Darryl looked at the row of corpses they laid out in a circle around the Stairway. Fourteen people died during this battle, most of which were low-levels taken down by a nasty side-glance, and a few including Small, Carter and the maid had died to the Hag’s other tricks.

There were a lot more corpses than just the fourteen here, everyone agreeing that this pyre beyond the Vespa’s reach in a room mere hours from collapse would be a good place to give the fallen their final resting place. Several people were carrying dead crawlers in their inventory, so Darryl wasn’t the first when he took out Martin’s corpse to lay amongst the others.

After that, the looting began. Most loot went to the new guys, the few charms and baubles that the Hag hadn’t used were one-time use magical items not worth arguing over anyway. The gear from those that died was given to their party members out of respect, but often a few items were given away to those that needed it more. And as the amount of underequipped crawlers had dropped drastically, it meant that everyone could get some decent stuff now.

Darryl’s team hadn’t gotten much, only their share of the rich bounty of Raven Feathers, Rat Tuft and Toad Warts that counted as alchemical ingredients. Which made sense, they already had a lot of good items while some people had just one or two.

After that, the group didn’t split back up into their small parties. There seemed to be no advantage to being a party leader and no limit to how many party members a group could have, the only issue being the small amounts of experience leeched off by people uninvolved in the fight. Which shouldn’t be an issue if everyone kept grinding without inactive delvers mooching. Thus everyone agreed to stay in the same group, split up into smaller Neighbourhood-clearing teams. If they had to slay another Borough Boss again, everyone would be nearby to help.

All in all, everyone was getting along and things were looking up.

And then arguments rose.

It started when Mr. Geruet and Raphael recruited Gamma to their team, and then refused to invite any of the low level guys. The air of comradery shattered when things returned to the strong refusing to carry the weak, followed by someone bringing up Corey’s involvement in player-killing as a reason for Small’s gear to be shared instead of being kept by Epsilon, topped off by people arguing whether the escort mission for the rest of the camp was mandatory or something they should get compensated for.

In the end, the two Frenchmen didn’t recruit anyone but the Gamma remnants and descended down the stairs to end their part of the arguments entirely. They didn’t leave the party, but it certainly soured the mood.

A few of the more capable leftovers then grouped together to follow their example. Mandy and Sandy teamed up with Seith, Earl and that guy in the trenchcoat before closing applications, leaving the last half dozen low levelled people to turn their hopeful eyes towards Darryl’s party.

“Hey Darryl…” Alexa said. “I know I don’t always listen and sometimes need you to rescue me, but if it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, could I like, maybe, please…”

Darryl looked at the others. “Guys-”

“Why do you even ask?” Elise interrupted him, and Ben nodded.

“She’ll only be a child for a few more hours depending on her racial choice, and she’s proven courageous and useful even if she’s reckless at times.” Thomas said. “Also, she’s a child. We can’t just leave her to fend for herself.”

“Yay!” Alexa cheered, hugging Darryl’s leg.

“Everyone else needs to prove themselves first, this is no pity party.” Elise snarled as other people hesitantly approached.

“We’re going to go back to the camp and taking along as many people as we can. Who’s with us?” Darryl asked.

“Me! I am!” Alexa said, raising her hand.

Darryl looked at the others, and they nodded. Alexa yelped and then laughed as he picked her up, but frowned as Darryl carried her away from the door.

“Wait, where are we going?” Alexa asked.

“No more dangerous situations for you this floor, Alexa.” Darryl said. “Go pick out a nice class, we’ll catch up with you soon.”

“No, don’t! I want to… Stop! Darryl, you meanie!” Alexa shouted as he threw her down the Stairway, her shout spontaneously cutting off when she disappeared.

“Off you go!” Elise said, throwing Cuddles after her. “Finally, I won’t have to carry him under one arm to keep him from charging at every damned Vespa we see. He was getting heavy.”

“Alright, with that out of the way, who’s going to come with us?” Thomas raised his voice. “Rest assured, if things go awry we’ll prioritise our own safety and not risk dying by timeout. We will be facing the danger posed by the Vespa, though.”

“We’re with you.” Corey said, Bea and Tall nodding behind him.

“Count me out.” Seith said.

“What about Phil?” Sandy asked. “He’s still at the Safe Zone.”

“Who? Oh, right. Him. Nah, we’re not going to carry any weaklings.” Mandy said. “I’m with Seith, the longer we hold back so that others can catch up, the more likely we’ll end up dead ourselves in the long run. Let’s go.”

Sandy mouthed the word ‘Sorry.’ as she followed the others to the Staircase and disappeared, and a few of the people without a group followed them. Only two remained.

“Dennis, Grace, glad to have you two.” Darryl said. “Thanks, Corey.”

“Let’s hurry. We’ve got plenty of time in theory, but I see a lot of Vespa out there.” Corey said.

___ ___ ___ ___

Countdown until level collapse: 0 days 3 hours 30 minutes

“Quick, get in! Get in! Don’t worry about the Vespa, just get in and we’ll be safe!” Darryl shouted as he kept open the door and held up his shield to draw some of the acid to him. His Plate Protector was slick with the stuff, the acid running down in little streams.

The others quickly rushed in and Darryl closed the door behind him.

“Damn, *Pant* that was crazy.” Ben said. “It’s like every Vespa in the Borough is converging in on us. There’s literally hundreds of them out there.”

“I think that’s exactly the case here.” Thomas said, Magic Missile’ing the Vespa that managed to get in before it could hurt anyone in here. With the Safe Zone condemned, only the door was holding them out. “There were already too many of them before Elise smashed that Potent Vespa and put a beacon on herself, so I think the AI wants to get some last minute entertainment out of this ridiculous plague.”

“I already told you, I didn’t see it was a Potent Vespa until it was too late!” Elise said. “They look identical to the others!”

“We know, and we’re not blaming you.” Darryl said. “It happened, so now we have to wait an hour for it to wear off before we go.”

“Nonsense. I’m going to wash the gunk off my bat and body and I’ll just put this Tavern Wench outfit in my inventory. No need to do this at the last possible moment, and we don’t need charisma on the trip back.” Elise said. “You guys rest up and make sure these people are ready to leave.”

“Could you throw the outfit out before you wash up? We can toss it out of the Safe Zone and draw more Vespa to this location.” Thomas said.

“Isn’t that the exact opposite of what we want to do, though?” Someone in the crowd asked.

“Better fight them here at a bottleneck than out there with you guys around.” Ben shrugged, following Elise.

A few minutes later he emerged from the bedrooms again carrying her dress. He opened the door, quickly threw it out and slammed it shut again. Four Vespa made their way inside, but were easily dispatched.

“Damn it, they spat at the door. We’ve got a few places that the acid is going to burn through.” Ben shouted at the others.

“Alright, anyone with a piercing weapon or torches looking to get some last minute experience and maybe a loot box?” Thomas said. “You can stab vespa through a small hole, you won’t be getting easier experience than that!”

“They’re not spitting if you stab them before they can come through!” Ben shouted over his shoulder while stabbing into one of the holes large enough for a Vespa’s head to fit through.

A few crawlers stepped forwards to play a dangerous game of Stab-A-Mole.

“Does anyone have a healing spell or ability?” Thomas asked the group. “I’ll take the silence as a no. Very well, we’ll just have to regain our stamina and health by waiting for a bit, then.”

“I’ve got some potions.” One of the women hesitantly said.

“So do we, but we better use those on the run considering the cooldown.” Thomas said in a ‘Thank you but that won’t work’ tone.

“There’s a cooldown?” Someone said. “What? I only have three of them, I ‘m not going to just drink one to test it out.”

Thomas frowned and was about to say something when Corey interrupted him. “Zartas is a real asshole, you already know that. Never offered any of us that free health potion you’re meant to get in the tutorial.”

“Right. Well, no matter.” Thomas said. “Uhum, so…”

“Everyone, listen up! As you know, there’s a whole plague of Vespa out there with even more incoming! This is not a safe escort mission or even one that may get dangerous, this is an extremely dangerous and rushed run to the Stairways that will most certainly see some of you dead!” Thomas said. “We do not have the time, the numbers or the luxury to do anything but take care of the biggest swarms and the closest threats, and you’ll have to take care of yourselves for the most part.”

“Uhm, you’re not really inspiring a lot of confidence there, bucko.” Someone said.

“Not trying to.” Thomas said. “If you still harbour any thoughts that this isn’t real, that you shouldn’t have to expose yourself to danger or that people will continue to protect you and do all the heavy lifting, then I suggest you get rid of that sentiment or stay back here. We are already doing a lot more than the others by risking our lives coming back here, do not expect us to risk it further because you expect to be pampered!

“When we escorted you guys from the previous Safe Zone to this one, you had to run and you had to keep running for a long time. The situation then was already pretty bad, but we could still go a bit slower and you didn’t have to run for that long.

“As you may remember, we still lost eleven people to the Vespa that trip. Eleven of you died, even though we double-backed a few times to pick up stragglers and deal with encroaching Vespa. And when we ran back here as a small, well-armed group, we still lost Dennis to the onslaught out there! That was when the number of Vespa around was barely a quarter of what it is now!

“So let me be clear: If you get separated from the group, no one will come for you! If you have to catch your breath and get left behind, you have to catch up yourself! If you fail to stick with the group and end up lost or alone, you’ll die! If you are wounded, heal yourself! If there are Vespa and none of us are around, you fight them yourselves! If you can’t or don’t follow these instructions, then please stay at the Safe Zone!

“Now, everyone please take turns going to the bathroom and really squeeze yourself dry! If even one of you pisses your pants and summons a Rage Elemental, we’re all dead! You can’t stop along the way, even if we run past a Bathroom! Make sure that you’ve got no pressure down there!”

With that, Thomas sat down at one of the tables to rest his legs with the others. “What? Someone has to do it when Elise isn’t here.” He whispered.

“Okay. Everyone that wants a turn to Whack-A-Vespa, please line up.” Darryl awkwardly said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Anyone that doesn’t want to go to the Stairways any more, please go to the bedrooms. And try to wake up everyone who’s sleeping in there right now.”

“Shit, I forgot about that.” Thomas muttered. “I’ll have to do the whole speech all over again…”

“Death by acid to the face is a much more painful way to go than the instant collapse of the Dungeon in three hours!” Tall said. “No one will blame you if you want to stay here!”

Corey elbowed him.

“What? We’re mostly here to collect the two girls or find ourselves another support patsy.” Tall sullenly muttered. “This will be easier with the fewer people we have to escort.”

“Right, we should do something like that, too.” Ben said. “Elise has been pretty clear that she’s only our Charisma mule because we don’t have anyone else. And they don’t have to fight, just heal and talk to NPCs.”

“Right. I’ll go ask around.” Thomas said. “But no promises, we could get one of those better levelled people that helped fight the Hag.”

“Actually, maybe it’s better if I go ask around.” Darryl quickly said. “I’m not really a people person, but you just…”

“Fair point.” Thomas said. “They’re all yours.”

Darryl got up and approached the group of people that seemed almost reluctant to do anything but stand around and gape at them. He really hoped that they were going to be faster when they moved out. And looking at the clock, that time would come a lot faster than he was comfortable with.