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213 - The Return
🕑 Added 2025-10-28 01:13:38 +0000 UTCUncle Max had his gun in hand and his other hand ready to flip open his eyepatch.
Lexie walked to the door and saw a serpent-humanoid in the courtyard, surrounded by dozens of other animal-humanoids.
Therianthropes, Lexie heard a whisper in her head, as knowledge dropped into her brain. Human Lexie apparently knew what these creatures were called. They are therianthropes. And he is a Snake-person.
Lexie activated the DECODE card as she stepped forward to talk to him. “Hello. Are you the Supreme?”
“I am.” He spoke Eldritch, and his voice sounded calm, almost reasonable. “You are the one killing my subjects."
“Yes, but in my defense, your subjects tried to kill me first.” Well, some of them did. Some of them had remained hidden, but Lexie had killed them anyway. She shouldn’t have. That was wasteful.
“As if your kind needs a reason to destroy.” The Supreme’s face twisted in dislike as he stared at her, and Lexie could read the clear condescension oozing from him. “It’s in your very nature. Your kind are driven to eradicate all the beauty in the world.”
“I didn’t kill all of them,” Lexie said a tad defensively. “And they were hardly beautiful.”
Max snorted beside her, and the Supreme turned to him.
“Are you the one who has brought this calamity on us?” he asked, and when Max did not answer, Cecilia had to translate it for him.
"Believe it or not, no,” Max responded. “I just kind of stumbled into her. Or rather, she stumbled into me.”
“This is not about your revenge?” he asked.
“How do you know about my revenge?” Max challenged, even as rage simmered in his voice.
The serpent man smiled. “I know everything.”
Not everything.
One by one, Lexie was decoding his speech patterns, which were laced with certain vibrations that held charisma and charm, making him seem automatically trustworthy. He was also very good at reading body language and auras. A born manipulator.
Lexie knew someone back on Earth who had a similar skill.
He was also very wise. He had lived for several years, far more than anyone else in this dungen had. He also had a hidden power that Lexie would need more time and energy to decode.
“Is this the part where you attack me?” Lexie asked, looking at the variety of wolf-people, bird-people, and reptilian people behind him, all staring at her with varying levels of apprehension and anxiety
“No," the serpent man said. “I have just gone through a lot of trouble to make these allies from far lands. I did not do that to waste them on the likes of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lexie wasn't sure if she should be offended, but that sure did sound offensive.
“It means that we cannot defeat you,” he said, “We would much rather make a deal. Please, Eldritch, let us know if you want?”
“I want to use the door,” she said, pointing at the shed. “My companions and I are trying to get back to our original dungeon. We only came here by accident."
"Is that all?" he seemed surprised. "You don't want anything else?"
"What else could I possibly want?"
The Supreme shrugged. "Our eternal servitude or our doom."
"I do not know you well enough to wish to be served by you." As for wishing him ill, her Uncle Max did want him dead. And Lexie had wanted to kill him on Max's behalf.
But better she understand the situation first. What Lexie did with that information was dependent on how this conversation went.
“You’re not staying?” the Supreme asked.
“No. Why would I want to stay here? It is clear that the land is dying and was never meant to sustain so many people."
Relief flashed in the serpent's face. "Oh. That is good to know then. You are free to use the door."
“There’s also something else I would like to know,” Lexie mentioned. “My Uncle said when he was at the other side of this dungeon, someone came out of here, presumably, and stole his eyepatch. Who was that? Was he a human?”
“Yes. We call him the Planewalker. He occasionally traverses this plane and uses it as an avenue to get where he needs to go. We are not to bother him, and he does not bother us. He does not interact with us. He merely goes through the dungeon exit doorway.”
“And where is that doorway now?"
"I do not know. Only the human knew, and Shevin knew how to uncover it."
Max stiffened at the sound of the name, so Lexie immediately knew who he was. “The Elf?”
He nodded.
Lexie wondered if Max was still going to kill the Supreme for the Elf. This would be the perfect chance, and then she could get rid of everything else behind him.
Lexie tried to send him signals that she would back him up, even as something inside her warred against mindless slaughter. Wasteful. That’s wasteful.
I need to find out more about him and his secret power first.
Lexie found she didn't have quite the appetite for random destruction that she used to. Perhaps because she no longer needed to prove herself as superior. She knew, and they knew, she was better than these creatures, and she could kill them easily. That knowledge now allowed her to ask questions like Why should she kill them?
“Why did you kill him?” Max asked the Supreme, and Cecilia translated the question and the answer for him.
“It’s due to an age-old quarrel we were having,” the Supreme said. “I had lived under his thumb for too long and was tired of his tyranny. Shevin, you see, was the original inhabitant of this plane. Only he knew how to access the door, and he was the one who let us in here when we first entered the dungeon and were about to be eaten by a Beiral. He let us build our civilization here, and everything was fine as long as we left him alone in the forest. But the forest was where the food was, and the people were starving. I needed to do something. But Sheval did not agree."
Hm. The story was a partial truth and partial manipulation. He was telling the truth but twisting it to suit his agenda.
"Sheval never let me forget he was the one who was truly in charge." Bitterness reflected in his tone. "I’m the one who kept the citizens alive. I’m the one who ensures that we have enough to eat and drink and enough to breathe, and I’m the one who discovered how to keep the dungeon’s magic flowing and how to keep it from collapsing on us all. I did everything, yet he still saw me as only an underling simply because he came first. He only used this place for enlightenment, to train and grow his magic in total stillness. We used it for survival.”
“Survival from who?” Lexie asked.
The Supreme turned to her, and at first, he looked furious, but when Lexie continued to stare at him blankly, his expression finally eased. “You really don’t know?
Lexie shook her head.
“Just how young are you?” he asks, and Lexie shrugged.
“Difficult to say, really.”
“You are then too young to remember the Eldritch invasion on our planet," he said. “It hit several parts of our planet all at once, and was an overwhelming onslaught that wiped out more than half of our population in one go. It only took a few more drechtal to wipe out the rest. There was no chance of fighting back. So those of us who could flee fled into this dungeon. We’ve managed to make it our home since.”
“I thought you would call the Fae," Cecilia asked. "Isn’t the Lizard planet under the Fae protectorate?”
“Fae,” the serpent hissed and spat. “The Fae. They only arrived once our planet was already partially decimated. They said it was our fault, but they took advantage of our desperation, and they offered a contract even worse than that offered to the gnomes.”
The gnomish war.
Lexie remembered V’Sala mentioning it once. She’d also remembered him saying that the gnomes hadn't known they had a war, though he'd been the one to start it.
Now that she thought about it, she realized what he meant. The Fae had used the V'Sala to spark unrest in the Gnomish planet.
Had the Fae done that to Serpent man's people, too? Had the Fae used the Eldritch to take over lands, forcing the Eldritch to bear the scorn? The Eldritch were singularly the most hated creatures across the planets, known for causing despair and mischief. Lexie didn’t mind much. She didn’t mind being feared, but perhaps there might be Eldritch who did.
There were Eldritch who were weaker than the Fae and the several creatures they tormented. They were Eldritch, who were hunted down and denatured by the very same creatures who used them as weapons. Creatures of pain, yet creatures who fought ot exist, fighting for autonomy, yet remaining slaves to the light.
How were the Fae doing it?
What power did the Fae have over the Eldritch? Was it simply using Lightlarks? Or was there something more insidious?
It would make sense for the Fae to control the weaker Eldritch using Lightlarks, but for stronger Eldritch and Eldritch Lords, that wasn't plausible.
So how were they doing it?
"The Eldritch and the Fae," the Supreme said. "Sometimes I am not sure which is worse. The Eldritch destroys and the Fae collects."
"Why are they not doing the same to Earth?” Lexie wondered aloud.
He stared at her. “Who says they’re not?”
Lexie was silent. Unease knotted in her gut.
The reveal left a bad taste in her mouth.
She knew she shouldn't care about the humans, but she was unsettled. There were people still on the human planet that she cared about. Her Uncle Max was one of them, and she was about to send him back. Then there was her father. Aiden. The man who had fought so hard to keep her alive, the one she owed everything to.
Thinking about him, as usual, brought that mixture of sadness and sentimentality, but she swallowed it down.
She also had to think of the Eldritch and their situation. Eldritch were being killed and destroyed every day. Some of that was their fault, of course, but some of it wasn't. They were being exploited. As much as Lexie didn't feel any loyalty or fealty to the Eldritch, there was something very wrong about this.
Wasteful. Having them die for no reason was wasteful.
“I’ll return,” she told the Supreme. “To fulfil my promise to help you with the calamity. For now, I must go help my fr–” she choked on the word. “I mean my partner. But while I’m gone, you two have to treat my Uncle Max well. And no matter what happens, make sure he’s alive. If he’s not, you’re not going to like me.”
The Supreme nodded. But it was all for show. Lexie was simply luring her uncle into a false sense of security for what she was about to do.
They went back into the outhouse, where the door was, and Lexie nodded at Cecilia, sending her a secret signal. She activated the card that would form a mental link between her and Cecilia so Cecilia would see the image of her plan taking shape.
Cecilia's eyes widened, and she nodded.
Lexie went to stand, tapping into Yasycht's power as Cecilia prepared the portal. Lexie could create the portal too, but since Cecilia was already experienced with it and Lexie wanted to focus her attention on picking the right door, she let Cecilia handle it for now.
This time, it was easy, and she didn't have to do much to identify it. Her head only hurt a little.
She held onto the portal and dived deeper. She would teleport Max to the other side of the dungeon door, and Lexie was hoping that it was on Earth. If not, she would have to reach deeper into Yasycht to find a corresponding time when the dungeon door was on Earth, and teleport Max there. That would be significantly harder and riskier, but she would do it for Max.
She stayed with the image until she heard vague voices coming from the main dungeon.
Human voices.
Lexie was relieved. The dungeon is on Earth.
When Cecilia was done creating the portal, based on the image Lexie sent, Lexie let go and brought herself back.
"Okay," Lexie said, eyeing the onlookers who'd packed in the outhouse doorway. "Let's go."
“Wait,” Cecilia said, interrupting the proceedings. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, stepped forward toward Max, and went on her tiptoes.
Then she pressed her lips on his.
Lexie blinked.
Someone from the door gasped.
But no one was more shocked than Max himself. He stood there with his eyes wide open, frozen.
And by the time his brain told him to close his eyes, Cecilia had finally backed up, her face flaming.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to know what it was like to do that. For once.”
“I…” Uncle Max shook his head. “I don’t even know what to–”
She put her hand on his lips. “It’s okay. You really don’t have to say anything. I’d rather you didn’t. It’s just…yeah. I’ve wanted to do that for a while.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s…fine. I guess.” He didn’t seem offended, but he did seem stunned as he reached up to touch his mouth.
“No. No, it’s not actually.” Cecilia's voice held a damning realization, and her eyes bulged with horror. She slapped her hand on her mouth.
"Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think..I mean, I basically just assaulted you, didn’t I?"
"No, no." Max waved his hand. “That’s not it at all.”
“No, it is!” She shook her head. “It totally is! Oh God, why didn’t I think of that? It sounded so romantic in my head.”
“Not it was romantic–”
“It wasn't. It really wasn’t.”
“Humans’ Lexie said, tired of the back and forth, and genuinely every single part of her was a little disgusted with the display. “We need to go.”
“Sure, sure.”
Max came to Lexie. His gaze was emotional as he said, “I didn’t think I would lose you so soon, Lex. I want to come with you, but I have a feeling that's not part of the plan."
Lexie hesitated, then shook her head. "No, it's not."
"You promise you’ll come back?”
"I promise,” Lexie said, and that was because she was going to come back here. But he certainly wouldn’t.
Lexie thought of the final thing to say as the portal reduced.
“Max," she said.
“Yeah?”
“Tell…Aiden…” Lexie didn’t know what to say, but she just stared at her Uncle and said, “Tell Aiden thank you for everything. And I’m sorry.”
Max frowned, and then it registered.
His eyes widened.
He opened his mouth to protest.
“Lexie don’t–" Before he could say anything else, she sent a huge gust of wind that pushed him through the portal, leaving her alone once more.
***
Tate walked through Arcadia and knew the second the spy that had been trailing him since he’d left Aiden’s house disappeared. He could sense it, the same way he could sense the mana coursing through his body, so much it felt like it was oozing out of his pores.
Some of that was from Aiden Sparrowfoot. Man had tons of mana, just lying around doing nothing.
Aiden had linked his power to Tate's so that Tate could have some of it to practice for what they needed to do. He just had to keep his practices private.
Typically, Tate went to one of the deadrooms in the mall to learn mana control. Given that he only got access to mana a few months ago, he was still terrible at it, but he was glad that he had this problem.
Finally. Finally, he had power.
It was an incredible feeling. Euphoric.
Holy shit, he didn’t know how people dealt with this much power. He didn't know how he'd lived without it his whole life. It felt like his entire existence, he'd only had a lung capacity of maybe five percent, and now he could finally breathe a hundred percent. It was a huge weight lifted off his shoulder, like he suddenly had the strength to carry his body up. Like he had the strength to fight back.
Of course, Aiden didn't want him using magic in public. That would raise too many questions. But Tate did have brand new mechs on his wrist, courtesy of Aiden, and if he created a few force fields, he could just pretend they came from that.
Forcefields were the easiest thing for him to make so far, but he gravitated towards things like illusion and mist magic, the latter of which was the hardest for him at this stage. But he'd made some good progress in the past few months.
But Tate had so much mana he could afford to waste some of it. He could get drunk on it, too.
His body was overflowing with it. He felt it everywhere, all the time. Luckily, his physique hadn’t changed much because he hadn't been working out physically. But everything else, even his mentality, had changed. He felt calmer, more at ease. He felt like he didn't need to keep looking over his shoulder for the next asshole to bury a dagger in his back.
He didn't know if Aiden had done something to the golem to make it that way, or if it was just because he was more powerful, so he had less to fear.
This would have been what I became if I hadn’t given part of my fate points to Lexie. I wouldn’t still be dying.
But it was stupid to think about that right now. 'What if's only made him mad. Better for him to appreciate what little time he had with this pain-free body before he eventually died. Better to spend time living his life to the fullest and doing what he wanted to do.
And some of what he wanted to do was here.
Tate approached the familiar metal door. He never in a million years thought he would be back here. This was a part of him that he'd put behind him forever, and though he'd closed this chapter.
But ever since Lexie's death, her urge for him to apologize to Boris kept echoing in his ears, haunting his sleep.
It was an apology he didn't deserve to make. Yet he was here to make it anyway.
Lexie wasn't dead, but that didn't mean he couldn't do things in her honor. And one of those things was this.
Besides, it was the right thing to do, even if he was the wrong person to be doing it. Boris probably didn't want the apology after all this time. He didn't need it.
Yet Tate was here anyway.
Although being here and actually going through with it were two different things.
This wasn't the first time he'd come. Or the second. Or the third. Or the fourth.
Point was, he'd tried this lots of times, but each time he wasn't sure what to say, so he'd left.
Last night, he'd written down a speech and memorized it. So maybe it would be alright for now.
He took a deep breath. He raised his hand to knock.
The hand held there.
Suddenly, the door pulled open, and he was confronted with Cara's bored expression.
"Seriously, are you going to do this every day?" she asked.
"What?" Tate was taken aback.
She pointed up. "We have a security camera. We see you come over and stand there like an idiot without knocking. The guys actually bet on when you would actually do it."
"Damn it, Cara," he heard Jan say inside. "I almost won that."
"He wouldn't have done it," Cara said to them before asking Tate. "Are you going to come in?"
"Uh..." Tate was suddenly reconsidering every single life choice that led to this moment. "Sure."
She stepped away, leaving the door open.
Tate caught it before it could swing shut, then walked the familiar path to the gym.
It looked the same as always. Ken and Shadow were fighting on the mat. Boris was sparring with Conrad on another mat. Jan wasn't wearing workout clothes, but he was watching something on a black pad with Lane.
And there was someone new whom Tate didn't recognize.
As Tate walked in, they all glanced at him.
"Hey," he said lamely.
"Hey," Conra's tone was friendly, while Boris' face was blank.
Tate cleared his throat. "Can I talk to you>"
"Who? Me?" Boris pretended to be confused even though Tate was looking right at him.
"Yeah."
"No."
"What?"
"No, you can't talk to me."
Tate was floored. Well. He didn't have a counter for this scenario.
"Please?" he said, and Boris' eyes widened. "Seriously? Did you actually use the 'p' word on me?"
"I think he did," Jan said, chuckling without taking his eyes off his screen. "Now you have to hear him out."
Boris finally cracked a smile and sent Tate a dismissive wave. "Yeah, I'm just messing with you. Look, I know what you want to say, and it's fine. Water under the bridge."
"Oh." That was relieving but also not. Tate felt like he'd gotten off the hook too easily.
He wanted to say the words. He had to say it.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I did. And for running away. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness..."
"Oh come on, we don't need to make it sappy," Boris said, cringing. "Look, I get it. The match was more important to you than I realized. I should have taken it more seriously."
"We agreed not to."
"No, I agreed. You just stood there like a statue. I remember the conversation." Boris shrugged. "Besides, I'm doing well now, so it really is water under the bridge."
Tate wanted to say more. He felt like he had to say more, but he didn't have anything else to say.
"It's totally fine," Boris insisted. "I was mad, but that feels like a lifetime ago, honestly."
"I should have said sorry earlier. Lexie wanted me to."
At the mention of Lexie's name, everything stopped.
It was like gloom had been injected into the atmosphere. Even Shadow and Ken stopped sparring.
"Is that Lexie's jacket?" Cara asked, and Tate glanced down. It was.
"Yeah," he said, "It is. Um...I was actually staying with her dad when she....went missing. I've been staying there ever since."
Why?" Cara asked.
"I kind of don't have anywhere else to go."
Cara seemed to accept that explanation.
Tate suddenly realized he also owed Conrad an apology.
"I'm sorry," he said to the blonde man.
"For what?" Conrad asked.
"For what I did. Leaving without saying anything. I was selfish."
His expression didn’t change. "And?"
"And an asshole."
"And?"
"And cowardly."
And?"
"I'm not sure what else," Tate admitted.
Conrad smiled. "I don't have anything else either. I just wanted to see how many insults you would heap on yourself."
Tate chuckled, but it sounded forced and painful. He knew that Conrad and Boris were telling the truth. They'd probably forgiven him.
The problem was that he couldn't quite forgive himself. Their forgiveness was not enough to wipe his guilt.
It was a tense, awkward silence until Lane finally exclaimed
“HOLY SHIT.”
“What?” Everyone was instantly on alert because Lane wasn't the type to make expletives like that.
He said it again, three times fast. "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." His eyes were glued to the screen, and so was Jan's.
The odd thing was that Jan wasn't making a single noise.
His mouth was hanging open, but he was seemingly unable to properly articulate what was going on.
Cara got tired of waiting for him to say something, and she rounded the bend to stare at his black pad.
She frowned, staring. Is that a dungeon?”
"Yeah," Jan said quietly. "It's that Dungeonslayer dude. He was televising his first voyage into a level seven dungeon, and he found something. Or rather, someone."
“Is that…” Cara choked on nothing.
"What is it?" Boris asked, about to walk in their direction, when Cara shook her head.
“You guys are never in your freaking lives going to believe what just happened.”
Comments
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Orca
Typos Is that a dungeon?” "Is that a dungeon?” to make expletives to say expletives (Or 'emit', 'swear', 'explode with' or any of a dozen synonyms. Not 'make' though IMO.) you>" you?" “Not it was romantic–” (maybe) “Not that it was romantic–” (or maybe) "No, it was romantic–” fought ot fought to
