“Hun… you sure about this?” Susie asked as they lay in bed. “Why don’t you have them take it easy? The GM’s should take care of things, right?”

He sighed, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness. “I already sent them a message, although Heather and Jamie aren’t aware of it. It was deleted an hour later. I dunno what’s going on, but someone’s covering something up.”

“…Should you take this up with the police then? Maybe other players?”

“I don’t think so. Who’d even believe me?” He trailed off, and Susie wrapped an arm around his chest. “I barely believe it myself.”

They both went quiet. If Paul hadn’t known Jamie before all this happened, he never would’ve believed her. Taking things to the police would just make them brush it aside. There was no real way to prove anything, other than showing someone photos of Jamie and Heather from before they were stuck in Leveled Plane. And even that probably wouldn’t work—others could claim that they were look-alikes who just wanted attention.

Susie sighed, and he felt her lips ghosting across his neck. “I can see what you mean, hun. I dunno what to do either.” She paused, mumbling something that he didn’t catch. “…For now, though, I feel you gotta take a step back.”

“Whatcha mean?” he asked, and she rolled on top of him. Her face was illuminated by the moonlight through the window, her eyebrows pinched together as she frowned.

“Think of it from their perspective. They’re still pretty much kids, and do you remember what you told me when you first found them? The fight they were having? That’s all they’ve had for who knows how long. My guess is they’ve forgotten part of what makes them human.”

She gave him a kiss on the nose, humming softly as her frown eased into a soft smile. “Let me put it this way. Hate to say it, but they’re probably like criminals who just escaped solitary confinement. Now, mind you, it’s not as bad since they weren’t completely alone. But some of the aftereffects—paranoia, aggression, anxiety—are surely hitting them hard. You can’t just assume Jamie’s the same girl you used to raid dungeons with. She’s certainly changed, and you gotta accept that.”

He frowned. “But what’s any of this have to do with me trying ta help them? I don’t get it.”

“Hun…” she sighed, “you can’t expect to get along with them right away. Remember, they’re trying not to die in there. You’re not at risk, so naturally you won’t approach things with the same caution that they will. Just… give it some time, alright? I’m sure things’ll work out.”

She kissed him lightly on the lips, and he tried to smile as she pulled away, but it came out more like a grimace.

“…I’ll try, I guess. Thanks, honey.” She rolled onto her side, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

“It’s what I’m here for,” she whispered. Despite himself, Paul chuckled softly as he felt his exhaustion getting the best of him. He really should’ve considered what he was getting into when he married a psychologist.

When he woke up in the morning, he immediately called off work for the next week. They put up a fight about it (particularly HR), but they eventually let him have some time to himself. It helped that he was a dedicated worker, which was why they weren’t too worried about it.

He did find it amusing that work had assumed he’d be taking some time for himself. Everyone seemed to be doing that these days.

Instead, he planned to figure out how he could properly help his friends(?) fight for their lives without getting them killed. He still wasn’t sure what to think of either of them. Sure, they laughed at his jokes and their banter was fun, but something just seemed… off.

It was when he was making Heather and Jamie breakfast in the TOWER that the answer finally came to him.

Apathy. That’s what he was sensing. He had to admit, the realization stung. He’d considered Jamie a good friend of his back when she ran her own guild, so seeing the way she faked her expressions around him was like a punch in the gut.

But were you really friends? his conscience asked, and he felt his mood worsen. You barely even knew each other. You just did some quests together and seemed to maybe get along. But how do you know any of that was real, or friendship?

He scowled. Shut up, he told himself, and he felt those thoughts retreat for the moment. Plastering a smile on his face, he spun around, some fried goblin meat in his hands.

“Order up!” he called, and they both groaned as they slunk over. Heather tore through the meat in seconds, shuddering visibly as she gulped it down. Jamie was slower, her eyes watering as she forced herself to keep chewing until she was able to swallow.

“I really hope we find something better on the next floor,” Heather muttered, and Paul laughed.

“I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that,” he said as his laughter calmed down. Heather shot him a glare without any heat, and he smiled at her. It took a few seconds, but eventually she smiled back.

Out of his two companions, it was surprising that Heather was the one who was warming up to him the fastest. He wasn’t sure why, since they’d never met before, but her reactions seemed much more natural than Jamie’s. A few days ago, when they first met, she’d been openly antagonistic towards him, but that had shifted as they’d traveled.

Now, she was politely friendly with him, which he would take as a step in the right direction. It was better than Jamie, who seemed to be faking the friendly mask that she was donning.

“Well,” Jamie managed, still choking down her goblin meat, “you guys think you’re ready?” They both nodded, and she grinned, taking a swig of water to remove the aftertaste.

“Let’s do this then.”

She slowly pushed the large double doors open without a sound, revealing a massive sanctuary. Hundreds of rows of empty pews lay before them, a pulpit barely visible on a raised dais at the far end of the room. Flowers decorated the dais, filling beautiful vases made of clay.

Glowing torches blazed along the walls, clearly illuminating the room. Although the room itself looked old and worn, there was no dust on the wooden pews, and the flowers looked freshly picked. Clearly someone spent some time in here, and recently at that.

Paul thought he saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he flinched, glancing up. What he saw permanently marred the once beautiful room.

A monk dangled from a large chandelier, his head shaved clean, and naked as the day he was born. His face was etched in a permanent scream, and Paul watched as a cockroach climbed out of his open mouth. His robes were tied around his neck, strung over the hanging chandelier.

Paul had seen more than enough horror movies to become mostly numb to sights like this, but, even so, it was still deeply disturbing. He struggled to hold his face in a calm, apathetic mask, and barely succeeded.

Then the smell hit him, and he gagged, immediately covering his nose. A putrid scent of rot and decay and a sweet fowl cheese with an undertone of rotting meat permeated every corner of the room. The scent of the dead. It was so overwhelming that his stomach went through a drunken exercise routine, and he struggled to hold back the bile suddenly crawling up his throat.

Taking his eyes away from the rotting corpse, he froze, molasses suddenly filling his veins. A creature shrouded in darkness stood at the pulpit, its thin, bony hands gripping the wooden frame. He didn’t know how he’d missed it earlier—it was massive.

Dark blood flowed from the spines along its back, pooling out of the many young men impaled through their stomachs. Its glistening maw grinned at them, its teeth blood red and serrated like a shark’s. He took an involuntary step back as its eyes roamed around unnaturally before eventually settling on him.

Too many eyes Too manyEYES tOoMAnYEEyyyeSSs

“WElcOmEEEeeE. I raTHEr ENjjjJOY ComPPAnYYyyY.” Its voice was of an unnatural timbre, flowing from it like nails on a chalkboard. “WOOulDD You lIIIkeEE tOo PLaaYyY a gaMEEe??”

Nobody replied. After almost a minute of silence, the beast’s grin grew wider, and Paul found himself shuddering as its mouth seemed to suddenly grow, and grow, and gROwwww aNd GRoOWw–

Heather cleared her throat, and the beast’s intimidating presence vanished. Paul regained control of his breath, and he held his hand over his racing heart as he struggled to calm down.

“I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we just want to move to the next room.” Her voice was shaky, and from the corner of his eye he could see that she was many shades paler than normal. Her eyes were wide with fear.

A noise like a knife being dragged across a glass bottle filled the room, and Paul cringed as he covered his ears. Cold fingers danced up his spine, and he forced himself the reign in the primal terror filling his heart.

Taking a closer look at the creature, he realized that it was shaking as it produced those god-awful noises. Was that… laughter…?

A flash of motion. A sickening squelch followed by a pained shriek. Paul spun on the balls of his feet just in time to watch Heather fall to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, the creature crushing her still beating heart in its grasp.

“I waNT ToOO pLLAyyY,” it crooned, gazing sadly at Heather with its hundreds of eyes. It seemed almost disappointed that she didn’t want to play with it. “lEET uUS plaYYy!”

“Haha… no thanks!” Jamie sang, yelping as she was forced to dodge one of its many limbs. Heather gurgled as she lay slumped on the ground, her hands shaking as they covered the hole in her chest.

Paul ran over to her as Jamie danced around the thing flailing its limbs, his heart pounding in his ears.

“No, nonono, it’s gonna be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be…” He watched as she choked on blood, her chest trying to regenerate itself but failing miserably. Attacks directly to the heart or brain were always more difficult to repair than any others.

Carefully moving his hands over the wound, he channeled as much magic as he could into them, hoping to stem the flow of blood. One of his magic attributes was LIFE, which allowed him to use healing magic. Usually, it would be imbued in armor or weapons that he created, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

There was no visible change to the wound, but Heather groaned weakly, coughing as she struggled to breathe. It was a slight improvement, so he kept channeling his magic into her and turned his attention back towards the fight.

With a scream, Jamie was flung though the air, her right arm flapping limply as her staff clattered against the far wall. She hit the ground and rolled, immediately jumping back to her feet before diving away from the charging beast. She threw her good arm up, her fingers forming into a claw that she pushed towards the beast, her eyes wide and desperate.

With a loud crash, the creature was slammed into the far wall by a large block of stone, and it groaned as it pushed itself back to its feet.

“Ah… not again, not now…” he heard Jamie whisper as it righted itself and bounded towards her. It leaped into the air, screeching as it dove at her from above, one of its many limbs raised behind it to strike.

There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere as a cold wind rolled off Jamie, and the creature faltered for an instant. That was all Jamie needed. She leapt into the air, far faster than was natural, punting the creature away from her with a brutal kick.

It screamed in pain, flying back, wildly swinging its limbs as it cartwheeled through the air. It bounced like a skipping stone along the ground a few times before flipping back upright, multiple crushed pews left in its wake. Jamie immediately dove towards it, and even from this distance Paul could see the bloodthirsty grin adorning her face.

A cold hand grazing his own pulled his attention away from the fight, and he turned back towards Heather as she gazed up at him. Her bloodied lips were pulled in a strained smile, the wound in her chest finally starting to close.

“Go,” she choked out. “I’ll be fine. She’s… not herself…”

He turned back towards Jamie, finally processing what he should’ve noticed earlier. Usually, she fought with a savage grace that came from years of experience, minimizing movement to conserve energy. Deft blocks, momentum-based strikes; anything to increase her power and speed while utilizing as little energy as possible.

Right now, there was none of that. The creature flung one of its limbs towards her, and she tanked it head-on with her reacquired staff instead of dodging, letting out a grunt as the limb was stopped cold. Her feet sunk into the ground from the impact, subtly being reinforced with her EARTH magic to keep her footing.

A deep chuckle filled the air as Jamie pushed the limb away, bringing her staff back for a wide, telegraphed swing. The creature leapt back just in time, barely dodging the blow as a rush of wind blew it off its feet, sending it careening into the far wall.

Paul was sprinting towards her as the creature forced itself back to its feet, its many eyes all focused on Jamie, glowing with hatred. She flashed towards it, and he tried to call for her to stop, but it was useless. She was too far gone to listen to reasoning.

Drawing her staff back for another telegraphed swing, the creature threw itself to the side, avoiding most of the blow. It retaliated with a swift strike to her chest, and she gasped as she shot across the room with a loud crack, cratering against the wall.

Her violet eyes were unfocussed and glassy, their inner glow fading as they shifted back to their natural green. The cold, ominous presence surrounding her vanished, leaving her to slump to the ground with a groan.

The beast let out a loud screech of triumph, and Paul stumbled as his head pounded from the noise. He clenched his jaw and pushed forward, his limbs burning as he forced himself to move faster than his STATS would usually allow.

With a wordless cry, the beast leapt into the air and dove towards Jamie’s prone form, opening its maw to reveal tOOo MAnY RoWWs OfF TEeeTThhH–

Paul acknowledged the impossible sight before him and forced his brain to ignore it. He couldn’t afford to be distracted. There was one shot at this, and he needed to make it count.

He flung his arm forward as hard as he could, his hammer flying from his grip and sailing towards them. It twirled end over end as it flew, slamming into the wall behind Jamie just before the creature reached her.

There was a flash of light, and the creature flew back, screaming its rage to the world at being stopped from devouring its prey once again. A golden shield of energy surrounded Jamie; a glowing symbol of hands clasped in prayer floating above it. Already, the symbol was flickering violently as cracks appeared across the shield’s surface, barely able to hold itself together from the impact.

Paul felt a pain in his chest, and he glanced towards the corner of his vision where he could view his HP. It was steadily draining from the effort of producing the energy shield, and it took everything he had to mentally focus on the task at hand. At most, it could probably hold against one more strike before failing, and he’d be out of commission after that.

The creature stumbled back to its feet, looking like it’d been thrown in a blender. At least half of its spikes were broken and cracked, and blood pooled from the indents in its carcass. It growled at them before its black skin bubbled and shifted, the creature compressing itself into a small, boiling ball of darkness.

Light began to vanish as the torches went out one by one, and Paul gulped as he moved between the creature and Jamie, hoping to buy some time. He’d forgotten that most bosses had second phases, and a feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach as he realized that the fight was only just starting.

YOU DARE DEFY ME?

Paul shuddered as the words washed over him, a garbled mess that seemed near incomprehensible but still somehow made sense. It made his head throb; his brain being run through a shredder.

I AM THE PINNACLE OF ALL LIFE. A CREATURE OF THE ABYSS. AND YOU, YOU, BELIEVE YOU CAN MATCH–

Darkness surrounded them, so complete that Paul couldn’t even see his own hands, so he didn’t know exactly what happened. All he could hear was a wet squelch before the beast let out a high-pitched shriek.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he heard Heather taunt. Her voice was shaky and light, and she sounded exhausted. “Walking, talking, pile of biohazardous waste of space.”

YOU–

There was a loud crash, and Paul saw a flicker of red lightning out of the corner of his eye. More crashes followed, interspaced by shrieks and screams of agony.

His body was tense as his HP continued to drop, pouring it into producing the energy shield protecting Jamie. He kept glancing at everything and nothing in the darkness, feeling his heart racing in his chest. Whatever happened, he needed to make sure that at least Jamie made it through this alive.

It only lasted a few minutes, but to Paul it felt like hours. Sweat glistened against his skin from nerves, the tension engulfing him steadily increasing with every passing second. Finally, with a last ear-spitting scream, the darkness began to lift as the torches slowly blazed back to life.

Paul squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light, his breath catching in his throat as he finally caught a glimpse of Heather.

Her outfit was in tatters, barely even scraps left to preserve her modesty. Her jaw had been torn off, and if he looked for it, he could see straight down into her throat past the blood spurting from her wounds. Both her arms looked like they’d been sent through meat tenderizers, her knives hanging from leather straps in her limp hands.

A single red eye glared at him from beneath her bangs, her other eye having been ripped from her skull.

He took an involuntary step back, trying to force himself to stay calm. It was only Heather; someone he was becoming friends with. No reason to be worried.

Still… the excitement and pleasure pouring from her good eye were enough to send him into a panic. He could barely think past the absolute certainty that, even though she looked like death, he was next on the list.

She gurgled, her eye widening as it flickered back to her natural blue, and it felt like the world snapped back into place as his unnatural fear dissipated.

What was that? He watched as Heather collapsed to her knees, breathing heavily as her wounds gradually healed. It was surprisingly quick, and he shuddered as he considered what she must’ve done to herself to have such an insane health regeneration.

At first, he’d chalked up Heather and Jamie’s weird issues to them having been alone for far too long. It was only logical that they’d be distrusting after what happened to them. He’d seen what happened with Jamie a few times, the way that her eyes flashed with malice and hunger, but he’d ignored it, thinking it was just some quirk from their time alone.

Now, though, he knew it was something more than that. He’d seen the shift in Jamie’s mental state, even in the natural atmosphere that surrounded her, halfway through her fight with the creature. He’d watched as Heather became numb to pain, grinning from the excitement of another hard battle.

None of that was normal, and none of it lined up with the few things he’d learned about his companions. Something else was going on, and he wasn’t about to wait and figure it out. Glancing back at Jamie as she groaned, forcing herself off the floor, he resolved himself.

They needed to have a conversation. Maybe it was too soon, maybe they didn’t want to talk about it with a man they barely knew; he no longer cared. Jamie had been fighting well before she'd shifted, but that shift had caused her to falter. Her telegraphed moves were why the beast had taken her out so easily, even though she had the upper hand.

He focused on Heather again, watching as she grunted and grimaced, tears leaking out of her eyes as her wounds continued healing.

…Maybe he should wait for a while longer before forcing them to talk. That didn’t look fun, and he felt they all needed some time to decompress.

One more thought crossed his mind as his nerves finally settled down, bringing his plans crashing down in an instant. If they obviously have an issue with me traveling with them, why in the world did they invite me to come along?