They’d made it further than he expected.

Barely.

Upon reaching the closed door, Janken had ordered his group to rest. They broke bread, healed their wounds, and even grabbed a fitful and short-lived nap.

Gem, Chesu, and Shriek eventually got tired of waiting for them to begin, and the three of them started designing the quest board system.

After some discussion, Chesu convinced Gem to put the board at the intersection of his main pathway and the exit. It would allow adventurers to turn in their quests or pick up new ones on their way in or out. Functional, practical, and a bit aesthetic with some adjustments.

Gem buffed out the area with a few extra blocks, making it a bit more like a town square. He had to move quickly, and Chesu kept an eye out for meandering adventurers while he built.

In addition to the quest board, Gem decorated the area with a few pieces of wooden furniture—made from the dark Jungle wood he’d collected previously—and some plants. The area was just shy of overgrown, but in an organized and visually pleasing way.

He was happy when the first adventurers ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the display.

Assigning quests was the difficult part, however.

The interface he was presented with was overwhelming, with hundreds of options to choose. They boiled down to one thing, however.

Gem repeated, his tone flat.

“Yep. You sacrifice a bit of your experience to give them experience. But you can make it so they can help you hit your daily quests better.”

Gem sent the wisp an image of a frowning crystal. He didn’t have a whole lot of daily quests, and it seemed silly to ask them to be hit by a trap or even die.

When he explained that to Chesu, the wisp was all grins and laughter. “Well, obviously. You need to be clever, kid. Don’t think about it quite so literally.”

While Gem pondered what quests to include beyond taking on his first and second bosses, the group on his second floor got moving.

Shriek thought, breaking Chesu and Gem from their brainstorming session.

“I’ll meet you back in your Core Room,” Chesu said. “We can return to this later.”

Gem was loath to leave the project only a quarter finished, especially since there were adventurers approaching down the bridge to the main island, but he was out of time. Splitting himself wasn’t an option either, since both would require more processing power than he was currently capable of while split.

Begrudgingly, he returned his consciousness to his Core Room so he could watch the adventurers with Shriek.

Gem immediately focused his attention on the group’s tank, Silver, who was engaged with two of the unaligned Dolves.

“I love that I can tell when you take over again,” the Plantling said while ruffling his petals. “The viewpoint is so static and almost too far away to see anything otherwise. But you move the viewpoint so gracefully and right to where the fun action is.”

Gem didn’t know what to say to that, so he just sent the little Plantling a picture of a laughing core.

He didn’t quite feel like he wanted to laugh, however.

Especially not when there was such a gruesome scene happening below.

Each Dolve was around two and a half blocks tall at the tallest point of their antlers, on average. That made them as tall or taller than the adventurers in the group. The body of the Dolve looked like prey; it was lithe and covered in a soft gray hide, with four long, skinny legs tipped in hooves. Its face was nothing like prey, however. The creature’s neck was coated in a thick gray mane that connected to large jaws, sharply pointed ears, and attentive eyes. Its muzzle was filled with sharp teeth and its head was adorned with a rack of antlers that seemed to be different for every Dolve.

There were three Dolves in this wandering pack. Silver currently had his sword locked in combat with one’s antlers while the other was worrying at his leg with its fangs. The tank shrieked and beat at the creature’s head with his hand, but it wasn’t doing much.

Meanwhile, the rest of his party was engaged with the third Dolve, who sprinted up and down the hallway, taunting them by performing hit-and-run tactics. It seemed delighted to bound up to someone who was only half paying attention, pummel them with its antlers, and then dash off before circling back to do it again.

“Focus!” Silver shouted before grunting in pain as the Dolve on his arm shook its heavy jaws.

A bright, soft light wrapped itself around Silver. The Dolve released his arm—whether in pain or confusion, Gem couldn’t tell—and Silver visibly relaxed. Instead of vanishing, the light danced along his skin, repairing cuts and bruises as it went.

Gem focused on Janken. The group’s healer was holding one hand out, and his face was contorted in either focus or constipation. A faint light—almost an echo of the one that danced along Silver’s skin—suffused around his outstretched fingers.

“Priest is an interesting class choice,” Chesu said with a grin that Gem could hear in his voice. “Not too many people are devout in their own asshole-ish-ness to qualify.”

Gem wasn’t sure how long ago the wisp had returned; he’d been so focused on the carnage below. If he’d had a body, the abrupt appearance would have made him jump.

“Hero Cores have requirements for their classes, just like you had requirements for your specialization. It gets worse when they increase tiers. Priest is a healing class that requires some amount of religious zeal to unlock, but it’s quite powerful. The upper tiers are… difficult to match requirements for.”

“Not a single ounce. Can be any god or combination of gods in the cosmos. Real or imagined.”

Chesu laughed, a very abrupt and mean-sounding thing. “Kid, you’ve talked to a voice who claims to be the core that runs this planet. You’ve wielded powers to create life from mana itself. Do you really think gods are that far fetched?”

Gem didn’t know how to respond to that so he changed the subject.

“That would take a serious amount of dissociation, but sure.”

“A Priest needs to believe in their chosen god fully. No room for questions of morality or whatnot. If a Priest questions their faith, even for a moment, they lose their class on the next tier. Become a Fallen Priest. No more healing magic and just lots of angst.”

Chesu stretched his arms over his head, his jaws dropping in a wide yawn. “I wouldn’t say impossible, but really difficult. Adventurers have done weirder things for sure.”

Returning his attention down below, Gem saw that one of the Dolves had finally fallen to the party. The other was still harassing the healer and their offensive casters, but the tank was doing his best to get it under control.

Gem thought with awe.

“Don’t get too excited. There is zero coordination there and their levels are way under your boss. Best case scenario is they retreat after this.”

But they didn’t. It took them a long time to deal with the remaining Dolves, and by the end every member of the team was bleeding from multiple wounds. But the final Dolve fell, all hearts were burst for loot, and the only sound remaining in the hallway was the frantic breathing of the adventurers.

“Never… didn’t have it,” Janken panted, his hands resting on his shaking knees as he bent at the waist. “Told you.”

“By the Traitor, I will make you eat those words.” Silver glared at the Priest but instead of making good on his threat, he collapsed to sit on the ground.

“What are you doing?” The Priest’s voice cracked. “We need to keep moving forward. Another rest will make us look foolish to the others outside.”

“No. We rest.”

Janken frowned before trying another way. “I’ve got plenty of mana. We can recover and continue forward.”

Silver looked to the other party members who seemed confused as to what was going on. “Our fearless leader wants us to continue. Risk our lives so he can impress people who won’t mourn you when you’re dead by his orders. He does this because he believes his god will protect him. Him, but not us.” The tank patted the ground beside him. “I’m low on health and mana. If we want to continue, we should do so after our resources have recovered. I could not survive another pack of those things.”

One by one, the other party members took a seat next to Silver. Each looked up to the next, expectantly.

In the end, only Null and Janken stood, and Null shrugged at the Priest. “Sorry man, majority rules.” He took a seat in the middle of the hallway.

“Unbelievable,” Janken snarled. He stomped down the hallway, turned back, and rushed forward to loom over Silver. “You are unbelievable. She is going to mock us!” He pointed back towards the entrance. “Said right to our faces we’d never make it past the first pack down here… wait. Are you working with her?”

Silver glared defiantly up at the smaller man. “You don’t know what you’re insinuating.”

“Am I right?” The Priest’s voice grew more frantic as he spoke, and spittal started to form along his thin lips. “Are you in cahoots with that woman? Did you join my party just to sabotage it from the inside out?”

Silver shook his head once. “Listen to yourself. Of course not. Why would anyone do that?”

“A wonderful question! Why would they, Silver the Betrayer? The Serpent? The Traitor?” Janken’s eyes grew wide and he snarled. “Corrupted by your god! Why did you deceive us?”

The tank was on his feet in an instant. Gem hadn’t even seen his muscles coil to move.

Nor did he see the punch coming before it landed.

Janken cried out, grabbing at his jaw with shaking hands.

Laena gasped, Null shouted, and their quiet fifth—whom Gem hadn’t even learned the name of yet—just quirked her antennae as well as her eyebrows.

“You may be our party leader,” Silver said as he took a step towards Janken, “but you do not order us to our deaths. And you do not question my loyalty, especially not after you are the one trying to get us killed.”

“I’m not trying to get you killed,” Janken snarled, the sound muffled as he held his jaw like it would fall off his face if he let it go.

“Then what are you doing?”

“Sparing you embarrassment.”

Silver shook his head. “No. You are sparing yourself embarrassment. Right now? We are embarrassed to have come down here with you. You make us look bad.”

Janken’s eyes went wide and his hand fell away from his face. There was no mark there, only a small trickle of blood from his lip where it split. “Do you all feel this way? Am I a burden to you? A pariah?”

“You are putting words in my mouth.”

The Priest snarled. “Someone needs to. Idiot like you, I’m surprised you can hold a sentence longer than you can hold water.”

“We should go.” The words were so quiet that Gem almost didn’t hear them. But it wasn’t a voice he recognized.

Everyone turned to look at the quiet girl with the antennae. Shock or worry was written across everyone’s face.

“A dungeon is no place for drama,” she said in that same meek voice. “We should leave and return when we are not only stronger, but a more cohesive unit.”

Silver nodded. “Wise as always, Mina.”

“I agree,” Null said, dragging himself to his feet. He turned to help Laena up, who nodded before accepting his help.

“You can’t be serious. Don’t leave!” Janken pointed down the hallway away from the exit. “We don’t know what we could find down here! There could be riches beyond our wildest dreams! We could be out from under her iron grip with just one more treasure!”

“But we’d still be under yours.” Silver glared at the Priest. “Continue if you want. We’re leaving.”

Silver led the way, but the others followed.

Except for Janken.

He rubbed at his jaw, and Gem saw tears of frustration in his eyes. “They’ll be back,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll just wait.” He leaned up against the wall, closing his eyes.

After barely a moment, he shook his head. “No. No more waiting. I’m continuing on!” he shouted, angling his head towards his retreating companions. “All of the glory and wonder shall be mine!”

“Have fun with that,” Null shouted over his shoulder, raising a hand in a sarcastic wave.

Laena elbowed him in the ribs and Null groaned.

Gem thought to his companions.

“Pride? Arrogance? Assurance that his god will save him? Pick one; there’s no wrong answers.” Chesu grinned and rubbed his hands together. “But rest assured: that one is going to die. The only question is… do his companions come back to try to save him and then die as well? Or do they abandon him?”