Poke. Poke. Poke. Terry was vaguely aware that someone was nudging his shoulder. No, he thought. Still tired. Go away. Poke. Poke. Poke. That dragged him a little closer to being awake. Dammit, he growled mentally. I don't want to get up! Poke. Poke.

"Poke me one more time, and I'm gonna break off that finger," said Terry without opening his eyes.

"Oh, good," said Kelima. "Not dead."

Terry finally opened his eyes to glare at the girl.

"Did you ever, at any point, think I might have actually died?"

She put her index finger against her chin, assumed a thoughtful look, and said, "Hmmmm. Not really. But I was getting very tired of waiting for you to wake up on your own."

"Did it not occur to you that I might need that sleep?"

"It did not. I mean, come on. You're the big, bad rank two. If you sleep for more than a few hours, it's just pure laziness."

"Who told you that?" asked Terry with a groan.

"I don't know, but I'm sure I heard it somewhere," she said, before giving him a bright smile. "Well, I guess it's time for us to get out of this dungeon!"

Terry dragged a hand to his face to rub his eyes and said, "Insert cutting remark here."

"What?" said a baffled Kelima.

"I'm not awake enough to banter with you. So, just assume I said something sufficiently cutting to express my current, boundless annoyance with you."

"You know, it just doesn't hit the same way when you tell me to imagine some cutting remark."

"Is that a complaint?" asked Terry as he sat up.

Kelima opened her mouth, seemed to come to an abrupt realization about what she meant to say, and shook her head instead.

"Nope," she added. "It definitely isn't."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Terry.

He took a few seconds to roll his neck and then his shoulders. Bracing himself, he got to his feet. That did not feel good. He was pretty sure that nothing was irreparably broken, but he damn sure had taken some soft tissue damage. He thought about taking his shirt off to check for bruises, and then thought better of it. It wasn't like there was anything practical to be done about it if he was covered in bruises. He healed fast. That was just going to have to be enough. Plus, he wasn't really in the mood to tease Kelima.

That fight with the Kongotaur had been harrowing at the end. If things had gone even a little differently, it would have killed him. It was a wake-up call. He'd gotten a little too comfortable with being the most dangerous thing in any given fight. Then again, he hadn't expected that fireball and iceball to drain him quite as much as they had. If he'd made those smaller at the beginning, there would have been something left in the tank for him to use later. Come to think of it, that was the exact sort of thing that the stupid construct was supposed to be teaching him about.

Hey, why didn't you warn me about how draining that fireball and iceball were going to be? he demanded of other-Terry.

Because I didn't know, answered the construct.

Isn't it your job to know? I mean, I get that you're not an encyclopedia of local culture, but aren't you supposed to be an expert about that magic crap?

Terry felt that foreign consciousness in his head heave what could only be the disembodied mind equivalent to a sigh.

I am an expert, but your human flesh-cages aren't all the same. For some people, doing that would have killed them. For other people, they would have bounced back from that after a minute or two. Your particular meatsack is pretty resilient. So, I figured you would be closer to the latter. But, until you actually did it, and I actually got some data, I didn't know exactly how it was going to go. I'm fairly certain I've told you on several occasions that I'm not omniscient.

Fine. Fine! You're not omniscient, but you could have warned me that it was a possibility.

Really? As you were racing headlong toward a horde a minotaurs while mentally controlling that fireball and iceball? You wanted a distraction, right then?

That forced Terry to pull back a bit on what he was starting to recognize as misplaced anger. He wasn't actually mad at the construct. He wasn't even mad. Coming that close to dying again had frightened him. Now, he was looking for an outlet for that residual fear, and it was coming out as anger. Plus, he hadn't done something sensible like consult other-Terry about the magic he'd planned to use. If he had, the construct probably would have alerted him to the possible consequences. By the time Terry had been in the middle of things, he wouldn't have welcomed the distraction.

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Okay. I see your point.

There was an unnaturally long pause before other-Terry said, Really? No tantrum? No insulting artificial intelligence comments?

Is that a complaint? asked Terry, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

No, said other-Terry. It was just unexpected. The good news is that, now that you have used some big techniques, I've got a baseline. I should be able to warn you if you're pushing it too hard.

Terry bit back on the sharp comment that immediately sprang to mind.

Thank you. That would be helpful, he said instead.

Did that thing hit you in the head and knock loose some common sense?

Fuck. You. Sideways.

Whew, said other-Terry. I feel better now. Order has returned to the universe.

Shaking his head, Terry looked over at Kelima. She was giving him an inquisitive look. He must have been staring off into space for too long while he talked with the construct.

"Did you pick up the source stones?" he asked.

"I did," she said, pointing at a pile of them. "And it took forever, I might add. I also couldn't get that thing open."

She pointed again. Terry followed the line of her finger and saw a positively massive chest sitting about thirty feet away. Even from that distance, it looked like it was the size of a car.

"It wouldn't open for you?" asked Terry. "That's weird. We came in here together."

"I've had half a day to think about that. Here's my theory. I didn't kill anything. You did all the work."

"Yeah, but, on that other floor—" started Terry. "Oh yeah, I opened that one too, didn't I? You killed some of those cockroaches, though. I wonder why there wasn't anything in the chest for you on that floor."

"I killed maybe two dozen of the weakest ones. You killed hundreds of the things, and you killed the queen."

"Man, that's harsh. You didn't even get a participation trophy."

"Participation trophy?" asked Kelima.

"It's a thing from my world," he said, before shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. Let's just collect our loot and get the hell out of this place."

First things first, Terry walked over the pile of source stones. There were a lot of them, but he had killed a lot of minotaurs. Even he had to stop and stare at the biggest of them. It was the size of a watermelon. Part of him wanted to absorb it right then and there. He was bound to get a big power boost from that ridiculous thing. Unfortunately, he knew that he shouldn't. Absorbing a source stone that big would probably knock him on his ass for a week. He didn't dare delay for that long. He glanced over at Kelima.

"Are you still getting pressure around your core?"

She gave a desultory nod. Shrugging, Terry pushed his hand into the pile and sucked all the stones into his storage ring. He could use them later. Or sell them. Or give them to Kelima. Now that he was thinking about it, he should probably save some for Haresh and Ekori. As for Jaban…Well, he'd have to think about that for a while. That kid's whining was truly obnoxious. He made Kelima seem downright grounded. Next, Terry walked over to the chest, which really was the size of a car. Terry wondered what could be in there that required a chest that big. Without bothering to give it any ceremony, he grabbed the lid and flipped it open. He looked down into the chest and started laughing like a madman.

"What is it?" asked Kelima.

"You're getting something this time," said a wheezing Terry.

He reached down into the chest and, making a point to give it some flourish, pulled out Kelima's prize. She stared first at it, then at him, and then at the chest itself.

"Is the dungeon mocking me?" she asked.

"What? Don't you like your frilly party dress?" asked Terry, holding out the puffy, bright pink abomination to her.

"I don't want it," she said, crossing her arms.

"Don't be like that. The dungeon made this just for you," he said, still laughing as he waved the dress at her. "Come get your prize. Who knows? It might have some amazing power."

Glowering like she wished the Kongotaur would come back and finish Terry off, she stalked over and snatched the confection-colored fashion disaster from his hands. In a fit of anger, she tried to tear the delicate-looking dress in half. Her eyes bulged a little as the cloth resisted her every effort. Terry looked on in shock before he pointed and started laughing again.

"It really does have amazing powers! Now you have to wear it!"

Kelima shot him another death glare and said, "What did you get?"

"Nothing much," said Terry. "Just this thing."

He pulled out a contraption that looked like a bundle of leather straps. At least, it did until he arranged it and put his arms through the appropriate holes. Then, he gave Kelima a shit-eating grin, reached back into the chest, and pulled out his real prizes.

"Oh, and these badass war axes!" he boomed like a cheesy game show announcer

He held out the huge, midnight black weapons and spun them. Then, he slid them into the custom rig that held them crossed on his back. It wasn't a practical setup. It would be a pain in the ass to get them out in a fight. However, he was pretty sure that arrangement looked awesome.

"That—" Kelima stammered and shook her dress. "This—" she wailed. "So unfair!"

Terry just grinned at her.

"Stop grinning like an idiot!" she yelled.

That just made him laugh at her again, which made her ball up the dress and throw it at him. He caught the fluttering fabric and held it out to her. She turned her face away.

"I refuse to wear it," said the disgruntled noble girl.

Terry looked around a little warily and said, "Kelima, we're still inside the dungeon. Maybe you should be a little less unimpressed with your prize until we get outside."

Kelima blanched, hurried over, and grabbed the dress. She plastered on an obviously fake smile.

"You know, on second thought, I love my new dress."

"Very convincing," said Terry before he looked around for the way out.

He spotted what looked like the shape of a door cut out of the fake reality around them. He walked over to it. He ushered Kelima through before she could say anything else that might offend the dungeon. Casting one final look back at the plains that had very nearly cost him his life, he stepped out into what he could only hope would be the real-ish world of Chinese Period Drama Hell.

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