Caroline intercepted Laura in the hallway of the Rest a While and waved her into one of the nearby bedrooms. Everything about her body language screamed, “I’m trying to be covert!”

  When Laura turned around she found nearly everyone crammed into the small two-person room. It would have been funny except for the serious look on Caroline’s face as she closed the door behind them.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Caroline said. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do about Oliver.”

  Laura looked around. Both Oliver and Agnes were notably absent. So was Brett. But Graham, Nate, and the four newer arrivals they’d rescued from the pumpkin house were all there.

  Hannah shifted over as best she could to make room for Laura to sit next to her on one of the beds, while Caroline went and sat on half of the only chair in the room. Hannah’s mother was stoically sitting on the other half.

  Caroline nodded like they could officially start now. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I overheard Oliver tell Agnes that, and I quote, ‘We need to stop wasting time and tackle the maze again.’”

  “Let him,” Mitch said. “Anything that gets us out of this hellhole faster.”

  “And that leaves you guys where exactly?” Caroline asked.

  The door opened and Brett poked his head in. “I thought I heard voices. What the hell are you all doing in here?” He said this at full volume with the door wide open.

  Caroline glanced past him down the hallway and loudly shushed him. “Would you shut up? Get in here if you care so much.”

  Brett rolled his eyes but he came inside, and after an impatient gesture from Caroline closed the door behind him.

  “We’re talking about Oliver,” Caroline said, bringing Brett up to speed.

  “Hell yeah, fuck that guy,” Brett said.

  “Anyway, you guys are not ready,” Caroline said, pointing her finger at the four new people. “No offense. The highest of you is a Level 6. So let’s say Oliver does take care of the maze and whatever the hell’s in it. Then you move on to the next area and bam, you’re hit with a Level 9 boss. I mean, things aren’t going to get any easier as we go, right? And something tells me Oliver isn’t going to stick around to hold your hand.”

  Laura knew she was right. She also happened to catch Graham’s eye and instantly understood the look he gave her. It said that maybe it would be easier if they were able to just move ahead without getting caught up in all this. Laura wasn’t entirely sure she disagreed, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. Not yet anyway.

  “Oliver insisted on killing that boss spider,” Caroline continued. This had clearly been on her mind more than Laura realized. “And specifically didn’t join our party or have us join his. Which means, we didn’t get any experience for that. Just him and Agnes.”

  Laura was a little surprised Caroline had noticed that. Although she shouldn’t have been. Even if Caroline was impulsive, she wasn’t necessarily an idiot.

  “Which is a whole other, much larger problem,” Graham said. “The less experience there is for us, the less able we are to hold our own. As far as I can tell, those larger sources of experience are a finite resource. Oliver seems to be taking more than his fair share, if we can say there’s such a thing.”

  Caroline nodded like they were on the same page, but from the look Graham had shared with Laura she knew he instead was laying the groundwork for why forming a larger party might be a bad idea.

  Graham leaned forward. “So what do you propose?” He looked around the room like he was hoping for someone to continue his train of thought.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We do have one renewable resource for experience,” Laura said, even knowing it was running counter to where Graham was trying to lead the conversation. “Why don’t we do for them what Oliver did for us? Except maybe with a bit more guidance,” she added. “That way we can at least assess where everyone’s at.”

  Caroline destroyed the last two puppets a lot more easily than she had the first time around.

  “Well that was…something,” she said.

  It had been a disaster from the start. Russell and the others hadn’t coordinated in any meaningful way. Mitch and Russell had each peeled off to try to take on the puppets on their own, leaving Hannah and her mom, the two long-range fighters, stuck together on the outskirts—stymied by the numerous shelving units that fouled up their shots as the puppets scurried behind them, but unable to move any closer without more support.

  Laura cracked open a refresher soda and bent over to hand it to Russell. He had suffered the worst of it, having had his entire leg attacked by the marionettes until Caroline had stepped in with Nate and Graham to end things. Russell was several levels higher than Laura or any of the rest of them had been during their experience, so he hadn’t really been in much danger, but after 20 minutes of fighting and not one single puppet destroyed it had been clear they were at a stalemate.

  Caroline stood with her hands on her hips seemingly at a loss for how to start. “Maybe we should have started with the candymakers,” she said.

  “This is how we started,” Nate said with a shrug.

  “They don’t have a magic user,” Graham said.

  Laura straightened up. “Either way, we’re here to give feedback, right? The good news is I think things went worse than they needed to. Some of this is a matter of tactics, not your level. Hannah, you and your mom are both long range fighters right?” Hannah nodded. Laura turned to Hannah’s mom. “What’s your name?” She wasn’t about to keep calling her “Hannah’s mom”.

  “Mi-young.”

  “Mi-young, you and Hannah each need to pair up with someone who can take care of the close-range fighting, like Russell.”

  Laura didn’t mention that she and Graham had still been working together in the last few fights, largely because she wasn’t up to the necessary level to be an effective long-range fighter on her own anymore.

  “Speaking of,” Laura continued, addressing Russell, “you might be the highest level, but you’re an unarmed fighter. From what I can tell you’re going to start coming up on some limitations of what you can do. Going in solo isn’t going to benefit you.”

  Graham cleared his throat. “Perhaps there is another answer to the experience issue. Perhaps we are just naturally meant to separate into tiered groups.”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “We could treat it as waves in an attack,” Graham continued. “Oliver is the strongest, let him absorb some of the heavier bosses since he seems so clearly motivated. Then our group as the next strongest can go in, taking out the next level threats and so on—”

  “No!” Caroline interrupted him. “I thought that was the whole thing. Like we don’t just leave Laura behind because she’s pregnant and mis-managing her stats—”

  Laura blinked. Had they talked about leaving her behind?

  “—and yes she’s the reason some of us are in here to begin with—”

  “I don’t know, maybe it makes sense,” Russell said. He looked tired.

  And then Caroline was screaming, “No! Stop talking about leaving people behind!” Ash from the puppets stirred and a light bulb in a nearby lamp flashed and popped. The others stared at her in shock.

  Laura approached Caroline and then took her by the shoulder and gently steered her into the other room.

  She maneuvered Caroline to an overstuffed sofa next to an endcap of greeting cards and nudged her to sit. Caroline sat down. Her shoulders were a tense line. Laura sat down at the other end of the sofa.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Laura asked, feeling like that awkward imposter again.

  Caroline shook her head. Then smoothed a hand over her face and started taking deep deliberate breaths.

  Laura tried again. “You’re one of the highest levels in our group right now and the only one who can use magic. I don’t think anyone is leaving you behind.”

  Caroline just sat, silent.

  Laura flashed forward to her own child, and how this situation mirrored the awkward throes of teenage years. She couldn’t be scared off this easily. She scooted closer and tentatively reached out a hand to hold her shoulder. “Is it about your mom?”

  Caroline’s face contorted in that way of someone who was trying not to cry. “I’m not going to cry again, dammnit,” she said. She took a deep breath in and out. “I miss her,” she finally said in a small voice. “I have no idea what I’m doing. And somehow I’m supposed to save her.”

  Laura felt a pang. What if Caroline had been her own daughter? Laura patted her shoulder.

  Caroline looked at her and then at the hand awkwardly patting her. “You suck at this, oh my god.” But she was smiling now. Then laughing in the way that one does when tension was finally breaking for the first time in a while.

  “Well what am I supposed to do?” Laura said, also close to laughing.

  Caroline laughed again, wiping away what looked suspiciously like a few tears. “I don’t know, give me a hug?”

  And to her own surprise, Laura did.

  Russell was back on his feet now, and Nate was giving him some pointers on how to act as tactical support. When Laura and Caroline came back into the room, Brett pointed at Caroline. “What was up with that?”

  And partly to deflect but partly because it was true, Laura said, “Never mind that, we have another problem.” She pointed back at Brett. “Why are you the same level as them?” Brett was still a level 6, the same as Russell.

  “Yeah, hang on, why are you the same level as them?” Caroline asked. “You haven’t budged since we got here. I mean no offense but holy shit they were stuck in that house for days. You weren’t. In fact you’ve been in here longer than any of us besides Oliver and Agnes. What’s up with you?”

  “I’m fine, worry about yourself.”

  “Yeah, you always say that.” Caroline said. “But come on, the way you stock up on items from Charlie’s, the way you didn’t participate at all in that last fight—you have a leveling problem.”

  “I do not have a leveling problem,” Brett grumbled.