Kristi's mouth opened and closed several times, her usual snappy wit apparently failing her due to the exhaustion of running in endless circles.

"I don't know," she admitted quietly. "I've never... I've always been the one in control, you know? Firstborn… Prima of the Strand. But back there..." She gestured vaguely toward the obstacle course. "I couldn't stop. I just wanted to claw Kat's eyes out, and I couldn't stop myself from wanting it."

"The compulsion magic," I nodded.

"Yeah," Kristi sighed. "Teach is right, the banners amplified what was already there. All that resentment, all that competition between us. It… turned the volume up until I couldn't hear anything else. Fuck."

She looked up at me with those amber-gold eyes, and I could see genuine fear there.

"What if that's who I really am underneath? What if I'm just as bad as Kat, just better at hiding it?"

I considered her question seriously. "You're asking the wrong person. I've known you for exactly two days. But in those two days, you've taken me to the nurse, bought me food, tried to talk me out of making stupid decisions, and helped patch up the bikers who beat the shit out of me. If that's who you are when you're not under magical compulsion, then maybe that says something about your real nature."

Kristi became quietly contemplative for a moment. "And if I accept you as Alpha?"

"Hrm," I pursed my lips. "I guess then you become my responsibility, like these two idiots." I waved a hand at Candace and Addie who were swatting at each other because Candace was poking fun at Adler's overfilled stomach making 'beerch, y u so preggo?' and 'when's yo baby due?' comments.

"Your responsibility, huh?"

"Yep," I nodded. "I'll try to keep you alive, and you'll have to learn to trust my judgment even when it goes against your instincts."

"Hrm," Kristi mused. "The judgment of someone who thought it was a good idea to take on an impossible quest from a legendary dungeon Sentinel?"

"Yeah, that judgment," I confirmed with a slight smile. "Not exactly inspiring confidence, is it?"

Kristi snorted with amusement. "You're an idiot, Alec Foster."

"So I've been told. Is that a yes or a no?"

Kristi studied my face for a long moment, then wiggled her handcuffs. "If I say yes, these come off?"

"That's what Fern implied," I glanced at the Instructor who marched off to watch over other red-tagged students that were crawling out of the mud pits.

"And if I say no?"

"Then you become a dungeon monster and will have to 'kill' me later today," I shrugged.

"Tempting," she said dryly. Then, more seriously: "I don't want to fail, Alec. I've been working toward Advanced Dungeoneering my whole life. I can't go home to my father and tell him I got an F on the first day because I couldn't control myself."

"Then don't," I said simply.

Kristi took a deep breath, her shoulders squaring with decision. "Fine. You're my Alpha for Advanced Delving. Just for this class though, yeah?"

"Sure," I smiled. "This is just a pretend dungeon sim, right? If you won't like my pack management, you're free to go back to your Firestorm team."

"Kay," she said. "I accept Alec Foster as my Alpha."

The magical handcuffs around her wrists dissolved into blue sparks. She rubbed her freed hands, flexing her claws with obvious relief as a blue circle above her head flashed with the letter (A).

"One down," I said, turning to Nessy. "What about you?"

The husky hadn't moved or spoken throughout the entire conversation. She sat perfectly still, staring at me or perhaps past me with those blue eyes that seemed to see something far beyond the confines of the shed.

"Nessy?" I said softly.

She blinked, her gaze focusing on me with obvious effort. "I know you," she said quietly.

"Yes, we met yesterday at the temple," I said.

"No." She shook her head slowly. "I know you from... before. From my dreams." Her voice took on a distant quality. "There's music in my head when I look at you. Melodies I don't remember writing. I didn't tell you this yesterday… I thought that my curse was screwing with me, making me delusional, crazy. But I dreamt of you last night. You… It's always been you."

I felt something twist in my chest—recognition, longing, and a deep ache I couldn't name.

"The Well of Severance," my lips spoke before I could stop myself. "It's taken your memories, devoured your dreams."

"Maybe," she said. "Or maybe I'm just crazy. Everyone says my dreams aren't real, that the person I sing about doesn't exist. But you..." She tilted her head, studying my face with an intensity that made my heart race. "You feel real. You feel… important."

"Nessy," I said carefully, "what do you want to do? About your… grade, I mean."

She was quiet for so long I thought she might not answer. Then she spoke, her voice was quiet, measured.

"You're… pretty burned. Why?"

I looked down at my reddened, blistered arms and hands, suddenly aware of the stinging pain I'd been ignoring in the adrenaline of the rescue operation.

"I didn't go out in the healing rain," I explained. "Professor Fern was using it as another test. So I stayed in the shed while everyone else got healed."

Nessy's blue eyes widened with horror, then her gaze snapped to Professor Fern in the distance. Her expression transformed into something I'd never seen before—pure, righteous fury that made her hackles rise and her lips pull back to reveal sharp canine teeth.

"She did this to you," Nessy snarled, her voice carrying a dangerous edge. "She cooked you alive and then offered fake healing as another trap?!"

"It wasn't fake healing," I said quickly. "It was real, I just—"

"You sacrificed your own health to avoid falling into her next manipulation," Nessy cut me off, her tail bristling with anger. "While everyone else got relief, you stayed here, in the shed… because you didn't trust her?"

"Yep," I nodded. "She pulled a bunch of shit on us after we got out of the loop—food with compulsion to overstuff yourself, chairs that would have made us fall asleep, then the sun elemental that burned us."

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"Alec, why didn't you go into the rain like the others?" Kristi asked.

"I got a lot of nasty lessons from my brother Damian Foster," I explained. "He 'pranked' me with magical shit just like this all the time without any consequences because I can eventually reconstitute from any kind of magical damage."

"Dang. Makes sense why you're such a paranoid critter," Candace commented. "Now I feel even worse about us smacking you around yesterday."

"You… smacked him around?" Nessy's head snapped to Candace with a growl. "Is that why he's covered in bandages?!"

"I was pretty high on t' dust at the time," Candace said. "Wasn't thinking straight and obeyed my Alpha. It sorta worked out for me though, cus I…"

Nessy's growl intensified.

"Wo-ho, chill out doggo," Candace retreated behind me. "No need to maul me. Alec and I are cool now, right Alec?"

"We're cool-ish," I said. "You've got a lot of making up to do before I can forgive you."

"But—during the lecture you said that—," Candace stammered out.

"That was a spur of the moment thing," I said. "A rant of me trying to understand prad psychology and why you did what you did. It doesn't mean that I like getting sliced up like salami by cheetah claws while you hold my wrists."

Nessy's expression went from fury to horror as my words sank in. Her blue eyes ignited and glistened with sparks of tears as she stared at my bandaged cuts and burns.

"They... they held you down and sliced you up?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "While you were helpless?"

Adelle and Candace shifted uncomfortably, their ears flattening.

"Yes," Kristi snarled, her amber eyes blazing as she rounded on the ex-bikers. "I saw the aftermath before I took him to the nurse yesterday. He looked like he'd been put through a meat grinder."

Candace's silver tail and ears drooped as she stared at the ground. "We were very drunk and high... and we thought he would just heal quickly because of his skill. We didn't know he was... that he was..."

"That he was what?" Nessy demanded, rising to her feet and wiggling in her handcuffs. "A person? Someone who could feel pain?"

"Someone special," Candace finished quietly. "Someone who'd matter to us… to me so much."

"Oh, how fucking noble," Kristi spat. "You tortured him because you thought he was worthless, but now that you've decided he has value, suddenly you feel bad about it?"

"I… I thought that he had value when I first saw him," Adelle said. "I just… I suck at picking up humans, especially when I'm sloshed to the tits, and he pushed me and started running around, okay?"

"He's… my tree," Candace whispered. "Mine. Always has been."

"What?" Kristi snarled.

Before the argument could escalate further, the shed door darkened as two familiar figures stepped inside. The gray owl with the elaborate star-tipped wizard hat, his wide, round spectacles glinting. Behind him came the orange fox with aquamarine eyes, her hand resting casually on her holstered pistol.

"Hey Ness!" the fox announced. "There you are! We've been looking for you!"

"Sage," Nessy said, not turning around, still preoccupied with growling at Candace. "Viv. What do you need?"

The owl stepped forward, his dark tome with the embedded eyeball swaying from its chain as he moved. The eyeball itself swiveled to focus on me with unnerving intensity.

The fox crossed her arms, scanning the shed with obvious disdain. "So this is where you ended up. We've been wondering why you disappeared from the course."

"I got rescued," Nessy said simply. "By Alec."

"Rescued," Sage repeated, his voice carrying the kind of intellectual condescension that made my teeth itch. "By a human? Quaint."

"More like pathetic," Viv added, glaring at me with unconcealed hostility. "Look at the state of this one—covered in bandages and smelling like overcooked meat. That's your rescuer? What, too stupid to stand in the healing rain, human?" She sneered at me.

"Vivianne, stop! He saved my life," Nessy said, her voice growing firmer. "While I was trapped in the compulsion loop, he and the other humans pulled us out!"

"Technically your life wasn't ever in any danger," Sage pointed out with a soft, diplomatic tone. "This was just a sim. We did mess up though, so there's that. But I think that our new delving instructor isn't being very fair to prads, stacking the deck in favour of humans."

"Rrraptor beerrrrrch prolly has a little human house husband," Viv sneered. "Course she's fucking with teams without humans on them. Come on, Ness, just tell this overbaked sausage to piss off and let's go get some lunch. I'm starving!"

She pulled Nessy off the wall chain and hook I attached her to.

"But…" Nessy began.

"We don't need some smelly human telling us how to manage our pack dynamics," Viv added, her grip tightening on Nessy's arm. "Come on, Ness. Take the F, become a monster with us. We'll hunt these losers together and show Professor one-eye exactly what a real team can do!"

Nessy pulled against Viv's grip, her ears drawing back. "I don't want to hunt anyone as a monster, Viv. I just want to pass the class."

"You want to pass by groveling to a human?" Sage asked. "Nessy, you're a hell-a-talented Riffweld Bard. I don't get it, why would you debase yourself by accepting a low level human as your Alpha? Necricuss told me that he's just level three, remember?" he tapped his book.

"Because he saved me," Nessy said firmly, though I could hear mild uncertainty creeping into her voice. "Because he… He got hurt for me!"

"Did he though?" Viv's aquamarine eyes gleamed with malicious sharpness. "You think that a human is behind this pack? I have doubts."

"Doubts?" Nessy blinked. "What are you talking 'bout, Vivianne?"

"You do know who this is, right?" Vivianne pointed a dark claw at Candace. "You saw her clinging to this human during the lecture, yes?"

Nessy nodded warily.

"That's Candace Rhinehart," Viv continued, her voice dripping with contempt, "the spoiled mining heiress who threw a tantrum last year and disappeared when mommy and daddy wouldn't buy her a unicorn or whatever. You really think that a rich beerch like her is really following orders from a level three human? Come on, Ness. Use your brain."

Sage nodded, adjusting his spectacles as the gray eyeball in his grimoire swiveled to focus on Candace. "Candace Rhinehart specializes in incredibly rare conceptual binding magic. Vivianne raises an excellent point—what if the human isn't actually the Alpha here? What if he's been... influenced, mentally bound by Rhinehart?"

"That's ridiculous," Kristi snapped, her feathers bristling. "I've seen them interact. Alec gives orders, they follow them. It's pretty straightforward pack dynamics."

"Is it though?" Sage asked. "Binding magic, especially from a talented user like Candace can be incredibly subtle. She could have him convinced that his own thoughts are his own while she pulls the strings from behind. Classic dark cardinal manipulation."

Candace's silver tail bristled as she stepped forward. "That's a serious accusation, Necromage. You want to back that shit up with evidence, or are you just talking out your feathery ass?"

"Evidence?" Viv laughed. "How about the fact that you disappeared for months, then suddenly reappeared with a human who's somehow managed to 'tame' not just you, but also..."

"Also me," Adelle yawned, displaying her entire mouth filled with feline teeth.

"Wait, who the hell is the orange, fat cheetah?" Vivianne stared at Adelle. "Who are you?"

"Adelle Dallia," Adelle said, kneading her overfilled stomach with her left hand. "Transfer student. And I ain't been tamed by nobody, fox beerch. I chose my Alpha because he's got balls!"

"Riiiight," Viv drawled sarcastically. "Another transfer student who just happens to fall in line with whatever this human says. How… convenient! Not suspicious at all."

Sage cleared his throat, his tome's eyeball now fixated on me. "The statistical probability of a level three human successfully subjugating and coordinating two higher level pradavarians is... essentially zero. Unless, of course, external magical influence was involved, like this training exercise clearly designed to give humans an advantage."

"Three pradavarians!" Kristi stated sharply, feathers fluttering up. "He's going to be my Alpha too."

"That only makes it more improbable," Sage pointed out.

"You calling me a liar, four-eyes?" Adelle's claws extended as she took a step toward the owl. "You questioning my Alpha?!"

"I'm suggesting," Sage said, nervously backing away from the tall, muscular cheetah. "that you may not be aware of the influence being exerted upon you. Sophisticated binding magic operates below the threshold of conscious awareness!"

"Hrm," Vivianne huffed. "Rhinehart obviously has something on you… or she's paying you off or she managed to magically bind you before classes even began."

"One more word and you're going to be missing some teeth, fox," the cheetah growled.

"Oh, this is rich," Kristi snarled, slitted eyes blazing as she rounded on the duo. "You two are obviously trying to gaslight everyone in this damn shed because you can't handle the fact that your precious Nessy might choose someone other than you!"

"Gaslight?" Viv's voice rose dangerously. "We're trying to save our friend from making a stupid decision based on magical manipulation!"

"What if it's not manipulation?" Nessy said. "What if I just... want to trust him?"

"You want to… trust a low level human who you just met?!" Vivianne hiss-barked. "You do get how irrationally insane that sounds! Nessy, that's exactly what binding magic does. It makes you want things that aren't in your best interest!"

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