Before I could even think of a reaction, Marina had turned to focus on the trio we had come up here with. She lunged that way, her weapon snapping up to summon a couple full-scale ethereal bears. Not just the paws, the entire ghost-like (yet solid) animal. Both lunged from the nearby wall to grab onto the two living bodyguards. They were still attached to the wall by one leg, which was probably the limitation of her weapon. The bears she summoned had to be linked to the spot where she had anchored them.

“Who else is in here?!” she blurted. Her voice had risen in anger and disbelief. I had never seen her like this before. “What are you guys keeping from us? What are you lying about?!”

Archibold’s head shook rapidly, the cyclops-orc insisting, “I assure you, we have not lied about anything since we met you.” He kept his voice even, yet insistent and firm. “The two of us may disagree on certain specifics. But there should be no one else in this vault. Unless one or more of the people you have up in the auditorium managed to sneak out?”

That made me grimace. We couldn’t be absolutely certain, of course. Even though Sesh hadn’t sounded the alarm, it was like Archibold said, someone could have snuck away without her noticing. She was only one person, after all. Would one of the others up there have spoken up if–I had no idea. All I knew was that those two girls were missing, and the only guy who could’ve told us anything about what happened was already–

God damn it, Flick.

Blurting for Marina to hold on, I spun back toward the body and whispered a quick prayer before holding my hands out. I focused on that dead form, forcing myself not to look away. I couldn’t ignore his death, I had to use it. I stretched my Necromancy, hoping that the ghost-absorbing walls hadn’t already done their dirty work. Come on, I’d gotten up here soon enough, hadn’t I? Ausesh had survived in those other rooms as a ghost for longer than this. Sure, the walls in here were closer and all, but still. Give me a break, huh?

And then, wonder of wonders, I actually did get a break. I felt a trace of a ghost. It wasn’t much, but still. As soon as I caught that barest hint, I grabbed onto it as tightly as I could. No way did I want to let it vanish. Getting answers from Perrsnile was basically the only hope we had right now.

Thankfully, he wasn’t exactly fighting it. I felt what seemed like his reassuring touch as I fed a bit more power into him. It was like coaxing a fire out of embers. I had to be careful not to shove too much power into him too quickly. It had to be just the right amount to allow him to coalesce properly.

And then, he was there. Well, his ghost was. Rather than the blue-gray/green I was most accustomed to, or even the purple he had been in life, his ghost appeared as a dark red color. I had no idea what that meant, if anything. But he was there, all three feet of him.

“Well,” the small man managed while staring down at his own body, “that was unpleasant.”

“Perrsnile!” I blurted, before the words caught in my throat. I’d intended to immediately ask where the girls were, but that felt… wrong in that exact moment. Instead, I managed a weak, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we got you involved in this.”

The ghost paused briefly before turning to look at me with a soft expression. “No, dear, it is I who should apologize. I am so very sorry that I was unable to help those poor girls.”

“What–what happened?” Marina quickly put in. “Did you see who attacked you? Sorry, I mean, did you see who murdered you? Or where they went with Dakota and Denny? Please, they have to be around here somewhere. It’s not like they could get out of the vault, and if they were going to…” She trailed off before making a fist. “If they were going to kill them, they would’ve already. The only reason to bother taking them out of this room is if they want them for some other reason. So where did they go?”

“It must be about selling the children, just like the others,” Gliner piped up. “There must’ve been someone else on the inside who was part of it, someone we didn’t know about. They’re trying to make one last sale, maybe on their way out.”

“They took Sitter too,” I quickly pointed out. “So maybe they need him, or it’s about–I don’t know. But either way, they have to get out first. And we’re not gonna let that happen. Perrsnile?” I grimaced while turning back to him. “Please, I know this isn’t fair after we couldn’t protect you from… from what happened. But we have to find Dakota and Denny. So if you can remember anything useful…”

His hand reached out, going right through mine before he winced in realization. “Ah, yes, well I’m afraid I did not see precisely who attacked me. There wasn’t time to do much of anything. I was there on the far side of the room, attempting to understand what I should do next to bring Sitter back online. The girls were… there.” He pointed near the elevator. “They would have been taken first. I heard a sound, but as I began to turn, something caught hold of me from behind. There was… pain in my chest as I was lifted up, and I’m afraid I began to black out immediately. I remember hitting the floor there, where my body is, and then… nothing. Until I felt you call for me.”

I started to sigh, before the man added, “Wait, there is one thing. As I was fading, I distinctly heard someone near the elevator there say, ‘Take them to the Beta Cargo.’”

As soon as he said that, Ausesh blurted, “That’s impossible, no one knows about Beta Cargo.”

“I ahh, I’m sorry, who are you?” Perrsnile sounded awkward while he looked that way.

“Oh, right.” Gesturing back and forth between them, I absently informed him, “This is Ausesh, she helped build the vault. That’s Gliner and Archibold. They’re… it’s a long story.”

“Ah, good day to you, sirs and lady,” Perrsnile greeted the three of them before he hesitated while looking down at himself. “Though, not so good after all, I suppose.”

“Flick,” Marina insisted while her hand grabbed my shoulder. “We have to find them, right now. We can’t let anything happen to those two. Not again.”

“We will,” I promised, already turning back toward the others. “We’re going to Beta Cargo. And you are going to tell us what that is.” My gaze snapped toward the ghost woman. “Whoever took the girls went there. So what is it? And why shouldn’t anyone else know about it?”

She hesitated slightly before giving a visible and audible sigh. “Beta Cargo is the first room we built of this place. It had the initial connection to the outside world. A direct pipeline, before we put in the rest of the rooms and established the proper way in and out. And before you ask, no, it is not a way to escape. At least, it shouldn’t be.”

“They obviously think it is,” I managed while stepping onto the elevator. Marina was right behind me, with the others trailing behind. “Whoever they are. And why can’t it be used to get out?”

“Because–” Ausesh started before moving to one side as Perrsnile waved her out of the way so Archibold could go to his preferred spot in the middle of the elevator. “Ahem, because we closed it off. We erased that pipeline. There shouldn’t be any way to open it again. And yet, I cannot think of any other reason to go there. Beyond that, the only things in that room are a few spare parts, emergency rations we won’t need, tools… the exit would be the only reason to go there. But as I said, we turned that off when we created the more stable methods of getting in and out. To put it in terms you can understand, it was a tunnel between universes and we collapsed it. We closed both ends of the tunnel, which should have made the tunnel itself collapse as well. Even if you turn it back on by opening this side, if that’s even possible, you wouldn’t know for certain whether you could open the door on the other side. And beyond all of that, it would take years for the tunnel itself to grow wide enough for people your size to use it. At best you would have something as small as a ballpoint pen.”

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She paused then. “I am likely doing a poor job of explaining this.”

“Intentionally, no doubt,” Gliner snarled. “It’s not as though you actually want us to catch your associates.”

“Don’t start with that again,” I found myself snapping before focusing on the woman. “What buttons am I pressing to get down there?” Even as I asked that, something was poking at the back of my brain. But I had no idea what it could be. I was anxious about the situation, terrified for Denny and Dakota, guilty about what had happened to Perrsnile when he’d only been trying to help, confused about why they had also taken Sitter and what they might need him for, and… and a lot of other things. There was so much bouncing around in my head that it was hard to focus. All I knew was that we had to get there and stop these people before they left with those girls.

We couldn’t let Denny and Dakota down. No, we wouldn’t let them down. That much I silently promised myself. Whatever we had to do, whoever these people were and whatever they wanted, they were going to regret grabbing those two.

If we let them live long enough to do any regretting. Personally, I wasn’t really feeling like that was likely.

Clutching my staff tightly in one hand while tapping my foot anxiously as the elevator began its torturously slow movement, I glanced over to Marina first. She looked just as upset as I was, if not more so. Her gaze was fixed angrily on the elevator door, clearly silently willing it to move faster. She was even rocking back and forth a bit, as though that would push it onward. She had her spear in one hand, tapping it repeatedly against the other. If I was ready to stab whoever had taken Denny and Dakota, I was pretty sure she was ready to disembowel them. Which meant a lot, coming from someone like Marina.

From there, I looked to the others. Two ghosts, a cyclops-orc, and a blue-scaled guy with six eyes. These were the people I was going with to confront whoever was behind all this. I barely knew anything about them, and still didn’t know if we could trust Ausesh. It was possible that Gliner was right about her. Maybe she was working with the people who had taken the girls after all. Or maybe–

Fuck. I had no idea. At least she was a ghost, so if she tried anything, I could stop her. Right now, I wanted her close so I knew exactly what she was doing. I just–fuck, none of this made sense. The bad guy was either Ausesh or Valdean, right? They built the vault together and then she hid out while he was the face of things. One of them started selling the children in the vault to bad people. Gliner thought it was Ausesh, while Archibold thought it was Valdean. Archibold asked Mophse about missing supplies, and then either Ausesh or Valdean killed Mophse for investigating. Which led to Archibold killing Valdean, because he believed that guy was the one who killed Mophse. Then the time-lock happened, and when it ended, Gliner killed Ausesh because he thought she was responsible for killing Mophse.

All of that left questions, and we weren’t sure which of the two was the real bad guy. But it made sense. Whichever of those two was responsible for the whole situation, it still worked. I could follow the course of events logically, for the most part. So where the hell had this come from? Who were these new people who had just shown up, killed Perrsnile, and then took off with Sitter, Denny, and Dakota? It felt as though we had been starting to get a hold of what was going on around here, until this whole wrench got thrown into it. Come to think of it, I might’ve been almost as angry about that as I was about whoever this was taking the girls.

No, no, I was still a hell of a lot angrier about that last part.

And yet, my brain wouldn’t stop picking at the whole thing. I was turning it around and around in my head, struggling to make sense of it. These people had come off one of the other elevators and abducted the girls while grabbing and killing the man. Then they took Dakota and Denny, as well as Sitter, and went down to some closed off back door area that they couldn’t even get through? Did they have a way to get out that our new friends here didn’t know about?

With that in mind, I looked at Ausesh. “Tell me the truth, is there any way that you know of for these guys to use that closed tunnel thing to get out of here? Any way at all?” Yeah, I couldn’t be absolutely sure that she was telling the truth, but it was all I had. I was wishing my dad was here right now. He would’ve been able to tell if she was lying, I was sure of it.

Ausesh, for her part, met my gaze evenly. She didn’t answer right away, seeming to consider the question intently. Or maybe she was thinking up a convincing lie. I had no idea which. Either way, she finally replied, “It is not entirely impossible. But, any way I look at it, they would need much more time to do so. This is something that would take weeks for them to do safely. This area would have been monitored by Sitter before the time-lock, and he would have noticed, investigated, and undoubtedly brought it up to you. Which he clearly did not do. Obviously it could not have been done while the time-lock was in effect, and given it has only been a few hours since that was turned off, there is no reasonable way for them to have gotten very far. If this is their escape plan, they cannot be very far with it. I assure you, there is absolutely no way for any living creature to travel through that tunnel until much more preparation is done.”

While I was taking that in and thinking about her words, the elevator came to a stop. We were here. Immediately, Marina and I glanced at one another before stepping to either side as the doors opened. We were both ready with our weapons up, just in time to see a wide open room. It looks like a warehouse floor with absolutely nothing in it. We could see all four walls and the ceiling from here, and there wasn’t a stitch of furniture or anyone in view. But that didn’t mean much. Not with all the invisibility powers and spells they could be using.

I switched on my infrared vision and scanned the room intently while stepping off the elevator and quickly moving to one side. Marina was right behind me and moved to the other side. Behind us, the two bodyguards stepped off as well. With the two ghosts bringing up the rear, we all spread out and scanned the room, searching for any sign of these people. But there was nothing. I reached out with my item-sense, my Necromancy, everything I could think of. I just could not see any sign that they were down here.

“It’s possible that they went somewhere else,” Gliner noted, his gaze shifting from one side of the room to the other while he kept moving his pistols, clearly hoping we were wrong and our enemies would reveal themselves in the next second. But they didn’t. Everything remained quiet and the place was still eerily empty.

“Fuck,” I managed, “I should’ve had one of you teach me how to check the system to see where more people were when they shouldn’t be. I was just so intent on getting down here and–fuck.”

“I can still show you how to do that,” Ausesh offered. I could tell that Gliner wanted to snap something at that, but he held his tongue, while she continued. “We would have to return to the server room once more.”

I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have a better idea either. We had to track down where these people were. So, I nodded slowly. But not all of us. Whoever these people are, they might come down here while we’re gone. I don’t want to keep chasing them back-and-forth.

“I am, ahh, apparently a ghost now,” Perrsnile noted. “Which you have some control over. I can stay here, if you like, and warn you directly if anyone returns to this place.”

Archibold agreed to stay behind as well, as Marina and I went back to the elevator with Ausesh. Gliner came too, refusing to take his eyes off the ghost woman. Soon, the four of us were heading back to the place we had just left, as I sighed and shook my head while my eyes closed. “We’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off, while Denny and Dakota are out there being–god, who knows what? They’ve gotta be so freaked out right now. They set off that alert and we didn’t even…”

As I trailed off, Marina looked at me. “We didn’t even get to them in time, yeah. We didn’t–”

“No,” I interrupted. My eyes opened, and I reached out, hitting the button to stop the elevator in mid-transit.

“Flick?” Marina quickly looked from my hand to my gaze. “What’re you doing? We need to get back to the server room to track these guys down.”

“No, we don’t,” I replied. “Because I know what happened.” My eyes glanced from Marina, over to Gliner, then to Ausesh. “Not all of it, but I know who’s behind it. I know who the real killer is, the one who’s responsible for everything. I know what’s really going on.” My hand tightened on the staff.

“It’s–”