The sewers had become like a second home, even during the rainy season, which still occurred like clockwork. As such, plodding through the ankle deep water had become a part of their normal routine. If there was one thing they could all agree on, it was that in Levia, the comfort of routine was as important as the hope of finding a way home. Eugene had become used to this routine. It was one . . . he could live with.

“The sewers, but they’re a newbie zone. You don’t need to hold back for me,” said Claire seriously. “Can’t we train somewhere . . . that isn’t a dark fetish dungeon with whips and chains!” she blurted the latter with her eyes tightly shut.

Unfortunately, Claire wasn’t quite so optimistic about their journey into the dank dark tunnels. But it made too much sense to test out her abilities and new role in the group with a familiar riskless campaign into known territory. Edge explained, “it’s only so that we can test out some of our tactics in real combat. Having a plan is one thing-”

“Executing it is another,” said Belladonna, Daphne and Sakura together. Maybe he’d been using that phrase a bit too often. Or his leadership was finally getting through to them! Edge took a moment to revel in this temporary delusion.

“I know it’s wet down here, but do we have to wear these?” Daphne asked, referring, not for the first time, to the green gecko skin boots everyone in the party was currently wearing.

“They’re waterproof,” said Sakura, practically.

“And what’s wrong with them?” challenged Belladonna, their creator.

“They’re ugly,” said Edge, with brutal honesty.

“But you’re always wearing them!” protested Daphne.

“I like them,” said Edge. “They might be the only player made gear in the game.”

“It’s really amazing, Belladonna,” praised Claire. “I’ll keep wearing them too.”

She’s not supposed to be nice, thought Daphne. Claire was supposed to be her evil home wrecking rival. “It’s not how they look. They feel slimy inside,” said Daphne.

“Wear socks,” said Sakura, the pragmatist. “You’re sure these things are dead?” added Sakura, moping.

“If they come to life, I bet we could sell them for tonnes of crystals. You know, if everyone else wasn’t so poor,” said Belladonna.

“Some of the Gambits have money,” sparked Claire. “New members have to give two thirds of their quest crystals to the higher ups. Until they’re level two, then it’s only half.”

Edge tried doing the math, while Sakura’s eyes bulged behind her glasses.

“It’s not a bad way to fund a project,” concluded Sakura. “But it would take a great deal of discipline to ensure no one cheated.”

They came across an abundance of rats and slimes while in the sewers, and they actually had to ask Sakura and Belladonna to hold their fire, just so Claire had a chance to show her stuff.

Claire swung her large two-handed blade as a great axe, chopping down her opponents. It was obvious however that she hadn’t practiced any dodge maneuvers. Her former barrel armour had protected her from injury from basic attacks, but it had left a weakness in her combat skills.

The rest of the party was by its nature, and through training, quite agile. The ability to dash and run were ingrained into their previous tactics. It was clear that Claire relied heavily on her physical power, and on her healing spell [Light Heal], which ironically cast a temporary halo of light around a character that slowly regenerated their life points. The vicar class was part healer, part damage dealer, but more specifically melee DPS, an off-tank, and that meant Claire would be constantly at risk of aggroing mobs at close range, and receiving damage.

Edge wasn’t expecting Claire to be able to hit so hard, or to take so much of the aggro. It was preventing him from using his block and run tactics, and the back rowers couldn’t attack either without the risk of hitting Claire. But was this really Claire’s fault? It was Eugene’s job to be the main tank. But he wasn’t a meat shield; he didn’t have the life points for that. Still, he needed control of the aggro, or the ability to slow enemies down, or something. It wasn’t Claire’s fault. She was just the tipping point that showed his true ineffectiveness as a mobile tank. He could offer up some tactics to reduce this weakness. Perhaps, ask Claire to attack less often, and retreat between attacks, like he did . . . Eugene’s gamer alarm bells sounded in his head. He knew one of the most important factors in an effective party was time allowances. How fast could you kill a dangerous mob? Could you reduce its health fast enough that it couldn’t use a major ability multiple times? Their party had high damage, and now a decent healer, but if they couldn't control the aggro, they would die.

Claire cut down her third and final rat with relative ease. She had a large gash on her arm where one of the brown vermin had bitten her. She said the words for her heal spell and the wound closed itself in short order. “I need armour,” she said. “I’m not like you, Edge. I can’t handle getting hurt all the time.” Who told her he got hurt all the time?

“Yeah, armour will be our next priority for you. What’s your sword skill at?”

“Oh, you mean my two-handed skill?”

“Wait, let me see that.”

Claire obediently turned the panel toward him.

“You don’t use the sword skill. You can use any two-handed weapon and it’ll raise the skill in the same way,” he said, completely astonished.

“Yeah, but when I use a sword I get the [Slash] ability, and when it’s a hammer it’s the [Smash] ability,” she said, casually.

It was so unfair. Not only did she get awesome abilities, but they changed with her preferences. Edge smiled, while internally cursing the developers. “That’s. Just. Great,” he managed to say with a straight face.

“I told you this would be too easy,” Claire said.

Sakura frowned at the remark. Everyone else in the group looked uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong?” noticed Claire.

“You didn’t let me fire any shots,” said Daphne. “And you took damage. You went below sixty percent for a second.”

“But I healed myself, and killed all the rats,” Claire defended.

“Edge hasn’t taken any damage down here since forever,” said Daphne.

“It’s not that you did bad, Claire. It’s just that you didn’t think about how to use us,” said Belladonna.

Sakura gave Edge a level knowing stare. She knew it wasn’t only Claire’s blunder. Edge was to blame as well. He didn’t hand out any better orders, and he didn’t manage to get aggro back from Claire.

“It’s okay,” Edge tried. “This is my fault too. We just have to come up with something better.” No one, not even Sakura, had any immediate suggestions.

“This is a real problem, Edge,” whispered Sakura, privately. “Now you have no choice, but to buy a weapon. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll go to the shop." Sakura actually sounded angry. "You know, when you put your life at risk, you're endangering the rest of us too. That's what it means to be part of a team.”

“We’ll get through it,” he replied, without any idea how. She was right. The softly spoken reprimand hit him right where it hurt, in his false justifications.

Using the less efficient hit and run tactics took effect with the desired results. The slimes and rats never stood a chance against this group in the first place. Everyone except Claire was level three, with no hope of getting to level four any time soon. The experience gap seemed to get impossibly larger with each level. The grinding was going to take months, unless they could find better mobs. Even then, he didn’t get his hopes up.

“What’s this?” asked Daphne, pointing at a metal bar that extended from the back wall at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s a lever,” stated Sakura.

“What do you think it does?” she asked, dangerously curious.

“Don’t touch it,” said Edge, urgently.

“He’s right Daph. Let’s just leave it alone,” Belladonna suggested.

“Perhaps they are right, Daphne. We should keep to the beaten path,” said Claire.

“It is tempting, isn’t it?” Sakura poked.

“This is Levia. It’s probably a horribly unfair trap,” pouted Edge.

“Not everything in Levia is b-bad,” shouted Daphne. “Some things . . . some things are meant to be!” she blurted, looking at Edge. The party suddenly went silent, and Daphne began to turn a beet shade of red. That wasn’t a confession, was it? Did she just confess to him?

Everyone was watching her, even Edge was staring . . . right . . . into . . . her . . . eyes. Daphne panicked, throwing the switch. Something behind the wall clicked and the sound of stone grinding on stone shook the tunnel like an earthquake. Stunned, everyone braced themselves, scanning for catastrophe. Then it stopped. Nothing happened.

“That was so reckless,” said Belladonna, giving Daphne a little hug. “I thought the ceiling was going to collapse.”

“I’m glad it didn’t,” said Claire. “Perhaps it opened up a secret room somewhere.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Daphne somberly, too embarrassed to explain.

“No harm done,” said Sakura, mischievously. She’d used the opportunity to cling against Edge’s arm. Sakura sensed immediate nearby danger.

Daphne, Belladonna, and even Claire had evil angry looks on their faces. Each face said the same thing, ‘why didn’t I think of doing that,’ and ‘you are dead meat elf girl.’

Belladonna saw a chance, and grabbed at Edge’s other arm. “Oh, I am so scared, and so glad that we are okay,” she said robotically, with the world’s worst voice acting. She pressed herself up against Edge, rubbing his chest.

Sakura wasn’t going to roll over and play dead. She pressed her chest into Edge’s arm, and grabbed his butt cheek in her palm. Two could play at this game.

Edge didn’t even flinch. A popup window had sprung up in front of his face.

[Observation: You can hear the sound of running water in the distance and it’s getting louder]

“What is that? Do you guys hear that?” announced Claire.

Edge swallowed. “Run.” He said the single word with finality and desperation.