Dawn came and went, and with it, hours of Gem’s time he somehow lost to beefing up his tree farm. There wasn’t enough dirt and mud yet to make an entire floor dedicated to the various wood sources he wanted to grow, but he was still able to replace a decent chunk of the floor of his working area and turned it into tree plots.

It was calming work, and it allowed him to rest his tired mind after maintaining three versions of himself.

Chesu must have realized Gem needed some downtime as well, because instead of pestering Gem to do one thing or another, the wisp busied himself with watching the Plantlings generate blocks.

When his mana grew to full, Gem placed an order for the dagger at the Forge, since it was the more expensive of the two weapons. The NPC tilted its head and made a little noncommittal “Hmm?” noise before it got to work.

A timer appeared over the Forge, letting him know he had over an hour to wait before the dagger would be finished. He’d then get to work on the shortsword.

Gem surveyed his dungeon. Rotating his trap rooms was a good plan, and would keep the adventurers from becoming bored. But since that first group, none had found the entrances. They were almost too well hidden.

If he hadn’t found the trap room, would Mark and his friends still be alive?

The thought wound through Gem’s head, refusing to part. No one had attempted his boss just yet, so it was easy to believe the first group would have shied away from it as well. And if that were the case, Gem’s traps were too much, even if no one found them.

“Look at this place!”

The chipper words broke through Gem’s thoughts like a pin through a soap bubble. He moved his attention to the entrance just as the owner of the voice entered his area of influence.

An Urkin man with broad hips and a long braided beard stood just outside the doorway. He was quite muscular, but lean overall. His eyes were wide with a mixture of curiosity and awe as he looked at the massive entrance to the dungeon.

“Hurry up!” he called back to the others that Gem couldn’t see before putting his hands on his hips.

That’s when Gem noticed the claws.

A thin metal exoskeleton was molded to the man’s hands, tracing them like an outer skeleton. They were jointed in a way that let the exoskeleton move in precision with his actual hands. The tops of each finger was mounted by a metal claw, about four inches in length. They looked solid and curved naturally to match the exoskeleton.

“We’re trying,” a voice said from behind him with a winded, gasping cadence. “Your legs. They’re just so long.”

The owner of the voice stepped into vision. He was absolutely right in his observation.

Without the comparison, Gem had no real idea how tall or short any one adventurer was. But the man with the metal claws was almost half again as tall as the second man. His legs went on for ages, coming up to almost the second man’s elbow.

The second man was also an Urkin, although he seemed to have a slimmer build. The lean muscle of the clawed man’s hands were nowhere to be found on his shorter companion. A shock of hair so gray it was almost white stood in short, messy spikes off the top of his head. Deep ridges of wrinkles marked his face. He had a book on his hip, marking him as the same Sage class that Lars had been.

“And the others?” the clawed Urkin asked with a snorting laugh.

“Present!” a feminine voice all but shouted. When she stepped up next to her companions, Gem was surprised to see that she too was an Urkin. Her hips were also broad, like the first man’s, but she was lithe and light on her feet. She sported two long braids that trailed behind her, almost touching the floor. One had a single streak of deep green wool weaved through it, while the other had a streak of purple wool.

“I wish to return to the town,” another said as he stepped up into Gem’s vision. He was younger than the other two men, with a unique style to his hair that made it seem to be perpetually in his eyes. His skin was lighter than the other Urkin, too, as if he perpetually lurked in caves instead of seeing the sunlight once and a while. “There’s something about this place I don’t like.”

“That’s because you don’t like anything,” the female Urkin said with a snicker. “C’mon, we just got here! And you heard what people are saying. Increased experience! Totally worth it. You want to level, dontcha?”

“Ata, leave him be.”

The motherly tone came from the last member of their group. She was an older woman, bowed by age, who used an Enchanter’s staff to help her along. When she finally stopped moving, a wheeze came from her small form, and she coughed violently into the elbow of her robe.

The first girl, Ata, rushed over to help, but the older Urkin waved her away.

“I’m fine. Winded is all. Baldur’s legs are just so long.”

“That’s what I said as well,” the second man said with a small pout that made him seem younger than the wrinkles and gray hair suggested.

Baldur, the clawed Urkin, seemed to ignore them. “Right. Shall we go in, then?”

His companions rallied behind him, and they entered the dungeon as a cohesive unit.

Gem thought to Chesu.

“Which ones? Huh?” The wisp sounded lost, as if shaken from a dream. “What’s going on now?”

Gem made sure the wisp would be able to watch through his core.

“What you call ‘stuffy’ some would say is ‘pragmatic.’ The world is ending, you know.”

Gem tried to hold back a sarcastic comment. he finally thought after a long moment.

The wisp landed on Gem’s core with an audible groan. He stretched out his back and wings, rolling his shoulders and tilting his head to one side and the other as if to loosen up the kinks. “Ugh. Alright, seriously. Don’t leave me to just woolgather for hours on end next time, yeah? I’m too old for it.”

Gem sent the wisp an image of a crystal with a giant grin plastered across its face, much like the one Chesu made when he was being smarmy. He hoped the image lessened the bluntness of his words.

“Ah, but to be incorporeal.” He gave a wistful little sigh. “How I long for the day I can shed this meat exterior and become something as awesome as a sentient core.”

“None what-so-ever! Isn’t that great?” The wisp’s words were surprisingly chipper and he laughed when Gem sent him a flurry of question mark images. “Sorry, sorry. Nihilistic humor. All the rage with younger Issys.”

Gem wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but the wisp didn’t seem sad by his words so he let it pass.

“Well, kid, what do you want to do today? We’ve got a full schedule of panic and despair, followed by screaming into the void for hours into the evening. Can’t skip that. Maybe we can top it up with some light crafting? Gotta keep the mind clear and all that…”

he thought with an obligatory frowning gem image.

The wisp waved it away. “I know. And I apologize for it. Just… having time to think made me realize how giga-screwed we are. Not just normal giga-screwed. I’m used to that, being as my entire existence is to guide cores to become dungeons. You are an especially suicidal lot.” He tipped Gem a wink before his face grew grave. “But this is something else. We’ve got an advantage, but we need another one. A bigger one. And I have no idea how to get it.”

Gem thought about the situation. He knew there was value in comforting another. Providing false hope. A small lie could help someone get over their own anxiety and work towards a goal with just a little less burden. All because someone took a moment to tell them it was going to be all right.

But there was no “all right” in this situation. No silver lining that could be found with the magic of believing in one’s self.

They were, in fact, giga-screwed.

And Gem knew it.