"Wonderful. Thank you, Mister... Zan?" the receptionist said.

Both Whiskey and Jiehong signed or pricked their identities onto the paper and slid them back toward the clerk.

"My name is Zan. Correct," Zan said. "Why?"

"No reason. Basic information comes up on my end when a client secures their account, and I always like to check and make sure their information is correct. Magic might be perfect, and our machines are the best around, but mistakes still happen!" the receptionist-clerk said.

"Understandable. But what happened to our compatriots?" Zan asked, getting the conversation back on track.

"Yes. Your traveling party is where they were supposed to go. They are safe and fine. Likely beginning on their next labor assignment. I will return you to them or... sorry, I have to take a call," the clerk said, who then left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Whiskey said, "Something is happening."

"Things feel weird. That's for sure. Think it is bad?" Jiehong asked.

"No idea. I doubt it's anything hostile. Don't get me wrong. I am excited to have my own Sunstar Trading Account. I've wanted one of those for a long time! Yet what is happening here is unusual. Let's think about it: a group of over a hundred people safely cross a chasm without issue. Then, when it comes time for us to cross, not only are we attacked by a monster--" when Whiskey mentioned the monster, Zan blocked out the memory of it -- "but our lift's redirected to this tower instead? All so we can be given highly prized trading accounts. It seems fishy, to me."

"Do you think we shouldn't have accepted the accounts?" Zan asked.

Whiskey shrugged. She had no answer. "I don't know. I think it wouldn't have mattered one way or another. I'm only saying it feels to me like things are happening without our approval and those things are causing us grief."

Zan couldn't disagree with Whiskey, but the situation was complex. "Things happening without regard for us is just how it is now, though. No one asked us if we wanted to fight for our lives in a war; no one asked us if we wanted to devote ourselves to a Martial Order bent on eradicating evil; and I am not sure about your life, but even before the war, no one so much as even asked me about my feelings. Seems all for the course of fate."

Whiskey grunted her approval. She was pacing back and forth, however, and did not pay much attention to Zan's words. Neither did Jiehong, who seemed almost embarrassed, somehow. Though what he had to be embarrassed about he couldn't say.

Time passed with everyone keeping to themselves. Zan had a headache. Jiehong was pensive. Whiskey nervous. Sitting down and resting his eyes, when he stood back up, Zan had to ask, "How long as the receptionist been away for? It feels like she has been gone for hours."

Perking up and looking for a moment at Zan, Jiehong said, "That is a good point. Where the heck is she?"

Until now, Zan and Friends strolled in the empty lobby. They looked at the ponds on either end, near the room's middle. They sat at the available benches. But they didn't look too closely. With the receptionist's lengthy time away, the few sights in the room became more intriguing. Zan investigated more closely the artificial ponds.

Artificial or not, the ponds were boring.

Becoming restless, Zan went up to the door the clerk used. He wanted to see if he could hear anything if he pressed his ear up against the cracks. Hearing nothing, Zan threw himself from the door's crack in disgust. He wanted out. Or in... he wanted something to happen!

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Pacing himself now, Zan was grunting and cussing to himself when he noticed something. "Has that always been there?" Zan asked, pointing to a door behind the receptionist's desk but to the right instead of left.

Jiehong and Whiskey looked to where Zan pointed. "I have no idea if that's been there. I would assume so. Doors don't just magically appear," Whiskey said, approaching the door.

"What does it look like?" Jiehong asked Whiskey as she investigated.

"Like a normal door," she said, leaving it be after only a moment, sighing in resignation of waiting.

Zan approached the door. Once he did, strange symbols illuminated the door's surface. Jiehong and Whiskey gasps and pulled Zan back. "Careful! We don't know how this place works..."

Looking to the nearby door the receptionist went through and finding it as still as ever, Zan allowed angry feelings to rise in him as he thought about the receptionist's rude practice. What could be keeping her? Monsters? An angry boss? Zan knew his thoughts were irrational. More so with each passing idea. 'What ifs' surfaced within Zan's head explaining why she hadn't returned to them yet and such thoughts varied from her taking a long lunch break to her standing just inside the doorway, cruelly listening in on them as they slowly went mad. "Screw it. Screw her. Screw all this," Zan said and opened the door.

Whiskey and Jiehong followed in Zan's wake. They gave him cautions about wandering alone in unknown spaces but even they, Zan believed, didn't really believe the words which came from their mouths. "Guys. It was either continue waiting there forever or go through that door. I took the option which got us out of the place. We have Winters and his men to meet up with, remember."

"Sure. But Zan, we don't know our way around this place. Look!" Whiskey said.

Slowing down to 'look,' Zan the door they had taken had led them into an open space with wall segments at an odd angle. It wasn't so much as a 'room' or series of corridors as it was many partially constructed rooms tossed together like a builder's salad.

"What is this place?" Zan asked, taking in his new environment now instead of passively absorbing.

Obviously, a rhetorical question, no one in Zan's party knew what the issue was with the new space. Such architecture seemed more an art display than an intentional design. Whatever its purpose was, Zan concluded, none of them would ever know. So, why bother lingering in odd spaces?

"Let's keep moving," Zan said, passing through the wall fragments.

Jiehong, having trouble moving between the tightly packed wall fragments due to his bulk, had to ask Zan several times to take consideration when sliding between wall fragments. 'Sorry, Jie. I would take more heed, but I am as lost as a kite on a windy day,' Zan thought to himself as the second request. Of course, he did not want to admit that to his companions.

"Zan. We're lost. We should try to find our way back to the lobby," Whiskey said, her tone impatient.

"We're not going back to the lobby. We're-- did you hear that?" Zan said, suddenly growing serious.

Growing silent and listening, no one heard anything. Not right away. Jiehong moved close to Zan and Whispered, "What are we listening for?"

"I heard something, you guys. We're not alone. Keep your guard up," Zan said, drawing his sword and readying his offensive stance.

With a groan, Jiehong and Whiskey did the same. "I still don't hear anything, Zan," Whiskey said, for the record.

Under their leader's duress, the trio continued to move at a pace through the strange interior. He knew it was wishy-washy at best, but Zan attempted to sense out any holy energy within the building. Thinking himself a failure at first, he felt nothing. Gradually, however, he felt more energy within the confines of the tower. It was merely trapped or too deeply embedded for Zan to easily feel. Trying again, then again, Zan failed each time to adequately sense the holy radiation. Quickly growing frustrated with himself for his lack of skill, Zan slammed his first against one of the wall fragments.

"Calm down, Zan. We're not getting anywhere with you acting like a child," Jiehong said.

"I'm sorry! It's just -- argh! It's so frustrating! I can sense the energy in the building, but I can't sense it enough to guide us out of here. It's not like the lift controls where all the radiation was on the surface!" Zan returned.

"Isn't your map on your headset thingy any help?" Jiehong asked.

"No! It isn't. Not in a place like this, where we're treading water in the same big room. My map shows us where we've been but that doesn't help when every step is as the same as the step before!"

"I can imagine this is frustrating for you, Zan, and can sympathize. I can. But I have started to hear what you talked about. Us not being alone? Something is lurking close to us," Whiskey said, changing the subject.

Jiehong's eyes widened. "Really?" he whispered to Whiskey. Whiskey nodded.

With the situation growing graver by the moment, Zan considered how his recklessness in the lobby was now endangering his crew. He regretted ever going through the mysteriously opening door...

Breaking Zan out of his self-pit Jiehong yelled "Look out!"