“You fucking asshole!” Elise said. “You just immediately kick me out of the group to go die?!”

“You were reckless, it literally blew up in your face and you’re surprised we’re not going to sacrifice ourselves so you can keep being reckless?” Thomas fumed back.

“Using fire on that thing was a great strategy and you know it.” Elise said, heated voice turning ice cold. “It was armoured and spitting out explosive creatures, opening its mouth wide and it was fucking armoured to a point where our attacks barely did anything. That whole trick to killing a boss nonsense you were talking about, I did just that.”

“That’s all nice and good, but you agitated a clearly drowsy foe to wake up quickly while we were surrounded by a dozen or so rot stickers and knowing nothing of its moves.” Thomas bit back. “We probably had about ten to thirty seconds of it moving slowly before having to face its full wrath. Time that Ben could’ve observed it and we could’ve killed the spread out rot stickers. Which, if you hadn’t noticed, were so plentiful they put me second in damage despite not attacking the boss even once.”

“Bullshit. You’re against it because I did it. You’ve had a problem with me from the start.” Elise spat.

“I’ve got no problem with you, I’ve got a problem with your recklessness. Especially now that you literally get us all killed if you pull stunts like these.”

“Is this about the damn tiara!?” Elise said.

“Yes, this is about the damn party-killing tiara!” Thomas said. “And you not showing any more restraint after putting it on. You know what it does, what it will do.”

“It wouldn’t kill you.” Elise said, still angry but with the righteousness in her fury dimming.

“We got it from a parasite box, it’s the kind of item explicitly meant to screw over parties.” Thomas said. “Yes, assume it will kill us.”

“Well, nobody told me that!” Elise rebuffed.

Thomas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s true, I suppose. I assumed you were an adult who'd figure it out easily, as a dungeon run by people who introduced themselves by killing seven billion people and getting another three million killed in the first hour won’t be fair and kind. It’s not a game, Elise, nor fair.”

Elise spat to the side. “Whatever. If this item is really that terrible, why do we even have it?”

“It allows us to spread the damage and optimise our healing spell use.” Ben said softly. “And to prevent one lucky big hit to kill one of us. But yeah, I can see now that it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.”

“If we make this kind of issue of Elise wearing it, I guess it wouldn’t be fair to her if we’re okay with someone else wearing and using it.” Darryl said. “Guess no one will use it, then.”

Elise looked at Thomas, who nodded in agreement.

“Well, then it’s unanimous.” She said, taking it off. She grabbed the two ends and twisted, the tiara snapping with the sound of shattering crystal.

“Ah man, we could’ve still traded it.” Ben sulked. “There’s currency on the third floor, and probably also shops.”

“Ah, right.” Elise said, straightening her top hat now that it could no longer hang to the side. “Well, at least I got a silver gear box out of it.”

“Nice! Those ought to get you a better reward than the silver parasite box!” Ben said, immediately chipper again.

“There’s a Safe Room not far from here, let’s go open it there.” Darryl said. “We’ve all got Boss Boxes too, and we should probably regain our heal spells before going anywhere else.”

___     ___     ___     ___     ___

“Decent.” Ben said.

“Crap.” Elise said.

“The usual.” Thomas said.

“So crap for you too.” Elise responded.

“Maybe decent.” Darryl said. “Let’s see what the gear box gives you.”

Darryl took out the bracelet his Boss Box yielded and put it on the table for identification. Ben did the same with a box of what looked like crossbow bolts, while Thomas and Elise both got themselves potions or torches or the likes.

A silver box appeared in front of Elise and opened itself, revealing a tiara.

“Well, so much for randomness, am I right?” Elise said, taking it out and casually handing it over to Thomas. “What tiara did I get, my trusted Treasurer?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“No tiara, they call it a crown instead.” Thomas said. “And you’re correct, I doubt it’s pure chance that you got another orc ornament that actively pisses them off when they see you wear it.”

Orcish crown of the Frontier Baroness

Rare-C Orc gear, part of the Frontier Baroness court set

This is a fleeting item.

Orcs are a mix of three people; commoners that are all but slaves, soldiers that are a bunch of pretentious warmongers, and more nobility than the population really needs. There’s a reason the commoners are so poor, and it’s because there are too many knights and nobles that skim too much off the top for their lavish lifestyles of debauchery and coming up with new reasons why they’re important enough to warrant another bolstering of their numbers!

You hold a (replicate of an) item that will set you apart from most courtiers, aristocrats and petty nobles, for it belongs to a landed title. Can’t just dish out more of those without having the territory to go along with it! Except you can, or well, the orcs can! This crown belongs to a demesne that has been pledged to a lord and distributed before it has been conquered, showing just how overconfident and irresponsible these aristocrats can be about their own noble rights!

You gain +2 Cha, +1 Str, +2 Rallying Cry and +2 Authoritative when openly wearing this item. The skill-ups are halved when worn by a male, unisex or genderless creature. Orcs will become hostile when they see you wear this without holding the proper title, you will gain +25% on Diplomacy checks on orcs and nobles when you do hold the title.

Hidden feature (Revealed!): This crown is linked to a region on the Ninth Floor, which can be legally claimed by the wearer when they conquer it.

“Wait, what? We can become nobles when we take a spot of land? Nice!” Ben said. “By the time we get to that floor, we’re probably already at god-like levels and take it no sweat!”

“Or we’ll be in such a difficulty curve that it will be nigh impossible and not worth the risk of having a spot of land for the month and a half that the floor will be open.” Thomas said. “No point speculating about it yet.”

“Killjoy.” Elise said only half-joking. “I agree with Ben, let’s become godlike queens!”

She put on the crown, Thomas trying to stop her but failing to do so in time.

“What? Pretty sure I’m the optimal choice for it, even if you guys did want to go around parading this kind of jewellery.” She said, already defensively staring down Thomas.

“It’s a fleeting item, which means you cannot take it off without destroying it.” Thomas said. “It would’ve been more prudent to first consider everything before putting it on.”

“Alright, let’s do that. Can anyone here think of one reason why we would want to not equip something that will make it easier to survive right away?” Elise said.

“You’ll have to wear it all the way down to the 9th floor or see it destroyed, even if we find something better along the way.” Thomas said.

“And you kind of have to wear it while you sleep now.” Darryl said.

“You, don’t care.” She said to Thomas, and then turned to Darryl. “You, fair point. Brought it on myself though, so I’ll cope.”

Thomas shrugged and turned to Darryl. “Very well. So, let’s see what your coward box gets you.”

Darryl opened it, a silver box appeared before him, and his reward popped out.

“Smoke bombs and healing potions.” Darryl said.

“I see. Not bad.” Thomas said, picking up the bracelet that Darryl placed down before. “The bolts are explosive, mild concussive things but still better than the average bolt. This bracelet seems to grant you a mild resistance to fire and explosives.”

Darryl accepted it back and placed it on the table. Elise sneered at it. “Ew, bronze. How tacky.”

“Ben, do you want it then?” Darryl asked.

“Your box, dude.” Ben said.

“My shield already grants me fire protection, while it seems like exactly the kind of element that will go in wide arcs and sudden gouts that might strike you guys.” Darryl said.

“I think that item would be useful enough for any and all of us, given that no one has to take anything off to equip it.” Thomas said. “But I agree, it would be Darryl’s choice first. And you should wear it, Darryl, you need to survive this place too.”

Darryl looked at the others to see if someone would say anything, and then took the bracelet back to put on his paralyzed arm.

“Alright, so what now?” Ben said. “Do we take down another regular Neighbourhood boss, or do we go help the Llamas? Or kill more krutnik?”

“About that.” Darryl said. “I was thinking; why don’t we just leave?”

“What do you mean, leave?” Elise asked incredulously.

“Exactly what it sounds like. We go to the stairway and down to the second floor. We’ve already hit the level cap that most crawlers hit this floor, so we wouldn’t be lacking power to survive the second.” Darryl said. “We might gain another level or two, but unless we take out another Neighbourhood boss it wouldn’t do much for us. We don’t gain anything from levels, after all, only skills and boxes. And those level just as fast on easier targets.”

“We’d miss out on some time, but I agree with Darryl that we’ve already gotten enough out of this to make do.” Thomas said. “And those six hours we get running around the second floor shouldn’t equate to that much.”

“Yeah, but we still lose out on a lot of time.” Elise said. “Time we could use to get a head start on the other crawlers and have a better chance for popularity because of it. You’ve seen what we’re competing with, the utter bullshit items that some players with screentime got.”

“Or we run into the Big Bad Woolf and end up dead.” Darryl said. “Or we get swarmed by krutnik that outnumber us two to one just the once, and end up with more handicaps or even dead team mates. Both of those are still blades hanging above our necks, whether we notice them or not.”

“All the monsters we encountered seemed scary at first, but soon turned out to have some trick to them. These krutnik are more dangerous than the others in many ways.” Ben said. “I agree that just throwing away time and advantage like this sucks, but the next floor probably has easier foes less likely to get us all killed.”

“And the longer we stay here, the longer we risk running into the Woolf.” Darryl said.

Elise sighed long and loud, already having given in but making a show out of magnanimously allowing herself to be swayed by their words. “Fine. Let us go down.”

They got up, Elise haggling to take down one last Neighbourhood boss before they left while Ben took out his backstabber just outside the Saferoom and began to chip the skin off of Darryl’s arm.

A few minutes later they left off, fighting their way through a sparse few krutnik patrols before reaching the Stairways and going down.