Nero stared lovingly at his wife. Altia spoke too little during dinner, the news that people were trying to assassinate them did a number on her nerves. He also didn't want to cheer her up with some white lie like "everything will be alright". Xalazuniox didn't touch the subject again and he would take the Dean, no, his godfather's word at face value. They left the Dean's house and were currently walking through the campus at night.

"Take me home," She demanded, her voice full of anguish and anger.

Nero stopped and suppressed a chuckle. "I know what you need. Wanna go kill something? I have just the place."

"Delving, now?" Her voice rose an octave. "Where?"

Nero grinned. "Pudding Cube's Swamp. Let's make some goats bleed."

Altia's eyes went wide. She shuddered as the memory of what happened during their desperate delve came back. Under the moonlight, Nero could see her neck and cheeks almost glow bright red.

"Yeah, let's kill some goats," She growled with clenched fists.

They hopped back to Honeywitch to get the rest of the crew. Altia's bloodthirsty stare burning with the flames of vengeance let no window to decline. Soon the six Adventurers were in front of the portal. A quick flash of the King's edict convinced the garrison to let them in without any questions.

Entering "Pudding Cube's Swamp" - rank-II. Grade Yellow.

"By what's most holy, what a disgusting filthy bog," Cursed Crystal.

The safe zone had a film of water four fingers thick, covered by an oily layer of floating goo and debris. Nero wasn't sure but he thought it was dry before.

"I think the Dungeon gets nastier as it grows in grades," Nero explained. "It is yellow already. I doubt anyone cleared it in the last year."

Crystal swooned in jest. "The things I do for you, little brother!"

"Thank you," He cooed back. "But there's a secret to this Dungeon. If you gather enough slimes, they condense into a boss. The last time they visited it was level fifteen, I hope the bump in grades put it above what we need to farm Accolades."

**BOUND** **SPLASH**

Small waves messed up the layer of filth floating on the water.

"And there it comes. I think it already has one wandering boss."

They looked in the direction the sound came from. Truly enough, a huge green blob of goo in a roughly parallelepipedal shape was readying itself for another bound.

"Could you conjure us a dry place to fight from?" Moira asked.

Nero nodded and swapped Classes. He focused and used [Stone Shape] at full throttle, including the twelve points of [Overcharge]. The muck and clay underneath their feet churned and mired the Adventurers. They were sinking. The water of the swamp seemed to rush into the mud, gurgling and churning on its own as Nero lifted the stone deep underneath the bog. More water rushed from other parts of the swamp and the ground underneath them liquefied.

"Damn, Nero!" Altia cursed as she waved her arms to steady herself.

"Hold hands!" Rodther shouted and grabbed Hefalina and Moira's arms.

The mud was swallowing their legs. And if they tried to lift a leg, it seemed to solidify around them, exerting considerable pressure. They kept sinking.

"I'm sinking!" Hefalina lost her footing.

"Can't you just stop?" Altia shook Nero.

"Won't work!" Rodther answered. "The ground was disturbed and the water mixed with the dirt. Keep your lungs full of air, take slow breaths, and stay calm.

Altia screeched. "Nero, make a portal!"

"He can't," Crystal put a hand on Altia's shoulder and slid to grasp her arm. "he's channeling the stone spell. Just wait."

"At least you won't drown in the quicksand," Rodther jested to Moira.

"No way I'm opening my gills in this muck. I'll get sand everywhere," She nervously sniggered back with a snort at the end.

They were waist-deep in the quicksand when the stone touched their feet. With a deep sucking sound, it pushed them up along with a block of mud that lazily flowed down and back into the swamp. When Nero finished concentrating, they were two feet above the water level on a round slab of stone eight yards across.

"What is this stench?" Hefalina choked and pinched her nose.

"Nero, my brother! Did you fart?" Rodther joked.

Nero chuckled. Altia punched him. "I HATE THIS DUNGEON!"

**BOUND** **SPLASH**

"I HATE YOU TOO!" She tossed an incendiary potion on the boss.

"I think it is swamp gas..." Crystal muttered under her breath.

**BOOM**

The potion exploded, burning part of the boss and erupting into a roaring fireball that engulfed all the swamp around them. Like a flash, the fire was gone except for some burning sections.

"Damn, that sucked," Rodther quipped.

"Anyone hurt?" Crystal asked.

**BOUND**

The boss was, but it was a big boy. They prepared to fight the slime cube - sans a chunk in the left frontal corner - when a rain of hot slime fell upon them and the rest of the swamp around them. Altia screamed and morphed her angry screech into sobs. She fell on her knees and cried.

Not wasting more time, Crystal pointed her staff at the slime boss and shot the multicolored elemental bolts. Hefalina readied her rifle and fired as well. Nero was scraping mud and slime off of his Arbitrium to change Classes. Opening the main port without cleaning first was a really bad idea. Halfway he gave up and crouched to comfort his wife.

**BOUND***

"Oh! Shut up!" Still angry and grumpy, Altia tossed another incendiary on the boss. "Just die!"

Nero brought his rifle from storage and shot the boss, followed shortly after by Rodther's knives and Crystal's elemental bolts. Under the combined wrath of the six Adventurers, the blob of slime had no chance. Hefalina gained four points of Dexterity from the level, thirty-one yellow-grade boss. The greatest boon was that all the slime that splashed around the swamp vanished, along with the drops that sunk beneath the swamp water.

"Eew, I got mud under my scales," Rodther whimpered. Moira nodded sagely.

With the source of her anger gone, Altia cried her nerves out. "I hate this Dungeon," she bellowed.

She seemed out of herself. Crystal approached and clapped Nero's shoulder. "Make a shelter. One with a large freshwater river and a lake. Gravel bed, please. We need a break."

Nero met his sister's eyes and nodded. "I'll send Maria to retrieve the drops meanwhile. Can you..."

"I'll look after her," The nereid answered with a warm smile.

"Will you tell me what is going on? This is so not you," Crystal asked Altia.

Nero made a shelter, Maria fetched the [Egress] cards, crystal, and a few Skill cards the impromptu boss dropped. They bathed, ate, and slept. Late-night delves had this benefit. Time spent inside the Dungeon was irrelevant as they would always come out next to midnight. The problem was that you were entering the Dungeon after a full day's worth of exhaustion.

Altia looked over her shoulders. They were alone on the gravel beach, the river flowing along and making enough noise to cover her voice. She glanced at the former princess with moist eyes.

"They're trying to murder us," She whispered.

"Beg your pardon?" Crystal sputtered with a double-take.

They held each other's hands. "Three noble houses were dissolved by the King. On the outside, it was treason for conspiring with the countries that wanted to invade Bast, but they also tried to hire assassins to kill us. Kill Nero."

Crystal exhaled deeply, a mix of a sigh and a groan. She brought Altia's head to rest on her chest. "Who?"

"Xalazuniox. He told things were under control and the danger, over. Something about how Amaryllis took care of it."

Caressing the minnid woman's head, Crystal cooed. "Then it is fine. The Dean wouldn't give you the news lightly. Breaking the invasion made a lot of people lose what they invested, that was obvious. Even my fa... Coriander lost a lot. But it is over. They wouldn't tell you that if it wasn't."

Altia sobbed and sniffled. "All we wanted was to live our lives quietly in our village. Brew some potions, delve some Dungeons, maybe have an adventure or two."

"Instead you went on rescuing princesses, dueling princes, waging wars, gathering a motley crew of outcasts, and so on."

Altia looked up. What Crystal meant was that if they stayed in their village, she would be gone. Nothing they had would exist. Worse yet, the war would still come, the village would still be overrun when the invading army eventually took Honeywitch and the surrounding territory.

"That was all Nero, not me."

Crystal clicked her tongue. "He's nothing without you. Yes, he's strong and has some uniques but he wouldn't be that on his own. In fact, he would be dead in this Dungeon if it were not for you."

"Is that enough?" Altia asked full of doubt.

"No. You chose a support Class. Of course, you won't be as strong. You need to do what only you can do. Would we be as successful without your concoctions? And you're underselling you, Mrs. 'I revive lost herbs'."

"He can slap a [Chemist] Class in that Arbitrium of his and do what I do."

"Can he?" Crystal challenged. "Is a Class card everything one needs to be good at a trade?"

Altia didn't respond. Crystal continued.

"Nero is versatile and may look strong now, but what would happen once we start climbing the tiers? We're in no hurry to do it, these accolades really help, but we will eventually get some levels. What then?"

"I don't know," She replied, staring at the river.

"I don't, either. But I can say with a hundred percent certainty that nobody will get anywhere alone. Especially not Nero."

"Don't you think he would find another--" Altia's venomous wondering was suddenly cut off by Crystal's vehement denial.

"NO!" She glared. "And it is high time we have a talk about this jealousy of yours. Seriously, my brother only has eyes for you. All the other women in the world might as well be rocks to him."

Altia pouted and hissed. "He's a man. Men can't help but chase after--"

This time the nereid just glared. "Some men do," She agreed with a hurt voice. As her eyes wandered off, Altia knew she'd reopened a wound.

"I didn't mean to..."

"It is fine. Nero is not interested in another woman. Trust me, Moira tried her best while they were alone in the Dungeon. He was rude, cold even, to her. Even I felt his indifference."

"You?" Altia's disbelief was tainted by her anxiety.

"We're nereids, Altia," Crystal said as if it explained everything. "Ocean fae? You know, water fairies races are notoriously lacking people of the male persuasion."

"I'm not sure I'm following you..." Altia prompted with some suspicion.

Crystal pressed her palm over her collarbones. "A lot of women. Very few males. Most of them not underwater. At least the living ones. What do you think is the top concern among the mermaids, nereids, and naiads? What art do they learn from the time they can flap their fins?"

Altia's mouth opened in the shape of the letter O.

"My class is [Enchantress], Altia. Look, if Nero wasn't so suspicious when we first met, I was desperate enough to try and get him under my spell to bring me out of there, fear of men or not. But he looked at me just like he would rock. No, worse than that. Girl, there's no woman in this world that could take your man from you, so stop being so insecure."

They were rested, cleaned, fed, and ready to rumble. A new day, so to speak. The swamp and its dangers awaited them.

"First thing we must do is to drain the water," Nero said.

After digging a hole in the swamp bottom outside the stone slab he created, Nero made an empty shelter with the maximum dimensions he could and placed a portal at the top underneath the water level. The swamp rushed in to fill the seemingly bottomless shelter, dredging the mud, debris, and filth with them. The slimes came along, dragged by the rush of water.

"I should've done this before we set for the night," Nero said as he noticed the water didn't stop. More water was flowing in from the rest of the swamp. The sucking sounds the mud made gave some of the shivers.

"All you can pop slime buffet incoming!" Rodther warned.

Those with ranged weapons or spells attacked the slimes as they approached. Nero saw that and made a point to provide a ranged option to every party member. Altia's mana potions kept people topped while they killed the slimes. Drops would fall on the mud and eventually be sucked into the hungry shelter. When Crystal pointed it out, Nero shrugged saying he could easily fetch these drops later.

A couple of hours passed. The swamp finally stopped draining. A dozen [Fireball] spells and it became a dry and cracked wasteland. "I guess we can go now."

The walk back to the cliffs went without any problem, either Nero or Hefalina shooting slimes as they appeared. The rivers of swamp water now became small streams, falling down and becoming mist a few hundred feet down, hiding the rest of the cliff. They glanced down and withdrew. The memory wasn't a cherished one.

"By the gods, not this cliff again," Altia shivered.

"We can try to find another way," Nero offered. "Most people don't explore this Dungeon, the guild records are flimsy. All they say about the final boss is that it's the pudding cube. We found out the slimes in the swamp combine to make more of them. Although the made-up pudding cubes aren't considered the Dungeon boss. I can't use [Dungeon Breaker], for example," He said holding a [Egress] card in his hand.

Rodther looked down. "Let's not climb down. I vote for going around, boss."

Nero thought he needed some scouting ability. Maybe a flying pet whose senses he could share, or some farseeing spell. But all the Skills for that were in the higher tiers.

"Let's split up," Crystal suggested. "You boys and Altia go that way, I take the girls this way. We go around the swamp and meet in the middle. I doubt we will run into anything dangerous. In two hours we meet back on the center, or earlier if we meet on the other side of the swamp."

Nero knew Dungeons made less sense as they rose in ranks. At the upper ranks, above XXX, some defied logic. One was made entirely of staircases that went in all directions, including upside down. You'd reach a landing and take stairs going in another direction. Flying winged eyes would harass the Adventurers as they traveled the geometrically impossible maze.

The cliffs were weird. Hundred yards down from a swamp, dotted by caves where the mist goats lurked. He could sometimes hear the river roaring down in the canyon. Altia grasped his hand and he felt it was cold. Exchanging a glance, the couple understood they were being assaulted by the memories of that unfortunate delve.

"Is it just I or the river is getting louder?" Rodther broke the silence.

"No. Not just you," Altia replied without making eye contact, her focus on her other senses.

"I can hear it too. Didn't we take the direction the river flows? Are we getting lower?" Nero asked.

Rodther said, "No way. The whole swamp is as flat as my grandma' tits."

"Ietermahue females don't have breasts," Altia deadpanned, clearly annoyed at the innuendo.

Near the edge of the cliff, Nero took a page from his fathers' playbook and stared at the depths... of the canyon. That wasn't a conversation he wanted to be a part of. After a few more exchanges the other two noticed.

"Did you find anything?" Altia asked.

Nero nodded. "Yes. The river at the bottom of the canyon flows upward."