The storm raged as the sea tossed the ship about angrily. Waves crashed over the railing, dousing the already drenched Ascenders. With every gust of wind the ship groaned and creaked as though it would break apart at any moment.

That would be the death of those on board as there was no hope of rescue. There were those in Plinth who offered retrieval services when a loved one went missing in the Dungeon. But Aiden didn't have anyone willing to pay to go looking for him.

It was doubtful that anyone would come for Maria either. Though the Corpse Hunter knew very little about the girl, she hadn't painted a very happy picture of her home life during their handful of conversations. Parents didn't tend to have a close relationship with children that inherited restricted Fates.

They would have to weather this storm alone. Aiden had never been in a hurricane before though he had read about them. So he knew that when the winds began to die down that they would pick back up before long.

As the eye of the storm passed over the ship the man in gray untied the ropes that bound him and his companions. Vagrant climbed up onto his shoulder as he lifted Maria into his arms. She was still unconscious though the waves and rain had washed most of the blood off her face.

Aiden ran for the captain's quarters before the storm had a chance to pick back up. Once inside he placed the girl on the floor then flipped the couch and carefully placed it over her. If the roof was torn off or collapsed at least she'd have a modicum of protection

The door he passed through flapped wildly in the wind behind the Corpse Hunter making him regret kicking it in earlier. He moved to the back of the room and pushed the heavy oak desk up the broken door to keep it shut.

"Hopefully that will hold," Aiden said to his feathered friend.

Vagrant squawked.

"Don't worry I didn't forget about the window."

The man in gray turned towards the broken stained glass windowsill. Most of the shards had already been pulled away by the first half of the hurricane. But enough had remained to make it a valid concern. Aiden grabbed the carpet and held it over the opening as rain poured in.

"Can you grab my climbing gear from my pack?" the man in gray asked.

The vulture opened the bag with his talon and began rummaging through it. A few painfully long moments later he pulled out a small hammer with his beak. Which he then handed to Aiden before rummaging around for some of the pitons.

With the Hands of the Hill Giant the Corpse Hunter was able to pound the small metal spikes into the wall surrounding the window frame with little effort. Once there were enough in place he stepped back to look at the rug that was now stapled to the window frame. It wouldn't protect them from much but at least it would keep the broken glass and smaller wood shards out along with most of the rain.

Exhausted, Aiden sat down on the ground next to the overturned couch and leaned up against the wall. He had done everything he could. All that was left to do now was to wait it out.

***

A new day had just begun Aiden realized as he checked his pocket watch. He had slept almost eight hours in the time between the end of the storm and now. As he put the watch away he heard Maria begin to stir.

After the storm had passed the Corpse Hunter had put the couch back where it had been along the wall. Then he put the Rift Caller on it, hoping the extra comfort might speed up her recovery. There was only one cure for soul fatigue, proper rest.

"What happened after I passed out?" Maria asked, sitting up on the couch. “The last thing I remember is cutting the sail down. Then I called a rift and that’s the last thing I remember.

Aiden filled her in on the details while they sat on the floor and ate. She listened quietly about how she'd fallen off the boat and how he’d jumped in after her. The girl gave the vulture a piece of her bread when she heard the part where Vagrant had tossed them a rope.

Though the spirit creature didn't need to eat it still happily snatched up the food.

"So," Maria said, finishing her meal. "That storm happened because of the quest scroll we found?"

"Correct," Aiden replied.

He unfurled the scroll showing a crossed out line of text which read, "Weather the storm."

"Why didn't you just tear up the scroll? You said we could do that anytime we wanted and it would let us leave right?"

"That's only true for bronze and silver quests. If you find a gold quest you can't leave the floor until it's completed."

"Oh."

"Yeah, they're unbelievably rare even on mid tier levels. Finding one way down here was…unexpected to say the least. If I had any reason to think this scroll contained a gold quest I would have tossed it into the sea. But it's too late for that now."

Maria looked at the piece of parchment. There was another line of text below the crossed out one. "Travel to the island," it said.

"I don't remember seeing any islands," the Rift Caller said.

"That's because there weren't any. Quests can change the layout of the Dungeon," said the Corpse Hunter. "If we head back out to the main deck I'm sure we'll find that an island has already spawned."

Sure enough a small green dot was visible just behind the ship. With Maria's help and the strength from the magical gauntlets Aiden lowered the ship's sails. The wind caught them immediately and the ship began to sail yet again.

Even with one sail rendered unusable the remaining two were enough to pull the boat along at a reasonably fast pace. The man in gray looked at the one that the kid had cut in the middle of a heavy downpour.

"You did a good job yesterday," he said.

"I fell off a boat," Maria sighed. "Which almost got us both killed."

"That may be true. But you fell off the sails before that and instead of giving up you went right back up there. Even though I'm sure you were scared to do so.”

"I was scared of drowning," Maria said with a shrug. "You said the boat might sink if I didn't take the sail down and I can't swim. If I hadn't been so afraid I wouldn't have teleported the wrong way."

"That's not how it works. Becoming an experienced Fate Holder isn't about learning how to avoid being scared. It's about learning how to push past that fear without being overwhelmed by it. You show me an Ascender who says they aren't at least a little afraid of the Dungeon and I'll show you a corpse waiting to happen."

Maria watched the man in gray as he turned the ship's wheel to align the boat with the distant island.

"I can still be an Ascender even if I'm scared all the time?"

"Yes," said the Corpse Hunter. "It's the ones without enough common sense to know when they should be scared of something that end up in the back of my wagon. If confidence is the key to success, then concern is the key to a long life."

"The cautious cat doesn't need nine lives."

"That's it exactly. I thought you said you didn't know what a metaphor was?"

"I didn't know that was a metaphor. It was just something my dad used to say when I was younger. I didn't really understand what it meant until now."

"You're father sounds like a smart man," Aiden said, wondering what the man thought of his daughter's situation.

"I guess. I haven't seen him in a long time. Mother said we weren't allowed to see him anymore after he went away to be a prince or something."

There was a long pause before the man in gray spoke again. "Was your father an Apparate Blade?"

"Yes. Why? Do you know him?” Maria asked.

"I did," Aiden said, staring off into the horizon. "Your mother was right to keep you away from him. He was a terrible prince and if I had to guess, probably a terrible father as well."

The world really knew how to hold a grudge against a kid. Especially if they hadn't done anything to deserve it. The Corpse Hunter had thought that about Anthony. Now Maria made him think it all over again.

Inheritor to a Fate that could lead to her being exiled or executed. Daughter to a now dead crime boss. What could she have possibly done in her past life to piss the old gods off so much?

They spent the rest of the voyage in silence. It took a few hours to reach the island which ended up being larger than anticipated. Aiden dropped the anchor once they were close enough to go ashore with the rowboat. Despite being well read on sailing he didn’t have much practical knowledge and was concerned about hitting a sandbar or an underwater rock formation.

After some careful contemplation he decided to leave the sails up. They might need to leave the island in a hurry once the next objective was completed. If that were the case then they could cut the anchor and quickly sail off.

Plus the Hands of the Hill Giant were only active for twenty four hours. After that they'd take a week to recharge. If the gauntlets ran out of power while they were on the island there was no way they could adjust the sails. All the more reason to leave them how they were.

The Ascenders loaded up onto the rowboat and headed for the island. Maria fed a small piece of dried fruit to her beetle while Aiden rowed. Ten minutes later they were standing on the sandy beach and looking out at the lush green forest at the heart of the island.

Aiden pulled out the gold quest scroll just in time to watch the "Travel to the island" text cross itself out. Another bit of text appeared on the parchment just below the last one.

"Kinsley's lantern will light the way," read the new objective.

"Are they always so…vague?" Maria asked. "The quest objectives I mean."

"In general, no. The copper quests are straightforward and the silver ones aren't hard to figure out. This is only my second gold quest though. I don't remember the first one all that well honestly, I was pretty close to your age at the time."

Aiden rolled the scroll back up and stuck it in his coat pocket.

"Let's go find Kinsley and see about that lantern," he said.

As they began walking inland the sand around them began to stir. Giant Crabs rose up from the ground beneath the beach. Their claws were as large as a man's torso.

"You know how to fight something with an exoskeleton, right?" Aiden said.

"Go for the joints and the eyes." Maria said confidently.

One of the closest crabs charged at the Ascenders, running sideways with its right claw outstretched. The Corpse Hunter swiveled to the side and sliced into the gap that attached the claw to the arm. The red colored pincers went flying into the air along with a small stream of blood.

Another crab that had been rushing for Maria stopped abruptly when the girl vanished. Then it felt a weight on its back. It tried to look up but everything suddenly went black.

Maria had teleported onto the monster and sliced off its eyestalks. She leaped off when the crab began to flail wildly and claw at its own head in a fit of confused rage.

Blood ran down Aiden's arm as he buried his sword into the face of the crab that he had already dismembered. He released the blade when it slumped to the ground and immediately began grappling with another oversized crustacean. The creature had attempted to seize the man in its claw which he grabbed with both gauntlets.

The man in gray grunted as he tore the pincer in half before pummeling the creature over the head with its own limb. The exoskeleton over its face cracked open exposing brain matter before he stopped his assault. Then without warning Aiden found himself standing beneath a palm tree about fifty feet from where he'd just been stranding.

He looked over to find Maria standing on one side of him and a pair of severed claws on the ground behind him.

"Thank you," Aiden said.

"Now we're even," Maria said with a grin.

The problem with Relics was that they had a bad habit of clouding one's judgment. With the Hands of the Hill Giant once you started a task with them it was hard to stop until you were finished. Especially if that task involved caving someone's skull in.

The Corpse Hunter looked at his gauntlets. Almost all of the magical items this valuable had a drawback. A "limiter" as some Ascenders called it. In some ways that made sense.

Could anyone really expect the Dungeon to drop a magic item that would let an Ascender just plow their way straight to the top? If that were possible it would've happened by now.

Aiden flexed the gauntlets. "Let's try that again but with a little more restraint this time."

The man in gray and the girl with the beetle cage charged back into the fray. Half of the remaining giant crabs were either missing their eyes or their hands. So the Ascenders focused on the monsters that were still in one piece.

As the Corpse Hunter squared off with one of the crabs it slammed both of its heavy arms down upon him. He blocked them with the gauntlets which protected him from harm. Though the force was still strong enough to bury him almost a foot into the sand.

Maria ran and slid directly under her opponent, dragging her knife along the underside until caught something soft. One the back legs came off and the crab tilted to one side before righting itself. She began hacking at another leg's joint on the same side before the monster could turn to face her.

It too fell from the crab's body as the creature began to lean heavily to its left. As she tried to go for the last leg on that side the creature caught on to her plan. It reared back and swung with its claw.

Aiden blocked the blow with the forearm of his magic equipment and shoved the creature back. The crab toppled backwards, unable to brace itself properly due to the missing legs. The man in gray broke its face apart with his gauntlets before it had a chance to right itself.

Maria looked up at the Corpse Hunter with relief before glancing at the remaining crabs. He had bludgeoned the other intact crab to death before coming to her aid. The one that had lost its arms to the girl's rift had already bled out.

That just left the one that Maria had blinded. Together she and Aiden made quick work of the monster. When the beach was cleared of the threats and the Corpse Hunter had retrieved his sword they ventured deeper into the island.