POV: E1#d_$

Eht sretsnom yltsom evael me enola. Yeht wonk s'tahw doog rof meht.

Elihw gnivid hguorht eht eltsac, I ees a railimaf erugif.

Jared, my murderer!

...tahw? Tahw saw taht egnarts... gnileef? Tahw saw taht yromem? Ohw... saw I erofeb?

...

On, t'nod tnaw ot etinuer htiw mih.

Sknaht ot mih, I ydaerla deid eciwt. S'tahw ecno erom?

Ebyam ll'I etinuer htiw Det ro Nivet.

Tiaw, ohw era yeht? Tahw era esoht seman?

Desufnoc dna yrgna I klaw ni eht noitcerid Deraj t'nsi ni.

POV: Ephran

How many more days do I have to endure this torture? I can't sleep because of dungeon logic and these Food Pills can only do so much to keep me going...

And these goddamn spiders!

You've inflicted 229 damage to a monster and defeated it.

You've obtained 1 Food Pill.

Your Iron Sword was broken.

Shit, this was the last weapon I brought with me. All twenty of them are gone. Now I have to fight with my bare fists.

I collapse on the ground, the exhaustion has finally caught up with me. I desperately need rest... if the dungeon would let me. Even if it wasn't for all those roaming monsters, sleeping just provides no benefit here in this stupid place.

I force down the last Food Pill I just got, it isn't enough to keep me going for long. I need to find more monsters fast and hope for more drops or I'll die from massive sleep deprivation. But how would I even deal with those critters, I'm now even without weapons...

I'm fucked, aren't I?

Sigh

Why did I have to give in to my desires and ask Chloe out... That's what I get for thinking with the wrong end, shit. Hope she's still safe...

Couldn't even tell what I saw in her back then, it was just love at first sight. Just can't ever tell her that I'm frightened of her true form, she'd kill me...

Enough reminiscing, I have to get back up.

Damn, still feeling drowsy from the exhaustion...

Ah, how the hell does anyone put up with this mess that isn't already a walking corpse? ...what shit have I gotten myself into?

I try to walk a few steps but soon the exhaustion catches up with me and I pass out. Guess I'm done for...

...

Something's poking me? Doesn't feel like a monster wants to chew on me.

"Come on, wake up, sleeping doesn't work here anyway", a voice calls out to me.

I force open my eyes and see that vampire.

So much for monsters leaving me in peace.

I gather the rest of my strength to answer, "H-hey... here to give me the rest?"

"Not really, here, chew on that", he forces one of those pills in my mouth.

I eat it.

"Th-thanks, I needed that."

Jared sighs, "Goddamn, I finally find the goddamn stairs to leave the first floor and the first thing I do is run into one of us on the verge of dying. At least this spider cave doesn't seem to be a non-euclidean labyrinth like the last one."

"A what now?"

He takes out a sheet of paper and writes on it, "Don't mind it. How did you manage to leave the castle cellar before me?"

"What cellar? I've been lost in this spider nest the whole time."

He looks disbelieving at me, "Really? So everyone ended up on different floors?"

"Heck if I know. I haven't seen anyone else so far. What are you writing?"

He puts the sheet away, "Just a note to Lucia that I found you. So what to do with you, Ephran... Originally, I wanted to wait a few weeks and observe how you really get along with Chloe but the current situation doesn't allow me that luxury."

I'm confused, "What has my dear to do with anything?"

He replies bluntly, "If you recall you basically only wanted to join our group because you wanted to be with her. As she is my familiar she gets a greatly lengthened life expectancy, enough to vastly outlive you. If possible I would want to spare her the grief of losing a lost one. Therefore I wanted to make sure you really mean it before offering you the same benefits. Once accepted there's no turning back."

"I... I don't understand..."

"I don't think it matters at this point. Just answer me three questions. Do you want to survive this?"

This is no question, "Yes, of course."

"Are you serious about your relationship with Chloe?"

"Yes, I would-"

He interrupts me, "Yes, yes, you would do everything for her. I'll take your word for it, don't disappoint me. And in exchange are you willing to serve under me? No matter what I ask of you?"

As if I really have a choice at this point, "...yes, for Chloe's sake I'll endure it."

I haven't even finished answering and I can already see a message pop up.

You've become Jared Delacroix's familiar.

You've obtained the skills [Sleepless] and [Ageless].

Jared sounds annoyed, "As usual, this skill is way too trigger-happy. Well, we can't really hold a proper welcome party right now, so that'll have to wait. Are you starting to feel better? [Sleepless] should quickly recover your fatigue."

"I.., I think so, yes. At least it feels like it is slowly getting better."

He pulls me up, "Good, then let's get moving. Don't want to end up as spider food."

A short while later, we arrive at a set of stairs. I'm still feeling drowsy but that's finally some progress!

Jared scoffs, "That was easy. The previous floor was a massive, non-sensical labyrinth."

"You make it sound so easy but I've been wandering around here for days..."

He looks at me full of doubt, "What? Do you want to tell me you got lost walking a straight line? There was not a single branch on the entire way while I was here."

"That makes no sense. There were a lot of branching paths while I was alone..."

He scratches his head and sighs, "This place just makes no sense at all... Let's move on before the path forward grows legs and runs away."

I nod, "Yeah, I agree."

POV: Chloe

We've left the mountain range behind us and are now standing in front of what looks like an abandoned mansion. Around it, some colorful spherical objects with attached ropes are rising toward the moonless night sky, What are those supposed to be?

A sign in front of the house reads: Welcome to Sen's House of Endless Fun.

I get a bad feeling about this...

We go through the creaking door and the inside is way bigger than the outside would lead you to believe. It is also quite dark.

Come on, bring on the ghosts, I'm waiting!

And right on cue, three ghostly apparitions appear, "Great, right what I needed."

Lucia mocks me, "What, afraid of some ghosts?"

I shake my head, "Not quite, it is just that physical attacks aren't particularly effective against them."

She shrugs, "Yeah, yeah, magic it is."

She casts a spell and hits one of the ghosts, instantly destroying it, "See? Easy-peasy."

"Easy for you to say."

I storm forward and try to stab a ghost with my spear, but it just phases through.

Pure physical and unattributed attacks do not affect incorporeal entities.

Lucia sneers, "Chloe, you're useless."

"Then tell me what I can do!"

She thinks for a moment while blasting the second ghost, "Hmm... good question... there should be skills that allow you to infuse your weapon with an element. Just take one of those classes."

After saying that, she incinerates the remaining apparition with another fire spell.

I want to slap her, "And from what class selection? I'm already at the maximum of classes your sugar daddy allows the rest of us to take."

I sigh mentally, we really are too similar to get along...

While bickering more, we proceed further into the mansion. Every now and then a single ghost tries to harass us through the walls or a trap tries to hinder our progress through the narrow corridors.

Suddenly Lucia calls out to me, "Hey, Chloe, I've got some great news for you. Jared found your hubby and made him a familiar. Now you can spend all of eternity with him!"

"Watch out for the rope trap in front of you, Lucia", she jumps over it and I sigh, "And no one even asks me? I don't even know yet how I really feel about Ephran..."

She is surprised, "You don't? Then why did you invite him?"

I easily dodge a pendulum trap, "Your voice friend made me... Seriously, over the span of my whole life, I've interacted with him for maybe a whole hour, total. And all of that was just business. I know nothing about who he really is."

She scoffs, "What, don't you believe in love at first sight? I think you two make a cute pair."

I get angry, "I don't think that is a good base for a relationship. And if we're going by outward appearance there are better candidates..."

She mockingly grins, "Well, too late now. Don't worry, I can help you deal with it."

That is a thinly veiled threat if I ever heard one...

POV: Anna

I've had enough of those damn spiders! I want to get out of here!

Grumble

Despite all these Food Pills I've eaten, I'm still feeling hungry... How long until lunch? Ah, it is still 11:45, I forgot that time doesn't matter here...

I just want something to eat that isn't these bland pills, I'd even settle for something provided by the food bank but I'd rather have something cooked by Marca...

Grumble

Another corner, another web surface I shouldn't touch but I still need to look around, this place is awful!

I carefully peek around it and see... is that Geoffrey?

"Geoffrey!", I storm towards him and hug him.

He hugs me back, "Anna, I finally found someone! How have you been holding up?"

Tears fill my eyes, "It was awful! Spiders, nothing but spiders everyone. I don't want to see another spider in my whole life!"

He pats my head, "Yeah, I can imagine. So where do we go now? Are there any paths where you were that you didn't take yet? I have seen a few corridors back there I haven't tried yet."

"No? I don't think so at least. Let's check your side then."

After hugging for a few more minutes we make our way toward the first passage Geoffrey hasn't inspected yet. It just leads to even more branching directions.

A few hours later we end up on another three-way split but one direction reveals something new.

"Stairs? Geoffrey, we finally found the way onward!"

He is happy as well, "Yeah, let's go."

"BOO!", surprises us an eery voice from behind.

I don't recognize who it could belong to so I turn slowly around full of fear.

Before us stands the mean Dan's avatar, drooling from its many mouths.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

That was it for us, we can't fight that thing, running isn't an option anymore either.

We're dead and I didn't even get to enjoy some time together with my new family...

But instead of killing us, he just speaks to us, "Hey, so, uh, I could take you out now and already win. But that's boring. I hoped it would be much closer but none of you even cleared five floors, let alone all one hundred. I even increased my handicap by five but that is also used up already. This is really, really boring. Maybe if I...? Ah, forget it, I'll end it now and we can try again next time, okay?"

In a panic, I yell at it, "No, you can't! You're cheating!"

It sounds surprised, "What do you mean cheating? I didn't break any rules."

"Nu-huh, you did. You're not a spider but this is a spider cave. so only spider monsters are allowed to harass us and you are clearly not a spider!"

"I'm not?"

"No! So you are cheating! Bad monster! Go in the corner! I don't want to play with cheaters!"

"Oh, man... I didn't know that...", the creature slowly walks off, completely dejected. Possibly sobbing.

How did that work? Why did that work?

...doesn't matter, I'm pooped...

Geoffrey doesn't know either, "I honestly thought we were dead. Sorry, I didn't think you were that courageous."

"Yeah, I'm not, it just came over me. And now I need some new pants..."

He teasingly replies, "For the sake of your dignity I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Wait, give me a moment."

He starts digging through his inventory.

"Huh? What are you doing?"

Geoffrey answers, "You said you needed clean pants. Here."

"Uh, thanks? Why do you have that?"

"Marca and I saw that you're always wearing the same things so we bought you some new clothes, we just never had the chance to gift them to you. So... here, you're welcome", he scratches his head in embarrassment.

"Ah, thank you."

He grabs my hand, "But change over there on the stairs, fewer directions to be cautious off. I'll stand watch."

"Uh-huh, sure."

After quickly changing clothes, we step into the next floor. No more spider webs, instead we're looking at relatively open caverns above flowing lava.

I try to wipe off my sweat, "Shit, it's hot in here..."