The fire crackled through the night as Zoe told the others about her journey through the dimension she called purgatory. Some events came easy, others were hard, and slow, her voice cracking like twigs in flame as she sought the right words for the troublesome emotions. The Sound within her soothed her throat. It coaxed out sentences, phrases, and truths and let her tease out the pain.

Trinch used her like a tool, but she still received her freedom. How is one supposed to feel about that?

But at last, her story ended, and it was time for Bella and Anton to retell their day in the dungeon without her. She shook her head as they described fighting the thin men. It was unsettling, and difficult to think about, how easily the system changed the flow of time. Was time running normally now? She thought so, but being with the others made it hard to care.

The fire died as dawn lit the sky blue. None of them felt the chill as they had their first night in the dungeon. Light flashed across the mirrored graves and they rose and left the glowing coals behind.

###

The tunnel from the graveyard to the safe room was the same as before. Long shards of razor-edged mirror jutted from the throat of stone, but with Anton’s scouting technique none of them even came close to being scratched.

"What body path did you choose?" Zoe asked as she ducked under a guillotine in the dark.

Anton leaped onto the shard, balanced on his toes, and flipped away into the darkness.

"I don’t want to say."

Bella laughed as she slipped past. Her form a patch of solid dark in the shadows. The everpresent sword nestled in a strap on her back.

"Don’t want to share with your friends?" Bella asked.

"Are we friends?" Anton called back from where he led the way. "I think of us more as work buddies. I don’t know if I would even acknowledge you outside the dungeon."

"Cruel," said Zoe as she followed the path of a bobbing silver eye. “My ex-boyfriend ran away with one of my work friends. I hope you don’t do the same."

"You never know," came Anton’s reply.

Bella snickered.

"My body path is [The Anchor In The Deep]. I…" her hand brushed the hilt of the runeblade. "I don’t want this sword to define me, but I know I can’t throw away its power. Literally, because it’s attached to my soul like a bee’s stinger to its guts.'"

Zoe nodded. The same thought had gone through her head ever since she incorporated the Mirrorbell fragment.

"Shadow and Water," Bella continued. "The pressure of the deep dragging against the world-ending flames of this blade. My first real choices in essence opposed this sword. Initially, I wanted to destroy it — douse the flame — but now I think we can work together. Opposites working in harmony. Symbiosis. Yes, I know…"

She directed her last words to the blade, but Zoe wasn’t sure if Bella knew she spoke them aloud. She let it go. None of them were the same, and none of them were truly sane, not anymore. Who was she to begrudge someone speaking to their sword?

"What do you think of the Gambler’s quest?" Zoe asked.

Bella groaned.

"I don’t want to go back on that show, but it’s not like we have a choice, do we?"

"Oh," Zoe stepped between two shards, the Mirror within her body calling out to them. "No, I meant about your sword. The Mubilashi-Maelstrom quest. Did you get it?"

"What we want," Bella after a pause, "is to reject everything he offers."

"Everything? But what about the python bracelet? That's pretty useful… Oh. You're not wearing yours."

Bella laughed in the dark, and, for a moment, the sound was everywhere, as though she were the shadows come alive.

"You trust anything he gives you? When you were watching our survivors die, he kept me on the stage for a little meeting. The less I have to do with him the better. And, anyway, we don't need the rest of the Mubilashi-Maelstrom collection. We're happy on our own."

Zoe wasn't sure if she should address it. They walked in silence for a while, dodging through the shards. The path split, and Anton led them without fail. Again and again, the path split and wound, but Anton’s floating eyes led them on. Soon, Zoe knew, they would find the safe room, and then the lake and the island and Zazzatha’s mirror-clad yacht. Her fist clenched with anticipation at fighting the dungeon boss with her newfound power.

They took a break at the base of a slope in the trail. Anton balanced on a long shard as silvery eyes orbited him.

"Why do you keep saying 'we'?" He asked Bella with a grin.

They all stopped walking. Bella shuffled for a moment, heat pulsed from her blade, before she pulled it free and held it out.

“I picked this up in our first battle with the puppeteer. I wanted to help, and it bonded with me. Dug roots into my flesh. I don’t feel whole unless I hold this blade. Now, it is a part of me. Body and mind and soul. If I say we, I mean we. If I say ‘I’… well, I don’t know what ‘I’ means anymore. Certainly not what it used to mean,” heat flared like an open oven door. “Do either of you have a problem with that?”

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Mirror coated Zoe’s skin as she activated [Self Reflects The World]. She placed a hand on Bella’s blade. The sword shuddered as Zoe’s grip repelled it, but Bella kept it in place.

“I gained this technique by killing and consuming my clone. She was better than me, purer, and I still… I think I still hear her in my heart. There’s nothing wrong with you. We have no problem with you. We’re a team. Whatever you decide to do with the quest, or with your sword, that is your decision, and I’ll support it.”

Zoe turned her gaze to Anton.

“Now’s your chance to walk away for good.”

“You want me to leave, boss?”

“I don’t.”

“Well, as much as I hate this stuff,” Anton placed his hand on top of Zoe’s. It felt like a feather landing atop her knuckles, and, strangely, her technique did not repel him. “Should we shout teamwork on three?”

“Shut up,” said Bella.

Zoe rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, shut up, Anton.”

“Go, teamwork!” Anton lifted his hand high as he chuckled. “But if we’re talking about quests, what about the quest to get out of the dungeon? We found one fragment of the Mirrorbell, and I still have it on me, but what about the others? I’m not sure how the dungeon works anymore since it rearranged itself.”

Zoe nodded.

“The puppeteer didn’t have a piece on him, but I also incorporated two pieces in purgatory. I should be done, but…”

She shared her quest, and they all examined the bad news.

[Dungeon Objective: Assist Zoe Chambers in absorbing the remaining fragments.]

[Bell fragments absorbed: 3/5]

“It knows I got two fragments, but they don’t count,” Zoe toyed with an idea she didn’t want to speak aloud. “Oriz explained to me that the fragments contain the power to the dungeon. They’re like the keystones holding an arch together, or the batteries powering the whole pocket dimension.”

“You think by bringing in more you’ve made the dungeon more powerful?” Anton asked.

“It’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Or,” Bella said with a hopeful tone. “By incorporating the fragments you’ve weakened the dungeon. Maybe, once you’ve finished incorporating the pieces, the dungeon will collapse.”

They thought for a while, toying out different ideas while Anton’s eyes glowed and floated along the tunnel. At last, he coughed.

“As much as we could stand here and theorize all day, I should let you know that we’re close to the safe room and someone’s waiting for us there.”

Zoe started, and she felt Bella tense, the shadow-draped woman gripping her sword all the more tightly.

“What do you know?” Zoe asked.

“If I send my eyes into the safe room, they’re destroyed. I pulsed my Skein and whoever is in there is higher level than Bella and I, but that’s all I can pick up.”

“Pulsed your Skein?”

“It’s like a radar ping,” Bella answered. “He does it to sound out enemies.”

Zoe frowned. That should have been something Oriz taught her. The image of her master crumbled a little more, but maybe Anton was just more curious about developing his Skein. He seemed fascinated by the concept of Insight. It could be a natural extension of his personality, just as she was with Might.

“Do you think it’s a person in there,” she asked. “Or a monster?”

“I’m not sure. It isn’t mindless like those mirrordiles, but there’s a density to the power that suggests multiple creatures inside each other, like the cranetongue”.

“Higher level than me?”

Anton shook his head.

“If I had to guess, maybe level 15? Ish?”

Zoe nodded. Depending on what attributes their opponent favored, and how unbalanced the build was, they could have quite high abilities. Though it would come down to techniques as well.

She rolled her shoulders as an itch built up inside her. The fight with the puppeteer was unsatisfying. The skeletons were nothing. She knew now that they weren’t supposed to do anything. The first room of the dungeon was not a difficult place, but it would punish those drawn into a false sense of security.

“I haven’t fought with you two in a while —”

“It was yesterday for us.”

“Thank you, Anton, but for me it was —”

“Weird.”

He smiled as she glared at him.

“What?” he asked.

“We should discuss strategy.”

“Our strategy has been Bella chopping anything that might get too close to me.”

Bella sighed.

“He’s not wrong. I take the lead, and he backs me up with data and flanking. But with your abilities,” she looked Zoe up and down, having no difficulty seeing in the dark, “I think you should take the lead.”

Zoe nodded.

“I’ll take the lead and absorb his attention with my Mirror. Bella back me up and flank with your sword. Anton keep a lookout for any tricks”

“Sounds good,” Bella said.

“Or,” Anton raised a finger. “Or, you befriend them and crush their heart from inside.”

Zoe sent a lazy backhand toward Anton which he dodged effortlessly.

“Let’s make that Plan B,” she said.

###

As they advanced toward the tunnel, cautiously picking their way around shards of glass, the smell of ozone grew stronger. Zoe knew what to expect: the smell triggered memories of her last fight with Zazzatha. She had once wielded that same power. For those glorious minutes, she had been the lightning.

It irked her that she lost the Charm of the Monsoon Fairy when she fell through dimensions, just as she lost Trinch’s bone. Items of potent Skein that could have helped her, were now gone. All she had to rely on was herself, and her allies. She smiled as the tunnel grew light. It was not so bad to have friends to rely on.

They would have to develop actual strategies. Simply saying who led the way was not sufficient, but they hadn’t actually fought together properly with their techniques and their bodies. Should they survive the coming encounter, they could work on new tactics. The thought sent a chill through her. She forced herself to calm her breathing.

Having a plan didn’t mean anything if you died.

The tunnel opened into the familiar safe room. Trees of pale dungeon fruit lined the walls. The ground was soft sand over stone. A river flowed against the far wall, and glowing underwater weeds provided the grotto with a shifting, rippling light. The boat waited for them, but this time it was smaller, with only enough room for three. The dungeon had changed to accommodate them, but that was not the only change.

A large wooden chest sat in the center of the room. Heavy oak stained with time. Golden bands secured the planks in place. A lock with a shackle as thick as a finger kept the chest secured. It looked like something out of a video game, and it reeked of the Gambler. She could almost hear him giggling as she imagined what was inside.

But she didn’t spend too much time theorizing, because Anton had been correct. They were not alone in the room. A young boy sat on top of the chest. He couldn’t have been over fourteen. Grey skin and yellow eyes. He wore simple cotton robes in the style of a monk with his head shaved completely bald. There was a serene quality to his eyes and a joyous smile on his face.

“Hello,” he kicked his bare ankles against the wooden chest. “My name is Zee. It is a pleasure to meet you all.”