In the two years since they were transported into the dungeon, Humanity’s modus operandi for conquering it had evolved to run like a well-oiled machine. One of those conventions was people forming parties or teams which had at least four people in them for safety and efficiency, although higher numbers like six or eight were more common. Even ten was not unusual, although people generally liked even numbered teams for some reason.

These teams were then registered with the Bureau of Dungeon Exploration, or BODE for short. Naturally these teams would need names, and when the group of six had first formed, Li’s suggestion ended up winning the naming contest. “…and that’s how we ended up named Hex Sages,” Walt said.

“Like Six Sages? I guess it could be worse,” Kyle said.

“Yeah, well, we certainly weren’t choosing any of Sarah’s names, that’s for sure.” Walt pretended to shiver at the thought of Sarah’s names. Kyle didn’t need to pretend. He had experienced it enough as a kid.

“Anyway,” Walt continued, “The other three members will most likely introduce themselves when we arrive. Just remember: Simon is the mage, Sabina is the ranger, and Lee is the healer. It should be obvious based on their attire who is who.”

“Got it,” Kyle said, making a mental checkbox for each member. It would probably be best to make a good first impression if they were to be teammates in the future.

While thinking over what Walt had said, Kyle realized that he had never really properly looked at what the other three were wearing. He would have to get used to worrying about that, as when he had been alone in the secret training area aesthetic was far behind performance in clothing priority.

I am rather lucky my clothes are fairly fashionable. I can only imagine the reaction if my clothes were lime green or something. Thankfully I didn’t run into any strangely colored monsters. ‘And here’s our new teammate, Kyle. He is the one in the magenta pantsuit.’ Yeah, there’s no need to give Sarah anymore ammunition. She somehow manages to find enough as it is.

Once Kyle actually took the time to inspect what the others were wearing it was immediately obvious why Walt said he would be able to tell who the three new teammates were by their positions and attire. Perhaps it was influenced by some older fantasy stereotypes, but each person’s armor fit with their chosen battlefield position.

Sarah had on some sort of half plate that clearly denoted her as some warrior hybrid type. If Kyle had to guess, he would say berserker, which was probably pretty spot on. Walt had gone full on paladin and he even had a cross on the back of his full plate armor. Li on the other hand screamed dark mage with stylish robes that Kyle was honestly kind of jealous of.

Yeah, I understand why they thought I needed armor. My current gear looks more like regular clothing than real armor. I guess if I was typecasting myself based on my clothing I would say I look like some sort of tribal shaman and rogue mix? It certainly doesn’t seem like the average mage getup, that’s for sure.

Kyle was brought out of his inner musings when the party finally arrived at their destination. Like many parties and teams, the Hex Sages had chosen their meeting place to be close to the teleport hub, as reaching most of the good farming areas in the dungeon required teleporting if teams didn’t want month long travel times.

The meeting place was a small tea shop on the third floor of a building just down the street from the teleport hub. Apparently they specialized in bubble tea, which Kyle only vaguely remembered hearing about a long time ago, and Lee, who was an ardent fan of bubble tea, wouldn’t relent until the tea shop, Tea Sweet by name, was chosen as their meeting place.

The tea shop was fairly empty at this time of day and when they walked in Kyle could immediately pick out the people they were meeting. He really should have been used to it by now, but the image of a mage, presumably specializing in lightning based on his robes, a ranger, and a healer sitting in a modern looking tea shop drinking tea still threw Kyle off. It was one thing to see people in fantasy style clothing buying scimitars from street stalls, but the tea shop just looked too modern for Kyle to think the trio truly fit in.

They three of them clearly noticed Kyle and his group as well, as the mage got up to great them.

“Sarah! I didn’t think you would be joining us today. And you must be Kyle. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Simon. The other two here are Sabina and Lee.”

Sabina just gave Kyle a nod while Lee waved with a friendly “hi”.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Kyle replied as he shook Simon’s hand.

“So Kyle, I don’t believe Li or Walt mentioned your specialty?” Simon said, diving right into business. “As you can see I am a mage specializing in lightning based skills.”

“I’m also a mage, and I, uh, guess I specialize in survival?”

Kyle really wasn’t sure what to say what he specialized in. From what he had heard, people generally chose a specific thing to specialize in which would then complement their other party members when they explored the dungeon. Unfortunately, Kyle was not given that luxury. His main task had been survival, and that was what he tailored his skill set towards.

He could easily imagine what kind of skills Simon had. He had seen various passive skills that boosted elemental damage and the like. There clearly was an advantage to be gained from specializing. But while Kyle was clearly a mage, many of his skills had nothing at all to do with magic.

I mean, who ever heard of a mage with trap finding and armor skills? Although, to be fair, I would be boned if I didn’t have that broken title. From what I have heard combination points are normally incredibly rare. Without access to them I would be left as an underpowered generalist.

Simon laughed at Kyle’s response. “I guess you would need to be, having survived in a secret training area for such a long time.”

He then turned to the other three. “But now that we have the full party plus one we need to figure out where we are going. It was originally going to be the Blue Ice Caves, but now with…”

Kyle kind of tuned the next part out. Most of the discussion revolved around dungeon geography and choosing a hunting ground, both of which were subjects Kyle was woefully lacking in. The discussion seemed to eventually devolve into an argument that, from what Kyle could tell, had Sarah on one side advocating for some dangerous hunting area and Simon and Walt on the other trying to reason with her.

Everyone else seemed to accept this as a common occurrence, so Kyle ended up sitting down at the table to wait it out.

“So you were trapped in a secret training area, right?” Lee said, starting up a conversation. “What was that like? Sarah said you disappeared almost as soon as Humanity was transported into the dungeon, so you would have been in there for over two years, right?”

“Yeah, it was over two years,” Kyle confirmed. “As for what it was like…I guess it was lonely. I mean, I never felt like I was ever truly trapped. It always felt like there was something I could do to get stronger, something I could do to overcome my current challenges and move forwards.”

Kyle paused for a brief moment before shooting a glance over a Sarah. “But finding the will to do all that was harder than I would have ever thought. While I had the confidence to eventually escape, what would I find once I got out? And when would that be? For all I knew everyone I loved was dead. Hell, all of Humanity could have been dead for all I knew. The whole dungeon could have been a deathtrap. Luckily I eventually got a skill that allowed me to pseudo check on the well-being others which really helped my resolve.”

“Damn, that’s harsh bro.” Lee said. “I guess I can’t really imagine being trapped like that. I was transported with some of my family members really close to the city and we were quickly able to enter once they got rid of the monster hordes that used to surround it. At least you made it back and you now have the opportunity to join an awesome team.”

“An awesome team when our healer doesn’t use his special stink bomb skill,” Sabina interjected.

“Hey!” Lee said. “That happened one time. How was I supposed to know that those fruits would give me gas? All you guys were fine when you ate them.”

Kyle felt himself relaxing ever so slightly, his shoulders releasing some tension that he hadn’t been aware they were holding. He had been a little nervous at the prospect of meeting new people. Well, more than just a little nervous, he had been almost petrified. It was hard interacting with people after spending two years alone. His family and Sarah were easy. He just fell into the patterns of their previous interactions. Everyone else though…

I’m really glad things feel so normal. It feels like everyone else is already used to this living in a dungeon business while it is all new to me. I guess I was doing it too, but that was almost a dungeon within a dungeon. I think some part of me felt like I would escape the secret training area and go back to Earth, back to the way things were before.

But Earth was no longer home, and despite the weird clothing and weapons, sitting in the tea shop Kyle could almost imagine himself back on Earth hanging out with his friends. The scene before him overlapping with a half imagined half-forgotten memory from his adolescence.

He was drawn out of his reverie when Simon clapped his hands to get everyone attention.

“Okay guys! It’s decided that we are going to go the Pit of Despair for this run. The plan is to go out for three to five days and then come back. The next trip is planned for the Giant’s Den, with a three day break in between the two. Any questions?”

Sabina raised her hand. “Is there any change to our strategy from last time?”

Simon looked at Kyle before then looking at Sarah.

“No,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “The plan is for Kyle to observe this time and then join in for the Giant’s Den. While he has a lot of firepower to offer, I think he needs to observe the team first. Going solo and working with a team are very different, so for now he will be relegated to a reserve force for any unexpected contingencies. After he has observed how we fight we can try and add him in towards the end of the run.”

Kyle and Sarah had actually discussed this very thing before. It had been a rare moment of seriousness for Sarah, and she had almost seemed like a different person. It had really hammered in for Kyle the fact that he was gone for over two years. While Sarah had been able to be serious before, she had never been able to radiate the mature aura she did during that conversation. An aura that she was emitting now.

Kyle supposed he should have been thrown off by it. It really showed the difference between the Sarah now and the one from two years ago, and he didn’t know the new Sarah. But despite all that, Kyle instead found it incredibly hot. The Sarah he used to know was a kid. Impulsive, reckless, and not willing to show restraint. While Kyle had loved the old Sarah, this new maturity added a whole new dimension to her.

Gotta focus Kyle. We are preparing to explore the dungeon, not explore… other things. Sarah is Sarah, and now she is leading this party. She is definitely not acting like a dom. Nope, definitely not. Oh god, why did I ever think that?

There was more to what Sarah and Simon said, but Kyle couldn’t remember any of it when they finally made their way out of the tea shop and toward the teleportation hub. Some things seemed to be exactly the same as before he left, while other things were clearly different. It didn’t help that Kyle had no one to talk to for the last two years. His social skills were a bit rusty.

And I thought teenagers had a hard time controlling their libido. Maybe I should just say something? But she never said anything to me even when we shower. You know what? Fuck it. I just got back. This can wait. It should be Valentine’s Day soon. I will ask her then.

Decision made, Kyle put his feelings on the back burner. This would need to be a conversation that needed to happen eventually, it had been building for a while, but some things were better not rushed. It was clear from some of the actions that Sarah had taken so far that, while she was obviously ecstatic to have him back, she also wanted him to feel comfortable acclimating back into society. To that aim Kyle guessed she had acted more like her previous persona to make him feel comfortable. And that was only becoming more and more apparent to him as he regained some of his former social acumen.

The trip through the teleport hub and through the dungeon to get to the Pit of Despair was rather fast and, funnily enough, perfectly devoid of social tension. Kyle wasn’t sure if it was from prior discussion or from tacit agreement, but the others all managed to make him feel included in their group dynamic without making him feel pressured to contribute. It was a far cry from Kyle’s previous experience with group dynamics, which mostly came from his high school experiences. It made him wonder how he had even survived those dances.

A short hour and a half later and the group came out of a tunnel and stood on the edge of what Kyle could only describe as a very large quarry or maybe as some secret government bomb testing area. The ground fell away to reveal a landscape defined by rising ledges and sculpted indents, each area appearing more blasted and craggy than the next.

Everyone else had been here before so Kyle was the only one who stopped to take in the view while Simon addressed the group.

“Alright, so we are going with the same strategy as before. Walt in front, with Sarah standing by to perform the execution. The rest of us will be grouped around Lee, with Walt around forty feet away to still be in range of Lee’s Inspire. Remember, pacing is key. As soon as it starts to turn we need to nuke it.”

On the way over Kyle had been given the run down on what to expect from their dungeon run. The area referred to as the Pit of Despair was home to only one kind of monster: despair imps. They looked vaguely imp-like, but they were the same size as the average adult and didn’t throw fireballs. In fact, the only magic they used came from their name.

The imps had an ability that was apply named as ‘despair aura’. Its effects were twofold. The first thing it did was make any sentient nearby creatures feel despair and an incredible sense of impending doom. Conversely, or maybe complementarily, the imps were incredibly hard to damage when they weren’t actively effecting nearby creatures with their aura. It was ridiculously time consuming to kill them from range, which led to melee range engagements being the primarily employed fighting strategy.

Kyle stood next to Lee, Sabina, Simon and Li, with Sarah standing a little ways in between them and Walt, who, once everyone was in position, used a taunting skill to draw a despair imp over.

It was a surreal experience for Kyle. Not just that fighting solo was miles away from fighting with a team, but that the general feel of the dungeon was not the same as the secret training area. Kyle watched in fascination, not just at how each individual member seemed to know their role forwards and backwards, but because everyone was completely focused on the battle.

It was a stark difference in focus, and Kyle was honestly surprised that everyone else seemed to genuinely believe that their battle wasn’t going to be interrupted. They still kept up their vigilance, sure, but Kyle couldn’t help but recall the words of a certain professor with a magical eye, and how that slogan had saved his life more than once when he was trapped.

Meanwhile, the fight was proceeding smoothly and it soon reached its climax. While fighting the despair imps did require one to counteract their aura, that wasn’t the most dangerous element. Kyle’s attention was drawn back to the fight by Sarah’s words.

“Get ready, it’s about to blow! Move on my signal!”

The group had not been steadily pecking away at the imp’s health for a reason. That reason involved the imp’s other special ability. Whenever they died, they exploded, and the explosion radius and power was directly influenced by the amount of damage they had taken in the last thirty seconds. This meant that trying to spike an imp in under thirty seconds was usually a one-way ticket to a terrain changing explosion, as evidenced by the surrounding scenery.

There was also an inverse relationship between the size of the explosion and how long it took them to explode. Meaning that large explosions happened faster while small explosions made the imps take time to charge them up. If you killed the imps during this charge up time they wouldn’t explode, so the common fighting method was a slow build up to a quick finish. Which is exactly what the Hex Sages did with almost clockwork precision. The whole thing was rather anticlimactic.

And rinse and repeat.

Kyle never thought that fighting was boring. There was too much variance for that. No fight or scenario was exactly the same, and you constantly had to be on your toes. Or, he used to think that way.

Was the secret training area really that different? This feels… boring. Simple. Easy. Where’s the edge? The knowledge that you are only one mistake away from an early demise? Is dungeoneering always like this?

The group eventually called a halt to their hunting and retreat to make camp and eat dinner. On the walk back to their preplanned campsite, Sarah moved back from her position near the front of the formation to talk to Kyle.

“So what did you think? How does this compare to the secret training area?”

“Umm, well, is, uh, this it?” Kyle asked rather lamely. He wasn’t really sure what to say. This whole hunting expedition had felt more like some sort of picnic excursion rather than a true dungeon experience.

“What do you mean is this it?” Sarah asked, confused. “What else would there be?”

Kyle took a few seconds to formulate his reply.

“I mean, like, don’t you worry about the ground randomly exploding? Or about other imps coming to help each other? Or maybe a boss imp disguised as a regular imp? Everything seems too regimented. Too routine.”

The look Sarah was giving him clearly told him she in fact didn’t worry about any of those things.

“Why would the ground randomly explode? That seems like a pretty random thing to worry about. And of course it is routine. The dungeon is pretty consistent you know. As long as you have sufficient strength and plan for contingencies there isn’t much to worry about.”

Kyle suspected that Sarah’s contingencies and his own differed a fair amount. And, judging by her changing facial expression, he was starting to think she was coming to that conclusion as well. While he had told stories about his time in the secret training area, they were mostly about highlights and exotic happenings. He specifically didn’t talk about how he almost died when a volcano seemed to randomly erupt in the middle of his boss fight in a formerly serene meadow and, from the looks of it, it looked like he had tipped Sarah off that he had held some things back.

“You know, Kyle, I think we might have some things to discuss once we make camp,” Sarah said. Her eyes promised it would not be a pleasant or short conversation.