The group finds themselves in the basement of a building, deep in the center of an abandoned subterranean city, an insane Jorge spouting off nonsense in the cell next to them.
“Someone needs to stay back with him while the rest of us are out searching for York Laboratories,” Kayde notes, looking over at the unstable man they have locked up.
“I should go, I am the strongest, I can handle the distortions,” Drakthar states.
“Yeah, I’m going too, I’m the only one that can talk to Fore anyway and if we are using him to lead us, I have to go,” Kayde points out.
“We should probably leave two people behind to watch Jorge, I don’t think it is a one-man job if things get out of hand they may need help,” Xander suggests, not wanting to leave someone behind by themselves in this place.
“Xander and I can stay behind while the rest of you look around,” Gwendolyn decides, this being an opportunity for the two of them to spend time together.
“No, Xander should come with us. He is too important to be left behind. His abilities are too useful to waste on watching Jorge,” Drakthar refuses, wanting Xander to accompany him.
“It’s okay I’ll stay with her. It makes sense that all you muscly people go to do the muscly things right? I can stay here with my good friend Gwenny,” Lunette speaks up, smiling at Gwendolyn when she proposes it.
“I appreciate it, but please don’t ever call me that again,” Gwendolyn responds, not liking the new nickname.
“Okay so it is settled, you two watch Jorge, we’ll be right back after we find this York Laboratories,” Kayde gets up and begins to head towards the stairs.
“Hold on, I just want to talk with Gwendolyn really quick before we head out,” Xander tells the other four, who begin to walk up the stairs. The two of them go to the edge of the room.
“What is it?” Gwendolyn asks him.
“I just wanted to apologize, this isn’t the married life you were expecting was it?” Xander tries to joke, but he ends up frowning, feeling guilty that things ended up this way.
“It’s okay Xander… I mean you’re right, I definitely would rather be on our honeymoon than here, but don’t blame yourself. How were you supposed to know the ground would open up around the dragon and that we would end up down here,” Gwendolyn tries to make him feel better about it.
“I guess you are right, I had no idea this was going to happen. I thought we would come here, slay the dragon, and then we could start our lives together… but I guess it’s never that easy is it?” Xander sighs.
“Hey, it doesn’t matter if we are stuck here or if we were on our honeymoon, because I am with you,” Gwendolyn tells him, peering into his eyes expectantly. Xander takes the bait and kisses her.
“Good luck, stay safe,” She tells him once they part.
“Yeah, you too,” he agrees before picking up his bag and heading up the stairs after the others.
“Well, you are taking this rather well,” Lunette comments as Gwendolyn sits down next to her.
“Honestly, I’m not. I really don’t want to be here, but getting mad about it isn’t going to help me,” Gwendolyn explains her reasoning.
“Makes sense… I thought you would be flying off the handle right now… you know based on past experience,” Lunette chuckles a little and then stops once she notices Gwendolyn doesn’t find it funny.
Their conversation is interrupted as Jorge’s mumbling increases in volume for a second before calming back down.
“I wonder what he is dreaming of?” Lunette asks while watching him.
“Probably about drinking alcohol,” Gwendolyn notes dryly, thinking it couldn’t be anything but that.
The two of them sit there silently for a while, not sure what to talk about with a crazy man mumbling to himself in a cell right in front of them.
“You know I’m surprised you and Xander came along,” Lunette speaks up, not one that finds comfort in silence.
“Because he wanted to… and I didn’t want to tell him what he couldn’t do anymore,” Gwendolyn explains, her efforts to be better towards Xander the reason for it.
“Okay… I guess that makes sense,” Lunette notes, not knowing that was something Gwendolyn was actively working on.
“You know, I never figured out why you left your place in the forest to come along with us either,” Gwendolyn mentions now that she thinks about it.
“Hanging around you guys ended up being way more exciting than working on my inventions in the woods. Not that I hated it, it’s just... I enjoy the adventure. Like right now, we are stuck below the ground in a hopeless situation… but it’s fun. I don’t know why but it is,” Lunette tries to explain, unable to suppress the smile on her face.
“Good for you, it must be nice to be able to have fun down here… All I keep thinking about is if we are ever going to get out or not,” Gwendolyn leans back, slumping down as she recaps their situation.
“We don’t really talk that much, just the two of us,” Lunette points out awkwardly mid-conversation.
“Yeah…” Gwendolyn agrees, confused as to why she would bring that up.
“Is it because I knocked you out those times?” Lunette asks, having always sensed a little bit of animosity between the two of them. Gwendolyn sits there for a second, shocked that Lunette would willingly bring that up.
“I guess I was kind of mad about that when it happened, but looking back on it now that I have perspective, I understand why you did it… and I kind of punched you across the face for it so we're even I guess,” Gwendolyn cringes as she explains this, regretting a lot of what she did when Xander was taken.
“Yeah, I agree. I was just trying to say the two of us should talk more. I want to know more about you… we are friends, so… you know friends should know a lot about each other,” Lunette states, trying to use this as an opportunity to understand Gwendolyn better.
“Sure, what do you want to know, consider me an open book,” Gwendolyn cooperates, not really having much to hide anymore.
“Okay… what is it like being the leader of the Silent Brotherhood?” Lunette asks first.
“In the beginning it was hard. I didn’t really have anyone’s respect… things got better as they went on, but I’m afraid of what it will be like when I return. I kind of abandoned them to go on these adventures, which is fine because they know how to run themselves at this point and my dad is always there… but I might have to earn back their respect after this,” Gwendolyn starts to go on about it.
“That’s kind of rough, you’ll work it out though. I get that sense about you that you command respect so it couldn’t be too hard to get things back to how they were,” Lunette tries to cheer her up.
“Yeah, I will always have my detractors within the Brotherhood, people I’ve done some not so nice things to, but the others should come around eventually,” Gwendolyn speculates as she stares at the opposite wall.
“Enough about me, I hardly know anything about you except you worked in the woods. How did you even end up out there anyway?” Gwendolyn starts being the one asking questions.
“I kind of didn’t get along with my family growing up. They were a bunch of dullards that thought I should be this prim proper lady instead of playing around with pieces of metal. I kind of became infamous for my inventions that… caused problems. It got to the point where the king heard about me, the old one, not the one Xander killed. He wasn’t like everyone else, he was impressed by what I was doing and wanted to work with me. I wasn’t opposed to the idea, he would supply me with the materials and I would make what he needed, of course working on my own stuff on the side in my free time. As a part of this agreement, he asked me what I wanted in return for working for him and I told him I wanted my own place out in the woods. I always liked it out there more than in the city where people were always complaining about me. That’s how I ended up out there,” Lunette explains her relationship with the king and how it lead to her residing in the woods.
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“That’s impressive… although... how did you get out of a deal with the king so easily?” Gwendolyn asks, curious about how she ended up free of such an agreement.
“Well, he died so the requests stopped coming in. The new king, that asshole Alexandros, must not have known about me so nothing happened. I just kind of lived out there fending for myself using the stuff I already had to continue working on my personal projects,” Lunette guesses what probably happened.
“Run!” Jorge yells pulling the two of them out of the conversation.
“I hope he gets better soon… I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to him if it doesn’t,” Gwendolyn comments as they watch him.
“Yeah, it’d be cool if we all can get out of here okay… let’s hope the others can find whatever it is they are looking for,” Lunette states, thinking about what the others are doing this very moment.
“I feel like he is just going around in circles,” Xander points out as he, Kayde, Drakthar, and Kali follow behind Fore.
“It worked last time… I don’t know why he can’t find York Laboratories now?” Kali notes, having more faith in Fore’s luck than most.
“Hold on… Kayde, did you ever tell him what we are looking for?” Xander asks, assuming he did so when he was talking to Gwendolyn.
“Nope, I thought the less influence the better his luck will work,” Kayde explains why he hasn’t yet.
“What! It doesn’t work like that if he’s lucky he’s only going to be lucky for the things he wants, I bet he’s just thinking this is a walk!” Kali raises her voice in frustration. “Quiet down, you might draw the distortion’s attention,” Drakthar tells her.
“Sorry,” Kali quickly apologizes.
Kayde leans over and tells Fore, “Hey, can you help us find a place called York Laboratories? We really need to take a look around there”.
“Yeah sure, this was a fun walk but I guess I can help you guys find that place now,” Fore responds cheerily.
“Kali was right,” Kayde admits when he stands back up, this admission causes the other three to bring their hands up to their faces at the ridiculous oversight that led to such a loss of time.
Now Fore is no longer wandering in circles, instead, leading them in a direct line to where he feels they should be. The wolf stops in front of a broken-down wooden building, one that would be the last place a rational person would believe was a laboratory.
“Are you sure this is the right place? We are looking for York Laboratories,” Kayde repeats again in case Fore misunderstood or something.
“This is where you want to be,” Fore tells him before confidently walking towards the door to the wooden shack.
They watch as he walks inside, pushing the door open from the bottom. The rest follow and realize Fore has stopped on the other side of the door, starting to growl at what he sees inside.
They walk around Fore to see what looks like a man sitting in a chair, his feet kicked up on a table. But this is no ordinary man; his skin is red, burnt by what is surrounding him, the same dull orange distorted flames that signify a distortion.
The man calmly turns his head to see the snarling wolf and the others that have accompanied it inside. “This one seems different, the way he is looking at us, it’s like he’s still human,” Drakthar notes as he observes it.
“Well… I guess I would not still consider myself human, but I am not as far removed as it would appear,” the distortion replies nonchalantly, causing everyone in the room to stiffen up, cautious of what this man could be capable of.
It happens faster than even they could have expected. He rushes towards them, touching Kali on the wrist before she even has a chance to react. A searing pain comes over her, causing her to drop to her knees in agony.
Drakthar instinctively leans down to check on her while Xander draws his sword, and Kayde his rifle. Xander takes a swing at the man, while at the same time Fore rushes up to bite his legs. The man ducks, easily dodging Xander’s blade while at the same time grabbing Fore by the neck.
He looks at Fore with a quizzical expression, not able to understand how the wolf is not affected by the flames surrounding him. He throws Fore at Xander, causing him to stop his movement in order to catch the wolf.
“Who are you people? How did you find this place?” The distortion stops to ask, oddly polite to a group of people that he was fighting with just a second ago.
“We are just wanderers,” Kayde lies, thinking that would be the easiest story in this situation.
“How about you tell us a way out of here and then we can leave you to your sitting down at semi-broken tables,” he adds, thinking this thing might be able to help them.
The distortion scoffs, smirking back at the android before running at them once again. This time he grabs a hold of Xander, catching him by the shoulder. Kayde and Drakthar hold their weapons as they observe something curious. The distortions usually orange flames are getting brighter the longer it holds onto Xander, its shade moving to yellow and then becoming so bright it almost seems white to them.
What they cannot see behind the flames is the face of the man inhabiting them, he is more surprised than anyone as he feels this rush of energy unlike anything he has felt before, somehow this odd man that wandered down into his home is doing something strange to him, something he doesn’t understand.
He lets go of Xander, running off, scared and confused by this new sensation. Drakthar and Kayde consider following, but they stop, realizing they would be leaving behind both Kali and Xander who are now on the floor muttering just like Jorge before them.
“Was it that thing that led you here?” Kayde asks Fore, still not believing this to be York Laboratories.
“No, this is where you wanted to go. Over here,” Fore walks to a carpet near the edge of the room and starts peeing on it.
Kayde goes over to the now wet rug and pulls it up, finding a steel trap door underneath.
“Watch over those two, I’m going to investigate,” Kayde tells Drakthar as he lifts up the door, not wanting this trip to have been for nothing.
Kayde and Fore descend the stairway that was uncovered beneath the door. They head down what seems like ten or so flights, deep underneath the wooden veneer above. As Kayde flips a switch on the wall, lighting up the room, the two of them find themselves surrounded by machinery, things more advanced looking than anything they saw in Lunette’s laboratory back in the Sacrosanct Empire.
“I would guess this is York Laboratories. Must have been a secret considering the crappy wooden tavern above it,” Kayde comments as he starts to look around for the machine that caused all this.
It doesn’t take him long to find one that resembles what he and the others found in the arctic, the same machine Alcaeus sacrificed himself for them to use.
“This is it,” he tells Fore as he starts to examine it closer.
Kayde looks around it, hoping that maybe for some reason there is a portal still open near it. Unsurprisingly he finds nothing, he tries to find any papers around it that might explain what happened, but again he finds nothing.
The two of them take one more cursory look around the place to see what they can dig up, but they are unsuccessful deciding, in the end, to head back up empty-handed to Drakthar and the others.
“What did you find down there?” Drakthar asks the two of them once they come back up.
“We found the machine, it had the lever and everything… but other than that there’s nothing,” Kayde lets Drakthar in on the bad news.
“That is fine, we have a new lead to follow now. We need to find this thing and figure out what it knows,” Drakthar notes the good part in coming here as he lifts the incoherent Kali and Xander onto each of his shoulders.
“You sure you want to carry both of them?” Kayde asks, probably thinking that he could carry one of them if it is too hard on Drakthar.
“I’ll be fine… let’s go,” Drakthar responds, thinking more about how the others will react to two more of them having been reduced to this state.
The three of them find their way back to the building they left Gwendolyn, Lunette, and Jorge in. They watch as the search party returns, noting that Drakthar is carrying Kali and Xander.
Drakthar goes over to the cell next to Jorge and puts Kali inside of it as Gwendolyn asks, “What happened?” In a grave tone.
“Drakthar what happened!” She asks again after not getting a response.
She follows him into the next cell where he drops Xander, she looks into his eyes and sees they are closed, the same incoherent muttering leaving his mouth as is Jorge’s.
“Xander, it’s me snap out of this,” she shakes him a couple times; desperately hoping he will come to.
“We ran into something. A distortion that could talk,” Drakthar answers Gwendolyn’s question as she continues to examine Xander.
“A what?” Lunette asks, not believing something like that could exist.
“Yeah, it was kind of creepy and then its flames got all white when he touched Xander, it was kind of cool,” Kayde adds, finding the whole situation rather interesting.
“Did you find the lab at least?” Lunette inquires, hoping their trip wasn’t a complete waste.
“Yeah we found it, the time machine and everything, but there was nothing there that could help us, no portal, no documents explaining what happened,” Kayde lets them in on the bad news.
“So it was pointless,” Lunette notes, a painful look on her face as she takes another look at both Kali and Xander who are now in their respective cells.
“No, it wasn’t, now we know there is a man down here, one that very likely knows what happened to this place,” Drakthar points out the positive and what they should do next.
Just when he says this, they start to notice Xander thrash about while he is in Gwendolyn’s arms.
“Get out of there, he could hurt you,” Drakthar tells her; worried he might do something like Jorge did when he threw that fireball.
“No, I’m fine, I need to stay here,” Gwendolyn refuses, looking down at Xander as he tries to push her away. Drakthar grabs Gwendolyn by the back of the collar, making the decision to keep her from Xander for her own safety. He slams the door locking Xander inside like the others.
“Okay… what did this thing say?” Lunette asks, trying to get back to talking about this human distortion.
“He asked us who we were? I responded that we wandered down here and that we wanted to know if he knew a way out, but he rudely ignored the question and did this to them so I don’t think he is a good guy,” Kayde explains more of what happened.
“Going after this guy is fine and all, but shouldn’t we be focusing on finding out how to help them!” Gwendolyn gestures towards the cells.
“I know we need to find a way out, but if more of us become like this every time we go outside then we aren’t going to accomplish anything… except all ending up like them,” she reasons, causing the others to realize she is probably right.