As the group leaves the dungeon, Doyle is laughing. For the first time, his monsters provided a real challenge for the group. Sure, other times they would face difficulties. But this was the closest to death any of them had come except for Sammy, and her thing was a fluke. Though the question is why. He turns to Ally, ‘So what’s up with the wolves being so effective against them?’

Ally frowns, ‘That is a good question, and the system doesn’t seem to want to fill us in. It isn’t like the dungeon wolves have better stats. In fact, the goats have more points in just strength and constitution than the wolves do in total.’

Doyle rocks his core back, ‘Odd, you aren’t wrong about that and it makes the mystery even deeper. Lets go spy on Ace to see if he has the answer.’ And the two of them turn their attention outside of the dungeon.

Ace is next to Jack as Doctor is doing what he can to fix the damage. Seems though that Ace has exactly the same question. Susan is there as well and shrugs, “They really weren’t strong at all. In theory, our group should be able to squash them. Even if I was the only one with extensive experience with fighting wolves that should make up for the difference in stats.”

Doctor finishes his fifth healing spell and laughs. “I’m surprised even you got caught up in the illusion of power that visible stats give us. In a fight, who do you think would win? The stronger man or the weaker man?”

Susan shrugs, “If you can point to one as being stronger than I would say the strong man.”

Doctor shakes his head, “Well first of all you made a mistake. With the system I can now declare someone is stronger even if it is by a single point. Secondly strength isn’t the end all be all. And by strength I don’t just mean the specific stat, but rather all of them together. Otherwise you just get the man with a silly amount of agility to beat someone stronger than them and you cry foul.”

“Now let me put some more detail into the example. What is the stronger man is a body builder who has gained all his strength through working out, while the weaker man was in the military. Who would win?”

Susan rolls her eyes, “Well yeah, the military man would win. What good is strength if you can’t use it. But that isn’t really equivalent to what happened in the dungeon. We are all significantly stronger than the wolves at this point and need experience with fighting.”

Doctor scoffs at this, “You are experienced with fighting. The rest of them got a crash course. The System has not been here for even a full year yet. And those wolves? Maybe the rest of you missed this detail, but the monsters in the dungeon aren’t blank slates. The goats act like goats, the rabbits act like rabbits, and of course the wolves act like wolves. Where did they get this from? It isn’t all instinct, especially not with the wolves.”

“Clearly a part of monster spawning involves dumping a bunch of information into their heads. And what is it wolves are famous for? Pack hunting and taking out the weaker prey. What did the wolves do to you? They hunted you as a pack and aimed for the physically weakest member of your group.”

“Susan, even your experience with hunting wolves isn’t going to do much good. At least I assume it won’t. You don’t seem like the type to hunt them with a group. I bet you just got dumped out in the wilderness somewhere ungodly cold and then had to survive. Fighting wolves with guerrilla tactics is a lot different from a stand up brawl. Now do I need to go on, or do you understand your folly?”

Susan squints her eyes at him, but he doesn’t back down. With a sigh she looks away, “Fine! You aren’t wrong there. We fought against a pack of wolves and tried to treat it like a bunch of one-on-one fights. They took advantage of that, splitting our group and targeting the weakest. The only reason why we got away with so few wounded is because we are just so far above them.”

Doctor nods, “Good, and don’t forget it. While I do want to practice my healing spells, I would rather be treating minor wounds for now. I am nowhere near good enough for this kind of nonsense. It took me five casts of my heal spell to clear that mess up! The person who taught me in the tutorial could do it in two. Once to make sure it doesn’t start bleeding and a second to fix things up from the inside out.”

Ace sighs, “No matter how strong we seem to be we are still much too weak.”

After that they mostly settle into a bit of pointless moaning about the world, so Doyle and Ally turn away from the drama. Doyle’s core brightens up, ‘Well, I guess we know what is up with the wolves.’

Ally nods, ‘And did you notice how the three further away wolves joined in on the fight?’

Doyle sighs, ‘Yeah, I half don’t want them to do it. I did not plan the floor with that kind of thing in mind. Though I guess I wasn’t specific enough when I let the ambush wolves do their thing. The only ray of luck is that they don’t seem overly motivated. If all the wolves that could hear the howls came along, the party would have had to run away. Some of them could have even died. Though I guess it makes some sense that the call was limited. The ambush behavior was only intended to work from a room away.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Emergent behavior is fun.’

Doyle rolls his core, ‘I’m sure this won’t be the last time something like this happens. Anyway, I don’t think the fourth floor will actually hold them for long. The third floor only kept for so long because of the random maze aspect of it.’

Ally starts to grin as Doyle continues, ‘Since I currently have enough to make it.’

Ally interrupts, ‘Then it’s time to make the fifth floor! Dungeon Boss time, booyah!’

Doyle tilts back, ‘I can’t see anyway around it. Plus, I already have some plans for the boss.’

Ally is practically vibrating in the air, ‘Dungeon bosses are amazing! You need to let me help with this. I’ve always wanted to work on one. Few beings can ever create a sapient being on purpose with dungeon bosses being about the only dependable method. Sure, there are things like golems and robots that can with time gain sapience, but that is all up to chance. Sapience isn’t even the realm of the gods! You need to be a true immortal to even think of granting souls.’

Doyle’s core dims, ‘And why would I let you help?’

Ally stops dead in the air, ‘Huh?’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘I have no reason to.’

Ally frowns at this, ‘What are you talking about? We’re partners! We’ve even been soulbond, the deepest connection any person can have. I just want help with the boss.’

Doyle shakes his core again, ‘Yeah, that is all you want to help with. Everything else has been tidbits of information or system provided tutorial text. And the soulbond? Have you felt it recently? Go ahead, feel it, feel what our bond is like!’

Ally backs up, ‘Chill! I will feel it out after we talk about this.’

Doyle’s core loses almost all radiance, ‘You haven’t been doing anything. In fact, did your level go up? How many skills have you leveled up? Did you do anything besides watching delvers like some survival show and browsing the universal internet? No, there will be no more talking until you actually stop wasting time. Until you pause your roll and feel what our connection is actually like right now. Because you know what? I kept track of it. Not actively, but it is right there at the back of my mind. Just the fact you can’t tell off the top of your head shows how shallow our supposed bond is for you.’

Ally stops backing up, though only because her back is against the wall. ‘Woah! Fine, I’ll give it a look and see what has you all bothered.’

She floats down to the ground and sits with her legs crossed. At first she is just mediating, but it doesn’t take any guesswork on Doyle’s part to tell when she gets around to it. Her face scrunches up in disgust, her wings twitch, and she curls up into a fetal position. After this, it takes her a good few minutes to recover.

Ally opens her eyes as tears form, ‘That, that was vile. The connection was there. Though I guess it would need to be for us to continue talking like this. What is that? It is like there is a black fog wrapping around it, except the fog is made of filth and malignant tumors.’

Doyle nods, ‘I would like to blame it on you completely, but that wouldn’t be fair. It takes two to tango and I might have been able to head this off at the pass if I had brought it up sooner. Instead, I fell into the same kind of nonsense I’ve always done. Sitting in my own corner, trapped in my own designs.’

Ally nods, ‘Yes, we need to work on this!’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘No, you need to work on it and I will help you with it. While my fault is inaction, that is not what caused the miasma! This isn’t some easy fix. We are stuck together and honestly I do like you as a person. Probably part of my downfall comes from that. I let things slide that I never should have. You, on the other hand, need to take a hard look at how you’ve been treating this whole thing.’

Ally frowns, ‘But.’

Doyle cuts her off, ‘No buts! I want you to grow from this and you won’t if I just let this slide. Plus, I don’t even know what will fix the bond. I’m waiting at the halfway point for you. Not like either of us could leave. For now, though? I’m going to design my fifth floor. If I need some information, I’ll check on you.’

Ally raises a hand, ‘Wait, don’t you need some information on bosses first?’

Doyle leans forward, ‘If I need some information I’ll check on you.’ And he turns his core away from her. Not that this does anything as the core isn’t really sided, but it gets the point across.

Ally hangs her head and drifts up towards her room as he focuses on making the fifth floor. After all, he did have some plans for it. Ever since the start he had a plan for the first boss and now, it could come to fruition.

He dives into his core towards the void and the pool of power sourced from sapience. For the fourth time in his new life Doyle touches on infinity and a literal nothing. A void from which size is an incomprehensibly small term for it and yet at the same time only exists because him and those like him force it upon it. That which is tainted by strange forms of life existing only through their paradoxical will to continue on and unlife that should have faded out long ago and yet lives. A non-place where the cracked remains of fallen gods, dead universes, and ossuaries made from the bones of existence itself long forgotten.

Doyle touches on the edge of these mysteries and more as once again he expands the pool of power within him outwards as far as it will go and then crunch it down as far as he. With effort that is becoming familiar an entirely new dimensional space is created within what was his fourth floor’s core room.