"Please don't," Keith rolled his eyes. "Stay here and make sure the spiders stay away from me while I burn away the webbing. Now that the Spider Matriarch is dead, it might be possible to burn it away without it restoring itself, which means it will go faster."

"Why would it do that?" Evala asked.

"Didn't I already explain?" Keith asked. "It stops repairing itself when the maker dies. At least, the one I dealt with before here did."

"I don't trust her, so I'll stay," Nathan muttered under his breath, then spoke up. "Evala, why don't you go kill spiders, since you're so Experience-happy and Points-happy? I'm sure you'll manage to get something before Keith and I deal with the rest."

Evala glared at Nathan, then stomped off, and Keith returned to burning away the webbing.

"Was that a good idea?" He asked once he was sure Evala was out of earshot.

"She's the one who walked off on her own," Nathan shrugged. "Any actual player would know better than to do that. Are you sure I can't shoot her?"

"Yes," Keith rolled his eyes. "This webbing is still repairing, I guess the spider matriarch wasn't the only one preparing this place. It's possible it didn't form until after the nest was made."

Nathan nodded, then kept an eye out, occasionally shooting down a spider, switching his bullets to flame-enchanted ones for extra effectiveness. It took Keith around three minutes to clean off each pedestal of light, or two on the ones which didn't repair themselves. When they reached the intersections between buildings, they were forced to either burn through a wall of webbing or turn down a specific direction.

The first intersection, they could have also crawled under the wall, but neither of them wanted to do that, so they just turned down it. When they did, they noticed on the right side of the path a 'tree' of webbing that stood around fifteen feet in height and four in width.

"That's not creepy at all," Keith said.

"Let's be careful," Nathan nodded. "Oh. Hey, Keith?"

"Yeah?" Keith asked, realizing Nathan had his phone out, having looked up something while they were walking.

The warrior held it up for Keith to read the text he'd found. Before, they had only looked up the information on Dungeons themselves. Having thought they had figured out everything regarding Scavenger Dungeons, they never went into the actual section itself.

According to the phone, Scavenger Dungeons sometimes allowed players to work on multiple steps of it at a time. If that were the case, they could view all possible stages of the Scavenger Dungeon at once, through the Scavenger Dungeon Information Window.

Both players pulled up that information as Nathan pocketed his phone, both of them annoyed that Evala hadn't told them about it. Considering how long her world had been under the System and how long she herself had access, they knew she had to have known about it, and she knew they were new and hadn't really been using the phones.

Spider's Nest Scavenger Stages: Kill all spiders Destroy all Web Trees Clear all Illuminaters of webbing Remove most of the webbing Destroy all spider eggs

"Considering the order on that," Keith said. "It looks like the Web Trees are important. And those are obviously anything like that."

He gestured to the tree that they were cautious of doing anything to.

"Yeah," Nathan nodded, then thought over something and nodded. "Want to go with plan 'Blaze Everything'?"

"That's not a real plan," Keith muttered, then sighed. "Sure, let's just do that."

Nathan nodded, then shrugged off his backpack and set it down, opening it up and pulling out the sleeping phoenix. He wasn't sure why Keith didn't like that plan name, since it seemed perfectly fine to him.

"Ichtvar," he roughly shook the ancient magical creature awake. "We're going with plan Blaze Everything."

"Burn Everything," Keith said.

"I don't want to," Ichtvar grumbled.

"You have the energy for it?"

"Yes."

"Then do it," Nathan said. "You can include-"

"Don't burn Evala," Keith rolled his eyes. "Get all of the webbing you can, as well as spider eggs. Spiders themselves are fair game as well."

"You owe me-"

"You'll get a pound of chocolate," Nathan told the phoenix, then thought for a moment. "Plus another for how I woke you. We know you're still recovering, but you have the ability to finish this Dungeon for us quickly."

"Don't burn the buildings," Keith told Ichtvar. "I know that phoenixes can control what their flames burn."

"Yeah, yeah," the phoenix stretched out his wings, then flew off, flames swirling around him.

He soared off towards the estimated center of the spider's nest, and the pair of players waited. They only needed to wait a couple of minutes before flames burned away the webbing near them, rapidly pushing through the space they were in. They felt the warmth of the phoenix's flames as it washed over them, then it was gone moments later, continuing to travel to the edge of the nest.

"Huh," Nathan said. "I didn't get any Points."

Notice (will be mass-released sometime after you leave the Dungeon): Monsters killed solely by familiars will no longer grant Points.

"Well, we did abuse that," Keith snorted as they dismissed the messages. "I guess having familiars as powerful as ours is that rare they haven't really had an issue before."

"Or it's happened enough with others," Nathan added. "That they decided to put a stop to this abuse after initiating more players with such creatures."

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"Probably," Keith shrugged as Ichtvar, no longer burning, returned to Nathan, settling into his backpack and falling asleep.

Nathan pulled on his backpack as they read the Dungeon Completion message, their reward having gone up to 250%.

"So does Evala get a time buffer?" Nathan asked. "Or was she warped out immediately?"

"Let's find out," Keith said. "We stay here, she'll probably find us if she's still here."

A minute later, Evala turned the corner and approached them, looking angry.

"What was that?" She asked.

"Us completing the Dungeon," Nathan answered. "Congratulations, you get to go home now while we're stuck here for another four Dungeons. Then, you'll get to farm all the Experience and Points you want while riding on the abilities of others. Good job. Out of curiosity, do you get a reward for helping out someone else in this situation? Or just the rewards from completing the Dungeon?"

Evala glared at them, but under Nathan's intense stare, she shrank back.

"I receive an additional reward," she answers. "Dependent on my contribution to the Dungeons and survival of the players who were present."

"Congrats," Nathan said. "You were useless from the start, but you'll still get something, since you helped me survive."

"Will you stop that?" Evala asked.

"Not used to someone figuring it out and calling you out?" Nathan asked. "Did you ever wonder why your brother would go into a Dungeon alone, despite having a powerful healer as a sister? Isn't that a little odd? The way you talked, it sounded like you were on good terms. Was that wrong? Shouldn't it have been suspicious how he wouldn't take you into Dungeons with him?"

Evala's glare returned, but Nathan knew he'd struck a chord with her.

"How long before you're forced out?" He asked.

"I have fifteen minutes," she answered. "From the completion of the Dungeon. I can also manually leave."

A moment later, she and her new staff disappeared. Nathan checked his Item Box.

"Her notes are still here," he told Keith. "Though I'm sure she has the real copy with her still and these will disappear when we leave."

"You went a little beyond, there," Keith told him. "That was kind of unnecessary."

"Was I wrong?" Nathan asked.

"No, but-"

"Then why shouldn't I have called her out?"

"Most people would be considerate enough not to be an ass."

"Me calling her out on the truth is me being an ass?" Nathan asked.

"Yes."

"Whatever," Nathan muttered. "I'm hungry, then let's figure out how to deal with the rest of the phantoms and shades, if there are any other 'dark zones'."

Keith sighed, then nodded, and the pair sat down and ate lunch. When they finished, they began wandering the island and talking, their conversation eventually returning to Evala.

"We didn't tell her everything," Keith commented.

"No," Nathan agreed. "Even if the Overseers did put a lock on her so she can't share what we revealed, it was still best if we didn't. I know you have another theory or two about this place."

"About the dimension?" Keith asked, and Nathan nodded.

"It has to do with time, doesn't it?" He asked.

"Yes," Keith nodded. "I take it you do, too."

"Yes," Nathan answered, looking up to the darkness above. "I know my academics aren't that great, but… is it really possible to desync just one portion of a dimension? Wouldn't that cause issues?"

"I was thinking that, too," Keith responded. "And have come to the conclusion that they aren't unfreezing a specific portion so that players can act in it. Instead, every time a player enters this dimension for a Dungeon or Challenge, the entire dimension unfreezes. It's not that there's a cooldown on how long before a place can be frozen again, it's that it's constantly unfreezing and refreezing time for the dimension itself. That's why things can change so much.

"And then," he continued. "There's something else. Is Icthvar awake? If not, wake him gently."

Nathan grumbled under his breath, and a few moments later, the phoenix opened up a small hole in the zipper so that he could look at Keith, and Nathan turned so that the phoenix didn't have his vision obstructed by the warrior's back.

"Ichtvar," Keith said as Nathan turned his head to look at the phoenix as best he could. "Do all dimensions in the mortal realm follow the same timeflow? In other words, is it one second to one second in all dimension?"

"No," Ichtvar answered.

"You said," Keith said. "That it would be two months before the festival. Is that true for her world or ours?"

"Ours," Ichtvar answered. "I was too sleepy to realize my mistake… or that she didn't attempt to correct me. I suppose she figured we were talking about our own dimension."

"Okay," Keith said. "So if an entire dimension is frozen in time, it won't affect other dimensions?"

"No," Ichtvar answered. "It would not. That is how they are able to support the freeze on this dimension."

"About that," Keith explained his theory, and Ichtvar listened, nodding as he did. "What do you think?"

"That is more plausible than what we thought before," Ichtvar answered, craning his neck in one direction. "Interesting. So are you two going to finish up these Dungeons on this island?"

"Yes," Nathan frowned. "What was interesting?"

"Nothing to worry about," Ichtvar answered, and Keith raised an eyebrow. "I promise, it's nothing to worry about. It really isn't anything important, just something interesting I sensed. It's not like the dragon that's on the central island."

Nathan cleared his throat.

"What?" Ichtvar asked. "Aren't you two planning on leaving once your ten Dungeons are up? I didn't think it was important to mention that. He seems content to be there and leave us alone. It's not like any of you would survive, should he decide to attack. He's at least as powerful as me, and he's a dragon, an attacker. There's a reason I laugh at the fact that anyone thinks a mere mortal could kill one. Sure, with the System, it's probably possible, but in practice, without this crap? Definitely not."

A message appeared in the teens' visions.

The dragon is locked onto the central island and cannot leave. Unless you choose to undertake the Dungeons on that island, you will not face it.

Keith relayed that message to Ichtvar as he and Nathan pondered over why the Overseers chose to tell them that.

"Could be an automated thing," Keith decided. "We became aware of the presence of a dragon, so the System sent us a notice informing us to not stress over it, as doing that could affect our performance in the Dungeon."

"Makes sense," Nathan agreed.

"Same here," Ichtvar yawned. "I'm tired, Nathan. Don't bug me again until I wake up, would you?"

"I'll give you an extra pound of chocolate if you help us move all of the statues back into place."

"Make it two, and you have a deal."

"I'll make it two."

"Keith, if you'd mind?" Ichtvar asked, and the mage helped him out of the bag, the phoenix floating in the air as Keith zipped the bag back up. "So, how am I doing this?"

"Same as the crates in an extended Survival Challenge," Nathan explained, pulling out a card and removing the rope from it. "We'll tie this around the statues, then you grab the rope and fly them back to their spots. It's a lot better than using the rest of us to move it, and probably faster."

"Alright," Ichtvar said. "So how many statues are there?"

"Probably five hundred or so."

"I want to amend our deal."

"You already agreed," Nathan walked over to another statue. "You get to work on this while Keith and I start looking for more phantoms and shades and places they can hide."

Ichtvar groaned, but they got to work, Nathan and Keith setting the statues upright, then Nathan tying the rope around it and the phoenix taking it, then flying off. Then, the two players would continue to look for dark zones. They found none, though Keith reported that his familiar found several phantoms and shades hiding from time to time.

Keith couldn't get out of it where they were, but eventually, they received the notice that the related Dungeon had been completed.

For several days, he, Nathan, and the two elementals would move statues onto pedestals, taking breaks to tie ropes around others so that Ichtvar could fly those ones to their spots. With the phoenix's much faster rate of completion, they managed to finish in only a week, and when they did, Nathan collapsed to the ground, his phoenix already sleeping in his backpack.

"Exhausted?" Keith asked.

"Yeah," Nathan answered. "Ichtvar's draining me, too, since he's been working so much while still recovering. He is definitely not returning inside of me until after he finishes. I do not want to dream about being that slave again. I am not a masochist."

"I'll make dinner," Keith snorted. "You just rest up."

"Yeah," Nathan's eyes drifted closed, and he was asleep within moments.