I know it was my idea, but trying to babysit this disgusting worm creature while patching up my ankle is a real pain in the booty! It may be slow, but it's also very determined, and its gross wiggly body makes it difficult to handle without getting bitten. You'd think the trick is to hold it close to the head like Vi was doing, but while that's great for pinning it down for a good stab, actually holding onto it is harder than she made it look. It has this way of...extruding itself out of my hand, and the moment it has any wiggle room it tries to bite. I get nipped twice on the way to the map room, dropping it each time.

"Ow, frick! Those teeth are sharp!"

Things don't get any easier after that. The map room is wide open, and I figured that I could just watch it out of the corner of my eye while bandaging my foot, but that's easier said than done. I set it down near the middle of the room and pull out the "bandages."

That is to say, a leftover strip of cloth that used to be the hood of my cloak. After all this time, the wound in my leg is mostly healed. It still aches, but the scabbing is gone and it's just a bright red scar, now. That seems fast, but it's not like I have a reference for how quickly stab wounds normally heal. Still, I'm pretty sure something like that would normally need stitches.

The point is, my belt is now back in place uselessly pretending to hold up my already skin-tight jeans, which are in no danger of coming off without considerable effort, and the former hood is free to find other uses. Or, I guess, the same use.

"I probably shouldn't be reusing bandages, but I guess beggars can't be choosers," I grumble as I experiment with the awkward bit of cloth. "At least I washed it."

It's not exactly a straight roll of bandage wrapping, though. For my leg, I just folded it up as a bit of makeshift gauze, but the wound on my ankle isn't quite so singular. It's several bleeding holes in a roughly circular pattern, and I need to get full coverage. I could try repurposing the footwraps I've been wearing but that's probably even worse than reusing the old gauze.

"Nipper's about to get you," Maggie warns me suddenly.

"Ack!"

I scramble away from the worm creature which, sure enough, has managed to sneak up on me while I was pondering my bandage situation.

"Dang thing is quiet," I mutter.

Rather than try to move the worm and risk getting chomped, I just get up and limp away, leaving a trail of blood between myself and the deadly but ineffectual thing. It's slow, but that slowness is almost an advantage because if I'm not paying attention, it's hard to even notice it gradually inching closer until it's right on top of me.

"I think I need to cut this into strips," I comment idly, fiddling with the cloth. "It's not long enough to wrap around my ankle multiple times, and I need to apply pressure evenly or some of these puncture wounds are going to keep bleeding."

"Wow," Maggie drawls. "You sound surprisingly professional for someone who's just making this up as you go."

"Thanks. I think," I sigh. "Are you really going to name that thing? It's not a pet."

"I thought you'd be all for it. You don't like our cute little Nipper? He's about to get you again."

"Frick!"

I shuffle away from it again, grimacing, then get to work cutting apart the hood. To avoid cutting myself, I just slash little notches into the fabric to get it started, then tear the rest of the strip off. By the time I get finished with that, I expect Nipper to be on me again, but to my surprise, it seems to be wandering off towards—

"Oh no!" I shout. "No you don't you sneaky little—!"

I dash over to it, bleeding ankle or no, and kick the little cluster of candles away from it.

"I think that might confirm your theory about the candles getting eaten, Mags."

"Looks like," she agrees. "Maybe we can use them as bait for traps or something."

I shrug and move away from the worm again, shuddering when I notice it trying to nibble at a bloodstain on the ground from where my ankle dripped. I don't like the sight of blood—especially not my own. Maggie was right about me zoning out whenever we get into violent situations. I'm not doing it on purpose, but it's hard not to get freaked out.

With Nipper distracted, I tie three strips of cloth tightly around my bleeding ankle, and awkwardly attempt to get the fourth around the fleshy part of my palm, where it got me while I was trying to carry it.

I'm lucky these things aren't venomous. Wait—I hope it's not venomous! I guess I probably would have noticed by now.

[Level up!]

Medic is now level 3.

+2 Ego.

Oho! Two levels, how generous. I let the tingly feeling of leveling up wash over me for a moment, then lean back to rest for a second while I watch our new "pet" wriggle slowly around in search of something to eat.

Violet also gained a level in [Defender] after she went to sleep, and I can still sense the words from it floating in the back of my mind. I wonder if they'll stay there until she sees them, or what.

"Maggie, have you leveled up in your class much?" I ask.

"Me? Nope," she answers matter-of-factly. "I've been using my skill a lot, but I guess mental categorization doesn't count as 'keeping things tidy' for the purposes of advancement."

"I wonder how that works, anyway. I've puzzled over it with Vi, and she thinks it's like a...video game? Or a tabletop game. Like there's some invisible experience bar that's slowly filling up when we do the right things."

"Hmm, maybe," she mutters quietly. "I'm almost inclined to say that's wrong just because she said it."

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"Maggie..."

"But it does make sense. The engine seems to reward bigger achievements with more levels, although..."

She trails off, not bothering to finish the thought. After a moment—and edging away from Nipper as it gives up on the bloodstain and starts inching towards me again—I prod her.

"What are you thinking?"

"The advancement conditions we've seen so far are mostly pretty vague, right?" Maggie muses. "Watching things burn, defending others, throwing things, et cetera. Some are pretty simple to understand—like treating an injury or finding a new place—but how do you keep a thing tidy? How do you 'deepen your understanding of candles'? And what would constitute a bigger or repeated act to be rewarded? What rule decides when we've succeeded and how many levels it's worth?"

Violet's wondered about the same things—and so have I—but it's hard to think about, and it seems to be more or less fair so far.

"I dunno," I say with a shrug. "Seems to me that you'd just need to clean up a mess."

"Uh huh, and you need to treat injuries," Maggie says, stating the obvious. "But it occurs to me that someone with my class would probably do more than just keep their own space tidy. They'd clean up for other people, or maybe find work as a secretary or something. You'd make a good nurse."

"I guess. What's your point?"

"My point is that we don't have that luxury," she answers. "I've noticed that the classes all seem to assume a certain level of civilization. They're designed to work together."

"Okay..."

"But we don't have anyone else. It's just us."

"Yeah, trust me, I know," I groan. Gosh, I wish there was anybody else to talk to.

"So we need to make our own messes."

I pause at that, frowning.

"I...guess? I'm not sure it works that way."

"Why not?" she counters. "I told you we need higher attributes, and it's not just for magic. This engine, whatever it is, it's not designed to support people on their own. If we don't game the system for every advantage, we're going to die."

I hold my hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey, you're preaching to the choir, Mags, I just don't know if it will work."

Nipper is getting close again, and rather than get up I use a candle to flick the worm creature a few feet away. It doesn't seem bothered by the rough handling and immediately starts squirming its way back over. Tenacious little goober.

"I've got another theory I want to try too," Maggie adds, not bothering to address my doubts.

"Oh?"

"I'll tell you in a minute, but while we've got a second to ourselves, I think we should address the issue with Violet."

I raise an eyebrow curiously.

"What about her?" I ask. "I know you two haven't gotten along that well, but I thought we'd agreed to put aside our differences."

She sighs dramatically. "Look, I can play ball or whatever, but can she? More importantly—do we even need her?"

"Excuse me?"

Something about Maggie's tone gets my hackles up. I don't know what she's getting at, but I don't like it.

"Violet is stupid, incompetent, and aggressive. She likes to talk up how she's trying to keep us safe, but every time she's in front we get hurt. Maybe you needed her at first, but we've got enough food to last a while and I bet I can make some breakthroughs by then that will render her not only obsolete, but dangerous to keep around. I'm not even sure she's worth the extra class slot."

What the heck? Where is this coming from? I knew they didn't like each other, but that's a bit much. Maggie has been abrasive this whole time, but now I'm actually getting upset.

"Vi is trying her best, Maggie! We get hurt when she's in front because she takes over to handle the dangerous stuff!" I stand up and pace away from Nipper, my voice rising with agitation. "She's not stupid—in fact, I think she's the smartest out of all three of us, even if you do have a talent for that sideways thinking or whatever! I'd be dead a dozen times over without her! I freak out and panic where she keeps a cool head. All the magical solutions in the world aren't worth anything if we freeze up and die before they can save us!"

I stop just long enough to catch my breath, but the moment I feel like Maggie is about to speak again, I keep talking over her.

"And furthermore, even if Violet wasn't important to our survival—and she absolutely is—that shouldn't friggin' matter! We are all in this together, no matter what we can or can't bring to the table, and I hope you remember that next time Vi pesters you about pulling your weight. Because so far, you haven't really offered much more than hollow promises, questionable insights, and a plague of literal ankle-biting worms that are going to keep me up at night worried that they're going to eat me in my sleep!"

My own ranting echoes back to me off the walls of the wide-open pillar room, and I flush at the sound of my voice. I don't usually get that angry, and it's embarrassing to blow up like that.

"Thank you, Allison," Violet says quietly, and I flush even more at the realization that she was listening. "I think I needed to hear that."

[Level up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 6.

Defender is now level 6.

+2 Resilience.

+2 Ego.

+1 [Warning: Invalid Reference].

"Hubwuh?!" I exclaim, surprised and confused by the content of the message. "Defender?!"

"Nice," Maggie says, without a trace of the venom that was in her voice a moment ago. "That's two theories confirmed in one. We can gain levels for each other, and Violet's class doesn't actually require physical combat—more conceptual types of protection also work."

So I leveled Violet up in [Defender] by fighting Maggie to protect her—what, her feelings? Not that they aren't important, it just...it's surprising, I guess. More importantly—

"Did you just say all that stuff to get a rise out of me?!" I ask incredulously. "You didn't mean any of it?"

"I mean, I sorta meant some of it?" Maggie hedges. "But yeah, I was picking a fight on purpose."

"That's so...so...!"

"Smart?"

"Mean!" I shout angrily. "Not to mention annoying. Why the frick would you do that? You could have just told me you had an idea!"

"But I needed to test it, and it probably wouldn't have worked if you weren't serious," she grumbles. "It worked, didn't it?"

"You need to apologize to Violet," I insist. "And me, too. That was seriously not okay."

"Sure, whatever," Maggie sighs. "Sorry, Vi."

"Choke on it, Maggie," she retorts.

"Uh huh. You too, Allie. I'll try not to mess with you guys so much unless I have a good reason."

I purse my lips and take a deep breath through my nose. Gosh, but she's good at getting on my nerves.

"That would be more comforting if you hadn't already shown us what counts as a 'good reason' to you," I sigh. "But I guess it is a good lesson. Just cool it with the psychological warfare, okay? Now where is—"

I pause, scanning the wide open room for any sign of the nuisance that's been trying to take chunks out of me this entire time. Unfortunately, in my anger, I seem to have lost track of the little devil, and Nipper is nowhere to be seen.

"Gosh. Flipping! DANG IT!"

"Violet," Maggie whispers. "I swear, we are this close to getting her to say 'fuck.'"

"Maggie," Violet replies. "Has it occurred to you that you might actually be a sociopath?"

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