We stepped into the wayroom’s magic circle, and a message popped into view before me.

  The display caught me off guard. If I pressed ‘Ok’ would that bring everyone else along with me?

  Gorian saved me the worry. “Everyone, good to go?”

  Everyone gave their assent and light dusted us.

  We appeared back in the dungeon wayroom with the more ancient, worn-down stone walls. The air had gone stale once more. Torches swung about, revealing an empty room, and everyone relaxed.

  “Gorian, how did you send us down here?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

  “I just felt a pulling sensation and gave in to it. All I did was relax.” Gorian scratched his bald head. “You didn’t feel a pull?”

  “No,” I admitted. It was too late to pretend. “All of you felt the pull as well?”

  Their nods confirmed that as usual, I was different.

  I’m the only one who can see a UI… Is this a single player game? And I’m the only player character here?

  The thought made me feel a bit empty.

  I have Mama. And that’s enough.

  Serina jerked a thumb over her shoulder to the door behind us. “Don’t go back out to the level. It’s definitely reset by now, and the gatekeeper would be waiting, or whatever other corrupted entity it might be.”

  Zadina stopped us just as we headed for the exit to the stairs. “Before we go any further, I’d like to clear the air between us, My Lady.”

  “Is that really necessary?” I folded my arms across my chest, staring back into her icy eyes. “I told you before that I understood your actions. We don’t need to be friends. I’m sure we can both be cordial.”

  “I want to be more than that. I know you’ve a kind heart, My Lady.”

  “I think you have a mistaken impression of me.”

  “You care, deeply, for those who fight by your side. I see it in your eyes. You always throw yourself into danger for our sake. You never pull back.” She closed in on me, sinking down on one knee.

  “What are you doing?” I scrambled to pull her up. “I don’t need your fealty.”

  “I admire your nobility and bravery. And I hope to match what you’ve given.” She glanced back to the others standing behind her. “I’ve told the rest of the party about my other role here.”

  “Hmph… That sounded really scummy, sending someone who’s supposed to watch your back to spy on you.” Justin wrinkled his nose. “I’d understand if you want to ditch her, or…” He narrowed his eyes at Kamuel, who quickly turned away. “...us”

  “It’s fine… can we just go?”

  The memory of that sword attempting to wrench itself free nagged at me. The hunger wasn’t as pronounced right now; there weren't any rich flavors drawing it out. But I knew I didn’t want to let my Soul Points go any lower.

  I can’t risk going home with it so low.

  But Zadina was insistent. “I have a duty to fulfill my orders, but I want to promise you that I will not submit my report until this is over and you’ve read it in full.”

  What? So I get a headstart on running if I need to?

  I wanted to joke, but I knew even bending this much took effort from her.

  There was no need to be cruel to those who try for your sake, even if it still resulted in you burning.

  “Thank you, Zadina. I appreciate the gesture. But remember to hold to your other promise.”

  “Of course, My Lady.” She relented to me helping her to her feet.

  Zadina rose, towering over me. Her gaze, and everyone else’s, shifted over to Kamuel, who stood stiffly.

  They obviously had a big talk in my absence.

  Slowly, Kamuel turned to me. “I realized that it might have appeared as a betrayal to you. However I only had your best interest at heart when I wrote of you to the elders. Else the Sister would not be here…”

  I gazed at him coolly. “You have no idea what else she dragged along in her shadow.”

  Of course, he’d believe it was for the best. I knew far too well his kind of people, always declaring they had your best interest at heart as they dragged you to the stake.

  All to save my soul. If they only knew.

  Gorian huffed and elbowed Kamuel, who continued, still sounding reluctant. “I also pledge to not disclose what happens down here without your consent.”

  I raised an eyebrow. That’s a bit more than what Zadina promised. No apologies, however.

  “I guess that means I shouldn’t hold back anymore.”

  No one laughed in response.

  My eyes met Gorian’s and he nodded curtly. “Alright, are we done here?”

  A long silent pause followed, and he waved his arm. “Let’s move!”

  —

  Down at the fourth level entrance, I sent chains of my [Shadow Fingers] down the three-way fork in the hallway ahead of us.

  The [Shadow Fingers] basically acted as my forward scouting parties, now complete with [Detect Hidden].

  Were they intended to be used this way? I wasn’t sure, but that was how I used them.

  Judging from the first level, the game-devs probably aren’t around anymore. But if they are, I’d like a word with them.

  The monsters were up and moving around in this level, so it didn’t seem corrupted. I found the path to the next floor soon enough. In one of the side rooms, my dark appendages spotted a large wooden chest bounded by iron bands. A giant metal padlock, the size of a fist, was embedded right below the front lid, with a large, gaping keyhole on it.

  My [Shadow Fingers] poked at it.

  It didn’t seem like a mimic.

  I glanced over at Serina. “Are treasure chests valuable here?”

  “How? We just got here…” Serina’s shoulders slumped as she wiped a hand over her face. “I shouldn’t even bother. Which way is it?”

  “Of course they’re valuable. They’re called Treasure chests for a reason!” Justin inched forward eagerly.

  “I got my sword from one of those.” Gorian patted the blade of his greatsword.

  “Is it magical?”

  “Aye, here, see for yourself. You can feel its power.” Gorian shoved the massive sword hilt into my hands, which seemed tiny in comparison. Luckily, I had enough [Strength] to hold it up.

  It looked like a well-crafted sword, with no imperfections in the blade. The balance was also good as I hefted it. I did feel magic emanating from it, but it was subtle, like tremoring waves.

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  Identify revealed:

  Another one of these rather helpful descriptions. But the stats were interesting. I wondered if my [Shadow Sword] used [Atk] at all. My attempts to identify it had all come up blank.

  Perhaps to my Identify the sword was just a shadow.

  I placed the sword back in Gorian’s hands, nodding. So that was the tier of items expected. It didn’t seem like much to me, but my perception of stats might be skewed due to how abnormal I was.

  At least… No, I’m definitely abnormal, for any world.

  I grabbed the hilt of the [Shadow Sword] rising out of the dark stone floor. Dark threads twisted up around my legs, weaving into the fabric of my [Shadow Shroud].

  Justin backed away from me as the fabric wrapped around my head. “Yeah no, never getting used to that.”

  “Alright. First room to the right. There are three gnolls with scimitars up front, two more with slings behind a broken wall. And a shaman with a staff in the back.”

  “Gnolls? You going to tame one of them?” Justin asked snarkily.

  “No. I will make their deaths quick.” The face I flashed him sent him reeling. To the rest I declared, “I’m taking point.”

  —

  Torchlight spilled into the hovel of a room, catching the weeping, raw bedrock exposed by the broken-down walls. Zadina stepped into the entrance, and her shadow stretched deep into the room. The three figures with jackal heads rose off their haunches and snarled, raising their glinting scimitars.

  A low growl filled the room as they advanced to meet Zadina. I emerged, rising out of the shadow on the ground behind the lead gnoll. Before the slingers had a chance to react, my sword arced, and the gnoll’s head slid at a slant off of its neck. The one to the right turned to me, howling, but then choked on the blade stabbing through its throat.

  The last frontline gnoll jumped at me from behind, its curved sword raised high, only to be impaled, twitching upon the spike that the loose edges of my shroud had coalesced into.

  The shaman was barking manically now. I sped toward it, bringing my sword down overhead. It raised its staff to block, and I ducked, changing the trajectory to slash sideways, slicing right through its midsection and splitting the shaman in half.

  One of the slingers was fumbling with a rock bullet when an arrow buried itself in its shoulder. It fell when another arrow found its temple.

  The other slinger dropped its sling, and was whimpering, its legs shaking. I finished it off quickly.

  Small points of light drifted up out of the corpses and floated toward me, like those fireflies when I was born. The message blinked again:

  I felt the warmth when they entered me, but now, I could taste them as well. And the flavor was… bland. I checked my status and my Soul Points definitely went up.

  So it did fill me, if only by a couple of points. But the taste…

  Are these souls the equivalent of gruel? If so, then what’s the equivalent of a nice warm soup?

  My stomach twisted, and I began to feel nauseous, my fingers squeezing tight the cold hilt of my sword. [Virtuous] didn’t seem to like me contemplating consuming human souls, even sinful ones that deserved it. Though, I suppose I was focused on the church.

  Justin whistled as the rest of the party entered the room. “Oh shit. You really were holding back.”

  The rest of the rooms didn’t provide much more of a challenge. I cleared out the next two groups of goblins by myself. They barely had time to shriek before I finished them off. There wasn’t a reason to hide anything, and I wanted to get to the bottom of the dungeon as soon as possible.

  Then I can go home.

  We encountered a nest of giant snakes. I watched as Justin torched most of them with a fireball, trying to figure out what I did wrong. But then an even larger snake attacked us from behind. It was lightning quick with hard metal scales. The thing was over twenty feet tall when it reared up.

  Gorian taunted it while Zadina hammered at its side. I leaped onto its back, ran up its spine, and stabbed my sword down into its braincase from above.

  The snake went stiff instantly and slammed into the ground. I dove into its shadow just as we were about to hit the ground.

  Afterwards, Serina made us help her skin and cut up the corpse, claiming that its scales were valuable materials for armor and its meat were prized delicacies.

  I joined in, switching to a large kitchen cleaver for the task. I stowed away a large, more tender section of the meat for Chef Borin. He surely would enjoy getting his hands on this.

  —

  “There are skeletons up ahead. I might not be able to damage them.” I warned Zadina, pointing down at my shadowy blade.

  She nodded. “Are they corrupted undead?”

  “It doesn’t seem like it?” They looked like normal skeletons from the sketches in the handbooks, just a set of human bones. They also didn’t exude the same sense of danger that most of the hybrids that we encountered had.

  “Let me take point on this one then.”

  We took a straight forward approach with this one.

  Zadina charged into the large, high-ceilinged room, roaring her usual battle cry.

  “For Lumus!”

  The first Skeleton swung its hollow eye sockets toward her, just as her glowing white hammer caved in its skull followed by the rest of its body.

  Clang!

  Her shield blocked a slash, and she countered by crushing the chest of her assailant with her hammer.

  The next two skeletons went down just as easily.

  Paladins are impressive against the undead, at least normal ones.

  There were torches on the wall behind a line of skeleton archers, stretching their shadows out to us. I dove in and popped up out of the shadow of one archer, and attacked it. It took a few tries, but I was able to hack it down with my sword. They certainly weren’t immune to the sword’s damage like the wraiths.

  By the time I took down the third archer, Zadina had already plowed through the warriors and had dealt with the rest of the archers. She straightened up, beaming proudly at me.

  She definitely enjoys killing undead.

  “I see the chest is here,” Serina said as she walked briskly past me. Her eyes were fixed on the prize.

  She knelt down beside the chest, examining the lock and the keyhole. To my surprise, she pulled out a leather bundle instead of casting a spell. She unrolled the bundle and pulled out a pair of long metal prongs. Inserting the prongs into the keyhole, she wiggled them and attempted to twist, but they didn’t budge. After a few attempts, she sighed, sitting back. “No good…”

  Zadina raised her hammer but Serina stopped her with a raised hand. “You’ll damage anything fragile that might be in there, like crystals or potions.” She waved Justin over. “You want to try your thing?”

  He rolled his sleeves back. “Yup, let me show you how it’s done.”

  “Just try not to burn anything inside. I’d like to keep any tomes intact.”

  “Course, I got precision down.” Justin knelt before the chest and held his hand over the keyhole. Magic flowed from his hand into the lock. White smoke rose in the form of a twisted thread out of the keyhole. The lock began to glow, and slowly deform before melting.

  Justin placed his hand on the top lid and lifted it. “Hah. easy! Well what do you know, there is a book!”

  He dug out the book wrapped in rough, stained oilcloth and looked over the spine, squinting one eye. “Hmm… don’t know this language. You?”

  With a flick, he tossed the book over to Serina.

  Justin dug out more items, a small dagger, a pair of boots, and a pouch of gold coins. One by one, I picked up the dagger and boots, turning them over in my hands. They were at least magical.

  The dagger identified as:

  It fell flat even compared to [Iron Bear]. The boots showed up as:

  The boots could be useful given my low stamina, [Sta], but they looked appalling. They were bright, leafy green and pointed at the toe ends, curling upwards into a spiral. Wearing them would make me look like a harlequin.

  When did I become so vain? Could this be the influence of my high [Grace] or [Charisma]?

  Justin jiggled the pouch in his hand with a big grin on his lips.

  “We’ll split that later.” Gorian patted his shoulder, turning to me. “But you want any of the items, lass?”

  He picked up one of the boots, his face twisting as he looked it over. He seems to be thinking the same thing. “You get first dibs since you spotted the chest first.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have a need for them.”

  Serina put the book in my hand. “Can you make sense of this, Joan? The letters, some of them look vaguely Avatinian.”

  “This can’t be…“ My body swayed as if struck. The letters on the spine—I can read them… impossible. “Where do the items from these chests come from?”

  “What do you mean?” Serina asked, looking puzzled.

  “This book… belongs to someone. If Dungeons get reset, how did it stay here if they left it?”

  “Treasure chests are a bit of a mystery. Some believe items are created by the gods. But I have heard of long lost weapons reappearing in them. There is a theory that the items of dead adventurers are collected and teleported around.” She leaned closer, eyeing me curiously. “So what does it say? Is it the ancient tongue?”

  On the greasy oilcloth spine were plain, scrawled-out letters that I knew well—I had carved them into my skin before.

  It was English. Actual, modern English from Steve’s time.

  Aaron(Not a hero!)’s Diary.