The Hotel Cosmopolitan was located just a few meters away from the town hall and the prison. That sent a definite message. It also ensured that getting back and forth to town hall, to conduct interviews and sign papers and review safety precautions pre-dungeon dive, was a straightforward matter.

Buried in the heart of town hall was the interview room. By no coincidence, it more befitted a prison, with its single blue-green lamp dangling overhead, its unpainted, gritty walls of mixed adobe and concrete.

One by one, all of the adventurers who had arrived in Farander so far took their place here.

First was the latest, Ms. Ragnorre Rock. Refreshed after a great night’s sleep at the Cosmopolitan, and convinced by some unknowable means to get rid of her boxing gloves at least for now, she strode into the interrogation chamber and threw herself into the hot seat, arm hooked over the chair back.

A prim elf woman with a clipboard at her chest closed the door and shot her a professional smile. “I’m Hotchka,” she said. “We’re glad to have you. I know that our people can be a bit—well, some say hostile—”

Ragnorre interrupted her with a thumbs-up and a single, “Yeah!!”

Hotchka didn’t know what that meant.

She gulped. “I suppose we can get on with it, then.”

She took a seat across from Ragnorre, folded her legs, and recited the first item on her list:

“What is your typical team role?”

Ragnorre blinked.

“Teams?”

“You’re going to be working in a team,” clarified Hotchka.

“Most of the time I come into the ring with my coach. He’s my personal trainer.”

Hotchka squinted down at her clipboard and wrote in the first blank, in huge block letters, “STUPID.”

***

“Describe your upbringing.”

Catamaug laughed. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His posture didn’t scream big-personality, but it certainly was comfortable. And he had every right to be. He and Hotchka had been friends in Farander for two decades.

“What’s Arnaul gonna do if I don’t answer right? Fire me?”

“Hey,” Hotchka warned. “You know he would.”

“In that case, I was born in the snowiest northern wastes... Nah, just kidding. I’ll stay onboard for the dive. I wouldn’t endanger my own hometown like that.”

“Not on purpose,” said Hotchka.

“Right.”

***

“I am elf on my mother’s side, human on my father’s. My mother was a prosperous itinerant merchant in the Tellurom-Barkneys, while my father tended to stayed home, look after the home and the children. Extended families are very important to us in the islands, you know, and my grandparents were as close to me as...”

Athalie sat saber-straight in her chair, out of her plate armor but still, as always, in chain mail. Meanwhile, Hotchka began to slump. And she slumped further and further as the story kept going, adding onto itself with branches and branches of details, including but not limited to the time her grandparents renewed their wedding vows outside during a raging hurricane, which incidentally taught her the power of teamwork and of the truest bonds of love.

“And while the business failed, I never forgot—”

A buzzer rang from some unseen corner.

“Oh my,” said Athalie with a single huge shiver. “Is that time?”

Deep down, Nyx thought, You asshole.

There had never been a timer in this room. Hotchka had just set off a little spontaneous noise spell—probably with a twist of the foot or ankle...or wrist, judging by the way she'd been holding the clipboard before her writing hand.

She hadn’t even let Athalie finish. But Nyx the faker was somewhat glad for that.

***

“Earth, you said?” Hotchka practically gasped—then blushed with embarrassment over the uncalled-for outburst.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” said Ethel, shrinking in her chair, “but...I guess this is an interview, so therefore I really have to talk about it.”

Hotchka insisted, “I-i-i-i-i-i-it’s not that important.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess the critical part is that I grew up with an older sister in a two-parent home. If I had to guess at the effect of having no monsters or demons in my environment, it would be—”

“L-let’s just move on to the next question,” said Hotchka. “There’s not enough space on my clipboard for this, I can just tell.” No wonder Ethel had come in with that half-elf: in volubility they were one and the same. “So:”

“Before the Guild of Arkadia, who was your most recent employer?”

“Self-employed.”

“Do you have any religious or spiritual affiliation?”

Ethel adjusted her glasses and said, “What are the options...?”

Her eyes burned with a furious ardor that said, I want this interview to last a goddamn lifetime.

“...I’ll tell you later,” lied Hotchka. “Have you ever encountered a demon?”

Ethel gulped. She reached for the cup of water she’d brought in with her and sipped for a long moment. She didn’t want to lie, she’d never liked lying. Guilt had a way of eating at her, even from the smallest things. But with luck, she wouldn’t have to.

She looked into Hotchka’s eyes, head lowered, and said, “You know I came to this dungeon before, right?”

“...Of course,” said Hotchka, and a sheen of sweat appeared on her brow. “We already have a file on that incident.”

***

“No, I’ve never encountered one,” said Linzy, “and I never wish to.”

The kid was dressed in a simple brown cloak with a hood and a rope sash. While the cloak itself was suitably light for desert travel, he was still wearing the heavy woolen boots of the far north. He sat with his ankles touching the floor and his toes pointing upward. When Hotchka looked at those near-black shoe soles, she imagined the crystal snow dripping off.

“To confirm,” said Hotchka, “you’ve been trained in certain anti-demon arts?”

“That’s correct,” said Linzy, as perfectly as any honor student. “The Order of Cherna specializes in a full-body martial art which, when combined with soul manipulation, can ward off demons. It even dissolves their souls.”

The elf’s pencil worked at its page. “Excellent,” she murmured. “And—I know you’ve never seen a demon, but your order?”

“Oh, yes,” said Linzy. “One of our order’s founders lost her life to them. The other built the Order with his tears.”

***

“What do you have to offer your fellow divers?”

“Just look at me,” said Dulcen, who had practically never removed his armor or other accoutrements since arriving in Farander. Altogether, it was almost too big for the room—and it reeked of caked-on blood. “What do you think I have to offer?”

Hotchka made a new note: “Rude.” It went well with her other notes “rude” and “RUUUUUDE.”

***

“Pain!” shouted Ragnorre, twin electrified fists in the air.

Hotchka suspected that she didn’t know how right she was.

***

“Forgiveness, Ms. Hotchka,” said Hue the witch with a bow of the head. “That is all I can offer. If I’m in any way unsuitable for the trip ahead, you are free to cast me out.”

On the contrary, Hotchka thought—though it would be too unprofessional to say it.

Hue had come in with no identification, few answers...not even a neighbor to corroborate his own existence. He’d flat-out refused to answer most of the interview questions.

In fact, it was possible that such a person as “Hue the human witch” never existed. He had powers that no mortal Darshannan was even supposed to have—that much he’d freely admitted.

He’d also admitted something that’d given Hotchka pause—and that he’d made her swear not to repeat. At least not until well after the dungeon dive was over.

He may have been hanging his head in penance now, but couldn’t he have been the type who would kill an innocent on the spot? Hotchka didn’t want to test it with her own blood. If secrecy meant that much to him, fine. Farander was desperate for a summoner’s power anyway.

“Dismissed,” she said quietly, voiding emotion from her voice. No animosity and no friendship.