“How… did… you get here?” Audrey sent a flash of irritation at me, even as she conveyed my words in her nasally, stilted tone. She was clearly unhappy to have her binge interrupted. But Brett had intended to leave, and I needed more information.

Brett was leaning against the wall near the elevator, constantly checking to ensure the newly appeared buttons were still there. A Tribal Gnoll’s Gladius hung from his hip—the same one he’d used to slay the Clip-eared gnoll, and as far as I was concerned, he’d earned it. Brett crouched down to talk to my summon on her level, his hideous neck tattoo still holding vigilant watch.

“Dunno. Had a crazy dream. Lots of questions about philosopher kings and shit. Kind of out there for me, haven’t done much philosophy since college.” He glanced at Audrey with amusement, then. “Might still be dreaming. I’m chatting about college with a plant. Haven’t done that since college, either. Feels real, but maybe it’s not.”

Interesting. The Philosopher King. A then concept of a more knowledgeable, well-thought-out leader originally explored in Plato’s Republic. And, apart from the fact that they were both relatively well known philosophical topics, had as much in common with the Trolly Problem as sliced bread to a beached whale. Unless you wanted to get really into the weeds. What was important was that Brett’s questions had likely been entirely different. Different person, different questions, different class.

“Did you choose? Or did they choo-oose for you.”

Brett’s nose wrinkled. “They chose for me. All things I think I would have said, but some were totally off the mark, you know?”

So, that part was the same for him as it was for me.

Audrey shook her head. “It is real. The sooner… you accept that, the better.”

Brett pointed above them. “Toto, I’m no expert, but the stars aren’t that clear where I live. Pretty sure we’re not in Texas anymore. Acceptance is one thing, but I have no clue what to do.”

I thought about it. He clearly had some natural ability—and possibly a special class. The leaderboard had shown him as a Duel-Singer. The worst outcome for me was if, upon leaving, Brett fell immediately into the hands of Daphne’s group or someone worse.

“Dallas… is there. First floor. Some people… still normal. Others like you. Many of them… dangerous.”

Brett looked confused, then down at himself in realization. “Oh, it’s all gone fucky, then.” He glanced at Audrey, gave her a wide smile. “Want to come with me? I know I made that sidekick crack earlier, but you can handle yourself, and you saved my life to begin with.”

Audrey sent me a flash of alarm. I sent her back a wave of calm, and tried to think of what to say to get the message to Brett.

“This is… my home. Please… don’t tell others… that I’m here. I stay… you go… no following.” Audrey said, motioning to the elevator.

It only occurred to me belatedly that I stole the final half of that line. But Brett didn’t catch it. If anything, he looked a little sad. “I’ll take your secret to my grave, little flower friend. Stay safe. Enjoy your… dinner.” He looked a little queasy as he stepped into the iron cage and waved goodbye to Audrey, who waggled a thorned vine back and forth in return.

As soon as Brett disappeared, an image of a half-eaten gnoll flashed in my mind’s eye.

”Hungry.”

Well, despite my stomach gurgling loud enough through the previous exchange that I feared Brett might hear it, now I definitely wasn’t.

Still, Audrey had been incredibly useful. I left my spot in the shadows and crossed over to her, patting her gently on the head. “You learned and applied almost everything I taught you. But be more patient. If that encounter with the pack-leader went badly, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Still, you did well.” I’d be lying if I said that the thought of Audrey eating gnolls—who were stupid, but no less so than primitive humans—didn’t make me queasy. But I’d explicitly bribed her to the contrary. “Be careful not to damage their gear. But go for it.”

Audrey slithered away, chanting “meat” to herself, and I couldn’t help but shake my head. If I was right, and PVP became unavoidable, I’d need to start packing extra food for her. And buying it for that matter.

Whatever I summoned next, I hoped it was considerably less hungry.

Dismantling the gnoll’s camp—and the gnoll’s themselves, in Audrey’s case—took some time. Between the training grounds and the bodies, there were twelve All the more common variety. No mention of them being a gladius or gladius related.

I’d take them all, of course, but only if I still had room.

The was less appealing. Most of it was in tatters, with or as their rarity designation. Audrey had listened, and was stripping the gnolls before she ate them, leaving small piles of discarded goods next to their bodies.

Clip-ear’s sword was a standout.

Description: This unyielding blade hungers for the blood of its enemies, and will strive to keep the bearer alive to achieve that need. The debilitating effects of injuries will be drastically reduced as long as the bearer is in combat.

Huh. So, that was how he kept going like something out of a horror movie, despite taking significant damage from the fight with the magic user and the grunts. If I’d had it during the scuffle with the pack leader, I wondered whether it would have allowed me to shake off exhaustion similarly. Unfortunate that the effect only worked in combat. Without that in-combat clause, I could easily imagine myself using it as an enchantment-stick. I imagined myself taking a serious injury, whipping out a stupidly large sword, and running away. It would be confusing as hell.

I prodded my chest, finding it still tender from where the pack leader’s foot had slammed me against the wall.

Was it still worth using despite the combat clause? I tried to raise it, and the tip immediately dragged downward, the weight of the sword far heavier than it’s short and common counterparts. Probably not. Especially if the adaptive dungeon was factoring in my gear. as a combat skill was specifically tailored to smaller weapon use, short-swords, daggers. The common version of this sword was only a few inches longer than my dagger. I guessed the only reason Clip-ear was able to use this sword so successfully with the style was because he himself was massive. This was a small weapon for him.

Still, as my first rare weapon drop, I hoped it would sell for a decent chunk.

Then I made my way over to the headdress gnoll’s body.

To say his staff was crude was putting it lightly. It vaguely resembled a miniature wooden telephone pole, a grainy, splinter-ridden rod rising to a lower-case “t,” shape, with sparkly bits and bobbles glued in consecutive segments along the top of the crossing resembling tiny power converters.

Description: A catalyst focus for magic users. Can be used to magnify the user’s natural ability, or for a magic user unattuned for direct magic.

Item Class: Uncommon

My eyebrow shot up. Was it possible I was in that camp? I wasn’t a traditional caster, but the argument could be made.

First, I waggled the stave in the general direction of the gnoll’s buildings. Then I focused, the same way I did when I used probability spiral. I replayed what little I’d seen of the fight between Clip-ear and Headdress in my mind. In a sort of dawning sense of doom, I realized that every time I’d seen Headdress cast, he’d been saying something.

Please don’t make me test it.

With exactly zero enthusiasm, I held the staff out and said the words.

“Lightning… bolt.”

To both my great relief and disappointment, nothing happened. From somewhere across the clearing, I was pretty sure I heard Audrey, snickering.

“We’re leaving soon. Sure hope you’re almost done!” I yelled, my voice echoing. The laughter was replaced by panicked plant noises.

Once I finished threatening Audrey in a manner that felt entirely too similar to how my parents used to cajole me into things, I noticed something was different. Headdress had been wearing a mask. I looked around for it, finding it face down a few feet away.

The lack of description was mildly suspicious. It called to mind an endless litany of game items that looked insignificant at first, only to end up being important later. The outside was a mess of jagged red lines, with a protrusion to fit over a gnoll’s snout. I flipped it over. The inside was entirely white and smooth, with no cut-outs for eyes.

Experimentally, I placed it on my face. For a moment, I saw nothing but white. Then the white blurred, disintegrating slowly away. Wearing something like a paint-ball mask or ski-mask almost always means you lose some peripheral vision. But I had a full view of the castle before me, including the enhancements from .

That seemed more than a little useful. Even if the mask itself was too eye-catching for my purposes, it would certainly be useful for someone.

Among the rest, I was delighted to find a draw-string sack filled with what looked like clinking silvers, squirreled away under one of the grunt’s sleeping rolls. It wasn’t directly unidentifiable, but when I put it in my inventory, my meager number of Selve more than doubled.

There was no pending notification for a level up—Either I was right on the cusp of level 7, leveling had slowed down significantly, or the pack-leader that boosted me to 6 was really a cut above—and far drunker than he seemed. My Willpower had increased by two for the bonus, but for some reason I’d barely felt it the way I had the level-ups and other stat bonuses. Maybe it was a quirk of Willpower.

Things were slowing down a bit in terms of leveling, but that was fine. The gnoll camp had been infinitely more complicated to deal with than the Flowerfangs, and it had become more than obvious I still needed to find a safe place to test the more subtle aspects of and . Especially the latter. I knew it had far more potential applications than the rather rudimentary way I was using it.

Between the Selve and the half-decent haul, I was generally satisfied. But the haul was missing some oomph. I wandered into headdresses’ quarters, finding it decorated in a mix of animal skins and leather. Nothing really stood out.

Until I found the Altar.