As it turned out, the two-floor pattern repeated for the rest of the biome, which is to say, we did three other battlefield scenarios, each with an easy and hard version. This Administrator seemed to have no sense of humor; after the gemstone vikings were leather-clad black jungle warriors (I lack the knowledge to be more specific about their origins, and Susie admitted she didn't care at all) that ambushed us repeatedly in what should have been a very tense walk through a dense, pathless jungle.

Of course, we knew what was coming, I had telekinetic sense, and she was overpowered. It's almost too bad, because they were really well hidden; even when I sensed that they were there, I couldn't see them, and it was clearly skill rather than magic, with them concealed in bushes or big piles of leaves and such. It made me feel bad about relying on the Stealth skill to hide me as much as I did, to see real masters of the art all but invisible even when you know where they are.

In terms of me being able to battle them individually, they were highly skilled with spears and also had a variety of ranged weapons, including toxic blow-guns, thrown sharp things, bows, even just thrown rocks. Their weapons sometimes looked primitive, but never weak.

"I actually really like the aesthetic," said Susie after she had ripped apart an entire ambush with a hail of extremely unfair gunfire. "You look at what they use on you and so much of it looks hand-made, even as it's deadly as hell. They're not just identical copies; each warrior's weapons are slightly different, not just in scuff marks and stuff, but in the details of how they are made. I struggle to put some of that into the stuff I remake--just, y'know, not the primitive nature of it. Really, I'm after the sense that it was all made with a purpose, with a will."

I nodded, comparing two spears that she passed me to get a grasp on what she was talking about, and true enough, the shape of the pieces was different; the spearheads and shafts were each different from the next, and the binding between the two varied enough to notice. The stats were identical, of course, but the descriptive text wasn't, as each contained a brief bit of lore that meant absolutely nothing to me.

After fighting through the jungle, we came to a river and a waterfall, and below that was a section where we were on a raft, exposed to ranged attacks from all directions with no cover. I actually enjoyed that section a lot, because I got to combine sensing attacks with raising shields to deflect them, but Louise seemed to get traumatized very quickly by the constant, ruthless assault.

Then people leaped out of the water and tried to kill us in close combat again, and again it was a failed ambush, although Susie had to resort to melee attacks for most of the time. The metal gauntlets I'd noticed on her arms turned out to be some kind of steam-assist punching knuckle, and it had a heck of a kick to it. While knocking these warriors back into the water didn't remove them from the fight, it did give us time and space that we needed, so again, not a hugely scary thing.

The second time we had to run through the floor, with elites and leaders mixed in, was of course quite similar to the first time. The elites were brutal, though, and while I had one good duel in the forest where all the other threats were eliminated, I had to admit I was not going to win it without leaning heavily on Telekinesis. He wasn't ultra-fast in body, but he seemed to see through my tactics instantly; he was just a brilliant fighter, and his tactics were unfamiliar to me.

I wondered after I finished if Julius was programmed to only know the sword, or if he could help train me against other styles. I doubted he had other weapons in his inventory, but maybe if I snagged some he might say 'Ah I've used one of those before' and show me the ropes. I considered it for a long moment, but shrugged it off. Dungeon loot didn't tend to be that flexible, so I doubted he would be, either.

We took a break after that floor before starting the next, and Louise and Susie sang Black Water as a duet, with Cassandra being brought out partway to back them up,. Although I'd never taken the phoenix back from Louise, she had stopped protesting, although she did come to me for affection when there seemed to be a pause in the music. For me, I didn't even try to sing, and just enjoyed it. Susie's voice wasn't as clear and even as Louise's, but she was still good. I... wouldn't have been. I don't sing.

"An' I ain't got no worries, 'cause I ain't in no hurry, at all," crooned Susie, loudly and a little off-key, though somehow, I thought Cassie's backing seemed to bend to make it still sound pretty much correct. Louise just laughed, and picked up the song immediately after. It was good to see her happy, especially after she'd gotten so stressed on the rafts.

After a little rest and some more talking, we entered the third challenge set, a modern naval battleship beset on all sides by small craft full of pirates, where by "pirates" I don't even mean interesting, swashbuckling stereotypes with sabers and bandannas and flintlocks or anything like that. They were just basically poorly trained mercenaries with guns, and they were only technically pirates because we were in the ocean.

I admit I felt cheated.

This was actually a good pair of floors for me, though, because the danger rating of the floor had a lot to do with the relative danger of all enemies having guns, in an environment (like the jungle before it) where it was a little difficult to know where everyone was, and it was less about them being skillful or having a lot of health. My combination of speed, stealth, and telekinesis was pretty good here.

We started in the ship's aft, and there were a few moments of quiet for us to get our sea legs--the ship didn't exactly heave, but it wasn't still. The engines were on, and the breeze flew by, and an NPC Navy man with an assault rifle posted at the rear of the ship turned and saluted us. "Thank god you're here," he said, deadpan. "The enemy is swarming the ship. There's no telling how long we have before--" and then Susie pushed him down onto the floor and levelled her minigun at a group climbing over the railing a bit ahead and on our left.

As before, she didn't leave a lot of room for the floor to be all that difficult, and considering my goal-oriented approach to this dive, that was fine with me, but I moved forward on my own, eager to play around in a battlefield that vastly favored me over the enemies. The rear deck was a large open space with a bunch of added cargo, vents, and other things I didn't pay a lot of attention to, but visually it was dwarfed by an enormous rear-facing triple-barrel cannon that would do absolutely no good to repel boarders--the guns were at least a foot across inside the barrel, clearly designed for taking out other warships. It'd be an exercise in overkill if you could point it at any small ship, assuming you could even aim it fast enough to hit something small.

I considered, briefly, trying to telekinesis it into action, but while I might have had the magical strength to lift one of the barrels if it was laying loose on the deck, if I went all out at least, I was sure it would take more force than I could pump through my system to rip it out of the deck or force it to move without the use of the motors. So, I basically just put it out of mind. What else could I do? The thing was fucking gigantic, and I had no idea how to control it.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Anyway, ahead I had the option to go inside but ended up sticking to the railing as it narrowed around the superstructure, knocking pirates off the ship both before and after they made it aboard, though I could tell most of them would be able to swim back to the boarding boats and come back in a bit. Past that, I got a look at the fore of the ship, which had two more of those giant triple-barrel cannons, and a lot of extra open space that was sparsely populated with pirates--plus another group who was grinding some of them.

I gave them some room, of course. They were doing well enough on their own, and more experienced with this dungeon than me, I could tell. I had some visceral fun ambushing soldiers while they were distracted, but the other group didn't seem to approve. So, I moved up into the superstructure. In cramped quarters, against people with guns and no magic, when I could sense them around corners and they couldn't hear me in stealth, I could just basically play hunter with impunity.

I gained a couple levels, in spite of having decided not to, earlier. I didn't really care.

Eventually, though, Susie called me back with a group message, since this was basically just wasting time. The next part of the challenge was to steal one of their tiny boats and mount an assault on a coastal fort town. The way in by ship was actually really well covered by machine guns, who were behind a giant wall of fortifications that were not easy to take out at range. Typically, she told us, people would land far enough away and approach by land.

Instead, Susie pulled a goddamn submarine out of her pocket. It was even steampunked out, including venting smoke out of the ship's ass, which (and I'm not a goddamn submarine designer but I'm pretty sure) makes no goddamn sense in a variety of ways. I have to assume that she made or found one explicitly for this, because how many places could you use a Submarine in a dungeon? Really?

Anyway, for some reason she asked Louise to drive the sub, maybe just because Louise seemed uninvolved in things, as often was the case. I'm not sure she really enjoyed it; she was stressed and confused and it took a lot of direction to get where we were going. The path that the sub took to get into the port was actually convoluted, going around some kind of submerged hazards that Susie, as captain, read out on her sonar, and she gave very calm and collected orders to navigate the path forward. Louise, though clearly stressed out, followed them as closely as she could.

Susie, for sure, was having fun. This was her kind of thing, definitely.

Anyway, we got up to a dock without getting torn apart by the mounted machine guns, and then Susie popped the hatch, pulled out her gatling gun, and made short work of the guards, as you would expect from her. When the two of us were clear, she came back and picked up her submarine again, because of course she wasn't going to leave it here, and we strolled into the base.

The third part of the challenge was actually getting a VIP hostage out of the base. A simple, practical challenge. Susie had said that the way the VIP looked depended on who entered the room first, and again, she pushed Louise to go in. That's how Susie and I ended up escorting a gorgeous, Fabio-looking shirtless blond man out of a... I dunno, nazi or pirate or whatever, sea base, while Louise followed along blushing and looking deeply conflicted.

For the record, I wasn't jealous. I mean, it was... a little weird to see Louise making eyes at the guy, but he was an NPC. I'm sure if I'd been first in the door, they would have given me some kind of eye candy that would have made me equally distracted. Creating an appealing character isn't all that big a deal. It's different from making... or being something real, which is equally appealing.

The point is, I was on defense duty for that part, actually lifting some shields and big steel plates and stuff to block incoming fire rather than taking all the impacts on my telekinetic barriers themselves. It seemed to work out. Fabio got free, thanked us profusely, and gave Louise a chaste kiss on the cheek before falling into a hole that suddenly appeared in the ground--which was, of course, the exit.

Then we had to run through the same floor, again, but harder. It... lacked punch. It lacked imagination. It lacked suspense. I was starting to hate this dungeon, and I said so.

"I think I'm starting to hate this dungeon," I confessed, as Susie was picking her submarine back up.

"Why?" Susie took a moment to manage her inventory, then did something with her gun that I had consistently assumed was reloading it, but I wasn't actually sure.

"The... I don't know." I frowned and took a moment to try to find the words that made my argument make sense. "The combination of passing these challenges and feeling like you're progressing, but then repeating the whole thing, it feels dumb to me. It's not like I don't... get it, I guess. There are video games that are all about repeating the same challenges over and over. It just feels... tonally dissonant. Reading a story twice in a row. Something like that."

Susie just shrugged. "I mean, all the dungeons have you repeating stuff over and over. It's just another way of doing it."

"I guess." I looked at Louise, who shrugged. She was usually pretty quiet, moreso when we felt a little worried, and these floors definitely came with the possibility of random flying death from afar, though I'd kept shields up to keep her safe if that should happen. Maybe that's also why Susie had done her best to keep her involved; being stuck feeling like added weight couldn't be good for her. "What do you think?"

"I just don't like being too low a level," she said, immediately. "I don't know how you keep going like this, Jerry. It's scary."

I just nodded at her, not really replying. It was scary, and the fear had broken me before. Usually, I spent a lot more time learning each challenge until I was comfortable with it before moving on. "We'll be okay. Susie's with us."

Said steampunk lass just snorted. "Yeah, I'm definitely your knight in shining armor. Pity I'm not gonna get the princess at the end of the day, though."

I raised my eyebrows at her. I didn't take her to be the sort--not that I was going to judge her for it. "No? Maybe you should be the one to go in the rescue room this time."

"Ugh." Susie rolled her eyes. "I mean, I'll do it, but the Administrator definitely has the wrong idea about what I'm into. Every time I get some naive starry-eyed waif of a girl, and don't get me wrong, she's totally cute, but that's the kind of girl I was into when I was... her age, you know? Now I'm looking for something a little more mature. Ideally, someone who can take care of herself."

"Wouldn't work well in a rescue scenario, though," I pointed out, choosing not to tease her at all, though I considered it for a long moment. "If she could take care of herself, I mean."

"Why the hell not? Even if she was equivalent to an average party member of... well, the assumed level, she wouldn't contribute more than a small amount. I swear, it's just got to be a stereotype." Susie turned suddenly and her gun spun up, and a moment later two dozen heavy rounds took out a squad that were just coming around the corner.

Louise and I exchanged looks. She, too, seemed interested in this new side of our party member, judging by the new light in her eyes. I grinned at her, and she couldn't help smiling back.

A few minutes later, Susie kicked in the door to an underground bunker and stopped dead in the doorway. Louise and I were a little ways back, so we didn't hear the conversation, but a little later, Susie, now blushing madly, followed a tall, muscular, heavily tattooed woman up the stairs, who stopped just long enough to pick a gun up off a guard--not one we'd defeated, but one that seemed to just be part of the map.

"Alright," said the newly rescued damsel in destress, as she checked the gun, cocked it, and settled it comfortably in her hands. "Let's get the fuck out."

I stepped up next to Susie and said in a hushed voice, "Oh yeah, I really ought to warn you, Administrators tend to pay attention to me when I'm in a dungeon. I mean honestly, I've met one on pretty much every dungeon dive I've been on so far."

"You could have mentioned that earlier." Susie's voice was intense, but not from anger. She paused, watching the woman go ahead of us, and bit her lip. "Would it be... okay if we stayed on this level a little longer?"

I laughed. "Sure. I think it's about time we took another break, don't you?"

She nodded emphatically and moved up ahead. Louise stepped up next to me and took my hand. I looked at her, and found she was giving me an odd look. "As long as we're taking a break..."

I grinned at her, and we hurried to catch up. That part would have to wait until we were safe, at least.