The trek back up the stairs took a long time. Kass had to crawl up each step and after only forty or so her arms and legs felt like jello. At first she counted how many breaks she was taking, but by the fifteenth she stopped counting, more focused on making it up the stairs and not falling back down them.

She finally crested the last stair after two hours and collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. Then she cried. They weren’t sad tears that fell down onto the floor though, they were happy tears. She let out a laugh that came out as a half-sob and it just made her laugh even more.

“I think I’m going to take a nap. I’m so tired.”

“I would not advise sleeping where you are.”

“Well you weren’t the one that had to climb all those stairs, now were you?”

“Indeed.”

“Alright, you’re right...just give me a minute, okay?” The blade didn’t respond, so she just laid there, feeling sore. Wish I had a bed to sleep in…

It took her awhile to finally feel like she was rested enough, and even when she pushed herself up she felt the fatigue in her arms and legs. Now I have to move all those weapons…

Kass started with the swords, which were the lightest by far. She moved them one by one, and set them next to the stairs leading down. Then she grabbed the flail. She was able to move it by holding onto the handle and dragging the two spiked balls on the floor behind her. It took more effort than the swords, but was still manageable.

Breathing heavy she walked over to the hammer and sat down on the ground next to the broken stone cube. Kass just stared at the weapon and pouted, not wanting to think about having to move it. Hmm...maybe I can roll a strength buff and then move it? She thought it was worth a try and so she cast Gambler’s Way.

The dice fell. Fool’s, Fool’s, Knight.

Debuff Gained: -2 Strength, Shortness of Breath - Duration: 2 minutes

“Are you kidding me!?” she threw her hands up in the air in protest. What the hell is that garbage? She huffed from the movement, feeling the affects of the debuff already.

“Two fool’s hands again and I get a debuff...huh. That’s the only time it has happened so far. I wonder…” Kass waited the full two minutes and then began casting the skill over and over again, watching for another debuff and watching what she rolled.

After ten rolls she rolled her first set of three and was quite surprised by the buff received.

Buff Gained: +20% increase to damage, +7% increase to maximum health, +10% increase to overall defense - Duration: 20 minutes

“Wow, that is really, really strong. So three knights gave me a boost to damage, health, and defense… wish I had a piece of paper or something…” She tried scratching her findings into the floor with a sharp chunk of stone that she found lying nearby, but it didn’t work very well. She even tried finding a burnt stick from one of the braziers but was surprised to see that they all functioned without fuel. Huh, magic?

After looking around for another minute, she gave up and asked Whisper to help her remember what she discovered, then got back to work.

An hour later Kass had compiled a good amount of information about her new skill. She even managed to scratch most of it onto a piece of metal she had pried off one of the guardians. It wasn’t very big and she figured she could carry it around with her for awhile until she memorized what she had found.

“Alright, let’s go over this again,” she said to the sword as she looked over her crude tablet of information. “If I don’t roll any matches, rolling a single skull gives a stronger buff than any of the other singles, as far as we know. But that follows the same idea of the gambling game you told me about.

“We also didn’t come across any debuffs from rolling singles, which makes me think that it has to do with rolling more than one fool’s hand, though I didn’t roll three fool’s hands, which is probably a good thing now that I think about it. There weren’t any debuffs from rolling doubles of anything else either, and of the two triples that I rolled, which were three knights and three moons, we just saw stronger buffs. Did you notice anything else?”

“It appears that each double, and consequently triple, rewards a buff similar in nature. For example, when you rolled three knights you received a buff concerning damage, health, and defense. Later, when you rolled two knights, you received a buff to your defense.

“The same thing occurred when rolling three moons and two moons. Both coincided with intelligence and other things that would be quite useful to a magic wielder.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” she jotted down a few words about the similarities. “Okay time for some math. Is math something you can help me with as well or am I stuck doing this alone?”

“I do not believe I understand what ‘math’ is. You are speaking a word from the language of your people.”

“...”

A dumbfounded look spread across Kass’ face. She tried to speak a few times but only managed to open and close her mouth.

“Ah, I see… You must understand, communication between us was paramount to your survival. Memory of your old language may have been replaced or forgotten due to the transference of the language of Arkos.”

“A whole other language…? How? How did I not notice I was speaking another language? I would have noticed…” Her mind was turning over a hundred times, trying to wrap itself around the fact that she had been speaking another language and didn’t even realize it.

“I speak English, and some...some Spanish...I know words from both of them...” she tried to speak them, but the words didn’t come, they felt sluggish inside her head, moving too slow to form a complete sentence. Like the time she told someone she spoke Spanish and they went off on a long sentence in the language and all she understood were certain simple words.

Kass sat there for a long time, trying to get a grasp of her old life back. She remembered her family and friends, school and running, part-time work, her first car, first date, the day her mom died...but it all seemed so far away, like a dream. I’ll never make it back home…

The realization was so jarring that it seemed to snap her out of the mental state she was in. Her resolve broke and her eyes teared up. What am I doing? Why did I ever think I could survive this? I’m just a stupid girl, and I’m never going home. I’ll be dead before I ever make it.

But you aren’t dead yet. The thought entered her mind and she pushed against it, not wanting to acknowledge the fact. I’ve been so reckless...like this is all just going to end and I’ll wake up at home again. That’s not what’s going to happen, you know that K...what are you doing walking into obvious traps? Like there won’t be any repercussions.

Dammit. The pain was already telling enough. I’m never going back home. This isn’t a dream. This isn’t fake. This is my life now. I’ve got to be smarter if I’m going to survive. I’ve been lucky up to this point, but soon that luck is going to run out.

“How am I still alive?” she asked to no one in particular. “This is ridiculous. I’ve been so reckless...”

“You did what you must to survive, did you not?” the sword’s voice was clear and calm.

“I guess so, but I’ve just been going through the motions it feels. I haven’t even been looking for food or water or anything. How am I going to live another day if I don’t level up to the next milestone? I can’t just keep relying on levels to keep me alive. I’ve been so stupid!” She pounded her fist on her forehead, mad at herself for being so careless.

“You will survive Kassandra. You are strong and capable. Look at what you have accomplished already. Look around you. This is not weakness, it is strength. I do not disagree that you have been reckless, but with more awareness and a will to survive, the monsters of this world have something to fear.”

“You believe in me too much, but thank you...I’m okay now...sorry. Guess I just needed to get through that.” Kass wiped away the tears from her eyes and pushed herself up to her feet. “What were we talking about before?”

“You were going to use some ‘math’?”

“Oh right, that just means to make calculations like adding and subtracting, that exists here, right?”

“Yes indeed, the word for that would be ‘mathematics’,” the blade used a different word that sounded familiar to Kass and she tried to commit it to memory.

“Got it, thanks. Okay,” she took a deep breath to fully calm herself down and tried to clear her mind. “Mathematics, right,” she spoke the new word and then continued, “each dice has six sides, which means that for one dice you would have a one in six chances to roll a knight. To roll a knight with two dice decreases your chances by…six times six...so a one in thirty-six chance to roll a double.

“That means to roll three of the same would be…” she did the calculation as quick as she could in her head, “one in two hundred and sixteen. Wow.” The number surprised her, being a lot higher than she had imagined before. “I rolled two threes in an hour. I wonder what the chances of that were.”

“I believe your luck may slightly affect that number.”

“Luck? Oh, right, I got plus one to luck when I chose the Vagabond class. Why doesn’t that show up on my status?”

“It is a hidden stat, something that has an effect on the world but is not easily understood. It has not appeared on any status that I know of.”

“Hmm...is there a way to get more luck?”

“I do not know of one.”

“Well let’s just hope that plus one will be enough,” she paused to stretch, feeling the soreness that already tightened up her muscles. “Okay,” she said as she straightened back out, “the game plan has changed. I need to get stronger, that much is clear, but I also need to be smart. You might survive down here without any food or water, but I won’t, so we need to make finding either of those a priority. Which I know won’t be easy…and there are a ton of other things to worry about like shelter, and fire, and diseases, and... Sorry, just trying not to freak out.”

“I understand.”

“Right, let’s get this door opened then so we can get out of here.” She looked down at the hammer and then at the metal tablet she held in her hand. Still wanting to keep the thing she felt around for a pocket of some sort that she could stick it in and found one on the inside of her jacket. It was the perfect size opening and Kass slipped it in.

The piece of metal easily sunk in, and then, to her surprise, disappeared. What the… She reached into the pocket and found that it was completely empty, no metal anywhere. “Uhh Whisper, I think my jacket just ate that piece of metal… I just put it in this pocket and now it’s gone.”

“Gone? Are the pockets deep?”

“No, not really. But I’m serious, I dropped it in there and now it’s gone. I would be able to feel that spiky piece of metal through a mattress, it has completely disappeared.”

“Then the coat that you are wearing is more valuable than we first thought. It seems that it possesses the ability to store items elsewhere.”

“What do you mean elsewhere?”

“Most likely a pocket dimension, but it could connect to some unknown location. Basically it allows you to store things that would otherwise be difficult to carry long distances. Very rare indeed.”

“Good for smuggling...huh, if what you are saying is true that makes a lot more sense. Can I get the things out that I put into it?”

“Yes, it should be possible. You should just have to visualize the item.”

Kass tried it, thinking of the metal tablet. It appeared in her hand almost instantly and she couldn’t believe it. “I...uh...I don’t even know how to talk about how amazing that is. I...it...just, wow. This thing is amazing! How does something like this even exist?” she talked quickly, filled with excitement.

“You must be very lucky indeed to have come across such an item. By accident, I might add.”

“I just might actually survive with something like this. I can put food and water in there. I can put…” she stopped what she was saying and looked back down at the hammer at her feet. “Oh hell yes, do you think this thing will fit in there?!”