The healer’s name was Banuk, she was an unusually short Vathon with deep purple skin and disproportionately large horns. As SeventyEight had said, she was really cool. She had a very laid-back attitude and a great sense of humor. The group had a good laugh on the walk between town and the dungeon about an amusing anecdote she had about participating in a cosplay contest. Banuk had dressed as a real life celebrity who was present at the convention, and ran into him on the show floor, leading to a viral video wherein everyone’s favorite podcast dungeon master was having a nerd freakout about meeting… himself.

Unfortunately, her calm attitude and pleasant conversation skills didn’t carry over into combat.

Kaldalis understood that she didn’t have a lot of tools at her current level, but she was panicked and reactionary. She tunnel visioned on the health bars instead of keeping aware of her surroundings, and it made some of the standard pulls go a little sideways once or twice.

Thankfully for the group, Kaldalis had the tools and experience to carry her through it. He’d done this exact run with worse healers than her, even if none of them had been so low level during the attempt.

The relative low level of the rest of the party was also bad for Kaldalis in another way. Gear drops rubber banded to item levels close to the lowest level people in the party, and so nothing dropped above level 4, meaning nothing was useful for Kaldalis. He told himself that was good news; he didn’t want to get in the way of their gear grind. But in the face of how much work he put in to keep the party going, it felt painful to receive nothing in return.

The run wasn’t all bad, though. Reno and SeventyEight were on task the whole time. They had a pretty good grasp on what to expect, and scaling factors meant that their output kept up with everything.

“This is a simple enough fight,” Kaldalis said when they approached the second boss, “and once we’re past it, we have-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Reno flicked her ponytail over her shoulder in frustration. “No more trash, which means no more redjackets, which couldn’t have happened fast enough. We know.”

“And we just have to watch for the cone attack,” SeventyEight said with a small smile. “Which will usually be pointed at you, so we’re fine.”

“Right,” Kaldalis laughed. “You two have been stalking me. I forgot about that.”

“It’s not stalking you to watch your stream,” Reno said defensively. “You’re broadcasting on purpose, you know.”

Kaldalis grinned at her, ready to engage in more banter. But then he looked at the other party members and realized they didn’t seem to get it. Both SeventyEight and Banuk looked uncomfortable in their own ways. “Fine, whatever,” Kaldalis grumbled. “Let's just get to it.”

After dealing with the vespulingua, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. Bosses were killed, loots were had. They moved on with an efficiency led by Kaldalis’ intimate familiarity with the dungeon.

With barely a moment for everyone to catch their breath they got to one of Kaldalis favorite parts of the dungeon: the long pause they took at the top of the descent down into the city. Even though it had long since become routine to him, he had to admit that the view was astonishing. Monsoon had done good work building it and presenting it here with excellent framing, and so he never begrudged people stopping to admire the view.

He also gave them the time to explore the city when they descended into it. With other groups, Kaldalis had gone out of his way to push them on to the library - and the end boss - but it seemed appropriate to give them a few more minutes. He wasn’t in any hurry.

Unlike his previous parties, this group had actually seen the dungeon before through other eyes on streams. It meant that each one of the three had one particular question they wanted answered.

Reno wanted to find the building with the metal drums and see if there was a smell that could tell her what was in here before. There wasn’t, but it wasn’t exactly a question she could ask through a donation incentive on a stream. She explored around another minute or so before just giving up, disappointed.

SeventyEight felt vindicated as she examined the interior of a building that appeared to be a restaurant. Unlike other depictions of such businesses in video games, this one actually had realistic proportions, and a functional layout, as if it was designed by an actual restaurateur rather than roughly sketched out by someone who was in a McDonalds once as a child. She pointed out various bits that were apparently really interesting, and Kaldalis tried to be enthusiastic.

Last up, Banuk wanted to spend more time looking at the stone tablets depicting the Lataxinan heroes of old, especially the one who showed an otter-person teleporting.

“The Kaia tablet mentioned this guy, right?” she said once Kaldalis had led her to it. “Buoi the Swift?”

“Oh, huh.” Kaldalis nodded, peering at the tablet closer. “You’re right. I think he used the Paths Between Paths for his technique, too, but he just used it to cover distance, while Kaia used hers to cover time.”

“Do you think we could translate this?” Banuk asked, touching a worn section that may have been a text bubble. “Couldn’t we learn Buoi’s technique if we could just read the tablet? It wouldn’t have to be some enshrined bullshit in a library if we didn’t need the magic translation, right?”

“I don’t think so,” SeventyEight said. “And that’s not just videogame logic talking. Look at the story here and compare it to Kaia’s tablets.”

Kaldalis didn’t quite get where she was going, but nodded along. Thankfully, Reno cut in with the realization that Kaldalis was missing.

“This is just some story,” Reno said, “like issue twelve or thirty or something. Buoi wins a fight with a mob of gangsters by teleporting around and making them look like chumps. The tablet in the library, though? Kal hit it right on the head on his first visit.”

SeventyEight groaned. “Of course! Kaia’s origin story. Exactly! These tablets won’t tell us anything because it’s just these idiots fucking around.”

“Aw.” Banuk slumped her shoulders. “I was hoping to learn how to teleport.”

“Just because you won’t learn it today doesn’t mean you won’t tomorrow,” Kaldalis said, patting her on the shoulder. “Every day is a day dozens of idiots crawl all over this island desperate to put their grubby little hands on the entrance to the next dungeon.”

“Thanks, Kal,” Banuk said, seeming to cheer up a little. “As soon as I’m high enough level to avoid getting instantly killed if I’m alone, I might join them. I always wanted to teleport.”

“Speaking of ‘Kal’,” Kaldalis said, “I think I should bring this up before we get to the end boss, in case it comes up during the fight.” He turned towards SeventyEight. “Speaking as a fan, I know your name is meaningful, both from the story behind it, as well as from a branding perspective. But with all due respect, as your friend, it’s a huge mouthful in the heat of the moment.”

Reno grinned. “Phrasing?”

“I think,” Kaldalis said to SeventyEight, ignoring Reno, “that we need a short, punchy nickname for you.”

“That sounds reasonable,” SeventyEight said, laughing. “Though you’re probably going to piss off all the casters who stumbled over it at tournaments by taking the easy way out with a nickname.”

“Wait. There’s a story behind the name?” Banuk asked. “I thought spelled out numbers were just on the table of Monsoon’s random auto-generated options.”

Kaldalis grinned and shook his head. “One thing at a time. But like, we could go with just Seventy? Or just Eight?”

SeventyEight shook her head firmly. “That changes the meaning. I mean, if we want to break it down, the story is actually important.” She turned to address Banuk. “So, when I started playing Splintered Crater on the ladder, my then boyfriend made a big deal out of making a bet with me. He bet I couldn’t rank up to platinum in a year. So I made that my username. SeventyEight, atomic number for platinum, that way I wouldn’t lose sight of the goal no matter how hard it was.”

“And then you became officially the best player in the world within three years of hitting the scene,” Kaldalis said with a smirk.

“It’s a fun game,” she said defensively. “But once it was clear he wasn’t gonna win the bet, he got real salty and broke up with me. Well…” She hesitated. “I broke up with hi- you know what? It’s complicated. Not important. The important thing is that the name is important to me. It was an important goal, and so just calling me a part of that number erases the whole thing.”

“So what do we call you, then?” Reno asked. “Because I’m not even an SC player and calling you ‘Plat’ for short sounds like an insult.”

Banuk tapped her chin. “Just keep it simple, then. How about just Ess?”

“That seems kinda dumb,” Kaldalis said.

“I really like it,” SeventyEight said, almost at the same time.

Kaldalis felt his cheeks flush. “Uh, that seems kinda great.”

SeventyEight fixed him with a glare, but Reno burst out laughing so hard it cut the tension.

Kaldalis moved them on, quickly. “Well, um, yeah. So, if everyone’s seen what they wanted to see, then we should get moving. Time spent not gaining exp is time wasted, right?”

After their short break, the final boss wasn’t a problem at all. Since they went the dungeon’s standard route, the mechanics were almost boringly familiar to him. It was like listening to a top 40 radio station. Kaldalis knew every beat and every breakdown by heart, even if he didn’t experience any passion or pleasure at the knowledge.

He wasn’t even really relieved that it was over. It was just how the song ended, same as it did every other time he went through it.

At the end of the dungeon, they were still able to get their hands on an untranslated scroll to run back to Ikzoz for more experience. Getting Kaia’s Flicker for everyone was fun, though. All three of them just started casting it on cooldown as they made their way to the dungeon exit. Speculations about the nature of the item in the distance were passed around, but no one said anything Kaldalis hadn’t already thought of and dismissed.

The three newbies were level 4 now, and Kaldalis had even amassed enough experience points to get himself to level 11. It was a nice bonus, regardless of how frustrating the dungeon was. At the end of the day, that was MMO design 101. An activity doesn’t have to be fun to attract players.

It just has to make numbers go up.

Naturally, once they turned their untranslated scrolls in with Ikzoz, the quartet turned right back around and went to run through the whole thing again.

Kaldalis hadn’t wanted to do it, in his heart of hearts, but he knew that level 5 was the critical one. It opened them up to having access to their first weapon ability. On round two with the final boss, he was afraid they weren’t going to make it, but the three lowbies dinged as soon as they turned their second scroll in to Ikzoz.

“Okay, I’m sorry, but I’m done,” Kaldalis said, “I know this is great exp and you’re all getting geared, and that’s fantastic. Just great. But I don’t have another run in me. I will lay down and die.”

SeventyEight grinned and comforted him with a pat to the shoulder. “It’s fine. We should get back to the tutorial anyway.”

“Yeah,” Banuk said, “Thanks for having me along, even if I was struggling.”

“You did great,” Kaldalis lied. “Once you have a few more cooldowns and tools, you’ll do great. Just get the practice you can in the meantime. And remember to keep your head.”

With the three newbies gone, off doing their own things, Kaldalis finally relaxed. He knew it wasn’t going to be the end of him suffering for the sake of their progression, but it was a relief to be done with the first runs of that.

Level-wise, they were halfway to catching up, even though he knew that by actual experience totals, they were closer to a third of the way to him.

Just the same, he was likely going to keep getting farther ahead as time went on. Seeing the excitement of Reno, SeventyEight, and even Banuk at getting their hands on gear reminded him that it had been forever since his last upgrade.

Of course, while he was considering whether or not to return to Sivima’s shop to invest some of his cash into the First National Bank of Treat Yo Self, he got ambushed.