The Squealing Pig was a reputable, yet frugally priced bar and restaurant located right across the street from the police station. The story behind the name was that, a few decades back, undercover cops would meet with moles at the eatery. This bothered the owners, who had chosen the location specifically for its lack of seedy characters, so they decided to name it something that discouraged those sorts of rendezvouses.

Judging the room by a quick glance, it seemed to have worked, save one suspicious elf at a corner table. Caertonn waved in greeting to his group and took the booth seat next to Kinenhael (since Lyd was so large he was forced to sit in a chair at the end of the table). “How was everyone’s day?” he asked.

“Curt, my man!” Kine said, grabbing his hand and shaking it. “Thanks for the experience boost. I hit nine because of it.”

“Good. Did you get what you needed?”

“Yeah, took a while, but I have some ganja that’s going to get me poh-tay-tered when we leave the city. Nice, threads, by the way. I like the upgrade.”

“You, too. Glad to be out of the drabs?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Kine was looking rather dashing in a shirt not unlike Caertonn’s, with a leather vest fitted over it. He also wore leather trousers, boots, gloves, new goggles, and jewelry.

Lyd, on the other hand looked…vibrant. “Do you like my new robe?” he asked, grinning with pride. It was a terrycloth bath robe in a shade that fell between chartreuse and lime green. “Look!” He tapped his wrists together to show him his viewer, though Caertonn couldn’t see anything. “And they gave me some books, too, so that I can learn how to read.”

The situation became clear to him when Caertonn read the titles. “They gave you math books to learn how to read?”

“Yeah! They were very nice about it. I took classes with the other sages. One of them taught me to read, so I can write letters now and read books.”

Lyd was far too excited about his new skills and brotherhood for Caertonn to ruin it by explaining how he had gotten the leftover items. They had probably dicked him over on prices, too. “That’s great that you’ve made so much progress!” he said.

“I was able to make it to level seven!”

“Wonderful. We might need a little more work before you can go into Roquefort, though.”

“That’s correct, m’lord,” Breithart joined in. “You need to be a minimum of level eight before you are allowed inside.”

“How close are you to level eight?” Caertonn asked the minotaur.

With a flourish, Lyd clacked his bracers together and squinted as he peered at something between his hands. The waitress came over and asked for their drink order. “Beer, love?” she asked Caertonn.

“Oh, absolutely not. I’ll take a margarita.”

“That a girly drink,” Kinenhael said to him, then ordered a crisp white wine.

“Why is it a girly drink?” Breithart asked, ordering a stout for himself and water for Lyd. “And also, why is that a bad thing?”

“It’s overly sweet and full of frilly umbrellas. Not really going to get the job done, is it?”

“Most ‘girly drinks’ tend to have more alcohol than you’d think. And they’re deceptive. One could drink several with relish and be blacked out within an hour. With harder drinks you have to suffer bitter tastes to achieve your inebriation.”

“Well, he could still have something tasty, like wine or beer.”

“I had about fifty different beers this morning,” Caertonn said. “Not one was ‘tasty’. If you want to know about every single kind of hops there is, I am your man.”

“Can you smoke it?” Kine asked.

Continuing, Caertonn said, “But, I am all beered out. I don’t know if I’ll every drink it again.”

“I thought you were getting into the pirate life.”

“This far away,” Lyd finally answered, pinching his fingers together closely.

“Worthwhile to level you up, then.”

“Corsairs aren’t pirates,” Breithart said, bringing them back to the other point. “They’re a cross between musketeers, pirates, and dandies. Actually, a margarita is a great drink if he happens to enjoy the first and third parts of being a corsair over the middle. And if we’re talking about appropriate drinks for classes, why aren’t you getting a fireball, bombardier?”

“Geez, I was just concerned that maybe he wasn’t taking his class seriously enough.”

The waitress brought them their drinks. Caertonn lifted his in cheers and said, “I am. Don’t worry about it.” He relayed how his day had gone and glossed over the part about escaping from the practice bar room. At least, he tried to gloss over it.

“Sir, that’s very good!” Breithart said. “Though, I’m not surprised. Your response with the gnoll took a lot of fast thinking.”

“It was a bit unfair. I knew more or less what was coming and had some time to prepare, so it wasn’t indicative of a real high-pressure situation.”

“It’s not far off, sir. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

“What did you do, if I may ask?”

“I spent a little time honing skills in general practices, but I mostly spent time preparing my gear for the change at level thirty-one to a herald paladin. It will take some time to gather materials, forge the items, then add their pattern to my overall armor.”

“Fuck, man, do you ever relax?” Kinenhael said. “You need to unwind.”

“Leave him alone, Kine.” To change the subject, he asked him, “What did you do at your hall?”

“I fell in love,” he said.

Kine regaled them with a description dripping with embellishments over the perfection of one undine named Diada. As a water spirit incarnate, her hair was not just long and dark blue, but were “undulated soft waves that caught the light”. He body wasn’t just thin, but “lithe and taut with rippling muscles”. Her eyes apparently also twinkled, but were deep as the ocean, blue beyond imagining.

“Shall I break the sad news, elf?”

“What sad news, tin can?”

“As an undine, if she’s on land already, it means she’s fallen in love with a man. Thus far, he has been faithful to her, but if he strays, she will die.”

“Yeah,” he said sadly. “Well, she’s too good for me, anyway.”

“I’m surprised you’re attracted to a non-elf,” Caertonn said.

“I think she’s really pretty, but I don’t think I’d date her. No spark between us. She’s kind of shit at bombardiering, too. Not sure why a water spirit wants to play with explosives.”

When their dinners arrived, the conversation shifted to their plans. “Do you think we’ll have enough time to get Lyd to eight, then complete Roquefort after?” Caertonn asked Breithart.

“Normally I’d say ‘no’, m’lord. Roquefort will take us at least two hours to complete even with an advanced pace. We’d have to start city quests, which deliver low amounts of experience in the beginning. That would take us a quarter day. But, as the Chosen One, if the past quests speak of anything, you will likely have a quest that will boost Lyd to his next level. Perhaps we could finish dinner, help Lyd, then finish Roquefort before midnight?”

“Let’s eat quickly, then.”

While they shoveled their food in, Caertonn and Breithart went through the Chosen One quests available and found one that required them to leave the city, get fifty golden pike scales from the moat, and deliver them to a merchant. They marched at a rucking pace from the restaurant, as fast as they could go on full stomachs, and reached the bridge by six-thirty.

“I believe the pike to be at a low level, sir,” Breithart said, tapping on his forearm. “I can dive in and retrieve the scales.”

“I assumed they meant to fish for the scales.”

“Always good to read between the lines. It said ‘retrieve’, which could be anything from shooting them to asking them nicely. If you can monitor my progress, sir, I would be grateful.”

“’Monitor your progress’?” he asked.

“There was one time that, well, my armor was too heavy and the mud at the bottom of a river too thick. I wound up getting stuck and needed to eject myself from my armor before my air ran out. It was quite annoying.”

“I’ll make sure you’re moving,” Caertonn promised.

Breithar’s armor took on a sleek, seamless look with a sheen of blue to the metal. He stepped in between two piles of crates on the edge of the bridge and performed a graceful swan dive into the moat.

“Oi!” the group heard. “You can’t go diving in the moat!” A fat guard, a man who looked unusual without grease in his beard, waddled over to the group.

“We’re working on a quest,” Caertonn explained.

“I don’t care if your bloody Breithart, you can’t go questing in the moat!”

“That is bloody Breithart,” Kine said.

“That’s…that’s Breithart in there?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

“Know him?” He laughed. “Well, I don’t know him, I just know of him. Best damn rising star in Metraft. Always participates in the battlegrounds and has won some for us. Generously gives to several causes. Has brushed elbows with the upper class and aristocracy. And…wait a minute.” The guards neck snapped back, creating a few more chins. “If that’s Breithart, then which one of you are the Chosen One?”

“Him,” Kinenhael said, hooking his thumb towards Lyd.

“A minotaur! Yeah, right!”

“Hey, that’s kind of racist, dude.”

The guard’s eyes widened and he held out his hands. “I’m not racist…”

“You think that because he’s a minotaur he can’t be the Chosen One? What, he has to be a human?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that-”

“What if I were the Chosen One, huh? Would that be funny to you? Or is it impossible because I’m an elf?”

“Okay, Kine,” Caertonn said. “I’m sure the nice guard didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean it. Uh, you still can’t hang around on the bridge, though.”

“We won’t be much longer. Breithart is actually doing you a favor.”

The guard brightened. “Yeah, how?”

“He’s killing all the pikes in the moat. That way, people can go fishing without having their bait stolen.”

“That is awfully nice of him.”

“So, just a few more minutes and…”

Just then large bubbles formed on the surface and Breithart came up for air. “I have twenty-four out of the fifty, sir. One more dive should do it.” He turned to look at the guard. “Ah, Jeffreys. How is your wife and little Marta?”

“Oh, quite well, sir.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Absolutely, sir. Carry on.”

“Thank you. Tell Gambeson I hope his mother is over her gout.”

“I will, sir.”

Breithart bobbed once before diving again. There was a few moments of silence, before Jeffreys said, “You can stay here, but stay out of the way and move if anyone needs you to.”

Lyd sat on the edge of the drawbridge and pulled out a fishing pole. “Where’d you get that?” Caertonn asked.

“One of the teachers at my guild hall! He was very nice. He said it was wise to contemplate things I’d learned by fishing far, far away from other people.”

“Oh, Lyd,” Caertonn sighed.

They chatted a bit more about what they had learned while waiting for Breithart to finish. Lyd caught some fish, Kine smoked a blunt, and Caertonn listened.

“I have a theory,” Kinenhael said.

“About what?”

“Breithart. I don’t think he’s human.”

“What do you mean?”

The bluish smoke curled around Kine’s head. “Why else would he refuse to, like, take off his armor? He doesn’t want us to know that he’s, uh, half-dog or something.”

“I’ve never heard any thumps.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I think it’s more likely that he’s shy or feels more comfortable in his armor. We should let him do what he wants to do.”

“Doesn’t it, like, bother you?”

“Not really. Is this something you’re pondering or do I need to intervene?”

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”Just…thinking about it.”

Breithart surfaced at that moment. “M’lord, I am unfortunately short by one scale. I will need to make another dive to gather the remaining-”

“I have one!” Lyd said brightly, holding up something that glinted gold. “I got it off of one of the fish I caught.”

“That solves that, then,” Caertonn said, helping Breithart back up on the bridge.

It was seven-thirty by the time they returned to the startled quest giver and receive just enough experience to get Lyd to level eight. Breithart led the way to the Canal District, oddly named since there were was no canal in Metraft.

“Here it is, sir,” Breithart said as the other three caught their breaths. He stood before a regular-looking door with nothing flashy or grand about it.

“Here?” Caertonn asked.

“Well, it’s a portal, sir. It doesn’t take up much space. The city converted the area around it into tenement housing.”

“Frugal of them. Okay, let’s get this done.”

The room they opened was a plain and dusty wooden area with straw on the floor, as if it were an empty warehouse. There was no need for torches or lamps; the portal at the back was bright enough to light the whole place. It gave off an eerie, watery, blue light that undulated across the walls and floor.

Breithart pointed at the board on the wall nearest the portal. “There will be several quests there for you to take. Sir, are there any Chosen One quests?”

He flipped his eyepatch down. “Over here on the wall there’s a place for me to put my hand.” He did so and felt a quick pull on his skin that dissipated quickly. “There are two. One involves getting a wheel of sbrinz from here and a wine from Sehrazad. And the other is…’Meet with Brie Stilton and discuss a shipment to a party. Get her to agree by any means necessary.’”

“Brie Stilton? I’ve run Roquefort at least a dozen times, but I don’t remember her.”

“Maybe you don’t know everything, Matt,” Kinenhael said, then gestured to the portal. “Are we going in or not?”

After the group got their quests from the board, the four stepped into the portal. To Caertonn, it felt like dry water whispering across his skin for a moment, sending tingles down his spine. He blinked, and they were on a path in a rocky field pointed towards a wide, stone cottage with a thatched roof, the day bright with the sun overhead. “Where are we?”

“Inside Roquefort, sir. Or, technically inside the dungeon known as Roquefort, which is partially outside, but mostly inside a building known as Roquefort. So, this part would actually be called ‘The Cottage’, because it’s not in Roquefort, per se, but is in the-”

“Okay, Breithart. Thank you. I’ll figure it out. What do we do?”

“The first quest is at the cottage. It is a timed event in which three members fend off mobs while the forth milks a cow.”

Kinenhael flipped up his goggles. “Did you say ‘milks a cow’?”

“After the cow has been milked, the milk is processed in several more steps, which will be prompted. It will last about five minutes.”

“I supposed you wouldn’t want the brute or healer to milk the cow, so it needs to be one of us,” Kine said to Caertonn.

“Step aside,” he said, cracking his neck as he pushed Kine aside, “I was born for this.”

The unassuming cow in question was busy chewing grass in an enclosure to the side of the cottage. Caertonn opened the gate, found a pail and stool, and began.

“Incoming!” Kine yelled.

Caertonn gave one brief look up and saw several other cows with spears and buckets for helmets charging in to their position. He blinked as they insistently yelled, “Moo!”, then returned to his task.

He reached the red line in the bucket with a full minute to spare. He was instructed to take it inside the cottage and add a bottle of a sharp, acidic substance, then pour it into a mold. In the middle of his last task, he felt something poke him. “Moo!” the cow soldier yelled.

“Uh, Breithart? A little help?”

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t know they spawned inside the cottage,” he said as he clanked inside, dispatching the bovine with a swipe of his sword.

“This process is oddly specific, but also wrong. I’ve made cheese before and there was a lot more to it.”

“I think it’s meant to be representative or magical, sir,” he said before taking off back to the battle.

Caertonn continued with the process, cutting curds and cleaning them before putting it into a mold. Outside he heard the occasional explosion, followed by a “Barbecue!” from Kinenhael. Finally, he possessed a wheel of pale cheese that had taken only three-and-a-half minutes to make.

“Okay, all set,” he said as he walked outside the cottage. “Which way do we-”

“Incoming!” Breithart yelled. “To me! I’ll protect you from the Brass Bull!”

“Wha-?” Caertonn began before he saw a massive figure in the distance. It glinted in the sunlight as it clomped towards them, a gigantic version of Lyd.

“Get in my belly!” it boomed.

Kinenhael went for his standby panic weapon, his incremental elemental (now level 10), and spouted a torrent of fire at the boss.

“No!” Breithart shouted. “Fire helps it!”

“I can do mud now, too, if you want me-.”

“Ice!” he yelled, intervening before the bull could hit Lyd.

Caertonn acted as bodyguard for Lyd, leading the extra cow mobs away from him to Breithart while he whittled down the boss. It took less than half-a-minute, but as he explained after the battle, using heat on the Brass Bull would have made him all but impossible to kill.

“Maybe we should go over what’s coming next?” Caertonn suggested as they received their loot of several sellable items and a new necklace for Lyd.

“I can explain while we walk,” Breithart said, taking point. “There will be a few mobs that will attack us as we follow the road to Roquefort. Run to me if we get separated.”

“I thought we were in Roquefort,” Kine said.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. While this place beyond the portal is called Roquefort as a whole, the end two-thirds is spent in what is actually Roquefort. Roquefort is an affineurs’ and cheesemongers’ guild. We will be taking this road to the building. We then give them the cheese we made and our group will receive an invitation to join them. We will enter the building and dispatch two more bosses.”

“And find a specific cheese. And speak with Brie Stilton,” Caertonn said.

“At least we finished the first two quests,” Kine said.

“Do we have to kill more cows?” The three of them turned to look at Lyd. “I know they’re not real cows, but it seemed…” The minotaur sighed and looked at Kinenhael. “Did it bother you when we killed the elves in the grotto?”

“Fuck, no. Those were pointy fuckers. They weren’t elves. And they weren’t real, Lyd.”

“I understand him,” Caertonn said. “It still feels weird to kill things, even if they’re not real.”

“It’s something you must get over, m’lord, otherwise you might find yourself in a difficult situation.”

“Did something happen, Breithart?”

They heard him sigh inside his helmet. “I was with a group once, shortly after I came to Metraft, when we fought a creature who seemed more than an enpisi. She was clever. She spoke to me, personally. ‘Breithart, I’m trapped in this cave. Save me! The monster is returning!’ The quest said to kill her, but I thought that it there must surely be a mistake. So, I brought her with us.”

“What happened?”

“She bite the neck of our monk and exsanguinated him before we could kill her. Our healer was a level five, not high enough to resurrect him, and none of us had any potions or devices to bring him back. He died the permanent death that day, all because I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m sorry, Breithart.”

“When you are inside the fence of a grotto or through a portal, kill what you need to kill. They are mirage people, phantoms mummering the living. If you’ve ever dreamed of killing someone in a dream, it is the same thing. Listen to your viewer; it’s never steered me wrong before.”

At that moment they were rushed by three level five cows that mooed loudly. Caertonn tried his hardest not to think of Amelia or any of the other cows he had raised from calves as he almost took down one by himself. It was still going to take some time.

Roquefort was ostentatious, with fancy fabrics fluttering in the breeze and marble stairs leading up to its solid oak door. Caertonn knocked and a moment later a window opened. “What the password?”

Caertonn looked at Breithart and shrugged. He clanged up the stairs and mumbled something. “What, I can’t hear you!” the doorman said.

“I said, ‘Who cut the cheese?‘” he yelled.

“Oh, yes, very good. ” The door opened and they were led inside. “Wait here while I fetch the master.”

Once he was out of earshot, Breithart said, “It’s an ambush. Once you place the wheel of cheese on the table there, mooks will flood in and the boss will come after a few minutes. He’s a giant rat named Remy who you need to feed rat poison to until he’s weak enough to cut off his tail.”

“Why is that door glowing gold?” Caertonn asked, pointing to their left.

“Well, well, well,” Kinenhael said, reading the placard on the door. “’The office of Ms. Brie Stilton’.”

“I guess I should check it out. Lyd, hold the cheese, please.”

Caertonn handed it over, then knocked and he heard someone say, “Come in!” in a sing-song voice. Before entering, he turned back at his group, shrugged, and opened the door.

It was a rather cramped office, though beautifully decorated in red velvet and gold ornamentation, like the rest of the building, though a bit more tastefully done, since every square inch of the hallway his group was waiting in was dripping with décor. A woman in a suit sat behind the desk writing feverishly with a pen. Finally, she stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. “Ah, the Chosen One. I thought you’d be…more.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m here about a shipment?”

“Sit,” she commanded, waiting until he did so until speaking again. “A corsair, hmm?”

“Pardon?”

She fanned her hand at him. “Unless I’m mistaken, you’re a corsair. I didn’t expect the Chosen One to pick that particular class. Paladin, elementalist, maybe even a bard tragically leading his group to their doom, but a corsair? Rather demeaning of the station, don’t you think?”

“You object to my choice?”

“Yes! Useless, tasteless existence full of debauchery. Ah, well.” She straightened her papers and set them aside. “So, you’re hear because you were told to speak to me about a shipment. I’d like to discuss something else. How would you like to finish Roquefort this moment?”

“’Finish Roquefort?’”

“This dungeon? The place where we are right this very moment?”

“Well, yes, I’d like to, but how can I do that?”

She leaned to one side and opened a drawer, pulling out two bells. “Ring these and they will instantly kill Remy the Rat and the Burgermuenster.”

“And what would you like in return?”

“Not much, really. Just a trifle. That wheel of cheese you have in the other room should be sufficient.”

Caertonn sat back and thought. The wheel of cheese wasn’t very good. He figured it was probably bland and rubbery, a cross between curds and low-fat cottage cheese. Why would she want it? Hopefully she didn’t think that, as the Chosen One, he had an artisan’s touch with food. What if she didn’t want anything and she just said the wheel of cheese so that there was an exchange?

“Okay,” he said, holding out his hand. “One wheel of cheese for two bells that kill the two remaining bosses.”

She shook his hand with a grin on her face. “I’m so pleased we could have come to an agreement.”

“Lyd!” he said as he entered the hall again. “Hand me the wheel of cheese.”

“Sir?” Breithart asked. “What happened?”

“Ms. Stilton and I came to a good arrangement that will get us out of here in no time.”

“What do you mean?” Kine asked, looking up from the sofa he was draped across.

“If I give her the cheese, I can kill the two bosses immediately and we can be back in our guild halls early tonight!”

“Sounds peachy fucking keen to me. Go for it.”

Caertonn took the wheel from Lyd’s hands, grinning from the good fortune. He paused for a moment to look at Breithart. Though he couldn’t see his eyes, he felt like their gazes matched before he looked away quickly. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s nothing, sir.”

“You have the most experience of all of us. I’d like to hear what you’re thinking.”

“As I said earlier, m’lord, I don’t trust anything on the other side of a portal.”

Caertonn opened his mouth to argue that this was different, but paused to consider Breithart’s point. Brie seemed real, like she was a figure outside of the dungeon brought in to conclude this deal. But, Breithart had reservations. Remembering his earlier recommendation, Caertonn looked at his viewer. The command to speak with Brie Stilton about a shipment was not ticked off nor had it changed.

He handed the wheel of cheese back to Lyd and went back in her office.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “We need the cheese for something else. Now, I’ like to speak with you about-”

Ms. Stilton quickly stood, her thin eyebrows deeply furrowed. “Reneging on our deal? I knew I couldn’t trust a corsair. Fool!” She grabbed a foil from behind her and pointed it at Caertonn. “I’ll have that cheese or you’ll die!”

“Can’t we talk about this?” he asked just as she jumped on the desk and down to the floor. He drew his sword just in time to block the attack from the woman, who pressed him backwards outside the office.

“Hey, Curt, how’s it going?” Kine asked.

“Not good! Think I can have a little help?”

“Of course the corsairs thinks to cheat!” Brie said.

“I’ll help!” Lyd said, putting the cheese down on a pedestal to free his hands. He froze, then said, “Uh oh.”

Caertonn spared a glance over at the minotaur. “You put it down on the pedestal that starts the next boss?” He sighed loudly. “Okay, Lyd keep me healed. Watch Kine and Breithart’s levels and heal if they need to. Breithart and Kine, take Remy!”

It was mass pandemonium as Kine and Breithart fought back-to-back against the mooks that flooded from doorways. Caertonn held his own, but resorted to whatever tricks came to mind, including his Distraction spell, climbing on furniture, and trying to trip her up on carpets.

Finally, Remy the huge, disgusting rat made his appearance. “My cheese!” he moaned. “I needs my cheese!”

“Elf! Keep your eye on the swarms of rats and take them out with area of effect spells!” Breithart yelled.

“Okay, tin can!”

Remy suddenly stopped and looked over at Brie, who was at one-quarter health. “Brie, what are you doing?”

“I was trying to save us!” she said, wiping a stray strand of hair from her sweaty face.

“How did you plan on doing that?” He sucked on his teeth in between each word, making an unpleasant squeaking noise.

“Take the cheese, lock the door, then they could never finish our dungeon!”

Caertonn was so startled that he missed a block and she punctured his shoulder. “I almost trusted you!” he said, hissing in pain. A few moments later there was a tingle on the back of his neck and the pain numbed.

“Then you’re the fool,” Brie said. She began ramping up her speed as he barely made hits against her, whittling her red bar down every so slowly. She backed him against a wall, her foil against his throat. “Drop it,” she said.

His foil clanged against the floor. “Quickly, please.”

She smirked. “I get the cheese and all of you will need to leave. I win.”

“Congratulations.”

She frowned, her eyebrows furrowing before her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell. Caertonn looked down, then grabbed his foil quickly in case this was another trick. As he looked, he saw her bar read “0%”. Looking up again, he saw Lyd staring at her corpse.

“I have a spell called ‘Drain Life’,” he said. “I didn’t want you to die. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy. Let’s go help Breithart and Kine.”

Kinenhael was actually almost dead when Lyd hit him with a larger spell. “Ohh,” he moaned in relief. “Fuck, that feels better.”

“Sir, the tail!” Breithart said, warding off Remy the Rat’s attacks with his shield. The brute pointed quickly to an ax mounted on the wall.

Caertonn ran over, pulled it off the wall, and hacked away at the boss’s tail without much thought. The horrid squeaking sounds of a rat dying filled the room and the boss died with a considerable amount of drama. “I’ll never get to eat my cheese!” he yelled, staggering about until he fell over, dead, his back paw twitching.

Both Kine, Breithart, and Caertonn said, “I need a moment,” at the same time.

Caertonn sat on a sofa, his hands resting on his knees. “You were right, Breithart. She meant to deceive us. But, she was so real I thought this was different.”

“It was, sir. The vampire I encountered was clever, but it was because she was a vampire. I’ve never heard of a boss knowing they were in a dungeon.”

“You do crazy things to people, Curt,” Kine said, flopping on the couch next to him. “Maybe that’s why we got attacked three times by that fucking gibberish asshole and his friends that stole our stuff. And that gnoll was suspiciously aware of his surroundings.”

“Are you okay, Lyd?”

The minotaur looked at him with sad, soulful eyes, but nodded.

“Okay, one more boss to go then we’re free of Roquefort.”

The went up the grand staircase, though the double doors, and came to a man sitting at the head of a table, stuffing his face with cheeses. American, buffalo, Cheddar, double Gloucester, Edam, Fontina, Gouda, Havarti, Iverness, Jarlsberg, kefir, Limburger, mascarpone, Neufchatel, Oaxaca, Parmesan, queso, ricotta, Swiss, Toma, Ubriaco, Vermont ayer, Wensleydale, xynotyro, Yorkshire blue, and Zanetti were all being stuffed into his massive face, grease and saliva dripping down his chins. “Um,” Breithart began, “we need to make sure he doesn’t eat any cheese. He’ll try to leave the fight several times to eat at the table or one of the side tables with more cheese. Once half his life is down, he’ll change into the Big Cheese form, which is, well, a disgusting mound of cheese. At that point he is vulnerable to elemental attacks save ice.”

“Let’s get through this so we can leave this fucking nightmare forever,” Kine said, adjusting his incremental elemental.

Breithart pulled a glove from his belt and threw it at the man at the table. (He later explained that this was a Challenge, a standard action brutes could do to get the immediate attention of a boss.) The Burgermuenster stood, clearly incensed by the motion, and charged at Breithart with oversized eating utensils.

It was a fairly easy and straightforward fight that lasted a lot less than the other two. The Big Cheese was disgusting, as forewarned, but Kinenhael’s help with his elemental damage made it not quite as bad. The smell of burnt cheese and charred furniture filled the room. Caertonn found a wheel of sbrinz on one of the tables and nabbed it.

They met outside the portal in the same open room as before. They turned in their quests and everyone leveled up, save Breithart. “Fear not, m’lord. I am close and will likely level in a week or two.”

“I’m not worried. We have a lot of catching up to do. What do we do with these?” Caertonn asked, holding three hand-sized tokens with crossed swords on them in his palm.

“Those are Eod tokens, m’lord. Bring those to your commissary in your guild hall for boosted items.”

Despite not having the Chosen One quest with Brie Stilton ticked off, he did receive money and a new viewer when he placed his hand in the same place on the wall.

In addition, they received a few items that were superior to what they wore. They also made a decent amount of money (one silver, thirty-eight alums, and eighty-three coppers) for the group. Breithart waved off his share. “If you have no issues, you can set up a pool where any funds earned by the group are shared. I would be willing to donate my cut in the lower leveled dungeons to the fund.”

“That’s a great idea, and kind of you,” Caertonn said. “I’ll look into that tomorrow.”

“What time shall we be leaving, sir?”

“About that…I sort of agreed to run through Sehrazad for that quest I did yesterday. I’m sorry if you were looking to leave.”

“Not at all, sir. My job is to protect you and help you reach your ordained level, so that you may vanquish the Dark Lord. I can achieve this more safely in a dungeon, or a raid.”

“Good,” he said, leading them outside the building. It was night and the lamps were lit up, making it easy to navigate the streets. They circumnavigated the square with the guild halls, the different parks in the center lit in their own ways. He said goodnight to everyone when his hall came up first.

It was ten o’clock and the mess hall was raucous. Shanties were being sung, chandeliers were swinging, and Cookie was more than happy to be serving up his best craft grog. “I be havin’ a lemon shandy I want ye to be tryin’, laddie!” the chef yelled as Caertonn walked by.

He yawned. “Maybe tomorrow. I’ve had a long day.” He passed by the shop where the merman worked, noting that, while it was open, he was far too tired to buy anything. He made his way to his room and was about to take off his accessories when he felt a thud across the back of his head, saw bright white across his field of vision, and blacked out.