Val awoke just as the sun was setting. He was laid out on top of the unfurled sleeping bag, and a small fire was burning gently just far enough away that he could still feel its warmth.

“You’ve got a lot of potions in here.”

He turned his head at the sound of Katya’s voice, a softer tone than he’d heard her use before now. One of his potion bottles lay empty between them, and she was crouched next to his open pack.

“Which is lucky,” she concluded.

Val turned his head back and looked up at the sky. He had a dull ache in his torso, but his body appeared undamaged, almost entirely healed of the myriad wounds that the butterswine had dealt him. The ribs that had shattered and the arm he was sure had broken were now little more than bruised thanks to the overload of healing potions that filled his pack. 

Val wondered if he would ever get used to this world, before reminding himself that, all going to plan, he wouldn’t be here long enough to achieve that.

Katya cleared her throat, loud enough to let Val know that it carried some subtext, but he didn’t look over. The sky was pink and streaked with clouds, almost identical to the sunsets in his own world, and ran his eyes across it imagining, briefly, that he was laying in the grass at the park by his house on a Sunday afternoon, listening to Teddy run around causing a ruckus with the other kids from the neighbourhood.

Katya cleared her throat again.

“Do you need a lozenge?” he asked, a little too curt.

A beat of silence, then -

“What’s a lozenge?”

Val couldn’t help but laugh. Only a few barks of amusement flew out of him before he clutched his ribs, doubled over by the dull, tender ache in his ribs transforming into a sharp pang of discomfort.

“Ow,” he grunted, “Oh, that hurt.”

“Good,” Katya admonished him, “You deserved that.”

“Yeah, I did,” he managed to grumble out, sitting up and turning towards her.

They looked at each other over the crackling fire.

“I think in future,” Katya offered, “I’ll do the fighting, and you can hang back and toss potions.”

Val nodded.

The fight with the butterswine had shaken him. Katya had described the monsters as “very weak”, but even with his magic-imbued weapons and high-level armour, just two of them had almost ended his descent into the labyrinth. He was going to have to be even more cautious than he initially thought, it seemed direct combat was simply not an option for a ‘Daddy’.

“Agreed.”

“But,” Katya interjected, “You got one of them, and it looks like we lucked out with the drops.”

She reached to her side and picked up an enormous pile of butterswine meat, resting on a number of large wax-treated linen sheets she’d retrieved from Val’s pack.

Val’s mouth dropped open. The equivalent of two entire sides of pork, shoulder to tail, neatly butchered into, at least it looked to Val, a comparable analog of a basic set of primal cuts from a butcher in his world. He ignored for the moment that Katya was easily lifting what must’ve been a hundred kilos of pork, instead focusing on the glossy pink meat with striations of rich, white fat. Thankfully, the way monsters dropped items in this world meant neither of them had to know how to break down an entire pig in order to separate and store the various cuts.

“Wow,” he uttered, deeply appreciative, “That is a lot of pork.”

“Butterpork,” she corrected him.

“Of course.”

He knew that monster meat could keep for months without refrigeration, and was suddenly glad that a fortnight of sharing his supplies with Katya was sure to free up a little space in his pack. Not that he imagined she would allow there to be a scrap of the high quality meat left by the time they went their separate ways.

“So,” she said, feigning disinterest, “Any ideas for dinner?”

Val nodded.

“Oh yes.”

—

Val and Katya both slept long into the morning of their second day in the labyrinth, and after a rich breakfast consisting of strips of thick-sliced butterpork belly, along with eggs and bread fried in the rendered fat, they headed into the third, and fourth, levels of the labyrinth without incident. 

Again it was blue skies and green fields, dense groves of trees at irregular intervals and wandering creatures, but the more frequently appearing swathes of thick foliage in the deeper floors actually worked in Val and Katya’s favour, offering them plenty of cover in which to avoid the delay of combat.

Two decadent meals and a full night’s sleep had allowed Val’s healing to complete, and he felt no lingering effects of his brutal encounter with the pigs. He discreetly checked his stat sheet while Katya answered a call of nature in some nearby trees, and was pleased to discover he had gone from level four to level six after his fight. He was disappointed to see, however, that each of his stats was only bumped up by one or two points, so he was still a ways from tackling the flying pigs of the labyrinth, or anything else, solo. At least this morning he was capable of keeping pace with Katya, without needing to take breaks to rest and recuperate from his injuries.

As they walked, Val would periodically ask Katya about her family’s history, or her time with the Terminus guild, baiting her into sharing by massaging her ego, framing each question to give her a chance to at least open the response by waxing lyrical about her own strength, or that of her family and forebears. He was able to confirm that the now near-mystical Ebid of the Ten Thousand Blades was a summoned, brought into the world some two-hundred and fifty years ago and founding the now-defunct Patricians guild, which fell to infighting and leadership squabbles after his death.

Now and then, during the long periods of silence, Val would look at Katya’s face in profile, her innocent features set in the serious configuration of a soldier in enemy territory, her eyes constantly scanning the horizon. It made her seem older than her sixteen years, and he idly wondered if she envied the village children with no martial talent, allowed to run and play in the streets, delaying their adulthood in a way her innate skills denied her.

The pair trekked side-by-side across the fourth level at a steady pace, making it to the level five entrance just after sundown.

Val pulled ahead of Katya as she slowed to a halt at the top of the wide staircase.

“Val,” she said, “Hold up a second.”

Val stopped short of placing his foot on the first step and turned to face her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“There’s a small fort around the level five entrance,” she told him.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Okay,” she continued, “Did you know it’s managed on rotation by each of the minor guilds?”

He did, and he also knew that manning the various checkpoint forts was a part of the operational work foisted upon the guilds by the rulers of Al’Lachia in return for their regular allocation of guildmarks, but he let her continue.

“I think this month the Cannoneers are overseeing it,” she went on, “They’re not exactly on friendly terms with Terminus, so it’s unlikely anyone there will be looking for me, or us.”

Val nodded.

“That’s good.”

“It is, but we still shouldn’t hang around,” she said, grim, “It’s not likely anyone from the guild has gotten ahead of us, but unless there’s supplies you desperately need, and are willing to pay exorbitant prices for, there’s little worth seeing.”

Val had no coin to speak of anyway, even if he didn’t have all he would likely need for the next few months jammed into his pack.

“Maybe we could trade some of that butterpork for an evening in a soft bed?” Val suggested, “We’ve still got a lot of nights roughing it to look forward to.”

Katya scoffed and walked past Val onto the stairs.

“Please,” she said, dismissively, “There’s no beds below the surface worth that exchange.”

Val couldn’t argue with her there, not that his frugal way of life since coming to this world had allowed to find one up above either, so with a small shake of his head he followed her down.

—

The fort at the base of level five was lit with enough crystal lamps that it was easily visible from the top of the staircase, and Val leant over the internal edge of the stairs to look down at it as they passed the threshold into level five. 

It was smaller than Abyssia, which felt an era away on the first floor, but seemed smaller still, crammed behind high walls of cut trees and surrounded by dark, dense forest. Some enterprising adventurers had felled the trees closest to the wall, presumably to give the guards some warning of approaching monsters, but even with that the effect was like a spot of light afloat in a dark sea.

Val could see occasional campfires, perhaps three or four, scattered across the level, but the moon was a sliver and they seemed insignificant in the near-total blackness.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Val realised that the fort itself sat a little away from the entrance itself. 

“Huh,” he remarked to himself.

“What?” Katya asked him.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, “I thought the staircase would come down in the fort.”

“Monsters migrate between the floors pretty regularly,” she offered, “If they tried to stop every fire spirit or acid viper from getting to the stairs they’d be rebuilding the walls every other day.”

“Makes sense,” he concluded.

Val looked at the fort, and the guards posted in the spindly towers that sat behind the walls. He could smell cooking fires burning and hear the low thrum of humanity going about their business.

Val felt Katya reach into his pack, not realising she had come up behind him. He jiggled back and forth as she searched the pockets indelicately.

“What are you -”

Val was interrupted by his portable crystal lantern springing to life, surrounding them both with a soft, white circle of light.

“Ah.”

“Come on then,” Katya said, “Let’s find a place to camp.”

Katya walked away toward the treeline, and Val followed her.