Just like two weeks ago, I found myself in the dark void, floating away. The knowledge that Mark was there, somewhere with me, managed to keep me calm. But what I had, more than anything, was that I could think. I kept replaying my memories, the only tangible memories I’ve had, and went through every moment of the first floor.

  My friends. The battles we went through. Fink’s death. The worry about where Bryga and Fink would be… They were just the start of the tournament, yet they felt like a lifetime. They might as well have been.

  I tried moving my hands, but the same feeling of nothingness was there instead. The same feeling as two weeks ago. Although, this time, I wasn’t as confused. I wasn’t scared. I knew that Mark was there, somewhere, with me. And so, I only waited for the system to tell me when I could begin the second floor.

  They came after a second. Or was it hours? My mind felt… scattered. Fragmented. The concept of time had little meaning in this place.

  Hello, dear players!

  As we said a few days ago, we are very happy with the showing of the first floor! A lot of you survived, and we hope that you’ll show us an even more interesting show on the second floor!

  We’ll give you something of a head start this time, to get you up to speed! The second floor will be inspired byyy…

  Music played, drums reverberating out of nowhere. Quickly at first, yet they kept speeding up to a crescendo, until the beats came a split of a second after one another. The vibrations, though I couldn’t see their origin, reverberated through the black void.

  MMORPG games!

  As to what they are, we’ll trust your guides to tell you! They should, of course, know the rules by the back of their hand, so we’ll trust explaining how this genre works to you. What you do need to know from us, however, is that we changed the condition to get to the third floor!

  Yes! Changes! How exciting, right? While, usually, you would only need to survive, we’re experimenting with these quite a bit. So, what is the goal for this floor, you might ask? Simple!

  You need to clear a Legendary rank dungeon.

  We’ll not bore you with the details—your guides can surely tell you all you need to know—but do note that dungeons need a ten party squad to enter.

  Oh, also, your guides are selecting their classes at their very moment, so hope they REALLY read the guides and don’t have to pick blindly.

  Good luck on the second floor! Make it interesting.

  Now go out there and LEVEL UP!

  I tried to sigh, the voice so utterly annoying that I couldn’t help but feel my mood shift to amusement. Whatever these gods were having, I really wanted some of it.

  Two minutes passed, and then, the darkness started receding.

  And blue replaced it. It wasn’t the same cerulean blue that I remembered from my life in the ocean, however. No, instead it was a lighter tone of the sky. I half expected to look around and see the green grass from the first floor again, but there was none of it.

  Sandy pavement, the flooring the colors of a desert, were crisscrossed by soft, white cloud-like bumps. Scratch that, it wasn’t like clouds—they were clouds! Looking behind me, I saw where the cloud ended, and sky began. Only a few steps, and I could see the fall below, if one could call it that, since for a fall, there had to be something below.

  Here, under the cloud, there was just a void. A blue and white void that stretched to infinity, and it was virtually endless.

  I scanned my surroundings, and immediately felt relief as I saw Crudia, standing about ten paces away, looking around like a lost child. Her features softened as her eyes met mine, and she hopped closer.

  “Shit.” a familiar voice sounded behind me. Mark was back to his annoyed mood as he floated down to my height. Business as usual, then.

  “What?” Whatever he was annoyed about, he needed to tell me. Repeating the experience from the last floor, being clueless about half of the rules until it was time to get to know them the hard way.

  Mark only nodded to Crudia, who watched him with a confused expression. “Really, you two? Don’t you think we’re missing someone?”

  I met Crudia’s eyes, thinking. We knew that Bryga and Dusk probably wouldn’t be here. Who…

  Talisha.

  Crudia visibly panicked, her fur spiking and her ears stretch taut. She almost dashed away back to where she appeared, but Mark stopped her before he could.

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  “Stop, Crudia. Talisha isn’t here.” He sighed, scratching his head. “Shit, I thought she’d get what she needed to do through the hints I gave her.”

  “What do you mean, Mark? Where is my guide? Is she… is she dead? Like Fink?!” Her chests rose and fell rapidly. Poor thing. Mark wasn’t panicked enough for that to be the case, but I understood her completely. Even I was a bit scared for her. I couldn’t protect them against these gods and whatever they chose to do.

  Not yet, at any rate.

  Mark shook his head, the movement finally making Crudia lose some tension in her shoulders. “No, Crudia. Talisha is alive and well. I haven’t played much MMO’s back in the day, but I know the basics, and I did read a guide that was similar.” He suddenly lifted into the air, rotating to look around, and then came back down. “I think I see a town nearby. Let’s get there, meet Talisha, and discuss these changes they planned.”

  The message from the gods came back to me, their ominous words about changes. “Legendary dungeon? Ten person party? Is that too bad?”

  “I should have figured it out in the last floor. The damn gods gave us hints, and yet I failed to realize what they meant in full.” I had another question ready, but he stopped me before I could do so. “Listen, I know you have a lot of questions, both of you. And I will answer them to the best of my capability. But let’s get to the town first. I don’t know what we can expect here in these cloud dungeons, but I’d rather not find out so quickly.”

  Crudia squeezed my hand, even more firmly than before, and then nodded. “Okay, Mark.”

  She turned away in the direction Mark was pointing, and motion for the two of us to follow. Her first question came before we made five steps. “So, what happened to Talisha?”

  Mark sighed once again, and then chuckled. “She selected a class. We all had to, while the damn mechanism reconstructed your bodies. But there was a catch - most of the guide classes would make force a passive onto you, with a few exceptions.” He clicked his tongue, visibly agitated. “I gave Talisha so many hints. But of course she missed all of them.”

  I had a guess on why he only gave her hints. “You got glitchy if you tried telling her outright?”

  He snapped his fingers, clearly appreciative. “Yeah, exactly. So I just did my best to give her good hints, but she selected a class that gave the “residual” passive. And that means she’s locked into your base.”

  “But we don’t have a base!” Crudia exclaimed, scared again. “Is she dead if we don’t have one?”

  “No. Again, listen. Nobody has a base. The second floor just started, and that means the mechanics of it started too. That means guilds, bases, and more complex dungeons. I didn’t expect they would select the clouds for this one, but that’s about the biggest surprise. Oh, and the win conditions.”

  “But Talisha?” Crudia didn’t let up.

  “She doesn’t exist for now, but she’s not dead. She’ll appear once we get a base going.”

  That explained at least some things. There was still a lot to go through, a lot of questions. I still had an evolution to select, and equipment to sift, but I listened to Mark on this one: I could do all that stuff once I was safe.

  “Any other questions that won’t wait the ten minutes until we’re safe?”

  I had a lot of them, but they could wait. Instead, I once again focused on my surroundings.

  Mark suddenly stopped, making me look for a non-existent enemy. “Also, if you see anything small on the way, even if it's an insect. Kill it.”

  “Why?” Crudia asked before I could.

  “Because you’re both on the verge of being level 25. And you’ll be able to select a class once you get there, which will make you much more powerful in turn. So that’s why. Now, stop asking questions, and follow.”

  Great, he was back to his annoyed mood. I didn’t feel like arguing this time, though. The thoughts of what class I’d be able to select, what items I could get on this floor, and how much greater I could make myself made me happy. Those thoughts, however, mixed with the sad feelings stemming from separating from my other friends, and from Fink’s death. My head was like a potion, made from parts both good and bad, and this in turn only made me more confused.

  Suddenly, breaking me out of my thoughts, Crudia’s hand grabbed me by the shoulder pad, and shoved me to the ground, next to a rock. She pressed her hand onto my mouth before I could make a sound, and she watched the sky. Mark continued hovering toward the city, apparently not seeing us.

  Her voice came in a whisper. “Something on the map. A red dot, but it’s huge.”

  I didn’t protest further, but I gently moved her hand from my mouth and nose, finally getting some air. I lowered my voice, mimicking her. “Okay, but did you see what it was?”

  She shook her head, slowly raising her head over the rocks. “I don’t see it in front of us. I mean, the ground is even! But it’s getting closer, and fast!”

  Mark managed to hover close, finally noticing us hiding. “Of course you don’t see it. You have to look up for that.” I followed his outstretched finger, and saw what he meant immediately. A huge lizard flew through the air. If the dragon I’ve fought before was huge, than this one was monstrous. Easily two times as large as the city I’ve spent the last week in, it slithered in the air, its white, sinous body moving in waves.

  Fur blotted its spine, and two horns jutted from its head, their shape not dissimilar to that of a ram’s. I shivered, jumping back down on my ass, and I prayed that the thing didn’t see us. It was so high up! Surely it couldn’t have!

  “What the fuck is that?!” Crudia said. The fact that she cursed was somehow even more shocking than the damn dragon up there. What the hell was going on?! Who infected my raccoon dog with this way of speaking? Damn that Talisha!

  “Stay calm, you two.” Mark said more confidently than he looked to be. “It’s really high up. Stay where you are, don’t move, and we’ll be fine.”

  I nodded, holding my breath, and waited for the danger to pass. It appeared above us soon enough. Though it looked as if it moved slowly, I knew that was far from the truth. Easy to get confused about size with a thing that huge.

  It was probably the first time I seriously didn’t want to fight something. Damn Fink. His death made me lose my sense of self!

  Thankfully, the dragon continued, ignoring us completely. It was almost at the island’s edge when I finally let my held breath escape me, and stood up. “Let’s move, Crudia. We’—”

  “Fuck! Move! Move!” Mark shouted.

  I looked back at the dragon. It was turning back.

  Two seconds I didn’t look at it, and it already found us. Just my luck.