* * *

Garnedell watched Master with a smile and looked back at Zilnek and Kilniara. His Master’s movements were as amazing as ever, and he could only smile with pride. The siblings’ mouths were dropped slighty with eyes wide in awe

“So. Master is amazing, yes?”

Zilnek looked to Garnedell quickly before glancing back to stare, “He is amazing! I’ve never seen any fight like Master. Is he…? Are those skills?”

“I don’t know. He moves much… faster than any other fighter I’ve seen. Maybe … he is seven digit. His agility would make him very fast!”

“Agility does not affect skills.”

“Really?”

Zilnek nodded, “I joined an adventure party for a time before …,” Zilnek stopped and looked at Kilniara, sadness weighing his posture down, “before our parents died. They told me agility does not affect the skills. Fighters simply… attack at set times.”

“So how is he fighting so fast?”

Zilnek’s attitude recovered as he became excited once again, looking back to Master, “I don’t know! It is… I don’t know! He is a Power!”

Garnedell smiled brightly, his words tinted with a hint of smugness, “I told you.”

“I … didn’t really believe, but!”

Garnedell and Zilnek fell silent as Master finished his fight, the great spark dying without causing any harm to Master. The fight ended quickly and Master seemed to end the fight with a ritualistic slowing movement, straightening his body as he sheathed his clubs. Garnedell looked to the other two apprentices, smiles blooming on all three faces, before they walked up to Master, quiet whispers of awe exploded from each as they stepped forward.

* * *

Joe ended his combat with practiced ease, sheathing his weapons as he had always been trained to do, and looked around. There was nothing here, and Joe grimaced with some frustration. I probably broke the core, obviously, but nothing to gain from this? Seriously? Joe looked around the room carefully, wondering if there might be a chest like when killing the goblin king, but found nothing. He sighed deeply then shrugged his shoulders.

“Are there dual core monsters in a beginner dungeon usually?”

“No, ma… Joe.”

“Then…”

“It might be a sub-boss?” Kilniara questioned, throwing out a possibility.

“Sub-bosses?”

“Certain dungeons and bosses have sub-bosses.”

“Do they block the way to the boss?”

“No. They usually only allow the dungeon to increase in difficulty.”

“Why would … you know what? Never mind, I can only guess.” One more thing to screw the population over, I guess? But if they still complete the dungeon?

“Most people do not, Master,” Kilniara offered, her voice only heard because of how quiet the dungeon already was. Man, she seems to know just how quiet she can talk, barely loud enough for any environment. No need to complain though, I guess.

“So there is no benefit to it?”

The three apprentices looked to each other and shrugged. Huh. Well, we’ll see then, I guess.

“How many sub-bosses in this dungeon?”

Another moment of silence let Joe know that none of them knew and he glanced down at his dungeon map before getting ready to move on. The last bit of this stretch showed just around the corner, the great spark obviously guarding the rest of the way. Maybe something down this hall?

Joe led them around the end and looked, seeing a long hallway with a small raised platform at the end, the same width as the hallway. On the platform, under a beam of golden light, a chest sat. Huh. Maybe it is like the goblin king? Loot comes from the chest?

Joe led the way to the chest, moving carefully and stabbing the ground with his staff before moving forward. After several moments of doing this, Joe began to hear muttering from the kids behind him.

“Anything wrong?” Joe asked the kids without turning around.

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The kids were silent, not saying much and Joe had to push them, asking them again while turning to face them, “Seriously, what’s bothering you guys?”

“Master, I’ve never heard of traps before,” Zilnek finally offered.

“I’m surprised you haven’t, but most people caught in traps don’t live long enough to talk about it. It only takes one time.”

The three kids said nothing, and Joe decided to hammer the point home, “Listen. Traps are deadly. If they don’t kill you, they’ll maim you and you’ll be stuck in the dungeon. What will happen then? You’ll die anyway. And if there are no traps, then all you waste is time. So why do you care?”

The three kids… apprentices! said nothing and Joe returned to his cautious journey to the chest. After another few minutes of cautious walking, Joe made it to the chest and spent the same caution checking around the chest and opening it as he did walking up to it.

The chest proved to be disappointing, only having a single item in it. A medallion with a beautiful image of the spark and a short inscription on the back stating: sigil of the goblin king’s spark. He flipped it around a few times, an idea forming in his mind. He pulled out the other medallion he’d gotten yesterday and compared the two, immediately noticing an almost identical style and font, the images, words, and carvings matching in a way that Joe could immediately tell made them a matching set. He considered the ramifications of the two being a set before bouncing them both in his hand and dropping them into his pouch. He turned to leave and noticed a look of disappointment on the … apprentices’ faces and smiled, pulling the two medallions out and handing it to them.

“Guess you guys wanted to see them, right?”

The quickly nodded, smiling, and Joe handed one to Garnedell and one to Kilniara, telling them to pass it around as each was finished. While the apprentices scrambled over the medallions and babbled with each other, Joe looked over the dungeon map and saw that they had completed the bottom right quadrant of the map. He waited another few minutes as the apprentices played with the medallion until they handed it back to him, although a bit reluctantly.

“So, what do those mean?” Zilnek asked excitedly.

“Not sure, but I think we need them for the boss fight, but…” Joe responded.

“How?” Garnedell jumped in, curiosity overriding Zilnek’s place in the conversation.

“Really don’t know. We’ll see when we get to the boss. And, Garnedell? Don’t interrupt Zilnek!”

Garnedell ducked his head, “Sorry, Joe.”

“Don’t say sorry to me, you were rude to Zilnek.”

Garnedell seemed to shrink in on himself, this time overwhelming shame weighing on him as he turned to Zilnek, “Sorry, Zilnek.” Oops… that crushed him way too much!

Joe quickly jumped in, “Garnedell. You don’t need to feel so ashamed and embarrassed. You didn’t do much more than what Zilnek’s done to you and his sister, and I’m pretty sure Kilniara’s been pretty annoying and interrupting of Zilnek, too.” Joe looked to the two siblings, quirking an eyebrow and a smirk at them and the two actually broke out in chuckles. Garnedell seemed to rally a bit, seeing the lightened mood and Joe nodded his head, satisfied that he’d relaxed Garnedell’s self-incrimination. “Garnedell, I’m not that angry, but I am working on changing… a lot of ideas about apprentices, senior and junior. I want to make sure you guys are all good friends and treat each other well. This goes back to our morning chat, yeah? And about what happened last night? Amongst my people, it’s just called common courtesy.”

“Common courtesy?” Garnedell asked, his good mood returned.

“Yeah. The idea is that all people deserve to be treated this way, therefore it is common courtesy. Senior apprentice’s treat their junior apprentices this way; kings to nobles, nobles to commoners, commoners to slaves. It doesn’t matter who you are or who the other person is or any position you may have. You treat everyone with courtesy; common courtesy. It is to be common to all. Do you understand?”

The three apprentices listened carefully, although Zilnek seemed to be dismissive or at least not grasping the significance of the statement while Garnedell and Kilniara seemed to be deep in pensive thought, their thoughts diligently tracing the idea to it’s obvious ramifications. Joe nodded, happy with the results, and began leading the way back to the next part of the unexplored labyrinth.

Travel back to the next unexplored area went quickly as Joe didn’t spend as much time checking against traps and the trip back, while not exactly quick, was more relaxed and allowed for conversation.

“So. Where are the monsters?”

“Master?” Zilnek asked eagerly.

“Don’t call me master, Zilnek.”

“Sorry, mas… Joe.”

“It’s ok. Where are the monsters? There were monsters on the first three floors. Where are the monsters on this floor?”

“Labyrinths with monsters? Truly? I have never heard of such a thing,” Zilnek looked to Garnedell and Kilniara and both quickly shook their heads no.

“Really? Labyrinths don’t have monsters?”

“No.”

“But, the spark dungeon… the highest level dungeon we all met in, the one with the sparks on the first floor?”

“That’s not a labyrinth.”

“Really? There’s a maze on the first and second floor and there’re monsters on both.”

“Those aren’t labyrinths. The path through each floor is straightforward from one end to the other. The paths off from the main path are marked and obvious.”

“Are they? I didn’t really notice. Mind showing me the next time we get there?”

“Certainly, master.”

“Great. Thanks, Zilnek. You too, Garnedell. But, that means… well… there are no monsters here? No monsters in a labyrinth?”

“Yes, master,” Zilnek spoke quickly.

“Don’t. Say. Master. Zilnek.”

“Ah… sorry master.”

“Zilnek!”

“Oh. Um. Sorry again, ma… Joe.”

Joe dropped the conversation when they reached the next unexplored section of the labyrinth and began to carefully explore once again, following the newest direction which was as unremarkable as the previous sections; the same worked walls and the same chandeliers. Travel through the next portion of the dungeon led to the top right quadrant and the entrance to the final fifth floor and the boss of the dungeon. The left upper and lower quadrants were still blank and unexplored but seeing as how there were no monsters in labyrinth, Joe figured there was no point.

When they came upon the entrance to the fifth floor, the entrance was guarded by a massive door about ten meters tall. On the door, just at the middle, was a massive indent in the shape of a hand almost two meters tall and below it were five circular indentations about the size of his head. The circular holes were laid out with one hole centered above the other four circular indentations below. Joe looked over the door for a few moments before stepping forward and then freezing with caution and a bit of shock. The massive hand that was in the middle of the door, over ten meters above his head and two meters tall, suddenly shrunk and ‘moved’ to position itself exactly at his shoulder height. The five circular indentations also ‘moved’ with the hand and resized to be about the size of a large coin, still in the same relative position. Joe did not move, staring with caution. Guess I’m supposed to put my hand in the magical ‘hand scanner.’ But the five circles? Joe thought for a bit, then thought of an idea.