When Hans and Lee returned to the dungeon entrance, Tandis greeted them outside. She seemed slightly flustered.

  “You’ll want to go right to the training room,” she said. “Sven is back.”

  “What? Really?”

  Tandis nodded.

  “Is he hurt or something?”

  “Nothing like that. It’s a little weird though. Easiest if you just go talk to him yourself.”

  With a tired sigh, Hans dropped his gear by the dungeon entrance. Lee did the same and followed the Guild Master into the training room.

  He found Kane, Bel, and Izz standing in the open area at the center of the room, excitedly discussing something Hans couldn’t hear. Terry, Quentin, Thuz, and a few of the Minotaurs sat around the outside of the area, observing. Sven stood next to Terry, both their backs to the entrance.

  “Sven?” Hans asked as he approached.

  Sven spun around with a giant grin. “Mr. Hans!” He stepped forward and embraced Hans. For his part, Hans patted the Apprentice Rogue on the back timidly, unable to fully disguise his discomfort.

  Over Sven’s shoulder, Hans saw Terry looking exasperated and shaking his head.

  If Sven has Terry flustered, this can’t be good.

  “I was really worried about you,” Hans said.

  “I needed a break. Decided to travel a bit.”

  “Yeah, but–”

  “I know,” Sven said, apologetically. “I should have let you know. It was an impulsive choice I had to make for myself.”

  “Okay…”

  “But I’m back now, and I have some really good news.” Sven reached into his pocket and produced a piece of iron the size of a playing card. One side had “Sven the Iron-Ranked Rogue, Fumeiyo Chapter” engraved into the metal, and the other featured the crest of the Adventurers’ Guild.

  Hans flipped the item around in his fingertips. “What is this?”

  “Some chapters are using these as identification for adventurers. I think it’s kind of new.”

  “I got that much, but Iron-ranked?”

  Sven smiled. “That’s the good news! The Fumeiyo Chapter let me test for Iron, and I passed.”

  Hans’ head hurt. “Congratulations?” He noticed Thuz catching his eye. “Sorry, Sven, I have a lot I want to ask you. I need to check in on something important real quick.”

  Before Sven could answer, Hans went across the training hall to talk to Thuz, out of earshot of any of the other Apprentices. The DCs and the Crawlers seemed uneasy about Sven’s sudden reappearance, and most of the Minotaurs didn’t know enough about the Apprentice Rogue–ahem, Iron-ranked Rogue–to feel anything positive or negative about his presence.

  “What the hell?” Hans asked.

  “It is as he says. He registered under another chapter and was promoted to Iron,” Thuz answered, speaking softly. “His ignorance is sincere, I believe. He is wholly unaware of his mistake.”

  “We never talked about ranks between chapters. Didn’t think it was relevant, but I was wrong, clearly. This is my fault.”

  “I disagree. If an apprentice in any trade left their master in secret to be recognized under another, they would expect to be shamed by their peers. He has shown you a great disrespect.”

  And it hurt Hans’ feelings. He had done his best to support Sven and to help him grow. Now the Fumeiyo Chapter claimed the Rogue as their adventurer, registering him under their roster as if they had been the ones to train Sven up to Iron.

  “Let’s put the politics aside for now,” Hans said. “Did he say anything about what he shared? Does the Fumeiyo Chapter know about our Apprentices? The dungeon?”

  “I believe he has kept those details in confidence.”

  That was a relief. Hans had to manage everything that came next, however. When he was just one of several Hoseki instructors, a disrespectful student was relatively easy to address. Ask them to behave differently first, and if they didn't comply, he booted them from class. They could complain as much as they wanted, but their grievances didn’t represent an ongoing threat to Hans or his goals.

  “If we piss him off,” Hans said, “this could get pretty nasty.”

  Thuz agreed. “His knowledge gives him power, yes.”

  New Quest: Address Sven’s missteps without creating a new enemy.

  No choice, really.

  Hans asked Sven to follow him to the set of dorms within the Forgeborne Mines. With that door closed behind them, they could speak in private. Sven immediately asked if he was in trouble.

  “This situation might be more complicated than it looks,” Hans said. “I need you to know, though, that I don’t mean to attack you, but we have to address a few things.”

  “I know that taking off like that wasn’t the right thing to do,” Sven offered. “That battle messed with my head, and I needed some time. I should have told you that, though.”

  “Yes, we weren’t sure if you were in trouble or had simply left town.”

  “That’s on me. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you for that,” Hans said. “How much did you share about our work here in Gomi?”

  “Not a peep. They knew I was an exceptional candidate but not why.”

  “Did you share with anyone?”

  Sven pulled his head back, repulsed by the question. “Of course, I didn’t. Did you think I would?”

  Hans reiterated that the conversation was not a personal attack. He was responsible for the Gomi Chapter and had to ask these questions for everyone else’s sake.

  “I thought you’d be proud of me.”

  “For?”

  “For getting to Iron. I thought teachers got a kick out of those kinds of milestones.”

  Doing his best to be gentle, Hans explained that it was customary for a student to earn promotions under their primary instructor. Doing otherwise was considered to be disrespectful.

  “Disrespectful?” Sven scoffed. “Is this rule in the Guild manual?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Did we ever talk about it in our classes?”

  “We did not.”

  “So I was supposed to magically know about this unspoken rule?” Sven asked, growing more animated in parallel with the growth of his frustration.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “You’re right,” Hans said. “Asking you to follow a rule you haven’t heard isn’t fair, which is why I’m not mad about this. Like I said, we all thought you were gone for good. This is just a lot of surprises all at once.”

  “Are you kicking me out?”

  “Sven, no. All we’re doing is talking.”

  “Didn’t you say Gomi wasn’t a prison, and we could leave if we wanted?”

  “I did.”

  “But I was supposed to ask your permission?” Sven asked.

  “Not my permission, but giving me the courtesy of a note would have been helpful.”

  Sven crossed his arms. “I already apologized for that!”

  “I know you did, and I appreciate it.”

  “So this is really about your ‘unspoken’ rules? Since when do those matter to you?”

  Hans cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at the pointed nature of Sven’s last question.

  “Yeah, that is what I mean,” Sven continued. “You didn’t give a shit about that rule, though.”

  After a deep breath, Hans said, “I’m willing to have a conversation with you, but I will not have an argument.”

  “I bet if I was one of your favorites, I wouldn’t be in trouble right now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your star pupils. Quentin. Terry. Buru.”

  “Sven–”

  “You always played favorites.”

  “Sven!” Hans said, his voice rising from thoughtful mentor to angry superior. “I’m more than happy to hear you out, but I won’t tolerate insults and accusations. I can accept the lines you crossed before as honest misunderstandings. The lines you’re crossing now? You know damn well that’s not how this works.”

  A memory of Hans’ own early days as an Apprentice came to mind. If an instructor or an upper-ranked felt disrespected, they rarely talked it through. Instead, they would invite the student to spar and kick the shit out of them. In theory, that was a lesson about the importance of respect. There was a bit more machismo in that exchange than Hans thought was appropriate, even then, but presently, he was tempted.

  Hans pushed that thought back down beneath the surface.

  “Somehow, I’m always the one committing these offenses,” Sven continued. “And only me.”

  “Stop. You came back. I’m glad you’re not dead.” Mostly. “Great, you’re here. What did you want to happen next?”

  “Huh?”

  “What was your plan?” Hans asked. “Did you come here to visit? To stay? To show off your promotion? Tell me, what did you want out of this?”

  “I figured there won’t be much in the way of jobs during the winter. Thought I’d train here to pass the time and head out in the spring.”

  “That won’t work.”

  Sven demanded to know why not. Hans pointed out that all of the adventurers at the dungeon were present because it was their job. They weren’t attending a training camp or some sort of adventurers’ retreat. Were they all still students? Sure, but they had more responsibility than that. They were expected to be present for their shifts, rested for their runs, and attentive in their classes. Their job was to be good teammates, and that meant adhering to all of the above.

  Disappearing and reappearing was fine for a training program Sven paid for with his own money and completed on his own time. For Gomi, the stakes were far too serious to accommodate inconsistent, inconsiderate adventurers.

  “Wow. You’re kicking me out?”

  “Gods, Sven, no. I’m trying really hard to talk with you. Not everything is an attack. I like you. Always have. I’m not your enemy.”

  “Fuck this, and fuck Gomi,” Sven said, reaching for the door.

  “Sven!” Hans shouted and slammed a palm on the door, holding it shut. “Go ahead and be pissed at me. Hate me, whatever you need to do. Don’t forget that there are people here who aren’t me. Your fellow adventurers. Families. Children. Don’t make them suffer when your real problem is with me.”

  Sven scoffed. “There you go, thinking I’m nothing but garbage.”

  “Sven?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I’d like to leave now.”

  Hans nodded and stepped away from the door. The Iron-ranked Rogue stomped out. Before leaving the mines he shouted, “Goodbye, everyone! I’m not welcome here, so I have to leave.”

  The Rogue was out of the room before any of the confused adventurers could formulate a question or reaction.

  Hans sat on one of the dwarf dorm beds and rubbed his face.

  Quest Failed: Address Sven’s missteps without creating a new enemy.

  When Hans collected himself and finally emerged from the dwarf dorms, the rest of the adventurers went quiet and looked to see his reaction.

  He held up his hands and shrugged. He had done what he could.

  “Since you all want to know,” Hans said, “I’ll address it now. Sven had the option to stay, but the condition was that he commit to his role in this team. The Gomi Chapter isn’t a sleep away camp. Bel, Lee, Izz, Thuz–they won’t be in Gomi forever but damn do they pull their weight. I think most of you recognize how lucky we are to have them here, and that’s because they give as much as they take, if not far heavier on the give.”

  “What about the promotion part?” Terry asked. “Was that weird or was it just me?”

  “Briefly leaving your home chapter for a promotion is disrespectful to your instructors,” Izz said. “Training elsewhere is not a problem for most chapters, but taking that new rank says that you believe your instructor’s standards for a promotion were incorrect, which calls the rest of their legitimacy into question.”

  “Weird and a dick move.”

  “Indeed,” Izz said.

  “This is the last thing I’ll say on the topic before we drop it for good: the Adventurers’ Guild has a litany of unspoken rules. If you break one because you didn’t know it existed, I don’t care. If I do care for some reason, I’ll explain the situation, and we go on with our lives.”

  With that, Hans moved to exit the training room.

  “Mr. Hans!” Quentin said. “Before you go, can we show you something we’ve been playing with?”

  “You will be entertained,” Bel said. Izz and Thuz nodded.

  “Alright, you know how to make me curious.”

  As Hans found a good seat to observe the training area, Kane and Quentin quietly talked amongst themselves before Kane said, “Okay, fine. I’ll explain it.” Kane turned to address Hans. “So you know how you taught Lee to Push and Pull off of a Force Wall?”

  The Guild Master nodded.

  “Bel has been helping me with Force Wall, and we were practicing those combinations. Then Quentin asked why we only used that combination for straight lines. This was his idea.”

  Bel said she was ready. Kane went to one end of the training yard and ran at the center. When he was about a fourth of the way across, a Force Wall appeared in the middle of the arena, but not as a vertical barrier. This Force Wall was horizontal and hovered above the training yard. Kane jumped, extended a hand, and cast Pull, using the combination of spells to cross a gap like he swung on a rope.

  “But then Kane had a better idea,” Quentin said.

  Kane demonstrated, repeating the same movement as before. This time, a second Force Wall appeared next to the original. Kane cast Pull back to back, swinging from one Force Wall to the next before returning to the ground.

  “I know you say not to use jump attacks in fights,” Quentin said, “but this is different.”

  “How so?”

  “The problem with jump attacks is that once you jump, you can’t change course, except Kane can.”

  Hans smiled. “I agree with the reasoning. How combat viable is this looking thus far?”

  “I have to be careful about how high I get,” Kane said. “My ankles are already pretty sore. And the coordination is tough. I still bumble Pull sometimes when I’m standing still, so this is pretty hard. I’m also not good enough at Force Wall to be able to cast both back to back like that.”

  “Can I try something?” Lee asked.

  Kane said of course. Lee whispered to Bell and then went to one end of the room like Kane had just done. Lee ran forward. The first Force Wall appeared. She cast Pull and started her swing. The second Force Wall appeared farther down the path, just like normal, but it was several feet higher than the first. Lee cast Pull again, bringing her approximately two stories into the air.

  As she descended toward the ground, she reached a hand forward and cast Push. Hans surmised that she intended to slow her fall, but what she actually did was stop herself dead in midair, like she had fallen face first into invisible glass. She grunted and fell to the ground. She rolled over, groaning, and started to laugh.

  “You get the idea,” she managed between wheezes.

  “We use Force Wall for this because it’s perfectly flat. No texture whatsoever,” Hans said. “You might need to do the same for Push to work as a way to soften a fall. Pretty ballsy to go for something like that, but I think the mechanics of it are possible.”

  Kane’s mouth dropped open with a big smile.

  “Please don’t kill yourselves messing around with this, but as long as you don’t do that, I think you have an interesting technique here.”

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  Mend the rift with Devon.

  Complete the next volume (Iron to Bronze) for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."Explore the idea of training “dungeon lifeguards” to accompany adventurers in training.

  Await the arrival of a safe for the Gomi chapter.

  Complete construction of the Takarabune (still need diamond, scarlet steel, celestial steel, and mimic blood).

  Fix the two broken drawbridges.

  Use a cold weather job to preserve the dungeon’s food for longer.