Chapter 38: The Value of Friendship

“All right, then,” Rian said, sounding somewhat confused as he placed his palm on yet another push bar belonging to a dark blue metal door. “I guess that was B4. Uh…good job, everyone?”

Zach smiled. “Hey, progress is progress.”

Perplexing as it might have been, Zach was glad for once to have had an easy go of things—even if he couldn’t understand why B4 had been so much less difficult than expected. In all honesty, it was anticlimactic in a way. Not that…not that Zach had any particular love of putting himself directly in danger. He wasn’t exactly the bravest or boldest of mortals. Yet, at the same time, even despite his fears, there was just something so exciting about visiting dangerous, faraway places. It seemed self-contradicting in a sense, but it was almost sort of like someone who loved horror movies: yeah, sure, they were afraid, but they kind of wanted to be, which was why they were watching in the first place.

Adventuring is a double-edged sword, he realized with a satisfied smile. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had, but it might just kill me.

Now that Zach thought on it, he realized that B4 actually would’ve made a whole lot of sense as a progression from B1. If he were one of the Gods, and he were creating the world, he would’ve put B4 after B1 and then had that Earth planet serve as B3. For what possible reason would they have put this floor after the pumpkin and scarecrow floor? Maybe it was to help adventurers who rushed out of B3 catch up before entering B5? It was possible but still unlikely.

Oh well, he thought. A win is a win. At this point, I’ll take anything good that happens to me.

Actually, things seemed to be going pretty well in general for him these past few hours. Given his horrible mood earlier due to his seemingly empty level ups, he almost couldn’t believe his subsequent good fortune. Seriously! Like, not only had the three of them just breezed through another floor as though it were nothing, but he and Kalana had now begun “active negotiations” to determine where they would meet, when, and who would go where. Best of all, he’d gotten her to agree to one of his most important terms: whenever he eventually came to her island, she wouldn’t try to force him to level up the Elvish way. Glancing down at his phone, he felt a rush of excitement and energy as, for what seemed like the billionth time in just 20 minutes, he reread their last conversation.

>I’m serious, Kal. This isn’t going to be 1 of those things where later you convince me. Whenever I end up going, you can’t make me level

>Okay, fine! >:(

>See? Was that so hard?

>Yah! Actually it was! So you better let me show you the entire island when you come. No complaining. And you better go swimming with me, too!

>Zach, are you still there?

>Zach

>Heyyyyy

>Sorry

>I was killing a Skelly Grunt

>I thought you said you were taking a break. You better not be texting and fighting

>Trust me, if you knew how easy this floor is, you wouldn’t care

>Okay well listen

>I won’t be able to talk again for a while

>Why

>I have to go for a bit. I’m meeting with the guild leader of the people of firtue

>LOL

>FIRTUE?

>And WTF??? Why???

>It was a typo! Stop being so mean! And it’s bcuz they wanna give me and dad some fancy gift or w/e idk

>I thought you hated the guilds

>Obvs I do. But my dad says we gotta be smart now that we’re officially recognized as a sovereign region

>Also

>Umm

>Do I look nice?

>swimsuit.jpg [download]

Zach jealously guarded his phone and made absolutely sure not even the slightest portion of his screen was visible as he followed Rian and Lienne into another stairwell. An intense heat crept into his face as he looked at the image she’d sent him. This was like the eight-hundredth time he’d looked—this minute. He couldn’t believe it was real. The first time he’d seen it, he almost dropped his phone. This time, he almost stumbled down the stairs.

“What do you keep looking at?” Rian asked. Then, lowering his voice as though not wanting Lienne to hear him, he asked, “What’d she send you?”

Zach feigned ignorance and tried his best to give off a puzzled look. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Dude…”

“It’s private!”

Rian guffawed. “Yeah, I bet it is. Actually, I got a chick in Varda’s who teases me with stuff like that. I used to be a total loser, but ever since I leveled up…man, it’s amazing. Your whole world changes.”

“About that,” Zach said, “don’t you worry the political guilds will come after you if you flaunt it?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Not as long as you don’t start spilling secrets they don’t want people to know, like about boss spawns and whatnot. Once you’ve been initiated, they kind of lay off. It’s an unspoken agreement between the adventuring guilds and the political guilds.”

“No shit? They must not have gotten the memo about me, then.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, Zach…but anyway, getting back to what I was saying, I’ve been getting so many girls since I found that spawn with Li. If I see a girl I think is really hot, I just go up and talk to her, and as soon as I mention I’m not level 1, they’re suddenly just so into me.”

Zach leaned back and curled his lip as a sense of unease came over him. “I don’t know, Rian. That feels kind of wrong.”

“What does?”

“Using the fact that you’re so powerful to get girls.”

“Dude, come on. We’re guys.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…look, I’m as much a pervert as the next guy, and between me and you, I don’t think there’s ever been a nice ass that’s walked in front of me that I haven’t stolen a peek at. But when it comes to something like this, you know, it just feels like it’s kind of…I mean I’m not trying to attack you or anything. But level 1s are really afraid of us. How can you be sure they’re acting out of want and not fear or pressure?”

Rian crossed his arms. “Eugh, that’s not really a fun thing to think about. Way to kill the buzz, Zach. I think you just ruined my whole mood with that one.”

Zach laughed. “Sorry. I’ve been a huge pessimist lately. So uh, do you like this girl?”

He nodded. “Oh yeah. I think I’m gonna take her on a date in a week or two. But Zach, there’s something else I want to talk about. Listen…”

He began to slow down, and so did Zach. Lienne had marched off ahead of them, still angry at her brother—and by extension Zach too, probably—and she was well out of earshot. This was good, as what Rian began to say would certainly not be something she would want to hear.

“Okay look,” he began, “I think it’s good you’re into this Kalana chick. I’m rooting for you one-hundred percent. But you have to know…my sister likes you. Like, a lot. She’s into you.”

Unsure why he was mentioning this, Zach nodded reluctantly. “I know. She told me so herself kind of. But…why’re you bringing this up?”

“It’s just that…” He sighed. “I think it’d be good if you two weren’t…you know? Because we’re becoming good friends, and she’s my sister, and it’d make things so weird.”

“I completely understand,” Zach stated truthfully.

“I have to ask. Do you…you know, ‘like’ her?”

“I think so. Or at least I think I could if I didn’t have Kalana. In that case, I’d probably like her a lot more. But the truth is I know Kalana wouldn’t betray me that way, so I don’t know if I could ever forgive myself if I betrayed her that way.”

Rian gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Okay. That’s a relief. Truth is, I used to be good friends with one of her ex-boyfriends before they started dating, and when they broke up, it was impossible for us to hang out anymore. You just never want your friend to date your sister. Trust me on that. It makes everything awkward. Unless he’s gonna marry her, it’s a bad idea.”

Zach lowered his eyes a moment as he reflected on what Rian told him. He concluded that it made a good deal of sense and that Rian was not being unreasonable. “I never had any siblings,” he explained, “but if I did, I think I could understand that. It makes sense. Hey, let me ask you something now.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Before speaking, Zach moved down the next flight of steps, turned the corner, and then peered down the subsequent one just to ensure Lienne was out of earshot. “Your sister…does she hate the other races?”

Rian sighed, but he also firmly shook his head no. “I was overly harsh on her before. She’s not a hateful person at all. I think she’s just a product of her environment.”

“Why aren’t you?”

At this, his friend barked out a quick, fairly loud laugh. “Because I’m just predisposed to not giving a shit about things like that. And also because I have so much resentment for the way my parents suffered in Shadowfall Coast that I associate ‘kingdom culture’ with pain.”

“Is it true that…never mind.”

“No, go ahead, it’s okay. Ask.”

“I just don’t know if this is offensive or not.”

“It’s fine, Zach. Just ask.”

“Do you and Lienne support Peter IV?”

The speed with which Rian answered the question made Zach think he was expecting it. “Lienne doesn’t actively support him,” he said, “but doesn’t outright hate him, either. And as for me? I hate every political guild-leader. It’s actually why…” Rian’s voice became so low that Zach actually had to lean in quite close just to hear him. “It’s why I hope your Elvish girlfriend takes them all out,” he whispered. “As long as she leaves us adventurers alone, she’d be doing us all a favor.”

Zach rubbed his face and resisted the urge to moan in frustration. What was it with people and wanting death and destruction? Zach hated the political guilds too, but he doubted the answer was just to start more war and do more killing.

“Something wrong?” Rian asked.

“Nope. Just tired,” Zach lied, not willing to start another argument over this kind of crap. Instead, he hurried down what turned out to thankfully be only four more flights of stairs; there, he found Lienne waiting with her back to a solid-steel wall beside another metal door, this one labeled B5. When she regarded Zach, her expression shifted several times in a single second, and it was an odd sight to behold. First, she smiled at him, then she glared, and finally, she looked away as her face tightened with what Zach took to be sadness and longing. It was as if the sight of him was agony for her.

If Kalana didn’t feel the same way about me that I feel about her, it would hurt so, so much, Zach realized. That must be what she’s feeling. I never want to make anyone feel that way.

He almost felt like telling her how sorry he was that she was hurting, and how the only reason he wasn’t interested in her was because he already had Kalana. He wanted her to know that it wasn’t her fault and that there was nothing about her personally that made him reject her—it really was just the simple fact that he already had someone.

Should I tell her that?

Zach opened his mouth and came very close to speaking those words to her, but then he paused and closed it a moment later as he realized that she had likely already figured this out on her own, and anything he said to her on the topic would probably only make the sting worse. It would be better to be quiet and say nothing. Of this, he was sure.

Once all three of them were together and in front of the door, Zach stepped aside to let Rian take the lead. Without hesitation, he pushed in the bar and opened it. Even before he stepped inside, the dim stairwell seemed to become brighter with a white glow. “Weird,” Rian whispered, stepping inside.

His curiosity piqued, Zach hurriedly followed him inside with Lienne close behind him. The moment he was through the door, he came to an abrupt halt and stared in wild fascination as a floor unlike any that had come before it awaited the three of them. In a dungeon full of surprises, this one had to be the biggest of them all so far. Based on Lienne’s reaction, Zach was willing to bet she agreed; it seemed like she was captivated enough to forget her gloomy mood altogether as she pressed her hands against her mouth and gawked.

The three of them seemed to be in some kind of very large, spacious room the size of a high-school gymnasium. To both the left and right side of the room, there were rows upon rows of circular tables sitting on top of beautiful, elegant, floral-patterned carpets. On top of each were ten sets of fancy, silver-and-gold plates, with gold forks and knives placed with perfect symmetry by their sides. Ten white leather chairs were tucked in at an equally spaced distance around each table, and each table also had several bottles of what to Zach’s eyes appeared to be a fancy, high-priced wine.

Towards the middle section of the room, the carpets ended, replaced instead with a large section made up of polished, white-tiled-flooring that was reflective enough that Zach could see the ceiling through each of the tiles. Up above him, he noticed there were spotlights as well as area lights that looked like they were made out of some kind of fancy, blue crystal. All the way ahead of them at the complete opposite end of the room, there was a table on wheels covered by a white cloth, and on top of this cloth was the single-largest cake that Zach had ever seen. It looked like it was large enough to feed a thousand people. Even from all the way across the room, Zach could easily read the writing on it that had been inscribed in multi-colored icing.

Congratulations Moldark and Yorna!

The cake was adorned with rose petals, which wrapped around it diagonally from top to bottom. They looked edible, too, which meant they were likely made from fondant or some other decorative food. Zach wondered how much vanilla and chocolate had gone into making such a wondrously tremendous cake.

Moldark? Zach thought, repeating the name in his head a few times. Where have I heard that before? It sounds so familiar.

As he fully took in the sights, Zach put two and two together and realized that the three of them were now inside some kind of super-fancy banquet hall. Honestly, this was the last place on Galterra he’d expected to end up! Funnily enough, though “last X on Galterra” was just a commonly used phrase, in this case, he suspected they really were on Galterra, as he could feel the phone in his pocket vibrate which typically meant someone had sent him a text. It was likely Kalana. Maybe she decided to text him during her fancy meeting after all.

I’ll check it later.

“You know,” Lienne said, wagging her finger, “I really wanna say that this is my favorite floor so far, but I feel like I need to wait to see if we live through it first.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Rian said. Then, his eyes widened and he gasped, pointing at something across the room—something just beyond the cake. “Is that what it looks like?”

Zach’s mouth fell open as he saw what Rian was pointing towards. “Oh, shit. No way.”

At the far side of the room, partially obscured behind what was seemingly a wedding cake, there was a metal push-bar door that was clearly labeled B5->B6. It was, unquestionably, the exit door. Enigmatically, it seemed that this one room was the entire floor.

“So…what should we do?” Rian asked.

Zach smirked. “I say we spend not even five seconds looking for traps and just walk straight across the room and right through the exit door. I mean, why not? It’s just a nice little banquet hall, so there’s definitely not going to be a horrific deathtrap here or anything.”

“Of course there isn’t,” Rian said with a cheeky smirk of his own. He waved his arms at the air in front of him. “It’s just a beautiful party room with free drinks and cake. I agree with you, Zach. Let’s just slowly walk across it. Maybe blindfolded, too, because it’s so safe in here we don’t even need to see.”

Lienne laughed. “Yeah, let’s do it, then. On three, let’s all just run across the room without even discussing it first.”

Zach gave her a thumbs-up. “Great idea.”

“Yeah, great thinking, Li. I’ll count. One…two…three!”

The three of them shared a chuckle as no one moved an inch. “Okay, for real,” Rian said, “what the hell do we do here? Can we all agree that something is going to pop out of that cake and kill us?”

“I don’t think so, actually,” Zach said, “and I’m not making a joke this time, either. I think, personally, it’s going to be the floor.” He pointed. “It’ll collapse when we walk on it and we’ll fall. Probably not to our death, but to a much darker room with dangerous mobs.”

Lienne nodded. “I think you might be right. But then again, I don’t know. I think this is gonna be more like B3.”

“What about it?” Zach asked her.

She pointed at the tables. “I bet those tables are like the scarecrows. Once we get close, they’ll come to life and attack us.”

“I sure hope not,” Rian said. “Gods help me if there are table mobs. Zach, you’re the nerdy one here. What’s your take? Table mobs—are they real?”

Zach rubbed his chin as he pondered the situation. “I’m not sure…I’ll tell you guys what, though, I really wish we could sit down at one of those tables while we figure it out.”

Rian made a grand gesture, extending his arms and bowing. “Sure thing, Zach, go right on ahead and pull up a chair, and I’ll follow you after.”

He laughed. “Hell no. What if Lienne is right?”

“About the table mobs?”

“Yeah. The fucked up part is I’m not kidding. Like can we actually, truly assume that these tables won’t get names above their heads and grow arms and legs and start running after us or something?”

Rian shrugged. “The fact I can’t say ‘no’ to that is proof of how far this dungeon has pushed us mentally. You know what, though? If you want, I could just throw my axe at one of them.”

“Good idea. Do it.”

“Really?”

Even as Zach chuckled, he gave a firm bow of his head. “I’m actually not kidding. I mean, just imagine for a second the million-to-one chance those tables actually are mobs. Now, imagine that you don’t throw your axe because you’re so scared of the fact that, if they’re not mobs, you’ll look stupid for even considering that they might be in the first place. So let’s say all that happens, and then we start walking through this hall, and all of them come to life. Right there, you’re going to wish you’d just thrown the Gods-damned axe.”

Rian cocked an eyebrow and nodded with approval. “You know what? That’s a good point, bud. Okay then.” With that, he unsheathed his axe and shield, then drew back his arm, bent his knees, and hilariously threw his axe at the nearest table with enough force to crack it nearly in half with a loud snap and shatter three bottles of wine in the process. Then, laughing so hard at the sheer insanity of what this dungeon had driven them to feel they had to do, Zach watched as the axe flew back through the air and returned to Rian’s hand.

“Not a mob,” Zach said.

Lienne made a cute but dumb-looking grin and lifted her chin in the direction of the cake. “Now do that, Rian.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because if it’s not a mob, we’re going to eat it.”

“And how do we know it’s not poison?”

“Li, come on. It’s not going to be—”

“Who is making a racket on my wedding day!” a male voice cried out.

Rian’s words ended in a shocked-sounding squeak, and Lienne stiffened her back as a man appeared—simply appeared in front of the wedding cake as if by magic or teleportation. Zach was so taken aback that he raised his blade as though an attack was on its way, and he yelped in a loud, shrill cry. The man’s appearance was so sudden and unexpected it had actually given him a jump-scare.

“Who is that?” Lienne shouted. Then, directing her words to the man, she yelled, “Who are you?”

Zach paused a moment to regard this new stranger. He was a handsome guy who looked to be in his mid-thirties, and he was tall, with blond, medium-length shaggy hair. He had blue eyes, and his face had just enough stubble to be noticeable but not enough to properly call a mustache or a beard. Minus a helm or gauntlets, he was otherwise clad in a highly decorative-looking silver suit of armor, and at his side was a beautiful, white, and glimmering blade.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Either because of his momentary state of shock or because of the confusion caused by his appearance, it took Zach much longer than it should have to realize that there were words above the man’s head: Moldark the Unbanished. It was a name Zach was sure he’d heard somewhere. Why the hell couldn’t he remember?

Where had I heard it? Fluffles? No. Mr. Oren? No. Maybe someone at Angelica’s?

His name was in green, which Zach believed meant he was friendly. He also made no attempt to attack the three of them, though he did stare in their direction. Also bizarre was that, directly above his green-lettered name, for a reason Zach did not know, was a yellow exclamation point.

(!)

[??/??]

Moldark the Unbanished

Level 8

Stricken with uncertainty, Zach did not make so much as a single movement. He remained perfectly still, as did Lienne and Rian, who themselves were also probably stunned into indecisiveness. What were they supposed to do? Attack? Approach? Speak to the man? What did he want? Why was he just standing there?

“Who is making a racket on my wedding day?” the man called out, repeating his earlier question.

Zach craned his neck to glance at Rian at the same moment Rian looked at him. They both exchanged a blank stare with one another, which meant that Rian had no better idea of what to do than he did. Zach licked his bottom lip, then opened his mouth to ask Rian if they should consider running. Before he had the chance to speak, the man, Moldark, again spoke to them.

“Who is making a racket on my wedding day?”

“Oh!” Lienne said with a laugh, snapping her fingers. “He’s an NPC. But a normal one. A regular one, I mean. Not like Angelica. He’s basically like a mob but…but a little more advanced? I’m not sure how to describe it.”

“Are we in danger?” Zach asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Zach was so on guard that he was clenching everything from his hands around his blade to his ass. Cautiously, he relaxed somewhat, trusting that Lienne was correct in her assessment. Even before he’d lowered his blade, the NPC once again called out, “Who is making a racket on my wedding day?”

“Can he hear us?” Zach asked.

Rian shook his head. “No. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“You sure?”

“Go ahead. Test it.”

Zach shrugged. “Fine, then.” Cupping his hands over his mouth, he shouted, “I’m making a racket on your wedding day. Fuck your wedding!”

“Who is making a racket on my wedding day?” the NPC again demanded.

“You’re right,” Zach said with a snicker. “Hey, does anyone recognize his name? I’ve heard it before, but I can’t remember from where.”

“Hmm, not ringing a bell for me,” Rian said.

“Same,” Lienne agreed.

“I know I’ve heard it before, though. Moldark the Un…oh! Shit, I remember!” Both Lienne and Rian turned their heads his way as he pointed at the NPC and said, “That’s the boss of B10. The guy we need to kill to get the key.”

Rian blinked. “Wait, say again?”

“That’s the boss!”

“It can’t be. That’s impossible. We’re only on B5. And that guy doesn’t have a tier listed in his name.”

“A tier?”

“Who is making a racket on my wedding day?”

“Yeah, a tier. I guess that’s something we forgot to explain, which is bad of us, because it’s really, really important information. Zephyr actually stressed to us just how critically important it is that we don’t forget it.”

“Well, I’m listening if you feel like enlightening me. I mean, this guy’s annoying, but he doesn’t seem to be a threat to us—at least not while we’re standing here.”

Rian moved a bit closer to Zach and then leaned against the wall nearest to him as if for comfort. “Okay, so this is a bit complex but it’s not too bad, really.” With that, he paused for a few seconds as if to give the NPC time to repeat its one—and seemingly only—line, and then he commenced his explanation. “So,” he began, “when you’re looking at a boss mob, it will always have a tier before its name. It’ll say something like T1, T2, T3, and so on.”

Tapping his finger in the air, Zach nodded and said, “Know what? I do remember Mr. Oren saying something about that when he was talking about bosses.”

“Did he explain anything else? Like why that number is important?”

“Nope.”

“Figures,” Lienne grumbled.

Rian looked upwards a moment as though organizing his thoughts before continuing. After a few seconds, he said, “Okay, so the reason the tier number is such a big deal is because knowing a tier gives you a super-important piece of information about the boss you might end up fighting, including whether or not it’s something you can handle fighting at all! Actually, there are technically two pieces of information, but one is more reliable than the other.”

“Reliable?”

“Yeah. So basically, the first piece of information—and this was what Zephyr told us, okay?—is the size of the mob. Zephyr said that in most, but not all cases, the higher the tier, the larger the creature. He said it’s true way more than it’s not true, but that there are times when it’s not reliable.”

“Okay. That seems pretty simple,” Zach said. “What’s the other piece of information?”

Rian grinned. “Now this is the really important one. In my own opinion, it’s the only one that really matters. It’s also more reliable. Zephyr told us that it’s reliable in almost every single case. Not one-hundred percent of the time, but so close that you might as well always trust in it.”

Zach leaned in closer, becoming more interested with each word. Thankfully, his ears and brain had both somehow reached an agreement that allowed him to filter out the annoying question from Moldark, which he just kept on firing off at them.

“So, whenever you want to fight a mob, what’s the first thing you look at?”

“Their level, obviously,” Zach answered.

“Exactly. But why?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No, it’s just a leading one! Just answer it.”

Zach chuckled. “Okay, then. You look at the mob’s level to get an idea how strong it is.”

“That’s right. So if you wanted to fight Moldark over there”—Rian pointed at him—“you’ll see he has a level like any other mob, right? And that level is 8.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Here’s the thing, Zach. Bosses are way stronger than regular mobs. And their level doesn’t really help you know if you’re strong enough to kill them. But thanks to the adventurers who came before us many thousands of years ago, it was discovered how to get a very close approximation of a boss’s true level of power based on its tier.”

“Really?”

“Yep. This is the part that might be a bit confusing, but it’s actually not so bad. See, there’s a really simple way of figuring out how strong a boss is. First, you take its actual level. So, in the case of Moldark, that’s 8. Then you add that number to its tier modifier. And before you even ask, it’s just the tier times another number that gets higher the higher the tier is. I know that sounds confusing, but it’s so simple when you see how it works.”

“I’m following along,” Zach said. “Keep going.”

“Okay, so. For tiers 1 to 3, that number is 10. So let’s say there’s a T2 boss. Even before you know what level he is, the fact that he’s T2 means he’s at minimum level 20. So if he’s T2 level 5, you take the 2, multiply it by 10, and then add the 5. So, even though it’s level 5, it’s like you were fighting a level 25.”

“Easy enough so far,” Zach said. “But just to make sure I understand, tell me if I got this right. If Moldark is a T1, and he’s level 8—which he is—then it’s like he’s level 18. If he was T2, it’d be like he was 28. If he was T3, it’d be like he was 38.”

“Right!” Rian said. “Now, once you get to T4, things change. For T4 to T6, the multiplier becomes 15. So a level-10 boss that’s T5 would be…?”

Zach rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Level 85, obviously. 15 times 5 plus 10.”

“Right!”

“I’m guessing the multiplier keeps getting higher with each tier?”

“Oh yeah,” Rian said, and there was actually a touch of fear in his voice. “Once you get to tiers 7 through 9, you multiply by 25. For 10 to 12, it’s 50. And anything higher than that it’s a hundred.”

“Wow,” Zach said. “But wait…” He felt an acidic ache enter into his stomach as he recalled something Mr. Oren had told him. “Okay, wow.”

“What’s wrong, Zach?” Lienne asked him.

He looked at her. “Mr. Oren was telling us about that Leviathan that’s going to spawn in the Leviathan River. I’m not sure how I even remember this since I could barely remember who Moldark was. But I can distinctly recall him saying that it’s going to be a level-87, T9 Leviathan-type boss.”

Rian’s eyebrows rose to the top of his face. “Gods be damned! If that’s true, then that’s 87 plus uh…shit, what’s 9 times 25?”

“That’s 225,” Zach answered. “So it’s like fighting a mob that’s level 312. No wonder he was so serious about that thing.”

For almost a full minute, the three of them said nothing to one another while the only sound in this eerily beautiful wedding banquet was the periodic question that Moldark had for them. Zach wondered what their next move should be. His chief concern was that if they got any closer to Moldark he would aggro.

“Here’s what’s bothering me,” Rian said. “How can Moldark be the boss we’re supposed to fight on B10 if, number one, he’s right there.” Rian pointed at him. “And number two, he doesn’t have a tier in his name.”

Lienne risked taking a few steps towards him as though to better examine their new “friend,” who again and again asked the same annoying question like a malfunctioning robot. It almost made Zach regret breaking the table. If there hadn’t been a racket, maybe he wouldn’t have shown up demanding to know who’d made it.

Inching ever closer, Lienne made her way to the first table on her left and then sat down. Seeing that it was obviously safe to do so, Zach joined her, and so did Rian. This, as Moldark continued to ask the same question of them.

“Hey, Rian,” Zach said.

“Yeah?”

Trying his best not to snicker, Zach said, “Can I ask you something really quickly?”

As though he had become a master at reading Zach, Rian’s cheeks puffed in a way that suggested he was trying to contain a laugh. “What?”

“Who’s making a racket on Moldark’s wedding day?”

“I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?”

“Who’s making a racket on Moldark’s—?”

Lienne coughed out a surprised-sounding laugh. “You guys are so dumb. Stop. It’s annoying.”

The three of them sat together towards the back of the table so that each of them had a clear view of the NPC who Zach continued to insist was the boss of B10. Several times, Rian asked him to clarify if he was truly, absolutely, one-hundred percent certain that the name had been “Moldark the Unbanished.”

“Yes,” Zach said, becoming annoyed. “I promise you. That was the first name on the elevator’s list of names. I wish you’d have just gone in and looked yourself so you could’ve seen it too.”

Rian held up his palm. “It’s okay. I believe you. The question then is what we should do about it. Right now, he’s only level 8, and he doesn’t even have a tier.”

Zach narrowed his eyes. “Wait, you’re not suggesting…”

“I am,” Rian said, his grin becoming broader as a confident gleam entered into his eyes. “I think we should kill it right now.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Lienne said excitedly. “We could take it out right here and now while it’s not even T1.”

At this, Zach gave a firm, definitive shake of his head. “No fucking way. You guys are nuts. That’s the worst thing you two could do.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters,” Zach began, “his name is green.”

“So? You said you’re sure he’s the boss.”

“Yeah, of B10.”

“What do you mean ‘of B10’?”

Zach threw up his arms as a sudden rush of irritation forced him to actively keep from shouting. “I mean he’s the boss when we get to B10.”

“But he’s not the boss right now?”

“Rian, are you messing with me?”

“No, dammit. Are you?”

As a sense of déjà vu came over him, Zach rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. This was like a repeat of the argument they’d had when they first met. “All I’m trying to tell you is that the first boss of this dungeon is Moldark the Unbanished. That’s literally all I’m saying. Where’s the confusion?”

“The confusion is that it sounds like you’re saying that this guy, right here, in this room, is the boss spawn, but at the same time, you’re also saying he’s not.”

“I’m saying that he’s not the boss right now but he will be on B10.”

“How does that make any sense?”

Zach laughed, but it was an annoyed, angry laugh. Sometimes, Rian could really frustrate him. “It makes perfect sense. Right now, he’s not a boss. When we go to B10, he will be. How is that hard to understand?”

“Because it just makes no sense. How can he go from being not a boss to being a boss? He’s either a boss spawn or he isn’t.”

Pausing a moment before speaking, Zach considered Rian’s words, and then he asked, “Wait is that something you learned?”

“Is what something I learned?”

“Meaning, did they teach you in your initiation that if something specifically doesn’t start out as a boss, that it can’t become one later?”

“Uh, no, Zach. I didn’t learn that in initiation. I learned that by using common sense.”

“Okay, now you’re just being a prick. Lienne, tell him.”

Smiling nervously, Lienne said, “Sorry, Zach. I’m actually with my brother on this one.”

“Seriously?” Zach asked, lifting his palms and turning them over in a display of outrage. “You too?”

“I think we should attack it and kill it now before it becomes stronger.”

“Exactly,” Rian said.

Zach slapped his hands down on the tablecloth loud enough to cause a high-pitched clang from the plates. “Are you guys dumb? You literally just contradicted yourselves.”

“How so?”

“Because you said it makes no sense that a spawn can go from a regular spawn into a boss spawn, but then, right after, you’re saying we should kill it before it becomes a boss spawn, which means you agree with me that it can be one thing now and then another thing later.”

“No, that’s not what we’re saying,” Lienne countered. “We’re saying that it’s a boss spawn right now but that it’ll get stronger.”

“So basically, turn into a boss?”

“Okay, Zach. Now you’re just being pedantic.”

“No, actually, I’m being semantic—and by correcting you over it, now I’m being pedantic. But none of that matters. You guys are idiots if you go and hit that mob while its name is green. That means we’re not supposed to hit it.”

“How do you know? Who even told you that?”

“No one did. That, Rian, is common sense.”

“You’re making me want to hit you.”

For a brief instant, Zach considered giving in to his temper and provoking a fight with Rian. But then he realized how Gods-damned stupid, self-destructive, and childish that would be, and so rather than continue to let things spiral out of control, he decided to cool the temperature a bit. With a sigh, Zach closed his eyes a moment, took a deep breath, and then apologized.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you guys. I’m just really worried you’re about to do something incredibly dumb. That’s usually my job.”

“I know you don’t mean any harm,” Rian said. “Believe me: I know you’re only acting out of concern. But this should be a group decision, and I think Lienne and I should have a say in this, and we both believe we should attack the thing.”

“You’re going to die instantly. I just know it. I feel it in my gut. Look, why don’t we at least try speaking to it first?”

Rian laughed. “Because I don’t care what it has to say.”

“At least tell me what you hope to accomplish here. Why even take the chance?”

“Because,” Rian said, a crease forming in his brow, “if we kill the boss now, we don’t have to gamble our lives away if it becomes an even stronger boss later on B10.”

“But we’re supposed to fight it on B10. If you go and—”

“That’s enough talking about it. I made up my mind.” With that, Rian stood up from the table and took a few steps towards the NPC. Lienne also got up and then hurried over to join her brother, standing to his right side. Swearing loudly, Zach got out of his seat and ran over to them.

“Wait, please. Stop. I’m telling you this is all wrong.”

Rian had his axe at the ready, and Lienne, having rebuffed the two of them, raised her staff at the ready. Then, noticing Zach standing behind her, she applied her armor buff to him as well. “It’s going to be fine, Zach,” she said with a weak smile that belied a deeper uncertainty that was so clearly visible on her face. Unlike her brother, who looked self-assured, confident, and ready to spring into action, Lienne actually did seem to waver a bit as saw the urgent look that Zach was trying his best to give her. Even still, she showed no sign of reconsidering.

This is bad. This is really, really bad.

These two buffoons were actually going to attack him, weren’t they? How could they be this out of their minds? Zach needed to convince them to stop. And he needed to convince them right now. If worst came to worst, he might even have to try physically restraining them. They couldn’t be allowed to do this. The fact they even wanted to was a bigger shock than the fact that they were. Seriously, how could two otherwise very intelligent people make such a terrible judgement call? Zach, becoming more alarmed and panicked by the second, tried once more to appeal to their sense of reason.

“Just please, wait one more second,” he begged. Rian sighed then regarded him, and so did Lienne. Good. He got their attention. “Okay. Let’s just say you’re right and I’m wrong, okay? Let’s go with that assumption.” He pointed at Moldark. “Neither of you are in a rush. Neither of you are lazy. Why wouldn’t you want to fight him properly the way the dungeon intends? Why take this shortcut?”

“You’re drawing conclusions here, Zach,” Lienne replied.

“Like what?”

“You’re firstly assuming you know what the dungeon intends, which you don’t, and you’re also assuming that the boss will be something the three of us can kill by ourselves. Some bosses require a full party to take down.”

“Not this guy, though.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because my cat wouldn’t have let me come here if he didn’t think I could handle it.”

At this, Lienne laughed, and the fact that it was not a derisive laugh told Zach that she genuinely thought he was cracking a joke. A moment later, she seemed to realize he was being serious, and her laughter cut off. Now, she tilted her head and gave him a look that suggested she thought he was either a small child or an idiot.

“Do you not see how flawed your logic is?”

Rather than defend the point—which he could if he wanted to, but it would require even more time—he tried for another. “Don’t you see how obviously bad of an idea this is? Given everything you’ve seen from this dungeon, why would the boss of B10 be on B5 if it were possible to just kill it that way? It must be here for a purpose other than to be killed. Doesn’t it seem strange to you? That a boss the dungeon intends for us to fight on B10 appears before us as a basic level 8? Doesn’t it seem too obviously a trap? If it was really this easy, why would anyone ever fight the boss on B10? Who would risk it?”

“No one,” Lienne said. “Which is why we’re not going to!”

“But you’re not understanding. How do you not see how insane this is, Lienne? I’m actually standing here with my fucking brain about to explode, because I just can’t see how you can actually not figure out, all on your own, how idiotic this is.”

“I just don’t see it that way.”

“Yeah!” Zach shouted at her. “That’s the problem. You have no idea how stupid this is. It’s actually scary to me how dumb you guys are being right now. And I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m being a dick, but you’re literally going to attack a green-named NPC because you somehow think that, like…what? The Gods who created this place were too stupid to see something like this coming? Like they said, ‘Oh, it’s okay. Let’s put our boss on B5 and make it a normal, weak level 8. No one’s going to attack it’.”

“Wow,” Lienne said. “You know what, Zach? If you’re going to talk to us like that, then maybe we—”

“Li!” Rian shouted at her. “Don’t!”

He grabbed her by the shoulder and ushered her back around so that she again faced Moldark. “We’re not going to agree on this, and I want to stay friends. So stop talking about this with Zach, okay? Before we all say more things we regret.” Speaking with confidence in his voice, he continued, “Here’s what’s going to happen now. We’re going to attack the boss spawn, and then after we kill it, no one—and I mean it, Li—no one is going to gloat about who was right or who was wrong. I’m done fighting about this. Zach, if you’re so sure this is a trap, then stay back.”

Zach swallowed nervously. Then, drawing on the frustration and anger building inside of him, he said, “I really will, you know? If you guys attack that, then I’m not helping. I’m serious. I need to see Kalana again. It’ll break my heart, but I’m not doing shit. So please. Don’t do this. It’s so obviously stupid.”

“You don’t have to help,” Rian said. “And I won’t even hold it against you if you don’t. If I held the beliefs you do, I wouldn’t attack it either.”

The two began to take several more steps towards Moldark. Once again, Rian appeared far more confident than Lienne. “Guys, please,” Zach begged. He began to take one step back for each one the two of them took forward. “You’re making such an easily preventable mistake.”

Once the two were within fifteen feet of Moldark, the handsome-looking NPC extended its arms in a friendly gesture and said, “Oh, hello adventurers! I am so happy today, because it is my wedding day. But alas! My bride seems to have misplaced her wedding dress. If only I had fifteen spider-silk, I could have a new one made for her. Oh, drat! It’s such a shame! Especially since I heard a rumor that spider-silk can be found from Screeching Spiders on B6. Oh well. I guess my wedding is ruined! Oh, how I weep! If only I just had 15 spider silk from the Screeching Spiders on—”

“Get him, Li!” Rian shouted.

Even as the NPC continued to prattle on about spider-silk, Rian threw his axe in the same instant that Lienne called upon her magic. Zach held his breath as he watched with an impending sense of doom, causing his knees to go weak. Never in his life had he hoped to be wrong more than he did right now. Oh, Gods, he hoped he made a fool of himself. He hoped this would be the single-most-humiliating “I told you so” moment that he’d ever be subjected to.

He could tell Lienne was at least taking his warning partially seriously, because rather than open with just Flamestrike, she first called upon Fire Geyser, which caused a brightly lit circle to begin forming around Moldark even as her blue, missile-shaped flame hurtled through the air at him. Both her flame and Rian’s axe struck in the same moment, with Rian’s axe doing 1 damage and her Flamestrike hitting for 0.

Zach just had time to see the horrified, bewildered look on their faces as the gigantic pillar of flame brightened the already well-lit room to the point Zach had to avert his eyes. He could feel the blast of heat on him as it set the tablecloth on fire. It was so tall it reached up to the ceiling and even caused one of the light fixtures to fall off. Squinting so that he could see amid the far-too-bright light, Zach could just make out the number 1.

Then Moldark’s name turned red, and with a horrible, fearful cry, Lienne screamed, “Rian! We were wrong! We were—”

“How dare you attack me, fools!” Moldark screamed at them. He marched forward. He didn’t even run—he just marched. Then he stopped just before them, and he clapped his hands together. This caused a disorienting, loud, siren-like noise to erupt in the banquet hall, which suddenly rumbled as though in the throes of an earthquake. And then Rian and Lienne simply collapsed. Without another word, cry, or sound, they crumpled to the floor.

“No!” Zach screamed. “He killed them. Oh, Gods, no! He—”

“To the dungeons, with you,” Moldark said, shaking his head. Then they vanished. Both of them just…vanished. It was different from the way mobs vanished, as they tended to leave behind a quickly dissipating puff of smoke; in this case, it was more akin to when Rian or Lienne used their storage abilities.

Zach didn’t even realize there were tears in his eyes until they actively started to sting. He was so in shock he wasn’t sure how to respond. Was he going to be next? Why was Moldark staring at him unmoving? Why was he turning back around? Why was his name green again?

These questions assaulted Zach, who for some reason was spared the wrath of the aggroed NPC. Only after Moldark again began to demand to know who was causing the racket did Zach finally become certain that he was not going to be attacked the way that they had. But why? Why had Moldark spared him? After all, the three of them were in a party together, weren’t they?

Confused and thunderstruck, his eyes began to leak more tears as though they were somehow a step or two ahead of his brain, which was still far too overwhelmed to handle such complex emotions. All he could think about right now was why he hadn’t been killed—or taken—and whether or not his two friends were still alive, which Moldark sort of seemed to imply they might be.

Even amid the torrent of pain, sadness, and confusion, Zach struggled to understand why he had been left alone. But the answer soon became clear to him as his mind flashed back to a conversation he’d had with Rian and Lienne very early on when they were hunting Skelly Grunts in B1.

“How does…how do these mobs know we’re in a party? Meaning, when they give us xp,” Zach had asked him.

“Because we know we’re in a party,” he recalled Rian saying.

“Huh?”

“I know, it’s crazy. I can’t really explain it all that much better, dude. I can only say that because all three of us want to be a party and know we’re in a party, then just like that, we’re in a party together.”

Of course. Now it made sense. Of course he hadn’t attacked Zach. It was obvious now in hindsight. By the time Rian and Lienne had aggroed the NPC, Zach wasn’t in their party anymore. He was actually surprised by the fact he could even still think with a degree of reason and rationality after what had just happened.

So that’s why.

Even without consciously intending to do so, Zach had become unwilling to remain in their party, and thus, just like that, he had left it. Wiping his eyes as more tears began to fall, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Still in such an absolute state of shock, his hand moved automatically, and he removed the phone, even as he continued to stare in horror at Moldark.

He wasn’t sure why he checked his phone during a time like this. He didn’t think there was any logical explanation or reason for it. He wasn’t even sure why Kalana was risking embarrassing her father by continuing to text him while she was busy in a meeting with some super-important guild official or whatever.

“The hell?” he whispered aloud, staring at his phone’s screen and having no idea what he was seeing.

The texts, apparently, were not from Kalana. They weren’t even from a damn cellphone number. Zach, it seemed, had received two text messages from “The Catacombs of Yorna.” The dungeon itself had contacted him. Gods in heaven! As if there weren’t already enough things that his brain had to process; now, he would apparently have to send some of them to the back of the line. Overcome with confusion, Zach opened both messages and read them back to back. The first was from a few minutes ago when he’d entered into the room with Rian and Lienne, and the second one had only just come in now.

>Catacombs of Yorna: There is a quest available in your location. Use your tracking app to keep tabs on current and future quests!

Tracking app? Zach thought. I don’t have that. Wait, do I? Briefly minimizing his messaging app—and not even bothering to go down the rabbit hole of wondering how in the hell a dungeon had gotten his phone number—he saw that, on his home screen, there was indeed now an app labeled “quest tracking.” Even more confusingly, there was an app labeled “inventory,” “equipment,” “abilities,” and “storage and bank.” But these were all concerns for later. He wasn’t willing to spare an ounce of brainpower on those right now. Once again, he reopened his messaging app, and now, he read the second text that had just been sent to him.

>Catacombs of Yorna: Quest automatically accepted: The Value of Friendship. Use your tracking app to keep tabs on current and future quests!

“What the hell is going on here?” he shouted aloud.

The only response he got was: “Who is making a racket on my wedding day?”

Navigating back to his home screen, he tapped the tracking app, the icon of which was just a large, orange-colored “Q,” and he was immediately greeted with a list of boxes next to a scroll wheel below three buttons labeled “Active,” “Failed,” and “Completed.”

Wait, I remember someone saying something about quests.

Back when he’d first stumbled into Angelica’s, there had been a man whose name was…was it Reni Sarwin? Yeah, that’d been it. So this man, Reni Sarwin, had said he’d had a “quest” to complete on Earth. At the time, Zach had thought nothing of it. He thought it no different from the way Mr. Oren had given him a “quest” to get to level 10. But now, he was beginning to wonder if the word meant something else in the context of adventuring. Clearly, it must have, because if not, then what the fuck was he looking at right now? His hands were shaking so nervously that he had to hold his phone with both. Yet he still wasn’t able to keep still enough to actually read his screen. It was only by sheer miracle he’d managed to read his text messages.

Walking over to the nearest table, he sat down and placed his phone gently on top of the tablecloth then let his sword rest next to it. He struggled to get his violently shaking index finger to press down on the one and only non-empty box under the tab labeled “Active.” Eventually, he managed to press it, and as he began to read the words on his screen, something changed within him with each word that he read. It was a shift that occurred so deeply in his consciousness that it altered his very core sense of being. And it happened so fast that he wasn’t even sure when the transition began or when it ended, but overall, he knew it had been during the very short time that it took for him to read the message.

Quest: The Value of Friendship

Given by: Catacombs of Yorna

Reward: 2x Red Rejuvenation Stone, 1x Purple Rejuvenation Stone, 1x Yorna’s Sword of Courage

Description: Rescue Lienne Astafort and Rian Astafort by slaying Moldark the Unbanished on B10 before they are executed in 3 hours. Quest is considered completed only after both human adventurers have been freed from their cages. Quest is considered failed if the time limit expires or if either adventurer dies through any means before the expiration of the quest.

Quest Expires In: 2:58:52

By the time he had finished reading the message, a powerful determination arose within him: it was a sensation in the farthest reaches of his mind that told him, beyond all question, that he would not be able to move on if he failed this quest. That he must succeed at any cost.

And so, Zach did not think. He did not wonder. He did not contemplate. He didn’t even plan. He simply acted. Shoving his phone in his pocket, he grabbed his blade, set aside every last modicum of caution, and took off at a mad sprint towards the exit door, not even bothering to look at Moldark on his way out.

They were alive. Thank the Gods, they were still alive. And all he had to do to save them was make his way all the way down to B10 within three hours and defeat the boss in a one-on-one battle. And how would he do that? He didn’t know. He didn’t care, either. It was just something he now had to do.

And he was going to do it.