Akaisha looked over at the distortions again.

“Can we use the red distortion and get out without finishing the floor? How does that work?” She asked no one in particular.

“Of course, but you will have to find the stairs back up, same if you take the green,” explained Silah.

“Well, should we do the red then, just to see, no? We are all pretty healthy.”

Silah looked over his shoulder at General Nui who didn’t react at all. He looked over at the others who shrugged and told him that it was up to him. Silah sighed heavily, as he weighed the team’s options. He saw Akaisha, practically bouncing up and down on the spot, Munodo who looked tense but ready, Nyika, tired and uncertain but still in fighting form, and finally Chirembo who was still recovering from being knocked unconscious. He closed his eyes and screwed up his face like what he was about to say left a bad taste in his mouth.

“No, we should take the green for the loot but leave, we are too low on Mana and tired. We need to pull out and train more together, then next time, in a couple of decadi, we will clear the third floor as our final hurrah before we Tier out of the orphanage.” Silah sounded dejected but his tone was resolute.

Akaisha deflated visibly but didn’t argue. Everyone agreed and Silah reached out and touched the green distortion. It twisted and snapped before disappearing, leaving behind an ornate sword that floated in the air for a second before surrendering to gravity. Silah snatched it out of the air. He whistled as he examined it then handed it off to Chiratzo.

“Let’s head back, then,” Akaisha said, hefting her sledgehammer.

She headed back the way they came, not really paying attention to whether the others were following or not. She wove through the trees searching for enemies. If she had to leave already she would at least try to find a few more bugs to squish before leaving. She focused her senses as much as possible, straining to hear any signs of life. [Dungeon] life maybe, but still. She shifted her path to the left, there was no point going straight as they hadn’t seen any stairs, so she picked a random direction. She grinned as she spotted the telltale glint of light on a shiny beetle carapace.

She activated [Leaping Strike], the skill coursing through her veins as she leapt forwards, sledgehammer overhead. She slammed her hammer into a hind leg of a [Sanguine Charger]. Before it could react, beyond screaming in its strange clicking voice, she used [Shatter Defences]. The skill twisted her arms up into a strike faster than she could have without it. The rear carapace of the beetle exploded, large chucks bouncing off of Akaisha. She hit it again manically, her arms rising and falling until the charger was reduced to a pile of purple entrails and shards of chitin. As she panted with exertion she almost missed a bombardier appearing in her peripheral vision.

Its scorpion tail throbbed, an ominous glow visible flowing through the thick veins. Akaisha threw herself into a roll and nearly avoided the massive bubble of acid. She screamed as the acid splashed across her legs. Her boots and trousers were too damaged to cover her entirely. She scrambled to her feet and searched for her hammer. The [Sanguine Bombardier] whined and prepared another projectile. Akaisha pulled her hammer out of a puddle of acid, grimacing as it fizzed against her fingers. She rolled away from the second acid ball and came up sprinting. She leapt up onto the bombardier's shell, holding her hammer in her left hand and drawing her falchion. She stabbed it into the sanguine beetle, into the base of its tail, before leaping off. She slammed her hammer into its mandibled face. It caught the head in its vice-like maw. Akaisha pulled hard, trying to rip it out. The beetle fought her, twisting and jerking without relinquishing the hammer.

Suddenly Akaisha threw herself backwards as the bombardier's tail throbbed again. She abandoned the sledgehammer and dove behind a tree. The bombardier chittered as it tried to launch its deadly payload. The falchion exploded out of its tail, followed by a gout of acid. Its tail ripped itself apart, dousing the beetle in acid. Akaisha peeked out from behind the tree to see the beetle melting itself. As she waited for the acid to neutralise and the beetle to die the others caught up with her. Silah reprimanded her half-heartedly before collecting the loot from the two beetles. Akaisha grabbed her sledgehammer, its head pitted from the acid and the handle almost entirely burnt through.

“Oh come on, I only got it repaired a few days ago. Now I’m going to need another new handle,” Akaisha complained.

“You should probably get a new one, you know. The Orphanage will spring for one as a speciality weapon. A work hammer seems cheaper than a weapon anyway,” Nyika suggests.

“But I like this one,” Akaisha whined.

While Akaisha lamented the state of her hammer the others fanned out to search for a way out. They didn’t find any more enemies and soon moved up to the first floor. They rush through the dire rats, Akaisha not even bothering with a weapon, not wanting to risk breaking what was left of her hammer. While they didn’t blitz through as fast as Nui could but it was a good deal faster than on the way in, now that Akaisha was so much more powerful. They left the [Rimwall Dungeon] and General Nui declared that he had to leave.

“You will have a report by Kingsday. Well done, I look forward to you all becoming adults and participating fully in our great city. I expect great things of all of you,” he looked pointedly at Akaisha as he spoke. “Take care of yourselves.”

Guardsman Chiratzo nodded to them and handed over the large bag of loot for the orphanage. Silah and the cousins three saluted as the guards left, and Akaisha jerked up a late salute as soon as she noticed. Silah shook his head and chuckled.

“You still suck at saluting.”

Akaisha stuck his tongue out at him.

“Yeah, well I don’t have a good answer to that so let's go and eat. Despite the [Dungeon] food I’l still famished.”

“It doesn’t fill you up correctly, it’s probably because it is less real food than Mana made physical, much like the monsters. After a short while outside of the [Dungeon], it just dissolves into Mana.”

“That makes so much sense! I was wondering why food outside of the [Dungeon] didn’t heal like the [Dungeon] stuff did. And what a farmer would do in a world where you can just farm food in a [Dungeon]. But what about other things then? Are all of the swords going to disappear after a time outside?”

“For some reason, that I am unaware of but maybe scholars know, consumables disappear after a while, longer for potions and such but not more than a decadi, however things like swords and armour don’t. They do decay, much like a normal item would, rust or drying and cracking, that sort of thing.” Munodo explained as they walked back through town to the orphanage. “[Dungeon] items, outside of consumables, behave exactly like their real-world counterparts.”

Jane rolled her eyes as she digested the information while they walked. The whole thing smelled of the gods trying to mess with the fundamentals to build their perfect universe. Something that let people dive harder and longer, and still get something out of it, but not so much that it would cause entire sectors of the economy to never exist. There were even still blacksmiths as [Dungeon] equipment wasn’t necessarily the best for everyone, but they mostly made tools and the like as people didn’t seem to get many from monsters. It was early evening as they reached the orphanage, they had spent the entire day just finishing two floors, although they had had to wait a couple of hours for her to Tier up. They made it home as the dinner service was in full swing and filled up on stew and crusty bread.

As they ate they chatted about anything but the day's events. Jane didn’t have much to add, she had no idea who the various people that they were talking about were and had minimal context for the discussions anyway. She was glad that nobody was talking about her massively inflated Stats, though that was certain to change soon. When she had finished eating she headed back to her room with Kaimin, giving her a very brief rundown of events that left out her Stats, and dropped into bed. The day had been long and hard, and Jane was exhausted. She drifted off to sleep before Kaimin had even finished sorting through her scrolls.

The next three days were spent training with the guards. Now that they had experience working together Instructor Norek had them fight in groups more often than they sparred in one on ones. With her massively inflated Stats and powerful Skill Jane could easily beat Chirembo and Nyika, unless the latter managed to immobilise her with earth magic, and even had a winning record against Silah. Munodo however was an entirely different case. He was far more dangerous in a duel than Silah who was better at fighting in a group, and defending his comrades. Jane rarely managed to get inside of Munodo's guard, and even then he could usually disengage before taking lethal damage and counterattack. It was frustrating in a fun sort of way. Despite everything she couldn’t beat any of the guards with any consistency either, they all had at least a few levels in their Tier three and were far more experienced in combat than Jane, especially as they mainly trained to fight humans, not monsters.

Kingsday rolled around and the combat classers were called into Father Athairs office. The priest had received the report on the [Dungeon] dive from General Nui. It was generally positive containing a few criticisms for each of them and a healthy amount of suggestions for improvements. Athair gave them a brief rundown before handing them each a personalised scroll and dismissing them to go and read them. Before Jane could turn and leave Father Athair asked her to stay.

“You also have a letter from Tianaro. It is sealed and unread, but I do have an inkling of the contents,” he explained placidly.

Jane winced visibly, she hadn’t spoken about her situation since the end of the dive, but it couldn’t stay hidden forever, not with such a difference in power.

“Do not worry yourself, I will not pry, nor will I reveal your secrets. I would make for a poor priest indeed if I could not keep a confidence.”

Jane took the letter and broke the wax seal. It was short and to the point, with only a few lines detailing the offer. She scanned through it quickly before folding it and handing back to Athair. He looked at her in surprise before flipping it open and reading it himself.

“You said that you had an inkling as to the contents of the letter, how much do you know? And how much does everybody else know?”

“Well, a secret shared between you and six people, four children, a trusted guardsman, and a General charged with the safety of a, entire City-state? Most of it I’d wager,” Father Athair said seriously. “You have a number of titles that seem to inflate your Stats to the level of someone at the height of your Tier, and that you have seemingly invented an entire field of study. Did you know that Tianaro also gained a title at the same time as you? Apparently, he is the [Father of Crypto-Linguistics], and the description of the Title implies that he only got it because he witnessed the birth of the entire field of Linguistics and understood the military implications.”

“That’s a little more than an inkling,” Jane said slowly.

“Well, of course. As a fellow councilman and your legal guardian, I would be supposed to know.”

“You are also on the council?”

“Would the High Priest of the Church of the Myriad Gods of Rimwall not be on the council?” Athair asked in mock confusion.

“Right, of course. So you know everything but were leaving me at least an illusion of privacy. Thank you I suppose. What happens now then?”

“What do you want to happen now?” Athair answered her question with a question.

“Well, what are my options, can he force the issue?” She held her hand up before Athair could ask another pointed question. “I mean legally, obviously anything can be forced with sufficient motivational violence, kidnapping or the like. I assume that I would be protected insofar as I’m considered a child for now, but as I become an adult what will happen?”

Father Athair smiled appreciatively before replying.

“Technically he could draft you I suppose, but that would be frowned upon. Other than that he has few ways of forcing you to do anything if you don’t sign up to join any of the City-state institutions, which you didn’t seem inclined to do. Although if you did wish to accept the request, and do whatever this crypto-linguistic thing is, it would be considered a great service to Rimwall. These things are obviously rewarded generously.”

“Would you inform him that I’ll think about it? Both about doing it, and what doing it would entail.” Jane said, resigned to the fact that she would probably have to teach someone, probably a group of someones to speak a foreign language, if only to keep the Council happy and to set herself up with some funds.

“Why are you hesitating? It seems like the perfect opportunity to get some goodwill from powerful people and set yourself up for the future. I will not pry if you do not wish me to, nor will I force you to do anything, I’m simply curious.”

Jane blinked at the question, then replied smoothly.

“I don’t want to get stuck,” she held herself back from adding again to her reply. “I don’t want to start on a Linguist track, then take a class to make it easier, just a temporary measure to start with. Then I get comfortable, and why would I go out and do anything else, or I can do it later. Later, always later. And then it’s too late, I’ve spent my life doing the safe and boring thing and feel completely unfulfilled.”

“Ok,” replied Father Athair understandingly. “Just know that you can talk to me, not exactly whenever you want, but whenever I’m available.”

Jane thanked him and left, heading out into the city still lost in thought.