“Can't I go with you?” Peter asked Levi as they left the dungeon. “We could keep talking about my next levels.”

“Once you’re fast enough to keep up with me, sure. But you’ll need a lot more stamina than you have now.”

“I bet I can beat you. I’m fast.”

Levi smiled. “I bet you aren’t. But, what do you want to bet?”

Peter thought for a moment, then, “I know! The next dungeon we go to. You want to do something boring, right? If you win, I won’t complain about how boring it is, and if I win, then I get to pick something more interesting.”

“Alright, we have a deal.” Levi pointed to a thin line in the distance. “See that side road? The race will be to reach that road. Okay?”

Peter looked at the distant road, then nodded and dropped into a runner’s crouch. “Ready.”

“Irene?” Levi stood next to Peter, not bothering with a stance. He could leap into action from a standing start easily enough.

“On your marks… get set… go.”

Levi wasn’t going to underestimate Peter. He jumped into action, burning nearly twenty stamina in a quick burst to get him going, then dropped his drain to a steady 4/minute.

He glanced back a little past halfway, and saw that he’d severely overestimated Peter’s ability. He clearly couldn’t draw on his stamina reliably, even in an intense competition like this. Instinctive activation could occur at any time, but Peter had little enough experience with the system that even that hadn’t triggered.

Levi felt a little guilty as he reached the endpoint at a jog, Peter less than halfway, but Peter arrived looking more determined than disappointed.

“I used to be faster than you,” he said once he caught his breath. “And I will be again once I’m higher level. Just watch.”

Levi laughed and clapped his shoulder. “I’m sure you will.”

They did clear a second dungeon, but since it was just another basic Destruction one Levi found nothing of great interest. His primary goal here was to level Peter and Irene, since much of his own search for more minions would have to be put off until after they'd set up a proper plan for disseminating their information.

He planned to slip out to the Beast dungeon in the forest once it was late enough for it to have refilled, just to grab stats on the dire-turkeys and perhaps a spider-skunk if it happened to spawn one. He'd yet to see one outside of that first plus dungeon, but based on his experience so far they should start showing up once it leveled.

This dungeon was thoroughly unexceptional, doing its job of providing experience to Peter and Irene, and little else. The only event of note was the final treasure room. Aside from mana and stamina restoratives and another Destruction power stone, it also gave them their first pouch of Powdered Gremlin Horn, which was apparently a crafting ingredient of some type. Levi had never paid enough attention to crafting anything but restorative or empowering elixirs to know what it was useful for.

Since proper alchemists could make better use of ingredients than Fighters - or Swordsman classes - it was advised not to craft your own elixirs unless absolutely necessary, but you had to know how to do it in an emergency. While these tiny baby dungeons had treasure rooms regularly enough that you could be assured of healing within hours at most, in larger and more advanced dungeons there was no such assurance. You had to run through a gauntlet of monsters and traps sometimes for days before finding a treasure room with anything you could use - Levi had even heard of delves lasting weeks.

There were times when there could be no waiting for a treasure room or an actual alchemist; if you needed a restorative, you made it or you died, so those ingredient lists were deeply embedded in his mind. Anything else, you turned in and forgot about. Gremlin Horn was one of those less noteworthy ingredients.

Once they were out of the dungeon, Irene called Cassandra to verify whether Laurence had returned yet - he hadn’t - and then texted Gordon to see if he’d be available for the evening - he would.

“We need to track down Laurence if you still want him involved, but otherwise we’re ready to form our war council.”

“I’ll find him,” Levi promised. “You get Peter and everyone back to your parents’ place safely, I’ll meet you there.”

Skarm poked Levi’s leg, looking up plaintively.

“I need you to keep watch over Peter, just… in case.”

Skarm shook his head vehemently, pointing at Peter, then at Henry, then rolling his eyes dramatically.

"What, you don't think we should worry?"

Skarm pointed to himself, then to Levi's face. He waved his hands in a quick severing motion, then gestured to Centoo. Levi looked at the centipede, who looked as confused as Levi himself, but Skarm seemed confident he’d made his point. The gremlin held his arms out to either side, and grinned.

“Are you saying… you want me to unbind you to see what happens?”

Skarm nodded without a moment’s hesitation.

Levi’s heartrate sped up dramatically. “Are you sure? You could die, or turn on me, or…” He and Skarm had been together since the beginning, and now he wanted to try something this drastic?

Skarm shook his head firmly, then repeated his gesture to Centoo.

“I know he could, but I’m not sure he will. He trusts you too much to be objective.”

Skarm pointed to Levi again, made a circular motion that included himself, Two, and Centoo, then repeated the chopping motion.

"Alright, you want us to test it, I suppose we can test it, but if anything goes wrong remember that it was your own fault."

"What is he saying?" Irene asked. "I couldn't catch any of that."

"He wants to come with me, rather than stay with you, and claims we don't need to worry about Henry’s loyalty. And that he can prove it, if I want to test by unbinding him."

"I don't think I like this.” Irene glanced uneasily from Skarm to Peter and Henry.

"As weird as it sounds, I trust Skarm. I’m not convinced that he’s right, but if he wants to try this, then we'll try this. Worst case scenario, I'm perfectly capable of holding him down and taming him again."

Skarm squeaked something in obvious protest.

“I know you won’t hurt them now, but whatever you think you know, you can’t make any guarantees about what’ll happen once I unbind you,” Levi retorted.

Skarm stomped a foot and nodded emphatically, gesturing at himself, then to Levi, then shaking his head as though Levi were a moron.

"I don't like it," Irene repeated.

"At least we'll be able to ascertain whether we need to stay worried," Levi said. “We’ll go back into the dungeon to test it, you all stay out here, just in case. Skarm is fast and can be very dangerous, he’s much higher level than anything else we’ve fought. You should stay out of the line of fire.”

Irene hesitantly nodded. “Be careful.”

Levi headed back into the dungeon, Skarm and Centoo following. Gremlin Two stayed behind to keep watch over Irene and Peter.

Once inside Levi hesitated, unsure how to proceed.

Skarm had no such qualms. He positioned himself right in front of Centoo, then gestured for the centipede to bring six of his front legs around, their bladed edges resting against Skarm’s body, then grinned and tilted his head to Levi as if to ask ‘good enough for you?’

Only then did Levi open his minion list. He found Skarm's name, selected it, and carefully maneuvered it through the unbinding protocol.

You are about to unbind: Horned Gremlin, Level 6 'Skarm'.

Please verify, is this the action you want to take?

Yes Cancel

“You sure about this?”

Skarm squeaked loudly, in what sounded exasperated, and nodded.

Levi selected yes.