Melia was in a very good mood by the time she reached the inn, confident that her little errand to the academy was a success. Inside, she found Jessica pacing restlessly while Alastair, who must have returned while she was gone, was consoling a morose Ellesea.

  The young [Mage] looked leagues better than she did yesterday, though she still had the air of somebody who’d just been told their dog died.

  Y’cennia wasn’t visible in the group, but from the steady sounds of subtle noises coming from behind the closed door to one of the rooms, she was obviously slaving away. Melia didn’t want to disrupt the girl, happy that she found focus to work toward her goals.

  And speaking of goals….

  “We need to plan our next outing,” Jessica declared as soon as Melia joined the others around a small table. “We’re wasting this buff just sitting here and I’m worried we’re going to let it run out without actually using it.”

  Melia blinked several times, confused at the lack of context. Then it hit her. The buff she’d given everybody from dancing around the fire at the start of the festival! Of course that was still active. She completely forgot. She had woken up in this world less than a week ago and it already felt like years.

  “Great!” she beamed. “What do you guys normally do?”

  “Normally we’d visit the guild hall, check out any current quests or postings,” Alastair explained. “Sometimes we take a few that group well together if everything is in the same area. If not…well, there’s always monster hunting in the nearby fields.”

  “Yeah but we’re getting a bit high level for these starter zones,” Jessica instantly complained. “And doesn’t it seem like such a waste to only focus on easy mobs? We need a challenge worth our time.”

  It was well known that higher level enemies gave more experience, but the exact method of how the system awarded gains wasn’t fully understood. Things close in level gave certain amounts of exp. Slightly lower level things gave out reduced experience as a trade off for being easier to manage, while slightly higher level things gave out more for being harder. Too low and the system deemed it a waste of time, awarding nothing, and too high would simply fail or get you killed. This applied in all walks of life: crafting, combat, or otherwise.

  “Have you considered going to a dungeon?” Melia asked. “There’s that one in Sickledrop that’s close to your level.”

  “That one you told us about?” Alastair tilted his head. The group seemed dubious when she brought it up the first time, but they seemed to be more receptive of it this time. Especially Ellesea, who remembered seeing the staff. “I suppose we can ask about it at the guild.”

  “Fantastic!” Jessica shot towards the door. “Let’s go visit the guild.”

  Melia was worried about leaving Y’cennia out of the loop, but everyone assured her she was always like this once she got focused on a project. Besides, she was a non-combatant and didn’t join them in the middle of their quests. Unless they were hunting something far beneath them, like the wolves and Wololols around the abbey, they didn’t want to risk her safety.

  Even though the game never had an adventurer’s guild, the guild in the capital looked exactly like she felt the headquarters of a questing-hunter association in a fantasy world should look like. It was several stories tall with multiple small meeting rooms and offices, and the main area was a wide open room with a mezzanine on to the second floor. Overall it felt a lot like a lodge, made of logs with a huge open-hearth fire pit in the common area.

  Before stepping up to the reception desk, the whole party made their way to the quest board, which was very neatly managed with sticky-note-like tabs. They were small, easily seen and sorted without clutter, and the notes themselves contained a brief title of the request, what was actually being requested, and if it was a gathering or hunting mission, a picture of the target.

  The similarities between the quests on the board and how they appeared in the game were not lost on Melia.

  Overall, the group did find a few they felt might be worth their time, especially if they combined one of the gathering requests with a kill request near Hammerfall. Apparently a swarm of floating jellyfish was getting too big and were threatening to migrate their spawning borders inland. Jessica snagged the card for the jellyfish and one for a plant called tindale, which Melia had never heard of even with her exhaustive knowledge of Ebonvale’s botany. Alastair and Ellesea waffled over a quest that would send them to Lakeridge, which was their next logical zone, but in the end they decided it would be safer if everyone was just a bit higher level before heading off into the relative unknown.

  “Can you give us more information on tindale?” Alastair asked as the group approached the counter.

  “Certainly!” the lady replied. She was a tall, slender woman with a bright smile and a slightly round face. She wore the uniform of a guild worker: a crisp, knee length pencil dress in hunter green, a white button up blouse, a green vest with gold filigree, and a round, flat-topped green cap that seemed slightly smaller than should be practical.

  She received the quest tags Alastair slid toward her and rattled off a concise, helpful description of their target.

  Tindale. A weed, somewhat uncommon due to only growing in rural areas that were once more urban, such as failed settlements, towns and villages forced to relocate due to various disasters, or ruins of forgotten civilizations. It had a mild, pleasantly sweet aroma when bruised or crushed, and was usually used in tea or made into a light tincture that helped soothe muscle pain.

  Melia filed that away, curious about a new herb, resolved to explore a few ruins.

  Tindale was known to grow on the outskirts of Sickledrop, which due to the description they just received about the plant only growing where settlements failed, was a little worrying.

  The extermination request was quickly processed too. Giant flying jellyfish weren’t exactly the most dangerous creatures in the world and could hardly be described as aggressive, since they mostly floated back and forth on the wind. They were dangerous in large numbers, as their barbed feelers were both electrified and contained a mild paralytic toxin, easily capable of incapacitating a large adult man.

  The Gold Coast was an important industrial resource to the kingdom, so it was vital to keep it free from infestation and potential disruption.

  Alastair presented his guild token to the receptionist to finalize acknowledgement of accepting the quests so they could be properly processed and tracked, and it looked like they were just about done.

  All things considered, a very fast, smooth, streamlined and efficient process that spoke to professionalism and competence. Melia was more than glad they didn’t have any cliche run-ins with crude bullying adventurers or other stuck up jerks.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” the lady asked with a smile as she slid all the relevant paperwork toward Alastair along with his guild token.

  “Actually, yes,” Alastair paused, he’d almost turned to leave when Jessica elbowed him roughly in the ribs. As the group’s unspoken leader, it was his job to navigate them through delicate social interactions.

  Mostly because Jessica lacked tact.

  “We’ve decided on a party name,” he said proudly, “Sunrise.”

  It wasn’t strictly necessary for a team to have a name, as the four adventurers hadn’t used or needed one before Melia came along. They’d seen their own measurable level of success and were satisfied for several years. There were, however, benefits to creating official names for parties, such as it being easier to contact specific people for specialized quests, direct large groups of people in cases of guild emergencies, or help groups find extra members for short or long term collaboration.

  “Perfect,” the lady said, jotting some things down. “I see here you’re listed as having four main members, a [Paladin], [Hunter], [Alchemist], and [Mage]. Is this still correct? There is an old note stating that you were looking for a potential party member to fill the role of healer. Has that been resolved?”

  “Ah, not really?” Alastair scratched his chin. “We still have those same classes. And for the moment, we are satisfied with our arrangement, as we’ve added what’s most likely the final member of our team.”

  “Oh? Should I add them to your records? What class are they?”

  Alastair shifted uncomfortably and Jessica spoke up.

  “She’s not a member of the guild,” she said plainly, but paused. “Are you?”

  Jessica looked down and it was clear the receptionist didn’t know Melia was there, because she wasn’t visible from below the counter. Jessica rolled her eyes and picked Melia up as she raised her arms, holding her on her hip so she could at least be at eye level.

  “Oh! Hello Little One.”

  “Hi,” Melia grinned back and waved. “No, I’m not a member.”

  She’d been subtly observing other members of the guild as they milled about the large room and even cast [Inspect] on a few guild tokens. Pretty things they were, in many colors carved out of precious jewels and set into rare metals, but absolutely none of it was familiar with her. She even scoured her system screens, searching for any indication that she belonged to such a guild, but the only guild she was a part of, and still was, was her personal guild, [NMI], which only included a single member, as expected.

  [No More Invites], or [NMI], because Melia was tired of getting spammed with requests to join random guilds from people she never met before and probably would never even talk to. She’d had help creating it, of course, since it required 5 people to sign a guild charter, but after she had all of her alts invited to the guild, her friends removed themselves to go back to their original guilds. And, since all those alts were part of her in this world, she was the only person who actually belonged.

  All of that to say, no, she did not belong to the adventurer’s guild and had no intention of joining. At this point in her career, there was no point. It would probably be more hassle than it was worth, since they most likely had some sort of dues, fees, or other obligations an organization like this required.

  “I see,” the receptionist frowned but made no move to convince Melia to change her mind. “If you ever reconsider, our doors are open to all.”

  “Also,” Jessica piped up, “We heard there was a dungeon in Sickledrop. Can you tell us anything else about it?”

  The receptions looked taken aback.

  “In Sickledrop? No, there’s no dungeon there. Where did you hear that?”

  “From me,” Melia sighed. She didn’t really want to explain things over again. “I visited it many times, a long time ago.”

  “She’s really old,” Jessica mouthed to the receptionist, who tried to hide a giggle but her lips quivered slightly. She got a toe to her side for payment as Melia gently kicked her.

  “I’ll see what I can find, just a moment.”

  To her credit, the receptionist didn’t immediately discount Melia’s claim. Perhaps first hand accounts were simply valued highly? Or maybe the value was actually placed on the fact that members of other races lived a lot longer than the average human, and the adventurer’s guild was established less than a hundred years ago. To them, it may have felt like a long standing and venerable establishment, but to others, like elves, it might still be seen as a passing novelty.

  The party wasn’t left waiting long. After maybe 5, 10 minutes, she returned, holding a small, string-bound file folder.

  “It predates the guild, but it appears some founding members did have some passing knowledge of a dungeon inside Sickledrop,” she smiled. “As per guild services, members are allowed to peruse guild archives for a nominal fee. Regarding the information contained within, that fee will be 12 copper. Do you wish to proceed?”

  12 copper, even for such novices as [Sunrise], was extremely reasonable. Higher level dungeons most likely required a much higher payment, but adventurers in their 400s, 500s, or higher would have no problem dropping several gold if it meant gaining even the slightest advantage in an unknown dungeon.

  Melia thought of it like online guides, and she wondered if those notes included rare drops.

  “Ah, I’m afraid that these services are available to registered guild members only,” the receptionist said, casting an awkward glance toward Melia.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She shook her head slightly with amusement and let herself be lowered gently to the floor. If the dungeon was anything like the one she knew, she didn’t need any primers. She likely wasn’t going to visit the dungeon anyway, since she wasn’t planning on joining a system party with her team, and she didn’t need any drops or loot.

  But then again, the chance to see a real life dungeon with her own eyes was extremely enticing.

  “Take all the time you need!” Melia called to her friends as they disappeared into a room to the side of the building. Jessica raised a hand in acknowledgment but said nothing.

  The rest of the day passed smoothly and uneventfully. The rest of the team emerged from reviewing the information packet about an hour later, looking thoughtful and distracted. Melia knew better than to ask them about what they learned while inside the guild, since even without super hearing she probably would have heard the receptionist’s reminder to “not share guild information with nonmembers.”

  Ellesea returned to the academy in the early afternoon for the rest of this week’s classes and Y’cennia was still busy toiling away in her makeshift lab, so Jessica and Alastair followed Melia as she wandered back into the city.

  Her first stop was to the communicatorium to purchase a set of chatgems, small decorative pieces of jewelry that could be worn as earrings or cuff links that, as the name implied, allowed people to talk to other registered users.

  Melia heard about them in passing from several people inside the adventurer’s guild, which alone made the trip worth it for her. People took chatting for granted in the game, with tabs and windows for all sorts of different chat groups. Guild tabs, party tabs, dedicated friend group tabs, trade tabs…name it, there was a tab for it, and if there wasn’t, it could be created.

  Nothing like that existed in this world as far as Melia knew, because that was one of the first things she looked for when she first woke up, trying to find out what was going on.

  So, learning about how Ebonvale had their own version of fantasy cellphones? Melia jumped at the chance.

  Alastair paled as they walked into the large compound with a giant metal spire all-too-closely resembling an antenna array and then marched toward the sales area. The store was small, most likely a storefront only, with huge, floor to ceiling clear glass windows allowing everybody to see inside perfectly.

  Melia was reminded of her old world’s cellphone stores, even though she never owned a phone herself and wasn’t old enough to really appreciate them the last time she’d been in one. But she’d seen commercials and knew the stereotype, how some people were brand supremacists and swore only theirs was good and all others trash, and how only people with the latest, greatest models were “cool”.

  They were ushered inside by a sales rep who looked at them slightly disdainfully, judging their wallets from how they dressed, but changed his tune instantly when Melia asked to see “high, but not too high” end models.

  Alastair and Jessica could never afford anything in the shop and he was about to protest even looking at the expensive, jewel-like crystals when Jessica stopped him. Melia was rich, and if she wanted to buy their team nice things, they should let her. So she did. After another hour, in which the sales rep probably up-sold them far more than they wanted or needed, they walked away, two of them in a daze, the proud new owners of 5 sets of chatgems.

  “Testing? Can you hear me now? How about now? Now? And…”

  Jessica was fully on board with the party’s fun new toys, even if she herself paled at the cost. Each set cost slightly more than 1100 gold, which made the fingernail sized crystals the most expensive thing she’d probably ever own. When she got over her surprise at being the recipient of such a gift and registered her crystals with the groups’, she ran ahead and did the old commercials proud.

  Yes, in fact, they could hear her. Loudly, with silky smooth clarity as if she was speaking to them a single step away, not too close and not too far, despite running amok in a bustling business district. The price, combined with how the range seemed to be somewhat limited, probably meant chatgems were not as common as Melia would have hoped.

  When they returned to the inn later, they found Ellesea in much better spirits and Y’cennia looking like she was high on life.

  “I’m level 302,” she said breathily, eyes watering and slightly out of focus. “I passed level 300.”

  Everybody exploded with excited congratulations. Y’cennia had gone from by far the lowest level of them all, under constant threat of being left far behind, to nearly being the highest level of the original team. Ellesea still had several levels on her, but not by much. And with the way she was going, following Melia’s training plan, she would pass them all very soon.

  Something that should have taken her the next decade, she achieved in two days.

  She knelt down on her knees and pulled Melia into a tight embrace the moment she saw her, her ears pushed down flat and her tail curling around them both.

  “Thank you, Lady Melia. Thank you so much.”

  “You don’t need to call me that,” Melia complained, exasperated.

  “No, I must,” Y’cennia refused. “Even if you deny it yourself, I consider you my master. You’ve shown me how to grow, which is what teachers do, and I’m sure I’ll learn so much from you in the future.”

  “Sure, sure,” Melia gave her a lopsided smile and patted her back, because trapped as she was, that was all she could really do.

  Ellesea, too, had good news…though she seemed extremely suspicious. Just like Melia requested, her demerit was removed.

  “I got called into the Headmaster’s office today,” she explained. “He wouldn’t tell me exactly what happened, but he told me a ‘traveling gnomish [Archmage]’ personally visited the academy and had a conversation with Dean Hamilton. Somebody who never changes his mind. Melia, what did you do?”

  “Well, we certainly had a few words,” Melia deflected. It was true. Their words were few. “But what matters is that in the end, he saw reason.”

  Ellesea narrowed her eyes, but wasn’t allowed to say more, as she was sufficiently bought off with her gift of a brand new chatgem. She, as a noble, was familiar with them, and even had an older model of her own, but she studied her new one appreciatively and quickly decided it was far superior, instantly clipping it onto her ear.

  Alastair let the others celebrate their wins for a little while longer before eventually gathering everybody’s attention.

  “Okay, so we’ve got the plan for the next few days,” he began, more for Y’cennia’s benefit than anybody else’s, since the others had been with him earlier that day. “We’ve accepted two quests, one for gathering a weed near Sickledrop and an extermination request for flying jellyfish along Gold Coast. None of that should cause any issues and if there’s any materials that will help in your crafting in those areas, Y’cennia, we can try to stock up on those too.”

  “But Gold Coast as a region is getting too low level for us,” Jessica stated. It wasn’t a counter to what Alastair was saying or an argument, more like a co-presenter leading a team meeting down a certain path. “So we’re thinking it might be time to move on toward Lakeridge.”

  Melia perked up at that, but to everyone else this seemed like old news. Which was good, because it meant her new team valued communication and everybody was well informed.

  “And before we do that,” Alastair cut back in, “We were thinking about tackling a dungeon.”

  Ellesea and Jessica nodded with grim expressions on their faces, while Y’cennia couldn’t contain her surprise. She said nothing, but her eyes widened and her ears shot straight up. Jessica noticed this and nodded.

  “Cennie, we think you should come with us.”

  The catgirl started to nod, but froze when she realized what Jessica said.

  “Me?” she asked, pointing to herself.

  “Yes, you,” Jessica smiled at the childish response.

  “But I’ve never been into a dungeon before!”

  “Neither have the rest of us,” Alastair sighed. “And honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that records state the one in Sickledrop is basically meant for beginners, we’d still be procrastinating. And, the longer we wait to do one, the more risky it becomes, the more set in our ways we get, the more we have to lose if we fail.”

  “Which we won’t,” Jessica smirked, “because we’re awesome.”

  Her smile faded as she grew serious.

  “But even if we die in the dungeon, full party wipe without being able to save our stuff, we have Melia. We won’t be destitute, we’ll be able to get back on our feet.”

  This was news to her, but Melia was more than happy to contribute to the group in any way she could. Crafting gear to replace the ones her teammates lost would be a breeze for her, and it was something she was planning on doing anyway once she tested the waters and figured out if they’d get testy if she suggested it.

  Jessica’s faint sigh as she watched Melia’s smile grow betrayed her relief, and Melia decided not to tease the girl about it.

  “But I’m not a combatant,” Y’cennia countered. It wasn’t a complaint, more like she simply didn’t know why she was being dragged along.

  “And you still won’t be,” Alastair confirmed. “But we want you with us when we go and we think you’ll be fine without us watching over you constantly.”

  “What he means is that you shouldn’t die instantly the second you trip over a rock,” Jessica smirked.

  “We’ll do our best to make sure nothing ever comes for you,” Alastair agreed, “And we won’t ever expect you to fight.”

  “But,” Y’cennia pouted, and Jessica raised a hand.

  “Cennie, you’re higher level now. You’ve gained over a hundred levels in the last three days. Hell, you’re higher level than both me and Al. Have you even looked at your stats? You’re never going to win a fistfight or be super strong, but you can take a punch better right now than you could a few days ago. Probably better than Ellesea.”

  “It’s true,” Ellesea nodded sagely. “[Mages] are squishy.”

  “We won’t force you to come,” Alastair raised a hand to placate her, before holding it out in a show of invitation, “But we want you there with us. We’re a team.”

  She glanced at his outstretched hand and felt her eyes sting with the start of tears. She grasped it firmly and gave it a good shake.

  “I’m in.”

  Of course, that meant Jessica had to ruin things.

  “Good,” she nearly laughed, “If all goes well, any extra storage space will be needed.”

  Melia let the rest of her new team deliberate on logistics while she did some thinking of her own. Mostly she chipped in whenever they asked for her advice or thoughts on something, but despite having a treasure trove of theoretical knowledge, her real life experience was actually less than theirs. The one thing she did do was insist on paying for all their goods, and after complaining at the first stop, where Melia brought up the recently purchased chatgems and how useful they’d be, Alastair relented. She was still unwilling to join a system party with the others, and while her worries about how they would feel when confronted with her real form, level, and class were slowly fading, they were still there. She wanted to contribute, and using her money was a resource she was willing to expend.

  The tricky part preparing for an outing such as this was balancing necessary goods while maintaining extra storage space. They needed mandatory things like food and water, tents for shelter, and other supplies that would keep them alive, if not strictly comfortable.

  That went double for the dungeon.

  It was easy to over-prepare and bring far more than was necessary, but then they wouldn’t have any place to put things if their pockets were full. Since bringing back samples of the weed was a requirement for their gathering quest, as was jellyfish stingers from their hunt, they couldn’t pack every little nook and cranny with supplies. And that didn’t even consider any loot they might find inside of the dungeon.

  The dungeon…something that kept coming back to Melia’s mind. She sat in silence as the carriage they were taking back to Hammerfall trundled along in the dark. They left late in the evening, planning to arrive in Sickledrop by early morning, and all of her teammates were fast asleep. Melia would join them, but her mind was churning.

  Dungeons.

  How did they work?

  She pieced together enough clues from her observations and eavesdropping conversations she couldn’t help but overhear. Dungeons worked closer to the video game than she would have thought possible, even for a fantasy world. And like most things in life, it all started with the door.

  The entrance to a dungeon was a swirling vortex of magical potential. That’s because dungeons weren’t a strictly physical thing. Once inside, it was as real and tangible as walking down the street, but nothing inside existed in the real world. A dungeon could be the size of a mountain city, but not take up any space, even if the entrance was located inside of a storage closet.

  Dungeons were instanced, meaning that once a person entered, they would never see anybody else from the outside world, unless they entered as a party.

  This was the same as the game, and Melia wondered why the similarity transferred over. The game world was simply saving on processing resources, but that wasn’t a consideration for a real life place. Perhaps there was a reason and she’d find out later…or maybe not.

  It meant that she could not follow her team inside to watch over them.

  If she tried entering after they went in, she’d be in her own instance of the dungeon, with her own mobs and loot, and they’d be in theirs. She wrestled greatly with abandoning her fears and secrecy just so she could ensure their well-being, but in the end she held out.

  Partially because death was not so permanent in a dungeon.

  When one died in real life, their soul moved on to whatever happened in the afterlife. Many people had their opinions and beliefs, as Melia had hers, but nobody knew for sure. What was known was that souls did exist, as something remained of a person’s mind or psyche even after their body was completely and totally eradicated in a dungeon, and they were resurrected back at the nearest graveyard or chapel.

  Because that was what happened after death in a dungeon, just like it had in the game.

  But unlike the game, which was forgiving, merely treating death as a re-try, death in a dungeon was a little more harsh.

  Everything that a person had on them when they died, indeed, even their body itself, was destroyed. It was then reformed, fully stark naked, just as it had been before they entered the dungeon. Any gear, any items, anything stored inside their personal inventory, was simply gone. Lost forever.

  Some cults claimed it was tribute to Chaos, goddess of dungeons and monsters.

  Unless the items were soulbound, which had been a game mechanic to keep players from swapping high level gear with lower level characters or alt accounts. In life, it simply meant that an item so deeply resonated with its owner that it followed them across the veil. Creepy, Melia thought, but not nearly as bad as if it instead suggested the items had somehow latched onto her soul. Which they did not, thankfully.

  So, the obvious question Melia had was, of course, this: if dungeons held no threat of permanent death, why weren’t more people running them? Why had her team been so reluctant to try their first dungeon, despite being the perfect level to do so? Why weren’t more people adventurers, ranking up, leveling up, flooding the economy with riches and running around like a society of superpowered hoodlums?

  On second thought, it was probably for the best.

  But the answer was equally as obvious.

  Death.

  No matter how trivial it sounded in theory, even with the knowledge that they would wake up in the end, death was death. There was, and possibly always might be, a small part of a person designed, programmed, whatever, to fear death. No matter how much they overcame it in day to day life, when it came to their last few breaths, most people were afraid or fought back.

  And that did not account for the manner of death. Death in a dungeon did not come from natural means. One could drown, or starve, that was possible, but in 99 cases out of 100, people met their demise in a dungeon at the hand of a vicious monster or lethal trap. Something that ripped, clawed, and tore at them, stabbed them, poisoned them, melted the flesh off their bones.

  Their body would reform anew, but their mind remained the same. The experience could break them.

  It often did.

  No, dungeons, and this world, were not a breeding ground for murderhobos, desensitizing themselves through magically enhanced bodies resisting torture.

  Death was, and always would be, a serious thing.