Back at the inn, Val took off his soft silk shirt and hung it over the back of a chair. He stretched the muscles of his shoulders, trying to ease the tension he’d been carrying around since his trip into the labyrinth, but in the days since he had found it harder and harder to shift. Giving up, he sat down on the end of the plush bed in his room and sank into the soft mattress.

Somehow, the walk back from the guildhall to the inn was even more frosty than usual, and he wondered what slight the Forgelight guild-ward had made against Katya to earn her enmity. Either way, from the forceful, stiff-backed stride she employed on the walk back, it looked like she wouldn’t be joining that particular guild after all.

He turned his head at the sound of a knock on the door, and winced as he pulled at the tight muscles in his neck.

Val grunted in pain and walked to the door, rubbing at the taut muscle. He pulled the door open to see…

Nothing.

Confused, he leaned out the door and saw Katya hurriedly slinking back to her room.

“Katya?” he called after her.

Katya stopped and grimaced. She didn’t respond.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Setting her face in a neutral mask, Katya turned around.

“Oh, hey,” she said, her tone measured, “I thought you were asleep.”

“Okay, well, I’m not,” he replied, “Come in.”

Val turned around and walked back into the room. After a few reluctant seconds, Katya followed him.

When she walked into the room, Val had already pulled the single chair over to the bed, and he was standing between them.

“Chair or bed?” he asked.

“Uhh,” Katya answered, looking at Val’s bare chest.

Val glanced down.

“Oh!” he spluttered, “Sorry, one second.”

Val grabbed the shirt off the chair and pulled it over his head with some difficulty, grunting as he did so.

“Are you okay?” she enquired.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m alright,” he said, smoothing out the shirt “Just a bit tight.”

Katya nodded, and the two stood in silence for a few moments.

“Uh, chair, I guess,” she finally offered.

Val nodded and sat back down on the bed. He watched Katya walk over to the chair and sat on the front of it. She had changed out of her party attire into a simple set of grey training clothes.

Val waited.

After a moment, she leant back in the chair and tucked her bare feet up, resting her arms on her knees.

“So…” he said, when the silence had become unbearable.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Katya blurted out, suddenly hostile.

Val was taken aback, and he waited, but she didn’t offer anything further.

“Tell anyone what?” he finally asked.

“About the fight!” she snapped, “About the… Whatever it was you did! About the fact that that bull was going to kill us both! About how I…”

Katya trailed off, her anger fizzling out as quickly as it had arrived.

“About how I lost,” she finished, looking away.

To Val, in that moment, she seemed smaller, considerably less intimidating in her loose-fitting pyjamas, with her toes curled over the edge of the seat, and without her ever present greatsword close at hand. 

“Honestly,” Val sighed, “I don’t know what happened down there, somehow I managed to heal you up enough to fight, and you finished it. At the end of the day, you beat the bull, everybody saw it. That’s how it went down.”

Katya’s frustration only seemed to grow at his response.

“The reason everyone…” Katya stopped, then huffed out a deep breath and continued, “The reason everyone is chasing me around is because, until last week, nobody below level forty has ever beaten the dire bull solo. Most guilds will send a minimum of twenty adventurers at around my level, healers, mages, fighters, and even then it’s a tough fight.”

Val made a serious face.

“That skill you used,” she went on, “It did something to me, I could have cut that bull in half in a single blow. You didn’t just heal me, you… Improved me, made me stronger, faster.”

“Okay,” Val said, “Is that not normal?”

“No,” she answered gravely, “There are other skills, potions, that can temporarily lift stats, but nothing like that, and even then it’s something only high level, specialist mages can do. I didn’t get a chance to check the numbers, but it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. This skill -”

“Father’s Pride,” Val interrupted.

“What?”

“Father’s Pride,” he repeated, “That woman I was talking to at the guild was able to translate it.”

“So it is unique to your class, then,” Katya concluded, “One of a kind.”

“I would assume so,” Val agreed.

The two lapsed into a thoughtful silence. After a few moments, Katya looked over at Val.

“Why do you need to get to the bottom of the labyrinth?” she asked.

Val’s lips twitched, pulling into a tight line.

“I was brought here after I…” Val said, his tone measured, “Died.”

Katya nodded.

“Sure, that’s how it works.”

“Yeah, so I heard,” he went on, “But my daughter, Teddy, Theodora, is still in my world. She…”

Val felt silent, and Katya waited.

“She doesn’t have a mom, anymore,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “I spent almost a year here, working with a construction crew, that’s what I used to do back in my world, to get enough coin together to buy some decent weapons and armour, so I could try to make the journey, because… I can’t stay here. She needs me, and I can’t stand the thought of her growing up all alone.”

“And you think the abyss lord can send you back,” Katya said, finishing Val’s thought.

Val nodded.

“I mean,” Katya continued, “If the legends are true…”

Val sat up straight, trying to shake off the dark cloud that had descended on the conversation.

“So,” he said, his voice clear, “Whichever one of these guilds you decide to join, if you could get them to put me on the roster as well, that’d be a big help. It’s become very apparent that it’s not something I can do on my own.”

“I don’t want to join any of them,” she replied grimly, “Anyway, once they find out I was only able to beat the bull due to your buff skill, even Terminus won’t want me anymore. You’ll be the one they’ll be after.”

“It’s not going to be much help to them, I don’t even know how it works.”

Again, the conversation lapsed into silence.

“There’s no guild around currently that can even come close to reaching the bottom of the labyrinth,” Katya told him, “None that are even really trying. Even if they took us both on, even if you got a handle on that skill, we’d end up floating between two and three-hundred, farming bosses and filling the guild coffers. It could be years, decades even, before they’d consider mounting an expedition to the thousandth floor. Once you join, you do the work you’re given, you don’t get to pick your battles, you’re at the mercy of the meister, and the council.”

Val nodded.

“Right.”

A few silent moments passed, then Val cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said, “Thank you for telling me what’s been going on, but I think I need to get some sleep.”

Katya went to respond, but instead just nodded.

“Okay.”

She stood up, leaving Val sitting on the end of his bed, and walked to the door. She turned back to Val as she pulled the door open, about to say something further, but when she saw him sitting with his head in his hands, she silently turned and walked out of the room.

Val didn’t hear the lock click shut, or her footsteps disappear down the hall.