“The description on Finley’s Chakus says that the blades on the cutters are coral.” Skye offered a proud grin, hovering alongside Zoey and the others as they moved down the tunnel.

“It says my fork is coral, too.” Zoey held the weapon up to examine it. “I’m not sure if they mean the tip or the whole thing.”

“You’re going to try it out, though, right?” Hope asked with a hopeful intonation. “My wand makes my magic better. I bet your fork will make your…” She paused to think. “…your stabbing things with a fork better.”

“It has higher stats,” Zoey affirmed. “Not by a lot, but it does add water damage to my attacks.” She considered that implication. “Then again, water attacks might give hit points to the monsters in this dungeon. I should wait before I try this fork out.”

“Mine says it does water damage, too,” Skye observed. “I’ll wait to use it, too.”

“That happens a lot,” Introvice explained. “Dungeon drops often don’t work as well in the dungeon that drops them. But you might find yourself in a fire dungeon someday. Then those water attack bonuses will be huge.”

Fred’s head perked up, and he began to run, disappearing around a bend in the tunnel up ahead.

When Zoey saw no reaction from Flowerbeard or Introvice, it prompted her to ask. “Should we follow him?”

“No,” Flowerbeard said. “That makes no sense. Why would we do that? I mean, I could if I wanted. But why would I? that’s too much work.”

“We don’t need to follow him,” Introvice assured. “Whatever he senses, he’ll wait for us when he gets to it.”

“He can sense things?” Hope asked.

“What kind of things?” Skye added.

“How can he sense things?” Tornado finished the string of questions.

“Yes, high-level enemies, and we don’t know,” Introvice answered the questions in the order the triplets had asked them. “When he senses something, it’s either a notorious monster or a boss room. In the case of a boss room, the boss is higher level than what is normal for the dungeon. Depending on the boss’s level, we could have some grinding ahead of us.”

“Grinding?” Hope asked.

“It means you kill easier monsters over and over to raise your level,” Zoey explained. “It’s called grinding because sometimes it feels like a grind.”

“You know a lot about adventuring for a non-adventurer.” Flowerbeard squinted his eyes at Zoey. “Are you a spy?”

“A spy for who?” Zoey asked.

“Ummm…” Flowerbeard considered how to answer her question. “A spy for vampires?”

“I’m not a spy for vampires,” Zoey assured. “I’ve played lots of JRPGs and MMOs.”

“A likely story…” Flowerbeard pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at her. “I’m watching you, vampire spy.” Then he pivoted to whisper at Introvice. “What’s a JRPMO?”

“Fred’s back.” Hope pointed ahead.

Fred had rounded the bend on his way back to the group. His head hung; his shoulders slouched.

“That’s not a good sign,” Introvice said. “We should hurry ahead and see what’s got him feeling down.”

They began to jog in his direction. When the party reached him, he began to hand signal. First, he lifted his right arm over his head, hand parallel with the ground, palm facing down. Then he lowered his arm—so both hands were in front of him—and held up eight fingers. Then he held his arms out to each side and made a wave with them, starting with his right finger tips and ending with his left. Then he made a scary face. Then he held up six fingers, followed by seven fingers. He finished with a shrug.

Where Zoey didn’t understand the charades, Introvice translated them. “He found the final boss room up ahead. It’s an octopus-type monster. It is three levels higher than us. He thinks we’ll need to grind for six or seven days to get our levels high enough.”

“Six days?” Skye’s mouth began to quiver as he fought back tears. “That’s…so many days.”

“So many days.” Tornado echoed.

“We have to be brave.” Hope made her best effort to comfort her brothers. “We’ll see mom and dad again. Don’t worry.”

Zoey’s heart broke for the triplets, and she couldn’t help them. She felt powerless. It wasn’t fair for children to be away from their homes. There had to be something she could do to comfort them…no…not comfort…help.

As Zoey considered how to proceed, she watched the triplets land next to the wall. They sat there, dejected as emotional exhaustion overwhelmed them. Though...she had an idea that could help them.

She thought back to how Pete slapping her shield had raised her defense. When he leveled, she knew it would increase his strength, too. Attribute bonuses at leveling depended on skill-ups. She could let the pixies attack her shield like Pete had. If the triplets skilled up enough…they’d only have to level one time. In an hour, they could be ready to face a monster high above their level.

“If we are going to defeat the dungeon boss,” Introvice said. “We should return to the room where we fought the bull shark. By now, normal dungeon mobs should have spawned there. Whenever you and the triplets are ready to join us. Meet us back there.”

“I have an idea,” she told Introvice as he spun and headed toward the room where they’d faced the bull shark. Fred and Flowerbeard had joined him.

While he walked away, Introvice’s voice remained calm, comforting…in a weird way. “I don’t know your idea, but I trust you have the triplets’ best interest at heart. But for now, for their sake, they need a break. Let them rest and come to terms with the situation. When they feel up for it, join up with us, and we can talk about your idea.”

Zoey was about to ask Introvice to stay, but she decided against it. Having Introvice and his team with her wouldn’t help her power-level the pixies—or in the case of her plan—power-skill them.

“How are you guys doing?” She asked them as she stepped over to them, plopping down beside Hope.

“Okay, I guess.” Hope spoke with forced maturity. Zoey felt terrible for her; it wasn’t fair that Hope had to act like a grown-up when she was still a child. For that matter, it wasn’t fair that any of the triplets found themselves in such a precarious situation.

Zoey couldn’t help but feel guilty. Afterall, she was the one who suggested they flee into the portal. Then again, what was the other option? The soul eater at Harvestfest had formed from a grasshopper. By herself, it would have been more than Zoey could handle. And the soul eater which had attacked Zoey and the triplets was much worse than the one from Harvestfest. It’s not your fault, Zoey tried to convince herself.

“I want to go home.” Skye’s voice cracked as he spoke. “

“Me too,” Tornado sniffed, tears welling in his eyes and beginning to run down his cheeks on each side. He wiped them away with his sleeve.

“Guys,” Zoey said. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it’s like I said before. I have an idea. If it works. We still might make it out of here today.”

“Thank you, Zoey,” Hope said, forcing a smile. “I appreciate you trying to cheer us up. But we should take our time and be careful. It’s better to make it home a week from now than not make it home at all.”

“You know,” Zoey set her hands in her lap. “You are very grown up for your age.”

“Thank you,” Hope said.

“The thing is,” Zoey began. “I can make you strong enough that fighting the boss won’t be risky. And I can do it today.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Tornado pointed down the tunnel where Introvice had gone with the other adventurers. “They said we need to level up for six days.”

“That is what they said.” Zoey nodded. “But let me ask you a few questions.”

“Okay,” Tornado agreed. “But no tests. I don’t want a grade for my answers.”

Zoey held up one finger. “First, what makes leveling so difficult?”

“The experience points you get from each monster go down as you get a higher level above them,” Skye answered.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“And you have to wait for mobs to respawn,” Tornado added.

“Good answers,” Zoey said, lifting her second finger. “Second question is this. What level are the adventurers?”

“I checked.” Hope explained. “When I talk to people for the first time, I change my settings to see their names and levels above their heads. Introvice is level twenty-eight. Fred is level twenty-six. Flowerbeard is level twenty-four.”

“Right,” Zoey said. “So if we were each as strong as a level thirty adventurer, we should be able to fight the dungeon boss…right?”

“No,” Skye said this more as a question than a statement. He was asking, what do you know that we don’t?

“What level am I?” Zoey asked them.

“Fifteen,” Hope replied. “That means you’d need another fifteen to face the boss. My brothers and I would need twenty levels each.”

“What should my defense be at level fifteen?” Zoey asked. “As a paladin who has high defense?”

“Hmmm…” Skye though for a second. “Based on books I’ve read, it should be around one-thousand-three hundred. That would be super high. For a level fifteen.”

“And my hit points?” Zoey asked. “What should they be at level fifteen?”

“Around four hundred,” Skye replied, his eyes searching her face as he tried to figure out what point she was making.

“Pete taught me a trick to get way higher attribute boosts at a level up.” She explained. “My hit points are at 3,420. My defense is 4,731.”

Tornado’s jaw dropped open. He kept it open without saying a word.

“That can’t be right,” Hope said. “Are you sure you read your stat sheet right? You didn’t make any mistakes.”

“No mistakes.” Zoey insisted. “And if my stats are right, would that make me strong enough to face this dungeon boss?”

“More than strong enough.” Skye nodded.

“You think you can help us get strong like that?” Hope asked.

“I do,” Zoey said. “And it’s easier than you think. To put it simple, all you need to do is get a lot of skill points by hitting something way stronger than you.” Zoey pointed at herself. “Or, in this case, someone way stronger than you.”

“We can’t hit you. That would be mean.” Tornado said.

“It’s called sparring,” Zoey said. “Skye, I will practice fight you, but I won’t punch back. It will get your skills up. When you do land hits, Hope heals me. We do this until you gain one or two hundred skill points to your primary skills.

“Then I can let Tornado cast spells on my shield. It will get my shield skill up, and his elemental-based magic skills will increase.”

“It sounds like good training.” Hope admitted.

“After we get your skills up, we need to fight monsters. Because you three are lower levels than the monsters in the dungeon, you won’t need to kill many, and you’ll gain a level. When you do, your attributes which relate to your skills will get a significant boost.” Zoey finished her explanation.

“We have nothing to lose.” Hope spoke with a renewed optimism.

“Nothing to lose,” Tornado no longer had tears in his eyes.

“Nothing to lose,” Skye shrugged.

“But before we get into any of that,” Zoey said. “Introvice was right. You guys need a break. Let’s have brunch.

* * *

“Do you think those kids will be okay?” Introvice asked his companions as they traversed the watery passageway.

Fred nodded that he thought they would be okay.

“Don’t care.” Flowerbeard stretched his arms over his head. “And if something happens to them, I call their loot.”

Introvice ignored Flowerbeard’s comment. “I mean, I get Zoey doesn’t want to do anything to put them at risk, but they seemed desperate.”

“Desperate people make mistakes.” Flowerbeard lowered his arms. “That’s why people should be more like me.”

Fred offered Flowerbeard a confused expression, one which asked, more like you?

“Yes,” Flowerbeard nodded. “More like me.”

“How do you mean?” Introvice asked.

“I can’t believe I have to explain this,” Flowerbeard couldn’t hide the annoyance in his voice. “I mean that people need to not care about stuff. If you don’t care, you don’t have to worry about losing it.”

“Okay,” Introvice smiled. He disagreed with the sentiment. Even so, he wasn’t an argumentative person. If someone told him the sky’s usual color was purple, he wouldn’t argue with them. He’d let them remain happy in their ignorance. “But you do have to admit that Zoey would be a great addition to our team. She’s a heck of a tank.”

“Whatever…like stop talking about it…I don’t care. Whatever.” Under his beard, Flowerbeard began to blush. Introvice noticed because the pirate’s nose had changed a bright shade of pink. Does Flowerbeard have a crush on Zoey? He wondered. Why else would he be blushing? Flowerbeard was fortunate because Introvice handled teasing others the same way he dealt with arguing. He didn’t do it.

Fred increased his speed to outpace his companions. When he was ahead of them, he held up a hand, signaling them to stop. When they did, he pointed to the tunnel wall behind them.

As soon as he did this, an orb of brilliant light began to shine where he had pointed. It was small at first, no larger than a mason’s jar. After a few seconds, it began to expand. Though, there was nothing threatening to its growth. It was the size of a watermelon. Then it was the size of a table. Once it was as tall and wide as a person, it began to fizzle out.

Once the light had dimmed to nothing, it left a cat in its place. Rather, it left an anthropomorphic cat in its place. He was a black cat with a white spot on his forehead. His vestment came in the form of a white tuxedo. It fit the cat with perfection that only the best craftsmen could produce and only with perfect measurements from the start.

“Hello, Max.” Introvice nodded. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”

“Pleasure is mine.” Max pulled on the bottom of his jacket to straighten it. “How have Flowerbeard and Fred been behaving?”

Fred offered a wide, friendly, toothy smile and a hearty, exaggerated hand wave.

Flowerbeard glared. “I’m behaving better than that vampire sidekick of yours. You can tell her…”

Introvice held his hand up to silence Flowerbeard, stopping Flowerbeard midsentence. “They are behaving the same as usual.”

“And the people we sent you to watch after?” Max spoke with a questioning tone. “How are they.”

“We haven’t met Pete yet. Though, we have met Zoey.” Introvice straightened his own jacket. “She is strong like you say…didn’t expect her to end up in the dungeon, though.”

“She’s here?” Confusion snuck into his voice. “I didn’t expect her to end up in the dungeon either. She surprised us both.”

“No one surprises me.” Flowerbeard stuck out his chest. “I knew she’d come to the dungeon. Not surprised one bit.”

“No one surprises you?” Max shifted his attention to Flowerbeard. “What about that crab sneaking up on you. As soon as Flowerbeard turned to look, Max said. “Made you look.”

“I expected you to make me look.” Flowerbeard insisted. “I wanted to make you feel good about yourself.”

Max stepped over to him and patted his shoulder twice while saying. “Sure, you did.” Lowering his hand, Max looked back at Introvice. “As far as the dungeon goes, why is anyone in the dungeon?”

“Long story short,” Flowerbeard said. “We wanted to scout the portal so we knew where the dungeon was. Then we were going to give Pete an adventurer pass and train him inside the dungeon. As soon as we found the portal, Zoey and some pixies sped into the portal before we could stop them. So we followed them in and acted like we were here the whole time.”

“That makes sense.” Max stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “So you are here to keep her safe?”

Fred nodded yes.

“And where are Zoey and the pixies now?” Max asked.

“As it turns out…this dungeon will take us longer to clear than we would have liked. The pixies are children. The news of how long it would take was hard on them. As such, the children needed a break to come to terms with things. Zoey stayed with them for moral support.” Introvice pointed down one of the tunnels and then lowered his hand to the side. “They aren’t too far down that tunnel.”

Without moving his head, Max scanned his eyes in the direction Introvice had indicated. Then he moved them back to Introvice. “Why are you stuck in the dungeon? The boss can’t be much more powerful than you three.”

Introvice shook his head in disagreement. “We can’t face it in good conscience.”

“You’re worried about the children,” Max observed.

“I am,” Introvice confessed. “With mini-bosses, it’s easy enough to make them wait outside the fight…protect them from risk.”

Max held his hand in front of his face, rubbing his thumb and middle finger together as he spoke. Introvice interpreted the gesture as a sign of boredom. It was Max’s way of saying he didn’t care about the party’s problems. “But main boss rooms require you enter with the full party.”

“Also,” Flowerbeard added. “We could need the lil buggers for additional DPS. For sure, we could use Zoey.” He put one hand on Introvice’s shoulder, his other hand on Fred’s. “Between the three of us, we don’t have a decent tank. And we don’t have any spellcasters…no healer…no elemental dps.”

“What are you saying?” Max cocked his head to the side, fixing his intimidating gaze on Flowerbeard. “Are you saying you’re scared?”

“Listen, furball…” Flowerbeard’s voice flared with anger at having his courage challenged.

Introvice held his hand up, preventing Flowerbeard from continuing the rant which was sure to come. No doubt, that rant would lead to Flowerbeard picking a fight. If that fight ensued, it wouldn’t end well for anyone…least of all Flowerbeard.

Though Flowerbeard’s words had stopped, he continued to breathe with heavy anger. And his skin appeared red beneath his beard. Though with each breath, his skin returned to its normal color, and his temper calmed.

After a few seconds, Introvice spoke. “We’re cautious. Better safe than sorry. Give us six weeks. If you do…”

“No,” Max said. “You can’t have six weeks. But I am not without a heart.” Max materialized three vials, one between each finger. They were small, no longer than the fingers which held them, less than a centimeter in diameter. “These are enhancing potions.” He tossed them one at a time to each respective adventurer.”

“What do they do?” Flowerbeard asked, a tinge of resentment remaining in his voice.

“They’ll provide a temporary boost to each of your levels. It will be like you are five levels higher for one to two minutes. I’ll also provide each of you with a new weapon.”

Fred wrinkled his forehead, cocked his head to the side, put an arm out to each side, palms up, and shrugged.

“I know you have weapons,” Max smirked. “And they are magnificent weapons at that. The weapons I offer you are…” The tuxedoed cat fell back into a sitting position. It wasn’t that there was a chair behind him. Instead, he was sitting on thin air as if it were a chair. “…specialized. They will be the best weapons for limited scenarios. Can you guess what one of those scenarios might be?”

“The boss room,” Introvice answered with a humble voice, contemplating in his head what kind of boss would require specialized weapons. If I know what makes the weapons unique, Introvice realized, it might give me some idea about a strategy to face the boss. “You’re giving us something to help us fight the boss. You want us to get it done now.”

“And I won’t take no for an answer.” Max used his hand to cover a yawn. “You’ve wasted enough time in this dungeon. I need you outside with Pete and Zoey. To fulfill their purpose on Round, they must begin preparation. As we speak, an enemy journeys to Round.”

“And who might that enemy be?” Introvice asked.

Max squinted his eyes, making him appear pensive. He remained that way for a few long seconds before answering. “Focus on one problem at a time, Mr. Introvice. You need to focus your energy on overcoming the dungeon boss.”

“You are the one saying we need to worry about teaching Zoey and Pete.” Flowerbeard pointed out. “You’re the one that said an enemy was on their way to Round. Now you tell us not to think so far ahead. It seems contradictory.”

“Yes…contradictory…” Max stood from his sitting position, walked over to Flowerbeard, and leaned so they were nose to nose, “contradictory like your face, good sir.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” Flowerbeard went to push Max out of his space, but the mischievous cat disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Though his physical body no longer remained present, Max’s disembodied voice spoke. “I’ve placed your new weapons into your inventory. Use the vials, use the weapons, and defeat the dungeon boss. Do it now.”