Flinching, Topher's body reacted entirely reflexively; he reached up and tried to swat whatever was lashing out at him away with his hand. The thing, which turned out to be a large iron sword swung by a massive armored figure, struck his flailing fingers and was thrown backwards with tremendous force; the rejection of the blow from his skin-tight Shield combined with the conductive jolt of his Shocking Grasp spell launched the sword, and the armored figure with it, backwards with a loud rattling crash. Someone else shouted in alarm, and Topher dropped into a defensive crouch; I wasn't thrown backwards like I usually am when something hits my Shield. What's going on? He mumbled the words of his Conjure Light spell quickly as another figure approached; it was obvious that his Sanctuary spell wasn't doing shit now. A slender form emerged from the darkness as the armored one, coughing and gasping, reached up and struggled with its helmet.

Immediately, and extraordinarily inconveniently, Topher Bailey fell in love.

The person who stepped into the light was Japanese, around twenty-five, and a tiny bit over five feet tall; her hair was that deep black which appears indigo in certain lightings, and it swirled and poured over her shoulders like a waterfall of majestic half-curls. Her eyes were hazel with gold flecks, and they sparkled with intelligence behind long lashes that moved languidly with each blink; her arms, which emerged from rolled-up sleeves under a leather breastplate, were supple and impossibly smooth. And Topher noticed absolutely none of this whatsoever, because one hundred percent of his attention was on the armored figure who had just that moment managed to take off its helmet. The woman it revealed was a half-orc, with long fiery red hair on the right side of her face; the left side of her head was shaved, and a massive, knotted scar crossed the space from the crown of her head past her left temple to the base of her thick, well-muscled neck. Taut jade-colored skin, crisscrossed and stitched with dozens of other scars, stretched across strong bones and corded muscles; two small tusks poked up from her lower lip and settled into twin grooves below her large, oft-broken nose. Her eyes were the golden yellow of a cat's as she stared back at Topher, shock and surprise mixing with alertness and wariness in a full-bodied blend of adrenaline that pierced through him more solidly than any blade; Topher's mouth went dry, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Oh, wow.

"Zee! Are you alright?" The Japanese girl stared back and forth between Topher and the half-orc, then hurried to the half-orc's side and helped her up; her wide-eyed expression bespoke concern and worry without any hint of fear. "What happened?"

The half-orc coughed again and snatched up her sword, pointing it at Topher warily. "Stay clear, Hana-chan. It looks like a human, but my sword bounced right off it, and it shocked me. It could be another undead."

"I'm, uh... I'm alive." Topher winced. Real smooth. "I'm human, too. I'm just a mage."

The girl -- Hana, Topher supposed -- looked back at him, her hand touching something in a pouch over her right hip. "Did you attack us?"

"Uh..." Topher shuffled his feet. "Kind of the other way around. She, uh... she struck out at me, in the dark, and my electric spell must have gone through her sword. I'm sorry."

"You are sorry?" The half-orc struggled to her feet. "You cast me across the room by accident, and you are sorry?" She shrugged off the other girl -- the thought wow, she's strong sizzled through Topher's addled brain -- and moved to stand in front of Topher. She was taller than him, he noticed, but only a little; their eyes were almost on the same level. She faced him squarely, with an unreadable expression, and Topher wondered if he was about to get hacked in half by what was apparently, despite all previous evidence to the contrary, the girl of his dreams. Oddly, he didn't mind at all.

Then, suddenly, she bowed to him; it was a swift, mechanical bow, with evident discipline and control, but it bespoke the wild, untamed heart of her strength by virtue of the power of its suppression (at least to Topher, who could be forgiven if he was romanticizing any element of such interactions by the nature of his circumstances). "Master Mage, please do not be ashamed of your strength. Cha'tuk. I acknowledge you."

Topher had already been smitten; now he was thoroughly besotted. Being validated by the object of his infatuation despite her obvious disincentive to do so in the first ten seconds of their acquaintance watered dry, parched places in the mass of trauma he called his soul with an intensity so powerful it was agonizing; he had to fight down the instinct to propose on the spot, despite not even knowing the half-orc's name yet. "Uh... thanks. I'm still sorry, though; I didn't mean to hurt you." Not that you look like anything could really hurt you; God damn, girl, you are a brick house. Up close, Topher could practically sense her solidity through his skin despite the ten feet of distance and twin layers of armor and shielding that separated them; his endocrine system was firing on all cylinders at once, and it was taking all of his self-control to keep his mouth shut.

The half-orc straightened back up and gave Topher a smile; his situation escalated from "besotted" to "cognitively impaired" at the sight of her twisted, half-shy grin. "You only defended yourself, Master Mage. I definitely did mean to take your head off; so, by my estimation, we are even." She held out a gauntleted hand for him to shake. "Zanasha. Zee, to my friends."

"Christopher Bailey," said Topher, totally involuntarily. "But you can call me Topher." He reached out and shook her hand awkwardly, feeling his weak little mage hand swallowed up by her massive gauntlet, then released it and let his hands drop to his sides, acutely conscious of how stupid he probably looked. Wow. I am very out of my league here. He stared into Zanasha's eyes, blinked, then remembered that there was another person existing in this place currently; belatedly, he nodded in her direction. "Uh, you said your friend's name was Hana?"

The other girl, whose existence Topher's brain kept trying to disregard, stepped up and bowed even more formally than Zee had. "Hana Shirakane, Bailey-san. Nice to meet you."

Vaguely, something tickled in Topher's brain; a small handful of facts valiantly struggled against an overwhelming tsunami of hormones and chemicals and came together in a heroic effort. After a few seconds, the resultant conclusion penetrated his consciousness. "You're older than the others. Are you... Ichirou's Hana?"

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The girl blushed furiously and dropped her gaze; Topher immediately felt awkward again. "I... don't know that I would call myself that, exactly. But, yes, I did know Watanabe-kun." Her gaze rose, and Topher saw tremendous sadness there, tinged with something else. "He passed away, however. How did you know him?"

Topher grunted. "Really, really long story." Then, the full import of her answer shocked through him, tearing away the veil of his attraction long enough to sear him with worry and concern. "Jesus, you're the last one. The only remaining F-Ranker from the summoning ten years ago. Shit, you're the only Otherworlder from that summoning now that Oguro's dead."

Hana flinched. "W-what? What do you mean?"

"Listen." Topher stepped towards her, fighting the magnetic pull of Zanasha's proximity. "I'm an Otherworlder too -- there was another Summoning, a few months ago. Somebody's been killing the Otherworlders, and trying to kill me. They killed someone pretending to be Ichirou, thinking he was still alive too. You're probably in serious danger."

Hana's eyes grew wide. "M-me? Why would anyone want to kill me? I'm just an F-Ranker!"

"I don't know," Topher replied grimly, "but they've tried to kill me twice now, and I'm an F-Ranker too. I've just been lucky so far."

Abruptly, Zanasha was at Hana's side protectively. "If what he says is true, Hana-chan, our presence here may not be a coincidence. It is possible someone set us up to fall into this trap."

"Trap? What are you talking about?" Topher was still pretty unclear on exactly where "here" was, but that fact was currently very far down on his stack of priorities. And probably shouldn't be, he realized self-consciously. "I fell into a cavern in the dungeon under Wanbourne, then found some kind of weird castle full of sleeping zombies. Dangerous and insane, sure, but I don't know about it being any kind of trap."

Hana nodded. "We were exploring that dungeon too. But we were trying to find the source of whatever creates the undead; there was an area where the strongest monsters spawn, and some high-Level adventurers went down there on an expedition. We tagged along behind them, trying to see if the dungeon had some kind of crystal or core." She lowered her eyes. "We found... something... I don't know if it was what we were looking for, but it nearly killed us."

"It felt as though our souls were being pulled from our bodies," Zanasha confirmed. "If not for Hana-chan's quick thinking, we would doubtless be zombies ourselves now."

Hana blushed. "Zee! I didn't do anything special. They were just potions."

"Potions you brewed," corrected the half-orc sternly.

Topher, captivated by the spectacle of a strong, beautiful woman supporting her friends, realized he was staring adoringly at her and forced himself to stop; fucking get ahold of yourself, old man. "What kind of potions?"

"They were just soul-strengthening draughts," protested Hana. "They protect against undead with energy-draining attacks. I just got lucky."

"Seems to be a trait common to F-Rankers," commented Topher dryly. A few suspicions had been coming together in his mind; he paced a little, summoning his Stylus and spinning it thoughtfully. "So we were probably supposed to have had our souls pulled out by whatever this effect was, but potions and magic protected us and now we're here -- wherever 'here' is." He tapped the Magic Gem on the end of his Stylus against his lower lip thoughtfully, realized he was basically touching his own face with a loaded firearm, and shuddered before banishing it again. "You said you found the core of the dungeon, or something?"

"I'm not sure," Hana demurred. "We were following the high-Level adventurers, and stayed behind to examine some runes on a wall; we must have triggered something, somehow, because the wall opened up and swallowed us." She hugged herself, looking like she was shivering slightly in the cold of the dungeon. "We found ourselves in a corridor with no way to get back; eventually, we had to follow the only path open to us."

"The path ended in a great room, full of bones," Zanasha cut in, "and in the center of the bones was something like a giant serpent made of glowing energy. It gazed upon us, and everything began to grow fuzzy and far away; if Hana-chan had not give me a potion to drink, I am certain I would not be alive now."

Topher nodded grimly. "Happened to me too, when I found this place. Then what?"

"As soon as we consumed the potions, everything became very still for a few moments," the half-orc continued, "but then the floor opened up beneath us and dropped us onto an even larger pile of bones." She pointed away into the darkness. "I believe it was in that direction; we had just begun to explore our new environment when we encountered you."

"Okay." Topher crossed his arms. "So, now what? Do we team up, maybe try to fight our way out?"

Hana hesitated. "I... don't know that fighting would be a good idea, Bailey-san. I'm only Level 7; Zee is Level 20, but even that's probably much too low to actually be fighting anything down here -- I think most of these monsters are Level 50 or higher. So, unless you can defeat them for us...?"

Topher snorted. "I'm Level 11, and I haven't killed anything in this dungeon yet; I was focused on sneaking around and trying to stay out of trouble until all this happened." He pondered for a moment. "If we're all so under-Leveled for this area, I guess combat's out; I can probably keep myself out of trouble with my spells, but I can't protect all of us the same way." The thought of cramming all three of them into his sleeping bag intruded into his consciousness briefly, but he squashed the thought violently; No time for love, Dr. Jones. "We need a plan."

Zanasha nodded, but Hana looked away, seeming uncomfortable. "I... can't go back. I need to find the source of the undead."

"Do what, now?" Topher blinked. "You followed high-Level adventurers down here, right? And without them, your plan doesn't work, right? So we get out, maybe you try to find the energy serpent thing again later. It's that simple."

Hana faced him, her eyes serious. "Bailey-san, this area of the dungeon is different from everywhere else. Look around." She gestured to the pristinely clean walls and floors of the space. "Nobody has been down here since the dungeon opened. If we leave, we may never find this place again. And the existence of this place means that whatever that... thing... we found before was, it must be powered or controlled by something further down."

So fucking what, Topher didn't say. He took a deep breath. "Even if that's true, getting ourselves killed won't accomplish anything. Why are you even trying to do this, anyway?"

Zanasha's hand touched Topher's shoulder lightly, setting off a number of disorienting reactions in his blood chemistry; he abruptly forgot what he was talking about entirely. "Master Mage, please. She has her reasons." The half-orc's gaze looked distant. "Nevertheless, if she cannot be dissuaded, I must accompany her. I could never leave Hana-chan behind."

Topher sighed. "Well, whatever." I can't let her out of my sight either, anyway; she might be the only clue I'll ever get to whoever's trying to kill me and the other F-Rankers. "So what now, then?"

Hana bit her lip, then stood up straighter, looking resolute. "We go forward. Keep exploring; try to find something useful we can do. Even if it's just gathering information..." she trailed off.

"Uh huh." Topher crossed his arms again. "Well, about fifty yards that way is a giant undead demon dog; any ideas how we're gonna get past it?"

The Japanese girl looked pensive, then extracted something from her hip pouch: a tiny silver vial in the shape of an hourglass. "Maybe one."