Steven blinked at the new sub-objective, his vision still swimming from the pain.

After a small eternity, the agony faded. That had definitely taken longer than before.

The pain seemed to stack with the number of broken shields. Whatever counter decided the amount of pain didn’t last that long since the first break hadn’t felt worse than any of the others, but that second break had been much worse.

He rolled over as Noodle walked over. The dog stared down at him from less than a foot away, his usual unimpressed expression firmly in place.

“You know, I didn’t see you doing much, so why are you looking at me like that?”

He grunted, then walked closer and licked Steven. Steven chuckled and scratched the dog.

The others walked over, concern on their faces. “Are you okay?” Micheal asked.

Steven nodded. “This is the second room that’s ended with me on my back. It’s starting to look like a trend.”

“I’ll take it,” Margie snorted. “Since that trend also includes our surviving the room.”

“Fair. Though I’m not sure how much longer I’ll survive if I keep breaking my damn shields. The pain stacks. I almost blacked out after that last one.”

Micheal frowned. “I’d say try to avoid breaking them then, but…”

“Better a blinding headache than no head.”

“Yep.”

Steven groaned and slowly sat up. “I think I’m getting a handle on how Hand-Shield is supposed to be used.”

Margie quirked a brow. “Different from how you’ve already been using it?”

“Eh, sorta, but it’s more that it’s the only string to my bow right now, so I have to use it for everything. That’s why it keeps getting broken.”

Micheal nodded. “It’s a utility/defense tool.”

“Exactly! It’s only common for starters, so that’s another reason why it keeps getting overpowered. But I think tripping, barring movement, and blocking stray attacks are the bread and butter of the Skill. It’s not meant to block those hefty hits.”

Micheal stroked his chin. “Yeah, its strength comes from its versatility and low costs. Not its incredible durability.”

The man glanced at the hoard of dead monsters and shuddered. “I thought we were going to die. I nearly shit myself when that first lighting ball came.”

Margie grunted. “That was a little too wild for me. No plan of attack or anything, just chaos.”

Steven stared at them. He hadn’t felt afraid, he’d been panicked and a little overwhelmed from the sheer amount of monsters, but he… he hadn’t felt much aside from that.

Oh.

That was bad, wasn’t it?

“I hit level four from that.”

Steven turned to Micheal. The man was smiling as he looked over his character sheet, but his eyes occasionally flicked to the monsters.

He was scared. Steven probably should be too.

“What…” Steven shook his head and reached for something. What, he couldn’t say. “Did you get a special bonus for maxing the Skill?”

Curiosity. It was a thin thread, but he pulled on it, slowly bringing himself back.

“I didn’t get a super bonus like Margie. The System really does have it out for me, I swear, but I still got a bonus for maxing it. The buff gives more durability than before.” He frowned. “I really want to know why the System gives out percentages for certain Skills but not others.”

Margie crouched down to pet Noodle. “Have you tried asking the System?”

Micheal’s frown turned into a scowl. “I did ask. It told me that Damsels didn’t need to know things like that since it wasn’t related to being rescued.”

Steven blinked. “Man, the System really does have it out for you.”

Micheal grumbled something, then waved towards Steven.

“What’s with the wave?”

He paused. “I thanked you. I was trying to apply the upgraded buff.”

“Hmm. I could hear you muttering, but I couldn’t make out the words.”

Margie raised a brow. “So we need to understand him to get the buff?” She paused. “That doesn’t seem right, though. Buford got the buff just fine. And while my boy is smart, I don’t think he can comprehend the word ‘heroes.’”

“Do either of you know Spanish?” Micheal asked out of the blue.

Steven shook his head.

“Yeah, I’m fluent.”

He blinked at Margie. He hadn’t known that.

Micheal said something that definitely wasn’t Spanish, and Steven felt a new wave of power wash over him. The timer in his vision reset, and the faint blue sheen on his hands grew just a tad brighter. He flexed his hands. He was a little stronger than before, but he also felt…reinforced.

“What was that?” Margie asked. “German?”

“Yep, dads a linguist, and I picked up his enthusiasm for the field. I can see you still got the buff. So it doesn’t require comprehension unless you know German?”

They shook their heads.

“Okay. So understanding is not required. Why didn’t mumbling work?”

Steven shrugged. “Maybe it just has to be loud enough that it could be understood? Isn’t the range earshot?”

Micheal nodded. “Yeah, it is. I think that’s a good theory, and while I would love to do more testing, we need to move on. What’s Jugger at?”

“5 minutes till it drops.”

“Well, never mind. We absolutely wait for the refresh,” Steven said.

His attention drifted to the mage's corpse. Feral experiments…

“So, the new sub-objective,” he said.

Micheal crouched down to pet Noodle. “It’s set dressing. Lore to enrich the scenario.”

Steven nodded. “Yeah, but is it lore we need to care about?”

“Maybe? It’s probably a side quest. Bonus loot would be nice, but we’re trying to rush this.”

Margie looked between them before raising a brow. “I’m assuming this is something similar to games? What if it’s required to beat the Mad Doctor?”

Steven paused. “Yeah this is something in a lot of games. Stuff like this isn’t usually required. A secret objective tends to lead to a bonus reward, or maybe a secret boss fight if you’re lucky.”

“Completing the sub-objective would be nice. Well, probably, since we don’t know for certain it will reward us, but I think that’s a safe bet. But we can’t go out of the way to try and finish it.”

They nodded.

Steven glanced at Margie. “How much time left?”

“3 minutes.”

Steven’s thoughts drifted to something that had been bothering him.

The others had reached level 4, and that bothered him. Not them catching up, that was great, but…

“I still haven’t hit 5.”

Micheal looked up from Noodle. “Yeah, that’s kind of weird. Just how big is the gap between 4 and 5 if I can go from 1 to 4 before you hit 5?”

Steven started scratching Buford as the dog leaned against him. “The System mentioned something called a Second Threshold. It refused to tell me what that was, but I think level 5 might be a big milestone or something, and that’s why it’s taking so long.”

"Threshold? You think it's like a Class advancement or something?"

"I doubt it's something that drastic. 5 levels before a Class upgrade seems way too fast. But I'm starting to think something is going to happen. That or leveling is just really damn slow. We can't really judge yet."

The crimson light drifting off Burford faded.

Alright, 4 more minutes, and they could move on.

"I want a burger."

Steven turned to Margie. "Where did that come from?"

She shrugged. "I'm hungry."

"We are literally in a room full of monster corpses."

"Well, I didn't say I would eat it here, did I?" She shrugged. "I didn't have breakfast, and fighting for your life is hungry work."

Micheal started laughing. They turned to the man, who tried to talk a few times but just laughed harder. The sound had a slightly desperate edge to it. But even with that, it was contagious.

Steven and Margie broke down, laughing along with him. Burford looked back and forth between them a few times before deciding to jump on Steven. He didn't know if the hound was making a silent protest at the noise or just didn't want to be left out.

He buried his hands in the dog's ruff and laughed harder.

Noodle looked at them all like they were crazy.

Hunched over and gasping for breath, they finally stopped laughing.

"Thanks, Margie," Micheal said, wiping a tear from his eye. "I really needed that."

"Anytime." She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. "We have to be careful about this place getting to us. We don't have time to process this shit right now, but if either of you needs to talk after this is over, don't hesitate."

Micheal smiled, and genuine warmth pooled in his eyes. "Aww, thanks."

Steven paused. Talking about his problems, huh?

Well, that would be healthier than shoving them down or ignoring them. He'd already seen where that got him.

He shook his head. He’d consider that later, there was no time to dwell on that now. They had to move.

~<>~<>~

The following three rooms were filled with more monsters. Well, filled was an exaggeration. None were as bad as the clash between the feral experiments and the Shamblers.

They weren't walks in the park, but the group's teamwork had improved to the point that regular mobs of Shamblers with a few Gracefuls and Lightning Hurlers thrown in weren’t a problem anymore.

The Mad Doctor screamed at them a few more times, and they found several hints about the Feral experiments but ignored them. Most of the hints were tattered pieces of clothing and feral corpses leading to side doors, and they weren’t planning on picking anything but the middle door until they couldn’t anymore.

They took a quick breather after the last fight for Jugger to refresh, then pushed on.

Steven carefully opened the door, ready to slam it closed at a moment's notice.

“Clear.”

He pulled it open all the way, and they quickly fell into formation.

Instead of a room, the door led to a stone staircase that went straight down to a thick iron door.

They paused. “I don’t like this,” Margie said. “If something attacks us on the stairs, we’ll be in trouble.”

Micheal nodded, his blue eyes scanning the walls. “I don’t see any seams for trap doors or anything, but that doesn’t mean much.”

Steven frowned as he sized up the stairs. “The stairs are wide enough for someone to slip around Buford. We should have him go to the middle and wait, and then you two go down one at a time. I’ll hang back at the top to react if anything happens.”

Margie shrugged. “Works for me.” She turned to Buford and pointed at the steps. “Go on, boy.”

The dog started down the steps, and Steven readied to call.

“Stay,” Margie said as he reached the middle. Buford stopped.

“Who wants to go next,” Steven asked.

Micheal and Margie eyed each other. Micheal held up a fist. “Rock paper scissors?”

She lifted her own fist. A moment later, Micheal won. Margie scowled. “Stupid game. All luck.”

He snorted. “No, I’m just that good.” He started down the stairs.

Steven tensed as Micheal stepped down, but nothing happened. The man walked past Buford, scratching his head as he did.

He made it to the bottom without incident.

Margie patted him on the arm before making her way down. Once again, nothing.

Steven went last, fully expecting something to explode or a monster to jump out, but he made it to the bottom unmolested.

Buford joined them a moment later. Huh, he guessed not everything here was a trap in waiting. He wasn’t about to let down his guard, though.

They went through the door routine again, getting an all-clear from Micheal. The door was so heavy that Steven would have struggled to move it, even with Micheal’s buff.

The room on the other side was- Steven blinked. “A dungeon?”

Dark stone walls, a wet, dank smell, and one side of the room was lined with three closed cells. “Yep. I think this qualifies,” Margie said.

The room was wonderfully absent of monsters.

The second Steven had seen the cells, he’d expected them to be filled with some form of nasty that would rush out once they triggered a trap, but the dark cells were empty of life.

The only thing inside them were black shackles. He focused on those shackles. They were open, a dark key sticking out of each of their locks.

On the far side of the room was another heavy iron door, its surface covered in thick chains secured with three large locks.

They all looked from the cells to the door. Micheal rubbed his chin. “Three cells, three shackles with keys, three locks.”

Margie grunted. “So. We need the keys then. Any chance the doors are unlocked?”

Steven eyed her.

“Yeah, I figured not. Would be nice, though.”

They walked over to the first cell and gave the door a tug. It didn’t even rattle, and there was no keyhole that Steven could see.

“Okay,” Micheal said. “ The puzzle seems to be opening the door. No keyhole and they aren’t budging. Any ideas?”

They scanned the room, and Margie pointed to the wall next to the door.

Seven heavy chains hung from holes in the wall, their dark ends almost scraping the floor. Micheal walked over and tugged at a chain. It moved slightly and made a ratcheting noise.

They looked around, but nothing had changed. He tried to pull it down further, but the chain didn’t budge. He pulled to the left and right with similar results. He tried straight back, and it extended. He backed up a few steps until the chain stopped with a heavy click.

“So…we pull the rest of the chains?” Margie asked.

Steven shrugged. “Worth a shot.” He walked over to a set of chains and pulled. They reached the same distance as the one Micheal held and stopped with clicks.

“Nothing has changed yet,” he noted. “Margie, think you can pull a set?”

She nodded. “I don’t think I can outlift a bodybuilder or anything, but Micheal’s buff has got me feeling rather buff.”

One chain was thicker than the others and sat slightly separate. Margie tried to move it and grunted. “This thing isn’t budging. It feels like it weighs a few hundred pounds.”

She moved to the next set and easily pulled them back. They stopped at the same distance as the others. “Buford,” she pointed at the heavy chain. “Tug of war.”

The dog trundled over the chain. Taking it in his teeth, he pulled. Nothing happened. The hound set himself, shoulders and neck tensing as he put his all in it. The chain slowly pulled out with a heavy ratcheting sound. Buford walked it back until it reached the same distance as their chains. That left a single chain near Micheal.

“Can you pull two?” Margie asked.

Micheal extended his injured arm and winced. “No. The level-ups helped a lot, but pulling a chain would be too much. I think I can fit both in one hand, though.”

He let his chain slide back into place. After a minute of fiddling, he managed to get both into one hand. He pulled them back, and as soon as they clicked into place, there was a deafening clang from the cells.

Steven turned to see that the cell doors had slid into the ground. Steven dropped his chains and turned to the cells. The doors immediately slammed back up.

He paused. The doors had closed with enough force to pulp anything in the way. “Something tells me that if I try to stop a closing door with my shield, it will shatter like glass.”

They all looked at the cells and gulped. “Yeah,” Micheal said. “We don't need to give you a headache for no reason.”

He licked his lips and looked around. “Okay, so the present problem is that the doors won’t stay open unless all the chains are taut, and we need someone to grab the keys. Ideas?”

Margie shifted so that both of her chains were in one hand. “Pull your chains out, Steven, then hand ‘em over.”

Steven quickly did as she asked, and the chains slid back without a problem. But when he tried to hand them off, they clicked again, and the cell doors snapped back into place.

He pulled them back from Margie with another click as the doors crashed open.

“So they have to be pretty close to straight back,” Margie said. “We never got a prompt that we couldn’t do it. So what's the piece we’re missing?”

Micheal looked from Steven to his own chains. “Let's rest for a second, everyone. Buford’s probably getting tired. I have an idea we can try.”

They all let their chains go, Buford’s crashing back into place like a falling boulder. Steven wondered just how heavy the dog's chain was.

Noodle sneezed from behind, and Steven jumped. “Jesus, Margie! Why is your dog so sneaky?” She rolled her eyes. “He’s not sneaky. He’s subtle.”

“Is that different?”

“Yeah, it's like a more dignified form of sneaky.”

With his little vest and Sherlock Holmes hat, the dog looked like he was at a con in high-end cosplay. Dignified was not the word Steven would use to describe that look.

He turned to Micheal. “What did you have in mind?”

The man gestured to his chains and then to Steven. “A shield stop. Or block or- what it's called doesn't matter. I want to see if we can tie my chains around a shield.”

He shrugged. “Worth a try.”

They pulled the chains out, and Steven called a shield. Margie tried to tie a knot, failed, then shoved them off on Steven with a scowl.

Steven tried, failed, then turned to Micheal. “Help, we’re incompetent.”

“Bruh, I only have one working hand.” He shook his head. “I do know how to tie knots, though.”

After a few minutes of coaching, they managed to tie the chains into an ugly knot. They were barely thin enough for it, but they managed.

“It's not great,” Micheal shrugged. “But it will do.”

After making sure the knot wasn't about to unravel, they got into position. A few seconds of tugging later, the doors slammed open.

Micheal carefully made his way over to the first cell, casting a wary look at the knot before quickly stepping inside. Steven was ready to call his free shields the moment the knot looked like it might come undone. The doors would probably break them in a heartbeat, but they only needed to hold long enough for Micheal to step through.

He pulled the first key from the shackles, then waited. Nothing happened. He slowly turned, still tense and ready. Nothing continued to happen. Or not happen, as it were.

He stepped from the cell and set the key down. “The knot is still holding.” He wiped sweat from his brow. “This is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.”

Margie quirked a brow. “Worse than the last puzzle room?”

Micheal let out a short, tense laugh. “Hell yes. Steven and Buford had my back there, and the worst case was a leg wound. Here…” he gulped.

“I still got you’re back, man. I’ll shield the doors if they come up. Just… don't meander when crossing over.”

Micheal cracked his neck and gave a shaky grin. “No leisurely strolls, huh? I think I can manage that.”

He rushed through the second cell, grabbing the key and slipping out before he could lose his nerve. “Okay. One to go.” He grabbed the third as quickly as the second.

As soon as he left the third cell, he gasped and doubled over. Resting his good hand on his knee, he sucked in deep, heaving breaths. They dropped the chains, and Margie went to him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“You did good.” That was all she said, and after a minute, Micheal rose. “Sorry about that. I thought my heart was going to burst.”

“Don’t apologize,” Margie shook her head. “Being scared of this place just means you’re sane.”

Steven paused and probed at his own emotions. He was…scared. Not for himself but for the others. Well, that was good enough, right? He shook his head. He could dwell on this later.

They gathered the keys and each of them slid one into a lock with a click. They popped open, and the chains snaked back into the wall.

Steven blinked at the unlocked door. “That was…easy.”

Micheal glared.

“Yeah, I didn’t have to worry about getting cut in half by a door, but this was still very straightforward.”

“True,” Micheal nodded. “But not every room is going to be insane. The last three combat rooms were pretty mild too.”

Margie scowled. “I feel like you two are jinxing this right now.”

Micheal scoffed and turned to her. “Jinxes aren’t real.”

Margie looked from Micheal to the floating green shield, to Buford, then to her own faintly glowing hands.

“…Fair enough.” He looked lost for a moment, his blue eyes growing distant. “What is real or make-believe now? I…” he shook his head. “That’s a discussion for later.” He waved to the door, and they quickly got into position.

As soon as Steven touched the handle, words filled his vision.

Final Rest

He relaxed and pulled the door open all the way. “It’s a Rest.”

Micheal grinned, and Margie’s shoulders slumped in relief. They hurried inside.

The room was similar to the last Rest, with expensive-looking leather furniture and a large table piled high with hot food and cold drinks. There were differences, though. A fireplace that hadn’t been in the last room, dark oil paintings lining one wall, and a display skeleton encased near the door.

If this weren't a Rest, Steven would have expected that display to come to life and try to kill them.

As they stepped inside, more prompts filled their vision.

Final Rest. Similar to a regular Rest, Final Rests are safe spaces in dungeons. But a Final Rest is, well, final. It is the last Rest you will see in the dungeon and will typically be found before the Boss or last puzzle room. The recovery bonus is doubled in the Final Rest.

Steven noticed the recovery bonus immediately. His mind cleared, his vision sharpened, and the exhaustion that had begun to sink into his bones was wiped away.

Micheal whistled as he stretched. “Good God, I wish I could bottle this effect up and take it with me.”

Margie and Noodle plopped down on a couch and were quickly joined by Buford. “You can say that again. Maybe you’ll get a Skill with a similar effect. Hero’s Massage or something.”

Micheal gave her a considering look. “You joke, but I could see the System giving me something like that.” He shook his head. “Let's hope.”

Steven settled down next to Margie, and another prompt filled his vision.

Puzzle room cleared! Experience split with party

Steven frowned at the words. Still no level 5. Just what was it going to take to push him over?

He glanced at the next door. It was a heavy thing, made of twisting iron bars and dark, lacquered wood. A delicate carving of crossed swords hung above the door, glinting in the light. The carving felt ominous, like a looming threat in the dark.

“This is the Final Rest…so past that door.”

Micheal grabbed a bright purple drink and, after taking a long pull, nodded.

“The Mad Doctor.”