"Finally." The dour fire born seemed, for a moment, pleased. He was looking at Button's shoulder and its new badge. "Level four? There is a story there. Tell it." That did not sound like a request.
Button flipped an ear back. He had just been told not to gloat about that. "She said--"
"I do not care what she said." He smooshed Button's poor hat, a habit he had. "Out with it."
Well! "Alright." Button veered off, the hoof slipping off his head as he jumped up into a seat at a round table and got comfy. "As you already know, I've already been adventuring."
"Which is against the rules," the demonic pony reminded, taking a seat at the same table, though he occupied all of the chair instead of a little bit of it like Button. "And then?"
"So she looked at my sheet." Button made a gesture of the rectangular sheet. "And I had enough levels that she was all, 'Well, can't make you a total scrub, you're already past that!'." No, that wasn't what she had said exactly. "So she let me skip a grade."
"Huh..." He crossed his arms over his broad chest. "What do you plan to do now?"
"Cave of Lost Whispers!" Button clapped joyfully, only for that to deflate. "She said I need a party before I go there." But inspiration! "Wanna join?"
"Hm? You aren't taking assignments?" He directed a hoof at a board that ran the entire length of one of the walls in there. "Safer ways to make money."
"I don't care about that." Button waved it away. "I want treasure! I plan to find all the secrets." If there were any to be found. He still wasn't sure about that, but only one way to know for sure! "Not grind missions for xp and gold forever."
"Hm." He sat back with other low grunts of thought. "Maybe she has a good eye... Why she has her job." He loomed in over the table, glowering at Button. "Most who join are very happy to do those tasks, earn gold, live well."
"Nope!" cried Button in proud defiance. "I want to explore at least one real dungeon."
"You have your eyes on others?" He crossed his arms. "Big ambitions."
"The biggest." Button grinned up at the larger pony, his tail wagging behind him energetically. "So, wanna join?" Surely a big fire born would be useful to have around! Something big and meaty would be a great shield. Button had many talents, but tanking was not one of them, and if he could stop being the one in front, that sounded like a great idea!
Burning curled a hoof on himself. "Burning Question." He leveled the hoof on Button. "Button Mash? What buttons do you mash?"
"What questions do you burn?" snapped back Button with a grin.
Burning burst into deep laughter, swatting Button on the shoulder with enough force to make the colt jolt with each impact. "Ha! Good. I am third grade. You are fourth. I will not join your party. You will join mine. That is the nature of things."
Button wanted to be the one in charge! "I know where to go and where to look."
"I found excellent guide, but is still not leader of my party." The logic seemed straightforward to him. "Now, we go and explore?"
Button pouted at the larger pony with all his considerable pouting skills.
"Leaders don't pout." Burning poked Button in the center of the chest. "Lesson for later. Maybe you lead party one day." But that day would not be right away, he said without words. "Ready to go?"
"Ugh! Fine... Yeah, I'm ready." He sprang to the ground. "I get first dibs!"
"First dibs on what?" Burning joined him in leaving. "As guide, you first inside."
"First pick of the stuff we find." He rubbed his hooves together. "There are specific things I want."
Burning raised a brow. "I see... No 'claiming dibs' on things you can't use, little pony."
"You going out with the newbie?" called out a grizzled adventuring half-orc unicorn. "Without a mission?"
Burning waved that question off. "We don't need a mission where we're going."
The room became laughs and calls as Burning became the topic of the moment.
Not that Button was paying attention to that. "That's... fair." If they found a sword big enough for Burning to want, what would Button do with it? "Let's get so much stuff we all get what we want."
"Now you are talking." He knocked the door open and stepped through it without waiting for Button, unlike the first time. "Come!"
As if the world somehow 'knew' he had a companion, the monsters began showing up in greater numbers to match. Where he could get away with running into one, two on rare occasions, at a time, there were two or three and even four once in a while. "I meant to get better spells!" A small thing Button had never gotten around to while they were in town. Some AoE spells would have been handy against the larger number of foes.
Not that Burning seemed to mind. He could crush things between his hooves when not gusting out flames or slamming the ground so hard that fire erupted in big flumes that scorched anything foolish enough to challenge him. As stoic as he was in general, he came alive in battle, mocking and laughing as he stomped his enemies.
"Have something for you." He reached into his pocket and drew out what looked like an atom, with orbiting things around a nucleus of other bright colors. "You can cast spells." He thrust the strange thing at Button. "Take it."
Button accepted it but... "What is it?" He squinted at it suspiciously.
Spell: Healing Touch
"Oh awesome! How do I use it?" Spells, in the game, were just items. You clicked use, and it was used. He could read scrolls, but that was not a scroll and had no writing.
Burning thumped his own chest. "Why I'm leader." He put a hoof on the swirling spell. "Like this." He suddenly slammed the magical atom into Button's chest, where it fell into him with a strange sensation of electric tingles.
"Oh! Wow... So..." Button hopped back. "Healing Touch!" His hooves glowed with a pale white light. "Right, touch..." He scampered forward and tapped Burning with a glowing hoof.
"Better." Burning nodded. "Kept that a while. Now good use. We reach cave soon, get sleep."
"It is not time to sleep yet," cautioned a new voice, a female. Sidestep was approaching them in the gloom of the late evening. "I thought I wouldn't find you, Sir Mash."
Burning scowled at her. "You know her?"
"Sideswipe!" He waved at her excitedly with a big smile.
"Sidestep," she corrected, sitting with them. "You were correct. There was nothing there. I asked about you and they said you joined the adventurer's guild, and the guild said you went in this direction."
Button Mash inclined his head slowly. "Glad to see you, but they really shouldn't just tell anypony where I am who asks."
Sidestep smiled coyly. "I might have claimed to be your mother, Sir Mash. Please forgive me."
Button Mash burst into merry laughter. "No way! You don't look anything like my mom."
Sidestep angled an ear off to the side. "I would imagine not. What does your mother look like?"
This got Button thinking about his mother, a world away... "She'd have so much fun here..." Unlike most foal's mothers, his mom knew which way was up! She'd probably be super awesome as an adventurer! The more he thought about her, the more he missed her. He had to get back to her, eventually, somehow.
"Is alright." Burning was watching him. "Don't need to share a sad story."
Button started. Oh, they had assumed he had some dark and terrible past, and his mom was... super dead or something. "She's alright! I'm just far away from her, and I miss her... That's all... Um, that counts as a dark past, right?"
Burning swatted his side. "Very dark." He did not seem to think it was all that dark, or even moderately shaded. "You are young to be so far from home."
Sidestep nodded at Burning. "Nice to meet you. I am a Sword Maiden, working to prove myself. You are?"
"Ah. We are adventurers." He pointed at himself, and then Button. "We are going to explore a dangerous place."
Her eyes shone with the idea. "May I accompany you? Facing great and terrible creatures will let me have a chance to prove myself." Her wings flapped eagerly behind her. "Please."
Button saw she was looking at him. "Um, he's the party leader," he admitted with a sigh, pointing at Burning.
Burning nodded. "Is true. You are not an adventurer. Still, not breaking any rules. Sword maidens do their own adventuring. But your rules are still rules." He wagged a hoof at her. "No looting. Kill for glory and to prove worth. Want to kill for money, join adventurer's guild."
She bobbed her head eagerly at that. "You two may take what we find. If you give me anything, you do so without pressure or commitment. I am here to prove my abilities and nothing else. If I pick up anything, it is for survival alone."
Button rubbed behind his head. Such complex social rules were not part of the original game, but the party was busy saving the world, so... "So if you're hurt and you find a healing potion, drinking it down isn't bad?"
Sidestep nodded at Button. "Precisely so, but keeping the potion 'just in case' would be inappropriate. If I am not in immediate need, I would let you two have it. I can keep my share of coins, but must tithe most away in the hopes that it earns the interest of a lord. Purchasing a better blade is permitted." She set a hoof on her sword at her side. "What is a sword maiden with an inferior sword?"
"What about after you have a lord?"
She blinked softly. "Then I would not need coins. The lord would provide them to me. Any I kept would be turned over to them as quickly as possible as tribute. Their success is mine, and I would delight in seeing their wealth grow as I performed what they asked of me."
Burning shook his head slowly. "You will get used to it. He knows a lot about some things, and nothing of others." He flopped over and curled. "But it is time to rest. Sleep, Sidestep. You are welcome in party."
"Thank you!" She curled, wing drawing out a blanket to toss over herself. "I will show my worth in battle."
Button realized then that he'd get to see Sidestep kicking butt as a sword maiden. That was something to look forward to. "G'night!" he bade his party mates, closing his eyes and trying to drift off, with little success. "Side?"
"Yes, Sir Mash?"
Phew, she was still awake! "I learned a healing spell. So I'll be using that, if you get hurt."
"I feel even more confident, Sir Mash." Silence grew thick in the air, but she broke it before he had to. "I am a sword maiden, you know this. What profession do you call your own?"
"I'm an adventurer!"
Silence grew around them, but she spoke at last, "I may have misspoke. You are an adventurer by trade, but there are many forms of adventuring. What class do you possess within your guild?"
Oh! "Why didn't you ask my class in the first place?" Duh, silly... "I'm an adventurer, though, really. An adventurer with the adventurer class. Kinda funny if you think about it."
"Is your large companion also of the adventurer class?"
"That I am not. I am of the 'It's late and I need to sleep and I will start mashing heads together if I have to' class. Very rare. Do you want a demonstration?"
Silence returned, and sleep with it, on order of Burning Question, who did not tolerate burning questions. Ironic, really.