Artyom and Neitra exited the cave, the sudden blast of sunlight from the outside world forcing them to shield their eyes and squint. The rest of the party was assembled before them, looking slightly annoyed.

“There you two are! What took so long?” asked Tommy. His brows were slightly furrowed, but quickly returned to normal after seeing the two smiling. “Actually, you don’t need to answer that.”

Artyom internally sighed. Any explanation he could give would probably end up being interpreted as a double entendre, so there really was no point. He’d let the hero think whatever he wanted to.

“We explored until we reached a dead-end with a puzzle. I think it’s one only you can solve,” said Neitra.

“Great job, you two,” replied Tommy. “How many traps were there? The last dungeon had way too many of them, was this one any better?”

“We didn’t find any this time, actually,” responded Neitra.

“Well, all the better for us! Come on, everyone, let’s get this key assembled!”

With that, the gang entered the cavern ahead of them, ready to complete their quest.

The dungeon atmosphere felt quite peculiar, from the torchlit darkness by way of a magical flame in Xerica’s palm, to the claustrophobia-inducing, moist granite walls seemingly pressing in on the party as the sound of their footsteps echoed around them. More interesting was the psychological effect it imposed on everyone, forcing a level of quietness and collaboration from the party as they made their way through the simple cave system. At least, it brought about enough synergy that the four ladies weren’t taking the opportunity to swoon over the hero or lambast the other two members.

Without the fear of traps or enemy action, the team made it to the puzzle monolith in only a few minutes, beating the previous run four times over. Tommy approached the wall and read aloud the hint carved into the smoothstone facade with the rest of the party taking point around him. Xerica’s flame expanded to alight the whole section of the cave to make the text visible to everyone, not that it did much to help besides assuage their curiosity.

“Alright, I think I got it!” exclaimed the hero. Artyom looked at him with his eyebrows raised. Now was the moment that would hopefully dispel his previous fears.

“There was this one show on TV, that’s Television to you Artyom, this really reminds me of.”

“No…” thought Artyom.

“You see, Rock types were weak against Grass, Water, and Fighting.”

“No no no…”

“So let’s see how this wall deals with Fighting!” shouted Tommy as he struck it with a balled fist. The impact left a crack along the monolith that began expanding and spider webbing into numerous fissures across its surface. Pieces of it began to flake off slowly at first, gaining speed until the entire wall was falling apart. With a roar of rockfall, the entire structure collapsed in front of them, leaving nothing more than an even pile of rubble across the floor barely blocking their way.

“... Fuck.”

“And that’s how it’s done!” replied Tommy, trying to flex his arm below his plate armor. After eliciting due praise from the other ladies, he straightened himself and continued the trek deeper into the dungeon.

“Hey, that was pretty cool,” said Ecole, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “You just punched that wall and fell apart. No wonder you’re the chosen one.”

Apparently, it seemed what Artyom feared was true all along. Pushing that fear aside, he couldn’t help but wonder why he failed when the hero didn’t. It’d been over a decade since he’d had the chance to experience it for himself with how busy he’d been since he got yanked over to another World, and he’d forgotten about the Fighting type. But what about Steel? Artyom was certain that was accurate. The only thing that came to mind was that it wasn’t introduced into the franchise until 1999, and wasn’t relevant to the television show until a few years into the 21st century. How old did Tommy say he was? 19? Then he would’ve ended up here before then. It looked like this puzzle was specifically made for him…

As Artyom continued his internal monologue, the party slowed down as they began to make out a light coming from the end of the rocky corridor.

“Careful, everyone,” said Tommy, his voice barely a whisper. “That’s probably the final room, and you can bet there’ll be monsters in there. When I give the signal, we all attack.”

Everyone stopped and nodded, before continuing at a snail’s pace. Neitra whispered a Skill name and suddenly everyone’s footsteps were much more quiet.

“I can only use this once a day, and I thought it’d be better to do it with the whole party towards the end,” she said.

“That’s fine, I’m glad you saved it,” replied Artyom. Since nobody else complained about Neitra using a skill that affected the other members of the party, it gave Artyom an idea for something he wanted to try out.

They soon reached the source of the light and came upon the entrance to a large atrium with a faux magical skylight illuminating the whole room in hues of natural blues and greens. A near-perfect replica of the one in Crystal Kobold Crossing. The other party members looked at the room with a relaxed familiarity, while Artyom tried to choke back his surprise. Perhaps those same Kobolds really did construct this dungeon as well?

As if to answer his question, Artyom spotted a dozen of said Kobolds wandering the room. Unlike the dutiful workers who diligently slaved away digging that Artyom had seen before, these Kobolds simply ambled around while holding various bladed weapons, their faces mostly blank.

“Let’s go,” whispered Tommy, having seen the Kobolds as well. He raised himself to his full height from his previous crouch and charged at the nearest one, ululating a shrill battlecry.

That must’ve been what Neitra was talking about earlier. Artyom shook his head as the rest of the party got up and ran towards the Kobolds in front of them. What was the point of her using a stealth skill on everyone if they were just going to toss it aside not one minute later? He got up and walked towards the now ensuing battle.

The Kobolds all looked at the party in shock, before raising their weapons and rushing at them. Each member of the hero’s team took on several of the Kobolds each, leveraging their own Skills and abilities against them. The Great Hero swung his sword, cutting through limbs and midsections as he cleaved through enemy after enemy. Neitra similarly approached her fights head-to-head, but utilized her greater dexterity to land quick, lethal blows instead of weighty flesh-tearing slashes. Despite the less raw strength she applied, it took all her energy and focus in order to find openings to strike while not getting hit herself.

The other ladies seemed to be having an easier time. Xerica blasted the Kobold in front of her with a gout of white-hot fire, melting the atrium wall where the blast landed after passing through the now-charred corpse of the creature. Daisy took out a pair of large knives reminiscent of oversized meat cleavers and slashed through the enemies in her way with similar strength to the hero, but with greater speed and a primal ferocity. Ecole removed several gold-tinted throwing knives from the small bag at the side of her waist, and began throwing them at a distance. The Kobolds collapsed within moments after the knives went right through their parrying weapons and armor, their veins beginning to turn a strange hue of purple in contrast to their dusty green scales. And last but not least, Lensa held out a wooden staff with various gemstone inlays, and chanted. A white glow with gray motes appeared from the tip of the staff and launched themselves at the various members of the party and Kobolds. Allies struck by the light showed greater vigor while enemies slowed down, sometimes to a total standstill. Curiously, none of them were aimed at Neitra or Artyom.

Artyom took note of his allies as one of the Kobolds approached him. He knew what these Kobolds were capable of from his previous run-in, but decided not to take any risks and activated his previous suite of combat spells. One casting of D-U Dermal Armor and Sonic Waverider later, he was feeling more confident, at least enough to let his thoughts go to the surrounding combat while playing keep-away from the enemy in front of him.

One of his short-term goals from this excursion was to size up the other party members in their combat capabilities. Taking a page out of Gus’ book, Artyom wanted to be aware of how much danger anyone he met posed to him. And after getting a good look at the asskicking capacity of the people he was travelling with, he felt he truly was in the danger zone. He’d met plenty of combatants, from fellow spellcasters to ranged attackers and melee specialists, and those experiences imparted an understanding of what to watch out for in a fighter. Everything in front of him raised every single one of those alarms.

The level of heat needed to burn through an enemy and literally melt through rock dozens of feet away was astronomical, and Xerica had managed to output it with a casual wave of her hand! Ecole’s knife-throwing skills seemed like something magic could combat, but what kind of poison killed within a second and did that to a body? Nothing mundane from what Artyom knew, and his purging spell would only work if he had a chance to cast it in the first place. Daisy and Lensa’s abilities in comparison seemed basic, but they were barely straining themselves, and it didn’t look or sound like they were using any Skills at all. Daisy in particular looked malcontent with the fight, and whether that was because it wasn’t enough of a challenge or there wasn’t enough suffering to inflict, Artyom could only guess. In conclusion, they were incredibly dangerous, and if push came to shove, he might not be able to take any of them on without an extreme amount of preparation, and that’s individually. He was glad that they were on the same team, and that the worst thing he had to fear out of them was bullying.

Despite the sheer intimidation factor, Artyom was still tempted to follow through with his idea. There’s no way they could interpret what he wanted to do as malicious, and this was probably his best bet to do so. Weighing the risks, he took the opportunity.

“Psionic Barrier,” he cast several times in quick succession, draining a large portion of the power out of his magical battery. Artyom smiled at how the high-cost spells didn’t even drain a quarter of its capacitance, and looked at the others to see its effect. The battle continued, all members of the party fighting as they were, except for Xerica, who turned to look at Artyom in confusion.

“Uh, didn’t you feel that?” he asked, covering for himself after realizing he’d been caught. “I thought it was a mental attack, so I casted a barrier spell against it on all of us!”

She glared at him but didn’t say a word, her focus going back to her fight. Without flinching, she broke the barrier surrounding her, with the ones applied to the other four femme fatales breaking soon after. Tommy and Neitra, on the other hand, had theirs kept up. Perhaps she didn’t want to take a risk with the hero, and simply didn’t want to bother with Neitra? Either way, it didn’t look like the barrier did anything to anyone. It really did seem like it only kept the taint off of Artyom and nobody else.

Artyom signed in disappointment, frustrated at his lack of progress in understanding this taint. He quickly brushed it off, remembering that it was a long-term side-goal for him, and that his real mission was to find out more about Tommy.

“Aah!” screamed Lensa in a state of mortal panic, as a pair of Kobolds snuck off from the fighting and raised their axes at her in an ambush. Artyom was snapped out of his thoughts as he looked at her and remembered a similar event from his recent past. He charged towards her at the same time as the Great Hero, and they both arrived in time to each strike down one of the Kobolds haranguing her. The creatures fell to the ground as Lensa let out a sigh of relief, before jumping up and hugging Tommy. Artyom could swear he saw her glare at him for an instant while she rubbed her face in Tommy’s chest while singing him praises. Artyom said nothing.

Putting aside the strange event, Artyom focused on the small crowd of Kobolds now gathering in front of him, while Lensa and the Hero found their next fight. The enemy at the front raised its sword and charged at Artyom, ready to take a swing. Artyom tested the waters by scratching his finger against the metal after confirming via spell that it wasn’t envenomed. The material seemed even weaker than the pickaxes they used previously, and Artyom decided to end the fight quickly with a series of flying kicks and throws. What was weird to him was that the Kobolds had no reaction to the blows he was dealing them. He always threw in some implicit showmanship and a little bit of aura magic to elicit some kind of demotivational reaction, but these Kobolds barely flinched! It was almost as if they were being…

“Hey, what’s taking so long?” asked Xerica, she and the rest of the party having finished their own battles.

“Just a second,” replied Artyom. Only one of the Kobolds was still standing, the others were either dead or soon to be, giving Artyom a single chance.

“Psionic Barrier,” he cast at the still-standing enemy. Immediately, its pupils narrowed and focused on Artyom. It looked around and quickly took a step back from him, holding out its weapon in a defensive posture.

“Hey, what’s going on?” asked Artyom, convinced that he’d snapped the Kobold out of some sort of hypnosis. “Who did this to yo-”

Before he could finish his sentence, a ball of fire struk the Kobold, setting it ablaze. It emitted a high-pitched shriek as the flame quickly immolated its flesh, putting it out of its misery. The other party members looked at the sight with wide eyes, Tommy and Neitra especially frozen in place. None of the Kobolds so far had ever made a sound like that. They all then turned to Xerica.

“What? He was taking too long. I’m not going to wait for him to take forever to do something so simple.”

The Great Hero forced himself out of his stupor, and let down his sword arm. He took a deep breath and sighed.

“Yeah. Great job everyone, we’ve beaten the monsters!” shouted Tommy, regaining his composure. “Now let’s assemble that key!”

The party quickly forgot the sound of the Kobold’s death throes and gathered together at the far-end of the atrium, where there stood an ornately carved pedestal with three indentations. Realizing what this was, the hero pulled out the three pieces of the key from his own bag and placed them on the raised platform.

Almost immediately, a white glow overtook the room, small fuzzy polygons of gray floating around in it, with the light especially concentrated right above the pedestal. A mellowing presence overtook the party, and a voice boomed from the strongest point of light in front of them.

“Great Hero and brave adventurers,” thundered a strong, feminine voice.

The four main ladies immediately knelt at the voice, their faces solemn.

“I am the Goddess and you have found all pieces of My Key,” the voice continued.

Neitra and Tommy, finally realizing who was speaking to them, knelt as well. Artyom, not wanting to stand out, followed their lead.

“I shall now combine these pieces into the final Artifact. Your next task is to use it to unlock the way to the Holy Sword which shall vanquish the Dark Lord once and for all!”

The key pieces floated into the air and fused together into a single object in a flash of blinding white light, before falling back onto the pedestal, now suddenly surrounded by a small pile of gold coins.

“Go forth, my Chosen One, and bring Order to this Kingdom!”

With that final sentence, the white light began to fade, the gray motes following it not long after.

“We did it team, we have the key!” exclaimed the Great Hero. “Now… where do we actually use it?”