Chapter 49) The Stand in. Or, Someone forgot the closed sign.

I drifted down, not only to get into conversational distance to Drew but to stop hanging out mid-air in plain sight up above the dungeon. Could I hide from Osalor?

"No Drew, it's me, Tex. What happened?"

The younger man’s eyes went wide and he let out a great sigh. “Oh man, I am so glad to see you. I’ve been stuck here for at least a month as far as I can tell. And you told me about how bad the other exit gates were so I didn’t want to risk trying to get through them unless things got too bad, and I sure as heck don’t want to go back to Tesero.”

He rubbed at his throat. So I tried to reassure him. “I think things might be changing for the better there, but if I get the chance I will check it again before you decide to risk it.”

So… weeks? How was he still alive? There was water in the swimming pool, but what about food? And more importantly air? And was the Liche here?

First though, “I’ll tell you all about what’s been happening over there in a moment, but first, what happened to you?"

He scratched at the back of his head.

"Well, I popped out of the exit portal here, with no sign of the Liche, not here anyways. I met a guy named Tim who was following instructions written on the walls to unlock at least the four fighter skills before going to the last room in armor with a weapon to fight a monster and then go through the portal to the Plane of Slaughter.”

Drew shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “I guess it pays to follow instructions because when I followed along with him, he beat up a Goblin and then read the descriptions of where the four gates went. He took the warning seriously enough that he ended up going through the Portal to the Plane of Slaughter.”

I decided to not rub it in and just bobbed up and down a bit in acknowledgment.

“So I went and grabbed another load of gear for myself and tried to follow him, only there was a barrier on that gate, and Terri showed up before I got desperate enough to try any of the others.”

It turned out that after a while of me not showing up to bother her, which she felt wasn’t in my nature, my next dungeon next door neighbor Terri had gotten concerned enough to come visiting. What she found over here was some poor guy getting dumped out of the entrance portal every five minutes only to slowly suffocate on the almost nonexistent air.

Over, and over, and over…

Damn.

That was… Terrible. I felt guilty. Guilty as hell in fact, but I don't think was all on me. In fact, I think only a little bit of it was on me. This was mainly Osalor’s fault, that and whoever sent him here with no idea of what he was doing, or the consequences of messing with things.

Shoot… That’s what I’ve been doing all this time.

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Drew picked up at least a little of what was going on in my head... “This wasn’t your fault Tex, at least I don’t think it could be. But if you weren't here to stop it, where were you?”

I explained, and while Drew winced at my story, his focus was a little more Drew-centric. “Oh crap, what’s going to happen to me when this guy shows up looking for you?”

“…Yeah, a little self centered there Drew, but yes, I agreed you should be concerned for yourself because I’m screwed no matter what. So let’s figure out what we can do to save your butt.”

He apologized, sincerely, and filled me in on the rest of what had happened.

Terri had created a skeleton and inhabited it since they didn’t need any air, then forced a shield onto the guy’s arm which was enough to count for armor and a mace into his hand before lifting his arm up on his almost limp body and pulled it down hard enough to crack her own skull open.

Next, she moved the portal to the Plane of Slaughter right into the entrance room grabbed the guy on his next entrance while in another skeleton, and tossed him through the exit gate.

So no stuff with him in his new life, and he was guaranteed to have a whole lot of mental trauma that he was going to need some help with. But it got him clear of the Tutorial.

Since then, Terri had told Drew, she had been popping over between her Trainees to add some written instructions of her own, moved the Plane of Slaughter portal back to its place, and set up a Goblin each visit for people to fight in the last room.

With all of that setup and ready to go, she had seldom had to deal with my Trainees, other than one who somehow got themselves killed by a Goblin and decided that even the thinning air wasn’t enough to get them back into the fighting room.

Drew shrugged at that. “Terri said that after trying to her a few times she finally just decided to take control of the Goblin and chase her down to finish the fight, even then she had to force them to take hold of a spear and run the goblin onto it.”

"Once she found me over here, she's pretty much let me handle dealing with people. Walking them through the skill unlocks, getting them pumped up for the fight, even sparring with them a little."

He slowly shook his head, “I swear Tex… some of these people...”

“Oh, and the air comes back between Trainees, I think I don’t count as a Trainee myself anymore, but I still don't get Life points here for unlocking skills here. I think that's more this place than anything else, but I did learn how to [ Focus ] on things to get information from that other system, Terri told me about it.”

I bobbed. “That was kind of her, and thanks for covering for me Drew, you’ve been a big help.”

So how to solve his problem of being stuck here? "Did you try the other-"

He cut me off. “The other portals? Yeah eventually… Damn I did it again, didn't I? Sorry. But yeah, all four of them have the barriers for me. I think I'm stuck in here, but I have water and I've been avoiding eating up everyone's starter rations by having Terri make Horned Rabbits for people to fight instead of a Goblin. The only other thing I’ve thought of trying that might get out of here is dying. I’m not a Trainee so I shouldn’t pop out of the entrance again, but I’ve been putting it off since I don’t know what would happen.”

Drew shrugged again. “It sucks being stuck here, but the alternative might be worse.”

Yeah. “Been there. Still there.”

After a while, Terri showed up and seemed more resigned than surprised to see me.

“You managed to drag me into your mess after all Tex. Thanks a lot.”

I repeated her words but in a nicer tone.

“No, thank you a lot Terri. You saved that guy from a never ending torment and spared a lot of other people from dealing with the same thing. If I can take all the blame for everything including anything that might fall on you, I’ll take it, I swear.”

She seemed a little taken aback but recovered pretty quickly. "I think you're going to be in as much trouble as you can handle Tex, it would be pretty hard for them to punish you worse than they already will be.”

Ouch. "Yeah, I guess you're right… But for now, I'm back, so you just check in on this place at a distance every now and then in case they drag me off somewhere else again, and if they leave this place set up to keep bringing people in with no one to set up monsters for them, I would really appreciate it if you stepped in again.”

“Please. For the sake of the people getting sent here, not me.”

She bobbed, slowly. “Yeah… but first, fill me in on what’s been happening. I’ll risk sticking around long enough to find out more about how screwed up things are around here.”

Another Trainee showed up before I could finish up my story, but Drew stepped up to talk to Megan Brown, twenty four, from Climax Ohio, which she had to explain was a real place to Drew.

He seemed to find it pretty funny. “So… there are signs on the road saying you’re about to reach Climax?”

I think he thought he was flirting, but I doubt he was going to unlock a skill with something like that.

Meanwhile, I made a Horned Rabbit for the young lady while I finished up my conversation with Terri.