“This hat provides a twenty percent boost in effectiveness to my healing potions.” It was the twentieth thing Manalolz had shared about the hat since acquiring it, and it wouldn’t be the last. He’d repeated some of the facts as there wasn’t much one could say about a hat, but the healer refused to let the air be filled with anything but talk of his new garment.

Hendrix approached me and kept his voice low. “This is crap. Do you know the odds of him getting two pieces of loot in this dungeon and the rest of us getting nothing?”

“You know I don’t,” I said.

“Me neither,” the bard shot a narrow-eyed glance at the healer. “It’s low, I’ll tell you that much.”

“What does it matter?” I said. “Let the baby have his hat. It doesn’t affect the rest of us.”

“Don’t you get it?” Hendrix’s voice was raised back to its usual tone. “Loot drops from bosses is one of the best ways to improve your gear. Sure, you can buy stuff from vendors, but it always sucks. Some loot drops out in the world, too, but it’s rare.”

“Become a smith, tailor, or leatherworker,” Max stood at the mouth of the cave, staring into the darkness. “Craft your own gear.”

“It’s not as good as what drops, and the materials are hard to get.”

“Relax,” Manalolz said. “I’m sure you’ll get a drop one day. Besides, you’ve already got the purple pants and hat. Speaking of hats, did you know mine is one of the tallest hats an adventurer can acquire?” The facts continued spewing from the healer’s mouth as the rest of the party gathered at the entrance to the dungeon’s namesake.

Nikk crouched beside me. He ran his long, lanky fingers through his revived wolf’s green fur. Scallion looked as lively and enthusiastic as ever despite having died a few times since I’d met him.

“Alright, for those of you willing to listen,” Wolfgang said, glaring at Manalolz, who continued his barrage of hat-facts. “This cave is full of traps. They’re easy to see if you’re looking for them but easy to miss if you rush in. Mostly tripwires, an unleashed trap will either release a pile of boulders from the ceiling or summon spikes from the ground. Watch your step.”

He waited for each of us to nod. It took a while, but even Manalolz acknowledged the traps eventually. Wolfgang gazed deep into the cave, tightened his bun of blonde hair, and marched into the darkness.

I was the first to follow. Hendrix was on my heels, Nikk and Max came soon after with the pets. Manalolz lagged like he’d been doing since nearly the start of the dungeon, only this time, he was bragging about his hat instead of complaining. I didn’t know which was worse.

The cave was a long circular tunnel that was most likely an old borough carved by the Mother Queen. There were no branching paths or open rooms anywhere, just a seemingly endless tunnel. Every time I turned back, the light of the entrance was smaller. My breaths became shallow as the air grew cooler.

What looked like pink and blue icicles formed on the roof of the cave—a sparse amount at first that led to dense clusters the deeper we ventured. I stared up at the formations and forced myself to take in their beauty. There was no telling what sort of danger we were about to encounter, so I wanted to enjoy it while I could. The thought of traps reminded me that enjoying beauty was an activity for safer places.

A loud clank ahead sent a pang through my bones. I ripped my eyes from the colorful rocks and stared ahead. Wolfgang struck a glowing chunk of green stone with a pickaxe and collected the shards.

“What does a level forty need carsium for?” Hendrix asked.

“Sells for a lot on the market,” Wolfgang said. “It’s mostly low-level smiths who need it, and you can only find it in this dungeon. Low-level smiths can’t freely go farming in a dungeon whenever they want. I used to come here a lot on my own before—well, before the sheep thing. Used to make a lot of gold.” His eyes wandered off into the distance while his lips curled into a subtle frown.

Movement caught my eye from deeper into the cave. Three gnolls conferred using another vein of glowing green carsium as a sort of campfire. Two of them carried the familiar spiked gnoll clubs, but the other wore a white robe painted green by the glow of the carsium, and in place of a club, he held a short, gnarled staff.

“Wait!” Wolfgang shouted, nearly scaring the soul out of me for a second time.

Manalolz ran toward a small natural corridor. It was the first piece of the cave that branched off from the Mother Queen’s borough. A glowing mushroom stood at the end of the corridor, illuminating it with blue light.

“No way,” Manalolz said. “I saw it first—“

A strange sound like the pluck of a giant lute string rang through the cave. Rumbling in the ceiling followed and was quickly replaced by the thundering crash of half a hundred boulders collapsing into the corridor. Manalolz was silent, somewhere beneath the rubble. The party stood with dropped jaws and watched wordlessly.

I ran to the rubble once the sounds had stopped. The air was tarnished with jagged dust, making it hard to breathe. I drew my wrench and struck at the freshly fallen rock.

“Billington, stop,” Wolfgang said.

I ignored him and continued striking. My attempts did nothing to our healer’s tomb—not even a scratch. I continued striking nonetheless, unwilling to accept yet another failure as leader of the party. A bright green egg appeared beside me. Manalolz’s soul lay dormant within it.

The party was silent as I lifted the egg.

“We have to go back,” I said. “He must be revived.”

Wolfgang slapped a hand on his brow. He turned to Hendrix. “Are you about to tell me that you didn’t bring any rez powder?”

The bard averted the tank’s eyes. “I didn’t think of it.”

“You didn’t think of it?” Wolfgang raised his voice. “That’s basic stuff! If you’re going to bring one item into a dungeon, it’s going to be rez powder.”

“It’s my fault,” I said. “As leader of the party, I should have kno—“

“It’s the bard’s fault,” Wolfgang said. “He’s the one who’s been guiding you. He should have mentioned it. He should have thought of it when he was in Firemane’s Run recruiting that idiot.” He pointed to the green egg in my hand.

Manalolz wasn’t the most likeable man I’d ever met, but calling a dead man an idiot seemed wrong. I let it slide. Wolfgang was most likely just angry that the healer hadn’t heeded his warning about the traps.

“We can’t go back,” Wolfgang said. “It would mean having to restart. Most parties just bring some rez powder along with them in case this very thing happens.” He glared at Hendrix.

“What do we do?” I asked. “I’ve entered too many encounters without a healer. It never ends well.”

“Plus, we don’t have the scout to bail us out this time,” Hendrix said.

“What scout?” Wolfgang asked in an irritated tone.

“Never mind that,” I said. “What are our options?”

Wolfgang noticed the same gnolls I’d spotted before Manalolz’s demise. They showed no signs of having heard our commotion, which surprised me. “We’re going to have to take a true death.”

Nikk gasped

“Why?” I said.

“We can clear the trash before the boss without a healer, that I’m sure of,” Wolfgang said. “We’ll die to the boss. A wipe would allow us to restart right where we left off without having to redo our progress.”

“Surely, there must be another course,” Max said.

“I’m afraid not,” Wolfgang said. “It’s up to you, Billington. Either we head out the cave, walk all the way back to the start, leave, get all the way to Leafveil to revive the healer, fly all the way back here just to face Brinson, the narrow road on the mountainside, the worms, and Mother Queen again, or we take a true death and continue from where we stand now.”

I thought for a moment. The party was dead silent. I heard nothing but a few drips from varying depths of the cave, and light, dog-like chatter from the gnolls. I looked up at Wolfgang, who hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “You mentioned there was a way to reverse a true death. I suppose we could always make that our priority once we’re done with this dungeon.”

Wolfgang shook his head. “It’s not something low-level adventurous can do. Even when you do hit forty, reversing a true death is an arduous and time-consuming process. The option would make your path to forty that much more dangerous. Take all the time you need. This is a difficult decision.”

My eyes wandered to Hendrix. The bard was busy staring at something near his feet. He met my eyes soon after, almost as if he could feel my gaze. I said nothing but stared at him while deep in thought. Hendrix had already taken a true death. Ten of them, and you’re gone for good. He’d be at two already with thirty grueling levels to go before we could even consider doing something about it.

One half of his mouth rose in a smile, and he gave me a single nod. It was all I needed to see. “We will take a true death.”

“What about loot?” Nikk asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“If we go again, we get loot again.”

Hendrix’s eyes lit up.

Wolfgang raised a hand. “It doesn’t work like that. In fact, you wouldn’t even get experience toward your next levels if we redid those fights.”

“Then the choice seems obvious,” Max said, already marching toward the gnolls. “Let us perish so that we may progress.”

“Hold on,” Wolfgang called to the elf. “We need a plan before we go in there.”

“Why don’t we just die to these gnolls?” Hendrix said. “Is it really better to die by one hand over another?”

These were questions I never thought I’d have to consider while sitting at the supper table with mother and Dara.

“There’s no difference, I suppose,” Wolfgang said. “The fewer fights we have to do with him, the better.” He pointed to Manalolz’s egg again.

A murmur of agreement moved through the party. That seemed to settle it.

“Share your plan, drakkon,” Max said. “I am not eager to die, but I am eager to have it over with.”

“I understand,” Wolfgang said. “It isn’t fun, that’s for sure.” He cleared his throat and pointed at Nikk. “Your wolf is going to be the key to this. He’ll charge in first and make sure all three gnolls are on him. He will die during this fight, but we can get him back before the boss, or not, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Once he goes down, I’ll take the aggro, and hopefully, the rest of you can dish out enough damage to kill three of them before they can do enough to kill Scallion and myself.”

Scallion groaned almost as if he understood the tank’s plan. Nikk crouched and scratched his loyal pet behind the ears. “You get nice big steak when we finally finish this.” The green wolf’s ears perked up at that, and he leaped forward and ran into battle. Buttons wasn’t far behind.

“Kill the wizard first,” Wolfgang said. “It doesn’t matter who you kill next. Just make sure you’re all on the same one.” We charged in after the pets had been engaged. Scallion’s health dropped faster than I’d anticipated. We’d have to move quickly for Wolfgang’s plan to work.

Shadow unfolded to reveal a figure between us and the pets. My first thought was of Ucntcme, but that was impossible. From how I understood it, there was no way she could have entered the dungeon with us. It didn’t take long for the fur and fangs to confirm it wasn’t her.

“Damn, I forgot about that one,” Wolfgang said. “Kill the scout once the wizard goes down.”

Hendrix started his song as the rest of us crashed into the group of gnolls. Max stayed back as well and plucked his bowstring fast as Hendrix plucked his lute. Nikk hopped over the battle and landed behind the wizard, and went to work with his spear. I threw the first of what would likely be many wrench strikes. The damage flowed from the wizard—sixty percent within only a few moments. Wolfgang fought in his human form dual-wielding long knives and delivered artful strikes. His moves contrasted my own blunt, wild swings.

I pulled a handful of beads from my pocket and threw them at the scout’s feet. He fell over, mitigating the damage poor Scallion had to take, at least for a short while.

“Great move, Billington,” Wolfgang said over the carnage of the battle. “Do it again every time those beads reappear in your pocket.”

I was already planning on it, but I simply nodded.

The wizard raised his staff while the party pummeled him with all sorts of hits. He slammed the butt-end of the staff against the ground, and a flash of blue blinded me for an instant. My vision returned to find Scallion encased in ice.

A sharp pain ran along my back. As Scallion was frozen, the gnolls shifted their aggro to the rest of the party. The two gnolls with the clubs went after Max, while the scout hacked and slashed at my back.

I faced my foe and exchanged blows. He outputted twice the damage I could and had twice as much health. I needed to think of something, and fresh beads were still quite a ways off. I could have possibly thrown my wrench at the pink and blue formations on the ceiling, hopefully dislodge them and have them plummet down onto the gnoll, but I feared risking a full-on cave-in.

Something rumbled behind me. Wolfgang, in sheep form, head-butted the scout and bit his ankle. The scout immediately forgot about me and chased the sheep, who was already on his way to repeating his process against the other two gnolls.

The wizard wasn’t attacking anyone. Instead, he kept his staff pointed at the frozen wolf. “What do we do now?” I called.

“Stick to the plan,” Wolfgang shouted as his sheep form led three gnolls back to where the fight had started. “The wizard is channeling the ice spell. He’ll keep that going until he dies. So kill him quick. A necromancer would be able to dispel it, but alas.”

“Alas, indeed,” Hendrix said with bite in his tone.

We resumed our damage on the wizard, and his health went down fast. Wolfgang put on a great show of avoidance as the diminutive sheep hopped about, dodging almost every attack the gnolls threw his way. Scallion burst from his icy prison and charged at the nearest gnoll. We took the rest of them down with relative ease and caught our breath.

Wolfgang returned to his human form and laughed. “We got out of that one a lot easier than I thought.” His smile disappeared. “The next fight will be different.”

“Good thing we’re going in there with death as our goal, eh?” Hendrix said.

“Even with the healer back,” Wolfgang said, “I question whether we can do this.”

My health sat at just below fifty percent. The only damage I’d taken had been from the short altercation with the scout. I couldn’t believe how much damage enemies in dungeons put out. I whipped a honey tart from my pack and eagerly ate it to regain some health.

“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.

I furrowed my brow. “Eating,” I said with a mouthful, “I lost half my HP.”

“We’re going in there to die, remember?”

My face turned red as I swallowed the last of the tart. “Right.” I shook the crumbs from my beard.