Ayn’s first three party requests pinged back within seconds. Rejected. It wasn’t a surprise, but it still stung. Nua, Frenner, and Jay lived nearby her house, and they had grown up seeing one another. They had avoided her for a few years, but….

Ayn shook her head and waved her hand in front of her. Along with the command in her mind, the motion summoned a blue, rectangular screen which hovered at eye level. Not much larger than a piece of paper, the screen listed names in bold black letters. At the top of the screen shone three letters in fancy script—LFG, or “looking for group”.

She scanned the list. The screen scrolled down as she neared the bottom of the page, each name a blur. Ayn didn’t need to read them. She knew every person in her little town, especially the new Crawlers. With a sigh, she picked three more names—people who at least talked to her occasionally—and sent the requests with another thought.

The title of the screen changed from “LFG” to “Requests Pending”. The list shrunk to three. Ayn drummed her fingers across the surface of the wooden table she sat at. Built in a circle to accommodate more chairs, it stretched five feet in all directions. Pointless for her, as she sat alone.

Ping. Rejected.

Two more responses came in on the first’s heels. Rejected. Ayn growled, sent a mass request to every other Crawler on the LFG list, and closed the blue screen with a flick of her wrist.

More pings. She ignored them, leaning back instead to take stock of the room. The table she sat at was one of ten scattered across the open floor of the Crawler’s Guild. Built entirely of smooth wood floors and red brick walls, the spacious building sat as a beacon of promise among the log and thatch houses of the town. A long counter stretched across the back of the room, divided into four alcoves. Food. Drink. Registration. Entrance Hall. Four identical men in silver tunics stood behind each section of the counter. Each one was an NRC—Non-Rebirth Character—generated by The System’s AI.

Other than Ayn and the NRCs, a party of four sat at a distant table, talking in hushed tones. The rest of the guild stood empty. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told anyone she’d be looking for a group. She stared at the party of four. They were mid-tier, judging by the sturdy but not luxurious gear they had. Their classes were the usual—A warrior in plate mail, a leather-clad damage dealer, and two robed mages. Ayn tried to imagine herself among them, but as a hybrid build even at level ten, she didn’t fit in any of their roles.

The warrior caught her staring and scowled. Ayn blocked his line of sight with another flick of her wrist. The list of sent requests reappeared, a bunch of flashing red rejected filling most of it. Ayn’s breath caught. Among the sea of red, two green accepted popped up like life rafts. Ayn focused on the first name.

Kayara, Level 10 Acrobat

Ayn didn’t recognize the name. Her initial excitement dwindled. If she hadn’t heard of them, they were brand new to town, which meant they hadn’t heard of her, either. As soon as the other villagers got a hold of them, they’d probably run, too. Maybe the other name was someone she knew.

Ayn jerked back as something slapped the table.

“You Ayn?”

A woman clad in an iridescent green acrobat’s jumpsuit watched Ayn, a half-smile on her face. The woman’s jumpsuit wrestled with the glittery blue frills on her shoulders, which clashed with the rainbow streaks in her hair and ponytail. While unnatural colors were the norm despite Ayn’s rather mundane orange-red hair and brown clothes, seeing so many so close together proved as startling as the woman’s entrance.

“What?” Ayn asked.

“I’m Kayara. You sent a request to me, like two minutes ago.”

“Right. Yes. Hello.”

Kayara slipped into a chair beside Ayn with the grace of a cat. The chair didn’t even squeak. “You got any more coming?”

“Huh?”

Kayara’s smile grew into a wide grin, bringing a mischievous sparkle to her green and red flecked eyes. Ayn got the distinct impression she’d become the morning’s entertainment. Heat crawled up her face.

“One more,” Ayn said. “I didn’t get to see the name.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“I…uh…got interrupted.”

“Ohhh…my bad. Well, go ahead and check. I’ll wait. Better to leave the nitty-gritty details until everyone’s present, anyway.”

“Right.” Ayn pulled the list back up, keeping Kayara’s palette of colors in her peripheral. Another person materialized at the table as soon as she did. Ayn exited the screen with a jerk of her hand.

A man this time, with curly blue hair and dusky skin mostly hidden by a white silk suit with a hammer and anvil emblem embroidered on the left breast. Ayn’s heart sped back up. She knew this guy. There was no way he was the other one to accept.

“Hello,” the man said. He grabbed a seat and sat down only slightly less gracefully than Kayara. “Lucky me for getting your invitation. Looks like I joined the LFG list just in time.” He tilted his head toward Ayn.

Ayn stared, dumbstruck. Lucky for him? He was a favored member of the town’s large, and only, Crafting Guild. A Crawler could get any average piece of equipment off a street vendor in the market square, but if you wanted quality, you wanted a Guild piece.

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“I’m…um, honored you accepted, Bren,” Ayn said.

“The honor is all mine.”

Kayara slapped the table and scoffed. “Oh, I see. Fancy boy comes in and you’re ‘honored’. Guess I’m—”

“Sorry! I’m honored you accepted too. It’s just Bren is—”

“Someone important. Got ya. The clothes definitely give that away. Well, no worries. I bet I can become a little more important.”

The half-smile returned. Ayn waited for her to continue as the silence stretched on. Bren raised an eyebrow.

“How?” Ayn finally blurted.

Kayara stood up, her chair squeaking across the floor, and raised her hands skyward. “Behold!”

The other party turned to stare. Nothing happened.

“Simply a minor delay,” Kayara said with another flourish of her hands.

Bren scowled. “A delay of what?”

“Any minute….”

A fourth person, taller than them all, shimmered into being next to Kayara, covered head to toe in a brown, hooded robe.

“Ah, finally,” Kayara said. “Everyone, this is Sheyric, a well-known healer who’s made it to floor thirty.” Kayara took a bow as if she’d just summoned a rabbit from a hat and sat back down. “He’s agreed to join the party. Isn’t that nice?”

Ayn’s eyes grew wide. Floor thirty? Why would anyone that far into the Dungeon want to restart in a little town like Cristak? Of course, if he really had gone that far, he’d be invaluable even with the randomly generated floors.

“This is where you say thank you,” Kayara said.

“Oh. Yes,” Ayn said in a rush. “Thank you both. I truly didn’t expect someone so high level to accept. Your experience will be very appreciated.”

“Thanks,” Sheyric muttered.

“So, what brings a high level to a new party?” Bren asked.

“Nothing.”

“What?” Bren sat up straight. He wasn’t much taller than Ayn, and was dwarfed by the lanky healer. But, what he lacked in height, he made up in width. His well-fed childhood afforded him a solid body, and his upbringing among the Crafter’s Guild demanded respect. “If I’m going to put my life in your hands, I would like to know why you are restarting in a middle of nowhere town.”

“No.”

Sheyric hadn’t moved. With his hood low, Ayn couldn’t tell if he was even looking at Bren.

A tinge of red crawled up Bren’s face.

“It’s fine,” Ayn said. All eyes turned to her. “If he wants to start over, it makes sense he wouldn’t want to tell us about his past.”

“Which makes it decidedly not fine,” Bren said. “For all we know, he left his last party to die, so he had to run to the edge of the world just to find someone willing to group with him.”

Annoyance jolted through Ayn, propelling her out of her chair. She locked eyes with Bren. “So what? What if he didn’t do it on purpose? Should the admins ban him from all groups?”

Her words echoed around the guild. Heat crawled up her neck. She hadn’t meant to yell. “Uh…it’s just…so what if he’s not a great healer? If we die, we can just Rebirth.”

The silence grew heavier. Even the Rebirths at the other table turned to look at Ayn.

Kayara, who up to this point had been leaning back and taking in the spectacle, scoffed. “Wow. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to start over as a baby. I’ve put too much work into this life, and I’d rather not have it erased.”

Of course. Ayn mentally kicked herself. She’d got worked up and said something dumb. Big surprise. Ayn’s physical body had only died recently. Her original family in the physical world had spent their life saving to gain her a spot in her chosen digital afterlife, where she could spend countless lifetimes in a fantasy world. But each character was mortal. They were born, matured, trained for the skills and abilities they wanted. Each new character kept the memories of those before, but none of skills, items, or levels. Infinite restarts. Infinite respecs. A ton of frustration when a character died with a goal just out of reach.

Ayn could feel everyone’s eyes boring into her, and her chance at a party slipping away. “Right. Sorry. I…I mean…it’s one floor. If we try, and he turns out to be a terrible healer, then we can get by on potions. After,” A lump rose in Ayn’s throat, “we can go our separate ways.”

“Fine.” Bren crossed his arms and looked down his nose at Ayn. “But if I die, so help me, I’ll hunt you down and make your life miserable.”

Ayn smiled weakly. Not the best start to a party, but she’d dealt with worse. At least they weren’t running for the door. Yet. Eyes followed her as she left the table and approached the registration counter.

“Uh…a party contract, please,” Ayn said.

The NRC grinned and tapped the counter. An off-white sheet of paper materialized with “Contract” embossed on the top in gold letters. A cursive script wrote itself across the page in fine, black ink. Ayn didn’t bother reading it before snatching it up and returning to the table. She’d memorized it long ago.

Signing the contract meant throwing away a character’s chance to be a non-combatant. They couldn’t be a Crafter and a Crawler, couldn’t be safe and a fighter. They also had to give up any combat levels gained previously. Each contract was a new start, at least stat-wise. Like Rebirthing, you kept your memories, but Ayn knew some struggled with the dissonance between what they knew, and what their body was currently capable of.

Ayn studied Sheyric and Bren as they signed. Sheyric did so without glancing at the words, a glittering pen appearing in his hand as he lowered it to a signature line. Maybe he’d memorized it like her, or maybe he just didn’t care.

Bren took his time. His eyes tracked slowly along the page as he mouthed the words to himself. By the end, he was sweating, and his hand shook. As much as he’d protested Sheyric’s guardedness, his thinly veiled anxiety concerned Ayn more.

Kayara sped-read the contract, wrote a looping, embellished signature, then slid it to Ayn. “One more to go.”

The pen appeared in Ayn’s hand. With her name, the contract would be sealed, and she’d start her first steps into the Dungeon once more. One look at the last spot on the paper, and her mouth went dry. “You want me to be the leader?”

Kayara laughed, a sound just as graceful, and loud, as the rest of her. “Of course. You called us here. You told us to take the risk on Sheyric—”

“But you invited him!”

“Only because he asked. Plus, he looked like a lost puppy when he did it.”

“But Sheyric—”

“I won’t step foot in the Dungeon if he’s the leader,” Bren said. “I’d rather it be you, as well.”

Leader. Ayn could feel the weight descending at the thought, settling over her like a bag of stones. She would be the one responsible for the well-being of the party. The final say in all plans. The one to get blamed if any of those plans failed, and if one of her party members died, she’d be branded as a pariah, not only in her hometown, but in all towns. Only Rebirthing would clean that kind of stain.

Sheyric cleared his throat, startling Ayn out of her spiral. She scratched her name into the leader’s spot before she could change her mind. The paper and pen lit up, vanishing in a puff of gold dust as soon as she made the last mark.

“Welp, there you have it, boys and girls,” Kayara said. She stood up and waved toward the registration counter. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The rest of the party stayed silent as the NRC ushered them behind the counter. A simple wooden door sat in the back wall. No signs, no decorations, much like the rest of the town. But Ayn knew what lay beyond, and it made her heart race. The NRC pulled the door open, and what she’d dreamed of finally lay within reach.