Chapter One Hundred Nine

Joe found himself wandering the streets once again, a burning rage and an odd need to be outside and wandering. He wasn’t sure why he needed it, but a certain amount of comfort came to him from being outside, wandering freely under the deep dark of the stars. Just… feels like I have some control…

Still, it was not much comfort for his desperate struggle against the collar. He found his mind clearer now, able to really wrestle with it in a way he was not able to before. But despite that, he was still unable to really do anything with mana without having the thing cripple his mind. That didn’t stop him from attempting as many possibilities as he could, often finding himself in crippling pain for much of the start of his nightly wanderings. Still, being able to plan and consider ideas was powerful, and Joe filled his notebook with a frenzied passion tinged with terror.

He spent most of the time wandering outside brainstorming ideas before writing them down in a frenzy when he returned home. The innkeeper or grounds keeper was very unhappy with Joe’s late night jaunts, but remained silent despite his glares. And each time he returned, Joe felt embarrassed and promised himself not to do so again, yet he found himself unable to resist the next night, the anxious tension ratcheting up until he fled into the night not wishing to wake anyone else up.

Still, he tried to be productive and occupy himself each evening. So he opened up his list of jobs and skills. There was no real change in his available job skills except to show that he could now take on another job in the lines of regen and healing mage. The next in the mage line was called regen adept and healing adept, revealing that the mages seemed to follow a similar pattern to the priest jobs, with the first job being mage, the second apprentice, and third adept. So, probably the wind magic will have wind mage, apprentice, and adept as well. So… not so much a tree as a long line splitting off from the generic mage line.

Joe then turned his attention to the skills and found them rather identical, except for the fact that the healing mage gained life friend in the apprentice job, the same as the regen mage did in the base mage job, at level forty. Originally, healing mage got cleanse instead of life friend with the base mage job. The healing apprentice also got a new skill called purify at level thirty five. Other than those changes, the regen mage and regen apprentice as well as the healing mage and healing apprentice were essentially identical, except for their signature spells, regen cut and heal cut, upgrading to regen wound and heal wound. This proved a great boon as wound allowed for a much greater variety of healing options. For cuts, the healing and regen wound spells offered faster and stronger healing capabilities with a bit less mana cost in comparison to the cut versions. But the greater benefit was that it could heal things that ‘cut’ could not. When the title said regen or heal ‘cut,’ it seemed it really meant it. When he started pushing the physical damage passed what could reasonably be called a cut, the spell seemed to balk. He could force it, but the mana cost and effort became insane and passed straight into painful. However, he found stab wounds easy to cure with heal and regen wound for minimal cost in contrast to heal and regen cuts inability to do so.

That did make him wonder if the reverse were the case, and he began attempting to heal cuts, comparing the cut and wound version of both spells and found that the cut version actually did better in both efficiency, speed, and power costs compared to the wound version. That said, the wound version could heal both and also could do both at the same time. If he cut and stabbed himself, the wound versions healed both simultaneously while the cut version only did the cut and had a very minor effect on anything not considered a cut. After a bit more testing, the spell proved to be quite versatile as well, being able to direct the wound to only heal its expected target, but the mana savings of only healing a wound with the wound version and a cut with a cut version of the spells proved nonexistent as casting two of the spells cost more than just casting the wound one to heal everything. Granted, healing two separate wounds cost more, but it still cost less than casting twice, which was an interesting observation for Joe.

With his testing of the various healing options complete, he found himself quite satisfied with his efforts, having been a bit more productive, and turned his efforts towards practicing his healing and regen magic to raise their levels after equipping a ‘char:’ skill on them. And after a half an hour had passed, it became almost robotic, Joe slicing himself then casting the spell. Cut… spell… cut… spell… cut… spell… He wandered around his home, slicing his arm without thought. On one of his circuits, he tripped over a small pothole and stumbled, the knife cutting deeper into his arm and a small cry escaping his lips when it dug deep. He blinked and glanced down at the wound on his arm with a growling curse.

Right… well… just more practice… push the magic fixing button and then it will all be bette… Joe blinked in surprised. Wait?! His thoughts swirled with surprise and wonder, even as he carefully considered what he was feeling. He thought back on his melee skills practice, remembering the odd puppeting effect he’d felt when he’d had the system teach the various spear combat skills. It… feels the same!? Am I just ‘pushing the button?’ Then… He willed the system to teach him, calling on the system to show him how to cast the spells correctly, deciding to first do it with the basic healer mage spells first, leaving the regen spells for later.

When he asked for help, he felt a strange echo within his chest, a sensation of movement or change that was incredibly odd right behind his heart, if he was feeling it right. A few moments later, something came out of his chest, an odd form or shape that was utterly alien and almost incomprehensible to him. He blinked, frowning. OK… this is not… what even is this?

He watched it, staring at it carefully as it formed. There was a movement of something, mostly a long curving esoteric shape that had no meaningful connection to what Joe would define as a ‘shape.’ The lines of the shape would form, shifting around from some arbitrary starting location before moving in the odd shape. Some of it were lines. Some were singular points, or globules of something. The moved across in their prearranged pattern before stopping.

Suddenly, it changed, and another form or shape began. This time, it was all lines and only lines. Several moved at rather rapid speed, traveling a great distance in comparison to a couple lines that form but didn’t move all that far at all. There was even singular large ‘S’ shaped line, but much shallower, that curved up the middle, dominating the entire display, forming almost immediately at the beginning of whatever Joe was looking at, and remaining relatively without change throughout the rest of it as the other lines swirled into place around the large ‘S.’ Huh… the swirling moving lines almost look like… the wind lines in animations. But…

His thoughts cut off as another pattern appeared before him, this one appearing to consist of mostly planes, with a few points scattered around. The planes didn’t seem to take up any real pattern, just a haphazard placement of slowly moving and rotating planes. After this, another formed, and another, and another. Joe watched on with growing despair as a good five or six dozens holographic ‘mini-movies’ played out in front of him and Joe wondered at just how difficult magic really was. He sighed deeply and then bit his lip in consideration. Well… I was able to with the combat… so maybe?

He willed the display to occur again but this time wishing to see it from a third party view, and the system obliged. Joe narrowed his eyes and watched very carefully.

What he saw made a lot more sense. The person showed an injury on his arm and then began to cast the healing spell. Deep in the chest, the first form of all lines appeared, rather small and immediately in the area of the heart, if not the heart itself if Joe was judging the holographic display correctly. He squinted, attempting to see the small display. Wish I could see it…

The holographic display immediately updated, showing a zoomed in display to the side, but it essentially showed what he’d seen played out before: a swirling of a bunch of lines and blobs exactly the same as the first one he’d seen. The interesting tidbit of information Joe got was when he noticed the holographic figure’s arm completely healing. His eyebrows rose up in surprise at that, but before he could say anything, it started all over again.

The cut appeared on the arm of the figure again, and then the focus shifted to the formations occurring in the heart. This time, the second form of all lines appeared and the figure was healed again. Then the wound returned and a third form was displayed. Joe quickly realized he was looking at multiple variations to accomplish the same task. But… why? Why so many ways to do the same thing? And what is… oooh… Joe grimaced in embarrassment when he realized that what he was seeing was the mana formations playing out in various movements and shapes. Is that… what it is? A movement of shape and form? Wonder how exact it has to be? Or … maybe each form is different? Some are more demanding? Or… why?

Joe then began struggling to do what he was shown, quickly realizing that he was quite overwhelmed. He then went through the various options again before choosing the easiest formation possible. He watched it a good dozen or two times, asking the system to only show that formation for now, before he began attempting to cast the spell. It was horrific. He could not see or understand what he was doing within his chest, buried within his heart, and had no real proprioception for mana within his body at all. He floundered for a long time, finding himself growing ever more upset until finally he growled in anger and huffed.

He threw off his efforts and stalked through the empty streets for a time before sighing and stretching a bit, pushing himself back to practicing again. He sighed deeply. Wish it could show me what I was doing in my ches… Joe crooked an eyebrow when a display formed before him, and Joe’s smile grew softly. OK… so… not completely useless!

He began again, and realized that he had a long way to go, his happy smile dropping quickly from his lips. This is… a lot harder than I thought! Still, he pushed on through and after almost an hour of effort, he was able to cast the spell. Nothing happened as Joe was completely healed, but he felt something take hold, and he could hold back the soft chuff of relieved laughter that hit him. Sweet… ok… so now on to real practice?

He then pulled out his knife and sliced his arm again before quickly enacting his spell. It was utterly useless, of course, as it took almost a minute or two for him to form even the simplest thing: a couple lines and a single dot! Still, it connected and Joe smiled then huffed in shock when he felt a monstrous wash of mana rush from him. He glance down to see his wound healed, smiling brightly before opening up his status page with some concern. That concern only spiked when he saw that his mana was mover three quarters gone. Holy!!! Losing seventy five percent of my mana for this… if this was a month or two ago… I wouldn’t even be able to heal at all… why is this so… bad?

He sliced himself again, and this time just pushed the button, and the heal went off easily, taking only a dozen or two mana to heal him, and he found himself frowning with consternation. That’s… what’s happening? He frowned in deep thought before considering the possibility that all these different kinds of formations might be more than simply different in how the mana formed. He had the system display the various possible forms he could enact and chosen the second easiest.

Ironically, Joe got it in only a half an hour, surprising him deeply, but when he sliced himself and tried to heal, he failed and his HP immediately healed him after the failure. So he went back to practicing again. It took another forty minutes and Joe huffed in chagrin when he got it the second time. Must have been lucky the first time… He sighed and attempted again, checking his mana to see it full before slicing an arm and attempting it again. This time, he succeeded, and smiled with relief before checking his mana.

He lost a little over a third, frowning with consternation. So… these are all variations, but why show them if there is a ‘best.’ Or… maybe… if mana costs are a variation, are there others? Speed? Focus? Power? Side effects? That last caused a shiver to run down his spine as he considered what side effects might exist for magical healing. He quickly pulled his arm up, glancing down at where he’d been cut and stared at it carefully. He noticed nothing, but put that thought deep in the back of his mind before he returned to his thoughts on the many kinds of healing spells he was seeing and wondered at all the possible factors that might exist in casting a single healing spell. Joe’s frown deepened as he realized that he had a lot more work than he realized ahead of him, and he was quickly coming to exhaustion.

Despite his exhaustion, he did take just a few minutes to bring up the regen mage’s spells and practiced them as well using the holographic training options. The regen mage’s spells proved to have less variety, but were much more complicated, and Joe frowned with bitter realization. This is going to take a long, long time! Maybe later… on my to do list. Two hours wandering outside in the dark of night had his eyes drooping and he turned to head home again.

As he turned for home, he considered options for defending himself, but often came up against the hard wall of actually meeting Gunlan, or whoever was his master. He grimaced, remembering what happened with him at the dungeon when the dungeon guard had him report back to Gunlan. He’d almost already turned and started marching off before he was able to get himself back under control, only able to resist it because he was able to cast some doubt upon the command itself.

Doubt seemed powerful, so Joe began carefully considering all possible ways he could place a command in doubt, his mind going through scenario after scenario. As he did so, he considered how he else he could protect himself, worried that if he did hear a unique command, it would be very hard from him to defend against it. Still, he spent a good amount of time carefully considering his defenses.

When he rounded the last corner to home, he found a figure leaning against the wall, not really doing anything but loitering there. Joe dismissed it, then considered the time and grew tense. He stepped across the street before passing by the man and continuing on to their temporary home, his bed calling to him.

“Runaway slave, huh?”

Joe whirled, snarling, “I’m no man’s slave!”

The man paused at that, staring at Joe while raising his hands up in a placating gesture and sighing with some consternation, “Woah! Woah. I’m just noticing. Besides,” the man stopped talking at that point and just tilted his head to the side, pulling the collar of his high collared cloak down and to the opposite direction of his tilting head.

Joe stared at the man, his eyebrows furrowing before he glanced down to look at the man’s neck. He glanced back, and the man frowned, but did not move at all except to offer another annoyed huff. Joe’s eyes turned back to the neck after a few moments, even as they narrowed and he tried to figure out what the man was trying to show or say. It took a couple seconds, which Joe found a bit embarrassing, but it all seemed to click with the epiphany even as his eyes glanced back up at the man with understanding before looking back down at the neck, putting a lot more effort into seeing what was there. A few moments later, he saw it; a barely discernable discoloration on the skin that became more obvious as he focused on it more until it finally became a full-fledged dull collar enwrapping his throat. Joe breathed a heavy sigh even as a grimace twisted his lips. He turned his attention back to the man and the man seemed a bit surprised, looking at Joe with a bit more respect.

“You see it already.”

Joe nodded, then grit his teeth, “Yes.”

The man stared at Joe a bit more before nodding, “Normally, I would say someone with so much anger would fare poorly, but…”

Joe cut him off, “Poorly at what?”

“At resisting the collar or … surviving.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed, “Why would I not survive?”

The man shook his head, “Your body might survive, but likely you would cease to exist in any meaningful way, a junky or a flesh golem; one of the two.”

Joe breathed deeply as he listened, then nodded in reply, “I’m not sure I understand, could you explain more?”

The man’s lips twisted, “I’m pushing the bounds of capability as it is. If I do so more, my co…” the man grimaced and turned his head away while stretching his neck side to side, “That hurt. There is little more I can speak on the subject of which we once were.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed, “Could you possible simply nod or say yes or no?”

The man’s eyes rose a bit, surprised, “Possibly. But can you ask the questions?”

Joe’s nostrils flared even as anger rose then he calmed and continued, “I can attempt to speak. You say a flesh golem, do you mean a lack of choice?”

The man’s eyebrows rose as Joe spoke and he pushed off from the wall to stare at Joe with some consideration, “You… are strong.”

Joe stared, uncertain how to respond beyond shrugging, “I am not that strong.”

The man stared for a bit before gritting his teeth and responding, “Nothing is…” he grunted, bending over with some pain, huffing wildly before a final word escaped his lips in a wild grunt of barely held pain, “… left!”

Joe frowned. Nothing is left? What is not left? Where… Joe blinked and concern quickly came to him. He almost responded but noticed the man was still bent over, huffing with some pain and Joe waited patiently, not stepping to his side. The man took a bit of time to stand back up, a deep grimace still twisting his face into a gut wrenching pain. Joe waited a bit more, wondering what he could do before an idea hit him, and he attempted to fire off a heal at the man, just pressing the ‘heal’ button in himself somewhere before also pushing a regen. Neither seemed to do anything, but the man did jerk when Joe did it before looking up at Joe with a complicated look.

“A healer. You… thank you.”

“But it did nothing.”

The man smiled bitterly, “Not really. Not unless you are a mind mage or some such.”

Joe’s smile grew bigger and he shook his head, “No. Not really. Sorry.”

The man’s eyebrow quirked, mumbling under his breath, “Not really?” before continuing on with the conversation, “Do you understand?”

Joe’s smile fell and he nodded, “I… think so. The mind will break, and only … your body is no longer yours… likely your mind trapped within, broken and twisted… or simply turned in upon itself to escape the pain.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as Joe continued, his teeth gritting, “You know… much for not being a mind mage.”

Joe’s own bitterness rose at that, “It did nothing to save me.”

The man nodded, “Be cautious. You have not escaped.”

Joe nodded, “I can tell. There is little I can do.”

The man nodded, “But pushing your escape will not make the return easier.”

Joe growled, but replying with a desperate hope, he replied with his mantra that he now chanted daily, “Agreed. But I am my own master.”

The man’s eyes rose at that, “Interesting. You are a slave to yourself?”

Joe chuckled, “Some on my plane spoke of such; the need to control oneself, or to beat your own desires into submission to your will.”

The man’s eyes dropped at that, seeming a bit confused, “What? How…”

Joe laughed, “It is a metaphor to control your poor desires and laziness to drive yourself on to greater or more enlightened pursuits instead of wasting yourself and your time on lazy pleasures.”

The man seemed to quickly grasp the idea, understanding flooding him as he nodded, “An interesting way to view the world and yourself… your desires.”

Joe nodded, “Yes. Although a part of that was the understanding that you were your own man… master.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, a soft grin coming to his lips before he turned to look at Joe with some joy, “Thank you. Truly. This… is…” the man took a deep breath, a sigh of relief and somehow seemed to stand just that little bit stronger.

“This is an amazing gift. I thank you.”

Joe’s grin wavered, uncertain of what he really offered except in the most tangential of ways but nodded, “You are welcome.”

The man nodded in return, “I offer a gift in return.”

Joe’s smile fell, a serious look replacing it as he nodded but didn’t reply.

“You have done well in escaping thus far, but if you wish more, you must seek a command,” the man grunted, grinding his teeth as he shuddered and took a deep breath. The pause took almost thirty seconds before the man was able to stand again, then he smiled.

“Your gift… is amazing, but still… not enough… Maybe… you would be willing to hear a story?”

Joe’s eyebrow quirked at that, wondering what the man would say but nodding again. The man continued.

“A certain man was captured as a slave and sought escape, as all slaves do. However, as all slaves do, escape proved impossible, the collar impossible to defeat. So, the slave listened well to his master, becoming obedient,” the man forcefully highlighted the last word with both a strong punch of increased volume and a tilted head with meaningful look, “to his master, obedient in what the master wanted.”

The master then, in desperation, gave a command to the slave and the slave obeyed, and has been obeying ever since. The master commanded the slave to ‘use all means necessary,’ although some were told to ‘seek everywhere without fail’ or possibly to ‘put all effort into seeking out’ what the master desired. The master would offer no constraints nor limit the time, allowing the slave to be utterly obedient in his efforts to seek out everywhere and with diligence for all time, whatever the master commanded. Once the slave had found the master’s desire, the slave, of course, was obedient and returned to the master immediately, not wishing to be subject to the collars ire or imperious command. Does this story offer some help?”

Joe’s eyes widened even as he felt his breathing deepen. Understanding came quickly and he nodded, “I believe I do understand.”

The man nodded, grinning softly, “Obey, and you have no need to fear reprisal and you are ‘free’ to continue your pursuits.”

Joe smiled softly, nodding with something closer to some excitement, “Thank you. Your gift is much appreciated. If I could know your name? My name is J…”

“I do not wish to know your name… at all. And you do not know mine. I will always be an excellent and obedient slave to my master, reporting exactly all that I know. But I do not know you, sir.”

Joe’s eyes widened in understanding before he quickly nodded, his nodding growing as his understanding did as well, “Much thanks, sir. Then, I will be going.”

The man nodded, his grin growing before he turned, preparing to leave but then looked back to Joe, “You seem new, so I offer this as warning if necessary. Slave masters.”

The man flinched with that, a grimace which had him grinding his teeth, but through it, a feral smile shone and the man shifted to a growling laughter of joy, “You gift was… amazing! I will be ever grateful for it!”

The man wiped away the small trickle of blood that came from his mouth where he’d bit his lip and one from his nose, for which Joe had no explanation but to wonder at what pressures were being put on the man. Joe bowed his head slightly with a smile.

“No need to thank me. I’m only glad it helps. May I ask one final question?” Joe asked, realizing the man was ready to move on, his anxiety beginning to show and Joe easily understood it.

The man nodded, his smile still easy and Joe grinned in thanks, “Is it a job?”

The man’s smile fell, but he simply nodded then bid Joe farewell without any reply, simply waving and moving on. Joe watched him go, but then offered a slight bow to the man’s back, grateful, but not wishing to shout out after the man. If he saw him again, it would be when he was free and hopefully able to repay the kindness the man had offered him.

Joe sighed deeply and then turned away. Let’s get some sleep! And plan! As he wandered home, his mind struggled with his current predicament, wrestling with options to protect himself, but his exhausted mind proved unable to consider the problem with the diligence it deserved. After a few moments, he sighed and reluctantly admitted he wasn’t going to be finding any meaningful solutions in the dead of night as he walked exhausted back to his room. Do it tomorrow… gotta do it ASAP, can’t wait on this. But… at least… yeah… His mind, unable to carefully consider the ideas he had, instead kept a careful list, to remind himself of what he’d at least considered so he could delve into them with greater diligence at a later time.

With that decided, he found his mind wandering in boredom and he turned to his status, poking at it as he walked home. However, when he made it to the courtyard of the villa they were staying at, Joe froze, having just clicked on his titles screen. His face wavered between rage and despair, even as his teeth clenched and unclenched in wild spasms and his breath turned to a heavy panting.

He stared at the several new titles he’d been granted and felt an overwhelming rage swell up within him once again, even as despair laced its way through the rage, undermining and rotting it from inside out. His entire upper body clenched with tension even as he threw his head back and stared up at the sky full of moons and a gas giant. His roar was silent, full bodied, and heard by no one, even as a desperate pain welled up through him. Upon his status window, the titles flickered, fading in and out, but ultimately firmed with the stubbornness of reality. Joe did not notice, but took a very long time before slipping inside and to his bed. He saw the titles, but ultimately rejected them, finding a peace and a drive to push on in that moment he’d been lacking before. When he did lay down on his bed, it was not to seek rest or peace, but both claimed him almost immediately, even as his exhaustion overwhelmed him.

Slave (Title): You are a slave. Your status bonuses are locked out against your masters.

Disobedient Slave (Title) * 12: You are a disobedient slave. You deliberately struggle against your master's commands. You gain access to intelligence, wisdom, learning, luck, and MP for your struggles.

Spit in your Eye (Superior Title) * 3: You have caused harm to your owners and betters. You care little for their power and control. You gain access to your strength, agiility, and speed.

Master's Masochism (Title): Your master finds enjoyment in struggling with controlling you. Will is now accessible in your rejection of your status.

Rejector (Title): You reject your status as slave within society.

Synergistic gain - Slave, Disobedient Slave, Spit in your Eye, Mastor's Masochism - You rage!

* * *

I do not know your name, stranger, but I, Ransfernal, am forever in your debt. If I am able, I vow to offer repayment, if ever I could. Ransfernal grimaced with some rage, unable to find a way to properly repay as he was now under the control of another. Then he grinned, withholding his joy laughter as he thought on the stranger’s odd philosophy. I am my own master! Truly… I must be, or I will fall to sloth and base desires! Such an easy… but… He felt himself growing giddy with the thought. Maybe, if I can incorporate it… Still, it would be difficult, for the stranger believed it deep to his core, and yet the collar still held a deep sway, the man still foolishly circling his home in the wee hours of every morning. The poor fool… his pity for the man turned to bitterness for his own plight, unable to truly offer a proper recompense to the man for what he’d done. Ransfernal continued his quest, ever obedient to his master’s request while doing everything in his power to make it never come to fruition. I will find it… I will find it even if it takes the rest of my life, for I am a good slave. I obey. I obey. I obey…

* * *

Joe woke the next morning feeling more at peace than he’d felt in a long time, the anxiety that plagued him had retreated by a significant amount, offering a clarity to his thoughts that he hadn’t realized was missing. I’m being obedient. I must search out cores. He woke with a deep but soft sigh and then stretched, finding the bed empty. He grew concerned, but then heard the soft hum of noise in the shared living room outside his door and calmed, the general sounds of life soft but calm, letting him know all was well. Joe blinked, wondering with some surprise. Man, I really slept in a lot… kinda crazy with how many hours each day has, but… I’ll take it.

He lounged in bed, shifting, lazily like a cat in the sun as he stretched. So… nice. Kinda… miss this. He lay like this for a time before rising and standing, finding his body demanding another stretch that had his whole body pulling outward, his arms reaching towards the roof. He then shook a bit, winding his waist through a full three sixty circle to stretch his core before pulling on his shirt and heading out the door.

Outside, a meal was laid out on the low table between all the chairs and the group all quieted when Joe came out, glancing up at him, before returning to their conversation. Xylarnae was rather quiet, but listened politely as Kalia leaned in and spoke softly into her ear. Gwenvair ignored their conversation and came up to give Joe a hug while Stephliquen sat stiffly in her chair while eating but remaining mostly quiet and withdrawn. Joe called out a soft good morning to which they all replied with their own, although Kalia and Stephliquen took quite a bit longer to respond. Stephliquen simply looked up, staring at everyone before looking at him, listening avidly but speaking nothing.

Joe took his breakfast quickly before settling back, enjoying the solitude of silence for a time before turning to Gwenvair, “Anything specific today?”

Gwenvair shook her head, “Whatever may come.”

Joe quirked and eyebrow at that, smiling, “Then the intermediate dungeon is next.”

Gwenvair seemed confused by it, but nodded and Joe grinned, “We have some time, but not much left. We gotta get going.”

“For what?”

Joe’s grin grew, “A little hello to Gunlan.”

Gwenvair nodded at that, her own grin growing with his but didn’t respond.

Joe leaned forward and continued, “We should… do something though.”

Gwenvair perked up, eager to hear what he had to say, “What?”

“Could you let certain... friends of yours know they might want to move?”

Gwenvair’s eyebrows fell, “What?”

Joe continued, “Let anyone you care about to find… another home. Sell… everything, if they can.”

Gwenvair’s concern grew, “You… I thought you were not going to destroy…”

Joe shook his head and interjected, “I’m not going to hurt anyone, but Gunlan … his foun…” Joe growled and struggled to find a way to continue, “Please just tell people to sell and move while they can.”

Gwenvair frowned with some consternation, “If they do not?”

Joe shrugged, “They will be fine, but they will probably lose a lot of money?”

Gwenvair sat back at that, nodding a bit, “OK. But… where should they go?”

Joe frowned, “They can go anywhere they want?”

Gwenvair’s face fell at that, fear settling in and Joe’s frown deepened and he quickly interjected to interrupt her obvious distress, “Hey. Hey. I don’t understand, but obviously I said something wrong or didn’t understand your question. I’m not sure what you mean by that question, so… I’m not trying to be rude or hurt you, but I really don’t understand what is happening.”

Gwenvair’s fears calmed very quickly after that, and her eyes searched his for a time before she nodded and continued, “You tell my people … my family… my clan to flee but offer no place to go. Do you wish to destroy the clan? To scatter them to nothing?”

Joe heard this and found himself even more confused but also concerned, “No? I don’t want your clan to scatter? Nor destroy it? But, just leave here.”

“And where would they go?”

Joe stared at her for a time, his own eyes searching hers as he struggled to understand the question and the reply came back carefully, “Anywhere they want? They can go together if they want.”

Gwenvair’s face broke at that, fear settling in, “You wish us to go to another clan’s city? How can we live there under the thumb of another? And we have no other location to…”

Understanding flooded Joe and he sat back, “Right. Lands… clan lands. I’m so sorry. I didn’t really und… uh, I … sorry. Um. You need a place that is yours and not under the control of another clan?”

Gwenvair nodded quickly as fear warred with hope, “Yes. We cannot … yes.”

“There are no free cities?”

Gwenvair frowned at that, “Probably, but… within a great city, we will be one more lost and small clan amongst many other lost clans and many of great power and connections to others.”

Joe noticed Gwenvair’s subtle emphasis and latched on to it, seeking clarity, “Lost clans?”

Gwenvair nodded, “A clan that has lost its lands and is no longer a … well, they are not truly worthy of being a clan any longer.”

“Without lands, they are not a clan?”

Gwenvair nodded again and Joe paused, lost in thought before turning to Gwenvair, “What are your clan’s holdings?”

“This city.”

“And anything surrounding it?”

“The fields and forest around it.”

“How many day’s ride out?”

Gwenvair smiled at that, “Maybe… a day. No more?”

Joe nodded, “Do you know of a small village two days north of Coushar? Past a large river about a day and a half north?”

“There is a village there? Hmm… I believe I have heard rumors, but the wilds to the north are… dangerous and few live there. There are no clan holdings north of us. We are the border to the wilds to the north.”

Joe thought, “Huh. Well, the village is quite peaceful and well settled when I was there. You could find a good place there.”

Gwenvair seemed to find some relief with this, breathing deeply, “Can you tell me of it?”

Joe nodded and described the small lakeside town to Gwenvair, speaking of what he’d found there and Gwenvair grew both a bit excited as well as more concerned. Their conversation lasted for a time until the sun had well and truly risen and Joe pushed their group to head out to the next dungeon.

Gwenvair paused at that, and turned to Joe, “Can I talk to some of my people and leave right after?”

* * *

“We will leave soon. May I care for me and mine for a time?”

Joe cocked his headed but nodded, “Sure. Do as you must.”

Gwenvair sped from the room and sought the exit of the villa after she put on a deeply hooded cloak. It was worn and looked to be poorly maintained, the cloak of one on their last legs, ragged around the edges and seemed to be barely clinging together. However, it was enough to hide face and features where it mattered for her. She made sure to shift slightly, pushing her form to pure base, hiding her ulvan tails and ears completely. She slipped from the courtyard and out into the streets of the poor quarters until she’d wound herself around a half a dozen corners and alleys before coming to a more well-known square within the poor quarters. She came to the edge of an alley that opened up into the square, staying short of it just a couple paces to remain in the shadows, then whistled and failed. She cursed, struggled to get her base form mouth to form the appropriate whistle before finally giving in and pulling the cloak further over her head and returning to her rest form.

The whistle came easy this time, and for those who were aware, a subtle shifting within the square showed several merchants tightening up their booths or even a few pulling in their more costly displays and packing them away rapidly. However, the cries for sales did not abate, and most did not even notice the actions. Gwenvair waited, maintaining her rest form for the moment until the return whistle was called out and she replied once again with her own whistle. Only then did she push her form back to full base to maintain some form of disguise. She waited nervously then calmed when she saw the arriving group of three. She barely held in her sigh of relief as they caught her eyes and acknowledged her, all without any obvious movement to give away her position.

They did not head towards her, and instead continued on to another alley. Gwenvair retreated several steps as well before turning and striding quickly down the alleyway before turning several corners. The last turn found her in an odd crook of a cul de sac with the other three already there, waiting silently.

“Boss.”

“Boys,” Gwenvair replied, roughening her voice slightly as well as shifting to a crasser accent.

“It’s been awhile, boss.”

Gwenvair chuffed, “Many strange things have been happening, and many more worries. There is a lot happening.”

The easy stance of the others shifted, firming up even as their faces took on a grim look, “Bad?”

Gwenvair smiled, and allowed her feral glee to come out in her voice, “For some!”

That caused the others to tense then relax, even as they began to smile, “Tell us, boss. What do you need?”

Gwenvair nodded, “It’s time to run.”

The joy vanished from their faces as some grew bitter, “Leave? Boss, we can fight!”

Gwenvair shook her head, laughing again, “You don’t understand. I want you to send a runner into the clan. Seek out the new mist mage, Allanar! Tell him he and his must flee the city.”

The bitter defiance to stay and fight evaporated at that and the three stared at her with some consternation, “The clan… must flee?”

Gwenvair’s grin grew even as she nodded, “You can stay if you wish, but I’ve been told it would be wise to pack up. Sell what you can. Sell everything. And leave.”

“Where do you we go?”

Gwenvair nodded, “You can go wherever you wish, although tell the mist mage of a village to the north, small and unremarkable, but save. It is two days walk to the north then west. Walk a day, pass the forest guardian, then another half a day to the river. Cross the river and continue north until you reach the crossroads. Take a left, going west. You will come upon the village near the end of the second day. On the last path, you must be cautious of free roaming slimes that cross the road from south to north, but they pass singly. There is a good home there.”

The three looked at her with some consternation and she stepped forward, allowing a hand to exit before falling on their shoulders.

“Tell your friends and family as well. Tell those you can trust; those who will be useful. Send them north as well. Meet me there. You must do this quickly. There is not much time.”

The three had shifted in worry until they were also invited along, and then relief had flooded them as they all nodded, ‘Thank you, boss.”

“I wouldn’t forget you! But, make sure the trouble makers do not come along.”

“That means we can’t take Stulen along, then.”

One of the three turned with a spluttering dismay, punching the speaker in the arm, “Hey!”

The others laughed, Gwenvair joining in before she nodded, “I must return quickly.”

The other three instantly stilled their laughter and nodded, one quickly asking a question, “How long?”

“I don’t know, but it will be very fast, I believe.”

The searched her deep hood and she finally dropped it, but made sure to keep her neck covered, despite the incredibly unlikely chance that they would notice her collar. The nodded when they saw her serious gaze and turned to leave, but one stepped forward, leaning down to speak to her.

“You are well.”

Gwenvair bit off her immediate reply before nodding slowly, “There are struggles, but yes. I am well.”

“What do we need to know?”

Gwenvair nodded at that and began quickly speaking of several pieces of pertinent information, the other two returning and beginning to question her freely as the third had done, and the conversation went for a bell or two before all were satisfied. Gwenvair then dismissed them and the other three sped off before Gwenvair flipped her hood back up, shifting it carefully to make sure it fully covered her face before she returned back to the villa, nervous but happy to be doing something.

* * *

Coushar stirred, a slow yet surging shift within the common populace of the outer city. Some people moved with excitement and purpose for a future filled with hope and exhilarating possibilities, others with trepidation and fear of an uncertain future. The people spoken to moved with cautious deliberation. It took a few days, but soon dozens upon dozens of well-known family businesses and homes had been sold, most purchased by the wealthy of the clan or inner city. This shift in economy did not end, however, as friends told other friends, and a soft murmur spread through the outer city of Coushar, and soon, even more homes and businesses were put up for sale. The swell of sales grew firmly if not quickly before slowing, but much of outer Coushar found itself changing hands with the people of outer Coushar faring quite poorly and the clan and inner city gaining quite a massive amount of wealth.

* * *

Joe followed along, Gwenvair leading the way to the dungeon this time, being the only one in the group to be able to guide them and they soon found themselves winding through a different and a bit poorer part of town compared to the beginner and advanced dungeon with the streets quite a bit emptier. When they made it to the intermediate dungeon, Joe was surprised to find no line and the guards of the dungeon a rather slovenly mess. One leaned back against the door and stared at them with a bored if slightly surprised look, waving them into the door with an obvious annoyance at having been bothered. His superior seemed to be utterly uncaring, a chair and table sat by the entrance where he sat and played some cards with a couple other guards. Their loud raucous conversation and laughter the only noise in the very small courtyard that surrounding the intermediate dungeon.

Joe didn’t make any waves, and walked straight on through into an obviously main made structure that turned out to be another inner wall surrounding a pit in the ground. He looked up to see a couple guards lazily standing on the wall, only one or two staring down at the pit; all the others seemed to be sitting at some tables, copying their superior’s actions and playing some form of card or tile games.

Joe didn’t waste much time on the guards, turning to look at the pit with some interest, finding a stairwell leading down into it. It was rather odd to see just a hole with a staircase leading down into the ground. The entrance of the staircase was on the opposite side from the entrance to the surrounding wall, and Joe found himself feeling rather anxious when he walked in and found a pit right at his feet. He took a right, and those behind made their own choice, walking to the left or right. They all rounded the pit until they arrived at the top of the stairs on the other side and began walking down into the dungeon.

Man… talk about a safety hazard. Why would the… well, a bit of extra time, I guess, if the monsters flood out, gotta run out and around to the other side… and a lot of them have got to fall into the pit as they’re jostled around, but still… maybe… man… The lack of a balustrade around the stairwell just had his guts churning up in a knot worried about anyone falling in. Maybe some kind of detachable balustrade? Have a rope tied to the tope and the poles loosely place in a hole in the ground? The ropes lead up to the walls and they can just pull them up that way? Then they can have it a bit safe for delvers but still pull it up in the event of a break?

Joe’s thoughts came to an end when the stairwell leading down ended in a small alcove with nowhere to go but a massive door with a massive handprint on it. Huh… a boss door right off the bat? That’s… wait… huh…

The door was empty of any other medallion slots like the beginner dungeon had, with only a large single handprint split in half by the two doors. He stared up at it with some consternation before turning to look at Gwenvair with a crooked eyebrow.

“So. This… this… no wait. Why is this the intermediate dungeon if the first thing you meet going in is a boss? That seems a bit… pretty tough. At least tougher than the advanced dungeon.”

Gwenvair smiled at that, “Possibly, but it has less floors.”

“Hmm… so the number of floors determines the placement of the dungeon?”

“Not really. But it is one of the things.”

“Then what… you know what? Something for later… and definitely something I need to learn, but for now, can you explain what this is?”

Gwenvair nodded quickly, “This is a challenge dungeon.”

Joe furrowed his brows, “So the advanced would be… a maze? I guess. But what is the beginner? It has a maze on the fourth floor, but the first three... definitely not mazes.”

Gwenvair nodded, “The advanced one is a maze, you are right. The beginner would be considered mixed, a combination of farm and maze. That’s why it barely counts as beginner, being quite a bit weaker than most other dungeons, especially with so few floors and most of them farming floors.”

Joe considered before nodding. Huh… guess that make sense… farming dungeon… farm the mobs? I guess? Easy field of lots of mobs to kill… definitely the definition of farming exp, but… that seems a bit on the nose.

“Thank you. So, a challenge dungeon is what?”

Gwenvair smiled, and grew a bit nervous, “Basically a series of fights with a single monster, usually, where you have to defeat each one to go to the next.”

“Then this one is not a mixed dungeon?”

“No. It is a pure one.”

“And pure ones are considered…. Usually they are seen as better as they are able to devote to that singular task. There are a lot of exceptions, though.”

“Huh… so this is just a series of fighting one monster one after the other?”

Gwenvair smiled, a bit saddened, “This is not a pure challenge dungeon, either. My clan wasn’t quite able to procure any pure dungeon.”

“What about the advanced dungeon?”

Gwenvair sighed, “That was the dungeon placed for the city.”

Joe felt questions burble up, cocking a head and began to ask but Gwenvair raised a hand and continued.

“I’ll explain. The clans place cities up as a defense against the wilds where the greater monsters roam. As monster grow or change, they push out weaker ones and they rampage to find a new home, fleeing greater threats. To keep the lands tamed, cities are formed to be a bulwark against the migration of beasts and monsters. The village you speak of must be… quite lucky to exist and survive where it is. Most villages would be destroyed quickly because of a single shift in power with the depths of the northern wilds.

“In order to maintain the cities and offer incentives and training, each city is founded with a single dungeon. The advanced dungeon is the legacy dungeon of the city and it is to be used for training and preparing the citizens to develop and be able to fight against any monsters; to be able to defend the city against the wilds.”

“Huh. So, then monster tides come from the wilds?”

Gwenvair smiled and shook her head, “No. Every city has monster tides, although frontier cities, like our own, have more monsters and greater danger. The wilds can send forth many more monsters than the tamed lands within the depths of the tamed lands.”

“So the beginner and intermediate were bought and brought in later?”

“Bought or captured from the wilds and brought here. I’m uncertain of which. It occurred long ago.”

“Hmm… that is interesting.”

Gwenvair nodded, “Yes.”

“And the fourth dungeon?”

“That is the clan dungeon.”

Joe paused at that, staring at Gwenvair carefully, “Am I allowed to ask after it? Or is that rude… should I not do that?”

Gwenvair smiled softly, “There would be little we could do to stop you, so there is no point, but usually such things are jealously guarded for fear of losing them.”

“Yeah… thus the guards at the entrance.”

“Both to protect the people from rare breaks and to protect investments.”

“So I shouldn’t randomly walk into cities and ask about clan dungeons.”

Gwenvair’s smile broke into soft giggles and she nodded, “Some clans might be paranoid of such, although some powerful people and adventurers pay for access so they may have special training within clan dungeons.”

“Are they that good?”

Gwenvair’s face fell, “Ours is… both a great treasure and useless. It is only a single floor, but it is a base combat version.”

Joe felt his eyebrows furrow, the question forming even as the statement ended, “Base combat?”

Her smile returned and Gwenvair continued, “A dungeon that has fighting against humanoid enemies. It is of great training for warfare and military combat.”

Joe felt his eyebrows rise quickly at that, “You fight humans? Why aren’t they freed.”

Gwenvair quickly shook her head, “They are not humans. They are monsters, through and through, but simply in a human form and fight as a human.”

Joe’s questions only expanded at that, “Then, wouldn’t the beginner dungeon with the goblins be a highly treasured dungeon? That would…”

Joe trailed off as Gwenvair immediately began shaking her head no so he stopped to hear her explanation, “The goblin dungeon… it was a great treasure for its place and time, but combat against goblins is much like combat against children. They are small and weak. It doesn’t really train for combat against humans, elves, or dwarves or for any other base form that uses weaponry. It is a good… it is good for an introduction to weapon combat, but not truly useful.”

“Huh. I guess I could see that?”

Gwenvair sighed at that before nodding, “It was a great boon when we acquired it, but it proved rather meaningless. The difficulty is too great to train our youth, too dangerous to train our mages, and useless to train our veterans as they easily defeat the monsters there.”

Joe’s thoughts immediately generated another half a dozen questions and even as he considered asking more, he sighed deeply and shook his head. Not really important now. I have time to ask later. Just need to focus and move for now. Need to get out of here asap.

“Then, where is it? If I could ask?”

Gwenvair stared at him for a time before replying with searching eyes, “Do you remember the small walled section covered in green vines between the villa you stayed at and the part of the wall you defended while we had the monster tide? That is the dungeon defensive fort. It is inside.”

Joe furrowed his brows before slowly nodding as memory came back to him. He wasn’t quite sure he remembered that at all, but ultimately it didn’t matter too much as he was able to easily place it within his memory.

“Why didn’t we ever go? Or… should I have asked to take you?”

Gwenvair’s smile lit up at that and she shook her head as she laughed, “No, I… it would have been fun, but maybe some day.”

Joe’s own grin was an adequate reply, but he wanted to offer more so reached forward with his hand and laid it on her own, “Next time, tell me! I would have done it for you.”

Gwenvair’s smile grew as she nodded, grateful. The two stared at each other for a time, before a soft snort of annoyed disgust came from their side and Joe glanced over to see Kalia frowning with disapproval while glancing away.”

“Seriously, star crossed lovers?”

Joe’s face bent to amused confusion as he shook his head, “Is there something wrong with that?”

Kalia didn’t look back at that statement, turning away more fully and Joe snorted before turning back to the door himself. Right… junior high kid who thinks love is icky… He hid his sigh and turned to Gwenvair.

“Do you know anything about this dungeon and its bosses or fights?”

Gwenvair frowned and shook her head, “I’m sorry. I only know that it is twelve floors.”

“Well, then… let’s go, hmm… wait. Give me a second.”

Joe had stood and walked to the door but then stopped, considering some things.

He stepped up and popped open the first door, placing his hand into the imprint that had swooped down and shrunk to the perfect size right in front of him. The door swung open into a large room without any ceiling he could see. He stared at it, then readied to stop in before pausing. Wait… jobs… ok. Well… let’s see! I’m really gonna need to be sneaky… so… uh. Ooh! There is a hmm… can’t remember it, but some kind of sneaky class, right? That Acokzau ne… Joe’s eyes closed as his breath caught, even as the memory of Kilniara and Zilnek flooded his mind, raging twisting through his mind like a destructive tornado even as pain and separation ripped through it all. He took a deep breath and pushed it back, even as a hand settled on his arm and a deep peace swept through him. His smile returned as his focus did, and he continued. So… some sneaky class… had to go up through… adventurer, explorer, scout… yeah… then, yup… seems like my bottleneck is scout. So let’s do that and since these are boss fights, I’m not getting a lot of mobs to fight. Gonna need to boost my exp if I want to unlock that job, so… gifted, definitely, and pope… or… wait... yeah, pope but swap double learning char back to theorist… I’ll get two double learning! But no… wait… theorist… yeah theorist… I should be doing… yeah uh… ooh! Theorist is forty five, so … yeah… just theorist and I can at least put some exp into a job instead of pope… waste to have pope anymore. That… might just be enough! If I’m lucky! Wait! Joe cursed, realizing he still had transporter equipped for its magic bag to hold his weapons and, most importantly, the advanced dungeon core. He grimaced and decided he would have to drop the healing mage spot, wanting to get scout up as soon as possible.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Joe quickly swapped out his jobs, putting in theorist, gifted, and scout in with scout as his main job. He looked at the next healing mage in line, which was healing adept, with disappointment. He sighed and kept the transporter job in the last spot. Well… I got heal wounds… that’s pretty decent. Need to get the other jobs up, but… only one mob and if I want the next job in line… He looked up back into the room through the now open door, grinning with confidence before boldly stepping into the room.

* * *

Stephliquen paused the perusing of her strange status screens when she saw the subject step forward and the door reacted once again. She stared avidly, desperate to understand the mechanism used to create hard light images that still proved useful as an impediment forward. She still could not understand how a holographic display could block physical movement let alone how the fidelity of the display was so perfect.

Holographic displays were nothing new, but placing light into three dimensional space on the actual space time continuum was impossible, from what she understood of science. Oh, there were tricks to it, using smoke, or water, or glass to capture light at the appropriate location for the display, but this was incredible. The fidelity, power, control, and interaction on the physical level. This… would open up so many possibilities amongst my people! How…

The door opened and the subject stepped through. The others followed after and when the doors began to shut on their own, Stephliquen sprinted in after. Still don’t want to be alone!

* * *

Joe glanced around the large room, a bit worried to see no ceiling but there was no sky either; simply a black expanse without end. Scattered around the room were random objects, such as a log, rock or stump. In the corner, a single tree grew, pushing up well past into the dark nothing above, yet still fully lit and easily seen as if the blackness above had no bearing upon that which was below. It looked like a typical meadow in a deep forest, the walls a literal wall of impenetrable wood. He glanced to the right and left to see the wall of trees behind, then turned fully to see the oddity of a wall set in space right at the wall of trees. The wall didn’t seem to be set into any wall of either wood or stone. Instead, it just existed in the middle of space with trees spanning either side of it and several large bursts of treetop foliage visible above and behind the door.

To the sides, empty space loomed and was replaced by the wall of trees and while it looked like Joe could push into the trees, he quickly realized that the trees were somehow impossibly close, making squeezing into the forest an impossibility. He could get his hand and part of his body in, but something seemed to squeeze him back out much like a bar of soap popping out from between wet hands. Joe found it interesting, but dismissed it for now, turning back to the face the center of the meadow. Maybe something to see later!

Across the way, deep shadows covered the floor at the edge of the wall of trees and nothing really happened so Joe turned his gaze across other portions of the meadow and forest edge. Shadows seemed ever present across the entire forest edge. The meadow in the middle appeared rather bright but for a single tree slightly off center which had a deep shadow under its branches.

Joe remained at the door, refusing to step in further but grew more anxious as nothing happened. As Joe watched, growing more uptight, the last person behind him finally stepped through and the doors behind him closed with soft but deep thrumming ‘chunk.’ The noise did not bother him but when the door closed, the entire room changed and Joe suddenly realized why he’d been feeling so anxious. The forest came alive. The soft sound of insects started buzzing while the chirping of birds suffused the area. The graze and branches of the trees began waving in a soft mild but cooling breeze and the shadows began to move. Joe glanced around rapidly. Wait? The shadows began to move? Joe’s eyes narrowed, his eyes rapidly going back to the shadows but found them swaying in response to the swaying of the branches. Maybe not?

His eyes turned to the rest of the empty meadow, staring at everything even as his anxiety began to ratchet up. This time, he found his gaze naturally focusing on the shadows and even as his gaze began to ratchet up their speed, darting around the meadow. Suddenly, he noticed it, a location where the shadows behaved very odd. He saw it only for a second. He took another couple seconds to find it again, quickly noticing the odd behavior of the shadows and soon was able to pick out the location of the oddly shifting shadow. It was now half way down the room on his left side, and when he was able to pick it out, he quickly realized that the shadow was not simply a shifting anomaly within the deep shadows at the edge of the forest, but it was moving around the edge of the room, remaining in the shadows and smoothly traveling down the side of the room towards them.

Joe clenched his teeth and took a step into the room, keeping the traveling shadow in view but turning to his left to catch the back wall in his peripheral vision. Same shadows… that’s… Something bizarre caught his attention and he glanced to his left where to door was to find it gone, replaced by a wall of forest. Joe found it fascinating but immediately cursed when he realized he’d taken his eyes off the shadow. He ripped his gaze back to where he last saw the shadow then jumped ahead by a good couple strides, desperately searching for the shadow before finally seeing it and calming before tensing, realizing that he hadn’t checked behind him either. More than one? Maybe? That’s…

“To the middle of the room. Now! But stay away from shadows.”

The others quickly fallowed with Gwenvair grabbing and pulling Stephliquen along until they were past him. Joe kept facing the shadow as it continued to moved down the edge of the room and along the back wall, traveling towards them. Joe began stepping backwards into the meadow before stopping about six or seven paces from the shadow.

“Not too much further. Stay here, but please look in all directions.”

He heard the others behind him stop and he returned his focus to the shadow. It shifted further down the back wall until it reached as close to them as it could while remaining in shadow before it stopped. It almost became invisible once it stopped moving, but then became clearly distinguishable as he began to notice the shadow’s oddity by its unnatural stillness now rather than its unnatural movement.

He kept his focus on it, but began flicking a gaze further to his left, seeing if a second shadow had come down the other wall. He did keep his gaze there long, only taking a microsecond glance before returning his gaze to the shadow and refusing to move his gaze again until he was able to find it again. The meadow remained silent and calm, the pleasant chirping of birds in the background only slightly undermined by the droning of insects. Is it… Nothing happened. Joe remained frozen, staring at the odd shadow, and nothing happened around the meadow.

“Anything?”

“I see nothing,” Gwenvair replied.

Almost at the same time, Xylarnae called back, “Nothing, Joe.”

Joe frowned, opening his mouth to speak again when Kalia finally replied, “Nothing, eccentric.”

Joe pursed his lips and waited a bit more before finally deciding what to do. He pulled out his shield, strapping it too his arm carefully, no longer certain he could use his bow and arrow. He’d hoped, given the decent size of the room but now wasn’t certain what he could do. Wait… maybe…

Joe pupped his shield back in and pulled out his bow before pulling out one of the mass produced arrows for the monster tide, wanting to save his one modern ones as much as possible. Keeping an eye on the shadow, he sighted on the shadow and loosed the arrow, spiking it directly into the shadow on the ground. Nothing happened, and Joe grimaced. OK. That… sucked!

He then sucked his bow back into hammer space and pulled out his shield again, strapping it to his left arm carefully before pulling out his spear. He dithered for a bit, considering whether he wanted to take out the wooden dungeon reward spear which seemed to have some magical qualities or his well-crafted modern spear. He finally settled on the modern metal spear, simply because he’d grown used to its weight and proportions. He settled himself carefully, taking a deep breath before sliding forward cautiously.

Keeping both feet on the ground, he remained centered as he shifted forward until he was about three or four long paces from the shadow. His eyes narrowed and he remained in place before shifting forward carefully again, blinking as he made that single step. When his eyes opened again, a pitch black wall of muscle and claw was suddenly in his face, the right paw swiping down in a vicious swipe right for his left face and eye. Joe reacted immediately even as adrenaline and mana punched into his torso. He dropped his rear leg back quite far and lowered his center even more while leaning back. His front foot slipped slightly, and Joe cursed silently. Moved too fast! He brought his shield up just for caution, putting it in the way of the swipe if it were to somehow reach his face even as he leaned his head to the right so he could see just past the right edge of the shield, keeping an eye on the massive black whirlwind of claws and teeth. The swipe came fast, almost faster than Joe could even account for, and adrenaline spiked through him, even as he grew concerned.

Shoot! That’s way too… Mana swelled up through his being and infused muscle, bone, and organs even as it swept up into his neck and skull, sweeping through brain and sensory organs. Time slowed, the swipe a soft simple bat from a rather beautiful puma like cat. Despite that, Joe could only struggle to calm even as he realized the thing had moved so much faster than he thought anything could. He wasn’t sure how he’d dodged the creature even as he watched everything in slow motion. His mind ran through possibilities before finally deciding on a simple thrust, just after the paw as it passed. He would be able to stab into the right side along the outer ribs, although it would only likely scour the meat off its side as his spear skittered along the rib cage. The angle was poor for him to get the spear in between any of the ribs, the arm covering the entire front of its chest.

His strike hit true, and suddenly time restarted, the beast leaping back and away, turning to a prowl around him. Joe took a step further into the middle of the room, walking with the monster even as he turned to face it and walked sideways as it tried to circle him. That simple movement shifted their fight more to the center, forcing it to follow him out. Joe said nothing, simply walking with it. Limping… just a tiny bit… not much, but… lots of blood. That hit was pretty good.

As he’d feared, his strike hadn’t hit home with any meaningful damage, but the puma panther thing was bleeding rather profusely down the right side of its body. Not bad… now I know what it is… this isn’t so har…

The thing leapt again, straight for him and time slowed again, his spear coming up to block it even as his spear thrust, straight to the throat of the giant black cat. Hope I don’t get bad luck… Joe started to smile at his own poor humor before suddenly furrowing his eyebrows. Wait… this is stupid… it’s not… The beast hadn’t taken on any attempt to strike at him, simply leaping directly at him. Is it a pounce? Or… but... The pounce would be all off, too high and making it very easy for Joe to put his spear in its guts. The cat should have leapt for his throat, but for some reason, if it did land on him, he would have his face buried between its front legs. A very poor place for a large animal as anyone could bury their head down while the creature ineffectively gnawed on the skull. Gonna hurt… but… is it… never fought a human before? Or…

Joe crouched and grimaced. This is gonna suck! It came in and he thrust forward, his spear burying perfectly in the upper chest. He aimed it just to the side of the sternum, trying to guide it between the ribs. He smiled when he saw the spear bite deep, puncturing into the chest but then frowned when he felt no resistance of any kind of the spear. Confusion quickly turned to fear when the chest of the beast hit his head and passed right through it!

It took Joe a few moments to understand as the beast passed through his body and then he whirled in place as rapidly as he could. Crap! Crap, crap, crap! The beast landed with beautiful grace in the middle of all of them even as Joe shouted for the others’ attention. What do I do… how can I stop this… what is th… His mind swirled through all the options, struggling to figure out what to do while doing the only thing he could think of; he kept his spear buried within its guts even as it phased through him and his spear. I hope that’s enough to keep it from materializing… hurting someone.

The cat landed on the ground with incredible grace, even as the others slowly turned to face the center. Gwenvair and Xylarnae were the fastest, almost already facing the center even as their eyes widened with fear, staring at the massive cat as it landed in their midst. Kalia and Stephliquen had barely started their turn, although Kalia proved prescient, already pressing her sword back directly behind her under her left arm as she spun as fast as she could to her left.

Joe growled, pressing himself as fast as he could, but found himself struggling. What do I do? What do I do?! It seemed the spear was enough to keep it from materializing, but when he saw it lift a hand to bat at Kalia’s rearmost calf, his worry spiked. No! No!

The cat never even materialized, but he saw the white claws at the end of its swiping paw glow to iridescent white and swipe through Kalia’s leg. Kalia shrieked even as she continued to turn, lifting the leg in pain while spinning with a lame hobble. Joe’s lips curled into a snarl and snapped into the middle, struggling to contain the beast to keep it from harming any other.

As soon as the cat finished its strike on Kalia and landed, it seemed to fold in on itself and disappeared, and Joe watched the cat vanish into a shadow, balling up into nothing. Joe shivered in shock but kept his eyes open with avid attention, watching the shadow suck into Kalia’s shadow. Joe kept his eye on her shadow even as he called out to the others.

“Back. Stay back. I think it’s in Kalia’s shadow, but you watch your own shadows!”

Joe stepped forward and stabbed into Kalia’s shadow with a swift thrust of his spear, but like his arrow, it did nothing. He worried that he’d made a mistake when he noticed the shadow bulge oddly and zip down the shadow cast by his spear to his arm and then into his own. He cursed, turning his gaze to his own shadow hoping that it had left Kalia’s shadow.

“Watch Kalia! Shout if you see it. I think it’s in my shadow now!”

He stabbed down into his own shadow once again, but noticed no change. Around him, the others shifted, huffing, cursing, or softly crying in pain but he did not take his gaze off the shadow. What am I supposed to do?! This is… Joe grimaced and cursed at himself, stabbing down into his shadow again before ripping one of his mana points into the spear.

A screeching roar rang out and the cat seemed to leap out of his shadow from an impossible distance, flying a good couple of paces from him towards the edge of the forest. Fleeing for shadows… that makes sense!

“No, you don’t!” Joe snarled.

He reared back and flung his spear after the leaping cat, sending a dozen mana points to rest on the butt of the spear, waiting. The spear passed into the cat but did no visible damage, the spear continuing on as if it hit nothing. Dematerialized again! But… Joe’s snarl turned to a vicious grin as he command the mana points to bury themselves into the spear shaft. The cat caterwauled, pain mixed with rage as it roared and howled out a whine.

Before the cat even hit the ground, it curled up into a fetal ball and tumbled to the ground before it collapsed and died. Joe felt the experience wash through him, grateful for the certainty of the creature’s death, but uncaring of it and leapt back to Kalia’s side. Sub job change gifted to healing apprentice!

He didn’t even try to manually cast the spell, simply spamming the button while focusing on Kalia’s wound. When he got to her side and noticed it, he calmed, seeing that the wound was bad but not what he feared. His first cast was quite dramatic, healing the worst of it, although it took a massive chunk of his mana pool, leaving him with very little left. But Kalia’s wound was almost nothing more than a very deep and concerning cut than the deadly wound it once was.

“You OK?” Joe turned to look at Kalia.

She stared at her wound then back up at him with a grateful but pain filled gaze. She nodded with a sigh.

“It feels a lot better.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll heal it all up, but let me fill up… oh, never mind. Let me try…”

Joe trailed off as he realized he still had some mana he could use and turned back to the wound. OK. Let me use my mana point mana then. Maybe that would, hm… just try it, maybe? He went for the easiest option and tried to just use his mana points to power the heal spell but nothing happened. He frowned then thought of something else. Huh… then… He shifted to another idea, moving all his mana points into a ball before connecting it into his body right about where he felt his personal mana normally came out. So… use the mana in my points, right? You can do it… you can tak… Joe blinked in surprise when the heal wound spell fired off just fine and the wound in Kalia’s leg vanished, completely cured.

Wow… ok… that was… He pulled his mana points out and noticed that all the mana points were essentially empty, and Joe’s eyebrows wavered, shifting to a concerned furrow. That… as a lot of mana… but…

His thoughts were interrupted by Kalia’s response, “Thank you, Joe. I am incredibly grateful!”

Joe looked up then nodded, “Ah. Yeah, sure. No problem. I’m so sorry I let the cat through.”

Kalia quirked both an eyebrow and the corner of her lips, smiling with some bemusement, “It was a shadow cat. Stopping it is almost impossible. You did very well, eccentric.”

Joe nodded then turned to the others, “Everyone OK?”

Xylarnae and Gwenvair both immediately replied, “Yes, Joe.”

Kalia simply nodded while Stephliquen simply stared at everyone. Joe looked at her, then frowned. Right… so… gotta find a way to try to talk with her, so… but…

“Let’s take a rest. I’ll need to recover my mana before we move on.”

* * *

Kalia stretched her leg, pulling her calf as far as possible to check for damage and found herself growing more and more impressed. The healing had been fast, immediate, and incredibly effective. She did wonder why he did the work in two parts, but then considered that maybe the second part was simply to be more cautious to offer her healing back to perfection without any scarring. And there were no scars, something she was astounded by. She glanced back up at him and considered. Who is he? Such… skill, and he is so young? How can he do this? This… Kalia wondered at the skill displayed, greater than many of the best healers she’d had the privilege of working with. And she pondered.

* * *

They all settled into a rough circle, resting in the beautiful meadow while all began chatting with one another. He joined in for a bit then fell silent, turning his thoughts to Stephliquen. So… any options? If I knew her language, then… but how do I do that… or… It would have to be on my system. Where is the word in the system so I can display it. I’ll need to make sure that the word is isolated and I can point directly to it. If it’s in a sentence, sentence structure might shift words all around in the sentence or paragraph. I probably can’t use the description of language expertise cause the word would be… or maybe? That would explain the whole thing, right? Maybe I could just ask help to tell me what language expertise does, and she might catch on? Joe shook his head, frustrated with himself for not having though of this before but quickly asked help to display the language expertise description.

After going over a couple displays and descriptions from a variety of status page displays he thought might be useful, he set up a plan before putting it in motion. After a few moments of double checking things, he was certain of what he needed to do. Help, show me a description of the polyglot spell followed by the language expertise skill followed by and explanation on how to pick a language to applied to language expertise. Once he saw it, he grinned and smiled. This… might be able to do it! He took a moment to double check then called Stephliquen over.

“Stephliquen,” he called to her before waving her to his side, pointing to the ground.

He had to take a few moments to wait for her head to turn his way before he mimed what he wanted, but she quickly came to his side and sat down before waving towards a display he had open, willing it to be visible to her.

The polyglot job allows users to speak languages of their choice fluently.

Language Expertise (1): Can instantly learn any language of your choice. Does not count as learned language.

Simply state: “I wish to have language expertise in …” and speak the name of the language you wish to learn.

Seeing the display in front of him, he checked it over one last time before opening up his own status and available skills. He scrolled down the list of jobs until he had the polyglot job on the screen then pointed to it, leaving the descriptive screen to the side for now.

She glanced over at him, then focused on his finger. Once she was focused, he willed the screen to her language and the odd QR code squares appeared, dominated the screen. Amazingly, the display compacted significantly, with entire words replaced by a single QR code, if Joe was to guess correctly. Huh. That’s… pretty cool. Would make a really dense language… but books wouldn’t take to many pages, although trying to read this… yeah… that would be a nightmare!

Joe glanced closer and noticed that the individual dots making up the QR code were very small, and he attempted to will the status screen to zoom in and display the text in a larger font. The status screen seemed to waffle in strange static bursts for a bit until it zoomed in and displayed the text in a larger font. With that, she glanced up and smiled at him with some relief and then spent some time struggling to read through the text. It took her a good couple minutes to parse things out and when she did sit up, it seemed that it wasn’t quite as useful as he’d hope, the frown on her lips making him grow concerned that he’d failed.

Instead, he pulled up the dialog box with explanations and hoped that would be enough, pointing to the top line on the dialog box then pointing to his polyglot job in the available skills listing. He did it several times until she nodded in understanding then sat back and let her continue to read the dialog box.

This took significantly longer, despite him enlarging the font three times to make it easier for her. She struggled through it, taking almost ten minutes or more to read it all. That’s… why is her reading skill so weak? Or am I missing something? This is… taking way to long. But even as he seemed to lose his patience, he would look over and see her diligently struggling to parse through the sentences displayed. It seemed each symbol was a struggle, her finger ever so slowly drifting across the sentence one symbol at a time.

* * *

Never had Stephliquen cursed technology more than she did so now, her mind struggling to parse the written language of her people even as her implant was shut down and offered no help whatsoever. Each symbol was a dense collection of smaller symbols, shapes, and colors allowing for incredibly dense information to be placed on a small area, each symbol equivalent to a word.

However, the symbols were small, and each word was a matter of a few different dots, shapes or colors. Without her implant, she couldn’t be certain that she’d appropriately found the symbolized meaning. In fact, the first display that Joe had shown her was a mystery. She wasn’t certain what she was being shown, although she knew it was a job with some skills. Despite her efforts, things didn’t make sense. It appeared the job was related to the skills and offered some kind of expertise. Expertise was the only word she was sure of. The other two words were different but both seemed to be related to words or speaking although she wasn’t sure which.

The next thing the man showed her was easier to parse, the longer sentences giving her context to figure out words she was shaky on. The first one almost undid her, however, until she realized that the subject of the sentence was related to the job listing. The job had something to do speaking well, if she understood it correctly. But the next two sections proved incredibly difficult, leaving her lost for some time as she parsed through all the meaning then found herself struggling to understand what the man wanted.

Joe looked at her with expectation before pointing to the last explanation again, growing ever more frustrated. He began speaking in an odd language, then stopping to call out a singular word that sounded a bit like Angallish. The second time was a harsh guttural language that continued on for some time before it also ended with a repeated word. He stared at her with expectation for some time but she just wasn’t certain what he wanted.

She went back to the blue box holding the explanation and dove back into it, struggling to figure out the meanings with the help of her implant. After verifying the meaning once again, she began speaking them out in the grammatical order displayed, shifting some words or changing some meanings until all three seemed to make sense, but despite that, she wasn’t quite certain that she understood what he meant.

She saw his growing frustration, doubling down to attempt to learn it more, but growing more frustrated with herself as her memory just wasn’t as good as the implant and it’s proffered meanings she gained with a single glance.

In the middle of all that, they stood and moved on twice, but Stephliquen noticed none of this, only obediently following after them, struggling to understand what Joe wanted. So… difficult to parse without the implant!

* * *

Joe waited patiently for Stephliquen; as patiently as he was capable, but as she bent over growing more focused on understanding the display before them, he found his frustration swelling and finally stood up and walked away, wandering around the beautiful green meadow. He made sure to leave the display in front of her, pinning it to her position directly in front of her face but to the side slightly to allow for the other display to remain.

He didn’t push it much, staying close to her since he didn’t know how far his screens could ‘stretch’ from him, but he wanted to be up and around so he wandered the meadow. Huh… let’s look at the forest edge… He made it to the forest edge and looked back, seeing his status still visible in front of Stephliquen so turned back to his exploration. He returned to shoving his arm and other various objects into the forest edge, feeling the pressure that shoved it back and on the whole had a bit of fun with it, even getting some of the longer things he had to shoot out with some force from the edge. It was all fun and games until he took one of his arrows and pushed it in as far as he could before he felt the arrow vibrate violently in his hand and he pulled it out.

He had shoved it in arrow point first, holding the arrow by the feathers, so when he pulled it back out, he was shocked he no longer had an arrow point. The bottom third or so of the arrow was missing, point and all, with the wooden shaft chewed up as if had gone through a blender or wood chipper. Joe’s breath caught and he took a step back. Right… that was … really dumb! So stupid. He breathed deeply and looked around. This isn’t the jungle or forest, and even if it is… this is a completely different planet! I need… His ragged panting slowed, coming under control when Gwenvair stepped to his side and put her hand on his arm. She smiled up at him, and the tension quickly faded as his own lips responded with their own smile.

“Thanks.”

“You welcome, but… don’t annoy the dungeon?”

Joe blinked, “Was that what it was?”

“Probably. It will not likely directly attack any delver. No dungeon ever has, but dungeons do not appreciate … people or things stuck where they don’t belong.”

Joe struggled to hide his own smirk and laughter, nodding politely before looking away to hide his smile. Guess nobody likes things poke where they don’t belong. But… didn’t know… Joe paused and instead turned to looking around, including up into the sky. He’d planned to shoot an arrow up into the inky black blankness above but then decided that would probably instigate things and he didn’t want to push it.

He looked back down at Gwenvair and smiled, “Thanks.”

She nodded and turned back to the others, sitting down with Xylarnae and falling back into their conversation. Huh… they’ve been getting along well. Joe turned back to looking around before turning back to Stephliquen with a sigh. Well… don’t want to wait too much longer. Let’s go.

Joe glanced around the room, finding only a forest surrounding the meadow without any obvious exit until he noticed a pit under the lone tree in the middle of the meadow leading down into inky darkness. Huh… was that always there? Don’t think so… but…

“Shall we get going?”

The others all glanced up, although Stephliquen completely ignored him, remaining focused on the two screens. The others all responded with the affirmative, a chorus of agreements filling the meadow. Stephliquen seemed to have noticed, rising as well, but completely ignored them, her eyes still drilling with laser focus into the status screen.

Gwenvair started heading towards the pit, the others following and Joe did as well. When he arrived, he found another staircase in the ground, leading downwards. Huh… is that the method of movement for this dungeon?

They lazily jogged down the stairs, Gwenvair in the lead, until they came to a small cozy room at the bottom with a hallway exit leading out the other side. Joe couldn’t see what was at the other end as the hallway bent around a corner almost immediately so Joe turned his focus to the room. He frowned, and huffed with some wonder.

“Almost looks like a waiting room, or a coffee shop?”

The room was nicely decorated with bland furniture but only had a single table and seating for six. Against the wall, a couch and nice recliners took their own small space, and everything felt like a rather nice place to rest.

“Yes. This dungeon has a nice resting place between each fight, although not much else, so most people are rather frustrated with it.”

Joe quirked an eyebrow, “Frustrated? This isn’t a bad place to hang out. What more could you want?”

Gwenvair smirked, “A healing field? Or possibly some way to regenerate mana and stamina rather quickly?”

Joe huffed but nodded his head, “OK. I could see that.”

Gwenvair chuckled softly and Kalia immediately sat down on one of the cushion recliners, “Ooh… this is pretty nice.”

Joe grinned and went to the sofa, falling into its embrace before grimacing when he thunked into it, “Well… this isn’t comfortable at all. It’s rather too firm for me. Ouch!”

Kalia laughed, “What did you expect, falling into it like that.”

Joe quirked an eyebrow, “A soft cloud like landing!”

Kalia laughed even louder, “You expect mana crafted masterpieces from mortals?”

Joe opened his mouth to snark back before closing it and simply sighing. He stood and tried the other stuffed recliners but also found them of little comfort. Better than nothing. He sighed sadly as he took the recliner he tried and rested in it.

Xylarnae and Gwenvair had taken the sofa Joe vacated, and chatted happily enough with each other and Joe finally stood to push Stephliquen to a chair. She didn’t even look up when he put his hands on her shoulders and guided her to a chair before pushing her down. Being pushed down seemed to catch her attention and she glanced up at him then down to the seat below her before falling into the seat herself. When she hit the chair with a large clunk, Joe smirked with laughter, his own schadenfreude peeking through with some vindication. See! Not only me!

The rested for a time again, but if the meadow couldn’t keep his attention, a poor copy of a waiting room without windows, entertainment, or decorations proved even less capable and Joe stood to head out once again, heading into the hallway to explore. He hadn’t expected the others to follow him, but they did so and Joe didn’t try to pressure them to sit back down. His boredom had peaked and he was ready to move on. Let’s see what’s next.

The turn around the corner put him in another small waiting room with the massive boss door once more. Joe glanced up at it and sighed, nodding softly to himself. The large hand in the door began shifting down and morphing to his size and height. Ready to go on… this is…

His thoughts were interrupted when Stephliquen shouted out, a brilliant cry of surprise and joy. She came up to him with joy and clapped his shoulder with a calloused palm, shaking him slightly even as she babbled at him excitedly. Joe smiled slightly in response, surprised to see her animated but also a bit infected by her joy. OK. That seems… like something good happened.

She was stabbing at the status windows with insistence, talking a mile a minute. She was pointing insistently at the middle phrase of the three explanations he’d pulled up, ignoring his available skills list that was currently opened. He looked closer and saw her pointing at one of the two symbols before an odd separation symbol. He flipped the display back to English and saw the symbol morph to a colon, so he looked before that and saw that this was the section that explained the language expertise skill. Right… one of those two words: language or expertise! So…

Stephliquen had removed her hand from the display when it turned to English, so he turned it back to her language and she began excitedly pointing at the second word and explaining something in rapid fire foreign sounds. Joe looked at her then pointed to the second word, and she quickly offered agreement and he turned it back to English and frowned. Second word is expertise, so… why? Or?

It was then that he noticed that she had stopped babbling and was now repeating only one word while nodding and pointing at the status screen. She hadn’t moved her hand over to the second word, maybe not understanding that English words were made up of a series of symbols instead of a singular one but turned it back to her language and she began insistently pointing at the second symbol again.

Does that mean expert? Or… Maybe it is language… and the repeated word is her language? Maybe her language’s grammar reverses the order … He paused and stared at her as she stared back, and began repeating a six syllable word that twisted the tongue.

“Qaenar Runulura,” Stephliquen replied slowly and with great enunciation.

Joe frowned with concentration and repeated it as best he could, “Kainaroonooloora.”

She shook her head, speaking slower, adding clarity, “Qaenar. Runulura.”

“Oh… two words. Ok… Uh,” Oh… crap, right… she won’t understand… give a nice pause and let her know you’re responding to her. He nodded his head and looked in her eyes before beginning, not wanting to have her mistake his previous statement as part of his attempt to speak the word she was teaching.

“Kainar Roonooloora”

She nodded brightly, smiling and speaking an obvious word of affirmation before repeating it once again, “Qaenar Runulura. Qaenar Runulura.”

Joe considered, wondering if one of those words actually meant language, but then decided trying for efficiency or clarity now would be useless. Assigning the ‘English language’ or assigning ‘English’ to his language expertise skill should functionally be the same. Don’t need to know… and if it actually is a two word name for the language, then that might mess things up, so… Well… I guess… here goes nothing!

He had two language expertise skills, so thought to put hers in the second, allowing him to be able to speak everyone’s language. He didn’t want to replace common with hers, losing the ability to speak with Gwenvair and the others.

Assign Kainar Roonooloora for my second language expertise.

Nothing noticeable happened to his status, as usual, but he turned to Stephliquen and smiled, “Hello? Did it work?”

Stephliquen gasped in surprise, smiling brightly, even as the others all stopped speaking and turned to look at him, surprise evident in their faces.

“Joe? What did you say?” Gwenvair asked.

“You can speak to me! You understand me!” Stephliquen gushed in excited relief.

Joe felt an odd shift, blinking as his brain registered an understanding of meaning for a language it did not know. There was an odd shifting happening, almost like a digital analog slider which was shifting between two tones randomly. The input was analog but the output was digital, with the meaning popping into existence like an on off switch between both languages. Joe didn’t really feel sick so much as discombobulate by the affect. With only a single language assigned, he was able to not really notice the affect, but with both going, it was magnified and difficult to accept, although he was rather certain he could grow to find it normal with time. This… wow. OK. Just take a bit of time.

“Just a moment, Joe replied, speaking to Stephliquen quick before turning to Gwenvair and speaking the exact same thing, but feeling the shift in his being, “Just a moment.”

Both fell silent, although Stepliquen took just a bit longer than Gwenvair, and with the silence, he was able to finally recover a bit, his eyes closed and hands pressing against his temple. He took a deep breath and then turned back to them. He face Gwenvair first.

“Yeah. I’m OK. Just… this job and language skill is a weird one, but I’m doing fine. I can speak with Stephliquen now. Let me talk with her a bit.”

Gwenvair’s eyes lit up with surprise, “You can speak with her?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. There’s so much I would like to know.”

Joe felt his lips twitch then calmed, “Maybe we can do that after the dungeon when were back home, or around a meal.”

Gwenvair grinned and nodded, “That would be wonderful.”

Joe nodded and turned away, “I’m going to talk with her a bit.”

“Sure!” Gwenvair acknowledged before turning back to the other two with a bit more excitement.

Joe stifled a sigh as he turned to Stephliquen. This… is going to be great… another job on my plate: translation services. He put aside his worry and focused on Stephliquen.

“Sorry. Had to explain some things to her.”

Stephliquen seemed to be taken aback by that, surprised and in wonder, “It… really does work! This technology is… incredible.”

Joe snorted, “This isn’t tech, it is… wait?! Technology?”

Stephliquen froze at that, looking back at Joe with some wonder and worry. She didn’t say anything for a time, just staring at Joe before she grit her teeth and sighed, “Yes. Technology.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. I did recognize her, right? But… she’s not from Earth… this is NOT an Earth language… and I don’t know of anyone who speaks QR code… or reads anyway…

“Who are you? You’re not from Earth.”

Stephliquen frowned, “Earth? Oh… your home planet.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed further, “Yes. My home planet… and you seem to recognize it or… what’s going on.”

Stephliquen looked at him, searching his eyes for a bit before frowning and cursing, “I’m from the Qaenar Empire.”

Joe stared, “Never heard of it.”

“No. You haven’t. Your people still have not discovered reliable FTL capabilities.”

Joe’s eyebrows rose at that, frowning, “Reliable? How about no FTL capabilities.”

“Perhaps no actual applications, but certainly some theoretical.”

Joe felt himself souring, the ramifications hitting home, “Which means you are capable of reading and understanding our language and you have been studying my people for some time.”

Stephliquen’s face soured as well, but then she firmed her gaze and looked at him, “Not… my people, but yes. We have been recording your progress.”

Joe reeled at that, considered where to go next, then simply discarded that, “OK. Lots of questions in there, and I’m not feeling like playing twenty questions. Please just tell me everything, if you will. If I still have questions after, I’ll ask. So, please, explain.”

Stephliquen stared at him, staring into his eyes cautiously before beginning. She seemed to wrestle with an idea, for a time, before sighing deeply and closing her eyes.

“I’m the one who kidnapped and took you and the others here and left you on this planet.”

Images flashed within Joe’s mind, utterly clean straight and brilliant lines surrounded him even as all of it was fuzzed. A metallic sterility bathed the room and surrounding him, faces stared down upon him as he lay, staring up in a daze. The faces were hard to recognize, sterile masks covering both mouth and faces, doubled up with a plastic guard. The clothing gave the impression of hospital garb with long thicker rubber like gloves covering hands all the way to the elbows. It was a completely normal hospital in any sense of the word. It was an utterly alien room. The sterile surfaces were obvious, but covered in a strange bright green paint that almost seemed rubber like. The people buzzed within his mind as the alien jumped out at him. The plastic guards were shaped all wrong, somehow strangely different. The masks covered noses and mouths, but seemed to be glued to the face instead of strapped on. The gloves were a virulent red and the cloth hospital gowns ballooned out from them in comical marshmallow strangeness but never seemed to get in the way, pulling back and away whenever an arm need to move or their heads needed to look down.

The image flickered, as if he’d seen this place several times or as if he’d been there for quite some time. The people attending him flickered in and out until one seemed to come to complete clarity. She wore the same outfit, but she stood with an unmistakable authority. Behind everyone else, Stephliquen looked down upon him and watched as all the others did whatever they’d done to him.

His focus snapped back to reality even as his eyes snapped back to her, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or rage, “Abducted by aliens? Seriously?”

She remained standing, eyes closed and unmoving. And Joe sighed deeply and shook his head. When he’d spoken, she’d opened her eyes with some obvious trepidation and Joe smirked.

“Well, I am pissed. Don’t get me wrong.”

She clenched her teeth then nodded, “I would be, too.”

Joe took a deeper sigh, heaving it out as he brought up a hand and scrubbed it through his hair, “This is … a complete mess. And given that you’re here like this, you didn’t come to save us or help me get back home.”

She grimaced and shook her head, feeling a bit more comfortable, “No. I’m stuck here as well.”

Joe’s lips curled up even stronger as his bitterness welled through for a moment, “Then, why?”

She searched his face, eyes flicking back and forth between his before nodding and continuing, “Well, it would require a lot of back story.”

Joe grinned, “We have a nice waiting room here to chat.”

She glanced around at that and nodded, “Yeah. What is this place?”

Joe snorted, “We both have a lot of questions. I’ll give you this one, but I feel like you kind of owe me on this.”

She looked back, smiling with bitter agreement, “That I do.”

Joe nodded, “The fact that you acknowledge that… I’m not sure if I should be happy or pissed off more. If you knew that, then why’d you do… never mind… explain it all. For now, you are in a dungeon which seems to be some kind of magical thing, possibly a creature, that is capable of creating a challenge of some kind. This one seems to create a boss challenge with a nice place to rest between each room. The one we were in yesterday is also a dungeon, but … well, you remember it. Yeah.”

“What does it do? How does i... right. I’ll go first,” she trailed off at that and Joe nodded in relief, thankful.

“Thank you. I promise I’ll explain all the rest after.”

She nodded and then gestured him towards the hard stuffed furniture in the corner of the room, “Let’s sit? It’s going to take a while.”

Joe snorted, “I’ll have to stand a couple times. These things aren’t that comfortable.”

“I know, right? They look good, but like a rock when you sit on them.”

Joe snorted, smiling as he sat, “I don’t think they understand… except maybe Kalia.”

“Kalia? The fey?”

Joe’s eyebrows rose, tasting the word for fey as he responded, “You have the concept of fey?”

Kalia nodded, “Yeah. You, too?”

“Yup. Seems interesting.”

Kalia nodded, “It is rare. I know of only one other culture who have myths about the fey as well.”

Joe’s eyebrows crunched at that, “OK. You are titillating me with lots of information with this. Please. Exposition dump me. I wanna know.”

Stephliquen grinned at that, seeming to completely relax before chuckling and nodding, “Do you want your personal story explained first? Or the background of my people.”

Joe’s grin grew, “I’m glad we understand each other. Mind of we start with your people, then on to how I ended up here?”

Stephliquen nodded, “Sure. So… uh… it kinda goes back a ways, but…” her grin faltered then fell, and she sighed deeply.

“So, a brief history of my people. I am… my people are like you. We lived peacefully in this star system for quite som…”

“This is your star system?”

She smiled at that, nodding, “Yes. We lived on the third planet from the sun, much like yours, within the habitability zone.”

Joe nodded, “And when you saw this strange moon, with life… that hit you all wrong.”

Stephliquen scowled at that, shaking her head, “We were not the ones to see it. The Qaenar conquered us some time ago, a few generations ago. All they cared for was our resources and man power. They gave us enough to develop system flight and demanded that we explore the system and send all the resources from our system back to their home world.”

Joe felt his lips purse in thought, surprised where this was going but simply nodded, gesturing her on as he had little to say.

Stephliquen nodded with a bitter smile and continued, “The Qaenar took everything. We are now a colony of the Qaenar Empire. They own everything within fifty light years or so, owning most of the stars within. This is how they spread, keeping their greatest technology and power for themselves while spreading through the galaxy and taking control of everything.

“Qaenar is at the rough center, and their people control all. There are three other’s they have found and conquered, including us. You and your people will be the fourth.”

Joe frowned at that, “What do you mean?”

Stephliquen fell silent, pity fading across her face, “You were scouted quite some time ago. It will take a long time for the Qaenar to come. They lack the resources and manpower to conquer you, but they will arrive soon.”

“That’s what you were doing on Earth. Scouting us.”

“No. You were scouted a while ago. We were there to capture specimens to insert onto one of this gas giants moons.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed with a grimace, “No volunteers or enough criminals among your kind?”

Stephliquen’s own face flickered to bitterness herself, surprising Joe to see it. Her response was also bitter with a barely concealed rage, “In the Qaenar Empire, ‘citizens’ cannot be used for illegal operations.”

Joe’s grin grew sardonic, “And people from Earth are not technically citizens of Qaenar.”

“Yes,” Stephliquen replied with a bit of mockery of her own.

“At least your people are considered citizens.”

“Second class. But… yes.”

“Hmm. So Qaenar has conquered three other peoples and owns pretty much all the systems within fifty light years or so. So how far away is Qaenar from here?”

“About three jumps.”

“Jumps?”

Stephliquen nodded at that, adding clarity, “Our FTL is capable of going from one star to the next, requiring a powerful piece of machinery to shoot us out. Most of our FTL cannons are capable of reaching the next star and no more. So a jump, from the outer reaches of the empire, goes from star to star.”

“You need a separate piece of machinery to FTL jump?”

“Yes.”

Joe furrowed his brow in worry, “Then how did you get back from my system?”

Stephliquen’s smile turned sour, “The return is long but we do have a semi portable system embedded within each ship but it is single use. It might be possible to get a second use if it survives the first, but I’ve never seen one survive. And it is significantly less powerful. The return to Empire space is significantly slower than the trip out.”

Joe nodded, “Then expansion is limited to building new FTL cannons at the periphery of the empire at each new star system taken?”

“Essentially, although more powerful FTL cannons can be created. The one at the Qaenar homeworld is incredibly strong and can go quite far. Coming back is a huge problem, however.”

Joe grinned with sardonic humor, “And, of course, all of the more powerful FTL cannons are directly owned by Qaenar.”

“Of course.”

Joe sighed and turned away before changing the conversation, “Then how about all this. The cradles and life here… all this.”

Stephliquen shook her head, “We don’t know. Almost all the gas giants have these strange anomalies of life around them. The planets are too warm or too cool for their locations. The gas giants give off massive amounts of radiation, but it seems that radiation within life bearing gas giants disappear or is nullified somehow. And, most curious of all, any attempt to get close to a gas giant or its moons is met with instant destruction.”

Joe blinked at that, “Instant destruction?”

She nodded, “We don’t know why or how, but anything that gets too close just blows up.”

“Then what about here?”

She shook her head, “That’s part of the reason we are here. A couple years ago, a ship fell into this gas giant’s gravity well due to several system failures. Typically, ships crossing within orbit double the distance of the outer most moon is destroyed. The ship here was not destroyed. The ship survived, and so this place became a location we could study, unlike the others.

“However, we found that there are still defenses in place and when we arrived just outside the outer moons orbit, all of our electronics failed immediately. So, we’ve been struggling to discover how they are doing it. No attempt at communication is ever returned and any attempt at contact is destroyed at all other life bearing gas giants. Only this one allows approach, but still nullifies all our technology.”

Joe frowned at that, curious, but responded, “Well. I’m not sure what to say, but they are not more technologically advanced than you. This is all… magic, from what I can tell. At least, that’s what they say.”

“Magic?” Stephliquen scoffed, “You can’t be serious?”

“The status screens and what not? Yeah, I could believe it to be technologically based, but when it comes to some of their magical capabilities, it would have t… we would have to be in some kind of VR set or something. I’m not sure any other solution is possible.”

“Magic isn’t real.”

“How do you explain your tech failing in outer space? Can’t be any kind of nano tech or anything like that.”

She raised an eyebrow at that, “How do you figure that?”

“It’s a true vacuum, right? Do your sensors detect any kind of atmosphere or material in space that you are flying through?”

She paused at that, then shook her head, “No. But… it could eat through pretty quick.”

“That would require insanely fast self-replication. How quickly does the tech fail?”

“At exactly the same distance from the planet every time.”

“Even if the speed is different?”

She paused at that then began nodding her head, “Even with differing speeds of entry. I see what you are saying. It is unlikely to be some form of physical attack. Then a energy field of some kind?”

Joe frowned, “I’m not sure… wait. How about upon exit? What happens then?”

“The systems restart.”

“Same place?”

“Yeah.”

“So it’s not a permanent damage or attack. You’re suggesting some kind of dampening field that screws with the laws of physics and makes electrical tech fail.”

“Not just electrical tech.”

Joe quirked an eyebrow at that, “You have other forms of energy and machinery?”

She frowned, “Yes. No… but…” she shook her head, “I meant that even complicated pieces of mechanical workmanship fail. Communications cannot pass through the field from one side to the other. It’s more comprehensive than just electrical failures.”

Joe found a smile coming to his face, “And you think a dampening field is a better explanation than just… magic?”

“Really?”

“Haven’t you seen some of the things that have happened? We get some really strange capabilities that don’t make sense in a normal world. Take a look at this.”

Joe took out a dagger and sliced his arm. Stephliquen flinched, watching the blood well up but then nodded with a strange smile on her face, “I was wondering about that.”

Joe nodded, “It seems to be related to your HP. As long as you have HP, it will heal up almost any damage.”

“Really?” Stephliquen cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

Joe nodded, “I saw someone lose their entire calf, cut right off. Then the whole thing popped back into existence like it was never even gone. The old slab of calf was still on the floor, laying there cut off.”

She crinkled her eyebrows at that, considering for a bit then slowly shook her head with disbelief. She huffed a soft chuckle before looked back up at him.

“Yeah, but magic?”

Joe shrugged and turned to Gwenvair, “Hey, Gwenvair. Can you make a wind tornado thing on the palm of my hand?”

Gwenvair looked at Joe, confused, before nodding, “Sure, but why?”

“Trying to show something to Stephliquen.”

“Alright,” Gwenvair replied and began concentrating before breaking into a frown of wonder, “I can’t… oh, I don’t have the job.”

Joe laughed, then shook his head, “Sorry. I forgot. Let me change it out for you.”

Joe took a few moments to swap out her jobs, returning her wind magician capabilities to her. Once he was done, he looked back up at her and nodded.

“You have it back.”

Gwenvair smiled, “Thanks. Hold out your hand.”

Joe nodded and held out his hand before looking over at Stephliquen. She looked at him with some confusion.

“What’s going on?”

Joe replied, “I asked Gwenvair to show you some of her magic capabilities.”

Stepliquen nodded at that, smiling, “OK.”

“Just watch my hand.”

“Sure.”

Gwenvair began her magic, concentration obvious on her face. It only took a few moments and wind began to play across his palm until a little mini whirlwind began turning on his hand. It was difficult to see, but Joe grabbed some detritus laying around and dropped it into the vortex and it quickly became visible. Stephliquen gasped softly, staring with avid fascination.

“That… is not natural.”

Joe chuckled, “That’s actually one of the most natural things I’ve seen magicians do. You want unnatural? You should see the wind blades or whatever that she has. Let me go ahead and show it.”

“Just wait, let me play with this a bit,” Stephliquen interrupted. She put her hand into it and began brushing her fingers around it, finding it exactly to be what it was.

“This isn’t… normal.”

Joe chuckled, “You done?”

“Sure.”

Joe nodded and turned to look at Gwenvair, speaking to her, “Could you send a wind blade at me? Aim for my arm, if you could.”

Gwenvair seemed calm with Joe’s initial command but then quickly grew concerned as Joe finished his statement, “Joe? Why… I don’t want to harm you. Let me aim at something else.”

“What else? I’ll be OK. My defenses and my health is so high. I’ll be OK.”

“I can aim at one of the chairs.”

“Oh. Will that bother the dungeon?”

“I don’t think so? Many spells miss and strike the dungeon walls and things like that.”

“Huh… I guess that’s true. Well, if you think so.”

Gwenvair nodded and pointed at a specific chair, “I’ll strike this chair here.”

“OK,” Joe replied before turning to face Stephliquen.

“Gwenvair will strike that chair there with a wind magic spell. It’s shaped like a bow and slices into its target. Its… really weird, both in shape and in how the wind acts.”

Stephliquen frowned at Joe’s description before nodding and turning to look at Gwenvair. Everyone fell silent at that, and Stephliquen watched as Gwenvair worked. The mana formed and Joe watched it with some fascination before the blade itself became visible. When it did, Stephliquen frowned and gasped out in surprise.

“That’s not…”

Joe chuckled as she trailed off and Joe finished it for her, “Natural?”

Stephliquen smirked and agreed, “Yup.”

The blade parallel to the ground formed rather quickly then zipped across the room and slammed into the chair much like a spear but did damage as if it had slashed it. After the crescent-shaped wind blade slammed home, the blade shattered where the blade met the target but the further edges which hadn’t hit home yet pressed on into the chair, unaffected by the shattering of the middle of the blade. As the blade hit home, odd cycling circles of green wind pierced into the chair perpendicular to the blade, spiraling into it almost like a surgeon sewing up a cut. The after spirals pierced into the target a few times before running out, but the wind blade delivered a good five or six dozen of the things and Joe shuddered at the damage it could do, if there was no such thing as HP.

He turned his gaze back to Stephliquen and his wonder at the blade turned to humor at seeing how she reacted. She’d stood and stared at the thing with confused disgust.

“That is not natural at all. Wind doesn’t act like that. There’s no way that was wind!”

Joe laughed, “Now you know why I says it’s not tech or some kind of nanobot or something.”

“But that is not… It can’t… do it again!?”

Joe turned to Gwenvair and spoke with a soft smirk, “She wants to see it again.”

Gwenvair raised an eyebrow, noticing Joe’s good humor and returned her own smile before replying and beginning another wind blade, “Sure!”

For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, Stephliquen demanded examples of all the oddities that Joe had noticed and the two fell into an easy camaraderie that Joe didn’t realize. They spoke avidly, arguing about the absurdities until they’d come to an end of the topic and the two fell silent, considering all they’d seen for a time. Finally Joe sighed and turned to her, moving on.

“So why are you here, then.”

“A corrupt incompetent superior made sure to place all the blame for the failures of this experiment on me. So, I’m here.”

Joe grimaced, “With no way to return.”

Stephliquen’s grim smile fell and turned sour, “How did you know?”

Joe shrugged, “Tech fails. That’s what you said. If there was, the easiest way would be to just drop an entire ship down here. Not go to the trouble of picking me up.”

Stephliquen winced at that, but said nothing and Joe didn’t push her. They fell silent for a bit more until Joe began once again.

“Alright. I’m assuming that you have questions?”

Stephliquen grinned with relief at that, a soft smile of happiness showing as she nodded, “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

For another thirty minutes or so, Stephliquen grilled Joe in turn, focused mostly on the planet and daily life, but also made sure to ask a lot of questions about the job system. Joe was willing to explain most of it, emphasizing how the various stats worked, especially what he’d learned about intelligence. He then explained once again the path to gaining the language skill for speaking as well as going over the ‘char:’ skills.

The strangest part of their conversation, however, came with Stephliquen’s current struggle to understand the status screen, asking him to explain all the descriptors and labels. Joe humored her for a while but then grew confused.

“Why do you need me to explain this? Can’t you read?”

Stephliquen grimaced but nodded, “I can read, but very poorly. The language is very difficult to understand without machine assistance.”

Joe’s eyebrows rose at that, “Really?”

He flipped open his own status then had it display in Qaenar Imperial and found out a crucial piece of information. He couldn’t understand a single thing he was seeing. Confusion set it, then he understood that the expertise he’d gained was only in the spoken language. He stared at that, looking closer. Huh… she’s definitely right. It would be almost impossible to read this! Understanding her written language without some form of machine translation would be almost impossible, the odd QR code like symbols to minute in their differences.

He sighed and turned back to face Stephliquen then frowned. Wait… I’ve never… He quickly willed his display to show Common, the language that the people here spoke, then stared in wonder when what he saw was the same as what he’d seen when he first saw others’ statuses: utter chaos. Symbols scrawled and changed like worms squirming amongst each other, a mass of odd twisting that failed to follow any rhyme or reason. However, sprawled amongst the various symbols were a few recognizable numbers, and Joe grinned. So… its starting to take what I’m teaching them? Hm… His musing was interrupted by Stephliquen speaking.

“Is everything alright?”

Joe laughed, “Yeah. I was just trying to read your language, but I can’t. It seems all the job offers is understanding of the spoken language.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

Stephliquen sighed, “I was hoping I might be able to gain your written language. Mine is too difficult with only bioware.”

“Biowa… oh, you mean using only your brain.”

Stephliquen snorted, “Another way to put it.”

Joe nodded with a shrug and a smirk, “The way that makes sense.”

Stephliquen laughed and shook her head, and the two then returned to considering a few other questions that came to mind, turning to a more natural question and answer where the two naturally flowed between who questioned and who explained. The conversation lasted another few minutes until the two ran dry on topics, although the topic of magic never seemed to run out, both coming back to it and struggling to understand or accept it. Stephliquen seems to have a real hard problem with it… wonder how long it’ll take for her to accept. Joe pondered for a bit, then added. Or… when she can convince me that it’s all just super tech!

* * *

The LEAP team that had arrived at Aelthron’s cradle came with high hopes twinged with trepidation, the mythic nature of Loki now terrifying all who were called to stand against him, although the chance to test oneself against a legend often too much of a temptation to resist for most of the guard elite. So, it was with excitement that the guards protected the prognostication team, the efforts duplicated upon another plane of the cradle. The two teams prepared, one having to wait slightly as the second team had a skittish apprentice who’d failed to etch the runic dao correctly, requiring a slight delay. Tensions flared at that, certainty and fear of Loki’s deceptive nature making many of the guard hyperaware as they sought to find the man.

For most of the elite guards, their hyper focus ended with some depression as the hopes for Loki’s presence fell when the prognostication fired of without any further complications. They died completely when the prognostication team reported that he was not cradle bound. The prognostication had failed, the paths of the prognostication flaring off into absence so wildly that the teams could barely capture Loki’s presence. As always, not discernable direction could be found from the prognostication, the wave of power returning empty and meaningless noise of his presence in multiple locations.

Several Loki echo’s also had appeared, as was normal and were likely Loki followers hidden within the cradle, but surprisingly sparse compared to most other cradles. Only several dozen or so possible hotspots, but all incredibly weak with only one odd weak yet steady spot showing upon the furthest plane from the cradle. As always, the locations for the Loki followers were reported to the local authorities before LEAP quickly returned to their headquarters, the prognostication teams desperately required to maintain the twenty four seven surveillance that was required if the LEAP guards were to respond within any meaningful time period. The prognostication from headquarters only pinged upon his return from Absence. Finding him after required a second different prognostication, the team for which was always on standby to enact immediately.

After, it was only a matter of time of the guards arriving to shut down the cradle gate system before Loki could disappear within the depths of galactic civilization. The fact that they’d never once been able to stop Loki before he made it out the gate did not stop their efforts.

* * *

After Stephliquen had exhausted her questions, Joe had parted with her politely, moving to the other side of them room where he settled into a chair with his back to her. He’d been able to maintain some form of decorum while speaking with her, but the simmering rage he’d felt at the back of his throat wouldn’t be denied any longer, and the frustration and anger at his current predicament quickly shifted to a burning rage at Stephliquen. He understood she’d been following orders, but frankly, Joe couldn’t care less. He even understood that her and her people were likely on a very short leash when it came to the Qaenar and any insubordination from her would likely result in some painful results for her and her family, possibly even for her entire world. That didn’t stop the burning rage slowly coiling in the depths of his core.

Slowly grinding teeth and clenching muscles were hidden by his turned back as he simply brooded. It was only a few moments later that Gwenvair slipped to his side, sitting on the arm of the chair even as her hand slid to his shoulders. Tension immediately rushed out of him as a wave of relaxation, starting from his sternum, flooded outwards. His chest decompressed as his abdominals collapsed into complete relaxation, then flowed on to soothe his thighs and calves, even as his arms and fists also unclenched with the wave.

Gwenvair shifted from simply sliding and arm across his shoulder to standing behind him and poorly offering him a shoulder massage, “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this but, I know it is enjoyable for some.”

Joe chuckled and glanced back over his shoulder before smiling up at her, “Just the attempt is meaningful. It shows you are trying. But, it actually does feel good. Thank you.”

She smiled at that, nodding, before returning to pressing his shoulders. They fell into companionable silence, she not saying anything but simply being present. He sighed and rested in the moment, letting the tension and frustration flood from him until he’d returned to some form of equilibrium and Joe then stretched his neck, shifting his head side to side.

“Thank you, Gwenvair.”

Gwenvair nodded, and pulled her hands back, returning to sitting on the arm of his chair. Joe looked up at her, cocking his head a bit before pointing to a chair across from him.

“You can sit there, if you want.”

Gwenvair smiled back, a bit of a blush coming to her cheeks, “I can if you want, but I do like it here.”

Joe smiled, then nodded and slipped an arm around her back before resting his hand up against her back between her shoulder blades, his elbow resting on the chair of the arm. The remained silent like that and Joe turned to other pursuits after a bit, and Gwenvair simply watched him with some interest. Joe involved her in the process, instead of keeping his monologue purely internal.

“I’m trying to figure out how the magic bag in the transporter job works.”

“Oh? What about it.”

Joe glanced up at her, “It seems like time stops within the bag.”

Her eyebrows considered that before shrugging, “Oh. Guess that makes sense.”

“Does it, though? That’s… really weird.”

She frowned at that, “OK. If it is, then how do you know that time stops?”

Joe grinned and pulled out the meat skewer he’d gotten several days ago. The heat radiated out and hit them instantly, the gooey sauce dripping down the skewer even as heat radiated off the meat skewer. The smell hit them moments later and Joe glanced up at her with a grin as he turned the skewer upside down so the juices would drip back down to the point. At least I didn’t end up holding it the middle this time. Joe thought, hiding his grimace.

“I bought this a couple days ago.”

Gwenvair’s eyebrows rose at that, “A couple days ago?!”

“Yup.”

“So that’s how they do that.”

“Do what?”

“Our clan chefs, sometimes in moments where speed is urgent or necessary, are capable of making and offering hot food to all in the party almost immediately.”

“Chef’s have a magic space?”

Gwenvair frowned at that, “Hmm… no, some of the chef’s helpers do. Although I have seen … hmm… I’m not sure now. I thought that might be the case.”

“Well, I’ll definitely look into it,” Joe replied. Probably storage specific to the cooking line? Although weird that a chef has a storage thing… unless… well, they do kind of need ingredients, so. But, still? Do all jobs then have a storage to keep their stuff? Seems weird.

“Well, in any case,” Joe continued, “I need to figure out if this a time stop or just a time slow. How do I do that?”

Gwenvair remained silent, so Joe took it as permission to delve into the thought internally. So… how would… Joe blinked, realizing that he already knew the easiest way to solve that issue. Gonna have to make an hour glass. That would solve it. And… or… well, that would be easy. Just a glass jar with a ball inside. Turn it upside down and put it in. Does it keep track of orientation? Huh… what about…

Joe pulled out his arrows and put them back into the space and nothing really seemed different. It didn’t matter what he did, the arrows seemed to go in kinda kitty corner in the box to maximize graphical space for a linear object. Or… am I just… As soon as he thought it, the arrow spun in place, and he frowned again. Well… that didn’t work… and it probably wouldn’t matter… I wouldn’t know if time froze or if there was zero gravity in the space, so … guess the hour glass isn’t going to work.

Joe frowned, staring at it a bit more before shrugging. Guess it really is going to have to be temperature. I guess I’ll get five or ten, pop them into differ… can I? Joe frowned as he opened up his inventory again and pulled out have his arrows from the bundle. He then tried to assign them to different boxes, putting one in each before he smiled. OK… I got some control, but… Even as he thought it, the arrows all combined back into a singular stack and freed up his inventory. Right… going to have to be careful not to do that, then… but still… I’ll get four or five dishes. Same food, same dishes… even the exact same batch of food, just separated into four or five servings. I’ll just set up … what. Check one every day. Check second once a week. Check third once a month. Check last once a year? I’ll just have to check by touch… any kind of thermometer I make is going to take ten or twenty seconds to check the temperature… which means all that time outside the space is going to … Ooh! Ice would be easier, right? That…

Joe paused at that, thinking before nodding his head. Yeah… ice would be easiest. Make four identical glass jars, make four chunks of ice, identical if possible… gotta hire some kind of temperature mage… or I could unlock it, right? That… he paused and took a look at his available jobs page. He grinned when he saw the ice mage, then frowned when he noticed the fire mage right above it. What’s the differen… you know what… I don’t care right now. Just… dumb!

He sighed and ignored it, going back to his idea, planning how he could setup the experiment meaningfully while allowing the experimental pieces to spend as little time as possible out in the real world for observation. Guess I’m gonna have to make sure there are markings on the jar… make measurements quick and easy… so…

With that idea settled, he ruminated for a time but now relaxed back into the chair, leaning back into the back rest. Gwenvair sat up at that point, moving off to talk with the others and Joe rested alone for a time. Probably time for the next fight, right? He glanced back at the others and saw them all enjoying their time, so he settled back down. Maybe a little more rest.

* * *

It was unusual for rumors to travel beyond a plane itself unless the news was exceptionally unusual, so it was with a rather shocking glee that the latest piece of gossip shot through the cradle as those fascinated with such news dug in with avaricious joy. The news itself was also quiet shocking, with some declaring dozens, hundreds, or thousands of dungeons breaking simultaneously upon the outer plane of the cradle.

* * *

The man of the hour gloated in his joy, resting within one of the nicer brothels upon the outer plane as he basked in the glory of his latest effort. The Galgandar clan brat almost ruined his efforts, but with the rapidity he was known for, he was able to immediately enact his plan and thus save it. With the breaking of the hundred dungeons in the surrounding areas, all carefully chosen according to his grand design, the sacrificial dungeon he’d picked gathered the essence of the hundred dungeons and the thousands upon thousands of monsters that fled those dungeons, and with it, a grand acceleration. For the first time in years, the Bastard Wyvern had gained a level, and he couldn’t wait to do so again. I need to find another sacrificial dungeon!

* * *

Within the head temple of Saga, the pope of Saga gathered his people and prepared an expedition with all the pomp necessary to meet a great eccentric, and to seek out his aid in hopes to understand his rapid speed of growth. Across the capital city, the LEAP squad had already left, but left behind information regarding news of Loki rebels scattered throughout the various planes, with the greatest infestation being on the third plane. One small note warned of an unusual Loki holdout upon the outer plane. Around the capital of Aelthron itself, forces stirred, considering an unusual piece of news regarding a recently enslaved eccentric. As interesting as that was, and it did draw interest and eyes, the news of several new perfect cores drew much more attention. When it was learned that the eccentric and the perfect cores all were somehow related to the clan holding the eccentric, the cautious spying and gathering of news took on a frenetic wild abandon with the powers that be uncaring of resources or agents spent as the greatest of clans stirred to action. This frenzied abandonment of wealth quickly drew the attention of the Aelthron prison guards, and soon, all waited with cautious concern to see how the most powerful force upon the cradle would react.

* * *

Joe sat deep in thought, considering all options for dealing with his collar and with meeting anyone who might claim to be his master. Some options proved intriguing, but concerned him, uncertain of their effectiveness. Others, he took as primary options. Still, the worry gnawing deep within him drove him to search ever onward for more.

* * *

News spread slowly within Coushar, but the Galgandar clan grew concerned when the sales of land within the city spiked. There was always some reaction within the populace at the change of leadership, but this was quite a bit more than was expected, with even many commoners selling of well-known lineage properties, although asked for sales to be dated to the future by several weeks. Still, Gunlan seemed excited, rather than concerned, purchasing up much of the land within the city with his own personal funds, and when that ran out, borrowing heavily from clan funds to purchase much of the outer city with his own personal wealth. Gunlan was excited in his avid greed. Wiser heads amongst the Galgandar clan grew deeply concerned.

* * *

Allanar, new mist mage of the Galgandar clan, and friend of Joe, remained in poor condition, drowning much of his daily dissatisfaction in alcohol each evening. Few came to visit him anymore, especially due to some of his unwise comments surrounding the recent change of leadership within the clan. Given his new status, it was unlikely much could be done against him, but few wished to leash themselves to him. Therefore, the knock on the door this evening was quite the surprise. When he opened it, he was met with a face he did not know.

“A message for the mist mage, sire,” replied the messenger.

“You are no clan messenger.”

“No, sire. But I bring important news.”

Allanar stared at the man for a time and the man grew anxious.

“Please, sire. I do not wish for eyes.”

“And why should I care for said eyes?”

The man fidgeted for a bit before speaking very softly, “A certain queenly friend offers her hello.

Allanar eyes widened in surprise, looking at the man, “The message?”

“May I enter, sire?”

“Yes, yes. Of course. Come in quickly.

The messenger entered quickly, sliding the door with shadows twisting around him strangely, attempting to hide him, and Allanar tensed with some concern, but more so for others than himself.

The message was short, but the ramifications held Allanar in its grip for quite some time. He stared out the window, the dark of night offering little for the view, the memory of his clan matriarch digging like a commoner in the dirt of the garden was so deeply ingrained in his memory, he could still easily see it.

He stayed this way for quite some time, thoughts swirling, but where before he was locked in frozen despair, now his mind rushed with preparations. In the darkness of his villa, no light shown, but for the first time in a long time, a feral grin graced his face even as a deep hope burned brightly in his heart. So much to do… and not much time!

* * *

Gunlan lounged within the clan walls, taking a much needed rest for the day. When the messenger came, he almost dismissed it in anger, not wishing to be bothered with any more work. But when the messenger reported his message, Gunlan found a deep expectancy burning within him which drove him out into the streets of the city almost immediately.

When he made it to the slave merchant where his two newest acquisitions had been delivered, that expectant joy turned to bitter rage which he took out upon the slaver merchant and his shop. When the guards came running, the quickly backed off when the saw the Patriarch of the clan. Gunlan didn’t notice the pity that the guards and onlookers displayed, but it was unlikely that Gunlan would have even cared if he did.