After helping the twins, Gi made his way back to the Lake Encampment, sending one the Inquisitors out who had [Concealing Light] which would help them reach the twins without dying. He needed to see Tiria before he left again because when he returned it would be time to take down the Spiked Eagles.

He paused at the entrance to the Control dome. The main encampment had grown quickly and efficiently under Tiria's care and he was lucky to have her so it definitely wasn't the state of the Encampment that made him pause.

Based off of his conversation with Galvina, the last Dungeon run generally had about fifty percent odds of survival regardless of who went. The possibility of his death had been lingering in the back of his mind since their conversation.

That potential bothered him surely, but moreso because it felt like a failing as though he really was nothing more than he'd once been as a human. On the other hand, perhaps because he'd already done it once, there was a sense of finality and peace to it as well. It was a dichotomy of emotions that even his Heart struggled to sift through. It didn't stop him from doing what was required, but it did linger in his thoughts.

Pushing those thoughts to the side for now, he entered the Control to find Tiria sitting at her desk, filling out paperwork. Apparently, employing some of the children as runners instead of going herself helped her be more efficient in what they had to do. She looked up as he entered.

"Progenitor, I didn't realize you were back."

"I just arrived." Gi pulled out the paper that he'd gotten from the twins detailing what they'd discovered about the Spiked Eagles. The pieces from Poe she already knew, of course, but it was good to keep it consolidated. "I need to leave soon. We'll need every advantage for the coming fight."

Tiria leaned back and frowned. "You're sure that you can't bring anyone with you? Not even one?"

"I doubt Galvina would try and sabotage me now, but we can bring the Elites to see me off just in case. While I'm gone, make sure the laws get completed. That and the Dungeon are the last two tasks for the Stage to complete and whatever reward comes from it might be enough to ensure our plans succeed."

"Of course," Tiria responded to his command, but then a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Defeating fifty to one odds against the Spiked Eagles is kind of insane."

Gi raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were on board."

"I am. The plan is a good one and so is the backup plan. I'm just worried what happens if both of those come up short. That's a lot of enemies and from a Sky Clan at that."

Gi shrugged. "I guess then we'll discover the true limits of our skill."

****

As Samba entered the Control, he passed by the Boss, giving him a nod and a greeting. Gi barely acknowledged him, the look on his face the same dark look that had been there since his capture by the Illusor Clan. Tiria still sat writing at her desk, but she looked up when he came in and her eyes narrowed. "You just got me in trouble."

"What?," Samba asked them glanced back towards the door that the boss had just left from. "Really?"

Tiria sighed. "No, not really, but he did ask about the laws again. It's the top of his priority list before we commit to the attack."

Samba shuffled his feet awkwardly. "Sorry about that, Tir. She's just... tough to work with. Not that that's an excuse, I put it off and messed up. I'm sorry."

"You've got a day to complete it now. If it's not done then, I'll have to do it."

"I'll get it done. It shouldn't have taken me this long." Samba's voice trailed off and he looked again back the way the boss had come. His eyes scanned the Control to make sure that the two of them were alone. "He's seemed... darker since the Illusor Clan. Is he okay?"

Tiria put her pen down and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes seemed to take on a misty far away look. "I don't know. To be honest, I don't see any darkness when I look at him."

"No?," Samba asked. To him, that dark gaze was everpresent like a storm cloud crackling with lightning. "Seriously?"

She shook her head. "He just looks... lonely. Ever since I've known him, he's always been in over his head, but he'd come up with a plan or jump right in and make it work. Now? He's being more efficient than ever, but his eyes have lost that glow."

Samba rubbed at his cheek. "Glow?" He had no idea what she was talking about.

She still stared off at the wall. "Yeah, he used to have this... joie de vivre."

In the language of monsters, Samba understood that she was saying "joy of life," but there was something different about the phrase. Something packed with more meaning. It reminded him of the time that he'd talked with the twins about tacos. Samba smiled at the memory, feeling oddly protective of the two strange otters.

Tiria must have seen his confusion though because she continued. "Despite everything that happened, he seemed to accept life the way it was and found, if not joy, then fulfillment in it. Now even though he's been more efficient than ever, he seems lost."

Samba still didn't see it. Mostly, it just seemed like the Boss was going to bite his head off at any moment. He still hadn't told any of the other Elites about Gi massacring the Brain Goblin's Children. Would she feel differently if she knew that? Samba shrugged. "You know him better than I do. Do you know why he's like this?"

It was Tiria's turn to shrug and let out a sigh. "It has to be something with the Illusor Clan. I'm not sure Elizabeth mattered enough to him for him to be that affected by her betrayal. If you could even call it that, she's a mercenary after all. My gut tells me that he's having a crisis of faith."

"With the attack coming up, we can't afford to be on Danna's bad side."

Tiria gave a small laugh. "Danna's not so petty as to abandon someone for their doubts."

"I hope you're right."

****

Later that day, Gi found himself standing face to face with the Dungeon portal. It was a shimmering dark rip in space that seemed to grow out of the rock. Two Faithful flanked it on either sides and he wondered if they knew him. What would they do when he attacked the Spiked Eagles?

It didn't matter. He needed to keep his focus on the task ahead. Behind him, his Elites waited in silence, but from Galvina's words, Gi was confident that they wouldn't be able to join him. He took stock of his [Expanded Pocket].

Two maces and a simple shield lay inside. He'd commissioned some items through Rocky for the Spiked Eagles fight, but they weren't ready yet and Gi didn't think they'd help enough to wait on the Dungeon. Better to save them for his clan mates to use. With the full mercantile might of Rocky's clan now in their clan, their prospects were looking up and up.

If he could get through this alive.

Despite Rocky leading one of the halls, he didn't stand behind him like Tiria, Samba, Kumo, and the twins. These were his original Elites and they were the ones that he'd want to have his back if it came to that. Samba shifted nervously from foot to foot while Kumo seemed eager to dive in. The two were very different, but both of them were focused on helping the clan in their own ways.

He respected all of them.

"If I don't return..."

"Don't talk like that! You got this, Boss," Samba interrupted.

Gi gave him a tight smile. "If I don't return, do what you have to do to keep the clan together. Don't be afraid to abandon anything that's not helpful."

Tiria nodded. "The clan comes first. I'll see to it."

Gi looked into each of their eyes and saw their determination looking back at him. "Next time I see you, it will be in the next stage."

With that, Gi strode into the Dungeon portal.

Entering the Dungeon Stream.

Darkness wrapped around him and he fell into a river of light. Previously, the light had been a wide river that kept the darkness far away on all sides, but now, it was barely a thin stream. Tendrils of that darkness pierced the river and grazed against him.

The light used to have a warmth to it that seemed to seep into his heart, but now, it felt foreign and only those dark tendrils seemed to have any effect on him. What did that light represent? What did the darkness?

Searching for appropriate space in the Dungeon...

Parameters: Level 50, Divine Mirror - Gi, the Final Boss

Searching...

Unlike before, each time he'd stepped in the portal it had been only a moment that he existed in that river of light. Now, he found himself floating there for several moments. Each one felt longer than the last as though seconds were ballooning to minutes. When the next step finally came, Gi found that the darkness had seeped into his Heart, bringing an uncertainty about what came next.

Searching... Found!

Using space set aside for The First One.

Exiting Stream...

One instant, he was feeling that darkness seep into his Heart and the next he stood a floor made of mirror, shining his own reflection back at him. All around him, pillars of that same material jutted up out of the surface into a sky that seemed to be filled with stars.

Gi wasn't in a place like Igna though. His floor of mirror seemed suspended in nothingness with the edge simply falling away. From Richard's memories, he could recognize stars and galaxies and solar systems, each closer than should be possible, and yet, still far away as though space had lost all meaning here.

His plane of glass wasn't the only part here though. Three pillars stood stark against the rest behind him. One held a small sun that shimmered with a bright light; another had a sparkling blue sapphire where a river poured forth and carved its way into the mirrored surface; the last held the tiniest seed that Gi could barely see. Only the slight white glow of the seed made Gi able to see it from where he stood and strangely, a sense of warm that came from that seed and not the sun.

"It's you." The gruff voice drew Gi's attention to the far end of his platform. A moment before, it had been nothing but glass, but now it had turned to onyx. One half of the platform that was floating in space had a shimmer of a glasslike mirror while the other half was shadow clinging to rock.

Gi's river wound its way across the glass to the onyx and became a river of flame that for some reason didn't light up the shadow. It did extend to its own jagged pillar of onyx where a glittering red ruby sourced the flame. On one side, there was another pillar that housed a sun woven of shadow, each beam from it sending off another wave of shadow that covered his opposite half. The last pillar housed... something. At first, it seemed like a seed like his own, but every time he looked at it, its shape seemed to change or morph to something else entirely. The only thing consistent was that it was small. Just as small as his own seed.

He took all this in at a glance though. What truly caught his attention was the human on the other side, standing tall in his black armor. This was the human that he'd fought in both of his Dungeon runs so far. The first, he'd been protecting those young adventurers. The second, he'd led the group of six through the beginnings of his clan.

"Fader," Gi said, the man's name coming to his lips as though he'd known it his entire life. With it, impressions of the man came with it. Images of him clawing through the Dungeon as a youth in levels not populated with true monsters. Flashes of him, falling out of grace after their first battle and being stuck as a slave to the Thousand Island Kingdom.

The two of them were connected as Galvina had told him they would be. Their connection transcended language as it was tied by strings of destiny. Ever since his first step as a monster, these two had been coming closer and closer together.

Some similar understanding must have been happening with him as he flipped up the visor on his helm and Gi could see a look of disgust on his face. "Pathetic. To think I'd share a fate with you. A creature who can't do anything with their own hands."

That comment stabbed into Gi's very soul. It was a flaw the he'd had as Richard with Danna and one that had continued as Gi. Something he'd grown to loath about himself since remembering his past. To hear the person that shared his fate so easily cut through to his core caused a painful reaction that even his Heart wasn't able to completely quell.

"You think you're better?," Gi asked, his voice dripping with vitriol. "A slave that clings to his master's robes because he's too weak to break his own chains. I'm building something for myself. Your life could barely be called existing."

Pain etched across Fader's face and he could practically see the late nights lost to dreamleaf as he tried to forget his current situation. He could see the slight pain that came from only finding meaning in serving the Prince. One thing that shocked him though was a scene of a god in the form of a man, speaking to Fader directly.

Gi would recognize that man anywhere. It was Richard's father or The Father as Gi had known him.

"How do you know The Father?" Even as the question blurted from his mouth, he could see the answer. He could see the Father coming to him, giving him the strength needed to match Gi. Whether that was the Father's true goal, it was hard to know, but it had happened all the same.

Fader barked a laugh. "Of course, The Father is related to you too. You and this... Danna." He stood there absorbing pieces of Gi's life and his countenance firmed as some realization came to him. "The Father and The Prince gave me everything that I have in my life. I won't forsake them like you have forsaken yours."

Gi understood. This was the impasse. The point of contention at which their fates had to diverge. Fader wanted to double down on relying on others while Gi wanted to break free. From their connection, he could understand all of Fader's convictions. These weren't a weak man's resolve. He'd felt everything that Gi'd had. He'd seen the cost of putting your all into someone and having them leave you behind. He'd seen all that and accepted it.

If The Prince and The Father betrayed him, then so be it.

In the same way, he understood Gi's resolve as well. Gi had spent so long latched to another person, depending on them for his very existence. In this second life, he wouldn't be broken again by the decisions of others. He might not be as cruel as the Father or as protective as Danna had been to others, but he'd stand on his own two feet and rail against his own fate that put him beneath another.

That was his conviction.

The two stood there watching each other as their Souls sharpened against the other's convictions, each of them turning over the other's experience and building upon it until there was nothing less but a surety that they were the one correct.

There was no room for anything but the absolute truth.

"Well," Fader finally said, "I guess it's about damn time I kill you."