The thing about the palace is that you really should be quiet.

I leap to the side, avoiding the fist that swipes down past me, crashing into the white marble floors and shattering them in an instant. Dust and bits of cracked rock fly out in all directions, as a split shoots out through the solid stone slab, arcing down towards the distance like a bolt of lightning, twisting and winding till the break meets a far wall.

Obviously, she isn’t doing that. But she really should. Nobody should make any noise inside of the palace, unless they know the name of the king.

  I land, my cape swishing behind myself as my wet boots slide across the sleek marble. My traction is less than optimal to say the least. But it’s fine. Everything is fine. Because they already cleared this floor and they already killed him. The king of floor sixty-five. The owner of the palace on the plateau. He really likes everything nice and orderly and he really gets angry if you make a mess in his home. He really gets angry if you make any noise at all.

But he’s dead now, so it’s fine! At least this is something I can grant the hero-party for having done right. I don’t like the king whose name I don’t know. I’d say he’s a jerk, but he’d give me the belt.

  I’m not afraid of the dungeon-master. Maybe I just don’t respect their authority, it’s hard for me to define, really. Because they can’t do anything to me. Their threats are empty because no matter what, at the end of the day they have to let me respawn if they don’t want to suffer themselves. So their authority is shattered. They can just yell at me and make me feel bad, but I don’t even allow them that power anymore. I won’t let their words hurt me anymore.

I slide around another corner, bolting past a room filled with giant, lush, green potted plants.

But the king whose name I don’t know?

He’ll get the belt and I fear that.

It might be weird that a sub-boss has more authority over me than the dungeon-master themselves. But you need to understand that he’s a metaphor.

The slime bubbles inside of me, shifting around to watch as the monk chases us.

  “Friend!” she waves to the monk, who is running after us in a terrifyingly fast sprint, a hunter’s glare in her eyes. She reaches back, grasping out towards the monk. Reaching over my shoulder, I grab her slimy tendrils and push her back into the armor as she bubbles in protest. Her soapy yellow eyes not understanding why she can’t be friends with everyone.

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It’s a good question and I quite honestly don’t have an answer to it. It’s just not how the world works.

I leap, flying over a collapsed pillar and look behind myself as I run, watching as she simply vaults over it as if it were never there, her eyes lock on to mine.

“It’s so embarrassing!” calls out the slime, perhaps understanding the context of our relationship too well, as she sickers into the marrow of my old bones. She glares up at me. Perhaps jealous as she wonders why I get to be ‘friends’ with the monk and she doesn’t.

  “It’s complicated, okay?” I tell the gooey face looking up at me judgingly as I round another bend. All I have to do is escape the palace without letting her stop me, without letting the rest of the hero-party catch up and it’s smooth sailing again, until some other inevitable obstacle comes to stop me.

“It’s complicated, okay?” she says in a mocking tone.

“Hey! It really is complicated.”

“Hey! It really is complicated,” says the goo, sloshing around inside of my armor. I sigh as I run.

Obviously, I feel confident that I could beat the monk in a one on one fight. So you might be wondering why it is that I’m running? Well, good question, guy. First of all, I don’t want her to slow me down long enough for the hero to catch up. Is it possible that she’ll do that? Maybe.

Secondly, I don’t want to have to be here in this place, when I don’t even know the name of the king.

Even though he’s dead.

Haha!

A grand, collapsed archway comes into form ahead of us and I listen. I listen as I hear a sound.

  I listen as I hear a sound that isn’t the metal of my boots. It isn’t the thudding of hers. It isn’t the sloshing of the slime in my armor. It isn’t the billowing of the fabric of my cape. It isn’t the burrowing buzz of the encroacher, digging through the meat of the dungeon. It isn’t the sound of the hero’s bell, shining in the distance as a herald of destruction.

It’s simply…

A strange, electric twang that repeats itself over and over in a simple pattern. Like a heart-beat that skips a step. The sound of his approaching.

One. Two-three.

One. Two-three.

Dook. Dook-dook.

My eyes open wide as my pace slows. As I realize the hallow truth. As I hear the absence of the name of the king.

He’s not dead.

You lazy pieces of...

My fist clenches as my pace slows, not in anger, but in fear. Fear of what lies ahead. Fear of what approaches.

I can’t let him see me. I can’t let him see us! He’ll see that we made the palace dirty, he’ll see that we tracked in water and dirt. He’ll see that we broke something. He’ll see that we’re running inside the halls.

He’ll get the belt.

I can’t let him see us.

I slide to a stop, my body spinning in an arc as I rotate around about-face, looking straight towards the monk who is already careening towards me, her fist arched back and ready to strike.

But it never does.

  Her body lurches forward, a sickly wet sound leaving her mouth, as the fist of my metal gauntlet crashes into her gut. A gasp of air flies out of her, together with a mouthful of spit that flies past her shocked eyes, as the metal fastenings of my glove press into her meat. As she bleeds onto the floor, her body slumping over my arm as she heaves, retching.

Stop making a mess! He’s going to see!

  Grabbing hold of her by the scruff of her collar, I turn around and I run the other way. I run as fast as I can, back down the direction I just came from. Straight down the path that the hero is likely following. As I hear the off-set heartbeat coming closer. As I hear him slowly walking down the corridor, coming out from beneath the large archway to see what the noise is. He’s going to see, he’s going to get so mad.

We have to hide.