In the early hours of the morning, with the soft light of dawn streaming through the gaps of the shuttered window, Alex watched the bright screen before his eyes as he lay in his room. He had been dreaming the whole night of somewhere radiantly bright, until the ping! had woken him up.

[Quest: Prune Riverbend’s Dungeon]

Riverbend’s Dungeon is overflowing. Kill monsters. Get strong.

Reward: Level up!

I don’t know how these quests come up, but why the fuck so early? Grumbling, Alex pulled the wool blanket down and sat up, ignoring the protests of his back. It didn’t even give me the decency of feeling—just for that confusing moment after waking—that I was back in my apartment. How inconsiderate!

He craned his neck back and forth, then took to cracking his spine by twisting his torso around. The popping that followed, unlike his night’s sleep, was deeply satisfying. Might as well sleep on the floor like Daven. He regretted the thought as soon as his bare feet touched the cold and unyielding floorboards.

He hissed. Nope, I’ll stick with the hay bed.

Shivering, Alex skipped to the door where, as promised, his dirty clothes had been washed and dried for him during the night. He touched the fire-warmed fabric of his shirt and nodded in appreciation. The cold works hard, but Orson the innkeeper sure works harder.

When he was dressed—and with shoes on—he sat back on the bed and stared at the quest pop up. Figuring out how quests were formed had to be a priority for him at some point. The level up reward was too valuable not to abuse, since he was already noticing how it got progressively harder to ‘plateau’, even at his current level three.

Maybe that’s the reason the villagers don’t just band together and try their hand at the dungeon. It took too much time to level up enough to become a Chaser, time you don’t have when there’s crops to sow and animals to tend to. In either case, the quest was right. You can’t get stronger if you don’t kill monsters. That’s that. At least as far as he knew.

The problem was, as far as anyone in Riverbend was concerned, the dungeon didn’t need pruning yet. Cedric said he and his last crew pruned it three months ago, and that a dungeon like this one only needs a clean up three times a year—once every four months.

That’s what he said, though. And if Alex’s suspicions were right, then there was no reason to take him at his word. The crew leader had reacted nonchalant to the monsters outside the dungeon, even if he said he was surprised that it was happening. Did he already expect them to be out, or did he simply not care?

No, he said it himself it wasn’t supposed to happen if the dungeon is pruned correctly. Cedric didn’t seem the type to loudly admit to his own mistakes—but he did, and then simply brushed it off. Why would he do that?

Alex shook his head. It was no use racking his brain for answers when he had nothing to go off of. He knew nothing of dungeons besides what Cedric told the crew, and he already crossed the man out as unreliable.

Moping about it won’t help, he told himself. And when you realize thinking won’t get you any further, it means you should have already been moving a good three thoughts ago.

Straightening up his jacket, Alex stood and made for the door. Time to do some digging.

xx

As it was so early in the morning, Alex expected to be the first of the crew to be up and active. He was wrong. When he made it to the common room of the Bedstone, Valerian was already sitting at their same table by the unlit hearth, apparently following Daven’s rule of bacon-only nourishment. Alex reciprocated a nod as he made it to the bottom of the stairs, but turned the other way to walk toward the bar.

Trust would be a strong word—but Alex couldn’t bring himself to be suspicious of the paladin. If he was somehow involved with what was happening with Cedric, even after knowing the crew leader for only a week, he was a better actor than Alex could give him credit for.

At the same time, he wouldn’t search for answers from the man, as Alex himself was the newbie of the party. Why would he trust me, the stranger wearing strange clothes who is cagey about his strange past, over the professional, experienced Chaser? No, he was better off trying someone a bit more neutral.

Near the wall by the stairs, Alex had to dodge past a man who turned away from his table to cough, cringing as he saw a fat clump of phlegm splattering across the ground. It stood stark green against the light wood of the floorboards.

Lovely bit of deco, that is. The man muttered a wheezing apology, only to start hacking again.

Indeed, Valerian wasn’t the only one in the room, as a few unfamiliar faces dotted the tables here and there. Some were haggard from the night’s drinking like his new friend, their forms stooped over barely eaten eggs and soup, while others looked surprisingly spry, talking animatedly and laughing amongst each other.

Coughing-man aside and with considerably less traffic than the night before, Alex made it to the countertop unmolested and with all his toes intact. The shelves behind the bar were lined with barrels of drink, the dark wood of the wall barely visible behind them. Orson turned from replacing an empty cask just as he approached. The innkeeper’s eyes went straight to Alex’s face, and he smiled at something he saw.

“Looking for a pick-me-up, lad?” His rough voice sounded somehow amused.

Alex stopped, confused. “Uh, what?”

“First one’s free, second’s six pennies. The third…” Orson shrugged. “The headache will serve as a lesson after that one, no doubt. We don’t take kindly to wastrels here at the Bedstone.”

Headache? Why does it sound like he’s trying to sell me drugs? “I’ll… pass for now, thank you,” he said. “That’s not what I came to speak with you, actually.”

“Not looking to sell another trinket, then, are you?” The innkeeper crossed his tree-trunk arms and gave him a flat look. “Because then I’d have to start asking around if anyone’s jewelry has recently gone missing?”

Alex frowned. He’d been tempted at times, and had plenty of bad examples to follow, but he’d never been a thief. “No, that’s not it.” He tried keeping his tone friendly..

Orson stared into his eyes again, then nodded. “Just checking, lad,” he said, sounding sincere. On the underbar in front of him, a wide pail sat with dozens of ale mugs soaking in soap water. Picking up a random mug from inside of it, Orson pulled a clean dish rag from the pocket of his apron and started wiping it dry. “Believe me, as an innkeeper, even in a small village like Riverbend here, I’ve seen everything. How can I help you, then?”

Alex took the near apology for what it was and forced himself to move past it. “Well,” he said. “I wanted to ask about the dungeon nearby.”

“And you’re a Chaser to be looking around dungeons now?” The innkeeper’s bushy brows rose in tandem.

Alex straightened up. “I’m not a professional per se, but I’m working under Cedric as of now.” He might not be a thief, but Alex wasn’t above lying when the situation called for it. A man’s got to have principles, shitty as they are.

“And here I thought Cedric was only doing it to impress my daughter when he paid for your stay yesterday.” Orson chortled. “You know, he had an actual group last time he came here, but now he brings children with him. That big one aside.” He sighed, put the clean mug down on his other side, and took out another one. “I suppose the dungeon here really is that weak.”

“That’s exactly why I came to inquire,” Alex jumped in. “I was attacked by some boars yesterday. And I was outside of the dungeon.”

“Outside?” The innkeeper echoed, frowning. His hands stopped wiping at the mug. “That is strange, yes.”

“Yes,” Alex said. “And when I asked about it, I was told the dungeon was pruned too recently for that…”

The implication was too heavy to go unnoticed.

Orson looked pensive, and a hand rose to stroke one of his mustachios. “Yes, it’s not been long enough…”

“Could it be, perhaps, that the dungeon wasn’t pruned correctly?” Alex posed the question as if it had been thought on the spot. Then he quickly put both his hands up, seeming abashed for having brought up the possibility at all. “An innocent mistake, I’m sure. I truly do not mean to point fingers toward Cedric and his last crew, I’ve simply heard about one too many dungeons overflowing after a crew didn’t do its job right. I’m sure some are malicious in their intent, but most of the time it happens by accident.”

Alex was surprised to see Orson shake his head vehemently. “No lad, that I’m sure can’t be it,” he said. “The man may not be able to keep his eyes to himself, but he’s no cheat. I know that for a fact, too. Other towns and cities do it differently, but in the Riverbend dungeon there’s a rare plant that grows a single flower every four months, just one at a time, and only in one spot at the far edge of the second stage of the dungeon. Every time we give payment, the flower is affixed to the records. Records that, for the past seventeen years, I keep myself.”

“Oh.” Alex leaned back from the countertop. That wasn’t on the plans. Whatever they were. He attempted to come up with something—anything. “Uh. Then… has it ever happened that the dungeon overflowed before it was supposed to?” he tried. “Anytime the village had to call for a pruning before the usual schedule?”

The man scratched his mustache. “Perhaps,” he said. “I looked through the past records when I took over their keeping, even the ones brought over from Holdensfor when they still held the dungeon’s title, but I can’t say I looked too closely.”

Alex pursed his lips. Cedric had mentioned the village records before. Would he try something knowing there was concrete evidence there? Unless… unless he altered them. The hows and whys of the thought slowly unfurled in his mind. As convoluted as it was, the idea had merit.

Thinking on the spot, Alex asked, “Would it be possible for me to check these records, then?”

“Sorry lad,” Orson said, clicking his tongue. “Can’t see them unless you’re a Chaser, papers and all. I can check it myself once the next pruning is up, but there’s not much else I can do.”

Alex thought of insisting, or even telling the innkeeper he thought Cedric might have tempered with them, but decided to keep quiet. It would be too shady to do that after Orson’s show of trust on the crew leader.

So he just smiled. “That’s alright,” Alex said. “It was just a thought. I won’t bother you any longer, then.”

Orson already had his mind turned to the soaked mugs and didn’t hold him to ceremony, sending him away off a wave of his hand.

Alex walked away with his mind running. He could try to find these records by himself, but he had no idea where they were kept—probably inside the inn, but where exactly he couldn’t know—nor did he think it was a good idea to go sneaking off after it.

Who knows what kind of punishment they have for that kind of stuff here. Instead of going to join Valerian, Alex turned to the stairs. He wasn’t particularly hungry after the night he had, and since his initial plan failed, he needed to regroup. A nap wouldn’t go amiss either.

Quicker than he could react, Alex felt hands clasp one of his arms and pull. Shit! He stumbled forward, into the dimness of the cramped hallway behind the stairs. The hands let him go just as he nearly pitched to the ground. Heat bloomed on his chest when he called upon his fire, and when he straightened up, a foot-long flaming arrow rested on his hand.

It was only the hitch on the voice that stopped him.

“Wait!”