“Well, either you would or I would,” the secretary said. “A goodly number of adventurers like naming new abilities.”

“Yesss.” Spike pumped his fist. “Okay, then um…” He thought. “Healthsuck! No that’s weird… uh… maybe something with drain? Is there already a drain ability? Um… what about…” He started pacing, his musing becoming mumbling.

The secretary blinked and looked over to Sandra. “What about you? Do you know?”

“Oh… I just…” Sandra looked down in thought. “What about… Union?”

“That’s an unusual name.” The secretary raised an eyebrow. “What does it do?”

Sandra tapped her fingers together. “I uh… I sorta directly channel the magic of the summoned creature, and also get some of their… mentality?”

The secretary tilted his head a little, but looked down to his sheet. “Alright, sounds good. Summoner’s Union it is,” the secretary said, noting it down. “And now…” He looked to Spike, who was still mumbling and pacing.

"Life L--Transfusion!" he hurriedly blurted out as if two thoughts couldn't take their time getting off his tongue.

"Life Transfusion." The secretary jotted it down, not noticing the mistake. "Alright. You two should be good to go. Don't use your abilities for about a day and we'll have it updated and ready to go. You can just keep checking your skills."

Sandra brightened in a smile. "When we see the new name, we know it's done."

"Exactly." He looked towards the two that had not made new skills. "As for you two."

Garble huffed loud enough for flames to gust. "I will use my powers how I feel like. Monsters don't 'obey rules' when they're trying to kill us, why should I?"

“Well, if you’d like--” The secretary smiled a none-too-friendly smile. “We can dispense with the formalities of having to wait for you to actually break your guildchain you can turn it in right now.”

“Excuse me?” Garble stepped up.

“If you break the guildchain who do you think fixes it?” The secretary adjusted his glasses. “And if we find that you’ve been using it for the wrong reasons.” He looked directly at Garble, a dark look in his eyes. “We might keep it.”

“Surely you won’t keep it if he just is trying out new abilities on monsters, would you?” Sandra spoke up, standing.

“Well… no. Not as such.” The secretary leaned back, shuffling around with his papers. “We might fine you, but it probably won’t be too much. More dangerous is if it locks up or breaks out in the field and you’re down an adventurer until you get back.”

Garble huffed, the fury abating slightly. “Well why the hay does Spike get to have a new ability but I don’t?”

“I’m not sure,” the secretary said, now trying his best not to look at the party. “I don’t know how new abilities work or what not. If you’re done--” He looked up. “Which I think you are-- You can go now.”

Smolder shrugged as she headed for the door. "Whatever. Sandra's thing's brand new, so no foul there."

"What about Spike's," Garble argued, trailing along his sister. "Is that new?"

"Well… yeah?" She shrugged softly. "He had a power that zapped enemies, and a power that healed friends, but none that did both at the same time. That's new, right? Mine isn't new. It's, you know, still the cauldron, just throwing it under an enemy before they're beaten up."

"That's still new," grumped Garble.

Spike clapped his hands together. "While we're in town, why don't we turn in that material we got?"

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Tammy whistled as the glowing fire crystal floated over her cupped hands. “A manamerge core. That’s some powerful stuff, about as good as you can get outside the tower.”

“You think you can use it to get your forge to burn hotter?” Spike circled around the great furnace, its meter still in the low yellows from his last contribution.

Tammy tilted her head. “I mean… I could, yeah. It’s a huge mass of focused mana that’s already all ready to work together, though. I could use it to make a decent amount of normal stuff. Or--” She had a glimmer in her eye. “--I could make one really good thing. An amazing thing. I’ve never worked with a manamerge core before.”

“Oh ho ho,” Garble stepped up. “That sounds awesome.”

Smolder elbowed him. “You already have the best weapon we’ve got, even after upgrades, bro.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Well, there’s one person most responsible for beating the monster, and one who hasn’t gotten a whole lot in terms of upgrades…” Spike said, looking back at the human in their group.

Sandra took a step back, and shrank just a little when Smolder looked back too. “I--”

Garble looked back. “What? Her? She doesn’t even use a weapon. Giving the super magic thing to her.”

“Y-yeah!” she said, waving her hands. “Weapons are usually the most important, and my new class barely uses my own casting. I also don’t wear heavy armor. It’d be wasted on me.”

“Aw hun,” Tammy walked over to her. “There’s so much more to equipment than weapons. Let me make you something nice.”

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Sandra leaned her head forward as she walked through the streets. It was the first time she wore her new equipment, and she kinda…

She held her head forward, her bangs flipped to the side of her head.

All of her previous gear was very simple. She wore robes sometimes, other times smocks or tunics, usually pretty simple colors. Practical and simple.

And this new robe… wasn’t. It flowed over her whole body, fiery red and orange, tighter than the roomy robes she was used to, with a wrapped belt around the torso.

“Will you keep up,” Garble barked from ahead of her.

“Everyone is staring…” Sandra said, looking around, hiding behind her hair.

“People aren’t staring anymore than before, Sandra,” Smolder said. “You are walking around with three dragons. All of us decked out in total adventurer gear. If that wasn’t enough to get people to stare, having a cool fire cloak won’t get them to start.”

Spike flew a foot off the ground, wings flapping lazily but able to keep him aloft without much effort. "Besides, from what Tammy said, it's awesome. More energy, and you can be half as fire resistant as the rest of us."

Smolder suddenly snorted into laughter. "We gonna take her lava swimming?"

Garble shoved against Smolder. "You saw some lava and didn't tell me?!"

"I was kidding, Bro." She danced away with a grin. "There's probably some lava somewhere in the tower, made to scare most adventurers, and we'll just laugh and laugh. Kinda looking forward to that."

Sandra ran a few fingers along the opposing arm, feeling the smooth silk-like texture of the material. "I'm not sure I want to test it with literal lava, but even being half as resistant as a dragon is a lot of resistance. Still, I bet the energy part will come in more... constantly useful."

"Look who's strutting their stuff." Tabitha was sneering, her group behind her. "You decide to get into fashion modeling instead of adventuring? You may do better there."

Spike puffed out his chest, bobbing placidly in the air under his wingpower. "We're too busy planning on how to beat the level 10 boss and--"

"--Only level 10?" asked Tabitha with a pitying tone. "Well, that is a floor that's stumped Sandra here before, isn't it?"

Sandra shrank a little under that burning gaze before she shook her head. "We're ready this time, all of us."

"All of us," repeated Smolder. "We're gonna kick it's back end and the rest of the tower while we're at it."

Their fencer, Tomàs, nodded. "I hope that you do."

Tabitha elbowed him suddenly. "Why are you wishing them luck seriously? They're our enemies!"

"They are our peers," he argued, looking fairly calm about the whole thing. "And I would rival them honestly. We will reach the top first, but there's no reason to be sour about it."

Tabitha rolled her eyes. "Peers nothing if they can't get past the first real challenge. Do you know what floor we're up to? Want to guess?"

Garble reached up, resting a hand on the great hilt of his weapon. "I can guess what floor you'll end up being on if you don't back out the way."

Tomàs brushed ahead of Tabitha. "Let us not turn this into a brawl in the city. That will benefit neither of us. We don't want the guild punishing us for making a scene, after all."

Tabitha glared at him but her gaze slid quickly to the party of mostly-dragons. "I prefer my trouble to come from things that are worth it. 30. We're on 30. So, get past 10 and we'll talk. Maybe we'll even give you a tip or two. But peer? Ha! I think not." She turned away, facing the tower. "In fact, I think we're ready to push past 30. Come on!"

The group began to filter behind her. Tomàs waved while facing away. "Good luck in your fight."

Smolder shrugged softly. "The fencer seems alright. Why does he put up with that other one?"

Garble crossed his arms, leaving the sword slung where it had began. "Whatever, not my business. Only part of that conversation I cared about was catching up to them, and to do that we have to get past 10. We got better equipment, and we got the whole 'teamwork'--" He made quotes in the air. "--thing down, so let's get to it, huh?"

Spike landed in front of the party. "Let's get a full night's rest, stock up on any supplies we want, then we'll consider that."

Sandra tapped her staff on the ground before her face set. "No considering. We can do it. I... know we can."

Smolder fired a double thumbs up at that. "That's the spirit. We'll teach that dog who's holding the leash."

The party advanced as one towards the inn, for they had a rematch to look forward to in the coming day.

Spike looked out from his bunk. "We'll be able to hop right up to it, right? No going through the floors."

"Yes." Sandra glanced at her hanging robes, in her own bed. "We'll just think of rising and skip right past all the other things."

"So why can't we just keep doing that?" asked Garble with a little huff. "Skip everything, go right to the top."

Smolder laughed at the idea. "Even if that worked, which I'm gonna guess it wouldn't, we'd arrive at the top and the super mega supreme boss would give us one look before they swatted us right off the top of the tower. There's a pattern here."

"Yeah!" excitedly agreed Spike. "We need the gear from each set of levels to be ready to face off against that set of level's boss, repeat again and again until we get to the top. If we did skip to the top, we'd be so behind we'd lose instantly."

"Who invented that?" Garble rolled away and pulled up his blanket. "Whatever, going to sleep."

Spike squeaked, something had grabbed his tail. Peering over the edge, he saw Sandra's hand resting on the spade of his tail, her fingers squeezing just slightly as she held it. "Um... everything alright?"

"No... Yes... I'm glad you're here, and the others." She squeezed him a little harder. "I'll be doing my best, to be a partner worth having around. Tomorrow, we'll beat up that dog, together, as a team."

"As a team," agreed Spike with a little smile. He settled in, not stopping Sandra from keeping contact with his hanging tail.

Smolder watched from the other bunk with a smirk. Humans and pony-raised dragons were both very silly in her eyes. But they were her friends too. "Night."

Silence became the companion to them all. That, and anticipation. They had a battle to perform, and one they planned to prevail in. They had ten more floors to conquer.