Tamara

We found ourselves ushered into a dark hospital room with a single ray of light coming from a laptop on the bed. The blinds were fully down and the room was coated in various rubbish from different kinds of fast food.

My eyes focused on the laptop on the bed and the figure it was currently lighting up. A small child with a shaven head and frail body was sat up in the hospital bed with dark unfeeling eyes glued to her screen. Her right arm had been amputated around the elbow but her left arm was furiously typing something onto the laptop.

"What do you want?" I heard her raspy voice sound out.

"We need your help." I said.

"Sorry you wasted your time. I can't help you." she said pursing her lips.

"Please we really need you!" Clarisse pleaded.

The sound of Clarisse's pleas finally made Tamara look up at us and an expression of surprise shot across her face for a very brief moment before going back to her blank expression devoid of feeling.

"The Orion Guild?"

"Yeah that's us." I said.

"Aren't you the guild who can clear dungeons thanks to some secret training method?"

"You saw the debate?"

"I like to stay informed. Where's the guild leader? Or did he not think it was important enough to come see me himself?"

"Karson's currently indisposed after a lengthy bout of training."

"This training you do, can it really improve inherent skills?"

I closed the door behind us and sat on the chair next to her bed.

"No. What you saw at the debate was a publicity stunt. But if you have a problem maybe we could help. You know, you help us we help you type of situation."

"I guess there's no point in hiding it anymore." She gestured to the hospital room around her. "My inherent skill trades my health for intelligence. It's still at stage one though, so I figured maybe if it could get to stage two then the results wouldn't be as horrible."

"Listen kid, I don't know what you want from us. This is gonna sound harsh but we can't train the cancer out of you."

"I know!" She shrieked with tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "I just want you to try something to save me!"

I got up out of my chair and headed to the door.

"We'll try to think of something. When we do we'll be back." I said before leaving with Clarisse following behind me.

We walked out of the hospital and began to make our way back to our headquarters.

"What are we going to do Zane?"

"I have no idea. I'm no doctor but shouldn't health potions or something be able to cure her?"

"No potions only heal injuries and infections not illnesses."

We returned back to the hospital and Skinny was still pouring through names and I could see his list of potentials still hadn't grown by very much.

"Hey how did it go?" He called out whilst still looking at his phone.

"How do you think it went?" I said exasperated.

"She wants something from us before she'll help?"

"Wow! That's spot on." Clarisse said impressed.

Skinny looked relieved to finally be done looking at his phone. He breathed a sigh of relief and cracked a smile whilst putting down the device he had spent all day glued to.

"I wouldn't be too happy jsut yet Skinny. We still have to figure out how to help Tamara."

Skinny looked like he might cry as he begrudgingly picked back up his phone.

"So what does she want?"

"Oh nothing really. Just the cure to cancer." I said sitting down and grabbing my phone.

I looked over at Steven and Karson who were still unconscious. Steven was even snoring.

"Have they even shown signs of waking up?" I asked Skinny.

"No none at all. I'm telling you dungeon training fatigue is no joke I've known guys that have fallen unconscious for over a week. So how exactly are we going to cure cancer?"

"I was thinking about that on the ride over. It seems like skills and potions dont work but what about an artifact?"

"Artifacts are extremely hard to locate. There's no way we can just stumble across one by searching online."

"No but we can search for specific dungeons that the Association has made a note of. Every dungeon follows some kind of story, myth or legend so all we need is to find a specific dungeon that follows a story about healing."

It took so many hours of searching firstly through different myths and legends that could cure a person of anything such as the fountain of youth or the elixir of life. But whilst searching through different legends I stumbled across Grimm's fairytales. In the original version of rapunzel she cries on the prince and cures him of blindness.

It seemed like a longshot but we werent exactly swimming in options right now.

"Hey can you guys see if there are any dungeons that are a tower surrounded by woods?" I asked the group after re-reading the fairy tale again.

"Yeah there's an old fire watch tower with a dense patch of forest a few hours from here that became a dungeon. Would that work?" Skinny said. He sounded completely exhausted, he had already gone through 4 cups of coffee.

"Clarisse let's head to this dungeon whilst Skinny gets some well deserved rest."

"Umm actually I was hoping I could stay behind as well. We've been working hard for an entire day I need some time to myself."

"OK fair enough hope you feel better." I looked over at Skinny and Karson, "Well guess I'm doing this one alone. Make sure to look after those two as well."

I headed out of the headquarters and took a couple of buses and a train to get to the Association building. I had to apply to get temporary rights to the dungeon so I could get the artifact, hopefully I didn't clear this one I didnt want to know what kind of paperwork I would need to fill out or fees I would need to pay for clearing a dungeon I didn't own the permanent rights to.

After a tedious amount of paperwork and over an hour of waiting around and filling out signatures I managed to gain a temporary pass to enter the dungeon. Then I had to take three seperate buses to finally get myself close enough to the wooded area where the dungeon was.

I told the bus driver to stop and drop me off at the side of the road when we were far enough along into the wooded area. The bus driver asked me a few times if I was sure this was where I wanted to be dropped off but after I answered yes enough times he just sighed and said 'suit yourself, before driving off.

Thank god I had a system because otherwise I would be grossly under prepared for the hike ahead of me. I entered the woods whilst looking at the map on my phone...

Rapunzel was the most beautiful child in the world. When she was twelve years old the witch shut her up in a tower in the midst of a wood, and it had neither steps nor door, only a small window above. When the witch wished to be let in, she would stand below and would cry,

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel!

Let down your hair!"

The tower in this case being a fire watch tower but the dungeon had destroyed the staircase that would lead up to the main part of the tower. 

I saw a very evil and haggard looking old woman call up to the tower whilst I watched from deep within a thicket of woods nearby. Within a manner of moments a large amount of golden hair flowed out of a window from the tower and the old witch began to ascend using it.

At least all of this proved my theory that dungeons aren't just modeled after myths but can also be made out of different kinds of stories. The only thing I couldn't work out was if a god would still reward me if I cleared this place or not.

I waited there for a long while just sitting down and picking at the grass out of sheer boredom. Oh my god I have been up for over 24 hours when is this old hag going to leave the tower!

It was pushing for nightfall inside of the dungeon when the witch finally left the tower and scurried off into the woods. I waited a few beats after she left before I timidly snuck my way over underneath the tower's window.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel!

Let down your hair!"

The golden hair flew out of the window cascading before me like a beautiful waterfall of gold. I grabbed ahold of the hair with a tight grip and attempted to climb it as fast as I could which wasn't easy given it had the texture of hair and not rope meaning it felt awkward to be climbing it like this.

It took some effort but I finally managed to get up to the balcony of the tower and from there I just went through the door into the main part of the tower and there I saw a small teenage girl with insanely long hair tying some sheets of rope together.

"My prince did you bring the last piece of rope I needed for the ladder?!" 

"Umm..." I silently passed her the purple tie I had worn for the debate with trepidation. This seemed like a test of some kind hopefully this would be close enough to what she wanted for me to be able to continue.

She gleefully took the tie with a squeal and I let out my held breath. 

"Hey this might sound like a weird request but can you cry into this bottle for me?" I said producing the empty sports drink I had bought the other day whilst Steven and Karson were training.

"I suppose I can try for you my prince! May I ask why?"

What would a prince say in this situation?, "I wish for it to serve as a memento of our time together. It is tradition in my kingdom, trust me."

I watched her walk across the room to a cabinet and take out a sewing kit, she opened it up and took out a needle and began to use the needle to stab her fingers.

Within seconds she began to bawl her eyes out and the bottle was a quarter of the way filled within a minute.

"Holy crap! Are you OK?" I asked grabbing the bottle from her and identifying it:

[Tears of Rapunzel's love]

"Yes I'm fine my prince! The next time you return we can escape to your kingdom together!" 

I left the tower and the dungeon. Hiking my way back to the road I only had one thought on my mind, 'how the hell am I going to get back to the city?'

I had to fork over quite a lot of money to get a car to drive me back to Tamara's hospital in the city. I had tried to hitchhike but no one had stopped and it was definitely too far to walk all the way back.

I rushed to Tamara's room and burst open her door. 

"Ah! You scared me!" Tamara exclaimed her frail body jumping with a start and nearly making the laptop fly into the air.

"This... Is... For... Y-" I gave up gasping for breath as I chucked the bottle at her.

She drank it without even asking what it was, I'm guessing how serious I was being made her understand that it was something important.

The second she drank more than a gulp of it I could see the colour come back to her face but she handed it back to me after that without finishing the bottle. 

"Thank you!" She said hugging around me with her left arm. Smiling for the first time since I met her.