“I get to fire a laser.” -Hardison, Leverage-

_____

Tomorrow, James planned to make breakfast for Anesh and Alanna - and probably anyone else in his apartment - before heading off to Alaska to ‘check in’ with JP. Checking in here was code for James didn’t know what the hell the rogues were doing, and he felt like there was a little too much confusion and chaos in that department right now, what with Nate, Ben, and JP all seeming to be in charge but none of them being able to tell him what the others were doing.

So James was going to get a handle on what was going on with their investigation into Priority Earth. See if they were doing anything that would require his help soon, take an in person look at the information and territory, possibly get into some trouble himself, and then begin to make a plan on how to resolve the whole thing in a way that didn’t end with gunfire.

A few days after that, Kiki was supposed to show up. The non-pillar, who would hopefully only be living up to her name in the metaphorical way, had said she needed to ‘take care of a few last things’. She said it that way because she thought the Order would absolutely agree to kill her once they failed to help her, and James felt like he deserved an acting award for not rolling his eyes at her.

Once she arrived at the isolated spot they’d set up, James would be one of a handful of people going to help learn about her magic, try to brainstorm ways to contain it, and help the woman live out her life without worrying about collateral damage.

That wasn’t the only stuff going on in the Order, or even in James’ own life. Charlie had checked in and said that they were pretty sure they were ‘closing in on’ the Underburbs, there were about two dozen Utah spells to test out and learn the boundaries of, not to mention the other dungeon that they were going to slip into through an unguarded entrance as soon as they knew the Mormons weren’t tracking them. The chanters suddenly grown population meant that Townton needed to expand a bit, and they needed to hire or make more specialists to study a whole new species’ life cycle. And speaking of new species, it was bizarre that the crocamaws sudden addition to the Order’s protection was the least disruptive thing happening so far.

They were a little terrifying at first, they were certainly prone to violent outbursts, they had all been weaponized and abused by people who didn’t treat them like they had rights, and they were basically just ratroaches but with more scales and 50% of their body being teeth or support for the teeth. And the Order knew how to handle ratroaches. Carefully, and compassionately. It was actually very simple, even if it wasn’t always easy.

So much stuff on James plate. And he was going to spend most of his day on dungeon delves, which maybe, might, possibly be, just a tiny bit irresponsible. But hey, if he was going to be paladining his way through all the other stuff, he’d need every magical boost he could get.

That was later though. All of it was later this week, really. But the delves were later today. Because right now, way too early in the morning and grimly uncaffeinated for medical reasons, James was just trying to distract his racing thoughts as he existed in a state of heightened panic. Not from an external threat or any inner turmoil, but instead, because he was laying in the basin of a shaper substance surgery bed, and waiting for the few minutes before he was going to have near-total control of his own biology. And that was terrifying.

”You’ll be fine.” Zhu’s voice tried to calm him down, the navigator capable of feeling a kind of duel-impact of James hammering heart in the physical world and his pulsing anxiety in the mental realm. “You did all that research, you know the things, and it’s just an eye, right? It’s so fine you get to skip quarantine and we get to go on an adventure today if you don’t kill us both!” He sounded way too casual about the risk of death, in James’ opinion.

Personally, Jamse wanted to just let Deb take over his brain and do the whole thing. But despite her current one hundred percent success rate, she was hesitant to make that the standard for shaper patients. So even though it was probably safer and easier to have her run the show, James was fine doing it himself just because he’d rather be nervous on his own than make the doctor in charge of his whole physical form uncomfortable.

”Right. Right.” James swallowed dryly as he replied anyway. He did know the material; to the point that he was up to almost twenty three hundred points in his biology lesson from the information he’d devoured. He knew in a lot of detail what he was doing, he had practical advice from Keeka and Arrush on how to actually push the shaper substance into doing what he wanted, and unlike the ratroach all-at-once style, he was just… putting a tiny bit of himself back together. “I’ve got this. It’ll be fine. Yeah.” He wasn’t sure if the painkillers were making him talky. That would be bad; they weren’t supposed to mess with his mental state.

Zhu rolled his own central eye as James let his anxiety escape any hope of containment. The two of them were saved from their different forms of stress as Deb came in, asked if he was ready, got a complete lie, and then started the process anyway.

Suddenly capable of actually doing something instead of panicking helplessly, James felt a lot better. Even as the shaper substance took hold around his broken eye, and the pain started, he found it easier to cope with than the waiting.

The sensation was fascinating, too. For one thing, it felt minty, which he’d been warned about, but wasn’t prepared for. It didn’t taste like anything, and actually smelled horrible even through the oxygen mask he’d been provided as a backup. It just happens to feel like mint ice cream, except inside his flesh and blood and bone. And it also felt like his body was suddenly a soft gel, waiting for the slightest touch of his thoughts to shift itself; though the sensation was focused and strongest where the shaper substance had been applied.

James didn’t have much time to appreciate how cool that was. Because he felt like screaming. The feeling both of mint and boundless bodily freedom came part and parcel with the feeling of his body trying to rip itself apart. He’d been shot before, stabbed, bitten, thrown through furniture, all that good stuff. This pain wasn’t new, it was just persistent and almost overwhelming.

But the painkillers and the help from Zhu let him manage it. And he composed his thoughts, took a breath of purified air, and told his body what to do.

It was also something that was simple but not easy. All he actually needed was a new eye. But what that meant, if he wanted it done without permanent chronic pain, was that he had to understand how an organ largely made out of organic gel and a weird membrane managed to be a high fidelity camera that fed a picture of the world around him back into his brain without complaint or complication. And on top of that, he wasn’t even making a human eye.

And yet. It was so easy, when he did actually know the answers he’d studied. Like the feeling of acing a test, the process came out in a flow of correct actions. Aqueous humor pooled up, his cheekbone shifted to accommodate the new shape, the optic nerve grew and clipped into the rest of his body like it was meant to be there all along, and every bit of information James had about how an eagle’s eye functioned came together in the slitted pupil. The red totem nearby suddenly letting him know that he had another working organ, and giving him a bit of guidance to adjust it to move at the same speed as his more human eye on the other side without ruining all his hard work.

Then he was done. The fact that James was now staring at the ceiling with both working eyes had kind of snuck up on him, but the fact that he had to force his new one to stay open as Deb and her assistants sprayed water into it forcefully enough to scour the shaper sludge out was sadly not something he could ignore the same way. But after long seconds of discomfort and pressure, he was allowed to sit up and help with toweling himself off, and look, actually look, around the room.

Everything was sharper; like when his remaining human eye had suddenly not needed a contact lens anymore, except turned up to eleven. The edges of everything were so cleanly defined that James felt like he was looking at an expertly drawn version of the world for a second. That feeling was expanded upon with the color; it was all the same as he was used to, it was just more. More shades, more detail and depth. Things he always could have probably figured out if he’d examined things closely but now, he just didn’t have to. It was all right there, waiting for him to look.

”Zhu. Take a look.” James whispered, staring at the oil painting of a pastoral farm on the wall of the surgery room and opening himself up fully to the navigator. A mental invitation for Zhu to look through him, not just with his own manifestation.

The soft twitching of Zhu’s feathers stilled as the navigator took in James’ perception, feeding off their bond and his place in James’ mind. Outside, his manifestation’s own eye shifted happily. “This is… very cool.” He told his friend. “You’re whole again.”

”Yeah.” James breathed out and turned a grateful smile on Deb and her medical staff. “I am.” He shifted himself forward, bare feet dropping to the cold tile floor of the room. Then he grinned. “Wanna go do some mortal peril?” He asked Zhu excitedly.

”Yes!” The navigator exclaimed.

”No!” Deb tried to protest. But it was too late; James had already escaped her clutches. Off to show the Anesh waiting for him his newest addition, off to feed the ravenous hunger the shaper substance always left behind, and off to collect his other boyfriend to have some fun. Fun in his own particular way of having fun; by going into other worlds, and poking things that were almost certainly magical, dangerous, or usually both at once.

_____

Entering the house underneath Clutter Ascent these days was surprisingly personal, in the same way that James had previously gotten to know employees at his favorite restaurants. The humans, camracondas, and single ratroach who had taken to living in the house weren’t actually active within the Order; but someone should live in the house so it didn’t go to waste, and they all said that it felt safe. Cozy. James thought a lot of that was on them, not the dungeon itself, but he didn’t really say that ever. Instead, he greeted and exchanged small talk with the human man who answered the door, who was smugly understanding of James’ desire to waste no time getting into the Ascent.

He and Arrush got an enthusiastic ambush from Sarah when they stepped into the dungeon’s landing. Along with a “Hey you two!” Before she started trying to pry James’ eyelid back to stare at his new pale gold left eye. “You’re part bird! You did it! Good job, I knew you could handle it.” She said, as she somehow shrugged off both James and Zhu trying to deflect her, and launched into another tight hug around James’ midsection. “Also hi Arrush! What’re you two here for today? Some kind of dire crisis again?”

”It’s not always…” James stopped himself, looking down at the scuffed and lightly splintered wooden beams of the floor. “Okay, it’s… it’s sometimes a crisis. But not today, I promise!”

“I don’t know why we’re here either.” Arrush volunteered, capping his words with a yawn. He had almost overslept; the idea of schedules was still something he was getting used to, and Planner wasn’t in his thoughts. Probably. “Hello.” He almost stumbled as Sarah took both their hands and started leading them into the dungeon, her laugh infecting Arrush like it always did with the feeling that he was completely and totally welcome in a place.

Sarah was not a dungeon creature. And yet, sometimes, neither Arrush nor James could deny that she had her own kind of magic.

“We’re just stopping in for a bit.” James laughed as he was pulled along through the aisle of plastic bins and dusty old furniture. As with many dungeons, Clutter Ascent seemed to know how it wanted itself to be, and while the Order had succeeded in eventually clearing some areas of rusty old tools and the worse of the splinters, the Attic would always reassert its labyrinth of falsely stored memories. “Zhu wants to visit the swamp-“

”Oy, you do too, don’t make this my fault!” The navigator argued.

”Oh Keeka talked about the swamp. Okay, I know why we are here now, I want to see the swamp too.” Arrush nodded even as he was pulled along, antenna freely swaying on his mostly smooth head.

James rolled his eyes at them as they were brought through the outer shell of the Attic’s mazes, to the Order’s more permanent base here. It just happened to be something that looked like a towering pillow fort; grown from the days when it was a literal pillow fort, now something reinforced by dungeon construction. It was more fabric and stuffing than could fit in the space, and true to Clutter Ascent’s inner nature, it had its own attic inside, but it wasn’t some grand statement or imposing structure. It was just a pleasant place where visitors hung out and relaxed, read stories to the dungeon and the stuff animals, and to generally just commune with the vibe of the dungeon.

It was a good place to nap, though James only put it in the top five for spots in Clutter Ascent to get a nap in. The dungeon was really good at making those.

As soon as they entered, there was a burst of motion from a half dozen knee-high figures as they scattered to behind tables and shelves, hiding underneath tented blankets and walls of couch cushions that had never once been on a couch. Glinting eyes peeking out from around corners and under sheets, the flat snouts of created little creatures that were an odd blend of raccoon, salamander, and sometimes with a little bit of some other animal that the dungeon had seen once in its original mundane attic blended in.

”That’s an odd reaction.” James laughed as he followed the trail of one of the slower stuff animals. “Also where is everyone today?”

”Well, James, it’s seven AM, and so most of them aren’t here. The caretakers that are, are probably downstairs prepping breakfast.” Sarah glanced back, and her smile faded a little. “Sorry, I think… we don’t get a lot of ratroaches here.” She told Arrush. “It’s fine, they’ll-“

Arrush nodded. ”No, I understand. I am large and scary.” He said, without any negative expectations in his voice. “Keeka told me about how to manage this.” One of Arrush’s rear arms fished around in a pouch as he stepped forward, and then without any preamble, fell forward in a single unrestrained motion to land on one of the piles of pillows surrounding a central beanbag. “Oh!” He said loudly, pushing his voice farther than he ever had before. “I am weighed down by this bag of almonds! It is too bad no one is here to help me.”

James and Sarah both choked on laughs as Arrush sat there with one arm raised and a plastic bag in his claw. Staring at his boyfriend laying facedown and giving the least convincing delivery of a speech he’d ever heard, James couldn’t keep his laughter back as about half the stuff animals instantly reacted to the promise of something to snack on and bolted over only to find Arrush smoothly sitting up and offering them treats he’d brought from the Lair.

”Wait, don’t ruin their breakfast!” Sarah gasped out between her own bright laugh.

”Actual genius.” James said as he caught his breath. “I should learn from this.”

Sarah nodded, before taking a long breath, and jutting her head to the side, nose pointing James off away from where Arrush was introducing himself to the young dungeon life. “Hey.” She muttered to him as they stepped away for a second and James waved Arrush down to not worry. “A quick thing about that.”

”About James learning? Oh dear, it’s worse than I thought.” Zhu stared his manifested orange eye into the middle distance as his host swatted at him.

James actually wasn’t amused. “Hey, Sarah has her serious tone on, and that means hush.” He said. “What’s up?”

”Arrush making friends with them.” Sarah said in a low voice. A voice James had literally never heard her use before, like she was trying to keep a secret, and not as a joke. He almost asked her if she was okay before she continued. “Ascent is still growing, you know? The relationsticks are changing over time, new ones do slightly different stuff. And there’s layers to the magic. Like, we found another thing like the book, but it’s not a book this time; it looks like it, but it’s a plush cat. And it doesn’t work exactly the same, but… you get what I mean, right?”

”…nnnnno.” James said. “I mean, I understand the mechanics of a category of magic items, but not… what you’re going for here.”

”There’s another layer. To this dungeon.” Sarah said, still keeping her voice down and shooting a barrage of incredibly suspicious glances to make sure Arrush wasn’t listening in.

Zhu started to raise his talon. “Is it dangerous? Should we be stopping Arrush? Or standing here? Or… doing something?” He asked, uncertain what should be done but fundamentally in favor of taking some action.

For his part, James just wanted a straight answer. “Yeah, what’s up? Actually?” He asked directly. “I promise to keep it quiet if you need me to.”

”I do. That’s the problem.” Sarah took a deep breath. “The stuff animals… actually maybe all the life here… it has a reward.”

”Shit. A loot drop?” That was bad, but not the end of the world. Camracondas had loot drops after all, and the thought of killing any of them outside the dungeon’s hostile control just for their orbs was unthinkable. “We can-“

Sarah shook her head. ”Worse.” That seemed impossible, but James and Zhu listened sharply. “So far, we’ve only found one kind, and it’s sort of like a pretty weak regenerating shield. And… well, heck. You get it for being their friend.” She almost whispered, trusting James’ enhanced hearing to pick it up.

”Why is that-“ Zhu started to say.

James cut him off by swearing. Quietly, so as not to be too bad of an influence. “Okay, that’s bad.” He said, instantly seeing the problem Sarah was clearly acquainted with. “Zhu, it’s bad because it’s a perverse incentive. If being their friend has an external reward, then… you know how Ben is, right?”

”Ah.” Zhu’s feathers flattened out along his whole long manifestation. Then he swore too. “They would never be able to trust anyone. Or really have friends. I see. Should you even be telling us?”

”Yes. Because James doesn’t care.” Sarah’s smile was small but genuine. “You live in his brain. Do you think he gives a hoot about a stat buff from friendship?”

”…no.” Zhu admitted. “I think we both know he’d go out of his way to be friendlier just so he could ignore it if that were the case. In fact, I think he is thinking that now.”

James extended the arm Zhu was mostly on away from himself. “Stop reading my mind when it’s funny.” He said without any kind of seriousness. “But yeah, this is… does it give a notification? That would be real bad.”

”Oh, no!” Sarah sighed and held a hand to her chest. “Thankfully! But I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know who to tell, or if I should tell everyone who knows to not tell anyone, or…” she windmilled her arms, drowning in confusion.

James tried a couple times to set a hand on her shoulder, before giving up after his friend’s flailing limbs kept him at bay. “Okay. Look. This is… this is never going to stay secret, okay? So I think what you should do is tell the people who it affects most.” He looked back to where Arrush was standing in a low crouch as a pair of stuff animals scaled his back, helped along by his extra arms. “Them.” He said. “I know a lot of them - most of them - are basically young kids. I know we don’t know if they’ll ever mature past that. But I think they’re smart enough to at least hear the explanation. And even if they aren’t, they should know now, so they can grow up knowing. Other people are gonna find out, and it cannot be one sided.”

”Agreed.” Sarah slumped back, leaning on a bookshelf that had taken on a few hundred pounds of paperback young adult fantasy novels over the last year of its existence. “And… thanks. For listening. Thanks for being you.”

”Eh, anytime. Technically all the time. Being me is kind of my full time job.” James smiled and shrugged.

Sarah tapped him on the nose with an extended finger. ”You could stop whenever. But you don’t. And let me tell you!” She let her voice come back to a normal volume. “Dating your girlfriend? Your endless forward momentum is a hard act to follow! Take a few days off, James! Make it easier for me to convince Alanna to just take a day off to eat brunch and watch Star Trek with me!” She bumped her shoulder into his as they made their way over to where Arrush was now acting as a troop carrier for all six stuff animals. “Alright you two, get out of here, I’ve held you up long enough. And you kids, come on! Let’s go get breakfast!” Sarah caught one of the more squirrel-like creations as they leapt off of Arrush, the ratroach staggering only slightly while the others clambered down his limbs and fled after Sarah, one of them turning back to wave at him with a furred arm before fleeing.

”How you doing?” James asked.

”I don’t know.” Arrush said, though he was wearing a small smile. “Good? I feel weird, but not bad. Like maybe being alive like this, now, is a very weird thing to do.”

”Oh, mood.” James nodded and ignored Zhu’s amused revving sound. “Come on. Let’s go check out the dungeon before we need to get to our next stop today.”

So they started walking. Heading in the right direction, passing through hallways and clearings in the too-large space of dusty old dressers and stacked cardboard boxes. Clutter Ascent was pretty unique among dungeons in that it wasn’t actually very dangerous at all, and so they were free to move a little faster than normal.

They weren’t here to poke the specially locked containers, solving puzzles and collecting relationsticks. They also weren’t here to play sneaking games with the stuff animals, most of them being downstairs at home in the mundane world and having a prepared breakfast. Instead, they were here for two things, and both of them were favors that involved the swamp.

When they emerged from the labyrinth of interlocked chairs and abandoned tool benches, it wasn’t apparent right away that they’d reached where they were going. But when the next step from both of them brought a small splash and the feeling of a slight downward slope, they knew they were where they were going.

Pausing at the entrance to look out over the pool of water that was the start of Clutter Ascent’s idea of a swamp, Arrush let his eyes flick over the changed landscape. This dungeon wasn’t that odd to him; places like this, where nothing really made that much sense, were where he had been born and where he had survived most of his life. So a place that had storage boxes of old things that had never been out of storage to begin with wasn’t that odd. And yet, he recognized that to the humans, it was actually quite weird to see the start of Clutter, because it was just… a normal attic. Like how the entrance to Officium Mundi was just normal desks and mostly normal computers.

This spot though was where the dungeon started getting creative. And he took a long sniff of the changed smells in the air, reveling in the scent of clean water and floral soaps as they took over the smell of warm dust and old cloth.

He followed James in a vanguard position as the two of them started wading around the shallow edge of the water, following the human’s example of rolling up his pant legs so they wouldn’t get wet. A futile gesture, but one that felt companionable somehow. They made some splashes as they continued deeper, through an arch formed by curtain rods and a hanging area rug that had never been used and yet somehow bore years worth of dirt in its fibers.

The swamp deepened as they went through it, the furnishings shifting slightly in how they were shaped, becoming more like lopsided rocks that stood in the middle of the deepening water and less like their original forms. Small shadows moved around them in lazy flits just under the water’s surface; clear blobs of creatures with nothing of substance to them at all except for a membrane that held slightly thicker water and the impulse to swim.

Keeka had brought one back the last time he was here. An event that had prompted Arrush learning how to look up reliable information and use Wikipedia, because he had a suspicion that turned into solid information that these things were not frogs. Keeka hadn’t then, and probably still didn’t, know what a frog was. Arrush still understood why his partner thought they were cute, but he had put his paw down on the fact that frogs were an entirely separate form of life.

The swamp opened up as they climbed a short slope of misshapen wood, the floor of the attic feeling too soft under Arrush’s paws as they walked. But on the other side, instead of the dim gloom they’d been walking through, the water glowed. It wasn’t any deeper, but a pair of high windows that the Attic liked so much let in golden oranges and reds of the false sunset. And where the light hit the water, the water… changed. Or maybe the water was already changed and the light just showed it off.

This water wasn’t clear. Instead, the surface of it glistened with oily colors. Reds and oranges and purples, the colors of evening light streaked across its surface in bands, with small streaks between them where the small slime creatures sometimes darted through the substance and mixed it together.

It stretched away for hundreds of feet, maybe more. It was hard to tell because line of sight was broken by towering and crooked coat racks that held old garments like cloth versions of willow trees. Old pool toys growing around the edges of the water like reeds and bushes, some of them with what looked like fruit on them.

They tried to keep out of the water, but it wasn’t dangerous. It wasn’t even oily, though it looked like it. It would just be a shame to splash through it and ruin the scene. So instead James and Arrush crawled along the tops of shelves and dressers to circle around, noting that the walls of the Attic were closer here on the sides. The dungeon was always expanding, but that didn’t make it infinite, and there were plenty of places where the edges of its domain showed through.

Their first goal they found easily enough. Around the iridescent waters of the swamp, taking a right where they had to climb over some exposed pipes and past clear boxes that looked like they held the supplies for a pool party, they found another body of water. But this one wasn’t shallow and stretched out. Instead, it was very close to looking like a hot tub sunk into the firmament of the dungeon. Not quite, not exactly, but if you squinted you could see where there should be vents and water jets.

The water inside was hot, because while it might be halfway between hot tub and hot spring, Clutter Ascent had definitely nailed down the temperature part of the equation. The water would also change anyone who was more than about halfway submerged in it. The change was simple and harmless; it made hair green, and that was kind of it. But it was fun, and the Anesh who had fallen into it the first time had kind of decided that it was just a neat little quirk to have.

Zhu had asked to come visit, both because it felt like a fun destination and made for a nice simple snack to him, and because he wanted to try something. Specifically, he wanted to know the double answer of if the hot spring worked on infomorphs, and if his manifested feathers counted as hair.

After James had dunked most of Zhu’s manifestation in, contorting on the edge of the pool to get his whole arm and tail in, they unfortunately knew that the answer to at least one of those questions was ‘no’.

Once Zhu was mollified that maybe Clutter Ascent would notice his interest and make a pool specifically for navigators, and after James finally decided to ask him why he wanted to be green anyway and got absolutely no answer, the trio went off to complete their other short task here.

Capturing one of the asplights was a little trickier than just dunking someone in a pool. The snakes were really uncommon, with maybe only four or five of them even existing right now. But they were also the only living things in the swamp, and Research - specifically Bea - had wanted one as a sample to study, tag, and release back into the dungeon.

In theory, ‘put a snake in a carrier’ was the kind of thing that would be a beginner quest at an adventurer’s guild. In reality, by the time they were done, James, Arrush, and even the mildly hydrophobic Zhu were all dyed in a very soggy fashion with the bright colors of the swamp’s waters. And they’d still be painted until they were dried off thoroughly, with the record of their struggle showing in the rings of ripples and splash points strewn across the swamp’s surface.

They’d tried to leave nothing but footprints, and in a way they had. It was also good to know that the snakes, while not particularly smart, were very fast, and very open to the idea of ambushes when pressed.

”This was great.” Zhu said, and meant it.

”This was hilarious, but I need to get new pants before we go on the real delve.” James replied.

Arrush cocked his head. ”This wasn’t a real delve?” He had actually been thinking that, but didn’t want to insult the Attic. The more time he spent here, the more he understood Keeka’s love of the place. It was just… it was nice. Actively nice, not just nice in the sense that it was devoid of bad things.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

That did make it feel like it wasn’t delving though. This was more like going on a hike with Kirk or Emily back when he and Keeka had lived in Townton. Not boring exactly, but also not with the chance for action.

”Nah,” James said with a laugh, “this was a warmup. And so I could start to get used to the new organ.” He tapped the side of his head by his brand new eye. “The next one is down in Utah. And then if we’re not dead, the Office later tonight!”

”…don’t you need to sleep?” Arrush wasn’t accusing his boyfriend of anything, he didn’t actually know if James needed to sleep. Most humans seemed to sleep a lot, though he supposed he was sleeping more now that he could do so without being murdered if he closed his eyes for too long.

James made a dismissive sound. “I do, but… I would rather spend time with you delving. Especially since the Utah one is with other people so it’s less ‘us’, you know?”

”I know.” Arrush nodded slowly, the old habit of trying to not drool on anything that he might not want melted still there, even if he was getting used to not needing it. “But I don’t mind. Do you want me to give them the snake?”

”That sounds so weird.” Zhu commented drowsily.

James patted the navigator with his off hand. “Yeah, please.” He told Arrush. “We’re scheduled for noon, so, meet you in the lair after we’ve gotten changed and gotten real armor?” The ratroach gave him a quick nod as they approached the entrance to Clutter Ascent.

A few goodbyes and a teleport later, they split off with James taking the opportunity to give Arrush a quick kiss before they did so. The new form of affection giving both of them a thrill, even if Arrush was still bright green around his eyes when he dropped off the carrier with the glowing metal snake in it down at Research’s intake desk.

Then he stopped being embarrassed, and went to get dressed in something with a protective kevlar layer that he could carry a number of knives in. Because as much as he was looking forward to more adventures with James today, he also didn’t trust Utah at all.

Not the dungeon. That part was actually very fun, even if the smell was choking and he wouldn’t have a sword this time. No, it was that they’d have to deal with a Mormon escort this time, and Arrush had heard from some of the other ratroach and camraconda delvers that they were being… rude.

So he made sure to attach an extra holster to his armor, around near his back right shoulder where one of his smaller arms could access it easily, that he could load a taser into.

Just in case Utah was less friendly than a pack of stuff animals.

_____

Pylon Motoric - James had just given up because Alanna’s dumb off the cuff name for the place had infected his brain, he’d heard two other people using it already, and the Mormons just called it Lot which he thought was boring - was a dungeon that did what every other dungeon in his life had done so far.

Messed with any attempt at categorization.

At first, when it was just the Office, they could assume it was a unique phenomena. Or that all dungeons did what Officium Mundi did. But then there was the Sewer and the Attic really quickly back to back, and all of a sudden, it wasn’t so easy. The Sewer still had creatures with death rewards, the Attic still had consumable pickups that gave innate magic, but the way they both worked was so different that it was hard to figure if dungeons should be classified that way. Then came the Route and the Climb, both of which had two-step magic systems that gave people active spells, and every attempt at trying to figure out how the dungeons fit together got thrown out the window. A full reset on their knowledge.

Once the Stacks was in the mix and handing out orbs that looked exactly like the Office’s, James was through being surprised. Or so he’d thought.

The Lot - the name was easier to say than the whole thing every time, James understood that boring was sometimes useful - had no loot drops. No items they could find. Just immobile machines in the shape of cars that made weird changes if you could figure them out, and achievements that gave you AP on the way out that would level up your skills. The magic items they’d at least sort of seen like this before, but the rest of it… well, partly it was like the Climb. But in a way that was slippery, and seemed to be purposefully frustrating.

James loved it.

”You are excited.” Arrush told him as they waited for the elevator, the ratroach proud of successfully reading his new boyfriend’s feelings.

”Course I am! This place is really cool, and the worst possible outcome is that I level up in breathing again which just makes me better at chain casting Climb spells.” James ground his foot against the smooth surface of the mundane Earth parking garage they were in, trying to figure out if he had a rock in it before fixing that would be more dangerous than inconvenient.

Arrush gently shoved some Breath across their relationstick link, filling James’ supply with the feeling of light pressure. “I can help with that.” He told James with further pride. “Also I like this place. Better breathing was… was… important. Even if it was only for a little bit before everything happened.”

”Better breathing is good even after changing.” Ishah added, the sleekly armored ratroach double checking his belt of shells idly before the elevator opened. Then, over the skulljack connection to James and Frequency-Of-Sunlight, he added something out of earshot of their guests. “Watch the escorts. See how they react when we talk about breathing? They know something we don’t. They think we are stupid.”

”I see it.” James sent back, leaning into Arrush with a gentle tap of their arms to signal that he was having a silent conversation. Then out loud, added, “Sunny, do you get breathing? I feel like I never really confirmed if camracondas breathe.”

”My dude you know camracondas can drown, we absolutely have to breathe.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight replied with a sarcastic hiss.

James tipped his head sideways, leaning it on the part of Arrush’s shoulder that had chitin under the armor and not fur that might get pulled. “Do I? Have I seen… oh! You mean that time we had to fish you out of the bath!” On his shoulder, Zhu’s feathers rustled with amusement, the navigator staying quiet as he rested but unable to ignore the conversation.

”I was ambushed.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight protested.

”Ambushed by a towel.” James laughed as she glared at him. “Anyway, do you level breathing too?”

She bobbed back at them, moving fluidly despite her own heavy armor, armature pack, and the saddlebag she was wearing. “Yeah, yeah, so far. It’s kinda weird, I don’t actually feel any different? But Deb made me measure it and my Breath does come back faster now, so I guess it’s working.”

”That’s… odd. I feel different, even now.” Arrush commented. “What does breathing feel like to you?” He asked curiously.

”Breathing feels like something?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight seemed confused.

Arrush’s muzzle shifted like he was chewing on the words. ”Oh.” He ended up muttering quietly.

The camraconda girl twisted back to look at him, her central lens widening slightly. “Aw, this is one of those things where it’s always hurt for you, isn’t it? And I’m being ungrateful for that? Dammit! I was warned about this!”

It was true, Arrush had been feeling that. But the instant regret that Sunny showed and the oddly specific way she phrased it cut through the fog of bitter frustration. ”…by who?” Arrush asked.

”Deb. Deb warns me about most things. Especially things that don’t need warnings.” Frequency-Of-Sunlight tried to emulate a shrug with a mechanical arms, and failed, the limbs not actually built for that kind of motion. It was a work in progress. “I love her!” Sunny added, almost defiantly.

Then the elevator dinged, the tinny sound tinged with the crackle of old electronic components announcing that the dungeon entrance was open, and the party cut their conversation as they were let in by their escorts.

James had a brief moment where he wondered if it would be worth it to just abandon their tenuous peace treaty, overpower the handful of people that were clearly here to act as guards and not delvers, and take off for the greener dungeon. But that would just be too much trouble, so he let the other two young Mormon guys that were coming along enter the elevator after them, the two silently fuming at the presence of a majority non-human team, and consoled himself with the knowledge that Lincon and Emma among a few others were gonna be getting navigator help in the next week so they could just point out the otherwise unknown entrances on a map.

They had agreed to play by the local’s rules for these dungeon entrances. They had said nothing about finding other ones.

The elevator dropped as they hit the button, the mundane sensation of movement giving away absolutely nothing about the strange place they were ‘descending’ into. James wasn’t even really sure if they fall was real, or if it was a manufactured feeling and they had only really moved through the fabric of reality and not in a more conventional ‘down’. But either way, when the metallic ding announced their destination, the Order delvers were prepared.

As with the last time James was here, their escorts lagged behind as the four delvers fanned out instantly, James and Ishah holding the middle of the formation with firearms and infomorphs ready while Sunny and Arrush took the outer edge to catch anything that wouldn’t need the crack of gunfire. One of the kids following them started to say something about how they were being stupid, when Frequency-Of-Sunlight snapped her head around and stopped a traffic cone with a toothy underside from impacting the side of his head. Calling it out, James and Ishah kept alert for anything coming in from the massive mile-long upward ramp ahead of them while Arrush turned and lunged to efficiently cut through the outer rubber ‘skin’ of the cone, the orange exterior sliced away to drip black tarry blood onto the concrete before his last strike flung it away as Sunny let it go.

It happened in a flash, and by the time he was done, the guy that was supposed to be escorting them had started screaming about Arrush attacking him. Something that was undercut slightly by the ratroach slipping his weapons back into sheaths, and straightening his recently repaired spine to tower over the younger man before saying “Please be careful.” And then moving back into his position with the rest of his group.

”That’s hilarious.” James silently sent to the others. “Arrush needs a skulljack braid so I can tell him how hilarious that was.”

”I still don’t like them at our backs.” Ishah replied. “Frequency-Of-Sunlight, can you…”

’I’ve got cameras on my back, don’t worry.” Sunny reminded them.

The group swept the area for anything moving, but the rest of the entrance was clear of anything except for a thin layer of grime from the ever present smog here. Double checking their various filter masks, they moved back to group closer near their escorts while James spoke up. “Alright, here’s the deal. We’re here for a short exploration upward, heading for the ‘roof’ of this place, if one exists. You two are welcome to follow us as far as you want, or just wait here by the entrance. Your call.”

”It’s probably gonna be fun.” Zhu chimed in, his dusty orange light shimmering against the outside of James’ standard Order armor in the dull light of the dungeon.

”You’ve only been here twice, isn’t that right?” One of the young men asked with obvious confusion. “You know you can only get one achievement at a time, right?”

”Oh, you haven’t met James.” Arrush smiled under his mask.

James smiled back at his boyfriend, the motion showing around his eyes as his expression softened with obvious love. “Yeah. We just want to get a feel for the place. We’re also looking for… well, hidden stuff, basically. Also any useful car… transmuter… things. Any life here that’s alive and wants to communicate. And especially just cool stuff that’s fun to see.”

”That’s… that’s childish!” The guy accused him.

”And that’s depressing. So what’s it gonna be, follow or stay?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight asked directly.

They looked like they wanted to ignore the camraconda, but one of them stomped back to lean against the wall by the elevator, while the other one, a sandy haired kid that looked like he should be studying for a business degree, awkwardly nodded. “I’ll… I’ll come along.” He said.

“Alright. Let’s go.” James said, and took point with Arrush next to him, the two of them keeping all their weapons stowed but their senses alert as they started moving side by side.

This dungeon was, in a way, like catnip to James specifically. The way that the smooth ramp looked like a perfectly normal parking lot complete with assorted cars on either side, but that it also stretched upward for what seemed like a mile or more. The way the view through the rectangular gap in the concrete to their right showed towering structures of similar construction, spires of concrete with odd patterns on their exteriors, some of them with plant life or metal decorations, but all of them large and imposing amongst the clouds of smog. The way the life forms the dungeon made were bizarre and yet familiar, with the common traffic cone only needing the addition of a jump and a lot of teeth to make it ominous. All of it was just…

It was fun. That was it. He thought the dungeon was fun.

The Climb was cold and horrid, the Route was basically just driving and James wasn’t actually that into driving these days, the Sewer smelled like everything he didn’t like. But here… it wasn’t perfect, but it felt like an adventure again.

The group stayed quiet, as was the standard tactic for delves like this. They’d talk when they rested, keeping voices low, but when they were on the move it was a risk to banter. They could just use the skulljacks and their small network to chat, but Arrush, Zhu, and Moon would be left out. Also it was distracting. Or at least, James thought so.

And distractions could be dangerous. Or, that was what he was thinking as he and Arrush silently split around a big platform tow truck that had been left in the very middle of the ramp, carefully checking ahead of the others for traps or ambushes. There was nothing around the truck, or in the few vans and trucks parked on either side of it. As they passed, James noted that it wasn’t even a real tow truck; or at least, its doors weren’t real. They were just a single fused piece of metal, with a groove that left a shadow pretending to be an openable door.

”Don’t try to open this.” James said, raising his voice just enough for Arrush to hear on the other side. “I think it’s a trap. Or at least it’s something weird.”

”Good weird?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight asked, then hissed in annoyance. “No, nevermind. Of course not.”

They passed without incident, continuing to climb. After ten minutes of walking in a straight line with nothing happening, the kid with them was clearly getting uncomfortable. Constantly looking around on edge, always seeming like he was about to say something. Eventually James broke the silence when they passed something odd, just trying to put their escort at ease. “Huh. The walls are different here.” He mentioned, looking back over his shoulder for a reaction.

Their guide - and James thought that term very loosely - just nodded. Unconcerned with how the structure around them had shifted styles slightly. It wasn’t like the warped terrain deeper in the Office, it was just that it had been mostly right angles and boxy concrete, and now it was more rounded edges. The big ventilation pipe overhead making an odd angled turn so that it blended into the upper part of the wall as just another semicircle of material. Small things like that.

The cars were still the same though. As was the quiet. A map would have been nice, but their hosts weren’t sharing theirs except to make sure that the Order didn’t intrude onto the territory where they were building their colony of stasised humans. And while mapping it themselves was a long term goal, it wasn’t really something that a single delve team could do in an afternoon.

The Order hadn’t really gotten to start mapping stuff out in here yet. They’d had three expeditions, and those expeditions were guided peeks closely watched by their nervous escorts. As far as their tense diplomatic opposition was concerned, the Order wanted to send some people in to get AP and that was it. They didn’t really understand that exploration was a huge part of what made up the culture of the Order’s knights, or that diplomacy was something they wanted to extend to the dungeon’s residents. And at this point, they’d more or less decided to play along with expectations. And they’d still be playing along even after they established a hidden alternate route in.

For now though, they were mostly just here to grab a little more magic, and acquaint themselves with the dungeon. It felt to James like there must be more life here, more weird and wild creatures. More strange magic and dangerous traps. And he wanted to see all of them.

Right now though he was just seeing more parking structure. Which was… actually interesting in its own right. Much like his first trips into Officium Mundi, there was a kind of playful spirit to the way the whole place was wrong. No one would build this, this wasn’t a human structure. This sloped upward ramp of smoothed concrete looked, outwardly, like it was made for cars to drive on and park from. But the reality, made clear as they passed by the hundredth grey van, was that it would take a mad architect and a flagrant oversight from whatever planning board gave out permits to let this come to be in the real world. Parking here just wouldn’t work. No one wanted to drive upward a mile just to get to a free space, only to hike back down to make it to the elevator.

The traffic cones that kept trying to kill them weren’t great either. The things kept hiding just behind wheels and leaping as soon as people came into view. Predictable, but it slowed progress a bit.

They were two miles up, the Order team feeling like they were on a Climb delve and their guest struggling to act like keeping up was easy, when Frequency-Of-Sunlight spoke up. “Hey, new guy. Question.”

They paused, double checking the area as they stopped to rest on the slanted concrete. James made a mental note to bring goggles next time; the smog coming in from outside was more acrid and thicker here. He sipped some water before offering the bottle to Arrush, waiting for the new guy to respond to Sunny.

When the kid didn’t, James sighed into his mask, and flicked a quick silent conversation back and forth with the camraconda before he spoke out loud. “So hey, Sunny.”

”Yes James?” Frequency-Of-Sunlight’s digital voice was modulated to sound a little more obviously sarcastic than normal.

”I’m thinking that since our new guy clearly can’t hear you, I’ll just sorta let you decide if we kill him and dump the body in here? Like, just say the word whenever you want him ambushed, he won’t notice.”

The camraconda nodded, her mechanical limbs folded around her body. ”Yeah, sounds good. I’m thinking maybe five minutes or so? He can hear you though. You have a plan for that?”

”Charm and charisma?” James said hopefully, and smiled as he got a chittering burst of laughter from Arrush.

“I can hear you!” Their escort said.

Ishah tipped his head backward, flexible neck letting him orient his eyes so he was essentially looking over his shoulder the long way around. “You should act like it.” He said, voice tight from the tension; he was getting used to fighting in dungeons, but not fighting people, and arguments like this made him uncomfortable.

James sighed again. “Look… uh… you.” He hadn’t actually listened if there had been an introduction.

”Scott!” The kid exclaimed.

”Really? Dang, you’re like, the third Scott I’ve met down here. Anyway. Come on. We’re trying to be nice here, and you’re being weird about it. Can you just stop pretending that Sunny doesn’t exist, and answer the question?” He stared at the younger man for a minute, trying to seem patient even as his actual patience was running out. He wanted to be exploring a dungeon, not dealing with this. Eventually, though, Scott just nodded dejectedly, and James motioned to Frequency-Of-Sunlight.

She perked up. “Oh, right! So, the interior wall has all these gaps in it, right? And we’re not passing turns or anything, this is just a straight line upward. But past the barriers and pylons where the cars are parked, there’s all these little openings. I could probably fit through one. What’s down there?”

“Oh hey, you’re right.” James leaned over to look at the space she’d mentioned. “Yeah, the last time I was in here, our escorts bailed on a fight and ran through those too. Where does that go?”

Scott shrugged. “Down.” He said. “I mean, it’s just the layer below. There isn’t anything hidden in there, it takes you to the center road below us, the one that’s by the elevator. They all do that.”

James narrowed his eyes because he didn’t think it was possible that Scott could possibly make that claim. But then Zhu spoke up, the exhausted navigator showing a sudden interest. “Oh hey.” He said with a flutter of orange feathers. “It’s a shortcut. Not meant to be, but kinda like running through someone’s kitchen. One way. Weird. Wait, does that mean we’ve been climbing for no reason?”

”Oh!” James had seen this before in the Office. “It’s longer in one direction! Okay, I get it. ‘Up’ is stretched out, but ‘down’ is normal if you go over the side. Cool. That saves us a ton of time getting out.” That would have been really nice to have been told last time, but he kept that thought to himself. Instead, he stretched his arms out, checking on the others before nodding. “Alright. Let’s keep going.” James gave Arrush a quick pat on the arm before the two of them moved apart and took up protective positions in front of the others. And then, the walking continued.

It wasn’t all grey concrete and straight lines. They kept getting jumped by traffic cones, and at one point the group patiently stepped aside to let a trio of the pangolin-like creatures that were rolled up with their thick rubber hide making them into aggressive tires pass by. A half mile farther up, they even got good advice from their helper, and stayed low underneath the windows as they passed a particularly thick patch of smog that had drifted into the structure, avoiding the dark shapes of flying beasts that flitted back and forth just outside.

When they finally made it to the top of the ramp, Scott was starting to get worn down from the pace the other delvers were setting, and spoke up. “If… if you’re trying to get to the roof for the points, you won’t make it before I’m supposed to take you back.” He panted out. “There’s easier achievements! We can just… we can go back down, find a bug nest or something for you all to kill, we don’t need to keep climbing!”

Arrush made a humorous sound muffled by his fitted mask. “I… I didn’t even think of going down. I was remembering the Climb.” He said, watching James with a fond memory.

The words were cute, and James appreciated them, but they were also a distraction from a real answer. Which was intentional. Because the real answer was that they weren’t actually following the poorly explained guide to known achievements that they’d been given; the truth was that they were here looking for people.

The people who had decided they were in charge of this dungeon called them lot goblins, and treated them like a combat challenge. But the way their first encounter with the things had gone, James was inclined to think they were more like native people defending their homes from random attacks, and he was interested in learning more about them no matter what the truth actually was.

So when they told Scott they didn’t need to climb anymore, and started following the outer wall of the level they were on, he was relieved. Occasionally as they moved, James would let his attention lapse as he looked out over the edge of the chest high concrete wall, stealing glances of the sprawling rooftop parking lots below. Taking a moment to experience massive vertigo at just how high up they were and how enormous the other buildings within vision range were.

The ambush came just before they were about to turn around. James wasn’t dissatisfied at that point, he was pretty sure everyone in the party would be getting at least something that would give them more of the dungeon’s odd magic. But it was actually quite nice when the thing coming out of nowhere to attack them was a projectile made out of sharpened metal and not just another traffic cone. Not that James hated the traffic cones or anything. If they were less fucking vicious, he’d probably be trying to entice one of them to leave with them. Sunny had threatened everyone with doing exactly that, but the limbs she had equipped didn’t have the grip strength to make good on that promise, so it was mostly an empty threat for now.

The ambush, though, was different from how dungeon life normally jumped James. The first piece of sharpened metal that was thrown their way from the bed of a pickup truck wasn’t actually aimed at anything. Frequency-Of-Sunlight didn’t even bother to stop it, just let it clang to to ground, the echo of metal on concrete echoing with a loud ringing around them.

James hadn’t been exactly prepared for this, but he had in mind a way he would need to react. So when Scott tried to pull the gun from his hip holster, James gently held him back with a hand on the wrist, masking the interception as pulling the young rival delver over to cover.

”Oh good!” Frequency-Of-Sunlight declared as she flattened herself behind the frame of a jeep-like vehicle. “We found them!”

Circling around behind the pylon James had pulled Scott to, he heard a quick impact of metal on metal, followed by another clatter as something hit the ground. Then Arrush, raising his voice, called out over the ringing. “Please don’t do that!”

James peeked around the corner to see Arrush standing in the middle of the concrete road, with Ishah crouched next to him, shotgun pointed idly at the ground even as both ratroaches swept their eyes over the vehicles ahead. Both of them were tense, waiting for another shot from their attackers, but as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened.

”Something changed.” Zhu said in a tired voice. “I think they ran? Want me to follow them?”

”Hold off on that.” James said, standing fully and walking toward Arrush. “You two okay?”

”Nothing hit.” Arrush reported, while Ishah added a quick and quiet “Fine.”

James nodded a little, glad no one was hurt, as he bent down to grab one of the projectiles. It looked like a strip cut out of the hood of a car, roughly hammered into a triangular fold and sharpened at the end. He… wasn’t sure this would be enough to even penetrate standard delver armor. “Zhu says they ran.”

”I didn’t even see them!” Scott’s voice joined the group as he crouch-walked up to the end of the waist high concrete dividing wall that separated a handicapped space from the rest of the spots. “What was it? Goblins?” He had his gun out now and was peeking up over the edge, even while the Order team just stood openly in the middle of the corridor. A thin line of grey thorns composed of a spectral fire extending from his wrist and into the side of the firearm, like that was a normal way to carry a gun.

Every one of the others spent a second staring at that, including Sunny as she slithered up and focused her lens on the sight, before James shook his head and turned back to the stretched and slightly curved concrete path ahead of them. “Yeah. Probably.” He sighed as he pulled a handful of granola bars out of one of his leg pouches. “I even came prepared for this. I was learning, Arrush!”

His boyfriend looked at him with a clearly affectionate gaze. “If… if you had offered me a granola bar, back then, it would have sped things up.” He said, feeling instantly awkward as the words left his mouth and he realized what he was trying to turn into humor.

”Yeah, Keeka said the same thing.” James said, abolishing Arrush’s sudden worry that he’d said something wrong. “Maybe I’ll just leave them in the truck they were in.” He jogged over to the ambush site, now abandoned, and left the handful of foil wrapped snacks next to where a pair of other thin metal ‘spears’ had been left behind as well.

”Why?” Scott asked when James was heading back.

Frequency-Of-Sunlight gave the longest hiss she could, stretching it out into a note of pure exasperation. “Because being murderously evil isn’t a good long term plan, you moron.” She bluntly stated.

”No, but… if you don’t kill them, or at least fight them, you won’t get the extra points from the better milestones, right?” Scott asked, puzzled. “I don’t… I don’t get you guys. I mean, I see your group, I’m not stupid, you’re fine working with demons. And you guys all talk, so you’re not mindless. But the demons this place makes are all evil. They just want to fight. So why bother trying to give them food instead of shooting back?”

With an attempt at moving quietly, James walked toward him, boots making thunderclaps on the floor anyway. He paused when he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Scott, facing past the young unallied delver, and took a breath. Then he set a hand on Scott’s shoulder, ignoring the way the other human flinched at the contact. “Who told you to believe that, Scott?” James asked him with a steely calm, before he let his hand drop back, and walked past back the way they’d entered the dungeon from. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and see if cutting a swath through the local population of traffic cones is enough to get us a point or two.”

”I’ve never been here before, I’m sure to get a point!” Sunny reminded them. “I’m gonna level up in looking at things, it’s gonna be great!” She stated, and James had to hold himself back from reminding her that she was not the first camraconda in here, and that her aspiration was probably not true.

Getting back was a lot easier since they knew there was a shortcut if they were willing to drop about ten feet and land among painted concrete bollards. Zhu confirmed it was safe to go through, but told them they were on their own for landing, and they essentially had to do a trust fall exercise with Frequency-Of-Sunlight when she awkwardly slid off the edge and let the others catch her falling form before she crunched against the concrete.

When they got back to the elevator, the other escort, who had been sitting on the hood of a car and playing a game on his phone apparently, looked up and addressed Scott directly. “Did they do anything stupid?” He asked.

”Yeah.” Scott said. Then he started to look back at James, before stopping suddenly and making a quick decision. “They’re all idiots. It’s fine.” He added, slapping the button to call the elevator with annoyance that looked like overacting to James but probably wouldn’t register to the other guy as anything weird.

The elevator ride up to reality was tense, and in truth, James felt like the delve had been kind of a waste. They’d walked a lot, accomplished nothing, and mostly just had a string of low-effort fights with hostile cones. It was like the setup to an Order-coded standup routine. But also it was sort of indicative of how it was frustrating to go about their normal long wandering explorations and mappings of a dungeon when there were outsiders tagging along and watching them. And also how they’d just kind of brought the wrong team for certain things; this wasn’t the group for deciphering wall graffiti and figuring out what different car-shaped magical machines did. This was the group for safely carving a path into a hostile environment, and they kinda hadn’t gotten to do that.

But maybe that could come later. Because one thing they did get to do, at least, was test a few things about this dungeon’s obtuse and obstructionist magic on the way out.

”How long is this ride, exactly, do you know?” James asked idly as they waited to be carried up by the elevator, watching the timer he’d put in his skulljack’s pseudo-HUD.

”Wouldn’t you like to know.” Their non-Scott guard said. James shook his head and sighed as he loosened his mask, letting some cool and still slightly smoggy air in against his skin as he decided not to get snippy about it. But he kept himself ready for the notification, whenever the dungeon decided to give it to them. Which was about a minute later, marking the elevator ride at three minutes and twenty one seconds, which he noted for the Order’s records.

(Milestone - Low Rhetoric Resolution : +2 AP)

The use of the term ‘low’ set both James and Zhu on edge instantly as they got the same notification. They’d seen that a lot, and they’d seen it over and over from the same place. The Underburbs. If this dungeon was sharing that trait with the suburban hellscape, did it have anything else to worry about? Diseases? Murderous mold? Cars that killed you if you looked at them?

They’d have to talk about that later. Because right now, before anything else, before even breathing, they had things to test.

Mountain Of The Self was a high cost for a spell, but James fired it off for a split second anyway, feeling short of breath as he let the elevator move him upward but inviolable to anything else for a moment. He was left feeling like he needed to be gasping for breath, if not Breath, and the cold was so obvious in the enclosed space that the two young guys escorting them snapped their heads around in alarm at the sensation.

His Breath supply started refilling instantly as Arrush pushed it across their relationstick bond. From James’ left, another bloom of cold came out as Ishah cast his own Climb spell, making the whole elevator feel like someone had overtuned the air conditioning. That same air then suddenly became bone-dry as Zhu mustered the effort to use the absorbed blue orb he had for Collect Moisture, and Ishah’s infomorph friend Moon replicated the same effect.

And into James’ head, another mental intrusion from the dungeon explained what his magic changed into. He couldn’t feel it, not like some other magics, but it was there, sure as anything.

(Spellcasting - Winter’s Climb : +1 Level, 1 level total)

(Breathing : +1 Level, 3 levels total)

(2 AP spent, 0 AP remains)

”Alright. Sound off.” He told the others as soon as they were clear of Utah and safely back at the Lair, glad to be out from under the watchful eye of their collective observers.

”I got breathing, dammit! I wasn’t fast enough! I want to go back, I demand a redo!” Frequency said. “Why can’t we just loop people through the elevator anyway? Let me just sit there and rack up points!”

”It’s been proposed.” James tapped his sleepy navigator. “Zhu?”

”Spellcasting, Officium Mundi. But it was… weird.” Zhu replied, spreading his talons as his eye and feathers vibrated on James in his version of a yawn. “That was a nice walk, but I need to sleep. Sorry. I can talk more later, but…”

James set a hand on him. ”It’s okay. I think we all got the weird notification. Well, except Sunny. Sorry Sunny.”

”Bah!”

As Zhu dissolved into his skin, James smiled at her and continued. ”Ishah, Moon?” He asked the two who were in their own private conversation, hoping he wasn’t interrupting.

”S-same as for you and Zhu. But the words were weaker.” The compact ratroach said as he unbuckled pieces of his armor. “Like they weren’t finished.”

Arrush sighed sadly. “I only got more breathing.” He said, and then snapped his head up with something that was almost panic in his eyes. “I- I like breathing! I don’t mind!” He added with obvious anxiety, that only dimmed a little as James set a hand on the briefing warehouse desk between them and allowed Arrush to clasp it. “I mean that… I mean the experiment didn’t work. The relationstick didn’t improve.”

”That’s fine, sometimes stuff doesn’t work.” James sighed. “Like most of this delve. Alright everyone.” He commented, spinning an office chair around and falling into it as he fully stripped off his mask and set it on the central desk in their little pod. “Let’s get through the action review, and record everything. Ishah, you want to handle the map? And then after this…” He checked his watch. “Hey Arrush, you wanna go out for dinner or maybe a fun delve? I feel bad that I invited you to this and it was boring but also I’m super exhausted.”

”…Pizza.” Arrush said.

”Hm?”

”I will forgive you for the thing you had no control over, if we can get pizza.” Arrush said, voice still shaking from his burst of anxiety, even as he found a playful confidence to punch through that.

James took a second to catch up, but when he did, his face split into a grin. “Yeah, I can manage that. So! Who wants to talk about cones? And then we can discuss how to ideologically subvert the kids they keep sending in with us, yeah?”