Nin came over late the next morning so the two could work through anything they wanted to ask, and prepare to be asked, all the sort of questions they could expect. The ended up swapping leftovers for lunch. They both thought of themselves as barely mediocre cooks, but each was totally fine with the other's cooking. Nin used a lot more spice than she did, but she made it work. Mostly.

  "You should have put more vegetables in this," was all Nin had to say about her cooking in return. Michelle could admit that she had a tendency to stick to basic recipes and not experiment much. Nin had said a couple times that she preferred Michelle's consistency, though, since her culinary adventures often didn't work out.

  "If I'd remembered, I probably would have," Michelle answered, trying to figure out why the spice in the noodles tasted off. It didn't seem like it was too much of any one flavor... probably some mixture that didn't work out. "I was just cooking to keep my mind off of stuff."

  Nin looked at her, and Michelle saw the seriousness in her friend's eyes. "You know you can call me any time."

  "It wasn't like that. And you know I will, if it gets bad." She took another bite of noodles, deciding that she still liked the taste, even if it was odd. "But I have to handle this. And I am."

  "I know. It's just only been a couple days." Nin shook her head. "Never mind. You do seem like you're doing better. I just..." she looked away. "Never mind."

  Michelle understood that she was worried, and she loved her friend for it. But Nin could be overbearing too, sometimes. "I appreciate it. I really do. But I also want to get stronger." She put down the bowl for a moment, not quite finished with it. "Sometimes that means getting hit. We're Dungeoneers. We face danger."

  "That's..." Nin looked at her.

  "We took Jon for granted, but he was a danger. Looking back, it's obvious." Michelle was talking to herself more than Nin. "Being stronger doesn't mean enduring suffering. It means learning not to get hit like that again. Magic exists now. It does weird and scary things. If we try to smile and pretend that we're safe, we'll die."

  Was that it?

  Michelle closed her eyes. What she'd said felt right. It was a part of the anger inside of herself. Not just anger at Jon. Anger at them all, for putting up with him. He was a danger. No. He was always a danger. The sense she'd had of him hadn't changed much over the years. Grown a little sharper, maybe. Had he always been the type that would snap like that?

  "We could never have seen something like that coming." Nin tried to sound firm, but it wasn't quite working. "It literally came out of nowhere. It shouldn't have been possible."

  Michelle wanted to snap that she could have... but she didn't. She probably couldn't have, but it was more than that. And it didn't matter anymore. "That's why we got hit," she said. "So how do we do better next time?"

  Nin shook her head. "I have no idea, and I don't want to talk about this right now."

  Michelle considered, but shook her head. "Okay. But if either of us says 'no' about a new teammate, the answer is no, and that's it. You don't have to justify it, and neither do I. Okay?"

  "Yeah. I was always going to listen if you said no, Chelle." Nin just looked at her.

  "I know." I just have to trust my soul to tell me what my eyes can't. But now wasn't the time to talk about that. "In terms of what we need to talk about with Nikki and Jenna..."

  Michelle and Nin passed the time thinking of things and writing them down, until the time got close. They made their way to the frozen yogurt place easily; traffic was light today, with no new surprises. When they looked around, it was obvious they were there first, so each got a cup and threw together their own collection of flavors, then sat down at a four-seat table.

  These tables really aren't sized for four people. Even though there were four chairs, there was hardly any room on top. Of course, they weren't there to eat a full meal, so maybe it was plenty... but they'd basically be rubbing knees. That wasn't exactly what they had intended.

  Being early meant that it was obvious to them when the other two arrived. Two Dungeoneer women, looking serious, approaching a frozen yogurt place, didn't exactly lend one to a lot of different conclusions. Likewise, as soon as they opened the door and saw Nin and Michelle at a table, looking seriously back at them, they didn't hesitate to jump to the obvious conclusion.

  "Michelle and Nin?" The black-haired woman in the lead offered her hand as they both set down their cups and stood. "I'm Nikki. This is Jenna."

  Michelle and Nin shook the offered hand, though it felt a little weird to do so, and they stood awkwardly for a moment before Jenna declared, "I'm gonna get a cup," and moved towards the dispensers. Nikki turned to look, but shook her head.

  "Not in the mood, honestly," she said, and gestured to the table. "Can we sit?"

  "It's a little crowded," Michelle admitted, as she retook her seat.

  "Nothin' to hide," Nikki said, though there was something wistful to the way she said it. She took a seat opposite them, a little back from the table. "Jerry said that you guys were very new, but you had promise. You, mostly." The woman nodded at Michelle.

  Nin looked at her with a little surprise, but Michelle had wondered if that was a part of everything. She was sure that Jerry didn't show up personally for most people's tutorials. Positive, even. "We have a history," she said, simply.

  "Yeah, well, Jenna and me too." Nikki shrugged and rubbed one shoulder, though Michelle knew there was no way it was hurting her. Just another nervous habit. "We both met him before he was an Administrator. Apparently Jenna knows more about your story, but she didn't tell me."

  "Does she." Michelle looked over at the brunette who was staring solemnly at the frozen yogurt dispensers, as though the wrong choice would just ruin her day.

  "She doesn't pry. She's just spent longer than most talking to Jerry. Apparently you came up a time or two."

  This time, Nin gave Michelle a side-eye but Michelle just brushed it off. "He rescued me when I should have died. But then he forced me into a boss fight I wasn't ready for. A really, really, really nasty boss. And he sort of just barely kept me alive long enough to..." How did she say it? Really? He had basically broken her, and remade her into a warrior.

  "You don't have to tell if you don't want." Nikki glanced away, back at Jenna, who now clearly had frozen yogurt in her cup, and had moved, but still had that same serious look on her face.

  "It's more like she still needs therapy for what happened back then," Nin interjected. "But she came back stronger. Apparently she broke and reformed her skill, and she didn't know anything about how that worked. And neither did anyone else."

  "Oh, you're that one." Nikki nodded, like that was all she needed to hear.

  "That one." Michelle's voice was flat.

  "Like I said. You've come up." Nikki gave her a smirk, but not a mean one. "Anyway, none of that influences anything. We still have to see if we're gonna work as a team."

  That... well, it was a healthier attitude than Lauren had had, at least. Michelle nodded and took a spoonful of her yogurt, though to be honest, she barely tasted it. It wasn't so much that she was mad that Jerry had talked about her, but...

  Jenna sat down next to Nikki, jarring her out of her thoughts. "So you're Chelle," she said, teasing a slice out of the top layer of yogurt with her spoon. "I'm Jenna Jellybean. I keep pestering Jerry to try to teach me basically anything he knows about how skills and stuff works. He's honestly pretty private." She ate the spoonful, and seemed... more relieved than pleased? No, Michelle was definitely just reading too much into the woman.

  "I haven't talked with him at all," Michelle admitted. "Well, except for during the tutorial. I kind of... didn't want to."

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Jenna finished savoring her mouthful of sugar and regarded her for a long moment, elbows on the table, just kind of looking flatly at her. "I guess," she said after a moment. "We just had very different interactions with him. I pushed hard to get his secrets from the moment I met him, and he hated it. You don't want his training, and he's tripping over himself to help you. If he weren't already engaged, I'd think he was horn-doggin' for you." She dug back into her dessert.

  Michelle genuinely had no idea what to say to that.

  Nin cleared her throat and tried to steer the conversation back. "So you two have been Running for a while, then?"

  "Jenna was one of the first," Nikki admitted. "It took her a while to get Mel and the others to join. And then she and I—Mel is my sister—we had a falling out. Nothing to do with the Run, just..." she shrugged. "Personal."

  Michelle looked from one of them to the other, but decided that topic wasn't even interesting. "You were part of the Fool's Run from the beginning?"

  "Before he finished it or named it, yeah." Jenna nodded. "But that's not to say I'm the best at it. I'm not really into the competitive part; I don't want anything to do with the leader-boards and all that bullshit. I'm technically a High Runner... but I don't want that distinction." She shook her head. "There's an absurd amount of stuff in the Run to play with. Too much to master even without skill mixing. I don't think anyone, and for sure not most of the people on the leader boards, really understand it. They get to the top by embracing meta, not exploring the Run itself. The top ranked High Runners are the worst of them. So, I say to hell with them."

  Nin and Michelle looked at Nikki, but the woman shrugged.

  "Don't look at me," she said. "Jenna's a mage and has been wanting to play with magic as long as I've known her. She's taught me a bunch about the Run, but in the end, I'm still mostly a Rogue. I sneak around and stab stuff. She can do all the thinking and skill stuff for the rest of us."

  Michelle looked to Jenna, but the woman simply returned her stare, eating the yogurt mechanically, as though waiting to see what she was going to do.

  Nin cleared her throat. "Well... I guess Chelle told you, but right now it's her, me, and our tank Reese. I'm support magic and ranged damage. Last time I took an auto-hit magic skill, but I'll probably go back to healing." She looked at Michelle, and Michelle could see how much her friend wanted this conversation to get back on track.

  "I'm a duelist, which you probably gathered," Michelle said. "Katana and a weapon aura. The one that Jerry helped me customize."

  "Reese tends to favor a war-hammer and said he will gladly take any of his buff or damage skills, if they'll help," Nin continued, before anyone could grill her about that. "I love the guy, but in battle, he tends to be as blunt as his weapon. He's not a great duelist, and can get lost in a fight if you leave him alone."

  Jenna just kept watching Michelle's eyes, which didn't quite make her uncomfortable. Yet.

  "Right," Nikki said. "Like I said, I've been playing roguish, mostly Midfield. I have an assassin-type stealth skill that gives me bonuses when I attack from it, and a decent melee weapon. Though if you'll be bringing your Katana, I might take a bow instead, and use yours once I have it unlocked."

  The thought bothered Michelle more than she expected it to, but not enough to sway any kind of decision. The sword was nice, and it was hers, but it wasn't really that special. Not outside of her Skill, at least.

  "So you're pretty flexible?" Nin sounded impressed.

  "In all the best ways." Nikki wiggled her eyebrows and grinned, but took the hint when both Nin and Michelle seemed only mildly amused. "I can take a lot of abuse, but I try to avoid it when I can. I'm gonna tell you now, part of the way we operate when we get in a new group is we give you rope and see if you hang yourselves. We'll do our best to cover for your mistakes, but if you make too many, we'll judge you for that. I know you're new, but we're not exactly here to baby-sit."

  "We're really just getting started," Nin said with a worried look.

  "I know. The real question is: do you learn? And Jerry seems to think you will." Nikki rested one elbow on the table and leaned in on it. "We'll see."

  Michelle met her eyes, and then looked back to Jenna. The brunette, at least, had backed off of staring, and was now paying more attention to her dessert. "So Nikki is midfield, and you're a mage?"

  "Mm." Jenna took a couple stabs at her yogurt without actually eating more. "I'm a full mage and can do a lot of ranged and support stuff, depending on what we need. Lately I've been playing around with the Commander's toolbox. Advantages, Authority, that kind of thing. Since I'm doing that, I tend to play backfield. Hard to be a good Commander when you're Laning."

  "Authority?" Nin asked, but Michelle leaned in before either of the other two had to reply.

  "Apparently it's what lets you control your units and build stuff," she said, and the more towards the rest of the table, "I was talking about it with the assistant in the practice room."

  "Ugh," Jenna said, rolling her eyes pretty hard. "That woman."

  Michelle wasn't sure what to say about that, but continued for Nin's sake. "Apparently there's stuff about letting you command units while in the field, even if you're not close to them, and I guess letting others command your units. That's why it's capital-A Authority, it's a mechanic that some Advantages and other things play with."

  Nin looked at her, soaking in what she said, and nodded. Jenna was still looking at her yogurt, but nodded as well.

  "You pass," the brunette said, which surprised them both. She looked up, her eyes still... kind of tired? That's probably what it was. "You've only done one run, are recovering from some nasty shit that happened to you, and are still trying to learn how all the shit works? Yeah, you might be a good one." She finally pulled up a spoonful of frozen yogurt and ate it.

  Michelle... was also unsure what to say about that? It didn't seem special, even if she could admit that it probably wasn't the kind of thing Nin would do. Or Reese. Or Jon, or Erik...

  Or most of the other people she'd ever met, probably. Something told her that Lauren chick wasn't the type either, and she seemed a lot more experienced. Michelle pursed her lips, trying to figure out what to say in response.

  "Apparently she was adjusting her minion's stats," Nin helpfully filled in the silence. "And has been trying to teach her swordplay and skill use. All that while I was trying to catch up with friends and look for new party members and stuff. She can be serious about the weirdest things, sometimes, and I guess the Run got its claws in her."

  Both Nikki and Jenna seemed to reappraise her, in light of that.

  "It feels a little stupid," Michelle admitted. "I know I should be resting. Or doing something else that's supposed to matter more. Increase my level, get a job, change the world... something. But I feel like there's ...something in the Run, that's calling to me. Even if I look weird. Or feel like an idiot."

  "Fools run where angels fear to tread," Nikki quoted, smoothly. Jenna just grunted and started scraping out the last of her yogurt.

  "I always that that was kind of a weird saying," Nin said. "I get that it's a classic or something, but..."

  "It's from a poem called An essay on criticism, by Alexander Pope," Jenna interrupted. "Slightly modified, of course. The poem is basically him taking a long flowery dump on professional critics of literature and poetry while also styling all over them. It's over 700 lines long, and there are a bunch of quotes that are still echoing to this day. Fools rush in is just one of them."

  Nin looked at her. "You looked it up?"

  Nikki snorted. "She's probably the reason the quote is hanging over the entrance. And probably why the Run is even called that."

  Jenna grunted again at that. "He was workshopping names. He said something about it being his dungeon run, instead of something more generic. That it was the fool's run. So then I rattled off the quote, in its modified form, and he kind of got a far off look for a while and said he liked it."

  That... Michelle wasn't sure what to say about Jenna's apparently much deeper ties with the Administrator than she had guessed. "Okay," she said. "But what does it actually mean? In the essay, or for the Run?"

  Jenna was savoring the last of her yogurt, so Nikki leaned in. "Okay, so in that part of the essay, he was getting in on critics who were willing to criticize the church. Which was a big deal at the time, this being the 1700s or whatever. The point is, yes, the church kind of sucked... but if God didn't send his angels to smite the church for heresy, who the hell else dared to speak out against them? Only fools."

  Michelle considered that, but after a moment, Nikki continued.

  "For me, I like it, because the poem doesn't actually say that the angels disagree. The angels fear to disobey God and criticize his church. That suggests that maybe they wanted to say something, but were scared. And there's all kinds of shit in the modern world that we're scared to be the first to do. Hell, Jerry got to be the first Administrator entirely because the Chinese didn't want to be the first. Tian starting his Trial immediately after Jerry finished his is proof of that. They knew how to do it all along, but figured it might be something bad and they wanted someone else to take the fall, except if it turned out to be something good, they damn sure wanted to be next."

  "And then there's Trinity," quipped Nin with a smirk. "I guess Angels really did fear to tread? Or maybe they just really wanted to be number three."

  Nikki shrugged, but Jenna shook her head. "It's not about being Administrator," she said. "It's about going against the Star. It's obvious the more you look at it. You," she pointed her spoon at Michelle, "either get it, or probably will soon. The whole system of Dungeons is a trap. It's an acknowledged fact. But nobody wants to rebel against a vengeful god who holds the world in the palm of his hand. That was the point back then, and it's even worse now. Moreso since Jerry got censured by the Star, and nobody's talking about why or what the hell that even means." She set down the cup and dropped the spoon in it. "I won't talk much about it. Not now, not in public, and not to people I don't know. But I know enough about what was going on at the time that I can put some of the pieces together. The Run makes sense. It's a rebellion, but it's also more correct than the Dungeons are, in ways that are hard to explain."

  "There's a puzzle in the Run that even I haven't figured out. I see pieces, but not the picture yet. If the world can just figure out whatever the hell it is and stop blaming Jerry for everything, we'll all be better off. Right now it feels like everyone in the world except Jerry are scared to stand up to the Star, even though they all know we need to. So what can we do except follow in the footsteps of the fool who rushed in?" She stood up. "For now, I have an appointment to get to. Nikki, do you need a ride back?"

  "I have my bike with me," the other woman answered, with a wave of her hand.

  Jenna nodded, and turned back to look at Michelle. "Talk with Jerry if you can," she said in parting. "He's introverted and can be stupid as shit sometimes, but he means well. And he really doesn't have enough friends right now."

  Michelle only just heard the woman mutter under her breath as she turned.

  "Especially when so many people are trying to kill him."

  something in SFD you might notice a disparity. It was just kind of a background detail, and I may not have even pointed it out at the time. I will be confirming it in a bit, but I won't be making it very explicit, and the people who don't get it don't need to feel dumb. It's just a small thing that I decided would be true a while ago, and now, canonically, it is.

  An Essay on Criticism is also the source of the quotes "To err is human; to forgive, divine" and "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring." I may also be mis-summarizing the poem vis a vis "Fools rush in"; it's not as though I have deeply studied it. Here's the relevant text more directly:

  Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Churchyard:

  Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead;

  For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.

  more fun. The whole plot line being discussed, however much it is in the background of Jenna's story, is fully written in my head - far moreso than Michelle's own story, to my chagrin. I know where it's supposed to go, and if everything lines up the way I want it to, Michelle's and Jerry's stories will make sense at the end of this book. But sometimes it's hard to make the journey from point A to point B cleanly.

  Soulforged Dungeoneer that admits that this exists. And as of today, my master copy of this story is 13 chapters ahead. My patreon is and will, I hope, remain 10 chapters ahead. If I get even further ahead, I may increase that, but I intend to keep ahead of even the patreon so I can review and edit at least a couple chapters without feeling like I should keep things up to date.