With the sheer magnetism of his presence, William Oh attracted a ragtag army of green adventurers of four different species lost in the darkness. He shepherded them against the encroaching danger, dispensing his wisdom on underground survival as he did so.

They say he shone so bright to their eyes that they didn’t need lanterns to find him in the dark, such was their admiration.

-          Jason Salazar

***Mason Lanover***

“Are you sure they came this way?” Reggie asked. The young Tank was having trouble squeezing through the tunnels with his armor intact.

Tanks were an interesting archetype. Nobody with any sense wanted to be one, and nobody without a significant amount of money and resources could create and equip one, but they were doubtlessly useful, so most Tanks wound up being sponsored by their village or by rich families to bodyguard their young heirs through their more vulnerable first dozen or so levels.

Reggie being a case in point.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Mason replied, covering the lantern with his hand.

As soon as the light of the lantern vanished, the walls lit up with bioluminescent marks from the trap-rat’s insects.

“Hold up,” June, their Scout, said as she held up a hand, peering ahead of them cautiously. “Cover the lantern again?”

Mason covered the lantern, revealing a bar of kobold gibberish scribbled on the floor in glowing ink.

“How considerate. They marked the pit for anyone who came behind them.”

“Like actually considerate, or sarcastic considerate?” Reggie clarified.

“The former,” June said, hopping across the pit.

JINGLE!

A tiny bell suspended from above began tinkling, sending a clear note through the caverns. For an instant, Mason’s heart seized, aware of the lethal traps the kobolds were known for. Thankfully, nothing followed.

“It’s just an alert,” June said, pocketing the bell. “We should assume they know we’re coming.” She crept ahead of them into the dark for a minute before returning.

“They went down there,” she said, pointing down the hole.

“Like, down there, down there?” Reggie asked.

“Yes. Down there, down there.”

“I’m not sure I can fit down there,” Reggie said, peering down into the bottomless hole.

“Where did all your anger about that William Oh acting all high and mighty go?” Mason demanded. “I thought you wanted to give him a little chin music, now that he’s not being mother-henned by that insufferable Nathan fellow.”

“I think that was mostly you,” Reggie replied. “I thought he was pretty cool.”

“Yeah, he was cute. I’ll still send him a beating for the right price, though. Hand me the lantern,” June said, motioning with her hand as she leaned over the pit.

June was planning on being a career Climber, and had taken Sacrifices to match that ambition, which made her odd, because most women were averse to lifestyles with such a high mortality rate. Most of them were back in camp, putting up defenses, ovens, water filters, and places to sleep.

There were always a few, though…and for some reason, most of them had jumped at the chance to get William Oh on their team, ignoring the heir of the Lanover fortune. A future Lord, relegated to everyone’s second choice. Laughable.

Except Mason wasn’t laughing.

“You guys don’t get it,” Mason said, handing over the lantern. “He deliberately made up rumors about himself before his Establishing Quest to get girls, and the way they were eating up his spurious words…” A cold fury burned inside Mason’s stomach.

“Jealous you didn’t think of it first?” June asked with a wry smile as she attached the lantern to the rope and began lowering it down.

“NO!” Mason protested. “It’s the principle of the thing. I am real. He is not. Girls shouldn’t be fawning over an obvious faker.”

“They should be fawning over you?”

“Yes!”

She raised a brow.

“No?”

“Some advice?” June said, looking down into the pit as the sides were lit by the lowering lantern. “You are never going to be able to control who girls fawn over, and the mere act of trying to do so makes you look like an ass.”

“Well, what about him?!”

“I don’t think he started those rumors,” June said. “He was super nervous being the center of attention. We could tell. That’s why we let him off the hook. It was pretty cute.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to pull feminine hive-mind ‘we all decided to mob him…as a joke, then we could all tell he was nervous, and then we all decided to let him off the hook without any communication to that effect’ bullshit,” Mason griped at his friend. “Women are either individuals, or they are a brain-linked hive-mind. You don’t get to play both sides.”

June shrugged and glanced at Reggie.

“Nah, pass,” Reggie said, waving his hand.

“We did communicate. You didn’t see me make this face at Sasha?” Her face twitched indiscernibly. “Sasha said this.” June’s brows subtly shifted. “Then Mary said this.” The corner of June’s mouth twitched upward. “Then Nancy joined in on the joke.” The other corner of June’s mouth twitched upward.

“Are you messing with me?” Mason asked. Did girls really have some kind of face sign language? He was fairly sure June was exaggerating to make him feel stupid, but it felt like there might be a kernel of truth in there somewhere.

“Who knows? You certainly don’t.

“Peggy was clueless, though. She just wanted an excuse to fangirl over someone,” June finished with a sigh before glancing back up at Reggie. “I think we can fit you through here.”

“Fantastic. I totally wanted to climb down a claustrophobic, bottomless hole,” Reggie said with a sarcastic drawl.

“Tell me how you really feel,” June teased.

“Do we have enough rope?” Mason asked.

June glanced down at the lantern illuminating the pit fifty feet below them, with no bottom in sight. “Maybe,” June said with a shrug.

“How did William Oh get down there with one hand?” Reggie asked.

“Using the kobold’s help, obviously,” Mason said. “Also, call him William or Will from now on.”

“I didn’t know we were on a first-name basis,” Reggie said.

“We’re not. I just don’t want you to get in the habit of calling him by his first and last name, like some kind of celebrity.”

***William***

“You hear that?” Will asked as a faint tinkling sound caught his ear.

“Yes, it appears as though someone or something has come behind us,” Loth replied, glancing over his shoulder. In the stillness of the underground, sound traveled far.

They shared a look.

“Ambush?” Will asked.

“Better to trap your neighbor and the klinnoth than neither,” Loth replied.

“Idioms!” Will said as they headed back. Half an hour later, a rather large, sweaty young man began climbing down Loth’s rope to land on the ledge. From his sheer bulk, he barely fit on the ledge, and his oversized armor didn’t help either.

Once he had solid ground under his feet, the oversized boy sat down, panting from exertion, unscrewing the cap of a flask and taking a swig of water.

Will recognized him from the gathering outside the cave system. The Tank.

“Are the other tunnels scouted, then?” Will asked, dropping down from above to land beside the Tank, who proceeded to spit a mouthful of water into the abyss.

“Gods!” the Tank cried, staring at him with round eyes. “The Abyss did you come from?”

Will pointed at the stone wall above them with a shrug. “Heard you coming.”

“Right. Anyway, we hit dead ends and are backtracking.”

“Then why didn’t you take the branch we didn’t?” Will asked, frowning.

“Cuz of him,” the big guy said, pointing off into the distance at the Nuker, who was struggling to hand-over-hand down the rope to the ledge.

“Is that him?! Keep him there!” the mage shouted as he struggled along. “I’m on my way!”

“My name’s Reggie,” the big kid said, offering his hand.

“If you try to keep me here, I’ll throw you off the ledge,” Will said.

Reggie’s brows rose. “Just a handshake, man.”

“Will.” Will grasped his hand, gave a solid shake and released, pleased to discover that Reggie wasn’t going to try anything.

“You! You spurious cad!” the Nuker said as he arrived, poking Will aggressively in the chest, which was awkward as he had to clamber over the Tank’s legs to reach him.

“What do you mean?” Will asked.

“What do I mean? That well of pernicious lies you’ve dug for yourself. The taste might be sweet right now, but it’ll poison you, I’ll make sure of that! I’ll be the instrument of Karma that ensures you get your just desserts!”

“No, what does ‘spurious’ mean?” Will asked.

“You ignorant—” The Nuker fumed helplessly, unable to fully gesticulate his frustration on a narrow ledge.

“Hi, I’m June,” the last person across the rope said as she arrived, swinging across the gap with significantly more skill than the first two.

Will immediately hid behind the Nuker in case she decided to attack him. And for no other reason.

“We decided to come reinforce you down here. It’s slim pickings up there,” she said, pointing toward the tunnel in the ceiling.

“He says if we mess with him, he’ll throw us off the cliff,” Reggie said, leaning against the wall.

“Wow, hardcore,” June said, slipping a backpack off and fishing through it for snacks.

“He is not hardcore!” the Nuker said, pouting.

“So, to be clear, you guys aren’t trying to kill me, steal my stuff, and leave me at the bottom of the abyss?” Will asked, peeking around the fuming noble’s son.

“We are here to prove that you are a charlatan, a fraud, a festering boil on the ass of society,” the Nuker said, turning back to Will.

“But not actually going to try to kill me?” Will asked.

“…No. We’re not going to kill you, you coward,” the Nuker said, rolling his eyes. “But I’m going to witness your fraud firsthand and warn others. You will be known among the highest circles for the—”

“Cool. Looks like we’re clear, Loth,” Will said, interrupting…whatever that was.

“Excellent.” Loth’s voice came from beneath them. A moment later, the kobold climbed up from underneath the ledge. He pulled some taut silk up from the floor with a single claw and cut it with a belt knife.

POW!

The severed silk released a massive amount of energy as it snapped, whipping down into the darkness.

Reggie’s eyes traced the remains of the silk rope to where it joined the false wall behind him.

“You were gonna kill us?!” Reggie cried.

“Well, I didn’t know what you wanted with us, so…” Will said with a shrug.

“What kind of irredeemable criminal assumes that everyone—”

“Whatever. Loth and I are going to be the front scouts. J-June, would you mind watching our backs?”

“No problem,” June said, giving him a flippant salute.

“Sounds fine,” Reggie said.

“Okay, then we’ll be heading out that way. Follow when you’re ready,” Will said, joining Loth on the walk back out into the darkness.

“Hardcore,” Reggie whispered.

“Hardcore,” June replied.

“He is NOT. HARDCORE!” the Nuker shouted as the other group faded into the distance.

“I never got his name,” Will mused once they were out of earshot.

“I am sure you will,” Loth replied. “He seems the type to say his own name aloud.”

“I am Mason Lanover, and I will not be ignored!” The Nuker’s voice turned shrill, piercing the darkness behind them.

“Wow,” Will whispered, craning his neck to peer behind them. “Spot-on.” He glanced down at Loth. “Do you know what ‘spurious’ means?”

“Disingenuous, inauthentic, false, phony, or fraudulent,” Loth replied.

At Will’s stare, Loth shrugged. “I learned English from a dictionary.”

“Huh. Are you, perhaps…unusual for a kobold?”

Loth didn’t answer and instead gave him a sharp-toothed grin. “Pray tell, what is usual for a kobold?” Loth asked innocently.

“That’s a trap, you trap-laying sonofabitch,” Will said, grinding his knuckles on Loth’s skull.

“You’ve stumbled across the closest thing to a compliment our species has,” Loth replied, brushing Will’s hand away from his skull.

They let the matter drop as they reached the point they hadn’t scouted yet, falling silent and creeping along, ears open for any miniscule movement that might indicate a monster sneaking up on them.

Now that they knew they had guests, they put a little more care into creating a navigable path behind them as they followed the narrow ledge, especially given the Tank’s overbearing size.

Sometimes the ledge disappeared entirely, sometimes it moved up or down a couple body lengths, and rarely, it continued on straight for hundreds of feet only to crumble out from beneath the first person to walk across it.

Will was almost ready to call it for the night, when they caught the first scent of trouble.

Literally.

“Ugh, what’s that?” Will whispered, scrunching up his nose as he came to a halt.

“Rotten meat,” Loth replied.

They glanced at each other.

“Kaith supply line, maybe?” Will whispered.

They went totally silent, sneaking forward, guided by the light of Loth’s glowbugs.

Eventually, the bridge came into sight.

And what a sight it was: a ruddy brown material that seemed to be regurgitated stone mixed with rust, with a sort of organic latticework that arched out into the emptiness of the chasm, seemingly stretching into the distance without end.

Kaith traveled across it at full speeds, their rotund yet insectoid bodies gliding past each other silently as one stream carried the rotting corpses of First Floor fauna and the occasional human, while the other was empty-handed.

Empty-taloned? Empty-graspered?

Well, whatever. I think we found our Quest target.

Will and Loth quietly backed up and waited for the others to catch up.

Once Reggie arrived, panting and sweaty from the modest amount of climbing he’d been doing, followed shortly by Mason and June, they conferred.

“There’s a kaith bridge a couple hundred feet in front of us,” Will said, pointing over his shoulder.

“We should get reinforcements,” Mason said.

“Agreed,” Will said.

“Aye,” June said.

“Indeed,” Loth said.

“Yup.”

They all glanced around at each other, as if in disbelief that none of them volunteered to be The Idiot That Gets Climbers Killed™.

Nathan, the veteran in charge, was supposed to be the spearhead that held the bridge while they figured out how to destroy it. Their job now was to return to the surface and bring him back here tomorrow, along with the rest of the Parties, so everyone was nice and rested and ready to go.

“Alright then,” Will said. “Since we’re all on the same page, let’s—”

“INCOMING!” Loth shouted, tossing a handful of glowbugs down the ledge, where the light glinted off of smooth, rotund chitin marching straight up the side of the wall.