Tam was the first to speak, the balaclava barely muffling the suspicion. “Killian?”

The stranger’s brow shot up in surprise, and they flipped off their hood and tugged down the scarf from their face to reveal the rest of their features; striking and dark, but there was a crookedness absent along the nose. A cloud of white breath exhaled from their brown lips that were curled down in scepticism. This expression was all wrong too.

“You’re familiar with my younger brother?”

It was Killian standing before us, except more gaunt, maybe leaner in general, though it was difficult to tell because of all the layers. The only other major difference was that his haircut was sensibly parted down the middle, granting him bangs—not the mullet his brother sported.

“You’re twins?” I clarified, baffled.

“So they say, but I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t adopted.”

Of course. I had forgotten because it’d been so long ago. The name of the first person to enter Dungeon 11.

Adrien Galbraith.

“I thought you would be dead,” I said, dumbfounded. How was he alive? It’d been two weeks! And in the presence of those beasts! Wren’s prior party had been practically decimated. And all those bodies… It was ridiculous. Beyond belief. And then there was the sheer coincidence of us having a tenuous connection with his brother. What kind of weird luck.

“I assure you, tales of my demise, if there have been any, which I am doubtful of considering our circumstances, have been greatly embellished.”

Axel’s nose crinkled in distaste. “Killian was always right about you.”

The twin’s eyes twitched. “I can’t escape his fans even in a Dungeon!” He threw his arms up in anger, before folding them over his chest. Annoyance clouded his face. “You’re all welcome, by the way. For me saving your lives and putting mine on the line.”

A mumbled thanks rose from everyone in the party, some people chattering it out.

“How have you…” I began, unsure how to word it.

“They’re mostly muscle so they’re quite chewy.”

The words sank slowly into me, their meaning only making sense as Wren blanched, Makris possibly explaining it to her in the same time I took to parse it.

Adrien had been eating the creatures. That couldn’t be healthy. Even if he’d needed to sustain himself, surely there were other ways. As I thought on it, I couldn’t conjure anything else except maybe looting the bodies? That wouldn’t be reliable. Obviously for water, he’d been melting ice. Protein, fat, and H2O weren’t exactly the building blocks of a nutritious diet, but they’d keep you alive. It begged the question, though, why?

Stealing my thunder, her eyes wary, Tam asked, “What’s your rationale in staying in this eighth circle of hell?”

The brunet gave her a wry smile. “Call it an amateur’s mistake.”

“You’re gonna have to give us more than that,” Axel followed up.

“Say, isn’t it a bit rude to start questioning me without even introducing yourselves?” Adrien’s head cocked as he said this, the smile on his face pleasant but facile.

He was a very different man to his brother, that was for certain. What had Killian said… Adrien was the academic? It was true that there was something of an analytical bend to him. It wasn’t alarming. Just off putting. He reminded me of peers I’d had in university who’d dismiss you after you answered one question not to their liking. As if you were suddenly beneath them.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m Lee, that’s Axel, Jye, Wren, Tam, and Gigi,” I listed off, gesturing as I went along. “We’re the party Just Friends.”

Suddenly remembering proper social etiquette, I reached out a hand and he shook it, his grip firm. “Apologies, I’m not familiar with your group. As for me, you may have gathered, I’m Adrien.” He paused, eyes flicking over each member of our team. “I don’t suppose you would mind helping me clear this Dungeon?”

“Wait a momento. If you already know how to clear it, like, why haven’t you?” Jye asked, incredulous hands resting on their hips.

“Not for want of trying, o’ tall brutish oaf. It is simply impossible to do alone. And not many people survive long enough to get to the nest,” Adrien explained as though he were talking to school children. His expression hardened. “Though you appear to have seen some combat.”

“Some,” I replied.

“Perfect. Then we can team up. I’d be more than happy to lend my expertise provided you relinquish the clear to me.”

“Not happening, dove,” Tam hissed. “We don’t share.”

“She doesn’t speak for us,” I said.

“And you do?” she snapped.

My gaze dropped to the [Collar of Control] around her neck, and she scowled before falling into a sizzling silence. And here I had finally gotten onto the… well, the not bad side of her. All that work, thrown into the wind! I repressed the sigh that threatened to escape me. Three steps forward and two back was still progress.

“Your petty squabbles aside, it’d be in your best interest to partner up with me.” He threaded his loosely gloved fingers together. They didn’t look his size… Had he pilfered them from the corpses? It made sense. We’d done the same, really. “I know the ins and outs of the Dungeon. You’re liable to end up like those poor unfortunate souls at the Gate should you set out on your own.”

A flash of that sickening image burst through my mind, and my stomach lurched.

“Tell us why you’ve stayed inside the Dungeon, and we’ll consider your offer,” I countered, trying to forget the staggering loss of life.

Adrien let out a sharp sigh. “You’re a bothersome bunch.”

I waited.

With a roll of his eyes, he explained, “I received a request that the Dungeon be cleared without me leaving it. There were only a few of the beasts I knew of then. I thought it would be doable. Blinded by my own hubris, I accepted it. The reward was incredible. The penalty, terrible.”

It all hit fairly close to home. I wondered if Apophis was to blame here too.

“The penalty was your death?” I asked.

He nodded grimly. “It is not a mistake I will be making again any time soon.”

“Why hasn’t anyone else survived?” Wren chimed in.

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“I don’t appreciate the judgement implied in your question, girl. I’m not a monster, just pragmatic. I warn them when I am around, but there is only so much one man can do,” Adrien said tersely. “Most people step into the Gate and freeze at the sight of the beasts or attempt to fight them. Neither option ends well. Everyone I’ve tried to help has perished. Well, almost everyone.” At that, he peered down at Wren now, a curious glint in his eyes.

She shrank away from his gaze, her jaw still chattering from the cold, and rubbed her shoulders to warm up. It looked like she’d forgotten to pack her thermal blanket. The others had already summoned their own, the mylar fabric shiny in the dim light of the cave.

Pulling mine from my inventory, I stepped closer to her and flicked it out, drawing it about her shoulders. She gave me a small smile, her cherry nose Rudolph red, and pulled the lightweight material tighter to herself. Seeing her stop shivering, I was content enough without the added warmth and had started thinking of a way to get the most benefit out of this potential arrangement with Adrien. As I did so, Axel slung half of his blanket over my shoulder, bringing his body closer and pressing into my side. I don’t know whether the heat that found me was due to the blanket at all. My face ignited as the rest of the party’s gaze fell on us, and I was thankful for the balaclava masking most of my expression.

Ignoring them, especially Tam’s manically gleeful glare, Axel asked Adrien, “Right, well, you said there were only a few when you entered. Tell us why there are so many now.”

“I see why you have lived as long as you have,” the twin said in dry acknowledgement, taking this moment to reapply his scarf and hood, his nose bright pink. “The number climbs the longer they remain and the temperature drops the longer the challenge is incompleted. I whittle off what I can to cull the herd, but I cannot handle the sheer volume.”

Well, that explained why it was colder than when Wren had entered. I’d assumed the difference was due to her healing herself and not taking as much damage from the weather. But if it grew colder the longer the challenge wasn’t completed… Surely that was the Deity’s anger brewing over someone slowballing their Dungeon?

“Are you confident the clear is killing all the creatures?” Gigi asked, a furrow to xir brow.

“When you get near their nest, you get a notification detailing it. It’s a simple challenge, but one entirely out of my own abilities.”

I nodded. “What are your abilities and class, then?”

“Shall I give you my bank account information and PIN while I’m at it?”

This earned a snort of amusement from Tam. I shot her a death glare, and she just shrugged, the blanket at her shoulders crinkling up with the movement. As I turned back to respond to Adrien, I caught Axel’s gaze which was also narrowed in distrust.

Honestly, in this I was in concert with him. Something about Killian’s brother was off. It was the first time I’d come across someone in discussion where the idea of inviting them to our party hadn’t so much as drifted through my mind. Even despite all the beneficial skills it looked like Adrien had access to, it didn’t feel like a good idea. In fact, as I took in the situation, I was reminded of when I’d met Nabu’s gaze.

Adrien didn’t care if we lived or died.

He had a use for us, and that was all that mattered.

But maybe we could use that to our advantage.

“If we’re going to be working together, we need to put all our cards on the table,” I said.

“I’ll tell you this much: I’m a Sorcerer.” His gaze flicked over the party. “I’m sponsored. And I have every intention to win the Event.”

I blanched, not just from how he’d revealed he knew exactly what this entire thing was, but that he was essentially admitting to working against us, eventually. I should’ve expected this from someone who’d been stuck in a Dungeon the entire time. There was no way one could be sane eating those creatures. Then again, maybe he’d been like this before the Event. Who was to know?

“Then why would we help you? We’re in direct competition.”

He gave me a cool look. “Let me put it this way, Lee. I can and will make your lives a living hell while you are within this Dungeon. I will thwart you at every turn, sabotage all of your efforts, and lay to waste any and all plans you make. And should you cross me, I will not hesitate to strike you all down. Or—” He raised an eyebrow. “—we can work amicably together and you can give me the clear.”

“Not very cash money of you,” Jye commented sullenly.

“No. It isn’t. But those are my ‘cards on the table,’ as you put it.”

Adrien had to be confident he could defeat the six of us if he was willing to threaten us like this. The way he stood was without a care, a casualness, but still guarded. He could defeat us. Or he was sure he could. Without knowing what abilities he had as a [Sorcerer], if that truly was his class, or what LVL he was and the experience he had, it was possible we were already somehow under his thumb.

Fuck.

This wasn’t really an ambush as it was a semi-expected betrayal. At least there was that. I’d learned slightly from our past experiences. Becoming a paranoid person had never seemed like a good thing, but it had its perks.

“Can I have a moment to talk this out with my party?” I asked.

He chortled. “All the time in the world. Though I remind you, that’s far more limited these days.”

With that, he turned his back and walked to the only exit of the tunnel we’d run into, giving us space until I could only just make him out. He stood there, arms crossed in a solid stance. I heard several hisses. However, nothing visible appeared. What abilities was he using?

He had to have a reasonable amount of mana (I was assuming he’d be using mana over stamina based on his class, but I had no proof), since he was activating skills so often. Possibly that meant he’d earned a large amount of credits too. There was no doubt in my mind that Adrien was a higher level than us, him having survived on his own here for two weeks. And it was very possible he’d come across other less than welcoming players, resulting in him gathering a nice assortment of abilities from their deaths.

The party dropped into a crouch, huddled around each other, a silence sitting between us, wisping out as fogged breath from our covered mouths. None of us were sure what to say. All our planning had basically worked out exactly as we’d wanted. We were all alive, we were all in the Dungeon, and we hadn’t killed anyone.

And yet, the acidic taste of failure rankled my mood.

First there’d been the mass death pit. I still wasn’t properly processing it, the image on a buffer in my head. Then, Adrien had completely soured our accomplishments by just genuinely having a better hand. Or bluffing well enough that it appeared as so. He’d saved our lives, yes, but purely for his own gain.

These two things pissed me off, actually. They made my hate for the Divinities reignite. For once, for once, we’d done everything right! We’d thought about it from every angle we could’ve, and we’d succeeded!

We should’ve been celebrating our success, sharing the hot cocoa I’d stored in my inventory for our first night here, sat around a propane heater and telling stupid stories right now. Instead we’d had to run for our lives from an impossible battle with monsters and then gotten threatened by an asshole in a cave and none of us could even be sure said asshole had anything on us. Not only that, but the swathe of dead bodies we’d fled from meant that it was more than likely the Deities would not be entertained; the doom of tutorial termination was very, very real. Apophis had been the only active Deity who enjoyed bloodshed. The others had wanted interesting things to happen. And people dying straight out the Gate had to get boring quickly.

So all this… this just wasn’t fair!

I was livid.

Another moment passed.

“Fuck,” said Axel.

“Yeah, fuck,” I agreed.

Jye nodded. “Bit fucking shit.”

“Complete fucking ass,” Tam supplied.

Gigi contributed, “This appears quite fucked.”

Unified, our focus fell to the ten-year-old. It was now or never. Wren’s eyes widened, sensing the opportunity, and she checked with the rest of us silently. We gestured in encouragement, approving shines to our gazes.

“Fu-Fuck this?” she said testingly, unsure.

Simultaneously, we chorused back, “Fuck this!” then shared a defeated laugh.

Our frustrations spoken, and somewhat alleviated by knowing all of us were for once very much on the same page, I sighed. It would do us no good to continue on this path. I pulled out a notebook and six differently colored pens, before holding them out for the others.

In all caps, I wrote: HE USED A FEW ABILITIES AS HE WALKED AWAY. I THINK HE’S LISTENING IN ON US. I was basing this off how he’d sensed the creatures were gone. He’d demanded silence. Following this, I underscored the sentences several times, flipping it to face the others so they could read.

“But we have to say yeah to his demands, right?” I said aloud.