Chapter 25: The Mystery of Dungeons

Unlike the first, brief flight of stairs that had led from B0 to B1, the ones leading down to B2 gradually became wider and seemed to run far, far deeper. After walking with Rian and Lienne through the metal door and into the stairway, there had only been enough space at first for them to descend in a single-file line. Five minutes later, the three of them could walk side by side comfortably. But ten minutes after that, the distance between the granite-like walls to their left and right became large enough so that twenty people could all likely fit shoulder to shoulder while still having room to fit a few more. The stairs themselves also became increasingly more spaced out until they were more like two-foot-high ledges, and each required them to take several steps forward to reach the next. They also seemed to now be made of a uniquely polished sort of grey stone.

“How far down are we going?” Zach asked. “We’ve been walking for a half hour and we’re still descending.”

“Yeah, it’s strange,” Rian agreed. He spoke unevenly as though trying to conceal the fact that he was breathing heavily. Perspiration dripped down his face. In addition to being larger than he and Lienne, Rian also wore heavier equipment, especially when considering the shield on his back. As the stairs became steeper, the shock of constantly hopping down must’ve been exhausting. Hell, Zach couldn’t even imagine having to trade places with him; if he’d been the one bundled up in such thick armor and forced to carry around a sword—or axe—and shield, he doubted he’d be able to handle the weight half as well as Rian seemed to manage. It also didn’t help that the general air quality had become warmer and more humid, too.

“Hey, guys, why don’t we sit for five minutes?” Lienne suggested. “I’m ah…this is embarrassing, but I’m still kinda exhausted from that last fight. My back hurts, too. Take five? Hm?”

Somehow, Zach, who had also begun sweating, did not think Lienne was being entirely honest with him and her brother. This just seemed…well, it seemed too much like the kind of thing Kalana would do. Most likely, she was perfectly fine and was only asking for their sake. Though Zach couldn’t speak for Rian, as far as he himself was concerned, he didn’t want to seem weak and whine that he needed a rest; in truth, he wouldn’t mind taking it easy for a couple of minutes.

I’m not going to be the one who asks, though, he thought. I can’t look like a wimp in front of these guys. I only just met them.

“I’m good,” Rian said with a confident nod.

“Same,” Zach agreed, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow. If Rian was still feeling well enough to push on, then he certainly had no right to ask for a break. “I’m good to go.”

“Well, too bad,” Lienne said. “I’m not.” She walked to the next curb-like step and sat down with her legs dangling over the edge. Zach joined her, and so did Rian, neither of them raising a word in protest. He watched as Rian slowly removed his shield, axe, and even kicked off his metal-looking boots, sighing in relief.

And to think: they were this exhausted climbing down the stairs and not up them. Zach was now more determined to kill the boss than at any point since coming here to these “Catacombs of Yorna,” because the elevator on B0 implied there was a stop on B10 that would take them back up, and there was no damned way in hell he was climbing these stairs on his way out.

I don’t care how strong the damn boss is. I’d rather take my chance fighting it than have to backtrack through this many stairs.

“Something about this just seems weird,” Zach said. Glancing off into the distance, he could see no end to the “stairway,” if one could even still call it that. It was really quite amazing, too, because for the first few minutes, they really had been just normal, ordinary stairs. In fact, he was pretty sure there’d even been a metal bar on both sides to hold on to. Yet at some point, things had just sort of “shifted,” and now it was unknowable just how deep down they would have to plunge just to get to their next floor: B2.

“I think it only gets stranger as you go on,” Rian said. Zach looked at him, and he could see that Rian was also nervously glancing down as though wondering how deep this actually ran.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just something Zephyr told us.”

“Zephyr?”

At this, he grinned. “Zephyr Vextran, our sponsor—but also leader of the Explorers Brigade, the guild me and my sister want to join. Actually, I hear he’s good buddies with Donovan.”

“Who?” Zach asked. The question caused the grin to fall off Rian’s lips; it was replaced with a frown, which made Zach frown in turn. “What? What is it?”

“I know you said you don’t know much, but you don’t even know who Donovan is? Even I met him once.” To his sister, he said, “Li, remember when all those guilds showed up for some alliance meeting? He was the one who put his feet up on the table and started cracking open beers. Remember? Even we met the guy.”

Lienne shot her brother a glare. “Be nice. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know.”

Rian recoiled as if wounded and then his posture became rigid. “I’m not being mean to him. You’re misunderstanding me. I just want to make that clear. I’m not frowning at Zach because I’m upset or frustrated with him. It’s because I’m upset and frustrated with his situation.”

Zach laughed despite himself. “Well, I don’t think you’re being mean for what it’s worth. I just think, honestly, if you’re going to drop any names other than Alex Oren, Kesten Ardona, Maric Ultdern, and obviously, Fluffles, then just assume I don’t know a thing. Not a thing.”

Rian stared at him a moment, meeting his eyes. He looked almost apologetic. Then, with a nod, he explained, “Donovan Iseldar is the leader of the GSG—the guild you were saying you wanted to join. I actually didn’t know they were an elite guild until you told me. So, hey, there’s one thing you knew that I—that we—didn’t.”

Zach chuckled, and Rian patted him on the shoulder. “Anyway, Zach, why did we even bring him up? What…uh, what were we even talking about? I already forgot.”

Lifting his finger and tilting his head to the side, Zach said, “So, you were telling me how…oh, wow, shit. I forgot too. It’s this damn humidity.”

“Right?”

“It’s just too damn hot down here.”

Lienne sighed loudly as if wanting to be heard, causing them both to look her way. “You two were talking about Zephyr and dungeons,” she said.

“Oh…oh right!” Rian snapped his fingers. “So…okay, now I remember what I saying. Zephyr told us that some but not all dungeons can get weird.”

“Weird?”

“That’s what he said. Weird. He said some can get weird, and a few can get really weird, and that the world inside of a dungeon doesn’t always match the one outside.”

Zach turned the words over in his head a few times, and then he lifted his shoulders in resignation. “That could mean anything.”

“I know,” Rian replied, nodding. “I think that’s what he intended it to mean: anything.”

Lienne whispered something to herself so quietly that Zach could not make out a word of it. Shooting her an inquisitive glance, she lifted her head, smiled, and then waved her hand. “It’s nothing.”

“No, say it.”

“It’s just…it’s something I heard one of the Explorers Brigadiers say. But guys, I’m like…like ninety-percent sure it was a joke.”

“What was it?” Rian asked, speaking the exact three words Zach was about to voice.

“The only reason I don’t want to say is because of how sure I am it had to be a joke.”

Rian pointed at her. “Well, now you have to tell us either way. You can’t just start then stop.”

Lienne rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. When we were doing weapons training, do you…do you remember that really tall guy? The one with the silver hair and those big hoop earrings?”

“Oh, yeah, damn, uh…what was that guy’s name again? I have it right on the tip of my tongue. It was like D…Drel…Drellor? Something like that?”

“No, I think it was something else.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, this was, um, back when you were learning how to use that shield. I overheard the guy talking to his friend in the courtyard about some…I dunno, some dungeon in South Bastia. Anyways, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but I started to listen in”—she snickered—“because I was totally trying to eavesdrop, who am I kidding? But anyways, he said he’d just come back from this dungeon in South Bastia, right? And I still think this was just a joke or…maybe an exaggeration, but he said something—and this isn’t an exact quote—but it was something like, ‘Man, we almost fell into a desert three times the size of Galterra.’ I might’ve gotten one or two words wrong, but that’s basically what he said.”

Zach tensed. “Are you sure he said the word desert?”

“Yep.”

“A…dungeon desert?”

“Uh, no, I think he meant he almost fell out of the dungeon and into a desert.”

“An indoor desert?” Zach asked incredulously.

“Hey, don’t look at me, Zach. I’m not the one who said it. Actually…wait, I think he actually did say something about the sun being really strong. I honestly don’t remember much more.”

Zach tried to parse the words as if to extrapolate some deeper meaning, but he realized that, at least from his perspective, it all seemed nonsensical and absurd. “It must’ve been a joke,” he said, “because if this guy you’re talking about went inside of a dungeon, then how can he fall into an outdoor desert? Or almost fall, whatever. You know what I mean. Either way, it makes no sense.”

“That’s why I thought it was just a joke,” Lienne said. “I still do. It’s just…Zephyr said dungeons can get really weird. And look.” She stood up and waved her hand at the seemingly endless flight of steps before sitting back down. “If there are fifty floors, and we’re already this deep, I mean…something isn’t right here.”

Zach wanted to ask her more questions, but he stopped as he reminded himself that, while compared to him, these two might know a great deal about the worlds of guilds and leveling, they themselves were still fairly new to things, and if they did in fact have any further insight to offer, they would’ve just said it.

“We should keep going,” Rian said with an exhausted grunt.

“Yeah, I agree. Lienne?”

“I’m ready,” she said.

Zach stood up, stretched, and then reached behind him to pick up his sword. Rian returned his shield into the large sheath on his back, which had space enough to also snuggly fit his axe. Lienne, who had been resting her staff on her lap, hopped off the ledge and fell the two-or-so feet down to the ledge below them.

“Let’s pace ourselves,” she said. “We’re not even on the next floor yet and we’re already struggling. This is supposed to be the easy part.”

A nervous pinch forming in his stomach, Zach asked, “I’m starting to get the sense that this is not going to be something we get done in one day.”

“Yeah,” Rian agreed, his voice coming through as an agitated whisper. “I’m feeling that too.”

“Fluffles is all by himself,” Lienne chimed in, causing Zach to stifle a chuckle at the fact that she was more worried about the cat than about the three of them. To be fair, if this had been his first day with Fluffles, he would be equally—no, far more—worried. In fact, he’d be turning back right now despite knowing he’d have to face five skeletons at one time all on his own.

But after everything he’d witnessed so far, he knew that Fluffles could not only take care of himself, as the cat had something of an independent streak, but that if Fluffles really wanted to, he could rush them through this place so fast they’d make it back in time for lunch. In fact, for a reason even he himself could not possibly explain, he actually had the sense that Fluffles likely wasn’t even here anymore. He wasn’t sure what could possibly make him entertain such an absurd notion, let alone outright believe it, yet, inexplicably, he strongly had the impression that Fluffles was likely already hunting birds or something back on the surface.

From the beginning, he had doubted that Fluffles was ever really “trapped” in here in the way that he was. Because he wasn’t just a cat. He was also a level-47 adventurer that had almost certainly been to places far worse than this one.

Whenever Zach slept, Fluffles would always journey off somewhere on his own, doing whatever it was that talking, self-aware cats did in their spare time. As ludicrous as it was to think that Fluffles could escape here at any time of his choosing, even more ludicrous was any scenario in which Fluffles patiently waited for hours or days while Zach and his two new friends crawled their way through this mysterious, ominous dungeon.

Zach might not have known how, when, or why, but if he had to put money on it, he’d bet everything that the mischievous little thing was no longer in this dungeon with the three of them and had, through some means, snuck out once he was sure Zach wasn’t coming back for a while. So, no…he wasn’t too worried about Fluffles. The cat would be fine.

It’s us I’m worried about, he thought.

Up until this point, Zach had done a very, very good job of suppressing what was, by far, the most grating side of himself. Ever since he was a small child, he’d always had the tendency to become unbearably facetious, crude, and sarcastic whenever he felt afraid, worried, or unable to cope with what was going on around him. It had been something that, lately, he’d been getting better at. Yet, as the three of them began to hop their way down into a seemingly infinite stairway made up of step-like ledges that only seemed to be growing in size and height, he at last slipped up and allowed his coping mechanism to seize control.

After another twenty minutes of descending, he began making idle chat, not even really aware of what he was saying. Thus, unintentionally, he blurted out, “I hope we find some salt at some point.”

“Why’s that?” Rian asked him.

Once again sweating as the air became even warmer and more humid, Zach, who was barely even paying attention to his own words, replied, “Because if it turns out we’re stuck here for days and I need to resort to cannibalism, I at least want to make sure I have some seasoning for the meat.”

Zach continued to hop down a ledge, walk forward several paces, and then step off another. Only then, with a gasp, did his brain finally catch up to the senseless, idle banter that his mouth had just spewed. He’d done it again, hadn’t he? He’d let his sense of impending doom trigger his facetious nonsense.

“Salt, huh?” Rian asked, leaping down next to him. To Zach’s surprise, he barked out a laugh. “That’s not good for your blood pressure.” Already on his way down to the next ledge, he continued, “See, Zach, what you wanna do, is you wanna cook the meat in its natural juices. That way, you don’t need so much seasoning. Besides,” he added, lifting up the bottom of his brigandine and slapping his belly. “I’m already loaded with nutrients.”

Zach, partially stunned, became further captivated as Lienne, now next to him, folded her arms and shook her head. “You’re both wrong,” she said. “It’s not food we should be worried about, but water. If we don’t find any soon, you know where we have to get that from, right?”

“Don’t say it,” Rian growled playfully, holding out his finger. “Zach and I are just having a friendly discussion about cannibalism. There’s no need for you to make it gross, Li.”

They’re worse than me, Zach realized, trying not to smile like an idiot.

“Yeah, well someone has to bring up the harsh truth. Like what happens if this goes on for hours and hours and we need to use the bathroom? Has anyone stopped to consider how awkward that’s going to be?”

Zach coughed out a laugh. “We need to designate a certain ‘side’ to do that on, so just in case we have to come back up this way, no one steps in it.”

Lienne guffawed. “Believe me, we already stepped in it when we decided to come to this shitty dungeon.”

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“But it was your idea,” Rian said. “I wanted to search for the Slime King in the Plains of Mist.”

“Why bother?” she asked. “I’m already talking to him.”

“Ouch, Li.”

As Lienne grinned, Zach realized that, although she had initially reminded him of Kalana due to her sneakily considerate actions, the two could not be more different when it came to this kind of crudeness. If Zach had been in this exact same situation with Kalana, she would be on his case in an instant, calling him gross and mean. Kal also wasn’t a fan of swear words. In fact, the more time Zach spent away from her, the more vulgar his speech had become. He’d have to be careful about picking up too many bad habits so that he didn’t upset her whenever he finally got to see her again. For now, however, he decided to just enjoy the company of his new friends and worry about reforming himself later.

I like these guys way too much.

For the next hour, the three of them traded quips and dark, humorous observations as the drop between ledges became close to four-and-a-half feet in height. The fact that they still couldn’t see the bottom of wherever they were headed was bad enough, but the idea that the drops might continue to become higher as they pressed farther on heightened Zach’s growing sense of apprehension. Yet despite all of this, somehow, having these two with him made it seem far less worrisome than it probably should have.

Ledge after ledge—Zach was now completely done thinking of them as “steps”—the three of them pressed onwards. But the drops worryingly continued to increase and, eventually, the height became almost twice as tall as Zach, and so he began to sit fully down and scoot forward on his butt to soften his landing.

“If I knew it’d be like this, I would’ve put my gear and my shield in storage,” Rian grumbled. “I’d have kept the axe just in case something attacked us, though. Ugh. Oh well.”

“Why don’t you just do it now?” Lienne asked him.

He made another grunt. “It’s an hour cooldown. With my luck, we’ll get down there ten minutes from now and then have to wait another fifty so I can fight again.”

Four or five ledges later, Rian muttered, “To hell with it,” then motioned for him and Lienne to give him a moment. Stripping down to his undershirt, he removed first his axe and shield, which he set down on the stone platform behind him, and then he yanked off his brigandine and even his boots.

“Zach, you want me to take that for you?” he asked, glancing at his sword.

“What exactly do you want to do with it?”

“Put it in storage.”

“Storage?”

He exhaled, sounding exhausted. “Whenever a human gets level 6, we get our first racial ability.”

At this, Zach gasped. He was so surprised that he momentarily forgot his own exhaustion. “Wait, humans get racial abilities?”

“At least one, yeah,” he said. “I don’t know if we get more. But the one we get is called Storage and Bank. I’m too exhausted to explain the details, and it’s easier experienced than described. It’s got an hour cooldown, though.”

Zach inched closer to the next ledge and then squinted his eyes, trying to see if he could spot an end to the seemingly never-ending plunge down from B1 to B2. Finally, with a shrug of his own, he said, “Fuck it,” and he handed his sword to Rian just as Lienne passed him her staff. Then Zach bent down and handed Rian both his shield and axe, one after the next. Each time he’d be given an item, Rian would simply raise it above his head, and it would vanish.

“Okay, is that everything? Yes? Good, because I’m almost out of room. All right, I’m closing the box.”

Lowering his arm, he gestured with both hands to his sister as if asking her to continue on. “Ladies first?”

She slapped him on his shoulder, sat down on the ledge, where Zach was already sitting, and then the two of them slid forward together, landing at the exact same time with a plop onto the next stone platform below them.

“How come my cat can do this?” Zach asked as he readied himself for the next drop. “I’m pretty sure Fluffles isn’t human.”

At this, both Rian and his sister regarded him with a blank expression. It seemed neither of them had any idea, once more reminding Zach that there was still probably a great deal that they themselves did not know about the world of adventuring and leveling.

All in all, it was a good thing they’d lightened their burden, as the three of them spent the next two Gods-be-damned hours continuing to make their way down. They were now much more careful in how they paced themselves. Even though Zach was keeping in high spirits—and unless they were faking it, so too were the siblings—he was pretty sure that the gravity of what they’d gotten themselves into was not lost on any of them. There was no actual guarantee that this hellish descent would end any time soon.

“Why couldn’t you throw a few bottles of water in that storage space,” Zach muttered. He no longer bothered to hide any aspect of his personality around these two, as for some reason, in just such a short time, they had completely earned his trust.

“Kiss my ass,” Rian replied bitterly. “That’s why.”

“You should’ve brought water,” Zach insisted. “You screwed up.”

“Nope. I just knew we were going to be in this situation, and I wanted you to be thirsty. This was my plan all along.”

The two of them looked at one another and then both exchanged a brief chuckle. Rian had beads of sweat pouring down his forehead. One in particular pooled up on the bridge of his nose, creating a steady drip that splashed against the stone platform beneath him.

“In all seriousness, dude, you can’t store anything in there that doesn’t come from a mob. Except gold, but that goes in the bank. You’ll see how it is soon enough.”

“But some mobs do drop energy drinks,” Lienne interjected.

“Too bad I don’t have any, Li.”

As the front of his tunic went from damp with sweat to outright drenched, Zach wondered how washing and drying equipment worked. Did he need to chuck this into the washing machine like any other article of clothing? Did he have to worry about what detergent to use? Meh, whatever. These were all questions for later. Sure, he could ask Rian or Lienne right here and now, but he was quickly becoming too fatigued to even want to speak.

On and on they worked their way down the “stairs,” and just as he feared would be the case, the journey downwards became progressively more perilous at a steady pace. The only upside, if one could be said to exist, was that the space from one platform to the next increased along with the height between each. Thus, after every big drop now came a distance worth of walking equal to the length of the average school hallway, and these short walks allowed the three of them a chance to regain their stamina.

Things are definitely ‘weird’ all right, Zach thought. That Zephyr guy wasn’t kidding.

Eventually, what Zach had been thinking of as “drops” now became full-on “falls” and things turned legitimately dangerous. At around twenty feet in height, the fall between platforms had become so unsafe that scooting off was no longer an option. Now, Zach had to sit down, turn himself around, and then drop down while hanging off the platform, and only then would he let himself go, landing in a crouch and hissing at the pain and shock in his legs.

If I were level 1, this would have broken so many bones.

Rian, despite weighing more, seemed to sustain no actual damage, yet did seem to find the efforts more exhausting. It must have been because of his much-higher constitution but lower strength. Lienne, on the other hand, with her low strength and low constitution, could not even safely make the descent anymore. Now, she merely walked off the ledge, shouted with glee each and every time, and then waited for Zach to catch her in his arms before gently setting her down. Though he would not dare admit this out loud, Zach didn’t exactly hate doing it. This was probably a good thing, though, because before long, it became a consistent routine.

“Zach, are you ready?” she called to him.

What in the eight continents of fuck is wrong with me that, after literally hours of hanging out with these guys, only now am I…agitated by how tight her Gods-damned clothing is? Am I an animal? What am I even letting myself think?

“Ready,” he called back to her.

She walked off the ledge, and Zach reached out. A moment later, he caught her, and she giggled. Then he set her down and turned away to hide his blush. And was it just his imagination, or was Rian curling his lips back in a look of warning to him? Why even do that? Zach had done nothing wrong. Did Rian think he was going to hit on his sister right in front of him? He wouldn’t dream of it, especially since Kalana was waiting for him.

Platform after platform, the three of them continued, moving with a slow but steady pace down what had hilariously once been a legitimate staircase. It really had, too! That was the craziest part of all of this. At the very, very beginning, this had legitimately been a regular, plain-old staircase that you’d find just about anywhere in civilized society. But now? Gods only knew what the hell this was.

“Look on the bright side, guys,” Zach said with a grunt, causing both Rian and Lienne to turn their heads his way. Rian was breathing heavily, and Lienne actually looked refreshed and filled with vigor, which made sense since she herself no longer had to endure the constant sitting, standing, hanging, and falling. Not that Zach minded, of course...

Stop it, he warned himself. Don’t you dare think those thoughts. Don’t you dare!

“What bright side?” Rian asked him.

Zach used his forearm to wipe away the sweat on his brow. “Once we finally get all the way down, we get to look forward to doing this eight more times.”

This elicited a groan from Rian and a shrug from his sister. Zach chuckled. “How many hours have we even been at it? I don’t want to waste any charge on my phone in case I need to use it as a flashlight. I don’t trust this place not to eventually take us somewhere dark.”

“It’s been more than four hours,” Rian said. “It just never ends.”

“Let’s just keep going,” Lienne said. “Just don’t break your legs. I can’t heal that.”

Zach laughed, though the humor in it was somewhat forced, as he really did run the risk of breaking both of his legs if things kept up this way. Even hanging off the ledges to cut a foot or two off the drop, he was already pushing himself beyond his limits. The constant shock to his legs would not end well if this didn’t end soon.

It was no longer even possible to gauge if the end was in sight, as the hallways had grown to become almost a half-mile long. Early on, they had been able to stare off and down into the distance, but now, they literally had to walk half a Gods-damned mile just to make it to the next “step.”

I wish these were just steps.

Walking with Rian and Lienne towards the next big drop, he asked, “Did you guys ever think you’d end up in a situation like this?”

At this, Lienne’s cheeks puffed up in a really cute way, and then she made a loud, whooshing exhale. “Me? No way. Gods, no! I thought I was going to be an artist. I still want to be!”

“I also never pictured this happening,” Rian said. “Before all this, we were just worried about our next meal. You told us a bit about your upbringing, but ours was only slightly better.”

“How so?” Zach asked. “If you don’t mind talking about it, I mean.”

“No, I don’t mind.” Rian scratched his head. “Basically, our parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they did love us. Our dad owned a fishing boat and did ‘okay’ for himself selling his daily catches to the restaurants. Obviously, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Shadowfall Coast is pretty big on seafood.”

“And your mom?”

“Mom didn’t work,” Lienne replied sadly. Her face tightened as if in pain.

“Why lie to him?” Rian asked.

At this, Lienne shot him a threatening, rage-filled glare. It popped up on her face so abruptly that Zach was taken aback. Then he was doubly taken aback as the same, hate-filled look was returned right back the way it had come.

Zach, sensing things turning ugly, raised his hands defensively and said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. Whatever it is.”

“No, that’s not the issue,” Lienne replied. “The issue is that my brother can’t handle talking about it like an adult.”

“Talking about what?” Rian snapped. “That mom was a fucking whore? Because that’s what she was. Do you even know what it was like for me in school? When the other kids would find out she worked at a brothel? You can’t even…you’ll never understand.”

Lienne took off one of her shoes and threw it at him. He swatted it out of the air, and Zach watched it roll over and off the next ledge. “You think she did it for fun?”

“I’d rather starve than eat food bought that way. She was disgusting. I’m glad the Royal Roses killed her.”

“As soon as I get my staff back, Rian, I swear to the Gods, I am setting you on fire.”

Zach watched, amazed, as seemingly out of nowhere, the two of them broke out into a screaming match. What had begun as a friendly adventure in a dangerous, potentially deadly place had turned into a public airing of family grievances that Zach wasn’t sure how to respond to.

It’s definitely not my place to say a Gods-damned word, he realized. I have no business speaking up.

He didn’t even really want to eavesdrop, truth be told, but the two were yelling at each other so loudly it was impossible to ignore. From what they shouted to one another, Zach was able to piece together a basic understanding of what had happened.

Their mother and father were poor. Their father didn’t earn enough to make ends meet. Their mother was unable to find a job, as Shadowfall Coast was still in a state of economic recovery from the last damn war, which if Zach recalled correctly, had been between the Gentlemen and the Lords of Justice and resulted in a pyrrhic victory for the former kingdom, as they only just barely managed to defend their various territories.

Both Rian and his sister agreed on the underlying premise and the majority of the facts regarding their upbringing; they differed only in their perceptions. From Lienne’s point of view, her mother had sacrificed her body and her dignity so that she and Rian always had enough to eat, could celebrate birthdays, the year-end celebration of the Goddess, and never had to worry about sleeping in the cold.

From her brother’s point of view, their mother had shamed the entire family, had disgraced herself, humiliated him to the point he’d contemplated ending it all, and made him wish that she would disappear forever—which, as it turned out, she might very well have.

Even amid their battling voices, Zach had pieced together what Rian had meant earlier when he said his parents had “split.” Apparently, at some point following the declaration of war two years ago on the Guild of Gentlemen by the Royal Roses and the People of Virtue, both of her parents had signed up to be drafted into the military, which Zach knew typically meant cannon fodder for any level 1 dumb enough to actually pick up a rifle and engage in open-field combat. One thing was for sure: regardless of how either of them felt about their parents’ actions, no one could reasonably claim that they hadn’t sacrificed everything—including their very lives—for their children. Even if it had come to nothing, as Zach now learned. His mood turned bitter as he overheard what the two fought over next.

“—didn’t even get a Gods-damned gold coin!” Rian snapped.

“That’s not their fault. They lied. They promised dad if anything happened to him or mom we would be taken care of.”

Rian raised his index finger and shook it threateningly. “Then where’s the gold, Li? Where is it?”

“Why ask a question you already know the answer to? We’re never getting it. They lied.”

“Exactly. Dad and his whore—”

“Our mother!” Lienne snapped.

“His whore!” Rian insisted, “ran off to fight in another stupid guild war, and they left us with nothing.”

“I know that,” Lienne said, her voice breaking somewhat. “But that’s not what they meant to do.”

“It’s what they did. And for what purpose?” Rian looked over to Zach as if only first remembering he was there at all. “Can you believe this garbage my sister is spewing?”

Oh, please don’t put me on the spot, he thought, concealing a groan. You can’t just pull me into this, Rian.

Zach tensed and froze up, not sure what to say. So instead, he deflected with a question. “I’m just a bit confused. What gold do you keep talking about?”

“Death compensation,” Lienne said. “If our parents were killed, they were promised twenty-thousand gold for each. As if you can just ‘pay off’ what was taken from us. Like…like that would make it okay again! But…but even still, they failed to give us even that.”

With as much compassion and sympathy as he could muster, Zach asked in a whisper, “Your parents are dead?”

This time, it was Rian who answered. “That’s the sick part of all of this, Zach. Officially, no? That’s why they haven’t paid us. Officially, they’re still in the service of Sir Morrison of the Dark-Water Depths. But they’re dead. Trust me, we’ve given up hope. It’s the one thing Li and I agree on. Once we went an entire year without getting a call or a letter, we knew. So now, they pretend that our parents are still alive, and that way, they can justify not paying up, because they’re broke and all their money is going towards the war.”

“I know how that feels,” Zach said with a sad sigh.

“You…you do?” Lienne asked.

It seemed that his words caused both of them to finally stop shouting. Now, they approached, their tones softer. “Oh, right,” Lienne said, covering her mouth. “I can’t believe I forgot about what happened to your dad. I’m so sorry.”

At this, Zach released a scorn-filled laugh. “My dad? No, no. I’m talking about my mom.”

“Your mom? She was killed by the guilds too?”

“Not directly, no. But she got sick, and they couldn’t cure her because all the doctors and nurses in the city at the time were busy tending to the war effort. And by ‘all the doctors and nurses,’ I mean those who served low-income areas. So, I can relate to how it feels to lose someone you love to their greed. Before I knew there was such a thing as an ‘adventuring guild’, even the word guild made me want to explode with rage.”

“Same here,” Rian said, and Lienne nodded.

At the risk of pushing too far with people he had only met today, Zach continued, “And about your mom. I just want to say I can understand both of you. I really can. But like, with Rian, I just…the truth is that it’s different for guys than it is for girls. What I mean by that is I’m not saying that there weren’t really cruel things said to you at school about your mom, Lienne. I’m sure you got a lot of shit for it, too. But for a guy, if…if our friends knew something like that, it would be on a whole different level.”

“For the record,” Lienne said, “I did get bullied a lot at school, too.”

“Did anyone support you at all?” Zach asked her. “I’m sure you had at least some of your friends who would defend you is all I’m saying.”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

Even without knowing a thing about their personal lives, this much Zach could predict. He pointed at Rian. “Not him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I don’t care what school on Galterra you go to. If you’re a guy and someone finds out something like that about your mom, it’s over for you. You can forget having a social life. No one is going to want to be the one who stands up for the son of…”

“A whore,” Rian finished for him, pain in his voice.

Lienne folded her arms as if somewhat, but not entirely convinced. “Guys are assholes.”

“Yeah, sometimes. But that’s just how it is. For what it’s worth, I can see your point too. Who would willingly want to do something like that? I’m not…I’m too young and too stupid to really weigh in on whether or not any of this is right or wrong. I’m just saying that if it’d been me in your brother’s shoes, I’d have already jumped off a building.”

Rian came over and bowed his head gratefully. Then, after a soft pat on Zach’s shoulder, he walked straight past him and continued on his own. Lienne reached out and opened her mouth, then shut it a few second later while slowly lowering it back down to her side as if deciding it wouldn’t be wise.

“I really do understand your point too,” Zach told her. “My dad left me with nothing because he didn’t care enough to worry about what would happen if he died. He did the bare minimum, and he spent all his free time drinking. For your mom to do what she did, she had to really, really care.”

“He doesn’t understand that,” she said, lifting her chin in the direction Rian had just been. He’d already disappeared, and judging from the distant sound of bare feet clicking down onto stone, he was already almost to the next platform.

“I don’t know if he does or doesn’t,” Zach said. “It’s stupid of me to even voice my opinion, because I’m an outsider to this. I just personally feel that even if you’re right and he’s wrong, he’s still not wrong for feeling how he feels. Sometimes, you can be wrong and still be right. I know that sounds confusing, but it’s something I’m trying to learn myself these days.”

A smile appeared on Lienne’s face, though it was one filled with sadness. “You’re a good person.”

At this, Zach scoffed. “No, that’s where you’re wrong.”

“How so?”

He sighed. “Look, I don’t want to bullshit you. There are two types of people, Lienne. There are those who will look you right in the eye and tell you that, if they were in your brother’s school, that they would’ve stood up and bravely defended him.”

“And what’s the other type of person?”

“Someone who’s willing to tell you the truth. I wish I could say I would’ve been any different from his classmates, but I’d just be lying to you. The truth is if I had gone to school with him, I would’ve laughed about it with everyone else. I wouldn’t have personally picked on him of course. I mean, I’m not a Gods-damned bully. But I would’ve laughed and joked about it behind his back. So would every guy I ever knew growing up.”

“Would you now?”

“Huh?”

“If you went back to school tomorrow, and my brother was there.”

“Well obviously not now.”

“How come?”

“Because now I see…uh, you know, you kind of made it ‘real’ in a way it wouldn’t normally be. It’s hard to be cruel when you’re aware of the pain you cause.”

“That’s called empathy,” Lienne said softly.

“Maybe. But…but I’m also not the same person I was a few weeks ago. I’ve left my old life behind me.”

Not wanting to fall too far behind, Zach sat down on the nearest ledge, turned himself around, and then dropped down a bit before releasing his hands and falling the rest of the way. Then, as he’d been doing, he caught Lienne in his arms and set her down.

As he turned around to make his way to the next ledge, he stopped as he felt her hand on his shoulder and her breath on his ear. Leaning towards him, she whispered, “I like you, Zach.” Then she kissed his cheek, picked up the shoe that she'd thrown at her brother, and took off at a run.

His heart beginning to pound in his chest, Zach remained frozen in place for a moment like a braindead statue as conflict and confusion sent his already upside-down world careening off a cliff and into another dimension. As if things weren’t complicated enough already!