At the bottom of the stairs, I strain my hearing to see if anyone is nearby. When I am sure there are no eavesdroppers, I sit on the steps.

"What was that back there, Alice?"

"A deluge of Attribute Points," she replies. Then she sinks into her System windows. It's easy to tell because her eyes became unfocused. A minute later, she finishes doing the math. "Thirty-nine points. Not bad."

"Who's Clotilde?" I try a different approach.

"A Clown. In this town, they're never funny. A very, very powerful Clown. One you shouldn't bother yourself with. He won't act against you or me, for the matter."

I am feeling the same way as she is. Why can't Alice just admit it? I try another approach. "Is what he said true?"

The elf shrugs. "Who knows? Most likely, Clotilde's words are true," Alice then roars and punches the wall. The stone doesn't crack but neither does her 'delicate' skin. "The Guild got played by the Demon King."

The political implications are vast and beyond my pay grade. The only thing that mattered was that this tiny piece of misinformation got my father killed.

"Promise me you won't seek vengeance," Alice begs.

"I won't. Will the Guild investigate the matter, at least? Someone must've leaked this fake information."

"Yes. Probably. But it is probably some patsy the Demons implanted or even brainwashed. We can execute some people but we will only be throwing away more personnel."

"I see."

"Anyway, I'll report what Clotilde said to the other Guild Masters, and then we will decide what to do with it. Are you rested? We should get going."

"Sure."

She said nothing else after that. It was time to go. Before I did, though, I had to check my gear again. We just got out of four back-to-back boss fights, after all. Satisfied that everything was in working order, I stood up and picked a tunnel to go down.

*

*

The effect of the Attributes gained in the boss room was sensible. We put the grief, guilt, and anger revived by Clotilde provocation. The cathartic massacre in the boss room was probably enough to keep Alice focused the rest of the delve. I moved faster, with fluid movements, and noticed more clues of fights.

Yeah.

Letting all those parties cross over to the second floor was probably not the best idea if we wanted to have something to kill on the second floor. Because I could only see blood splatters and monster corpses everywhere we went. The second floor became as over-hunted as the first. And the Dungeon seemed to have lost the interest in respawning the creatures. It wasn't even absorbing the monster corpses or the blood. I reported this observation to Alice.

"Well, at least we will find the corpses if anyone is stupid enough to PK. We should move to the third floor. This time, we're not giving anyone a free pass. Let's go."

Using the maps, we quickly found the second-floor boss room. A lot of delvers thought the same thing and we found a lot of familiar faces when we reached the room. No clown this time. The doors to the boss room were open. It seems that nobody was too interested in risking their lives to find something to kill. When they saw Alice and I enter the room, hope alighted on their faces.

"Guild Master!" Some shouted and waved at Alice.

The elf stopped and scanned the room. She made brief pauses on each face as if taking a roll call. When she finished, a small smile formed on the corners of her mouth.

"No PKs?" I asked in a low voice. It seems none of the people who passed past us on the first floor attempted to kill their fellow delver.

"Yes. Everyone is here. But it's the departure that concerns me. It's a long way back and not many wish to go back empty-handed," Alice replied. "However, the Dungeon's inactivity might be useful. Let me try something."

Relief washes over me. Flashes of the carnage upstairs, the weight of the gold disk in my pocket, it all made me question if it was worth someone else's life. My answer was that it wasn't.

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She walked to the center of the room. As Alice moved, every head turned her way. "Attention, everyone. The Dungeon is going into hibernation from overhunting. Monsters on the first and the second floor aren't going to respawn. I can sense the influence of the Dungeon withdrawing from the top floors."

The delvers weren't happy. What looked like a golden opportunity to delve deeper had just become a nothingburger. Some cast the same envious gazes at me but now laced with hatred. I tried not to shrink under the attention but it was impossible.

Alice then weaves her hands and hums a woodland tune in Elvish, one I was quite familiar with. After all, she used it all the time when I visited the Guild, to keep an over-energetic kid from disrupting business too much. As the spell and song reached its apex, a swarm of fairies appeared out of thin air. Summon Pixie Swarm but the amount of fairies was almost tenfold more than what she used with me. I saw hints of exhaustion at the Mana expenditure on her face for a moment but that was only because I was quite used to the sight. The other delvers had their eyes elsewhere now.

The playful and mischievous fairies swarmed around, examining the delvers and giggling at some funny thing only they could understand. Nobody attacked out of fear of retaliation. Summon spells were reserved to the top echelons of spellcasters and an attack against the summons would mark them as enemies to the rest. Nobody wanted to see what these tiny fairies could do.

"Each of you, pick the Adventurer you liked the most and guide them to the outside of the Dungeon," Alice commanded. "This is a service only for Guild-affiliated delvers, unfortunately. Guild members, you are to avoid initiating aggression at any cost. The fairies will let me know if something happens. As for the other unaffiliated delvers, I recommend going out of the Dungeon as well. If you would reconsider joining the Guild, please visit us at Guild Street. The fairies who didn't find a partner, Adventurer, please roam the Dungeon warning the other parties that the Dungeon is hibernating.

"It won't be safe to remain in these tunnels. The Dungeon is gathering energy for a massive wave. The first Adventurers who reach the surface, please warn the guard to put the proper protocols in motion. That is all. GO!"

She ended with a shout. The fairies swarmed around, picking the Adventurers who displayed their badges. Then they started to incessantly urge them to move away. Not ones to disobey the Guild Master, the Adventurers quickly made their way toward the exit tunnels with their fairy guide. The unaffiliated delvers were slower on the uptake but also started to move. The remaining fairies zipped and darted toward the tunnels, a roughly equal amount going each way.

A dozen or so minutes later, only Alice and I remained in the hall. She was concentrating on the spell. I assumed that the sensory feedback of dozens upon dozens of fairies was taxing her mind. Without anything to do and not wanting to wander too far from the seemingly defenseless elf, I focused my senses around the room, trying to find anyone hiding or invisible lurking behind.

I couldn't find anyone but that was enough to push my Skill to the next rank.

> > Your training and knowledge improved Scouting to rank II. Benefit: Increase the effects of Intelligence to find tracks by 10% per rank.

Suddenly, The tracks left by the departing delvers became much more obvious to me. It also marked Intelligence as one of the key Attributes I needed to develop. As I pondered on how to distribute my level Attributes, I decided to focus on Strength and Intelligence, Nine and six points on each respectively. Charisma and Clarity would need to lag behind, at least until I unlocked a sub-Class.

Sub-Classes raised the Experience per level but also granted extra Attribute Points. Having a high Experience per level was a good thing. Since Experience awards rapidly diminished with level, gaining more Attributes per level meant you would be stronger to face challenges. It delayed the moment where you wouldn't be strong enough to defeat enemies that granted you levels, the soft level cap.

I sat down on the gravel and waited. To use the time efficiently, I went through the arrows retrieved from the fight with the Horrors to see if they were damaged.

*

*

One hour later, Alice called to me. I was right beside her, so I just grunted in response.

"The Dungeon is all ours now. The portcullis upstairs is locked and the Guard is ready to fend off a wave. Hopefully, it won't come to that." She didn't seem so sure. Alice took a big beanbag chair out of her satchel and dropped herself on it. Then, she had to tease. "Won't you sit here with me like in the old times?"

"It wouldn't fit the both of us. Regardless, what happens now?"

"Now, we wait," Alice said. "The Dungeon has weakened its grasp on the top floors and is gathering energy below us. It will send a wave of monsters up, and all of them will pass through those doors. You should snipe as many monsters as you can. I'll keep both of us safe while the wave moves past us. Just let me recover some MP. Those fairies took almost everything I had but—"

"I know, you needed to keep the Adventurers safe and it was a good publicity stunt. It showed that you care."

"That's my boy," she crooned with a sly smile.

We waited. Nothing happened and the Dungeon air became stale. Illumination dropped as the Dungeon domain withdrew even more. I assumed the first floor had descended into absolute darkness. Once Alice had recovered enough MP, she started to raise walls of stone out of the floor, forming a small fortress in one of the corners. We relocated to that position and settled on the raised wall. I had a good view of the whole room and the boss chamber beyond the open doors. As a trial, I fired some arrows at the door and into the boss room, to check the angle and reach of my shots.

Scout's Oath had several enchantments, most of them unknown to me but all of them passive. I was only certain of four. First, it granted the Parallel Progression for extra Attribute points. Second, it had the exact draw strength I was capable of pulling. As my Strength Attribute increased, Scout's Oath would still remain the perfect bow for my Attributes. Third, it was nigh-indestructible. Only the string could be damaged but I had several in my pack as they didn't take too much space. Finally, it imparted more speed to the arrow than a similar bow with the same draw strength would.

I suspected the bow also made the arrows more resilient but I couldn't confirm it. My father once said that his arrows broke less frequently than other archers.

Alice retrieved the arrows with a mage hand spell. Even though they struck the reinforced door or the stone, none of them was damaged enough to be unusable.

Then, I sensed vibrations on the ground. The monster wave was about to climb the stairs to the second floor.