Charlie crawled around, looking at the children. Kashak was doing okay now. He leaned against a wall, catching his breath. Desmond had tended to most of his fresh scars.

Kashak had been trapped on the wrong side of the wall. Charlie frowned at that. It was a big mistake. The two hunters with him said that Kashak had pushed them to the other side before the wall slammed down. But he’d lost his spear in the process.

If it had been anyone but Kashak, if Charlie had trapped a normal person on the opposite side of that wall, they might be dead now.

That was on him. He had to do better.

He looked over at the group of injured children. Several hunters stood guard over them. Others formed a protective circle around the smaller children. A few guards wandered the perimeter of their makeshift camp, waving the flickering lamps around for signs of another attack.

Florence was among the injured. Her face looked bad. She’d fallen unconscious since the attack. Luc was still moving around somehow. He hadn’t left her side since. She’d saved him and then gotten hurt. Charlie bet Luc was carrying that burden. He probably felt responsible.

Charlie looked up at the transparent blue core still floating in the air. He was surprised it had listened to him. It was good to know it could follow basic instructions. Soon, he would ask the interface about it. Hopefully, it could give him some answers. But for now, he thought he’d given Lyra enough time to be alone with her thoughts. He crawled back toward her at top speed.

She looked up and held her hands out for him. She lifted him up and sat him in her lap. “I failed them, Charlie. This was my idea. I thought we could protect them, but I…” she trailed off.

Charlie frowned. He didn’t know what to say.

A boy grunted somewhere behind them. Charlie turned to see Kashak forcing himself to his feet. He used the broken shaft of a spear as a crutch and started making his way over to them. He looked up at something behind them on the other side. Charlie turned to see Luc approaching as well.

Luc knelt and put a hand on Lyra’ shoulder. Then he rubbed Charlie’s head. “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

Lyra looked at him, her eyes threatening to tear up.

Luc’s mouth parted. He wasn’t used to seeing her like this.

Kashak grimaced. He leaned against the wall and slid down it, sitting next to Lyra. “You’re our leader. Like it or not. So, what do we do? Do we turn back?”

Lyra sighed. She looked around at the scared, injured, and sleeping children. Charlie couldn’t imagine what was going on in her mind. He knew how bad he felt about trapping Kashak on the other side of the wall. He knew whatever Lyra was experiencing was ten times as bad as that. She blamed herself for it all.

Her brows drew together. She looked around the room. “They didn’t kill anyone. They left all the kids alive. But took some. Why?” she asked.

“We don’t know how Scalers hunt. We can’t assume anything based on their actions here.”

Charlie looked up from the three of them, noticing another boy approaching. It was Desmond. “I noticed something during the fight. I thought you all should know about it,” he said.

Lyra raised a brow. “What is it?”

“I was in the middle of the fighting when I looked up and saw a Scaler. A spitting one. It was looking right at me, and I realized I couldn’t get out of the way in time. But before it could attack, another one of the Scalers turned on it and bit out its throat,” Desmond said.

Kashak shook his head. “It was probably the friendly one over there. It protected me, too.” The Scaler Charlie had freed was sleeping against a wall now. After entrusting Kashak to Desmond’s care, it had gone to lie down on its own. Since then, no one had dared bother it. Though the hunters kept a watchful eye on it just to be safe.

Desmond shook his head. "No. It attacked me after. I killed it."

Lyra picked Charlie up in her arms and stood up. She looked around the battlefield. “We’ve lived in the dungeons for a long time, but the Scalers rarely leave their territory. What if, what if they weren’t allowed to? What if they aren’t actually allowed to kill us? We failed to keep them at bay. They swarmed us and yet, aside from Kashak, Florence and a few others, injuries were minor. Perhaps there is more to all of this than we think.”

Charlie looked up at her, and then back to the sleeping Scaler. Orb was very clear about the fact his sentience ability didn’t activate. So why then had the Scaler ended up helping them? Why was it being friendly? Maybe Lyra was on to something.

Kashak didn’t move from his spot, sitting against the wall. He looked down. “Lyra, this is nothing more than wishful thinking. We need to figure out our next steps. Scalers are not intelligent creatures. So, who do you propose set rules for them? You think they take orders from Varroc?” he asked.

Lyra shook her head. “No. Not Varroc. Not any human. The dungeon itself. Or at least, its core.”

Luc sighed. “Speaking of that, you saw all that crazy stuff during the fight, right? The dungeon helped us out back there. That, or it has really poor aim. What do you think that was about?”

Lyra looked down at Charlie in his arms. He thought for a moment.

“Lyra, tell them about me. It’s okay, if just these three know,” Charlie said.

She blinked in surprise. “You’re sure?” she asked, before realizing she’d said it aloud.

The three boys of the council stared at her.

“Uh, Lyra…who’re you talking to?” Luc asked.

Charlie nodded his encouragement.

“Okay.” She took a few steps away and then turned to face the three of them. “The dungeon didn’t interfere. It was Charlie. He has powers and can understand us. But most importantly, he’s really strong. Without him, I don’t think any of us would still be here. They would’ve dragged all of us back to their nest. But with him on our side, I think it’s possible.”

Kashak looked up at her. “Charlie is—” He shook his head. “What’s possible?”

Her eyes flitted between the three of them. “It’s possible to go take the other children back. We’re going to rescue them from those lizards.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Charlie nodded, giving the boys a thumbs up.

All three of them blinked in surprise.

***

Kashak and Desmond were organizing the rest of the hunters, making a plan to rescue the kidnapped children. Lyra and Luc focused on organizing everyone else. If they were going to pull this off, they needed to be smart. There were a lot of Scalers, and they wouldn’t be so quick to retreat if the children attacked their nest.

Charlie crawled on his own again. Well, kind of on his own. The friendly Scaler now followed him around as he crawled. The other children freaked out when they saw him moving around by himself, but Lyra had assured them they were all okay. If Kashak, Desmond and Luc hadn’t seen his powers in action, and heard it from Lyra, they probably wouldn’t believe any of this either. But the fact was that they didn’t have time to focus on the absurdity of Charlie’s powers and circumstances now.

They needed to focus on getting the others back.

Charlie needed to focus on getting Sophia back.

The problem was, he didn’t have any dungeon integrity left. He couldn’t risk fighting without running out and putting his friends in danger. But without his power, did the kids really stand a chance of rescuing the others?

He paused and sat up in the middle of the hallway to think. He turned to look at the Scaler. “Do you have any ideas?” he asked it, sending a mental thought its way. It didn’t react. It just tilted its head at him. “Guess not.”

“Interface, how can I get my dungeon integrity back quickly?” he asked.

Silence. Right, the system was being pretty particular about when it would respond now that was Parent was gone. Seeing his status again wasn’t going to help anything. A measly 4% dungeon integrity wasn’t enough to do much of anything.

He looked up, a floating blue light flew overhead. He blinked. The temporary core. He watched it float past and over to a pile of Scaler corpses. It descended until it got close to one of them, and then gentled pressed against the body.

Charlie’s lips twisted to the side. What was it doing?

The dungeon core bounced off the dead Scaler and then pressed forward again. Bouncing against it over and over. Charlie crawled over.

“What are you doing?” he asked it. It made a little noise every time it bounced against it.

Boop.

Boop.

Boop, boop, boop.

Charlie felt a tingling sensation in his hand. It reminded him of…oh. Those weird tendrils. Except this time, it was more itchy than anything. Last time, they had forced themselves out. He wondered if there was a reason they weren’t doing that this time.

If that was even what this was.

Did he have enough integrity? 4% should be enough. It hadn’t drained anything last time.

He looked over his shoulder. The Scaler behind him was blocking the view. None of the other kids could see past it. The guards up ahead were focused on the tunnel beyond. He should be able to get away with trying this out.

“Transfer!” he held a hand out.

Two sickly looking, thin green tendrils shot out of the portal and feebly latched onto the Scaler corpse in front of him. Charlie watched in shock, his eyes growing wide as the tendrils pulled the Scaler towards his hand. It disintegrated as they worked. By the time the Scaler was sucked through the portal, there was nothing left of its body.

It looked similar to the way the material from his dungeon dissolved after he used an attack. But what was—

Assimilation complete. Dungeon Mass increased. Dungeon integrity is now at 6%.

Vetica

Vetica trekked slowly through the forest, navigating only by instinct and the occasional swath of moonlight. It had become a bad habit to leave the makeshift camp and make her way toward town.

She waited for the signal, a signal she’d expected a while ago. It seemed that, once again; it wasn’t coming. She sighed, tracing her fingers along the side of her knife.

She so ached to use it. To fight.

Sitting here waiting was killing her. She wanted to help. Not play babysitter out here in the forest. Lady Calandra was nice enough company, but Vetica was not a guard. She was an assassin. The patrols would start soon. She knew she needed to make her way back to camp.

She sniffed at the air. An acrid, smoky scent permeated the breeze around her. She turned her head. She looked down at strands of her own hair that flowed with the wind. That meant the smoke should be coming from…that way. She drew her dagger and hurried through the forest. The patrols of Sange usually used magic to illuminate the forest, not torches.

Even then, the smoke wouldn’t be this prevalent. So, this was something else.

A battle? Perhaps a fire elemental hex had been used. Or maybe a forest fire. That would be a problem for her. She’d need to get Lady Calandra and Marvin to safety, in that case. For now, it was best to assess the situation in person, rather than make pointless assumptions.

She reached the campsite in record time. She’d come to know these forests well in a short time. Well enough that she could traverse them more easily than most. She’d always had a knack for this sort of thing.

It helped with her line of work.

There were four of them.

She couldn’t make them out very well at this distance, but they clearly weren’t soldiers of Sange. Their armor wasn’t right. Nor was it uniform. They were all dressed differently. She crept closer to the camp. Vetica needed to identify them.

If they were traveling to Sange, this was a strange place to stop. It was far enough that the patrols wouldn’t run into them by accident, but close enough that it made little sense for them to camp here instead of finishing the trip into town.

What were they up to? She crept closer. A large tree on the edge of the clearing would allow her to get a better look at them. She watched her steps carefully now. It was hard to see, so she traced the ground with a foot before pressing her weight on it, feeling for anything that might break or crunch under her step. Slowly carving a quiet path to her prey.

The person behind her wasn’t as careful.

Snap.

Vetica froze.

“Don’t move. I’d hate to run this knife through your back. I just finished getting Hex Beast's blood off it. We’re going to go into camp and have a little chat alright—”

She whirled around, swatting the man’s blade to the side and pressing her own to his throat.

“Well, shit,” he said. He dropped his knife, holding his hands out. It fell quietly, muted by dirt.

She shook her head. Well, now she didn’t have any reason to hide. This idiot had hand delivered himself as a hostage for her. She skirted past him and wrapped her arm under his shoulder, pressing her blade against his neck. She pushed him forward with her other hand. Shoving him towards camp.

“Careful, I have a sensitive neck, and I’m allergic to sharp things. I’m not gonna try anything. Mom would be just horrified if she couldn’t call me names anymore. Though she’ll probably do that even after I die.”

She pressed the blade closer into his neck. That silenced him.

She led him into the camp. The others jumped to their feet as soon as they saw their acquaintance taken prisoner.

A man with long red dreads flicked his thumb, unsheathing his katana a few inches. Vetica eyed him. He looked strong. His eyes locked on her hostage.

“Damn it, Roan. You said you had it!” Axel cried out.

“Seriously?” Samantha said at the same time.

Roan rolled his eyes. “Some friends I have, right? Here you are with a knife to my throat and they're rubbing salt in the wound.”

Vetica squinted. Her eyes focused on the two who hadn’t spoken. A large brown man sat on a log, and a younger woman sat next to him. The name Roan sounded familiar. Charlie had mentioned…

She looked up at the brown, bald man. “Is your name Geron?” she asked.

He looked at her, surprised. So, she was right. These were the adventurers Charlie crossed paths with in Sirra.