“I promise to let you get back to your drinking in just a minute,” Devon said as the adventurers around him quieted. “Mazo? Are you around?”

  The halfling emerged from the crowd with her hand up and stood next to the Paladin.

  “I got this far as an adventurer because of Hans and Mazo. They trained me, sure, but they really took me under their wing. What they taught me outside of the training room has been more important and more valuable than how to swing a sword or how to stomp a goblin. I try to imagine sometimes what my life would have been like without them, and it’s never good. I definitely would have gotten eaten before I made it out of Iron.”

  The adventurers listening laughed.

  “When Hans became a Gold Guild Master, I can say that most of us, myself included, assumed that was it for him. He got stationed as far away from Hoseki as you can get, and he was left to fade away. And well, it’s easy to see we were wrong about that being the end of his career.”

  Devon gestured to their surroundings to emphasize his point.

  “There was an expression I heard tossed around by Diamonds when I was coming up. ‘Diamond is where the real learning starts,’ which sounded like horse shit to me-”

  The adventurers laughed.

  “-but what that really means is ‘You have so much left to do.’ I didn’t think I’d get to see this honor, let alone be the one to deliver it. Hans? Come up here and start the real learning.”

  Hans froze as claps and cheers roared around him.

  What did he say?

  Leaning his face closer to the enchanted crystal, Devon added, “This is the part where you walk up and stand next to me.”

  The crowd laughed, jolting Hans’ brain back to life. He sheepishly threaded through the crowd and took his place next to Devon.

  The Paladin smiled at Hans before looking back to the crowd. “Like everything else in his life, Hans had to get Diamond his way. His path was unconventional, but I can personally verify that Hans has earned a Diamond boon.”

  Devon turned to Hans.

  “Congratulations, Guild Master Hans,” the Paladin said, offering his hand.

  After a stunned pause, Hans shook it. Mazo clapped along with the cheering adventurers.

  Next, Devon gave Hans a necklace with the Gomi bear-head crest medallion. The gleam of celestial steel was a stark contrast to the deep black diamond of the bear’s eye. Hans saw tears pooling in Devon’s eyes and realized that tears pooled in his as well.

  “You deserve this,” Devon said softly with the crystal covered. “There’s no question you’ve earned it.” Bringing the crystal back to his lips, Devon spoke to the crowd again. “As is tradition, it’s up to Hans what he discloses about his boon, but I will say that the next person who tries to murder our Guild Master will be in for a painful surprise.

  “I am pleased to introduce Guild Master Hans, the Diamond-ranked Adventurer!”

  Hans couldn’t hear his own voice over the clamor of the adventurers observing the ceremony. He wasn’t sure if the dungeon ceiling made them sound louder than they were or if that was him feeling overwhelmed.

  Quest Complete: Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  As Devon stepped away to conclude the ceremony, adventurers and townspeople alike rushed forward to congratulate Hans. He shook dozens of hands and exchanged a few hugs. Olza appeared and took his arm in hers.

  “I hope you’re letting yourself enjoy this,” she whispered.

  “I am. I really am.”

  Olza stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. “Nope. Not happening.”

  Hans watched her sway side to side as if she were on the deck of a sailboat.

  “Carry me.”

  “What?”

  “Up the stairs.”

  “You’re that drunk?”

  “Chivalry. Chivalry lives. Right here on these stairs.” Olza put a hand against the wall to steady herself.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  Ducking low, Hans threw Olza over his shoulder so that he held on to her legs while she faced backward.

  “Gods, is this a kidnapping?”

  “You wanted me to carry you.”

  The bounce of the stairs strained Olza’s speech. “I thought you’d be romantic about it. I’m not a sack of grain.”

  Hans laughed. “You should have specified.” He dumped Olza onto their bed.

  A moment later, he returned with a glass of water.

  “Might be a good idea to try and get ahead of the hangover if you can,” he said, setting the glass on the nightstand.

  “Pssshhhhht,” Olza said, aimlessly flopping her arm about in a shooing motion. “Some of us can actually handle our booze.”

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Yes. Take off my shoes, please.”

  Hans tapped her shoulder.

  Olza opened her eyes and looked at her feet. “When did I lose my shoes?!”

  “I took them off a minute ago.”

  “You did that for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aww. You’re the best.” Olza let her neck go limp. Her face sank into her pillow.

  Hans kissed her on the cheek.

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  “I am proud of you,” she said, her voice muffled by fabric and goose down. “You know that?”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  Retrieving a mostly full bottle of fool’s root from his pantry, Hans sat on his deck and propped his feet up. He poured himself a glass and set his hand on the dungeon roots. Sleep seemed like it would be elusive that night, and running mental laps around his dungeon was as good a way to pass the time as any.

  His manuscript really needed his attention, but he was far too drunk to sit at a desk and write.

  Hans heard the sound of boots scraping against stone and looked around at the source.

  “Hey,” Devon whispered.

  The Paladin hung from the side of the deck facing the street, his eyes peeking over the edge. For a moment, Hans tried to picture what it would be like to be a passerby in the street who saw the Paladin dangling from a roof.

  “I didn’t want to wake Olza by knocking.”

  Chuckling, Hans waved him up. Devon hoisted himself over the low railing and sat with Hans.

  “Are you pissed?” Devon asked, adjusting his chair.

  “Pissed?”

  “About the Diamond thing. You told me once it would be embarrassing if a former student promoted you.”

  “Ah,” Hans replied. “I was wrong. It meant a lot to me, actually.”

  “Really?”

  “Earning it that way was more meaningful than having Vaglell announce it. Far more meaningful, I’d say. The only way it could have been better is if Gret and Boden were there.”

  Hans spilled a little vodka on the deck in their honor.

  “I was worried you’d be upset about it.”

  The Guild Master looked Paladin in the eye. “Thank you. I’m honored.”

  Devon nodded and smiled meekly. The pair turned their attention to aimlessly watching the waters of the Leebel lake. Orange light framed the silhouettes of trees growing far below, and the surface stirred slightly. There weren’t any fish in the water yet, but the lake had some life in it. Tiny aquatic creatures and a variety of plants were beginning to thrive somewhere in the depths, releasing little bubbles of oxygen or disturbing the surface tension for fleeting moments.

  “Maybe you should be the one to go to Hoseki with Galad,” Devon said after a while. “He’d be even safer, and you could show off your boon to the grumblers in the Guild.”

  “It’s still better if you go. You have to go, actually.”

  “Have to?”

  Hans nodded. “I can’t leave Gomi.”

  “You’re going to have to take a vacation some day.”

  “No, I mean I can’t leave Gomi,” the Guild Master replied. “I can’t go beyond the dungeon roots.”

  “Weren’t you and Olza just up there?”

  “Yep. I’ve been spreading the roots a little each day. I stopped dead where they stopped. My body refused to go any farther.”

  “Did you try forcing it?”

  Shaking his head, Hans asked, “You ever touch a hot stove?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Have you tried forcing yourself to touch a stove you know is hot?”

  “...I don’t think so.”

  “Exactly,” Hans said, pausing to sip from his glass. “Your brain doesn’t even present it as an option. If you try to do it anyway, you feel this pull inside of you. Your unconscious mind knows the danger and isn’t above holding the conscious parts back.”

  “Okay…”

  “That’s what standing at the edge of the roots felt like. My instincts screamed at me that it would hurt, so much so that I couldn’t move. I don’t think it’s wise to ignore that.”

  “I see.”

  “For now, I’ll keep growing the roots and hope that feeling changes. I don’t think it will, though.”

  Devon noticed a dark smudge on his shirt for the first time and tried rubbing it out. He frowned. “I suppose dungeon cores aren’t known for their travels.”

  Hans belly laughed so hard he coughed. “Did Diamond feel like this for you?” he managed to ask after a while.

  “The celebration, you mean?”

  “No, not that. It’s like… Since I’ve been back, I feel separate from everyone else, like I don’t belong. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone has been great, so no one is pushing me away. If I pause, though, I notice I’m on the outside somehow.”

  “How did you expect Diamond to feel?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Hans used a drink to give himself time to think. “Like winning a tournament, I guess, but all the time, perpetual. I’m old enough to know that’s not how life works, but that was the dream.”

  “Neither of us has had a ‘normal’ Diamond experience, if such a thing exists,” Devon said. “Any promotion means moving above a certain set of people, right? That makes me believe everyone feels this way to some degree, but shit, we didn’t get to pick up our boons and go back to living how we wanted.”

  “That’s true. Makes me a bit jealous of Mazo and Eesa.”

  “Same.”

  Silence descended on the deck. The distant sounds of people moving about Leebel’s Rest were the only noises Hans heard for some time.

  “Do you remember the job with the sheep farm?” Devon asked eventually.

  “Orcs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was a bad one.”

  “Do you remember drinking after?”

  “Heh. Barely. I was hoping I’d lose the memories of the job too, but no such luck.”

  Devon nodded. He refilled his glass and then did the same for Hans. “Somehow, me and Boden ended up on some little bridge when the tavern kicked us out. He couldn’t walk, so we sat there waiting to sober up. He looked at me and said, ‘After the next one, there’s no turning back. That’s if today didn’t put you there already.’”

  “No turning back?”

  “I had the same question. ‘We don’t get to do both,’ he said to me. ‘You spend enough time with monsters, and you can’t go back to civilization. You can visit, but you’ll never be a part of it again. Not ever.’”

  Hans listened.

  “I didn’t know what the hells he was talking about. I was only a Bronze, so I start trying to get him to his feet so we can get back to the inn. He shrugs me off and stays there on the bridge on his ass. ‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘You’ll come back to town one day, and all you’ll see is blood, all these happy little people and their families strung up like meat. No matter how happy a place is, you know what it would look like if monsters got it. And that’s all you fucking see.’”

  “What’d he say after that?”

  “Nothing,” Devon chuckled. “He was out cold.”

  “Did you believe him?” Hans asked.

  “Nope. That day… Gods that day was rough, but I thought I’d get over it. Never did. The dwarf was right.”

  “What brought that story to mind?”

  Devon sipped and pondered. “I think that’s what makes you feel like you’re on the outside. You leave civilization in the name of protecting it, you out-monster the monsters, and then you can’t go back in. No matter how many fucking fields I plow or houses I help build, I’m not really here. I’m not really a part of this. Not in the way someone like Luther or Uncle Ed is a part of this. I’m probably not making any sense.”

  Hans sighed. “You’re making sense. And getting Diamond is like the official declaration that the walls are up for good. That’s what you are now.”

  “Yep. Sorry for dumping all of this out when we should be celebrating. I’m an asshole.”

  Active Quest: Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  “I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you can be happy and sad about the same thing. Are you any less proud of yourself for what you achieved?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. Maybe that’s the real point of something like the Adventurers’ Guild.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “It’s a bunch of people living the same shit,” Hans said. “We might be on the outside of civilization, but we’re not alone.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Monitor for independently grown sections of dungeon.

  Complete the next volume (Bronze to Silver) for “The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers.”

  Learn to help your advanced students as much as you help beginners.

  Relocate the titan bones to the dungeon entrance.

  Master your Diamond boon.

  Get Dunfoo the materials he needs for a Holy enchantment.

  Learn more about the limits of the dungeon roots.

  Test the extent of your dungeon influence.

  Host dungeon races.