I shifted position on the uncomfortable rock I was sitting on, letting out a yawn and trying hard not to fall asleep. From my perspective, it was early morning and I’d been up all night, marching and fighting with very little rest. From everyone else’s perspective, it was only late afternoon.

“Welcome to Labyrinth lag,” Grayson told me. “Since there’s no way to tell time in this place, it’s really easy for your schedule to get messed up.”

“It’s even worse when you go back into the real world,” Pham added. “Especially after spending a long time inside.”

“Agent Pham is right,” Giles agreed. “Labyrinth lag can be even worse than jet lag.”

“You know,” Lenore said, giving me a thoughtful look. “I just realized that Red is a complete and total noob…”

“You JUST realized that?” Grayson asked. “And not the last dozen times you mentioned it?”

Lenore rolled her eyes. “What I mean, is that no one has given Red the talk yet.”

“The talk?” he started to ask, only to pause as a look of realization formed.

I gave Lenore a suspicious look. “What talk?” I asked.

I remembered some of the talks I’d been given when first arrived in prison, mostly about how things worked around there. Some of those talks had been less than friendly.

“Usually,” Grayson explained slowly, “when a respawned player gets out of the Labyrinth for the first time, the local Wardens and the other players explain how things work for us now.” He nodded to Lenore, carefully not looking at Pham or Giles, who seemed to be exceptions to this since they’d never been respawned. “Since you skipped the leaving part…”

“We get to fill you in on the birds and bees,” Lenore added with a smirk.

Grayson rolled his eyes while Pham chuckled. Then the shaper said, “I suppose that we can do the Warden part of the talk ourselves. The paperwork part will have to wait.”

“Miss Donna,” Giles said, his expression serious. “According to law, the person that you were before your death is dead and gone. Legally, you are a separate and unconnected entity, and as such, you have absolutely no claim on any property that you may have left behind.”

“True,” Grayson added with a sigh. “If you had a bank account…owned property…or had a spouse… They’re gone. Officially, you are a complete and separate person from who you used to be.”

“But that means all your debts are gone too,” Lenore added almost cheerfully. “All those crushing student loans and medical debts. POOF. Fucking gone.”

My eyes widened as I absorbed what I’d just been told. “Everything…”

“Everything,” Grayson repeated. “Gone. You have a completely new start now.”

I just sat there motionless, realizing exactly what this meant for me. Up until that moment, I’d been worried that if anyone found out who I really was…who I used to be, that they’d grab me and throw me back in prison. And considering what I looked like now, that would be BAD. But now… I felt like a heavy weight had just been lifted off my shoulders.

“A new start,” I said with a self-conscious smile. “Yeah, I could use one of those.”

“That is pretty much the Warden part of the talk,” Pham said.

Giles nodded. “As Agent Pham said.”

“The rest of it is more about player culture,” Grayson told me.

“And it’s important,” Lenore added. “Unless you want people to kick your fucking ass.”

Grayson hesitated a moment before nodding agreement. “First off, asking players about their class is fine. It’s kind of the player equivalent of ‘what do you do for a living?’ Asking about their specific builds isn’t. Its considered nosey and rude. If they want you to know, they’ll tell you.”

“There are exceptions, of course,” Pham added. “If you’re working with a team, you need to know a bit about what everyone can do.”

Grayson nodded. “But asking someone about their lives BEFORE…”

“That’s a good way to get your ass kicked,” Lenore told me. “A lot of players really don’t want to talk about their old lives.”

“Very true,” Grayson agreed.

I considered this for a few seconds, realizing that none of them had asked me where I’d slotted my free points, and they certainly hadn’t asked me anything about my life before I’d respawned. I would have expected at least a little curiosity about that and how I’d died.

“Sounds good to me,” I said with a nod of approval. I could really get behind this policy because I sure as hell didn’t want anyone poking around in my past. “Privacy is good.”

Lenore suddenly tensed up and looked up into the air. “We have more of those flying assholes.”

“I hate those things,” I grumbled as I got to my feet and grabbed my sword.

We’d already fought multiple swarms of those things, and with as many as we’d killed, I would have thought that they’d have run out by now. But they were like those nasty rat dogs in that more of them just kept showing up.

“My shield isn’t ready for another use,” Giles announced with a grim expression.

Grayson banged his sword against the edge of his shield and said, “Then we’ll just have to deal with them the hard way.”

A moment later, Lenore was covered in her silver metal armor, which I’d already seen a couple times. From what she’d said, it was pretty clear that she didn’t really like using this armor. Apparently, it was uncomfortable and slow to move in, but it also gave her pretty good protection. I suspected that another reason she didn’t like using it was that it was all bright and shiny, which went against her whole goth vibe.

Lenore opened fire with her conjured arrows, though I noticed that her speed and accuracy seemed to have taken a hit while she was wearing the armor. However, when one monster dove down and bit her shoulder, I imagined she was probably happy to be wearing the armor anyway.

I waited until one monster was in range, then hit it with a ‘Hex’. Then I turned my focus to using the sword, at least until my ability was ready to go again.

By this point, everyone was used to fighting these monsters, so we were able to handle them fairly quickly, even without Gile’s shield. One by one, the monsters went down. I was able to hit three of them with my ‘Hex’ blasts, and I even finished one of them off with my sword. But overall, my contribution had still been pretty weak.

“Damn,” I grumbled when we were done.

“Not bad, noob,” Lenore told me as her metal armor vaded away, leaving just her leather armor. “You didn’t cut yourself.”

“I’ll give you some pointers for the sword,” Grayson said as he cleaned the monster gore from the blade. “Once we get to the next safe zone.”

“A safe zone would be nice,” Pham agreed pleasantly.

“I agree completely with Agent Pham,” Giles added. “But we won’t find one by staying here.”

I groaned at that, even though I knew he was right. At that moment, I just wanted to find a good spot to go to sleep, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen while monsters were still around. Then I noticed that I had a popup.

YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 4

I nodded at that, then slotted the new point into vitality, just to give me a little extra energy. This put my vitality at ten, where Giles had recommended I get it if I was going to spend any time in the Labyrinth. Now, I’d need to focus on raising my other stats.

As I considered my stats and what I needed to improve next, something else occurred to me. I still had a number of questions that I’ve held off on asking because I didn’t want to look stupid. However, by this point, that ship had sailed. As Lenore kept pointing out, I was a noob, so they all expected me to be ignorant.

“Hey,” I asked. “Just curious, but what’s a soulbound item?”

They all turned to stare at me in surprise. I was a little startled by this sharp attention, which made me wonder if I should have kept quiet about it for longer. I’d tried keeping quiet and listening, but they hadn’t said a single word about soulbound items, so I figured that if I wanted to find out about that part of my status sheet, I needed to ask.

“Miss Donna,” Giles started carefully. “Do you happen to possess a soulbound item?”

“Obviously,” Lenore told him with a roll of her eyes. “Otherwise, Red wouldn’t have asked.”

Giles gave her a look of annoyance, then answered, “Soulbound items are a rare type of artifact that you can sometimes find deeper in the Labyrinth. What makes them special is that they can permanently bond to a person and then they act almost like additional abilities.”

“Occasionally, people are respawned with one,” Grayson added, giving me a knowing look.

“So, Red,” Lenore asked, leaning in closer. “What kind do you have?”

I remained silent, giving the conjurer a suspicious look as I considered how to answer. That kind of interest was a bit worrying, making me regret that I’d ever said a word about my souldbound item, in spite of the fact that I was starting to get answers about it.

“You don’t need to worry about anyone stealing your artifact, Miss Donna,” Giles told me patiently. “Soulbound items can’t be stolen any more than your abilities can be. And if someone with a soulbound item dies, the item vanishes, so it would be pointless trying to kill someone for it.”

I stared at Giles for a moment, remembering the bit about him not being able to lie, or at least, about him facing serious consequences if he did. Of course, that could all be a lie, but I had a feeling that he was being straight up about that part.

“It’s called the Armor of the Enchantress,” I finally answered. “I can see it in my status sheet, and I can sort of feel it like I can my ‘Hex’, but not quite. It’s like, it’s just out of reach.”

“It may have a prerequisite,” Pham suggested. “A lot of the more powerful artifacts do. They may require a specific type of magic or that you be strong enough to handle them.”

“The Armor of the Enchantress,” Grayson mused. “That sounds like an enchanter specific item, so it probably requires you to be an enchanter to use.”

“No shit,” Lenore said with a roll of her eyes.

“Even I figured that much out,” I added wryly.

Lenore grinned at me, then held her fist out for a fist bump. I responded to the gesture with the expected fist bump, feeling amused by this small bit of camaraderie with the conjurer.

“Then,” Grayson continued, not seeming bothered in the least by our comments, “it probably needs you to be stronger. I mean, not literally stronger. It might need you to be at a certain level, or have certain stats. Probably focus and presence, since those are the most important ones for our class.”

I nodded slowly at that. “I guess that makes sense.” I hesitated a moment, then asked, “Is there any way to tell for sure what it needs? Or what fuck it even does?”

“Not until you’re able to activate it, Miss Donna,” Giles said with a faint smile. “But once you do, please let us know. This might be pushing the limits a little, but you have all of us curious.”

“Damn right,” Lenore agreed.