We couldn’t sit around listening to Hamish’s stories forever. His medical fees meant we had to get right back to the dungeon if we didn’t want to be up to our ears in debt. Even after selling every spare piece of equipment we had, we still couldn’t scrape nearly together to foot the bill. The drow even went behind my back and sold one of my Shock Arrays, which I could’ve forgiven him for, if he didn’t get such a crap price for it. For all his braggadocio he doesn’t know a thing about black market haggling, apparently. He said he “just wanted it gone” when I confronted him about it, that we’d risked enough holding onto contraband for as long as we had. At this I made some unfortunate comments that I shouldn’t have made and won't try to defend, something along the lines of playing on drow stereotypes, that, when trying to buck their infamous national image, they do a full 180, and become goody two-shoes instead, which was inappropriate, to say the least. That’s just like a human to bring race relations into something as innocuous as our party’s bookkeeping, right? I should have gotten worse for it, knowing the complicated history drow have with that item, the Shock Array, but at this point I think he saw me as a lost cause, and figured there was no point in tearing my throat out, as much as he wanted to, over a party member they’d drop just as soon as they had enough to pay for Hamish. He shot me an evil look and said nothing. This’ll be rough on us, I thought. He probably imagined one dungeon would be enough to settle his debt when, and I wasn’t about to say it just then, it seemed we’d be together for the long haul, if we were only to do low level instances.

After a silent carriage ride we got to the dungeon at about midmorning. To their great displeasure, I stopped to double, triple-check my bag to see everything was there and in its proper place, then made my party members do the same at the Forest’s entrance. The items contained in a bag of holding don’t occupy physical space in the same way they do in a regular bag. It’s not like you can reach in and to the right to get at a Talaria the way you could with mine. No, the Bag of Holding has a second magical quality, besides its connection to the Plane of Holding, that being mild telepathy. You reach into the void, the bag reads your mind, and brings instantly the desired item into your hand. That’s one of the reasons I’ve held off on buying one myself: I don’t want a bag reading my mind, and who knows who else is listening in anyhow. Not to mention there’s a difference between what you desire and what you need. I’d rather rely on my own reflexes than a bag’s, thank you very much.

I said as much to the party, and they got me good for it, I’ll give them that.

“Of course you can't rely on what you want. You’d pull out that hip flask of yours every time!”

At this they all laughed, except for Vigdis, who looked mortified.

-

I know the Petrified Forest by heart. I went here far more than necessary, when I’d got a handle on how dungeons work, but didn’t feel ready for something higher level. It was stupid: the risks then outweighed the loot and experience, and I’d never be ready for harder dungeons, no matter how much time I killed here. You’re never ready for a dungeon until you’ve gone and done it. Or if you hire someone like me.

The petrified trees are densely packed and impossible to fell, and essentially act as walls for the instance. Luckily the Ancients cut paths through the forest when it was still cuttable, and now there’s a network of passages that lead through the stone foliage.

The dungeon opens up into a long, wide hallway. Enemies spawn in much the same way as they do in the Marsh, when a player enters a certain proximity. If you follow a winding, careful sort of peregrination that loops in on itself twice, before continuing at an oblique angle, you can get through this first part without coming into contact with a single enemy. The party wasn’t so happy to miss out on XP, but I insisted that the paltry rewards offered by these first encounters didn’t justify the difficulty involved in fighting them.

We went forward, to the left, up, to the right, to the right again, up, a little to the left, and then a big jump forward. I landed effortlessly on a bit of Ancient architecture submerged in the soil that I used to mark one of my safe zones. I helped the rest of the party onto it one by one, until we were all perched atop it save Vigdis. She was hesitating.

“Come on, Vigdis, it’ll only get harder the more you think about it.”, I said. She threw me her staff and hitched up her robe to jump. She still hesitated, though.

“Don’t worry, you only have to make it halfway across. I’ll catch you.”

“W-what if I miss? That would spawn in a monster, right?”

“Yes, that’s why it's important you don’t overthink the jump. I’ve seen it a million times, they never make the jump if they spend too long on it.”

“But if I miss, and the monster spawns in -”

“That’s why you have to make the jump now.” She still refused. “Come on, I’m not getting any younger. Look, you just get to the edge of that root, you see it? The root by your feet, yeah. Get to the edge of that, but don’t cross it.”

“Can I step on top of it?”

“No, just get to the edge of it”.

“What happens if I step over it?”

“Then a monster spawns in”.

“Just one?”

“Yes”, I lied.

“O-ok”, she finally resolved. She made the jump. I caught her in my arms and pulled her onto the half-buried pillar. For a second we were face to face, and I saw an expression mad with fear give way to relief, and something of a smile. To catch her, however, I had dropped the staff I was holding. It spun in place for a second, before falling off the pillar, and into the worst spawn zone the hallway has to offer.

In an instant we’re facing off a duo of Squids and an enormous, cleaver-wielding Ogre.

I implored them to stay in place, but they didn’t listen.

“Battle stations!” shouted the drow. He drew his sword and assumed a crouching stance, moving carefully towards the monsters. Vigdis hit him with every buff she had. The mage fell in behind them, charging up a spell, the three of them raring to go -

The Squids fell. An arrow each shot through one eye, killing them instantly. I ready a third arrow, which finds its way into the neck of the ogre. It stumbles back, clutching the haft, trying to pull it out, dropping its weapon. I send an arc of lightning into the ogre’s gut, and its body seizes up, then carries out a series of spastic gestures, frantically manipulated by the electric shock. I walk briskly over with my sword drawn, and drag it across its stomach. The ogre finds itself for a moment clutching its guts before keeling over.

We’re not done yet: their movements provoked a few more spawn zones, and we see coming towards us a Venus Flytrap, a Slime Cube, and another Squid. I fire an ice arrow at the Cube, freezing it, then strapped on a Talaria. I go tumbling into the Flytrap and let it swallow me whole. While it struggles to pull me down its throat I slice it open from the inside and step out unscathed, seeing the Squid making its way towards me. It sends a tendril at me. I crane my neck to one side to dodge it, bring my sword up, and with one, measured motion, find the chink in its chitin, and slice it in half, all the while walking steadily towards the Squid. I hit the rest of the tentacles with a shock spell and kick the Squid over which exposes its soft underside. I plunge the sword up to the hilt then draw it out. Letting out a sigh, I walk over to the Cube, nudge it with my elbow, making it fall to pieces.

I turned back to look at my party, who was still standing in their formation. It’s true, I was being a show off, but I felt like I had to sell myself to them a bit just then. I might’ve been grinning a little. Of course, they didn’t need to know that doing all that made my back hurt, or that it opened at least one suture.

-

The dungeon opens out from the certain as a series of hallways, like the spokes on a wheel. We were at its center now, pacing around in the sandy soil, planning out our next moves. I sat down on a petrified log, and began telling them about each part of the dungeon and what they had to offer.

“We could go to the Southeast, to the Temple Grounds, where the enemies are manageable. There’s a green name there that we’re certain to find if we do, but I don’t think it would do much for your team comp”.

“What’s the green name?” the drow asked.

“Pretty simple, a longsword with +2 strength”.

“That could be good. Power is what I’m lacking, you know? I’m already fast enough”.

“+2 wouldn’t be enough to fix your issues with strength. You’ll need a lot more than that to do anything to a Squid, even. Stick to speed, that’ll help you reach their weak points without being hit. It’s really your best option.”

“Wait, so how much strength are we talking, to be able to punch through a squid?”

“That’s purple-name range”.

The drow snorted.

“Now you’re pulling my leg, old man. I thought Tunneling Squids were the easiest it gets”.

“They are”.

“So then, what does a high level dungeon look like? If basic enemies are nigh invincible?”

“With high level dungeons, and I mean really high level, enemies cease to be monsters in any conventional sense. They’re not some plug-ugly that wanders toward you, in the way that Squids and Ogres are. No, they resemble natural processes more than they do monsters, I would say”.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I mean, if you go to Castle Otranto, you’ll be up against ghosts, poltergeists, evil spirits, that sort of thing. There’s no talk of evading them, or filling them with arrows, they know you’re there as soon as you enter the dungeon. And they don’t play fair. They get inside your head, make you relive your worst memories, fill you in on the day you’re going to die, which, as it usually happens, is the same day you mess with a ghost. It’s a different kind of difficulty than hard chitin, sure, but one that’s much greater.”

“So how do you fight these things? How do you actually make money as an adventurer then?”

I gave him a smug look.

“Well, for your first question, the optimal way to beat a ghost is to make it laugh”.

“You’re joking”.

“No, seriously. A ghost can’t ransack your memories if it's too busy chuckling to itself”.

“Wait, so, you go into Castle Otranto with a bunch of knock-knock jokes memorized?”

“No, not knock-knock jokes. They’ll kill you for those. They have a really bawdy sense of humor. What you do is, you listen in at taverns, to sailors, young toughs, who tell the most reprehensible kind of jokes, always punching down, you know? Well, you go in with a few of the best ones, and when the ghost possesses your body, you remember them. They’ll laugh their head off and leave you alone. The one I used was about a Cleric and a drow who walk into a bar -”

“I don’t think I want to hear that one”, he said, cutting me off. “Do you actually make any money doing this shit, or should I just move back to the Underdark?”

I had to reflect on that one.

“No”, I said. “There’s absolutely no money in this, unless..”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you can live with yourself. That longsword you wanted, well, you’re better off selling it. Of course, any real adventuring party wouldn’t pay a copper for it, so you have to seek out the newbies, who don’t know any better and think, wow, +2, that sure is a lot. That’s your bread and butter. You can find better loot, buyers willing to pay more, but there’s always a swindle going on. The dungeons that give out loot actually worth selling will take something from you more often than not. To last as long as I do, you have to stick to the easier ones. But that means you have to take advantage of the people who need your guidance more than anything. And if you can handle that much, if preying on your vulnerable confreres doesn’t turn your stomach, then you’re set.”

“We’ll be different”. I turned to the source of the voice, Vigdis. “We’ll clear the dungeons worth clearing. We won’t live a life of deception. Isn’t that right, Béla?”

I shot a glance at Béla, who was thinking about his answer.