“What do you mean ‘about time’?” Ray questioned, confused. “I legitimately thought you were dead. Gone. Kaput.”

Nyx just huffed at him in annoyance, “Soul Companion Ray. It’s what I am now. I literally won’t die unless you do. Spoiler, I can get hurt enough to… disincorporate? Unsummon? Whatever.”

He nodded at that, “Where do you go anywhere? Do I… do I keep you in my brain or something? My soul? I mean, Soul Companion, right? The soul makes sense.”

“You would think so… but no. I just kind of… hover around? I can see and hear everything, but I can’t really interact with you,” she said, a bit at a loss as to how to put it to words. “I kept yelling at you to activate your ability, but you heard nothing. Did nothing.”

“Yeah, I didn’t hear any of that. But I did get a kind of… funny feeling? A bout of intuition?” he said, also having a hard time explaining what he had felt. “I only felt it there towards the end, before I resummoned you. Like I was supposed to use the ability to bring you back or something. I don’t know, it's hard to explain.”

“Indeed, it is. Odd and very difficult to explain. Regardless, my magnificence is back now. We may proceed with the retreat,” Nyx said, licking her paw.

“As fascinating as this conversation is, My Lord,” interrupted Verrick, looking anything but interested in their conversation, “We need to leave. You were correct in your assumption that the creatures around us remain in hiding. A chance to move unhindered in the early morning darkness will likely not come again soon.”

Ray couldn’t agree more. “Alright then, we’re wasting time. Let’s go everyone!” he said loudly, prompting the group to unbar the door and spill out into the dark, pre-dawn street. He could see a faint light along the horizon, telling him that true dawn wasn’t that far off.

{WARNING}

ABANDON CLAIMED BUILDING

Y / N

“That’s new,” Ray muttered. He selected yes, prompting a new notification to pop up into his vision notifying him that the building was now unoccupied and unclaimed. He wasn’t sure if there would be some kind of penalty or not for having something he claimed taken from him, or even if that was possible. But he didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Verrick looked at him questioningly, but Ray waved him off, “Some weird System thing. I don’t think it's important right now.”

The Aelvin nodded and the group turned to start the trek back home. The {RANGER}'s spread out around them, keeping their wounded in the center with Ray and Nyx. This seemed to be the standard formation that Verrick preferred, allowing them the most flexibility to respond to any threats.

They moved a few blocks closer to Ray’s claimed territory before the lead {RANGER} threw a hand up, halting their movement. “Something isn’t right,” Verrick muttered quietly to Ray. “There is something ahead of us… many somethings. Not undead, we wouldn’t have found them from so far away. Something living, My Lord.”

Ray was about to respond when a slow clapping sounded out from around them. A slow, rhythmic clapping that echoed through the dark, silent streets. Echoing amongst the not-so-vacant buildings. As the sound spread out around them, Ray’s blood ran cold. He had vivid memories of the last time he had run into a situation like this. Only he had a lot more people, weapons, and gear at his disposal.

And he still hadn’t come out on top.

“Well, well, well,” sounded out a deep scratchy voice as bandits spilled out from nearly every corner, crevice, and piece of cover there was. They nearly surrounded them, leaving only the way they came open to them. “We find our guests at last, and if I’m not mistaken it’s the same little rat bastards who fucked with me before everything changed.”

A single man hopped up onto the top of a car behind the hundreds of bandits that had surrounded them. He was a bit short, shorter than Ray would have expected for sure. With a bald head, and wearing the generic biker ensemble of a leather vest and thick pants, the man was everything Ray had expected he would be. Although he had never laid eyes on Brett, only heard the voice as it issued orders to kill them during their last escapade to the city proper before the Integration.

Ray had heard a lot about Brett from the people he had rescued. That he was a vicious, savage man capable of extreme acts of violence at the drop of a hat. He was responsible for the construction of the enclaves Ray and his groups had raided, and the slaves that those enclaves had contained. The man had probably killed more humans than any other human had after the apocalypse had started, so naturally Ray only had one thing to say to him.

“Fuck you Brett,” he said, showing the man he was number one in his book. Bandit Brett just chuckled again, showing absolute dismissal of any of Ray’s opinions.

“It's nice to finally put a face to the annoying actions. You caused me a couple of large problems, problems I had to spend a significant amount of time and resources to solve,” Brett said, all levity dropping from his face. “And just when things were getting back to where I had them, everything reset. An infuriating event I am positive you had something to do with. Now I get to start all over, with new problems. I fucking hate problems you little punk. Hate them.”

Ray just shrugged, “Seems like a you problem. While I admit I may have kicked off the Integration I was hardly the source of it. It would have happened one way or another, I just eased us into the process as much as possible. I think. Maybe,” he replied a tad uncertain.

“Whatever,” Brett said, waving the conversation away physically with his hand. “It won’t be a problem for much longer. The System was so kind as to let me know you claimed your little territory. I don’t know how you did it so fast, but you are going to tell me. Once I wring you dry for everything you’re worth I am going to strangle the life out of you myself. With extreme enjoyment. Then I will conquer this territory, take yours to boot, and expand my reach as far as I can. Maybe I will kick that dumb mutt of a wanna-be God back where he came from and take over the planet.”

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

As Brett monologued, lost in his own delusions, Ray began slowly backing his group up. If they could ease out of the encirclement, getting even a bit closer to where they had entered the trap from, they could escape. The bandit leader was so lost in spewing his own plans for world domination, with his boot lickers watching him in rapt fascination, that they would have succeeded. They had gotten almost a full twenty feet back from where they had started before the makeshift plan fell apart.

One of the Goblins strayed just a hair too close to the side of one of the buildings lining their escape path. A violent scream from inside told Ray that something had seen them, but he wasn’t about to stop and find out what exactly.

“Run!” he said, hoping that the sudden action wouldn’t break the bandits out of their self-absorbed grandeur. Once again, however, luck was not on Ray's side. Brett saw what they were trying to do and screamed at them as they tried to escape.

“Get them! Bring their leader to me alive! Kill the rest of them!” he shouted, practically frothing at the mouth. The bandit army surged towards Ray and his people even as they turned to run, abandoning any idea of a defensive action against those numbers.

As the group began running the Goblin who had triggered the creature within the building turned and, in a brave self-sacrificing action opened the door to said building. Undead spilled out into the roadway by the dozens, flooding over the poor Goblin who was immediately mobbed and drug down by the mass of undead. It had, whether intentionally or by accident, given them the distraction they needed to escape at the cost of their own life.

Ray led the group away as quickly as they could move. He ran through and discarded a few ideas as soon as they came into his mind. They wouldn’t be able to get into his territory the way they had just come from. He didn’t think they would be able to go around either, as the border was pretty well locked down by those bandit fucks. That meant they would have to travel to another hex, enter from a completely undefended side, and return home that way. The biggest issue was that Ray knew they were on the clock and time was of the essence. There was only one way they could go then, and that way held a significant obstacle.

The dungeon.

“Verrick, take us to that dungeon. We need to get past it and onto the water if we are going to get around the bandit blockade,” Ray said. He watched conflicting emotions rapidly pass over the {RANGER}'s face before he got a simple nod in acquiescence.

Verrick turned them up a street as the group moved as quickly as the could away from the sounds of fighting. Whatever had come out of that building was putting up a serious fight against the bandits. The din of battle was lost quickly amongst the city sprawl, however. Ray just hoped that they would stay busy for a few more minutes, allowing them to escape.

“My Lord, we are roughly nine blocks from the dungeon,” Verrick reported. “I must warn you, however, that the structure is… unusual. The dungeon itself is dangerous but passable.”

That confused Ray, as he had been told by Dennis and his wife that no one had gotten past it as of yet. Verrick was quick to confirm that, however when he said as much.

“Indeed, My Lord. The dungeon has not been cleared. However, we have entered it and gotten as far as the third floor,” the {RANGER} explained. “You will understand more when we get there. The dungeon itself is rather… unique in my experience.”

Ray couldn’t help but quirk an eyebrow in interest, “Been in many dungeons before?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“More than I could recollect, My Lord. I am a warrior, hired out or bought by the highest bidder. Or, at least I was,” he said, turning an inquisitive eye to his liege lord. “Now I find myself at a bit of a loss. However, this world has plenty of challenges to take on, plenty of creatures to hunt.”

Ray couldn’t help but think that Verrick sounded almost sad that he was no longer being bought and sold to fight someone else’s wars. The {RANGER} must have a deeper reason or meaning for why he did what he did or used to do what he did at any rate. He wasn’t a slave any longer, and if the hunt was that important to him then Ray would certainly let him go to do just that. Or find a hunt that would benefit them both in some way. He didn’t know how he would do that yet, but he would try his best to do something for the man.

He deserved that much at least.

The group traveled in silence, the blocks passing quickly. Verrick turned abruptly down a side street, and Ray saw why. Ahead of them was a large horde of undead. They were shambling slowly down the roadway, but he was sure that there were other creatures in their ranks. Hiding. Waiting to pop out when prey announced itself.

They could neither afford the fight nor the time that it would take to finish it. Brett and his bandits were probably hot on their trail, not to mention madder than hell after Ray’s Goblin turned whatever was inside that building loose on him and his crew.

Turning again to exit the side street, the group entered out into what seemed to be a main thoroughfare of some kind. A six-lane road covered in the ruins of vehicles and debris stretched out before them. That road terminated two blocks down, but it was where it ended that caused Ray to stumble.

At the end of the road was the top half of the Statue of Liberty, only it had been enlarged to a nearly ludicrous degree. The head itself was the size of a seven-story office building, with the arm torn off at the shoulder, and the iconic torch gone. Lost to the deprivations of the apocalypse. The statue stretched down, vanishing into the ground below them, buried by the cataclysmic event that had reshaped the entire planet. A structure of staggering proportions made into what Ray could only assume was their destination. The dungeon.

Behind the dungeon, continuing perfectly through the back part of it, was the six-lane road. Ray could see it curve downward slightly, ending at the port they were trying to get to… and hopefully the ships that were there.

The System message that appeared in front of him verified his suspicion that the statue was their destination:

{DUNGEON DISCOVERED}

THE LOST LIBERTY DUNGEON

{AREA STATUS}

SEALED

DUNGEON NOT CLEARED

{FLOORS}

5

{FLOORS CLEARED}

2

“That’s… the dungeon?” Ray stammered out, shocked.

Verrick nodded. “Indeed, My Lord. I have never seen one based out of a statue before. It made exploring it quite interesting as it seems whoever built it used it to store great works of art and history within it. Regardless, we will need to clear the dungeon to unlock a path beyond the dungeon to the waterfront.”

“You only got to the second floor right?” Ray asked, getting a confirmation nod from the {RANGER}. “What stopped you?”

His companion grimaced, frowning slightly in as great a display of emotion as Ray had seen from the man. “Strangely garbed men with weapons that explode when fired. They took down two of our companions prior to us retreating from the dungeon. Granted, there were not many of them, but their weapons were superior to ours in nearly every way.”

The thought they would have to push through such a place, with wounded in tow, made Ray extremely nervous. He was about to ask more questions when yelling erupted from behind them. Turning as he moved, he saw an angry swarm of bandits spill out onto the street not far behind them.

“Shit! Get into the dungeon! Now!” Ray ordered, picking up the pace. The group surged forward, the bandits in hot pursuit and gaining on them. The statue loomed over them as they got closer, and it was then that Ray saw the swirling blue portal centered on the statue's neck.

That must have been the entrance.

With a cry, Ray moved even faster, all-out sprinting as projectiles began to fall around them. With one final loud cry, he hurled himself through the portal and into the dark unknown beyond. The rest of his party was just behind him.

They had made it. If barely.