"Is it really safe to fall from that height?"

"Carl, is your daughter so weak as to be harmed by such a short fall?"

"That's gotta be like… I can't even see the bottom."

"As it must be. By conquering her fear of the unknown she shall grow stronger."

"I guess that makes sense…"

"Carl, you must trust my judgment. She is your daughter. Were you not subjected to such trials in your youth?"

"Hm. There were rides like this at the amusement parks before they closed down due to all the smoke…"

"I knew—"

"But I didn't go on them because they didn't look very safe."

"This is safe. You crafted it yourself!"

"I don't know, Seth'tith. It's not like there's any padding, or cushioning, or anything down there."

"You speak as if you are afraid yourself."

"Well, no, but that's not really a fair comparison. Obviously I'm not gonna take damage."

"Yes?"

"But Bobby's not like me, she—"

"Ah! Yes, I understand now."

"Do you really? Because—"

"Yes. I feel foolish for not considering it. You are from Fire, and she is not."

"…Yeah, but somehow when you say it, I feel like—"

"Perhaps you are correct, Carl. The depth of the shaft could be reduced by half and yield the same result."

"That's still pretty deep! And there's all those spikes at the bottom which seem pointy."

"As they must be! She will use her magic to halt herself, and—"

"Bobby's more of a warrior type, I think. Not sure how much magic she can use."

"Ah."

"Yeah, I was trying to tell you earlier, but—"

"No matter. Alter it to become a gauntlet of agility, requiring—"

"I think she's more the strength type, not the agile type?"

"What?"

"Yeah, I mean, Ir'alith's the same, right? She's all strength and a bit of magic, but not particularly fast or agile?"

"Carl, my daughter has no weakness. She is the strongest alive whether it be in strength, magic, agility, or—"

"Uh-huh."

"Your tone indicates skepticism."

"No, no, if you say it I'll believe it."

"You wish to see her level of ability."

Carl rubbed his beard with his left hand, staring down into the bottomless pit he'd had the core create, then looked back over to Seth'tith's spot resting up against the wall next to Mina's body. "She's really that strong?"

"In the time needed for me to speak these words, she would have reached this point in your dungeon," Seth'tith bragged.

"Uh-huh." I don't think I could even run here that fast.

"I would offer you a wager in her stead," Seth'tith said in a tone that let Carl feel his smirk. "If you truly believe her to be so weak, allow her to compete against Bobby in a contest of speed."

"I don't know if that's fair, Bobby's—"

"I believe my daughter could wait until yours had reached the final room and still complete the dungeon first."

Carl frowned. Now he's just looking down on Bobby too much. "Fine, you're on if I can ever get Bobby over here."

"I have no cause for haste," Seth'tith said, sounding more than a little smug.

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He seems really confident. Maybe Ir'alith's way stronger than I thought? She picked up my spear, which I figured meant she must've dumped all her points into strength since it's got that crazy stat requirement, and she did a couple neat magic tricks, though I'm not sure how hard any of that really is considering… He concentrated briefly and shot another giant gout of flame out of his hand instead of the small flame he'd wanted to create. Yeah, I suck at using magic. Seems like something I should figure out maybe… I don't really wanna be pestering Ir'alith about it all the time though; that'd be pretty uncool. I'll ask Bobby if there's some trick to it. Or maybe Mina whenever she gets online again.

He glanced again at the corpse he'd been lugging around for what felt like forever and started chewing on the corner of his lip. Really hope she's okay. It's kinda been a while already, but she was the first person I really spent any time talking to in-game. The blonde girl's expression of pure joy as they raced along the city street came back to him. I wish I could've at least stopped her from getting owned by those guards. That was pretty noob of me. I got carried away when we made it past the wall and stopped blocking for her. I'm really not a good dad sometimes.

The thought brought a frown to his face. I mean, I'm not a good friend sometimes. He held the frown for another moment until his thoughts were disrupted.

"This room is complete," Seth'tith declared.

"What? No, we just had that talk about the spikes at the bottom, remember?"

"Remove the spikes, then. Their purpose was symbolic."

"What? But we had that big argument about—"

"You intended to construct a cushion at the bottom!"

"I… Well, okay, maybe I did, but—"

"Carl, until when will you treat her as a newborn? If you wish her to be strong, you must allow her to become strong!"

"She's only thirteen, you know."

"Bah! When my daughter was thirteen, she was capable of hunting the most feared predators in our lands with a hairclip as her only weapon."

"Where do you live, anyway?"

"A forest far to the south."

"South of what?"

"South of here."

"No, but when you say here—"

"I used a general reference relative to my knowledge of my location."

"Ugh, forget it. Fine, this room can be done for now. I'll think it over and come back later. Core, witness me."

"Hehe. I will witness it."

"What are you even giggling about?"

"This intruder is very entertaining."

"Didn't you say they were naughty before?"

"Yes."

"Well—WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Okay, that was pretty awesome."

"As I said it would be."

"I've witnessed that room's completion. Hehehehe."

"When you're right, you're right."

"No, I am Seth'tith."

"Hah, good one."

"Heh. My daughter despises such forms of jest."

"What? Dad jokes are the best!"

"Dad jokes… Yes, I concur!"

He's really not such a bad guy. Carl stared at the axe in contemplation. I wish Annie's stepdad was half as cool as him. Nick always just wants to talk about finance, and celebrity gossip, or sometimes his yacht. Doesn't even fish off it…

He shook his head. No point in thinking about that now. I wonder… "Hey, core, where's the intruder at, anyway?"

There was a short delay before the core responded. "The intruder's still in the fifth room."

"They gonna finish it soon, or…"

"No, I can't imagine this intruder accomplishing anything."

Carl rubbed his beard. "Maybe I'll redo the sixth room really quick then. Just put in some absurd room to make 'em leave." He headed towards the wall that he'd set the axe and body against and re-burdened himself in preparation to head back to the sixth room, which he'd made in an extremely lazy manner and could barely even be considered a puzzle with how stupid it was now that he thought about it. I mean, you just walk off the side of the entrance platform and then walk to the exit. Really unimaginative even for something I threw out just to get a room done. But this guy seems like he's hit a wall, so this is probably a good chance to sneak in and get rid of him—or her, obviously, because it's definitely not just guys who can be bad at puzzles.

He strode to the door which led back to the sixth room.

"Core, is there a method by which we can observe the intruder?" Seth'tith asked. "I would watch and see what manner of dull-witted being struggles against such feeble tricks."

The door opened, and Carl stepped through.

"Of course," the core said, still sounding a little distracted. "As a dungeon core, I can display any event that has happened in any part of our dungeon."

May as well. "Alright, you wanna show us who this idiot is?" Carl set Seth'tith against the wall, then put Mina's body down carefully next to him.

"Open your hand," the core said.

"Oops." Carl uncurled his fingers from around the core, and a soundless image appeared in the air displaying a black-haired boy as if looking down from the ceiling a short ways away from him. He was, according to Carl's expert eye, nineteen or twenty, and would maybe be considered handsome—though not by Carl, of course. He wore shining white armor that was red in some places, and he appeared to be attempting to jump across the room. In the next moment he was returned to the entrance by the hidden portal which hung lengthwise across the room, and he…

Is he throwing a tantrum? Carl watched in amazement as the kid indeed began to throw a temper tantrum, rolling and thrashing about on the ground, pounding his hands and feet into the floor, then tipping into one of the floor-portals and falling out of the ceiling to land on his head, which seemed to intensify and reset the duration on his Temper Tantrum ailment.

"Him," Seth'tith said in a tone that Carl hadn't heard before out of the old axe-dad.