(Colt)

“This,” Tyler introduces me to the woman who will be supervising our training before we go to the Divine Dungeon, to make sure we’re as prepped as we can be in a short period of time. “Is the Boob Lady.”

“That’s not my name or title,” the woman says.

“Well, you do have big boobs,” Tyler says.

“Hello, Boob-san,” I give her a small bow. “I look forward to learning under your instruction.”

“Now you’ve got the outsider doing it as well,” she glares at him.

“Boob-san?” Tyler looks at me, and I whisper in his ear what it means. He grins at me. “Alright! Boob-san, it is! Hey, Boob-san – whatcha gonna teach us today?”

“Your father gave me permission to beat your ass.”

“Really?” Tyler looks excited. “What else did he give you permission to beat?”

She stares at him as we crack up laughing.

“Listen up, boys,” she says sternly. “In one week, the two of you are going to be entering the Divine Dungeon to advance to the Second Tier. In that time, the two of you will need to learn at least one basic spell, two if possible. You will need-”

“So what spell are you gonna teach me?” Tyler asks. “Colt’s gonna learn fire magics.”

“You know,” I look at Tyler. “We can just pull out our tomes and use those, and she can just supervise us. I mean, they were Divine Quest rewards. They’ve got to be loads better than a teacher.”

“You’re right!” He exclaims, looking at me. “I forgot about the tomes! We could’ve used them on our way up here!”

We pull out our tomes and flip them open as Boob-san stares at us, looking pissed.

“First spell in my book is Firebolt,” I tell Tyler.

“Icebolt for me,” he says. “Last one to learn theirs is a rotten egg!”

They use that phrase here?

“You’re on!” I tell him, then start studying the pages on Firebolt, memorizing the runes and words for it, and their meanings and interactions.

“Hey,” Tyler looks at Boob-san. “Can you be our practice target?”

“No!” She snaps. “You two need to-”

“Firebolt!” I hold my right arm out, bracing it with my left hand, my right hand upside-down. Tyler does it at the same time, exclaiming, “Icebolt!”

A bolt of fire and a bolt of ice shoot from our hands, and an icy barrier appears in front of her before the spells strike.

“Tie!” We exclaim.

“BOYS!” She yells. “DO NOT ATTACK ME!”

“But you got a barrier up in time!” I protest.

“Yeah!” Tyler nods. “We knew you’d defend yourself!” He looks at me. “Did Tyr do all these weird scribbles and artwork in yours?”

“Yeah!” I show him the pages for Firebolt, and he shows me the pages for Icebolt. They’re covered in doodles of puppies and chess pieces, hearts and stars, and just random squiggles. “Think he got bored when writing these?”

“Probably!” Tyler grins at me, then his eyes widen. “IS THAT A PICTURE OF A KITTEN GETTING STABBED BY A DUCK?”

“It is!”

Tyler starts laughing so hard, he ends up on the ground, and I do, too. Boob-san storms off before we recover. Once we stop laughing and catch our breaths, we look for a barrier spell to learn. He finds Icy Barrier, and I find Heat Barrier. His creates a thin, but sturdy barrier of ice in front of him, and mine creates a barrier of heat to stop or end attacks.

We race to learn them, and succeed at the same time. Weirdly, Heat Barrier goes into the ‘heat’ Spellbook in my Skills, not with the Fire Spells.

For the next week, Tyler and I work on Leveling our bolt and barrier spells, as well as Aura Claws.

When he suggested that he learn it and we Level it, I got scared, but he talked me through it and into using it again. I flashed back to when I killed that woman, but after I used it a few times, the fear and horror faded.

At the end of the week, we have our bolt and barrier spells to Level 3, and claws to Level 2. We both also gained Aura Manipulation and our respective elements’ manipulations.

Once we feel we’re ready, we make our way out of their town. Instead of using the tokens that give us access to a Divine Dungeon, we’re going to use the one that popped up not far from here. It’s set into a small cliff, a pair of ornate doors decorated with chess pieces. They’re all pawns, and each one has the symbol of an element on it. A crown rests in the middle of the design, a golden pattern split in half by the two doors.

I touch the doors, making to push them open, and a window forms in my vision.

Divine Dungeon Access Requested:

Possible Instances:

First Tier

---Note: If you wish to Advance to the next Tier, you must select the highest-available Tier---

---Note: If you are Advancing to the next Tier, all members of your party will enter simultaneously---

---Note: If you are Advancing to the next Tier, all party Members over your Tier will not enter---

“You ready?” I ask Tyler, and he nods.

I select First Tier, and a moment later, we’re standing in a hall with a solid wall behind us. Every five feet down the walls, on either side, is a torch that lights the stone passage.

We walk forward to the first fork, which leads left and right, and look at each other.

“A maze?” We ask.

“Looks like it,” Tyler looks both directions. “I can’t sense anything coming from either, but if there’s no time limit, there are possibly monsters. I suck at mazes. Got any thoughts?”

“Back in my world,” I say. “There’s a story of a girl who used a ball of yarn to get through a maze. If she came across the yarn already down, she’d been there before. It also let her know the route to go to leave – she’d just follow the yarn to leave.”

“We don’t have yarn,” Tyler says. “Plus, if there are monsters, they’d probably sever it or something.”

“I didn’t think about that,” I nod. “The maze she was in had monsters, too. I guess that’s why it was a myth, and not something that happened. How should we decide which direction to go?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, looking both ways, and I get an idea, pulling my wallet out of my inventory. “That’s a funny-looking wallet, Colt.”

“It’s my wallet from my old world,” I explain. “It was in my backpack when Tyr brought me here, so when he changed my clothes, it didn’t disappear. I stuck it in my inventory to see if I could do that without everything disappearing, and it worked.”

I pull out a quarter and put the wallet away, then hold up the coin, heads facing him.

“Your guys’ coins,” I say. “Don’t have two sides, just the same thing on both. On my world,” I turn the coin so heads is facing me. “Our coins have a heads side, and a tails. This is tails, the other is head. What if we flip a coin at intersections, and decide which way to go through that? If we get heads, we go one way, if we go tails, we go the other?”

“Sure,” he nods. “Wait – what if it’s a three-way intersection?”

“Um,” I think for a moment. “How about this – at three-way intersections, we flip it four times. If heads dominates, we go the heads way, if tails dominates, we go the tails way, and if they tie – two each – we go straight?”

“Sounds good!” He says. “Heads right, tails left?”

“Yeah!” I nod.

“What if we come across monsters?” He asks, and the coin vanishes.

“I can just stick back in my inventory,” I tell him. “I have more coins, too, though that’s my only quarter – it’s the biggest of them, except for the half-dollar.”

“So,” he says. “The bigger the coin, the more it’s worth?”

“Nope,” I shake my head. “The dime – worth ten cents – is smaller than the nickle and penny, which are worth five and one.”

“Oh, okay,” he says. “Flip it! Let’s see which way we’re going!”

I flip it, and it lands on tails, so we take off to the left, where we eventually come to a path to our right, or can go straight ahead. We didn’t consider this, but it’s fixed by changing it so that if one direction doesn’t exist at a fork, but ahead does, we just swap that direction’s side of the coin for straight ahead.

After almost an hour of going in what feels like circles, we come across our first monsters – a pair of goblins wielding clubs. An Icebolt and Firebolt later, and we’ve moved past them.

Every now and then, we come across between one and five goblins, but for the most part, don’t really encounter anything – not even traps. Our Luck goes up twice in the six hours we spend in the maze before we reach a pair of doors.

Some words are inscribed on a metal plate next to the doors.

Congratulations!

This is one of five sets of doors in the maze of your Trial!

One of them leads to the next Stage!

Two of them lead to certain death!

Two of them lead to the beginning of the Maze!

To proceed, the Party Leader must push on the doors!

Tyler and I look at each other.

“What do you want to bet,” he says. “That all five doors are identical?”

“They probably are,” I agree. “Want to risk it?”

“Flip the coin?” He asks. “If we die, then I’m going to haunt Tyr. If we get the ones that lead us back to the beginning, we can try again.”

“I’m getting hungry,” I grab my stomach.

“I am, too,” he holds his, looking depressed. “We should’ve brought food with us – no one attempted to go for the Second Tier yet in Kielv, so no one knew how long it would take.”

“It’s probably different for everyone,” I say. “Flip the coin?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Heads, we move on ahead, tails, we turn back.”

I nod, then flip the quarter, and it lands on heads. We bump fists, then I push on the doors, and we find ourselves in a small room with a pair of beds and a table with food on it.

+1 LUK!

Congratulations!

You have passed the First Stage of your Advancement Trial!

You have 8 (Eight) Hours to rest up!

---Note: If you are sleeping when the final forty-five minutes begin, you will be woken---

---Note: You cannot fall asleep in the final forty-five minutes of your rest---

“Yes!” We both exclaim, then grin at each other.

We run to the table and sit down to eat, devouring as much food as we can before we lie down on the two beds, promptly passing out. When we wake up, we use the bathroom that magically appeared in here, then eat another meal and wait for time to run out.

The moment time runs out, we appear in a cavern with one exit – an exit with a shimmering barrier in front of it.

Slay all the monsters in the arena to complete the Stage!

The message hovers in my vision for a few moments, then fades away, replaced by a countdown. Tyler and I look at each other, then to the tunnel that’s probably not the exit.

“What do you say,” Tyler says. “To the idea that that’s where the monsters are?”

“Probably,” I say, and the timer hits zero.

---Wave 1---

The barrier fades for a moment, and I hear something running through it. A few moments later, five short, stubby goblins wielding clubs run out, and the barrier reforms. With a quick use of our bolt spells, the goblins die.

A timer for thirty seconds appears in our vision, and once it hits zero, the barrier fades again, and we five ten goblins, each of them wielding swords.

Every time we complete a wave, we have thirty seconds to rest up. Each wave is harder than the last.

We fight goblins and kobolds and spiders and rats and slimes and bears and wolves and bats and so much more. Fifty waves of battle, with our magic, our aura, and our weapons, before the final battle, an ogre, begins, and by the time we finish it, we’re beaten, bruised, battered, cut up, and just plain exhausted.

We appear in another rest area, too exhausted to bother eating and just go straight to bed. There’s another Stage awaiting us after this one. I'm dreading it, whatever it is.

It went from hard (made easier through luck), to even harder (and we barely made it through that), and I hope that the next Stage is the final one.

When we wake, we eat, use the bathrooms, then wait for the final few minutes to pass by.

The moment time is up, we appear in a room carved out of stone, possibly in some sort of mountain. There are four doors – one on each wall. All four walls – and doors – are identical.

Tyler and I look at each other, and the annoyance in his eyes is just as strong as the annoyance I'm feeling.

"Tyr is just tormenting us, isn't he?" He asks.

"Yeah," I say. "He is. What do you want to bet that if we go through a door, we'll end up in a room exactly like this?"

"Everything," Tyler sighs. "You know that's how it's going to be."

"Yeah," I say. "It is. How should we decide which door to go through?"

"Let's just go through one," he says. "We'll take turns picking. We're going to have to rely on luck."

I nod, and we start going through the doors. Each room is empty, and identical, and we can't see it until we've passed through the door, the entrance a blackness that we can pass through. After probably fifty rooms, we get the thought to mark the walls. Our knives don't work, though, but we find that I can scorch them, so anytime we go through a door, I place a print of my hand on the wall to the right of the door, and to the left of the one we came through.

That way, we know if we already went through that door, if we'd already come through that door.

After another fifty rooms, Tyler and I step through the door we just passed through, and find my mark gone.

"That's… cruel," Tyler says. "How the heck are we supposed to get through this? We can't even leave a mark so we know where we've been!"

"Let's try this," I say. "One of us goes through a door, and we both go through a different door in our respective rooms."

He nods, so we try that, and the doors… won't open. We talk, and decide that the center door probably has to be closed, so we close it…

Or try to.

It won't close. We try for probably twenty minutes before determining that we must both be in the same room for a door to close, and the door has to be closed for another to open. We can't even both be in the same room, and try to pass through two doors – only one can be open at a time.

"This one," Tyler sighs. "Is pure luck."

"It's weird, though," I tell him. "There's no threats, no timers, nothing. Are we just going to wander around until we find the right room? There's no danger to this Stage."

None at all.

Tyler and I resume just picking random doors, then decide to just pick the door to the right of the one we entered through. After probably an hour, we decide to leave one of the Horned Rabbit Pelts in our inventory in a room, to see if we're going through circles.

As soon as we close the door, it reappeared in my inventory.

Tyler and I both groan in frustration, then keep moving through the place.

After probably three hours of passing through identical rooms, Tyler and I sit down, mentally exhausted, even if our bodies are ready to keep moving on.

What sick psycho designed this place?

Oh, right – Tyr. Why? Probably out of boredom. He had to have known we'd be coming here. And there's a good chance Trials aren't the same for each person or group that enters through that same Divine Dungeon.

"What is something we haven't tried?" Tyler asks me, and I think about it.

"Walking on our hands."

"True," he says. "But I don't think that would be the answer."

"Nor do I," I say. "But it's Tyr. Sometimes, you just have to think outside the box, or go about things in a…"

"A what?" Tyler asks as I scramble to my feet.

"A backwards fashion!" I say. "Let's try going through a door backwards!"

"It can't be that simple," Tyler groans. "If it is, I'm going to kill Tyr."

"You and me, both!" I tell him.

We walk over to a door, open it, then turn around and walk through it backwards. It looks exactly the same on the other side, and I'm about to scream in frustration when I turn around.

The room is identical to the others – but with just one other door, on the opposite wall. Instead of the plain, wooden doors we've been passing through, that one is an elaborate door, possibly carved of wood, but possibly something else.

It's decorated with designs of flowers and animals, a single crown carved into the center of it.

"At last!" Tyler exclaims, and I laugh.

"At last!" I agree.

How, exactly, were people supposed to figure that out? The only danger I could tell that one had was from starvation.

Maybe teams that didn't get along would get into fights, and probably take much longer to figure it out. They might have even killed each other over their disagreements.

Tyler and I walk to the new door and open it, passing through the blackness, and I find myself alone, nothing else around me.

Nothing.

It's completely black, as far as the eye can see, with no visible ground.

Congratulations!

You have successfully Advanced to Tier 2!

Your Level has been reset to 0, and each Level will require more effort to gain

+5 LIF!

Select 1 (one) Acquired Class

Every time you gain a Level for the Second Tier, you will acquire an amount of Stat Points equivalent to how many this Class granted upon acquisition

Choose Wisely! This cannot be undone, and you will be stuck with this decision until you reach the Third Tier!

Squire: +2 STR, +1 END

Thief: +1 AGI, +1 INT, +1 PER

Ruffian: +2 AGI, +1 INT

Thief II: +2 AGI, +1 INT, +2 PER

Martial Artist: +1 STR, +1 AGI, +1 END

Rogue: +2 AGI, +2 INT, +1 PER

What Class do I want to pick? I'm more of a rogue, with my build and stuff, and most of my Classes are akin to rogues, too. Two thief Classes, a ruffian, and a rogue.

Despite that, I really, really want to be a knight. That's always been my dream. Should I go with Squire, or Rogue? Or maybe Martial Artist, for the balance between the two?

Well, sort of a balance. It leans more toward Squire than it does Rogue.

But Tyler will definitely pick Rogue, which means that, while I'd be physically stronger than him, he'd move faster than me. I'd fall way behind to him in speed.

But being a knight has always been my dream.

This is so hard!

"You're taking forever!" Tyr suddenly appears in front of me. "Colt – you've been in here for an hour now! Come on! Pick already! Tyler's waiting for you!"

"I can't decide," I say.

"You look like you're about to cry."

"I probably am," I sniffle. "I don't know what to pick, Tyr! I want to be a knight, so Squire is the better choice for me, but it means I'd fall behind Tyler in speed, and then he'd have no one to chase around with! We wouldn't be able to compete like we did before, and he'd feel so bad for that! He wouldn't be happy, and it wouldn't be fun for us! I'm just going to get Rogue, so we can-"

"DON'T PICK ROGUE!" Tyr screams, startling me. He's holding his hands up, eyes wide, looking panicked. "I am so glad I came in here!"

"Why?" I ask. "I know Tyler would have, since he likes rogue stuff, and wants to be a rogue and everything, and-"

"He picked Squire."

"He did?" I ask. "Why? He doesn't want to be a knight, he only got that Class before so we'd have the same Classes as each other, to make things even, and based on us when we compete, not our Classes."

"For you," Tyr says. "He picked Squire knowing you wanted to be a knight, and figuring you'd pick it because of that. Just imagine, him picking that for you and you Rogue for him. That would have been hilarious, and I should have let it happen, but you're right – the two of you would not have fun that way. He picked Squire because he knew that he'd have fun competing with you either way, and that Squire would make you happiest, and so probably be the thing you picked."

"Oh," I say. "So he seriously picked Squire?"

"Uh-huh," he nods. "Once you pick, it'll manage the overflow of Experience from your Quest. The two of you will be at the same Level, but you'll have to see it for yourself. Once that's done, you'll both leave. Though you spent different amounts of time deciding, you're in a different time from the outside world, and so you'll both end up leaving at the same time.

"Anyway," he sighs. "I'm going to go, now that I know why you're taking forever. Pick Squire, so you two are even, or Rogue, if you want to beat him in speed. I'm outta here, and don't forget to come visit me sometime!"

"I won't, Tyr," I tell him. "I'm going to return to your kingdom once we beat the Towers."

"Got it!" He gives me a thumbs-up, then vanishes.

You have Selected Squire

+2 STR, +1 END every Level

Confirm: Y/N?

Yes.

Managing Quest Experience Overflow

Level: 12

Adding Stats from Tier Bonus

+24 STR, +12 END

A few moments after those messages leave my vision, I appear back on the mountain, outside of the doors to the Divine Dungeon, Tyler standing next to me.

"So," he says. "What Class did you pick?"

I throw myself at him, wrapping him in a hug.

"Uh… why are you hugging me?" He asks.

"You're the bestest friend I could've ever hoped for," I do my best to fight tears. "Tyr told me about you picking Squire so that our speeds and stuff wouldn't be different because of our Classes. I love you so much, Tyler, and want to have lots of fun with you and play lots of games and do lots of challenges with you. You're my first friend, and you're all I could ever want in one. Thank you so much, Tyler."

"That's what friends are for," he laughs, and I let go of him, taking a step back. "To me, my Class doesn't matter so much, as long as I have someone to compete against. I knew you wanted to be a knight, so figured you'd take Squire."

"I was about to take Rogue when Tyr told me that," I admit. "Because I thought you'd be happier being a rouge than a knight, and thought you'd have more fun if we challenged each other without our Classes giving us an advantage over the other."

"I'd be happy as a rogue," he grins at me. "But we're already rogues, right? I mean, more than half of our Classes are some sort of rogue. This just means we'll be really strong, really durable rogues."

"Next Tier," I hold out my right hand, pinky out. "You and I are taking on a rogue Class for our bonus."

"Okay," he says, then looks at my pinky. "Why are you doing that."

"Hook your pinky to mine," I say. "And it's a deal."

He does, and I give it one shake.

"It's a deal!" I grin at him, and he grins back.