Xavier stood on the lower floor of his brand-new base. The Sanctuary Seed he’d planted hadn’t just grown up. Its roots had dug deep into the ground and created what appeared to be some sort of control room down here. The room was oval shaped. In the centre of the room was a round table, reminiscent of the one in legends about King Arthur, though one of the chairs around the table had a taller back than the others.

At the far end of the room was another set of chairs. These were facing the wall. When Xavier stepped through the archway leading into the room, crystals on the ceiling lit up, illuminating the space in a clear blue light, and something came to life atop the round table.

“Whoa!” Siobhan rushed past him. She and the other members of his party had been behind him. Howard and Justin came to stand on either side of Xavier. Siobhan stared down at the table.

Xavier stepped forward, eyes widening. Parts of the surface of the table had been raised upward, while other parts had been depressed into the wood. Different colours and texture had materialised, and at the centre of the table was the very base they were standing inside.

“It’s a map,” Justin said.

“Of the entire area Xavier has authority over,” Howard replied.

Xavier ran a hand along the surface of the table. He could feel the tops of the trees in the forest, feel the rocky mountain where he’d entered the Moon Sky Dungeon. But it was more than just a map.

“All these red dots… can you really sense auras that far away?” Siobhan asked.

Xavier looked from one red dot to the other. “Actually, I can’t sense any auras from in here. The walls are blocking me. Though I get the feeling I could change that if I wished.”

“Wait, this isn’t a representation of your mini-map?”

Xavier shook his head. He pointed at a few parts of the map, comparing it to his own, which only he could see. “I haven’t been to these areas yet. To me, they’re covered in shadow.”

Howard stood at the end of the table, his hands folded behind his back. He leant forward. “This is a war room. It’s showing you everything within your domain.”

“Everything the light touches belongs to you,” Justin muttered.

Xavier took it all in. The base was depicted on the map, as were the three dungeons and their entrances—a door in a tree, a coffin in the ground, a moon hanging in the sky.

He didn’t expect this place to have… all of this. “It can see everyone. All the beasts. The Denizens. It even shows us here, down below.”

Xavier touched one of the red dots that was closest to their base. The map zoomed in on the area the beast was—a small copse of tress—then text appeared over the red dot.

This base map does not have the appropriate upgrades to see further information.

Xavier tilted his head to the side. “Upgrades. Interesting.”

“I wonder what further information it could provide,” Siobhan said. “Maybe it would identify the beast and its level?”

“It might even be able to show an image of the beast, when its advanced enough,” Justin suggested.

Xavier grinned. He had to say he was liking his new toy. He stepped over to the other side, where a set of four chairs faced the wall. When he approached, the wall lit up. It was like a television screen, showing different camera shots around the base. He could see the survivors mulling around outside the main tower.

Howard walked over and examined the screen. “This will come in handy.” He looked at Xavier, and there was a question in his eyes.

Xavier didn’t have to ask to know what the man’s question was. “I won’t need to be back on the base until the end of the first twenty-four-hour period, according to Adranial. Which means, you don’t have to be here either. We will find your family, Howard.”

“And yours.”

Xavier nodded. “There’s just one thing we have to do first.” He summoned the Guardian Golem Core from out of his Storage Ring and held it in the palm of his left hand. “I need to figure out where this goes. The survivors will need some sort of defence soon.”

Siobhan stepped over. “John said they don’t want to be called survivors anymore.”

Xavier frowned. “What do they want to be called?”

“Citizens.”

“Citizens of what?”

Siobhan opened her arms, taking in the base. “Whatever you end up calling this place, I guess.”

Citizens, Xavier thought. I like the sound of that.

Xavier walked around the war room, holding the Guardian Golem Core in his hand, wondering where he was supposed to put the damned thing. When he stepped close to the round table in the room’s centre, the core flashed blue and the map disappeared. A small platform raised up off the surface of the table, materialising seemingly out of nothing. It had a curved indent in which he could place the core.

“It’s almost like the base has a mind of its own,” Justin said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it does,” Siobhan replied.

Xavier placed the core on top of the pedestal, then a notification appeared in his vision.

Do you wish to bond this Guardian Golem Core to your base?

Yes, Xavier willed.

The pedestal shot back down into the table. The surface smoothed. Then beside the table, a shape began to form. First, it was simply a blue light hovering in the air. Then that light congealed, pooling on the ground. It reminded him of the liquid lightning he’d seen the first time he’d witnessed the opening of a portal.

A figure began to form, growing from the glowing blue liquid.

“That’s almost how my Divine Guardian forms,” Siobhan whispered.

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That wasn’t where the similarities ended. The Guardian Golem Core formed into a full-plate set of armour that looked -very similar to Siobhan’s Divine Guardian, but instead of a two-handed sword, this golem had a warhammer and a tower shield. It glowed a warm blue.

Then it spoke.

“Greetings!” the golem waved its hammer, speaking in a robotic monotone. “I am Guardian, though you may name me whatever you wish.” It faced Xavier. “Guardian is customisable! You can change my armour or my weapons load out to suit the needs of your base. Guardian can help with simple tasks and defend the base with honour!”

“It speaks,” Howard said. “Did you know it would speak?”

Xavier rubbed his neck. “Honestly, I had no idea. Though the description says it’s an assistant…”

“Yes, it speaks!” Guardian said. “Guardian also listens and understands when people are speaking about it without speaking to it.”

The inflection and tone in the Guardian’s voice hadn’t changed, yet the feeling behind those words were evident.

It certainly seems like this golem is intelligent.

Xavier wondered if it possessed a soul, even if an artificial one. But there wasn’t time for questions like that.

“What level of enemy can you defend against?” Xavier asked.

“This base was grown from an E Grade Sanctuary Seed and has an E Grade Base Leader.” Guardian motioned toward its chest. The warhammer it held thudded into its breastplate. “I am low E Grade, Level 100. I can defend against strong F Grade threats, and weak E Grade threats. My level grows with the base, or I may be upgraded specifically. Do you wish to upgrade me?”

“No,” Xavier said. “Not right now.”

“He’s Level 100? That doesn’t seem fair,” Justin muttered.

“Can others identify your level?” Xavier asked.

“Yes!” Guardian said. “I can be upgraded to hide my body from being scanned. Do you wish to upgrade me?”

Xavier sighed. “I don’t even know how to do that.”

“He’ll be strong enough to defend the survivors—” Howard cleared his throat. “The citizens from any threats that come their way.”

“It seems prudent for me to inform you that at present I can only be summoned for a half hour period before I need to rest,” Guardian said. “However, I can be upgraded to last longer. Do you wish—”

“Later,” Xavier said, cutting the golem off.

Guardian deflated, dropping its—his?—arms down to the side. “Guardian understands.”

“Oh,” Justin said. “I think you made him sad.”

Guardian shook his head. “Guardian is not sad. Guardian is simply disappointed that you do not require more of me at this time.”

Xavier pursed his lips. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Guardian. Part of him liked the golem construct, another part found it was almost too… needy? But he had to admit, there was something endearing in the way he talked, and it was cool to have a sentient robot golem defending his new base—a base that had a three-dimensional map on the table in his own personal war room, along with what basically amounted to security camera footage of the base’s surroundings.

“I’m sorry, Guardian. We are in a rush.” He paused, recalling how long Guardian could be summoned for. Only half an hour. “How to I de-summon you? And if I’m gone, will the citizens of my base be able to summon you?”

“You may unsummon me with a verbal command, and any citizen whom you grant verbal permission to can summon me within a short radius of the base.” The golem tilted its head to the side. “Guardian finds your lack of basic knowledge intriguing.”

“Thanks?” Xavier held in a scoff. “I unsummon you.”

“Guardian hopes you have enjoyed his service!” The golem stamped a heavy boot on the floor. The whole construct clanked. Then it turned into a liquid blue light which pooled onto the wooden floor, then dissipated seemingly to nothing.

“Well, that was… interesting,” Howard said.

“They certainly packed a lot of personality into that golem.” Siobhan rested her hand on her chin, inspecting the space where the golem had just been.

“They?” Justin asked. “Who are they?”

Siobhan shrugged. “Whoever created it.”

They didn’t waste any more time down there. Xavier headed up to the surface and addressed those outside, letting them know they were welcome to explore the base and find quarters for themselves. He decided to leave John Hammond in charge, as the man seemed to know what he was doing—or he was at least enthusiastic about it.

He took the man aside and spoke to him one-on-one. “I can see you’re ambitious, driven, that you want to push forward your level, and I’m glad for that. That’ll serve you well. But while I’m gone, I don’t want you or the other citizens getting yourselves into trouble.” When Xavier had been out in the forest, he couldn’t recall seeing any enemies low enough level for the survivors to take on safely. Even if they could overwhelm a bear-type beast with superior numbers, one of them was likely to die in the process.

That simply wasn’t worth it. Not to him.

While John looked a little disappointed, he seemed to understand. He also perked up when Xavier told him there would be opportunities for him to level when Xavier was back at the base for longer stretches of time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t exactly tell the man when that would happen.

I hope it doesn’t take too long to find Howard’s family, not to mention everyone else’s.

At least while they were gone they would be able to get a lay of the land, not to mention take down some invaders while they were at it. To be honest, he couldn’t wait to get out there and bash in some goblin heads, just like he had when he’d been granted his first class. Enemies of Earth were making a mess of things, and he was more than ready to put them in their place.

Xavier gave Jack and a few other people the man pointed out permission to summon Guardian. Technically, he could have given everyone permission, but that didn’t seem like the wisest thing to do. If anyone was able to summon Guardian, they might do it when it wasn’t necessary and waste the construct’s usage.

There were still a few items he hadn’t used, like the Portal Hub. Before leaving, he had a look at the description to refresh his memory.

{Portal Hub – Restriction: Planetary Wide – Upgradeable}

This Portal Hub connects a registered base to a planetary wide system of portals. For a price, it can open portals to other registered bases around a single planet.

Each planet will have its own registry of Portal Hubs.

A Base Leader can set their Portal Hub to open or private. If a Portal Hub is open, any other Portal Hub on the planet will have the ability to connect to it. If it is private, only accepted allies will be able to make a connection.

Yeah, this definitely won’t be useful to us. Not yet, at least.

That made him wonder whether or not he’d be able to establish more than one base around the world, but that was getting ahead of himself. He needed to take things one step at a time.

He contemplated leaving the Portal Stone with Siobhan and simply going off on his own, leaving the rest of his party at the base until he found what they were looking for, but he didn’t know if that was the best course of action.

He wished they each had a Portal Stone that could connect them back to the base, or that they each had a Communication Stone.

He spoke briefly with Howard, Siobhan, and Justin back down in the war room, to see what course of action would make the most sense.

“We’ve always known we’d need to divide our resources when we returned to Earth,” Siobhan said. She leant heavily on the table, her head down, a lock of red hair falling over one side of her face. “I didn’t know when we would be strong enough to do such a thing. But, after how we handled that dungeon…”

“You three might very well be the strongest Denizens on Earth after me,” Xavier said. He raised his chin, wishing he had some way of confirming that.

Howard grunted. “We should split up. We’d be able to cover more ground that way. Not to mention, you’re the only one who needs to get back to the base to defend it from whoever the System might send. You don’t need us for that. You can take the Portal Stone yourself.”

Xavier looked at the man. “How would you suggest we split?”

“Justin can fly. He might not be able to cover ground as fast as you can, but he can do it damned fast.”

Justin puffed up a bit at these words.

“Siobhan is strong enough to handle herself, but she can’t teleport herself,” Howard continued. “Perhaps her and I should head off together. Our party can go in three different directions. “He lowered his head. “None of the citizens know where they are better than us, unfortunately, which means we’ve no way of knowing which direction Fronton is. This forest… it doesn’t seem as though all of it is from Earth, and the aspects that are of Earth don’t all make sense.” The former cop scratched his beard. “We need to fill out the map.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Xavier said. He faced Siobhan. “You need to practice your ability to summon us. If you become strong enough to summon us from great distances, maybe we won’t need more Portal Stones so soon.” He faced Justin. “Be careful up there. You’ll be able to scout far better than any of us, high in the sky. You’ll probably also be visible to the enemy. If you see a city, feel free to change direction and head toward it.”

He rapped his fingers on the table, thinking all of this through. He really wished they all had a way to communicate.

I guess I’ll be dealing with Adranial alone when she comes.

“I don’t know how much distance we’ll each need to cover, but if you’re all not back in two weeks, I’m going to get very worried.”

They didn’t speak for much longer after that. They parted ways, each heading in a different direction away from the base, splitting the party for the first time.

I hope this isn’t a mistake.