Cel eyes us suspiciously as we take the final step out of the dungeon. "Heard something loud here, so I came here to investigate," Cel says. "Done with the dungeon?"

Cayden keeps his head down, unwilling to answer her question, so I speak for him instead, "We haven't."

Cel shrugs. "Not a surprise, that dungeon's never been completed by anyone. Although not a lot of people try in the first place, this forest is dungeon enough." Cel shuffle to the side to get a better look at the stairs behind us. She frowns, and she pushes past me to crouch down next to it.

Cel pulls out a notebook from her inventory and a pen that is somehow already dripping with ink. "What even is that? Gistre? No, that style fell apart centuries ago...unless..." She furiously scribbles on her notebook, almost enraptured by the stairs in front of her. "Dungeon architecture is... No, that's human. But dungeons often copy humans, so it's not impossible that..."

Eda is talking to Cayden about something, so no one really pays attention to Cel right now. I sit down next to her as I try to read her notes. Unfortunately, I don't understand most of what she's writing, it's terms I have never seen before mixed with random observations that make no sense out of context. Her eyes are filled with a glimmer I have never seen from her before, it strangely feels more natural than her previous smile.

I decide to help her with her assessment of the stairs--whatever that implies. "They were made by a human that said he served as the dungeon's guardian. He hit the wall a few times with his sword, and it made the stairs."

She flips to another page of her notebook, and draws a quick sketch of the stairs. "That can't be right, I- can it?" Her head snaps in my direction. "How old was he? What sword? What language? Skin?"

I'm taken aback by her excitement, she feels like a complete different person now. "I think it was a long sword made of metal...he also had light armor and...I think he was dark skinned? He spoke the same language we did." I didn't get a good look at him, so my memory of him is probably inaccurate.

She grumbles as she takes more notes, "That's not much to go on but if it's metal...dark skinned doesn't mean anything, but maybe from the west? Right!"

The stairs start to close as the green maggots that form the dungeon move again, slowly but surely destroying the stairs--much to Cel's dismayl.

"No! Nonononono." Her eyes dart around as she draws whatever of the stairs she still can, but soon enough, nothing is left apart from the forest grass as the dungeon closes this exit forever.

I don't fully understand her distress, I don't think stairs that were made in a few seconds are worth being sad over, but I've learned different people cherish different things. Cel's hands tremble as she reads her notes over and over, flipping from page to page as if she's expecting to find something new written on them every time she does so. "It's fine," she says, slowly regaining her composure. "I'll just research this in the library. Doesn't matter."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

She stands up, storing her notebook in her inventory in a hurry. She hurries past Cayden and Eda, not even waiting for any of us to catch up.

The walk back to the city is pretty quiet, the silence is only interrupted by Cel pointing out some of the dangers of the forest. I can't help but feel like something's wrong, Eda keeps glancing at Cayden, who refuses to take his eyes off the ground. His usual cheerfulness is gone, it's hard to believe he's the same person that said he was going to protect us from death itself not too long ago.

When we finally reach the city, Cel wastes no time rushing to the library, as the rest of us go back to the inn in more unbearable silence. Eda joins me in my room, throwing herself on my bed.

"This sucks. This suuuucks," Eda repeats over and over, her voice muffled by the pillow she decided to bury her face in.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"It's just- Ha, you wouldn't know, but Cayden has... a thing with dungeons. I guess I do too, or I'm supposed to anyway..." She pulls her head out of the pillow. "To make a long story short, our hometown had a very old dungeon, one that was pretty tame and even helpful to the villagers. But one day it went berserk and it killed everyone. Cayden and I were out of the village when it happened, and he never really got over it."

Imagining the scene hurts me, coming back to everyone you knew and loved killed--it must be awful. If I felt so bad after losing one person, I can't even imagine what it must feel like to lose an entire town worth of people. "What about you?" I ask her. "How do you feel about it?"

"It wasn't as traumatic for me as it was for Cayden, I wasn't...exactly treated well back then--I wasn't abused or anything, but no one really liked me. But Cayden had a lot of friends here." She pauses. "N-not saying that I didn't feel bad at all, or that I was glad it happened. It's just that I wasn't as attached to them and- Please don't hate me!"

I tilt my head quizzically. "Why would I? You shouldn't feel sorry about how you feel, you can't control that."

Eda is a lot more apologetic than before. She used to be pretty confident and called us out whenever we did something wrong, but now it feels like she's always asking something instead of stating it. Then again I might just be imagining things, people have many facets to them, maybe it's just another part of Eda I never noticed before.

"Still," Eda continues. "I always feel like I should be doing more for him. I'm sure he's blaming himself for everything even now, and I just don't know how to help him, I just feel like such a bad friend." She covers her eyes with one hand. "Maybe that's why he never loved me. You managed to convince him to back off with a single sentence and I didn't do anything. I feel like I was useless back there- worthless even, I can't-"

"You're wrong." Despite her best attempt at hiding her tears, I can still hear her sobbing. "You're worth a lot to me, and to him. By definition, you're not worthless."

"B-but, I just-"

"You helped him for a long time, I'll lift a little bit of that burden for you. I'll take the lead this time." I leave and close the door behind me. I can't just react to other people's problem anymore, I need to act, I need to choose. I'll do what Cayden said, I'll protect them, from everything, from every trouble they have. I don't want to see any of them cry anymore, I don't want any of them to be hurt anymore, I just want everyone to be healthy and happy. This time things will be different, I'll make them different if I have to.