The sun had gone down by the time we got off the ship.

There was only one dock in the city, even though a good portion of the city was against the water. The coast made for a good barrier and it was one less wall that the Temple or Dispatchers had to build when they were converting a Desolation into a godless town.

We had barely gotten off the ship when they pulled away. They might have agreed to stop at the town, but since they didn’t have any other business to do, the Night’s Shadow was ready to get back to their original schedule.

There were four cycles parked next to the shop at the end of the dock and a blonde haired man with bright blue eyes and a thick bear stepped out of the shop as we approached.

“Welcome friends!” The hairy green man smiled almost unnaturally wide. “I’m Cada Ain, is one of you Nyssa?”

The redheaded woman walked up to him and the two of them walked over to the cycles. I could hear them negotiating, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Ever been to Haux before?” Sipher looked around. “There’s a lot of potential here.”

“Nope.” I was making sure to keep out of arm's reach of the bandit. He was too friendly then cold way too fast.

“A pity.” The golden bandit turned to look out at the water. “Might be a good place to set up a base, though it’s not connected to the system yet.”

“You mean your system of Dungeon Tunnels?” I looked over at Gall, who seemed disinterested in the conversation.

Sipher nodded. “The Mappers try walking around the wall of each floor, but there’s over three hundred Dungeons out there. He shook his head. “They might make more headway if they focused most of their efforts on the floors above twenty seven, but that means having to send teams of Tier Three out and it’s about all they can do to keep up with the new Desolations or branches when a God claims a city.”

“Why above twenty seven?” I knew that the Mappers were mainly made up of Minotaurs. The Minotaurs were the largest of the demihuman groups in terms of population, but to maintain current maps complete with terrain, bestiaries, and spawn areas, most of them practically lived in the Dungeon.

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“There’s been only one Tunnel found below that and it was on level four in…” He smirked. “That’s not public knowledge. Anyway, They keep looking for them down there, but imagine if they focused almost thirty levels worth of resources on say, just the thirties?”

“That still wouldn’t guarantee that they’d find any more Tunnels.” I glanced over at Nyssa and saw her shake hands with the jovial man.

“No, but you won’t find snakes in the sky.” Sipher shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I’m finding more Tunnels than they are.”

“You’ll have to show me how you do it sometime.”

“We’re ready, let’s go!” Nyssa began waving at us, signaling the end of our discussion.

“Stick around and maybe I will.” Sipher squeezed my shoulder as he walked past me. “I want the red one!”

I saw Gall shaking his head. “What?”

“Sipher doesn’t give anything for free.” The bald man looked over at where his daughter was arguing with Sipher. “He wants something.”

“Yeah.” That much I had already figured out. “Any idea what?”

“You’re almost Tier Five and there aren’t many serious Adventurers that high. Maybe he just wants the extra muscle.” Gall slightly shrugged. “Or maybe he just wants your experience. Who knows?”

I was definitely not turning my back on the bandit. And after the ambush earlier, I wasn’t going to give him the chance to. “What is the plan here? When do we pull out?”

“You’re done once we see what this item is that he claims can grant immortality.” He nodded at his daughter. “We’re staying.”

“It’s an item?” I looked at Sipher. The CB that he had now was not the one he’d been wearing when he’d been arrested. Considering Gall hadn’t said anything about having to go back to the prison, I assumed it hadn’t been on him when the bandit had been captured.

“He told me that it’s a Tier Five legendary drop, so it’ll only work in the fifties. He was able to procure it, but considering that he isn’t high enough to get to the fifties by himself, he needs help, which is why his captains are supposed to come. So they can do the raid on fifty.”

“We already have eight.” I thought about who else was supposed to show up. “Now that Cass isn’t there are we going to have enough?”

“We’re not going to have to worry about beating the fiftieth floor.” Gall started to walk towards his daughter. “Because Kire is going to clear it for us.”

I watched him walk away, too speechless to respond.