Myles spent what felt like a lifetime considering how to explain what he held to the rest of the group. They’d known each other and fought by each other’s side almost daily, and in a single day, he was going to put them all at risk with him. If they agreed, there would be no going back. Whatever trouble he was in already, they’d be in too once they were out of the dungeon.

Of course, that meant they had to make it out.

His team arrived only a few minutes after Ashra went to get them, and none of them seemed that concerned with Myles having something important to share. Of course, that all changed as Myles read aloud the passage he had read with Silpha.

Silence filled the room. Even the constant rhythm of Silpha’s ocean seemed to quiet itself as Myles read the words over again. The weight of them settled firmly on his shoulders as the last word seemed to echo in the pin-drop silence.

Thankfully, no one turned tail and ran from him.

“This has to be a joke,” Will said after a long silence covered the group.

“No joke,” Myles said firmly. “I don’t know where I got it. It showed up in my inventory after our first dungeon run.”

“When you fell into the hole,” Kendra said helpfully.

“When you pushed me in the hole,” Myles corrected her.

Myles got the distinct feeling Silpha wanted to make a joke at his expense but resisted.

“I know the dungeon does things to pit Runners against each other sometimes, but on the first floor in a random dungeon? It feels too early,” Mitchel said, more to himself than the others. “And it burned out a translator for half a page?”

Myles nodded.

“It seems like a long way to go for a prank.”

“Not impossible though,” Will added. “It is the grand dungeon. More to the point, why hadn’t this happened before?”

Myles considered that as Ashra shifted uncomfortably. He knew she revered the dungeon and, to a lesser extent, the dungeon cores. She’d become more comfortable with SIlpha, but when they began questioning the dungeon’s will or intent, she still became skittish even if she also worshiped Rani.

Even with the words on his tongue, Tail beat him to the obvious answer. “How do we know it hasn’t?”

The words brought the group back into silence. Everyone knew the streams were edited. Some events were blacked out due to needing a subscription to the streams, some events were deemed too violent or too… passionate even for paying customers, and some were rumored to be blocked for events just like this, so who could say whether or not the dungeon had done it before?

“If they did,” Myles said, “We wouldn’t know. So we have a decision to make. Do we use this and risk the consequences or not?”

Kendra scoffed. “Is that even a question?”

Myles nodded, but Mitchel spoke up. “It’s a question of what we’ll do by using it. It could be a test for all we know and by using it, we doom everyone because we cheated.”

“Is it really cheating, though?” Kendra asked, her brow furrowed in thought. “We’re not doing anything that we couldn’t have done without it. It’s not like we’re trying to break the dungeon; we’re just trying to survive it and grow stronger. If we have a few shortcuts and don’t use them to enslave the world, it can only help, right?”

“Are you sure that we’re blacked out right now,” Lyna asked.

“From everyone but the royals,” Mitchel surmised. “We are talking about one of the most secure pieces of information in the world after all.”

Lyna sighed and nodded. “Should have figured as much. Look, I like you all, and I want us all to make it out of here, but we’re taunting the chimera here. If we start pushing it, really pushing it, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out something will start pushing back. Something we might be ready for, but the others aren’t. We could wipe the run doing this just like the Third Run.”

As faces fell, Myles saw that he wasn’t the only one that remembered.

The Third Run was another early wipe in the Grand Kessivan Dungeon’s history. The Third Run was the first to search out and make use of the ability to skip floors via hidden entrances and special tasks scattered throughout the floors. By the time they’d reached the last floor, the Runners skipped twenty-nine of their fifty floors and had plenty of power to show for their methods.

The Third Run gave rise to potential heroes aplenty, and many had been born into that Run. Given a decade as they planned, they could have stormed the bottom floor and easily won. In all honesty, the Run was a more popular one since the Runners spent more time living in the dungeon as a community and defending the town than they did fighting by the time they were wiped out.

They had been wiped out, though, and it hadn’t been pretty.

They had planned to send their most powerful runners below to scout the dungeon’s ultimate challenge, but stepping foot on the last floor was the last straw. The first floor’s safe zones were revoked, and the unprotected city became a bloodbath as the undefeated floor guardians ripped open the earth and stormed Runner’s Plaza.

It had been only a few teams that abused the system directly, but without a place to fall back to, they’d doomed everyone.

Myles didn’t want that for their Run, so he looked to Silpha, who he was sure had read the entire thing already. “Silpha?”

“I can confirm that if you use that book, the information is accurate,” she said. “There’s a lot of mechanical components explained within for the various floors and guardians, but I feel as though it’s a sliding scale.”

“Which means?”

“Which means we could probably use a lot of what’s here as long as we don’t outright abuse it like those of the Third Run,” Silpha’s lips curled up just so, revealing enough of her teeth to make a point. “There’s no fun or growth in being killed in your sleep, so things like taking Astral Leaf before sleeping to enable lucid dreaming, for example, wouldn’t hurt anything since that is more than likely how Dane is getting his advantage in Somniums.”

Mitchel sighed as Myles considered Silpha’s guidance.

“So, you believe that we can read up on the floor and its challenges, but as long as we don’t abuse the system, we should be okay?”

Silpha nodded. “I am nearly certain of this. You’d be keeping in line with the Overseer’s goals of making you all stronger and challenging yourself, but you wouldn’t be making it trivial by simply skipping the trials.”

“You don’t think getting past the biggest challenge of a floor by reading wouldn’t be making it trivial?” Will asked.

Silpha smiled at the older man. “But you aren’t cheating,” she said simply. “Any [Alchemist] familiar with dream walking could have told you that. Most of them are new to their skills with the Run being so young. Maybe a member of Dane’s team is experienced? It would make sense why they were so intent on taking the lake since Astral Leaf only grows on lake beds and the ocean floor. Still, since you don’t have an [Alchemist] on your team or a private lake to grow your own, which would be a challenge in itself, how would knowing make the floor trivial at this point?”

“But we know some,” Kendra pointed out.

“That doesn’t make it easy,” Silpha replied. “Just like reading about a floor or trying to guess what happens next wouldn’t necessarily change the outcome. It’s one thing to know the third floor will be a world based on the elemental plane of fire and another to experience it.”

Myles winced only slightly. “Is the next floor really based on the plane of fire?”

Silpha shook her head. “No. At least, not according to what I’ve read of the algorithm that governs the floor design selection. The point is, preparation isn’t cheating. Skips are part of the dungeon, research is part of it, too, and being prepared is part of being a hero.”

Their silence seemed to implicate them in his idea. Silpha had even Ashra considering her words, and Myles realized she was more than right. Heroes were the first and last line of defense when in a dungeon. If you knew you were going into a slime dungeon, you prepared for a slime dungeon. Was this all that different?

If they played this right…

If they were careful…

Myles took a breath to calm himself. “If you want out, I’d understand. We won’t abuse what’s in here, but we’d be idiots for not using it to survive.”

There was a pause as the group considered his words. It was no surprise to him that Kendra replied first.

“If it was a loot drop or an award for a challenge, we were meant to have it, so why shouldn’t we use it?” Kendra agreed. “You haven’t steered us wrong yet, Bright Eyes, so why the Mists should we stop listening to you now?”

That seemed to cement more.

“As long as we are careful, there shouldn’t be an issue. It is a guide, not a divine mandate,” Tail said. “We also know that the dungeon grows and changes, so it may be wise to only use it as a general overview.”

“It doesn’t feel natural,” Mitchel said, using more caution with his words than Myles thought strictly necessary. Soon, though, his smile returned. “Who am I to judge? Your luck is absurd, Myles. First, I find out you own a dungeon core, and now you have the cliff notes on the dungeon itself? If you haven’t been struck down yet, why shouldn’t we keep pushing things?”

The last words came out as almost a laugh, but no one joined him. In fact, Myles glared at the man as all eyes turned back to their leader with newfound horror.

Mitchel took a moment before feeling the weight of Myles’s annoyance. “What?”

The chorus of accusations that followed Mitchel’s words nearly deafened Myles as he had to explain yet another of his absurd stories. He wasn’t quite ready to do on that large of a scale.

“Umm… Silpha, can you…”

Silpha simply laughed and dissolved into a mist of shimmering aether.

Damn it, Silpha!

~Sorry, Myles. I’m not getting in the middle of this. I told you we should introduce everyone to me sooner rather than later.~

No! You told me to do Mitchel first.

~Eh. Same thing. I’ll come back when I know they won’t try and shatter me.~

“You will be fine,” Ashra assured. “I will protect you.”

~I appreciate that, Ashra.~

As the questions broke his concentration, Myles groaned. His work was never done, and he was surprised by this point that he wasn’t labeled as a [Story Shaper] of some kind as once again, he told the tale of Silpha.

As the story went on, his team was a good audience. They listened as intently as they could, took in everything he offered, and generally understood the limitations of what Silpha was, could, and couldn’t do, and the implications of their next move, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give them all the answers they wanted to hear.

“We can’t make infinite money because Silpha doesn’t want to crash the economy of the Run or the kingdom when we get out,” Myles repeated for the fifteenth time. “And she can’t make Skill Stones because they are beyond her. She’s a younger core, whatever that means.”

~It means I’m restricted in what I can and can’t do. Sket, you’d think Lyna needed money at this rate.~

Myles sighed. “Any other questions?”

“I think that about sums it up,” Kendra said after a few moments, “Though, I would like to know why you hid her from us for so long.”

“I didn’t exactly hide her.”

“Having her pretend to be a tamed monster doesn’t count, though it does explain how you resisted a siren of all things.”

“Hey!”

~Hey!~

Myles realized a moment too late that she had been messing with him as Kendra smirked. Victorious, she walked a step closer and punched his shoulder. “Myles, if this relationship is going to last, you need to accept that I’m going to harass you any chance I can.”

Myles rubbed his shoulder. Kendra was getting stronger every day it felt like. “Then you better be ready for when I get something on you.”

She grinned, taking a step back and looking him over shamelessly. “Shouldn’t you be trying to get—”

“Enough of that,” Will interrupted, stepping between them. “I don’t need to hear you two flirt like a bunch of teenagers.”

Without thinking, Myles didn’t miss a beat.

“But we are a bunch of teenagers,” he said, surprising everyone.

There was a long silence as the group processed who had said it before Kendra laughed. Lyna and Mitchel joined in a moment later, and even Tail chuckled to themselves as Myles wore an embarrassed smile at his, and Will’s, expense. For his part, Will took it in stride and gave him a worn, gruff smile before putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I forget that sometimes,” Will sighed. “Just keep it together when we’re in the field. Okay?”

“I can promise that.” The others continued to laugh as Will pulled him into a hug. If that wasn’t enough of a surprise, Will whispered something as quietly as he thought Myles could hear. “Can we talk in private?”

The request surprised Myles, but he did his best not to let it show. It wasn’t the fact that Will wanted to talk with him; he’d been expecting that for the past few days when he’d figured out Myles was serious about it. It seemed to him that Will wanted to keep it quiet. It was probably to keep Kendra out of earshot, he figured.

As he pulled away, Myles gave him a nod before looking to Silpha’s core and Ashra.

~We’ll be fine,~ Silpha assured.

“We will train until nightfall,” Ashra assured. “Silpha has a new idea for triggering my Class evolution into a [Phantom Fist].”

Myles nodded to them, accepting their plans before turning to the rest. “Alright, plan for the rest of the day. I’m going to go check on Paragon and try something with Will real quick to see if I can get it to evolve.” With that, he turned his attention to the others. “Can you four go check for Astral Leaf with the Kinkeepers at the Sojourn? Maybe they can point us in the right direction if they don’t have it. Money shouldn’t be a problem, but come back if you need some.”

No one argued with him, and soon after, the group dispersed, leaving him and Will, and Silpha in a sense, on their own. Myles motioned for Will to follow, and they went to the house together. What he said hadn’t been a lie either. He fully intended to see if Will’s magic would be enough to do something to the violet slime since the potions weren’t working.

As we walked out into the open, Will wasted no time.

“We haven’t really had much time to talk,” he began casually. “On reputation alone, I know more about you than I’ve known about most of Kendra’s… interests.”

Myles sighed. It was going to be one of those talks.

“Will…”

Will waved it away. “Don’t Will me. She’s about all I’ve got left, so I can’t not do this.” He sighed. “I like you, Myles, but with no one else to keep an eye on her, well, I need to know what you intend.”

Myles stopped in his footsteps, halfway between the bar and his front door. “What?”

Turning to face him, the older man was obviously uncomfortable with the subject. “You and Kendra, it isn’t for the Run and sponsor awards, is it?”

It took all Myles had not to drop his jaw. “That’s what you’re worried about? That we were just trying to get loot?”

Will sighed. “Wouldn’t be the first time she’d come up with a plan like that.”

Some of his offense melted at that. Will wasn’t wrong about that. Taking a second to collect himself, Myles took in his teammate. He’d known Will as a capable [Distortion Mage], a wise man, a friend, and a teammate. For the first time, Myles felt like he truly saw him as his longest role, Kendra’s concerned, loving grandfather determined to keep her safe and out of trouble as much as he could. He’d joined the run for that, according to Kendra. Even if he wanted to see if he could become a [Temporal Mage] or whatever Class it was that controlled the power of time, Will was a grandfather first. He went along with her when she couldn’t be talked out of it and did his best to keep her safe when she was too dense to do something about it.

Myles took a breath and gave Will his best smile.

“You know I can’t speak for her about how she feels.”

“I know, and I’ve already talked to her,” Will said, surprising him a bit. “I just want to know that you two are both on the same page.”

Before he answered, Myles thought back to that night inside Shardking. The scene was still fresh in his mind and may always be. He considered his thoughts, feelings, and the revelations that came with the clarity of near death. It wasn’t a lot, but he did the best he could to put them into words Will could understand.

“I do like her, and it isn’t some act,” Myles confirmed. “Kendra’s a bit bull-headed, but she’s strong. She knows what she wants, and she challenges me to be stronger.”

Will listened as they stood on the lawn. “And when there’s no more fighting for your lives?”

“Then we’ll see if we still care about each other in that way,” he said simply enough. “Maybe it’s just the excitement of it all, but I do like her. Even if her taste in music is awful.”

“That it is.”

Will said nothing else, but his smile spoke volumes as he followed Myles into his makeshift slime ranch.

There was work to be done, after all.