The next two days we spent surveilling the CBD Dungeon, setting up the base, and trying to work as a team.
Because of their personal (though questionable) interest, I put Jye in charge of the hydroponics, telling them to hit up the Bunnings a few suburbs away to get some stuff to plant. Not once but twice I’d gone down into the basement to be treated to the dank, grassy smell of the giant smoking and had promptly retreated back upstairs. The first time, I’d accidentally seen Jye crying and had hightailed out of there so quickly I nearly tripped on a step. It was obviously a private moment for them, and it felt incredibly wrong of me to intrude, but it did require some sort of follow up eventually. Had they been holding something in this whole time? My concern about the redhead grew. I shifted the mental note of checking in with them again to a higher priority.
The second time I’d come down, hoping to catch Jye in a better mood, I’d done a double take, having seen Gigi down there with them, passing xem a blunt. The two appeared to be in discussion about something, and it had the air of confidentiality about it, so again I turned away. I might want to get closer to them both, to know Jye and Gigi better, but I knew some conversations were not intended for everyone. This had definitely felt like one of those.
Perhaps I caught the word “family” before closing the door at the top of the stairs. But I couldn’t be sure.
I didn’t think I needed to worry about the two of them smoking, since they’d run out sooner or later. As far as I knew, growing weed and getting a good harvest was actually a pretty difficult challenge. Good luck to them both, though, if they decided to keep a few to cultivate. I’d turn a blind eye to it. People needed their luxuries, after all.
Speaking of, the first shower I'd had here, after my very last one at Jye’s gym, made me feel reborn. Being able to properly scrub away the dirt, which by now had become a darker second skin all over my body, was cathartic, though I did come out of it red from scraping myself raw. Of course, I’d told everybody there was a five-minute time limit to showers.
Most of them did not appreciate this rule, least of all Axel. I think I did hear a mumbling under his breath about bathing together. Jye, having overheard, had thought he was talking about how in Japan people often showered first, with the bath being more like a treat afterward that family members took turns with. Regardless, since most of the en suites didn’t have baths for us to take turns, and we’d still need to shower first, it wasn’t the most practical or hygienic. The conversation took a turn toward saunas, and I’d had to wrangle back on track.
Before my shower, I’d checked the soap, shampoo, and conditioner, and found that not only was Lusi rich, super chill, and a big time drug dealer, but also environmentally friendly. All the products had low chemical impact, which meant the greywater they made could be used to grow plants. The body wash had a lovely floral scent too, something like frangipani.
Keeping in mind our limited reserves, I instructed everyone to plug the bathtubs and collect the greywater to use for flushing toilets when they showered. This type of water collection was something I’d done living rural as a kid when we’d gone through a particularly dry spell. I’d hated the pooling of water at my feet at the time, but it was good to know now, I guess.
Also, if we messed up the hydroponics, we might need it for outside gardening; there was more than enough land to build something up. Given the fact it was summer too, we could plant something and get a pretty strong yield. I added it to my plans for the future.
I did end up channelling my mother as I put together a chore chart, slapping up the hastily scribbled schedule on the fridge. Over breakfast that first morning, something I’d cobbled together while still half asleep, having discovered that Lusi or someone in her household had been vegan and had powdered egg substitute in the pantry, I crankily probed each of my party members about what tasks they didn’t mind performing.
It came as no surprise that Wren was fine doing anything, since she said Makris kept her entertained during mundane activities. What was he saying to her? Maybe one day I’d ask. I put her in charge of dishes. Unfortunately, when it came to household chores, the others were much more picky.
Tam reluctantly volunteered to share cooking duties inclusive of meal prep but absolutely refused to do regular house maintenance like sweeping, dusting, or mopping. She mumbled something under her breath about enforcing gender roles, and I’d had to physically slap my cheeks to stop myself from reacting. I’d breathed deep and assigned her to cooking and exterior maintenance. Since I’d given Jye the basement garden, I hadn’t added much more to their load other than ensuring the house’s furnishings were tidy in general.
Gigi asked to do all the chores that Tam had rejected, so that ended up being quite easy to arrange. When I’d asked why, xe had replied that xe liked the repetitive motion involved, that it was almost like meditation to xem. Truly, the Linnikian was alien to me.
To Axel I gave laundry, much to his chagrin. After I spoke about how immaculately he always dressed and how I wanted that same level of cleanliness applied to the party, he capitulated with a smug smile. Had he always been so easy to deal with?
As for me, I was like a stop gap, ensuring that everyone wasn’t doing the same thing every day. I would be cycling through each of the chores on different days, though I found I’d also taken up half the cooking and dropped in to help out each member in their chores if I had time. I also found other stuff to fill my time.
Like that, two days passed.
But not without us preparing for the assault on the CBD Dungeon.
After breakfast, we’d send Tam out in cat-form so she could watch the way the gate guards patrolled the area, and she’d report back to us, in quite impressive detail after watching them all day. She informed us about some of the abilities she’d seen the players use when catching people who tried to sneak in, as well as figuring out that the actual person in charge was a man that went by the name Damien. This Damien appeared to have some sort of military background and had taught that to the people who’d joined his group. Tam also explained that there was a steady trickle of people entering the Gate after paying but none of them were coming out. That did not bode well.
Truth be told, I didn’t understand this shift in Tam. She appeared to actually be listening to me and doing as I said, though with initial objection. Perhaps Tam had changed her tune about the party? Maybe Carrie’s death had more of an effect on her than I’d thought. But, unlike with Jye, confronting the cutthroat with a well-being check would be like pulling teeth. She’d storm off before I’d be able to get a word out edgewise. Though maybe I should still try…
While she’d gone on recon the first day, Axel and I had returned to our apartment and picked it clean, shoving pretty much every important item we owned into our inventories. It’d been incredibly otherworldly returning home after everything. It seemed both the same and different. There was comfort in its familiarity but nothing else. When we left it, I didn’t feel even an echo of the same fear that’d struck me originally.
Maybe it was because I knew where I was going this time.
It was also kind of enjoyable how simple everything was without the daily pressure of normal life and practicalities. Like, when you didn’t have to worry about carrying stuff everywhere, life became easier. At my suggestion, Axel and I also commandeered several ebikes from the neighbourhood as we went. I’d gotten sick of walking from place to place. Despite the somewhat hilly nature of Brisbane, it was still far better than trekking to and fro.
Some part of me felt bad about our thefts, but the likelihood was that whoever owned the bicycles had already passed, and I’d eventually be reviving them. So I began to justify our grave robberies as a type of pre-payment for the service I’d be providing. It only made me feel slightly better. During this trip, we didn’t run into many people and those who did see us often avoided us like the plague.
The lack of people was beginning to concern me. Had they all really gone into the Dungeons and were still trying to complete the Challenge? I prayed they weren’t all dead.
Jye went out that first day to their apartment too and to head to Bunnings for anything they could salvage. I told them to just grab everything they possibly could. Since there was no apparent cap on our inventories, there was no reason to be picky. They told me they wouldn’t leave a single screw unturned with a very excited thumbs-up before heading out with a jig in their step. When the redhead had returned, after a concerted effort to remove the car from the garage, they’d dumped the majority of their looted goods within, filing the enclosed shed to the brim. We had tried to pull the vehicle into our inventory, but were met with an Unacceptable parameters error message. It appeared there were limitations to what we could add, after all.
We’d left Wren with Gigi since xe wasn’t familiar with the area, or Earth at all, and because Wren was a child who still required adult supervision. To her objections, Makris didn’t count. I’d given her the duty of tallying up all the food we currently had, as well as other sundries. This had rewarded me with a head tilt and prompted a dictionary explanation of the word. Afterward, she’d pulled a notebook from her inventory and sprinted to the kitchen to begin her lists.
That night Tam and I cooked together almost harmoniously, though we did bump into each other several times. I really had never cooked with someone else in the kitchen, but we managed well enough. Too late we discovered she had a penchant for a particular flavor profile.
The noodles we served, from the classic Indomie ten pack, sprinkled with rehydrated vegetables and gussied up with a bit more toppings and sauces, had lit most of our tongues on fire and had us crying for milk. In the fridge, the closest thing we’d found was almond milk that had already expired. I wasn’t so desperate as to tempt fate, accepting the acute organ failure, but Gigi had been, sweat dripping profusely from xir closely cropped silver crown into reddened eyes. Xe’d also remained home the next day as a result of less than favourable bowel issues.
I’d spent the time after dinner talking with Axel, as I’d offered. We spoke about the day, recounting the things we’d seen, from several people who’d full on sprinted away from us in fear to the funny-looking graffiti of a cartoonishly disproportioned monkey we’d seen, until eventually he’d begun to doze off in my bed. I stirred him, and he’d sheepishly smiled before leaving.
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It was difficult to sleep that night too.
The second day had Jye making headway into the basement garden, Gigi planning out our training regimen given xir history as a warrior on xir planet (which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me considering what xe’d previously shared), Wren finishing up her stock count, and Axel doing his first load of clothes. That night, Tam came back to report that she’d watched some others approach the Gate to ask for entry for the first time, having heard the full details this time.
“What happened, exactly?” I asked while getting dinner ready.
Axel was folding laundry in the living room listening in, and Wren was helping, sorting the pieces out. Gigi, in the hallway, was finishing up vacuuming, and Jye’d decided to call it a day in the basement having ripped out half of the weed and replaced them with appropriate vegetable seeds and seedlings. They’d spent the better part of the morning reading up on the gardening books they’d taken from Bunnings to get better acquainted with the hydroponics system. Part of me thought they were mostly doing it for the weed. But that still benefited us in the long run.
Tam took a seat at the breakfast bar, folding her arms upon the bench.
“Damien was absent, thankfully, ain’t a fan of him, but some no namer stepped up to give specifics on what they’re accepting as payment. Just food and fuel is it. They tried to haggle, but that was a no go. Don’t imagine they’d change their tune for us either.” Their requirements were smart, I had to admit. It was almost exactly what we were doing. Food and fuel were necessities to survive in this world. Tam continued, “It also was sounding like his little fan-group had set up similar guards around other Gates.” It meant it was a pretty big organisation. Perhaps they’d known each other before the start of the event?
Still, Tam’s words had piqued my interest.
“Gates, plural?” I decided to inquire further.
“Yep,” she said, popping the “P.”
Axel creased a shirt in half. “Obviously there’d be more than Dungeon 16 and Dungeon 11, if we’re supposed to be using them to level up.”
“Dungeons will continue appearing until there are no more interested Deities,” confirmed Gigi, while unplugging the vacuum and retracting its cord.
“Isn’t it just weird this many have appeared in Brisbane?” I asked.
“Apophis once explained that it is a combination of population density and random chance.”
Jye let out a yawn. “Like, what does that even matter? Doesn’t have any impact on our plans.”
I added the rehydrated shitake mushrooms to the soup base, testing a sample, before sprinkling some MSG in.
“Just curious,” I replied. Truthfully, I was hoping that no Dungeon would appear near my parents. Though by now, it was possible they’d have tried to make their way to Brisbane. I’d checked my phone the moment it turned on once charged but found nothing had changed regarding reception. The Deities had to be interfering with it. Not even the hardwired internet on the PC in the basement seemed to be working.
“How much food and fuel were they asking for entry?”
Tam’s brow furrowed. “For each person entering, either enough for three days of food or five litres of petrol. They waffled on about how traffic had died down recently though.”
If the itch got worse the longer you held out, it was likely most people had already felt compelled to enter the Dungeons. Once those people entered, there would be less and less willing to pay to enter—unless they knew about the truth behind the Event and wanted to level up. Maybe in the case of the gate guards, it was better to keep that information from them, otherwise they’d start preparing for it.
“Dinner’s nearly ready,” I said into the silence that followed.
It was obvious what everyone had begun thinking about: whether the price to enter the CBD Dungeon was worth it. With the six of us, it’d be fifty-four meals or thirty litres of petrol. It was that or killing a dozen people. But those people weren’t without sin. They’d taken the lives of others attempting to sneak in without payment.
Knowing that they were also taking over other Gates meant that sooner or later we would end up clashing. And as it was, based on Wren’s stock take, I wasn’t confident we had enough food to keep us going for the rest of the month. Given the minimal granting of XP, I had to assume the Deities would allow for ample time before pulling the plug, so we’d need more food. There was no possible way we could afford to do it multiple times to enter several Gates.
The equation of our lives against others was messed up. But it was a choice that would be put to the group. I’d asked tomorrow morning, and we’d make our plans based on that. I'd meant what I said the other day. We'd be ready to kill if there was no other way.
Solemnly, the party set the table and we ate our third dinner at our new base in grave silence.
Axel let out a little moan as he stretched across the length of my bed, propping his head up on a hand. “I regret giving this up to you.”
I smacked one of the surplus pillows at him.
“I asked what you thought about what we should do.”
“And I was politely changing topic, since you weren’t asking because you wanted my actual opinion but because you wanted me to justify yours.”
I scowled, hating how well the blond knew me.
“You know what I’d say,” he added, with a humouring smile.
“Us versus them, right?”
With his spare hand, he took one of mine. “You’ve got too much niceness in you. And that’s not a compliment.”
Sighing, I slid down the bed, letting my focus rest in the warmth of Axel’s hold. It was unusual how easily I’d grown accustomed to it. To constantly be in contact with him. It grounded me but was unable to completely distract me from the monumental decision that awaited us at breakfast tomorrow. The longer I thought on it, the clearer the right choice became.
“It’s never gonna be easy, is it?” I asked.
“Never is,” he replied, the weight of that indiscernible sadness dripping from each syllable.
Instinctively, I squeezed my hand, and his gaze shifted back. A small relief fluttered through me. Part of me was always worried I’d lose him to that grief completely. It looked so easy for him to be swallowed by it, like he was hanging by a single thread. It scared me a little too much to think about what would happen if that snapped. I’d seen him breakdown before, but even then, something had kept him here. I didn’t know what I’d do if that ever happened.
“Thank you,” I began, meeting his eyes, “for being here with me. I don’t think I would’ve made it this far without you.”
“I don’t doubt that,” he said with a smirk.
Jabbing an elbow into his rib cage, I muttered, “You’re meant to say it back, not just accept it.”
Recovering from my attack, he chuckled, shifting to lean against the pillows. He cradled my hand between both of his. “Here you go then: thank you for being here.”
I absorbed the moment; the insanity of Axel in my bed, of him holding my hand, of us in a drug den penthouse, the apocalypse, the fight for our lives, the pressure of morality in a world without laws.
“When you say it, it sounds corny,” I remarked, grinning.
“Now that’s just rude.”
We shared a laugh, and I thought about what would’ve happened if the Gates had never activated. Axel never would’ve confessed, I would’ve never acknowledged his feelings or attempted to meet them, and we’d have never had… whatever this was. Sure, I was only seeing the positive side now, and ignoring all the grim details, but I figured it was okay now and then to appreciate how things had changed instead of always bemoaning them. This, Axel, me… Well. Maybe there wasn’t that much of an upside.
Axel’s gaze slipped to the watch at my wrist, and his eyes widened. He let out a low whistle, then angled my hand about so that I could see the time too.
10:57 p.m. We had to get up at sunrise, around 5 a.m, to take advantage of the light. I blinked in surprise. The time had passed so quickly. I could’ve sworn it had only been eight o’clock five minutes ago. We’d accidentally stayed up talking much later than we should’ve. The two of us should definitely be heading to sleep or we’d be wrecked for tomorrow which was slated to be a big day.
Axel must’ve seen my expression because he straightened up in bed.
After a moment, he said, “Bit cold tonight, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t. But that’s not what he was asking.
Put on the spot, I found myself unable to reply, and he nodded, as if completely understanding, as though he’d guessed I’d reject his unspoken request, like it was some forgone conclusion.
The blond made a move to leave, and, sending my gratitude to Lusi and whatever had granted her the wealth we’d claimed, a PhD or otherwise, I reached to the bedside table for the remote that controlled the lights and switched them off.
Darkness settled around us. Now only the moon’s kiss spilled in through the windows to faintly illuminate the room. As I’d hoped, the lighting change had halted the blond, his back to me. I couldn’t see his expression. I didn’t know what mine was either.
It seemed time itself stopped in that moment.
Axel’s frame sat at the precipice between standing to leave and returning to bed.
“So you don't mind if I borrow your blanket?” he asked into the silence.
His hand was still anchored in mine.
I gently pulled him back.
The soft glow of moonlight caught the planes of his face, revealing a dazed smile so adoring that I couldn’t help but return it. With no comment, he slipped in beside me, pulling the sheets up over us. Then he settled in, pressing his forehead against mine, our hands clasped together between us.
I stared at him, his face so close to mine, his eyes warm, and a hum of contentedness travelled through me. He had the same scent of frangipani body wash as me. A fleeting thought, so quick, flickered through my mind. That I wanted to always smell like him. But it disappeared into the ether of sleepy satisfaction of the moment.
Having him here, in contact with me, felt right.
He didn’t ask, he didn’t push.
Nothing else was said.
The last thought I had before losing consciousness was a strange confidence that even without me, Axel would’ve been fine. The pragmatic flatness I’d seen in him when I’d become paralysed proved that. He was more than capable of it. I might’ve needed him to survive this far, but he wouldn’t have needed me. Perhaps that made this, whatever we were, all the more special.
I fell away into my dreams listening to his light rhythmic breaths.
It was the best night of sleep I’d had since the Gates had appeared.
The next morning the vote was unanimous.