This fourth-floor slime village was a complete mess, having just been trashed by mortals and monsters alike. The destruction of this very large, village-sized room had turned it to charred, frostbitten, steaming, dribbly rubble. What once had been false houses now looked more like cruddy chipped dominoes.

Just looking at it was enough to give the divers dread. They were expected to clean the whole damn thing.

The seven of them moved to what had once been the village square. Lark shoved crusty husks aside and sat importantly in the center. Everybody else let her have this importance and formed a circle around her. Nyx, still recovering from the shock of a big soul absorption, slumped as if about to fall asleep. Linzy deliberately sat opposite from them, keeping watch on this newly revealed demon.

Ragnorre again fired up the electric lantern. She sat back and hummed her cares away.

Lark kept things snappy. She didn’t even ask for more details on where Nyx and Ragnorre had gone—or who they truly were. Instead, she smacked her palms onto her knees and asked everyone, “How much farther are we willing to go?”

“Absurd question,” said Dulcen. “We don’t have enough energy to go any further. Might even lose a few bodies on the way back up.”

“Don’t say that,” Lark hissed. “’Bodies.’ Don’t talk like that about your own party.”

Dulcen shrugged.

“Regardless,” he added, “from here, we go up.”

“Yes!” said Linzy, bowing his head.

“Yes,” said Ethel. It was hard to notice earlier in the dimmer light, but she was shivering hard. The non-Nyx divers were put off by the strained blood vessels practically pressing through her skin, screamingly red and blue. “Th-there’s no shame in leaving without clearing the fourth floor. No shame.”

Yet instead of total, congenial agreement, there was flat silence.

“I can’t leave,” said Hue softly.

“Same for me!” went Ragnorre.

“Would you like to tell us why?” said Dulcen, squinting.

“Nah, not really,” said Ragnorre.

“I suppose you can’t leave either?” said Lark, pointing to Nyx.

The disguised demon lord straightened their back and shoulders. “You would have been mistaken,” they said, “had you asked that question just yesterday. I came here determined to go wherever Ethel goes. Now, though...things changed, in a certain chamber over there.” They pointed a thumb over their shoulder. “I feel I must follow Ragnorre.”

Ragnorre turned to Nyx with a huge, loyal, puppy smile. Nyx returned the look, but this exchange—and the recent battle with Urrich—had made them realize that maybe they didn’t have a clue what was going on in Ragnorre’s head. Maybe, like a dog, she wasn’t “smiling” because she was happy, but because that was just how her skull was shaped. (Ignore the parts of that comparison that don’t make sense and it’ll make sense.)

Ethel gave Nyx an expression that might have been trying to convey an emotion, but showed nothing but exhaustion and a smidge of confusion. “Um,” she said, “let’s talk in private for a bit after this, just the two of us?”

“Come, now,” groaned Lark. “If this is about Athalie being a secret demon lord, then surely everyone can hear it.”

“Fuck off!” Nyx bellowed, dropping the act entirely. “You can’t uphold the sanctity of our party like it’s some band of brothers, then turn around and act like the only possible bond between any of us is some logistical shit! If you wanna hear about how Ragnorre and I got lured away from the party by a bigger, more evil, more fucking ruthless demon than I have ever been, then I will not necessarily tell you because of all the emotional baggage that came with the event! Which you wouldn’t even want to know about!”

Besides Linzy, who was brimming with frightened anticipation, the adventurers were way too fatigued to look interested in any of this beyond a quaint raised eyebrow.

Nyx cleared their throat. “Are you all disappointed in me?”

“Eh,” said Dulcen.

“Why would you be?” Nyx went on, as if he’d said nothing. “I’ve served you well! I’ve proven myself! My morality is acceptably mortal! Ethel,” they said with an abrupt turn, “I swear I’m sorry. I just want to learn more about Ragnorre, something’s up with her. If it weren’t for all the mortal danger, I’d say you should definitely tag along too.”

“...Sure,” Ethel mumbled. “I’ll come with you. I’ve only got one life.”

“Carpe diem?”

“Yeah.”

They could all see the moral conflict raging in Linzy’s eyes. As a monk, they’d learned very particular rules for how to deal with demons...how to detect them, defend oneself against them, and even, in desperate times, manipulate them. Linzy had accomplished none of that. Not only was Nyx playing him for a fool just by existing in his presence—Nyx was also the archetype of immorality. An atom of evil that Linzy’s teachings commanded him to extinguish.

With time and patience, though, he managed to take a few soul-deep breaths, set those frantic worries aside, and turn to Lark asking a different kind of question. “I have done as much of my job as I can, I think,” he told her. “But I don’t want to leave any people in need behind...and I don’t want to make the main party any weaker.”

“Please, Linzy, don’t worry about the ones who choose to remain,” said Lark.

Dulcen got up with a full-body stretch. “Just come back up with me.”

So that made two who wanted to leave, so far, and three with a delusional wish to go even further. All eyes brushed past Hue (who had always been suspiciously silent, yet surprisingly unintriguing) and landed on Lark herself. As the medic, her decision would be particularly charged. And as the pragmatic no-nonsense commander type, a bad or foolhardy decision would look particularly...bad.

Her spirit sank. “I can’t go up,” she said.

“Why!?” Dulcen bellowed. “You go down there and you die. You might see some pretty things first, but the only thing we’ll know for sure is that you’ll die. And since you’re not a demon—at least, that’s the story we’re going with—”

“It’s all too strange for me!” she shouted. “I just...I’m like Athalie here. I don’t get it and I have to see what’s going on. Even if it kills me. And why do you care about my damn life? I’ll make you some healing balm for the road, if that’s what you’re really worried about.”

Dulcen turned away, with Linzy close behind. “Fucking disaster,” he mumbled—the party was splitting. Without a formal goodbye, they found the way back home and disappeared.

“And you’re staying,” Lark confirmed with Hue. Hue nodded.

The divers who remained decided not to bother cleaning this chamber. Their goal was no longer really to protect Farander up above. It was to see what they could see at the dungeon’s most profound point.

Since secrets had been clumsily half-revealed between them, they felt vastly uncomfortable in each other’s company. They didn’t even want to sleep together in the same massive room, let alone in shifts.

Athalie, Ethel, Ragnorre, Hue, and Lark. They shook off their weariness, cleaned the muck from their shoes, and waited in the eerie air of the village vault for as long as they could bear the tension. Then they made the incredible, horrible, brave decision to risk the incomprehensible fifth floor.