Orion always thought there was no more tragic class than being a space wizard. Well, technically, there was—being a space mage. Both classes shared the same frustrating problem: people assumed that having "Space" in your title meant you were some kind of teleportation magic user.
Sure, they technically were, but that wasn't all they could do. As a class, they could do so much more. They could fight—well, maybe not in the roughest sense of the word—but they could support, perform tricks to disorient targets, and if the target was weaker, even send them to another dimension. They could craft unique strategies that involved the manipulation of space, not just teleportation. Sure, teleportation was their most interesting asset, but come on—they could do so much more.
These were the thoughts of Orion—Dungeon Master 02—who, in this most recent reincarnation, had been reborn as a Highbreed. Over the years, he displayed a unique affinity for space magic and space-related psionic powers. This affinity ultimately led the young Dungeon Master down the Wizard Path, as it was the only core class that allowed one to dabble with both magic and psionics powers. This path, though not one he actively chose, was one he treaded in accordance with what he believed would make him the most useful to their cause as a Dungeon Master. He didn't regret that decision. After all, with his space-related powers, which included teleportation, he truly was useful to their cause—or at least to Lucius, Dungeon Master 07.
But somewhere deep in his heart—something he would never admit—Orion wanted to be like Licht, Dorian, or even Arianna—the problematic Dungeon Master 08. Perhaps because it was something he had never achieved in all his previous incarnations, Orion yearned to kick some ass. His little adventure with Licht to the Voidborne Catacomb to recover baby Dungeon Master 10 only intensified that yearning, leading Orion to double his efforts to acquire offensive skills and abilities. And he did. In the past decade, he not only leveled up but also improved the skills he already had. He unlocked and leveled two offensive skills and one ability. He was aware that it wasn't much, but not everyone could do what the likes of Arianna could. He advanced at his own pace, and he was proud of each of his small steps. After all, these little steps made him confident that, should he ever be needed again, he would be more useful offensively than he had been the last time to his fellow Dungeon Masters.
And soon came a time when Orion would be needed. Unfortunately for the young Highbreed, he wasn't needed for what he was eager to prove his worth in. He was needed for his teleportation capabilities to find someone who had been abducted through similar means—that person being none other than Arianna. Unarguably the strongest Dungeon Master, Arianna was also the strongest human in the Land of Man, having defeated the previous titleholder who had held that distinction for nearly a thousand years. It was during the process of slaying that person that it happened—she was teleported away, if not outright abducted, by some unknown and uninvited third party.
Orion only received the news a few days later. As much as he wanted to be a part of the war the Dungeon Masters had been preparing for quite some time, he had no place in it. After all, it was a battle between “monarchs”—only the strongest of this miserable world had a role there—the Emperor, the Seraphims, and the elven monarch Arianna had allied herself with. So, he was left out of it all, which is why it took some time for the news and the next directive to reach him—these being to locate Dungeon Master 08.
It wasn't a mission where he could showcase his growth, but it was one he was eager to help with. However, as eager as he was, he was rapidly forced to face reality. This mission was like asking him to find a particular droplet in the entire ocean—and that might even be an easier task. The ocean was nowhere as vast as the place she might have been teleported to. She could be anywhere in Fiendfell or in what he called the Parallel Layers. There were five of them, each unarguably vaster than Quel'thalas. So really, the droplet-in-the-ocean analogy held no candle to the scale of the task awaiting Orion.
But with no further complaints—except to note that this might take some time—Orion began his search, even if he had to admit it started rather blindly.
Three months and two weeks had passed since Orion was handed the task of finding Arianna, and still, he had nothing to show for it. The majority of this time had been spent exploring the Parallel Layers. Within a couple of weeks of this seemingly hopeless search, two things became absolutely clear to him. First, Arianna was still alive. If she had been killed, like any Dungeon Master, she would have been reborn in the Voidborne Catacomb. Dungeon Master 06 had confirmed she was not, so her life was not in question. This suggested she was somewhere she could not return from, leaving two possibilities: she was being held captive by someone or something.
Without teleportation skills of her own, if Arianna had been sent to the Parallel Layers, she would be effectively trapped with no means of returning. Dungeon Masters 07 and 06 leaned more towards this theory than the one where she was being held captive by someone. Thus, Orion dedicated most of his efforts to scouring the Parallel Layers, but even after three months of intense research, he had found nothing. This didn’t surprise Orion. Being the one conducting the search, he knew and admitted that he was moving blindly, focusing on the vicinity of where she had been teleported from.
The Parallel layers were dimensions apart from the world where most living creatures of Fiendfell dwelled. There were five such planes, each growing stranger and more alien the deeper one ventured. As the term "parallel" suggested, they were distinct spaces yet somehow layered atop the material world—much like the atmosphere had its separate layers, unseen yet ever-present.
To those with the proper skills, these planes offered a means to achieve what amateurs would call teleportation. By stepping into these hidden realms, one could traverse vast distances with ease, manipulating space in ways unimaginable to those bound to the physical world.
The First Layer, known as The Shimmer, was an empty, formless expanse devoid of obstacles. Movement within felt fluid, though oddly sluggish, as though wading through an invisible current. Yet this simplicity made it perfect for novices, allowing them to cross short distances without risk.
Beyond lay the Second Layer, called The Mirage. Here, reality itself seemed to bend and buckle, distances warping unpredictably. A mile in the real world could be crossed in mere steps within this plane, though navigation required a practiced mind lest one become lost in its twisting paths.
The Third Layer, known as The Rift, was where gravity twisted, directions became meaningless, and even time itself was suspect. Only those with keen instincts and sharper wit dared to travel here, for the plane's treachery could easily leave one stranded into worse layers.
Deeper still, where it truly became problematic, was the Fourth Layer, ominously named The Abyss. A vast, desolate stretch where space stretched and contracted like the breath of some sleeping giant. The sheer emptiness gnawed at the mind, and to linger too long was to court madness or worse. Yet, its potential for covering immense distances was second only to the Fifth layer.
Finally, there was the Fifth Layer, the dreaded Void. It’s a dimension where the air was thick with menace, and the very concept of location unraveled into chaos. Few dared to tread here, for even the most skilled teleporters risked losing themselves to its insatiable emptiness, their bodies and minds forever untethered from reality.
In these three months, Orion had only managed to explore the vicinity of the first three layers. There were two reasons for this. First, in the last two layers, there was no such concept as vicinity. Using the atmospheric layer analogy, if one were to ascend from the real world to the next layer and then allow oneself to fall, chances were you'd end up near where you ascended. But in these deeper layers, you would not land anywhere near where you started. Chances were you'd land somewhere random, as distortions were ever-present. So much so that a living being would be instantly torn to shreds without the proper skills.
This brought him to the second reason he had yet to initiate his search in these layers. While his level 5 space magic could open a rift through The Abyss straight to The Void, his level 8 Spatial Anchoring wouldn't allow him to survive, let alone move within that space. In The Abyss, perhaps, but not in The Void. He would be instantly obliterated.
Yet Orion had been urged time and again to extend his research to The Void. Considering the skill level of the third party's teleportation magic, that was most likely where they had sent Arianna if they wanted to exile her where no one could find her. And Orion, considering how important she was to him and his fellow Dungeon Masters, was willing to take that risk, to bring her back. But before putting his life on the line by venturing into The Void, he needed a better search strategy than the one he'd been using so far. The inherent differences between the last two layers and the others made going in blind a guaranteed waste of time—a dangerous one at that.
To take that risk, Orion demanded they come up with a better approach. Fortunately, one such approach was suggested by Dungeon Master 06—or Lee, as he was known—after he made certain discoveries in Quel'thalas, the elven continent.
***
Atop one of Dungeon Master 06's creatures, which flew them from the Land of Men to Quel'thalas without a moment's rest, their destination finally came into view. Deep within elven territories, in a lush but undeniably colder region of the continent, stood a large ethereal tree. Orion immediately recognized it as an ancestral tree—the sigil of the elven monarchs. But he knew, having heard tales of Arianna's deeds, that this sigil belonged to none other than Arianna herself.
Rather than decelerating as they approached the gigantic tree, Dungeon Master 06's creature accelerated, passing harmlessly through the barrier when the time came, allowing them entry into the domain.
As they flew above the expansive elven settlement—larger than any city Orion had ever seen in the Land of Men—the girl accompanying Dungeon Master 06 and Orion on the avian creature frowned. She had likely noticed what Orion had also observed and couldn’t help but ask Dungeon Master 06. "Lee... what happened here?"
Her name was Aquaflora. She was one of the elven monarchs who had invaded the Land of Men alongside Arianna and Dungeon Master 06. Like him, she had never left the Land of Men since their invasion and ultimately Arianna's abduction. Even though their first meeting was when they began this journey, Orion had heard from Dungeon Master 07 that, just like Dungeon Master 06, Aquaflora had been impatiently waiting for the results of his search for Arianna. In other words, despite not being a Dungeon Master, she was deeply involved in finding Dungeon Master 08, even though there was little she could do.
Dungeon Master 06 played deaf, ignoring her question as he urged his creature onward. After a couple of minutes of silence and his continued refusal to answer, Aquaflora gave up asking. Another half dozen minutes of awkward flying later, they reached the center of the capital, where the creature began its descent. They landed in a plaza where someone was waiting for them—an elf, a young female with silver hair. Her age, appearance, and expression quickly reminded Orion of someone standing next to him.
Dungeon Master 06 approached the girl and, with an embrace, absorbed her in a rather unsettling manner. Though Orion had technically witnessed this skill once before—when the creature they flew on was summoned—seeing it used on someone was an entirely different experience.
Turning to them, the now complete Dungeon Master 06 declared, "Let's not waste time. Let's begin."
Orion was about to comply when Aquaflora, still unsatisfied with the silence, asked again. "Lee, what happened here?" There was a tone in her voice that made it clear this was not a question she would allow to go unanswered. "Where are all the Noctil Elves of the capital?"
Dungeon Master 06 turned to her, his expression one of utter annoyance. Yet it also betrayed that he knew the answer to her question—what had become of the inhabitants of the capital. As they had flown over, it had been oppressively clear they were passing over a ghost town: no signs of life, just empty buildings, streets, and plazas.
Still, he refused to answer.
Having already heard the answer from Dungeon Master 07, Orion quietly withdrew his presence, hoping to avoid being drawn into the steadily escalating tension.
Dungeon Master 06 sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose before saying, "Listen, now is not the time to ask that question."
"No, no, no!" Aquaflora exploded. "I've had enough of it. I want to know! Where are all the people of the capital?" Her voice grew coarse and hoarse, full of dread. "What have you done again? What has she done this time?"
"You—" Dungeon Master 06 began angrily, only to abruptly halt himself, seemingly reined in by some unseen force of reason. Finally, he added, "Listen, I won't answer your questions. That’s not why I brought you here. I brought you here to bring Ma’am back to us. Once that's done—and only then—perhaps you'll get an answer from me. Or better yet, you can get that answer from her directly."
For a moment, something in Aquaflora's expression suggested she considered doing exactly as Dungeon Master 06 suggested. But that didn’t linger long before she defiantly muttered, "No."
That single word quickly shifted Dungeon Master 06’s expression from annoyed but moderately reasonable to aggravated anger. "No? And what do you mean by that?!" he demanded, his fists clenching.
"I won’t wait... I won’t be kept in the dark again," she replied, her voice low but resolute.
"And what are you going to do if I just don’t tell you, huh? Tell me, what are you going to do?" Dungeon Master 06 snarled, his form adjusting into that of an adult bearing the same traits as his earlier form—the hair, the shape of his face, and the expression of barely contained wrath. "Tell me, Elf Queen Aquaflora, what you're going to do?! Are you going to refuse to help us recover her? Is that what you're threatening me with? Tell me!"
The four of them were here for a reason. They had found Arianna's sigil still active, a living testament to Dungeon Master 06 and Dungeon Master 07's unwavering belief that she was alive and well—just stuck somewhere, most likely in one of the layers, perhaps the Void or the Abyss. This discovery prompted Dungeon Master 06 to propose a new approach to their search, one that involved the use of two ancestral trees: his and Aquaflora's. Meaning Aquaflora had the means to make a threat, and she was hinting at it. Dungeon Master 06 did not take that well.
At the sight of Dungeon Master 06 approaching her, Aquaflora instinctively backed away, but her retreat was thwarted as she found herself cornered by the very creature they had flown in on. A small, lizard-like creature materialized at her neck, like a protective pet.
"Listen, and listen well," Dungeon Master 06 began, his voice low and threatening. "You're making a huge mistake if you think you can use that sigil against her—just because Ma'am is fond of you and I've tolerated it. Don't overestimate how patient I can be with you."
As he spoke, he advanced, and the lizard at Aquaflora's neck bristled, sensing the danger, then lunged. With a swift motion, Dungeon Master 06 grabbed the creature by the throat, restraining it effortlessly. "I do not share her fondness for you, nor do I need you," he hissed, his other hand reaching for Aquaflora's throat. "In fact, the Lunith Tree doesn't need yo—"
Boom.
Suddenly, the tension shattered by something violent. Dungeon Master 06 grunted, dropping to his knees as if struck by an invisible force. Something that would have undoubtedly left Orion confused with how fast it was, had it not been for his space-sensitive senses. He not only noticed it, he also understood what had happened very well.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"What are you doing?" Dungeon Master 06 snarled, fury contorting his features as he tried to understand the sudden intervention.
No audible reply came, but the silence was broken by the sudden appearance of a thoroughly white serpent with blue eyes, its form coiling around Dungeon Master 06 like ethereal chains designed to restrain a wild beast.
White—the white serpent also known among Orion's fellow Dungeon Masters as Dungeon Master 09—hissed, communicating with Dungeon Master 06 in a way unintelligible to Orion. After all, he didn't speak the serpent language or whatever language was used here.
"What do you think I’m doing?" Dungeon Master 06 retorted sharply to whatever White had said. "Do you not hear the venom in the words of this ungrateful bitch?"
White enhanced the gravity attack unleashed on Lee, bringing him to all fours, hissing what Orion could only imagine was a scolding—one that Lee, in his anger, couldn’t bring himself to heed. But as the gravity brought him closer to kissing the soil, he was left with no choice but to listen.
"Alright, alright! I get it. I get it! Now unhand me, Dammit!"
White hissed again.
"Alright," Lee conceded to White's demands, finally releasing his grip on Aquaflora's pet. The poor creature crawled back to Aquaflora, its form unmanifesting.
Feeling both pity and anger for her little lizard, Aquaflora turned around with a sharp glare. But as she met the eyes of the white serpent and Lee, her fury seemed to melt away—especially as the burden on Lee was lifted, allowing him to stand. White approached her, his blue eyes locked with hers of a similar shade. White hissed, and Lee translated, his voice neutral but firm.
"White believes you should help us find Arianna. You owe her that much." With a subtle look from White, Lee's tone became less threatening. "We all owe her. Any obstruction to our efforts would be seen as an act of war."
"You're looking for an answer, but he is not the one who should give you that answer, and neither am I. That's why we won't respond. We understand the inevitable consequences of doing so, which is why we ask that you help us find her and get your answers directly from her."
"You can choose to refuse, of course. We won't force you. But be aware, there will be consequences."
For a moment, she stood there contemplating what felt to Orion like not much of a choice. You either help and get your answer, or you don't—and, well, nothing good about that option was worth considering, at least from Orion’s perspective. But the young woman seemed to wrestle with it somehow before ultimately choosing to help.
Her answer drew both Lee and White's attention immediately back to Orion, who had already initiated a retreat to somewhere safe should things escalate further.
"Time to do what we came here to do," Lee declared.
***
Orion was brought here for one single reason—to do what he'd been doing for the past three months: search for Arianna. The reason they traveled to this remote corner of the world instead of continuing the search where it had been consistently conducted—namely on the Parting Sea—was to take advantage of something known as a sigil. This sigil was undoubtedly connected to Arianna, who owned it. Though dimensions might separate it from her, the hope was that if Orion opened a rift, he could use the connection to find where she was in the Void or the Abyss, should she be there.
But, as had been said, it was only an idea. That’s all it was—not yet a solid plan. Even if he could locate her, that didn’t mean he’d be able to reach her, for the simple reason that he was a space magic user, not a teleportation magic user. It was a concept many misunderstood about him. As a space magic user, he could achieve teleportation by traveling through the layers, but he could not teleport in the traditional sense. In dimensions as unstable as the Abyss and the Void, while he could "travel" as he always did, movement in those dimensions practically required teleportation. So even assuming Orion could use the sigil's connection, he wouldn't be able to reach Arianna simply because he wouldn't be able to move in the Void.
That’s where the idea of using ancestral trees came into play. These sigils could serve as barriers—ones they hoped would shield them from the dangerous distortions of the Void and allow them to move around freely. This was something Orion couldn’t manage on his own in the Void. The plan was to create a safe space within which they could navigate without severe consequences.
If the idea of using the link between the sigil and Arianna didn’t work out as they hoped, they didn’t want to revert to the blind search they had been conducting so far. Instead, they planned to use a method akin to industrial trawling.
In a dimension like the Void, it would take millennia to cover the entire area. Instead, the plan—or rather, the idea—was to use the ancestral trees like a net, similar to catching fish. The concept involved either Aquaflora or Lee manifesting their ancestral tree as a gigantic prison, then progressively shrinking it, hoping it would trap their "fish"—Arianna. This approach would eliminate the risk of her momentarily phasing into their vicinity due to distortions and slipping away unnoticed. It would still take an eternity to thoroughly filter the Void, but far less time than doing it without such a strategy.
"Alright," Orion sighed, retrieving a giant staff from his spatial storage. He typically favored wands over staves, but considering the daunting task ahead, he needed all the additional MP he could get. Exchanging nods with everyone, Orion began.
As Orion raised his staff, the topaz gem embedded in its head began to shimmer, bathing the area in a soft, otherworldly glow. An intricate magic circle materialized, spinning slowly and exuding a powerful aura as it sliced open a gateway through space itself.
A rift opened—one to the easiest and safest layer to access, namely the Mirage. From within that dimension, through the rift, a second magic layer manifested as his magic appeared. He opened another rift leading straight to the Abyss. Then, just as he did with the previous dimensions, he added an additional layer to his magic circle and opened yet another rift—from the Rift to the Abyss, and ultimately to the Void. The rift to the Void was highly unstable. Not only was it unstable, but it was also about the size of a fist. But that was fine. Size didn’t matter for the portal, as he had the skills to hurl them through that small opening. What concerned him most was the instability of the rift he managed to open.
He had already made a concession with the size, and yet it was still so unstable. The sight urged Orion to warn everyone. "Be ready, we're about to take off." There seemed to be no need for him to say that—each of them, including the previously questioning Aquaflora, appeared ready—but he still felt compelled to do that.
Just as he was about to activate the skill he believed he would need to hurl them into that fist-sized rift, he noticed something strange. The already unstable rift grew more and more unstable. It wasn’t a sight that made him eager to jump through; quite the opposite. The instability made him feel like backing off—like one would at the sight of an overinflated battery.
"A problem?" Lee asked, following Orion's gaze.
"Erm, for some reason, the rift is unstable. Too insta—"
Halfway through his sentence, he felt it. Instinct kicked in before his mind could catch up, and he quickly retreated several meters—nearly half a dozen—putting just enough distance between himself and whatever was coming. From there, he watched it unfold.
"What the fuck?!" Lee cursed. Orion had the same reaction, having not only seen it but felt it through his space-sensitive senses.
Something breached through the fist-sized rift, tearing through the other four rifts and crashing into the ground where they had stood just moments ago.
The plaza they had chosen for this shuddered under the sheer force, a billowing cloud of dust veiling the sun. As the dust settled, thick with lingering confusion, Orion glimpsed the cause of the chaos—a stark, black line that seemed to pour out of the void it had shot from. The sight left Orion perplexed, but he wasn’t even granted the time to wonder what it was before his full focus was dragged back to the rift, now churning with increasing instability.
It took a moment to realize the cause, another to accept it.
The rift was expanding, its edges frayed and erratic, as if the black line had been a wedge, prying it further apart. Orion's heart raced; he understood with a sinking feeling what was unfolding. The rift wasn’t just opening—it was being torn wider by the very anomaly it had expelled.
The black line expanded, and in consequence, the rift grew at an unproportional speed. One moment it was a couple of dozen meters away from them, the next it was upon them. Orion braced for impact, expecting the force of the expansion to be catastrophic. He winced, instinctively shutting his eyes against the anticipated pain.
Silence. Nothing.
Slowly, Orion opened his eyes to find himself unharmed, staring up at the vast, still-widening rift. The world around him seemed normal—if one could ever call the presence of a gigantic, gaping rift in the sky "normal."
"This is..."
The expanding black line hadn’t just stretched the rift to the Void but also the ones to the other dimensions, leaving behind a giant tear through space. From that tear, Orion saw something being spat out at a ridiculous speed, crashing like a meteor a couple of hundred meters away from them, unleashing yet another shockwave in all directions. Stepping in front of Orion, Lee shielded him from the debris hurtling toward them.
Once things calmed down, exchanging glances, they all rushed to the crash site, which they reached in an instant. Long seconds went by until the dust settled, allowing them to glimpse at what—or, to be exact, who—had been spat out by the rift. For yes, what crawled out of the crater caused by the crash had a humanoid silhouette—a woman—one that Orion immediately recognized. After all, she was the one he’d been tasked with finding for the past three months.
"Took you all long enough," she said, recovering something from the crater she crawled out of—a skull. She turned toward them, adding as she approached, "I almost thought you guys decided to abandon me in that miserable place."
Dungeon Master 06, who’d been standing silently by Orion’s side, suddenly rushed to her—an emotional outburst unlike anything Orion had ever witnessed from him. Up until now, the only emotions he'd seen were anger, impatience, and irritation. But this... this was different. It shifted Orion’s entire perspective on his fellow Dungeon Master. To Orion, much like that certain tomboyish Dungeon Master, Lee had always come off as an easily offended grouch—someone who’d relentlessly begged to push his research into territories of almost certain death, time and time again, over the last three months of their grueling search. But now, watching Lee—back in his natural form—sobbing in Arianna’s arms, how could Orion not see him differently?
Leaving them a moment, Orion only approached when she looked at him.
"Despite what I said, I’m really thankful for your help," she said with a smile, patting the emotional Dungeon Master 06, who clung to her like a child missing their mother.
"Thanks for my help, huh? I barely did anything," Orion admitted, casting a glance at the still-open rift. "Actually, I wanted to ask you… what did you do?"
The giant tree, which had acted as a barrier around the capital, now appeared even more vivid, having merged seamlessly with the sigil she’d been carrying—the expanding black line that was spat out by the fist-sized rift.
"Oh," she said simply, glancing up as if it were nothing, and casually closed the rift—just by unsummoning her sigil. Instantly, the black sigil that had pried the rift open collapsed in on itself with a violent force, the kind that drove the space-sensitive Orion to his knees.
"You alright?" she asked, Dungeon Master 06 finally withdrawing from her.
"Yes, I’m alright. So… how exactly did you do that?"
She smiled, then answered, "Despite the dimensions separating them, I was able to sense the sigil I manifested as a prison here. I knew that—unless you guys gave up on me—someone would try to use my sigil to trace me back, so I made my way here… well, to be exact, to the equivalent of this place in the Void."
It took Orion a moment to register what she so casually explained.
She had been trapped in the Void—that much was sure now. The only reason he had refused to initiate a search there was because there was no such thing as an equivalent for any place in the world, unlike the earlier layers.
Well, technically, there was—but the ever-shifting nature of that place meant that the equivalent of any location might be here one moment and a whole continent away the next. That’s why, to move around in that place, one absolutely needed teleportation power, which came with a mapping subskill and a space-wrapping subskill. So for her to claim that she sought the equivalent of this place could only mean two things…
"You acquired teleportation? Or teleportation magic?"
"Ironically, I just acquired one such skill," Arianna chuckled self-deprecatingly. "But to answer your question, no, I didn't use any of those skills. If I had, why wouldn’t I have just teleported myself out of there?"
"Oh."
It made sense, Orion realized. But as the realization settled, another thought crept in—one he refused to believe. "Then how?" he asked, frowning deeply.
"I ran," she explained simply.
"You ran," Orion echoed, before bursting into laughter at the absurdity of it. "You ran… you ran through the ever-shifting Void. Hahaha, you ran through the ever-shifting Void. Hahaha!"
As his laughter finally died down, both Arianna, Dungeon Master 06, and even the hissing White seemed to ask, "You alright?"
"Sigh, yes, I'm fine. I think I just need some rest."
"Alright," Arianna said, finally noticing the girl standing at the corner. Turning toward her, Arianna entrusted the skull she was holding to Dungeon Master 06, then opened her arms to the girl. "Come on, are you not going to welcome me back?"
The girl approached, each step clearly more hesitant than the last. About half a dozen steps away, Aquaflora came to a complete halt. From the consequential glance Arianna gave around the place, it was clear she figured out what caused this reaction. She turned to Lee and White, asking, "Did you tell her?"
Like children denying mischief, Lee shook his head. So did the White serpent wrapped around his neck.
Arianna turned back to face Aquaflora, stepping forward—but the girl immediately backed away, a silent warning not to come any closer. With a heavy sigh, Arianna spoke.
"From that reaction, I take it you’ve figured out what I did… what happened to the people of this capital." She paused, then softened her tone. "Would you like us to talk—"
Midway through her sentence, she hesitated, a heavy realization seemingly settling over her. She exhaled again, deeper this time, and corrected herself as she took a step closer.
"No, that would be a waste of time. No more justifications. I won’t try to defend what I did." She extended her hand, an offer. "There’s only one question that matters: Can you still accept me despite everything? Can you walk forward in life at my side, knowing what I’ve done?"
As Arianna stepped forward again, the girl moved back. Arianna sighed, lowering her outstretched hand.
"I’ll take that as a no." Her voice was quiet, resigned. "Then there’s only one thing left for you to do—leave."
The girl was about to speak, but Arianna cut her off.
"No need to worry about me or Goblin. We won't strike you from behind like we did the elven monarchs. Return to your people. Keep your sigil—I won’t claim it. You’ve earned it. Just go… and forget all of this."
The girl hesitated, her hands trembling at her sides. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no words came.
Arianna exhaled sharply. "Go already," she urged, her voice firm but weary.
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes as she swallowed back whatever emotions threatened to spill over. Slowly, she turned her back to them. With a quiet motion, she raised her hand, summoning her broom. It materialized before her, the wood gleaming under the faint light.
For a moment, she lingered, gripping the handle as if waiting for something—an objection, a reason to stay. Or perhaps a strike. Neither came.
Without another word, without a single glance back, she kicked off the ground. The wind rushed past as she soared into the sky, leaving them and the ruins of what was once Umbryan capital behind.
Arianna watched until the girl disappeared beyond the clouds, biting her lip, fists clenched to an audible extent. Orion wasn’t the only one to notice; Lee did too, prompting the Dungeon Master to comment, "Spineless waste of space. Her resolve is as fragile as a dandelion seed. One hint of an inconvenient reality for her soft-ass, lily-hearted brain, and she’s gone. Pathetic. All that moral high-ground bullshit, and yet she was happy to ride along ‘til it didn’t suit her any—"
Midway through what Orion could tell was going to be a much longer rant, Arianna turned toward Lee, cutting him off. "Goblin?"
"Yes Ma’am?"
"Could you please shut the fuck up?"
"Yes, of course." Like a scolded child—which, to be fair, Lee looked like in this form—he recoiled, withdrawing his presence.
While Arianna was clearly annoyed at Goblin, it didn’t take her long to regret her words. Her expression softened. "What am I even doing," she lamented. Approaching Lee, she knelt to be at his eye level, embracing him. "Forgive me, my little Goblin," she apologized, the sincerity evident in her voice.
Gently stroking his head, she explained, "I don't know what took over me—No, I think I know. I'm tired. Really tired."
"You should rest…"
"Yes, I should. I need a long rest. I want to rest. But unfortunately, I don't have much time left, so I can't really afford that."
At these words, Lee frowned in concern, and so did the serpent wrapped around him. "By that, you mean…"
He clearly dreaded the answer to that question.
She didn’t answer, not with words—she only gave a wry smile. Then, turning to Orion, she asked, "How long was I trapped in that place?"
"Three months, two weeks, and two days," Orion replied matter-of-factly.
"I see. It's much less than I imagined. That leaves me at least a decade and a half, or two. That should be enough time to decently wrap everything up."
After a gloomy moment. "We will help. White and I will help," Lee declared on his behalf and that of the Dungeon Master coiled around him.
"Thanks," she smiled. "I just happen to have something in mind for the two of you."