“When Izz says his Spectral Gauntlet is Silver-ranked, he’s talking about his own proficiency,” Hans said. “His overall rank is Gold, but he hasn’t practiced Spectral Gauntlet in combat nearly as much as other spells.”

The Guild Master continued his explanation, saying that adventurers often misunderstood the true meaning of a rank. A Gold-ranked adventurer was not automatically a Gold in every aspect of their training. The rank merely confirmed that the adventurer’s best techniques were capable of conquering a Gold-ranked encounter.

When Izz decided to learn a new spell, he started at the beginning like any other student. If Izz and an Iron-ranked both learned the spell at the same time, they would face many of the same challenges and work through many of the same lessons. The lizardman’s rank didn’t automatically replace the need for practice.

In the long-term, Izz’s experience enabled him to learn more quickly than an Iron, but having that headstart didn’t change the fact that he and the Iron ran the same race.

“Izz has several spells at Gold, and at this point, I suspect his favorites are Diamond-ranked because he has used them so much. Duplicate, for example, is a cornerstone of his fighting style, and he uses it far more creatively than most mages. An Illusion specialist at Diamond might be more advanced on a technical level, but Izz has been using that spell in every match since he was a high Iron. In combat, Izz might be the best in the kingdom when it comes to Duplicate, and what you saw him do here was barely a fraction of it.”

“That is not so,” Izz insisted, “but thank you for the compliment.”

Hans sighed and shook his head at the lizardman. “Even if he won’t admit it.”

The Apprentices laughed.

“At any rate, these spell ranks are nothing official, of course. They are a way of thinking about your training.

“Every active adventurer has a project they’re working on, a skill or an attack or a spell they want to add to their repertoire. The experienced adventurers know they will suck at anything new. Sparring matches with lower ranks let you pit your Iron-ranked spell against Iron-ranked defense. If Izz tried to use Spectral Gauntlet on Master Theneesa, she would lay him out immediately. That’s what a Diamond-ranked defense will do to a Silver-ranked attack.”

Hans said that was enough formality for the day. Everyone could return to their duties and train with Izz and Thuz more at a later date. He did, however, ask Chisel and Honronk to stay behind.

He informed Honronk that Izz had offered to tutor him in Black magic. Thuz offered to do the same for Chisel in White magic. The Apprentices were overjoyed. Even Honronk broke into a wide, toothy grin, a rare display of emotion for the tusk. Honronk was willing to start immediately, but Hans suggested they start in the morning to give their guests time to rest from their journey.

The lizardmen happily accepted an offer to visit Honronk’s home and see what life was like inside of a dungeon. Their reactions aligned with that of every previous visitor: wonder, disbelief, and curiosity at a dungeon core creating something so detailed.

When they finished poking at the dungeon-generated apartment–well, foreman’s office converted to an apartment–Izz and Thuz asked if Honronk might tell them more about his experiments with enchantments. The Apprentice asked Hans if that would be okay. The Guild Master replied that Honronk could trust the lizardmen as much as he did, which was completely.

Hans left the mages to talk and made for the surface.

***

“Kane and Quentin are going to be pissed they missed that,” Terry said. “That was something.”

“And he was so damn polite about it,” Becky added with a chuckle. “He’ll beat your ass and then help you to the Healer. Would probably feel bad about hurtin’ you too.”

Hans intended to leave the adventurers to their conversation at the dungeon entrance. He wanted Olza's input on the next expansion, and he also hoped to assess her emotional state. Her last visit to the dungeon was unpleasant, and Hans didn’t want to force her underground before she was ready.

“Mr. Hans!” Bel called as he passed. “If you have a moment, I’d like to hear your critique of my performance.”

He stopped next to the group. “Anything specific?”

“Up to you, Mr. Hans.”

After thinking he said, “Duplicate is a pain to deal with. In the field, he’ll summon a minor air elemental and cast Duplicate on it. Contact breaks the illusion, so they float around like bees to make them hard to hit. Meanwhile, Thuz is buffing the crap out of the one real air elemental so when it does attack for real it’s going to hurt, and then Izz follows up with more ranged attacks. It gets overwhelming pretty quick.”

“How do I beat that?”

“You don’t,” Hans said. “When you spar Izz again, don’t go in thinking about winning the whole thing. Pick a piece of the puzzle and try to last a little bit longer by solving it. That’s the best way to approach any match with a higher rank. Here’s a freebie: Use a spell with a wide field of small projectiles to snuff out the fakes. Izz will be pissed I told you that, but he needs to be surprised once in a while too.”

“Then what?” Bel asked.

“Then you solve the next piece.”

“Which is?”

Hans laughed. “Who can say?”

Becky patted Bel on the back. “He’s always like this, if you haven’t figured that out by now.”

“Oh, I know. I still hate it.”

The Guild Master smiled.

***

“If I had known to expect company, I would have prepared a better welcome,” Luther said, greeting Hans, Thuz, Izz, and Olza at the entry to his new hometown.

He called the underground town “New Gomi,” but the Apprentices called it Luther Land instead. Pretty much immediately. Hans watched as Luther only made it more permanent by arguing hard against it. Hans learned that lesson with the Poop Puddle and the Bone Goblins, and he looked forward to watching someone else flail against the inevitability of a nickname.

Olza gave the tusk a big hug, which Luther gratefully accepted.

“Mr. Izz, Mr. Thuz, it’s good to see your faces again.”

“Likewise, Mr. Luther.”

Luther looked past the group. “Odd to not see the Apprentices with you.”

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“Becky and the Silvers are running the ogre valley again,” Hans said. “Izz and Thuz wanted to try the dungeon for themselves, so Olza and I followed them down.”

“I’ve got a few of the other houses set up for visitors,” Luther said, leading the group through Luther Land. “We need to bring down a few more beds eventually, but should be plenty of space for you lot.”

The houses ready to receive visitors had enchanted torches on their doors, liberated from the Forgeborne Mines. Showing the group to his home last, Luther invited them to use one of the chairs sitting outside his front door. He had relocated a few pieces of dining room furniture from other homes to the space in front of his house, creating a banquet table of sorts right in the street. None of the chairs matched and the row of tables were uneven, but the set up gave the adventurers a comfortable place to sit and talk.

“Is anyone hungry? I can grill some steaks.”

“Steaks?” Hans asked.

“Camahueto steaks. It's like getting a whole cow every few days. Leaner and a little gamier than a farm cow, but still plenty to eat.”

“How does one tend a fire this far below ground?” Izz asked.

“The ceiling absorbs the smoke,” Luther answered. “Don't ask me how. And there's a woodpile out back. Anything I use comes back when the dungeon resets.”

Izz commented about how convenient that sounded.

“I’m liking it. Still adjusting, though.”

“What's been the strangest part?” Olza asked.

Luther thought. “The gnolls,” he said. “When the dungeon resets they try to get into New Gomi. I made dinner one night after a reset, and they scratched at the door for a whole day before the Apprentices got them. I could hear it in my house with my door closed. Drove me mad.”

The tusk excused himself to start the steaks. When Olza offered to help, he insisted she stay at the table and relax.

Hans had seen Luther Land before, but the novelty was almost still as strong for him as it was for Izz, Thuz, and Olza who experienced it for the first time. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to seeing a stonework ceiling hanging over a mountain town. It gave the scene an otherworldly, dreamlike quality, like he existed in a space that couldn't possibly exist.

“I will never forget this experience,” Thuz said, looking around. “I also believe I'll never see another place like this.”

Luther rejoined the group, saying the steaks would need a few minutes. “It's pretty peaceful, right?”

Olza commented on the true quiet. A quiet night in Gomi assumed the presence of crickets, frogs, and the whisper of leaves rubbing against each other in the wind. Luther Land was just quiet.

“Maurice is asleep.”

“Huh?” Hans asked.

“One of the zouts wandered down here. He seems to like me. His name is Maurice.”

“Probably from the overgrowth,” Hans guessed. “Before you ask, it's fine. That was an extra zout anyway.”

“Why Maurice?” Olza asked.

Luther shrugged. “He seemed like a Maurice.”

She laughed. “Of course.”

From there, the conversation meandered from this to that as slow meals with friends often do. Luther answered several more questions about life in the dungeon, but soon everyone shared stories, with Luther and Olza asking the lizardmen about their lives and their adventures.

Their laughter woke Maurice. When Luther opened the door to his house, Maurice ran out and circled the table at a distance, squawking. With some encouragement for Luther, the bird quieted. Zouts planted themselves in the ground like trees when they laid their eggs, so Hans found it odd that Maurice enjoyed steak so much. He would have guessed the bird would be vegetarian.

As the night wore on–an odd idea in a town with no sun– the energy of the gathering waned.

“If this is rude, forget I asked,” Olza began, “but what was Gret like? I've heard so much about him as an adventurer but not a lot about him as a person.”

“Are you sure you have no drink?” Izz asked Luther.

He did not, sadly.

Izz suspected as much. “I knew Mr. Gret as a teacher. When Mr. Gret was preparing for Diamond, I asked him what kind of boon he hoped to acquire. To answer, he told me a story of a farmer discovering a strange egg in the forest. The farmer did not know what creature had laid the egg, but he cared for it all the same. He kept it warm and protected until it could hatch. When it hatched, a beautiful creature unknown to all who saw it emerged. He said that Diamond abilities were like that egg. You had no way of knowing what you would find, but the egg needed to be nurtured regardless.”

Olza said that story was cute.

“I too admired the parable,” Izz said. “Later, I learned that he took the story from a Haynu B. Dumas story. The creature that hatched was goat-like with leathery wings. The goat was of the fainting variety, collapsing at any sudden noise or hint of danger. The farmer worked with the creature to overcome its fear, day after day of encouragement. The first time the goat stood its ground against a pack of wolves invading the farm, the goat transformed into a demon, destroying everything.”

“Huh?” Olza asked while Hans chuckled.

“Haynu had some funny ideas about monsters,” Hans added. “A lot of them had abilities that triggered when they resisted their true nature.”

He wanted to continue sharing his knowledge of Haynu lore, but he overcame the temptation to launch into a discussion of birds who caused earthquakes if they touched the ground or cats who burned down doors if they were locked out of a room.

“What lesson was Gret teaching with that?” Olza asked.

Izz smiled. “I believe he was sincere about nurturing the egg, but Mr. Gret often hid jokes that would come to light months later. A year passed before I read that particular Haynu book. Mr. Gret was quite pleased with himself when I asked him about it.”

“We rooted out a cult on a job once,” Hans began. “When we cleared their sanctum, we found piles of these little cards promoting their cause, like they were meant to be handed out as recruitment tools. ‘Is Worshipping Darkness Right for You?’ they said.

“Gret snatched a whole stack of them without us knowing and hid them all over for us to stumble into later. I found one right before I moved to Gomi, actually. He stuck it between some books in my apartment.”

Thuz laughed. “Miss Mazo moved a painting in her home some months ago. Ten of the cult pamphlets fell to the ground as soon as she lifted it from the wall.”

“I think I have a Gret story you guys haven’t heard,” Hans said when the laughter quieted. “Gret was scrappy. He grew up as a street kid in Hoseki, so he was fighting all the time. He got into the Guild when a retired boxer in town started training him and vouched for his potential. Get him on the right track kind of thing.

“Unfortunately for Gret, he wasn’t very tall, wasn’t muscular, and he had one of those faces that people just want to mess with, like it was a bullseye for bullies. At first, watching Gret school some townie for picking a fight was a fun way to wind down from a job, but once we started pushing through Bronze, Mazo and I were genuinely concerned he would kill someone. Not intentionally or anything, but the mismatch was getting bigger and bigger.

“Mazo volunteers to talk to him about it. She does, says it went well, and a week or so later, we’re in a tavern after a wyvern job and some poor kid spills ale on a sailor. Gret steps in for the kid, and boom, they’re fighting. I look at Mazo like ‘what the hell?’ and she held up a finger for me to wait.

“Gret had refused to stop fighting outright when Mazo asked, so they arrived at a very Mazo compromise: If he was in a scrap with a non-adventurer, he wasn’t allowed to hit them. He had to end the fight another way. She sold it as a new kind of challenge to keep fights interesting.

“So for every fight after that, Gret robbed his opponent’s blind. They’d throw a punch, he’d slip inside, and suddenly their belt was missing and Gret’s tossing their wallet out the closest window. The other guy would shuffle out of the tavern holding their pants up. Gret had a wall of trophy belts by the time he hit Platinum.”

When Izz finished laughing, he raised his glass of water, “To Mr. Gret.”

“To Gret!”

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Using a pen name, complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the dungeon with resource-specific monsters for each of Gomi’s major trades.

Find a way for Gomi adventurers to benefit from their rightful ranks in the Adventurers’ Guild.

Secure a way to use surplus dungeon inventory for good.

Confirm Roland and Uncle Ed’s decision on the Osare tournament.

Finish transcribing the manual and decide on the next course of action.

Help Izz and Thuz bring new opportunities to their home village.