Jeremy studied the surrounding desert, a landscape of barren sand, rocks, thorny cactus-like plants, and sparse grass, looking for anything that resembled a treasure map. Not that he'd share it with them. He'd do his best to lead them away from any treasure. But if anything looked like a map, it was well hidden.

  “What is this treasure that you're searching for?”

  “All we know, Vermin,” Soppett said, “is that over the past thousand years, many adventurers have tried and failed to retrieve a treasure of infinite value from the fourth floor of this dungeon. The legends say an ancient dragon queen gifted this treasure to the dungeon. But we know little else.”

  “I've just arrived on this floor of the dungeon,” Jeremy said. “Have you noticed anything unusual or out of place?”

  “No,” Soppett said. “We've searched above, below, and around every filthy rock on this floor, and found nothing.”

  “The stationary star,” came Tossi's hesitant voice.

  “We've investigated that, servant,” Soppett said. “It's meaningless, just a star.”

  “Maybe the dungeon hid the map somewhere else?” Jeremy said. “Or the map is in pieces?”

  “Obviously. But where?”

  “I'll have to look around,” Jeremy said.

  “Start looking.”

  Jeremy spent the day looking around, examining the rocks and plants, and sifting through the sand. The further he ventured from Soppett and Tossi, the more his parasite hurt, and he'd have to ask his unwilling companions to move closer to him.

  He found nothing. Not in the sand, rocks, plants, suns, or sky.

  He was pretending to examine more pebbles when Tossi crept up behind him.

  “Do not blame yourself for what will happen to your people,” Tossi said in a voice so quiet Jeremy could barely hear. “It is not your fault.”

  “What do you mean?” Jeremy asked just as quiet, well aware of Soppett waiting nearby.

  “New worlds in the dungeon universe are few, and new worlds with humanoid inhabitants are fewer still. I believe there's only one new humanoid world. Is this the flag of your world's dominant empire?” Tossi drew a rectangle in the sand with his finger, then lines across it, except for a square in the upper left corner that he poked to represent dots.

  Jeremy got chills. “That's not an empire, but yes, that flag looks familiar.”

  “As soon as your world's mana levels stabilize, we will open a portal there and send our armies. Your world has many resources that my people wouldn't be able to touch if we classified your race as human.”

  Jeremy tossed his rock aside and picked up another. “So that's why we're vermin? You want to steal our resources.”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess you're off the hook for getting your race exterminated,” Flint said from where he'd been sitting nearby. “That must be some comfort.”

  Sure.

  “What's going on?” Soppett asked, noticing Jeremy and Tossi together and rejoining them.

  “Hurry up, you lazy vermin!” Tossi snapped, smacking Jeremy's head. “Our time is limited!”

  “I'm trying. I'm trying,” Jeremy said, doing his best to look frightened and pathetic.

  Tossi smacked him again. “Try harder!”

  Soppett stood over the other two. “What does it have?”

  “I have a couple of rocks that might be part of a map,” Jeremy said.

  “Nonsense,” Tossi snapped.

  “You speak out of turn, servant,” Soppett said.

  Tossi ducked his head. “Forgive me.”

  Soppett picked up one of the rocks and studied it. “If you hold the rock up like this,” he turned it upside down, “that could be the rock structure next to the entrance.”

  Jeremy had been thinking of the indentation on the other side of the rock. “Yes. Yes. Of course.” He did his best to look frightened and pathetic, suspecting he didn't have to try very hard.

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  “Keep looking.” Soppett dropped the rock. “It's worthless without the treasure location.”

  ***

  By that evening, Jeremy had found a few more rocks with markings that might be part of a map, but he was privately certain they were just rocks.

  The saurians were not impressed. They wanted results. And they wanted them now.

  He wasn't sure what the saurians did for fun before he arrived, but it couldn't have been much.

  Soppett used his bracelet and Nashul to paralyze Jeremy and kick him around the camp to the others' amusement. “Where is the treasure?”

  “I don't know yet! I'm trying! I'm trying!”

  The princess and the other saurians placed the rocks Jeremy found within a crude outline of a map. But with nothing identifying the treasure location, the rocks were worthless.

  As the saurians ate a sumptuous meal, Jeremy was provided a dungeon ration and a bowl of water. Thanks to the dungeon's gift, his Trauma Resistance had gone up another point, and he'd gained another passive skill. Acting.

  The long day had left him exhausted, and he fell asleep despite his predicament. The next morning, he was kicked awake for another brutal day. They wandered around. Jeremy found a few more rocks, and he pretended to see signs of a treasure map in them.

  “What happened on the second floor with the kobolds?” Jeremy asked Tossi, when they had a private moment. “I saw the finger around your comrade's neck.”

  “Our leader was upset by your merchant friend's prices. I'm not sure why. He could have bought Lard Lump's entire business without denting his savings. He had us capture one of her people and torture him, thinking he'd persuade her to be more reasonable. She refused, telling us she didn't deal with Cleansing Wind garbage, and announced she would pay the goblins a bag of smokesis for every saurian head they brought her. We'd thought the goblins had moved on to the next floor, so it was a surprise when they ambushed us with arrows, rocks, and smoke bombs, and then ran away. To me, it seemed an obvious trap, but perhaps my humble servant mind didn't comprehend the brilliance of my lord's battle strategy. When Ssteta had us charge the goblin horde, a few goblins slipped behind us and kidnapped Bampa, and Lotsa, the most rotund of us servants. This would seem an obvious tactic for goblins, but what do I know? We killed two goblins in the process, but considering they were goblins, two of them for two of ours is an overwhelming defeat for us. So you can understand why our most esteemed leader is unhappy.”

  “What happened to the kobold?”

  “We had little to gain from killing him, so we left him tied up where he was. He was gone when we retur--move it Vermin!” Soppett approached.

  Jeremy went back to pretending to look for the treasure map.

  ***

  Flint wandered the saurian camp. The Saurians' protection charms didn't restrict his movements as they did with Jeremy's familiar, Squeak, but he was so weak that he could do little to hurt the saurians. In addition, the princess was a sufficiently advanced spellcaster that she could use soul magic to trap or hurt Flint should she suspect his presence. He had to be careful. He cursed his idiot companion, who insisted on staying in this horrible dungeon over some stupid revenge vendetta.

  But there was little point in getting upset over things he could do nothing about. He paced the tent, examining the saurians' supplies. The question was, what could he do?

  ***

  Jeremy continued to look for anything out of place that might reveal the treasure's location, but found nothing.

  That evening, the princess went through Jeremy's bag of holding and asked him about each of his possessions. His dungeon coin and dungeon stars were safe in his dungeon account and out of their reach, but everything else was in storage. She asked about the gun, and he told her as little as possible, just that it was a gnome weapon he'd received from a quest.

  She smirked at the mention of the gnomes. “Gnomes are the most useless of our followers—and their weapons are worthless. A God Tier garbage weapon like this one is... still worthless, but it might hold some interest for our artificer.” She placed his gun back in his bag and tossed the bag next to their other supplies. “Now, Vermin, I believe there is something you are forgetting.”

  “I don't understand.”

  The other saurians laughed.

  “It is unseemly for a princess to bring up these things, but there is a small matter of your payment for our hospitality in sharing this floor of the dungeon with you, as well as our continuing to allow you to exist. Now these items,” she motioned to his bag of holding, “will pay for some of it. But there is a small matter of dungeon coin. Tell me, Vermin, how much coin do you have in your dungeon account?”

  This was bad. Obviously, Jeremy wasn't going to hand over his savings, but if he didn't handle this correctly, they would make his life even more hellish than it already was. “I have 56.7 dungeon coin,” he said in a pitiable voice. They would expect him to lie at first.

  The princess wagged a finger at him and tapped one of her bracelets. “Naughty Vermin.” Jeremy felt like he was burning alive. The pain grew worse. He screamed, threw up, lost control of his bodily functions, and passed out. He regained consciousness, curled up on the ground.

  The princess leaned over him and scratched his face with a razor-sharp fingernail; he could feel a drop of blood rolling down his cheek. She extended a long, forked tongue and licked the blood off his face. “We can tell when you're lying, Vermin. How much coin do you have?”

  Jeremy did his best to seem even more terrified than he was; his whole body shook. “I-I have... 624.35. I swear that's all I have!” He felt Nashul tighten around his neck.

  “There, that wasn't so bad,” the princess said. “Now I'm thinking... the price to allow you to continue to exist is... Hmm... Let me think, 624.35.” The other saurians laughed. “Of course, if you don't think I'm being reasonable, you could take it up with my brother.”

  “No, no,” Jeremy said. “Here.” He withdrew 624.35 dungeon coin from his account and held it out with a shaking hand. Tossi took the coin from his hand and handed it to the princess. Jeremy collapsed in relief. It seemed he could lie to the saurians.

  ***

  Since the saurians had protection charms that prevented Squeak from approaching their tent, Jeremy mentally suggested that Squeak try to burrow under it. Hopefully, his familiar could bypass the defenses by going underneath.

  “Squeak!” Squeak started digging.

  Tunneling into the tent from a safe distance would take time. After ten days of searching, Jeremy was no closer to finding the secret map than he had been in the beginning.

  On the tenth day, Boggan came by, and after much pleading from the saurians, Boggan agreed to give them an additional ten days to search.