, because all of them ushered her into the guild and refused to leave until she told them what she’d seen.

  She felt dumb explaining it. The System wasn’t averse to horror themed floors. Each one was designed to be beaten, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t scare you in the process.

  The sky floor and farm mobs proved that already. Besides, Ayn knew those bodies weren’t real. They weren’t even Rebirths. Just decorations. Yet the sight burrowed into her mind and amplified all the memories of actual deaths and injuries she’d been reliving.

  “It’s fine, really,” she said. “I’m just being dumb. Not like I haven’t seen worse.”

  “Well, I’d say that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Kayara said.

  The ranger scooted close, eyes glued to Ayn. Ayn couldn’t tell if Kayara’s intense interest was because of concern for her, or for the wolverine who’d teleported out of floor four alongside them and now lay flat under the table. More than a few heads had turned when they’d walked in with the toothy carpet, and Ayn realized that in Cristak at least, pet classes were rare.

  Most adventurers aimed for the solid one-trick classes over the hybrids. A knight was great at blocking, after all. A ranger might be, if they had a tank pet, or they could be damage dealers, or healers. They could be many things, but they excelled at none. Typically. Kayara wasn’t typical. It wouldn’t surprise Ayn if she excelled in whatever she wanted to.

  Right now, Kayara was excelling at prying.

  “I’m hardly the only one with bad experiences,” Ayn said. she flicked open her character screen. “Let’s just see what we got, okay?”

  She’d tried to say is nicely, but it still came out exasperated. Kayara’s concern, if that’s what it was, was touching. She just needed distraction more than dwelling.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Considering all the traps they fell for on the last floor, Ayn wasn’t at all surprised.

  Beside her, Kayara sighed and opened her own screen, then sighed louder. “I think anyone can guess what I got.”

  “Congratulations on your animal companion,” Bren said with a gleam in his eye. “It’s quite a good match. Aggressive, snaps a lot, sme—”

  “I wouldn’t finish that sentence, Choir Boy.”

  Bren cleared his throat. “Yes. Well, I unlocked the next tier of fire and earth sphere spells, as well as a decrease in their mana costs.”

  Ayn shut off her screen. She was far more interested in Bren’s new skills than leveling. “What new spells do you have?”

  “Cone of Fire and Summon Boulder.”

  Ayn nodded, her mind working on ways the new spells would give them an advantage in battle. The two attack spells sounded bigger and meaner than the simple fireball Bren had been slinging, but they also sounded more cumbersome. While there was no friendly fire in the Dungeon, a large boulder rolling into one of them would cause problems.

  “You’ll have to be careful when casting those,” Ayn said.

  “Timing is of the utmost importance. Good thing I’m a musician, then.”

  Bren grinned, and Ayn grinned back, feeling some of her tension and dread drain away.

  “Sheyric?” she asked.

  The healer, of course, wouldn’t say anything unless prodded, and especially wouldn’t now, as he was too busy petting the wolverine with the edge of his cloth boot.

  Sheyric flicked open his character screen for a second, then went back to what he was doing. “Party heal.”

  “Ha!” Bren slapped the table, eliciting a growl from the wolverine. “Fortunate for us.”

  The rest of them didn’t share his enthusiasm. A party-wide heal was great, but no one had realized until they’d finished the floor that they’d only completed one of their randomized quests. On top of the fact they’d received just a bit of gold from a chest and some metals, their supplies for the next floor would be worse than their last.

  Bren withdrew his hand and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The oppressive air over their table thickened. Ayn was about to tell her party to leave when the guild’s door banged open. A pretty boy with sleek black hair and porcelain skin strutted in, the curves of his white and gold knight’s armor accentuating his athletic build. His eyes swept the room and locked onto their table.

  Ayn shrank back as he came closer. Arlen. Another of the Crafter Guild’s favorites. While he’d been too young at the time for Neu’s gang to steal from directly, they’d stolen plenty from his parents.

  Arlen stopped at the edge of their table and snickered. Kayara’s eyes narrowed at the newcomer.

  “I’d heard you had to reach to get a party, Bren,” he said. His voice was smooth and laced with poison. “But I didn’t realize you’d scraped the bottom of the barrel.”

  Ayn’s trepidation ignited. She was on her feet in an instant, Kayara shooting up almost in tandem.

  “Don’t.” Bren held out a hand toward them. “He thrives on creating unnecessary conflict. Isn’t that right?”

  Arlen scoffed. “And rubbing elbows with trash has made you forget how to speak properly. Good thing Moira won’t have to suffer you as her husband.”

  Bren’s face darkened as he shot up, his prior advice forgotten. “This trash has saved my life far more times than you ever will and will stick by me far longer than those you’ve bribed to help you Crawl.”

  “But I don’t need them to stick around, do I? All I need are results. What floor have you got to? With such blustering, it must be floor ten or higher. After all, I and my bribed companions have already completed floor seven.”

  The color drained from Bren’s face. Arlen watched him grow pale with a grin. “I guess that’s a no on floor ten. Surely, you’ve at least completed floor six? Come now, Bren. You mustn’t make this too easy.”

  “Bugger off.” Kayara growled the words. Rumbling from under the table backed her up.

  The retort Arlen had turned into a yelp as a wolverine poked its head out from beneath their table and snapped at his lower half. He leaped back in time to avoid getting clipped by the wolverine’s sharp teeth.

  Arlen’s porcelain skin went an odd shade of purple. “How dare you attack me!” He jabbed a finger at Kayara. “I’ll contact the admins. I’ll have you banned!”

  Kayara shrugged. “For what? Getting you to stop harassing us? I don’t see you bleeding yet.”

  “You—”

  The wolverine’s roar cut the rest of his words off. He paled almost to the point of being translucent, then scuttled out the door with far less grace than he’d entered.

  “Jackass rich boy,” Kayara muttered as she slammed back into her seat.

  Ayn watched her, caught between the amazement of the ranger’s social fearlessness, and the questions building in her mind.

  “Sorry about that,” Bren said. He sat down with a sigh and ran his hands over his face. “I owe all of you an explanation.”

  “Hardly,” Kayara said.

  Bren looked confused, and when Kayara didn’t elaborate, Ayn tried to pick up her train of thought.

  “You’ve been a great party member,” Ayn said. “Whatever personal affairs you have aren’t our business as long as it doesn’t affect our Crawls.” She felt really dumb saying that, considering all of her personal stuff was affecting their Crawls, but it was the truth, anyway. “You don’t have to tell us what you don’t want to.”

  “But it is affecting me, and I need to tell you regardless of my wants. I should have told you at the start, but I…I was afraid if you knew who I was up against, you’d refuse, like everyone else.”

  The familiarity of the phrase stung. Ayn eased back into her seat. “Okay. Yeah. I’m listening.”

  Bren nodded and straightened up in his chair like a teacher about to give a lecture. “Ayn, you already know, and Kayara…you might know as well, but I’ll say it, anyway. There’s only one crafting guild in Cristak. It controls all higher-level crafting, and it’s the only one around for days of travel.”

  Ayn frowned. Cristak was originally built as a simple outpost for adventurers to rest at as they traveled between cities. The forest surrounding Cristak had been planted by hand over many years after the swamp was diverted away. One only had to get a few miles away from town before the swamp and its dangers came back full force. Her desire to leave had outstripped any fear of those dangers in previous years, yet those incoming had to either be competent combatants or have an escort. Most chose to simply go around the swamp, and the slow trickle of visitors further stymied Cristak’s growth, especially for the poorer among them.

  “The Crafting Guild leaders are the heads of three families,” Bren continued. “Mine, Arlen’s, and Moira’s.”

  “Moira’s the important one, isn’t she?” Kayara asked.

  “Uh…yes. It was rather obvious, wasn’t it?”

  “Quite. But don’t let me steal your thunder. Tell us.”

  “Right.” Bren shifted in his chair. “Arlen, Moira and I learned together, played together. All three of us were close, but things changed, and…”

  “One of you became the third wheel.”

  “Moira proposed to me,” Bren blurted out.

  Kayara raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest as if trying to solve a mystery.

  Ayn had a question of her own. “Arlen said Moira wasn’t marrying you.”

  Bren’s expression darkened. “Arlen took exception to Moira’s choice. He twisted the truth and told our parents, saying I’d seduced Moira for the sole purpose of consolidating power. Two families would become one, and that family would control a full two-thirds of the guild.”

  “They believed him?”

  “No one with that much power believes anyone,” Kayara said.

  Bren sighed. “I don’t know. The whole thing caused a falling out between our families. Everyone had lied; everyone was suddenly planning a takeover. The heads put their foot down by setting a trial for Arlen and I. Whomever completed it first would win Moira’s hand.”

  “Win. Moira’s. Hand. Wow.” Kayara shook her head. “Leave it to the rich to treat people like things. Didn’t Moira have something to say about this?”

  “Of course. But I’d ‘seduced’ her. Her word couldn’t be trusted any more than ours.”

  “And you’re too scared to hack it on your own.”

  “Kayara.” Ayn frowned at the ranger.

  “She’s not wrong,” Bren said. “At least for me. Moira wanted me to leave with her. Start over.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Our families would disown us. No money. The Crafting Guild would make sure we had no escort out, no place in Cristak, and if we got out, they’d sow false accusations about us in the cities. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  Ayn matched Kayara’s grimace. Threats and coercion. Do this or be outcast and miserable your entire character’s life. End it, and lose everything you wanted, anyway. The longer Ayn lived in Cristak, the more she understood Neu’s methods.

  Her breath caught in her throat. No. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, go there. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t help Bren. “So, what’s the trial?”

  “We have to reach floor fifty. First to clear it wins.”

  Kayara scoffed. “Fifty? And that braggart came in here crowing about finishing floor seven? Must be a slow day. Or he’s just slow.”

  “It’s still a lead.”

  “Floors get harder,” Sheyric muttered.

  Kayara raised an eyebrow at their hooded party member, who slumped back in his seat. The wolverine had settled behind Kayara’s chair, leaving him nothing to pet.

  “You don’t think we can catch up?” Kayara asked, no small amount of annoyance in her voice.

  “It’ll help us catch up,” Ayn said. She’d had a surge of annoyance at the healer as well until she’d connected the dots. “If Arlen’s party is ahead of us, they’ll hit a wall faster.”

  Bren leaned forward, intent on Ayn’s next words. “What do you mean?”

  “We can clear floors back-to-back right now, but at some point, our supplies won’t keep up with what the Dungeon alone can provide.” Ayn purposefully left out how they were probably already there and plunged ahead. “When that happens, we have to step back, do some quests for Rebirths, or commission equipment and items, then wait for them to be made. Arlen’s party will have to do the same.”

  Ayn also left out how she’d be the last pick for any Rebirth’s quests in Cristak, and how she had no way of leaving to find outside ones. Technically, her party could travel without her, after all.

  She could feel eyes boring into her, and a quick glance confirmed it was Kayara. Guilt surged up. Was her plan really that obviously flimsy?

  “I can find some of those quests,” Kayara said, her eyes not leaving Ayn.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re thinking about how the local sods won’t give you the time of day, right? I can find us some work, but it will take time.”

  Bren’s face lit up. “I can, too. It wouldn’t even take that long. The trial rules say we can’t get family help, but they want me to win, after all. I’d dismissed their help because of the rules, but...”

  “Nepotism at its finest,” Kayara said. “Does it make it better when it’s in our favor?”

  “Arlen’s using all of his connections, I assure you,” Bren said. “Besides, when it comes to the three heads of Cristak’s Crafting Guild, my family is last. Arlen’s family is exerting all of their influence to help him, and to keep my family in check. They’ll still slip me some low-level quests, if I ask, but it won’t be the same caliber as Arlen’s, and if they’re found out, it could be trouble.”

  Kayara shrugged. “Well, I do love trouble, especially when it involves stirring it up among rich bastards. For now, though, I think a bit of rest is in order. Are you going to be all right?” Her eyes went back to boring into Ayn.

  “Fine. Go.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Hey!” Kayara rattled her seat around, startling a growl out of the brown and black carpet that had fallen asleep behind her. “I need to get up, fuzzball. Move it!”

  The wolverine did so with far less complaining than usual, giving the ranger a few feet of lead before falling in step and following her out.

  “I’ll relay a message to my family. Hopefully, they have something for us,” Bren said.

  He left, and Sheyric did as well not long after, leaving Ayn alone in the Crawler’s Guild. It didn’t take long for other party members to glance her way. The town troublemaker had been the center of a scene again. Ayn stood up and strolled out, pretending she didn’t care about the judgment in their eyes.