I frowned at Carr’s words, but I knew exactly how he was feeling from the tone of his voice and the expression on his face. He no longer had the same swashbuckling swagger from the previous hologram, and was instead full of self-loathing and pain. A man who had seen, or done, too much.

  My frown quickly changed into something more neutral as I crossed my arms. I had seen that look far too often before, and I found myself sympathizing with the man who had been the cause of this whole fiasco we found ourselves in.

  Keith Carr jerked his thumb back at the center of the crater. “Behold, my finest invention,” he claimed. The hologram didn’t provide an image of what had been there, so it looked like he was pointing at nothing. “Whether or not it’s going to work might as well be a coin toss. It’ll either work as intended and we’ll disappear. Or, if it doesn’t, the explosion would kill me.”

  He frowned, looking away. “Would? No, should. After all, I got sent here trying to kill myself. Why would I be lucky enough for it to work this time when, by all accounts, I’m stronger than I was back then?”

  Taking a breath, the hologram shook his head and looked forward again. “Not much to say that hasn’t already been said. I’m drunk, though, so I don’t really care if I hurt some feelings.” He turned his head upwards, looking directly at where Himia had chosen to stand. Despite his declarations of inebriation, his eyes were sharp.

  “I fucking hate this planet,” he declared, waving his hand as if it were right behind us. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice enough, if you like fantasy land. I’ve had to invent so many things from Earth just to live in relative comfort that I’ve probably changed the trajectory of your future tech tree by… probably a lot. As interesting as it would be to try and figure out how much, I’m not in the mood or the mindset. So, yeah. Hate it here.

  “Which is why I built this,” Carr said, jerking his thumb towards the empty space again. “If it works, then I’ll be sent to another world. If it works as I intend it to, then I’ll be sent back to my own. I’m pretty sure my wife is dead at this point because of time shenanigans so why bother, but here’s hoping that’s not the case.” Raising his hand, he intertwined his index and middle fingers as he took another swig.

  Once he stopped drinking, he made the face of someone who just drank something that burned all the way down. “Might as well be swallowing fire,” he claimed, returning the bottle to his lap. “Since I’m leaving. Guess I have a few things to say to some of you who are going to find this recording and wonder where I fucked off to. Fair question. Didn’t really tell anyone that I was working on this, not even Himia. I put her in sleep mode whenever I get in here. Call it my private place.”

  “Fool,” I heard her whisper.

  “Didn’t want it getting out, see. Plus, it’s my problem to solve,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. From this angle, I could see that he had an HMIA attached to him, and he ran his hand along it as if it were just another part of his body.

  “If you’re there…” I started to say.

  “That is Himia Prime, the original,” the Information Elemental answered. “I am a replica made specifically to aid his children, the Dungeonborn.”

  “Seems odd that he made them with such an odd limitation as requiring a dungeon to survive,” I stated with a frown.

  “You are correct.”

  I glanced at her, but it seemed as though that was all she had to say on the matter. Carr was already talking again, so I didn’t try to follow up.

  “On the topic of my problems, I’ve got some goodbyes to make,” he continued, taking another drink. “Paul, I’ve always been harder than necessary when it came to raising you. You’re kind of an idiot, but you’re a well-meaning one and I’ve always appreciated that about you.”

  I sent Himia a questioning look. “The Dungeon Master, Master of Dungeons,” she answered without me asking.

  “And his name is Paul?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “He never did like that name. That is why he asked Keith Carr to change it.”

  Grunting, I shook my head. Paul was so much better than what he had chosen instead, but I wasn’t about to start complaining now.

  “I know you want to get out more,” Carr said, waving the bottle around. “But I also know you really just want to get away from your bully of a sister. You ought to stand up for yourself. Be the man I knew you could be when I… crafted you in a lab, I guess. Just because you were born from magic doesn’t make you any less deserving of respect and admiration. Or something. I don’t know.”

  He paused, scratching his cheek. It seems as though he was momentarily lost for words. We watched in silence as the man looked around the room. It took him a minute before he sighed.

  “Really, though. Stand up to your sister,” he said again. “You know how she is, and she’s not going to stop until you make it clear that she’s not the top dog she thinks she is. The things you could do would astound the world, if you just had faith in yourself. That’s my last piece of advice for you. Your sister, on the other hand…

  “CC, CC, CC. What can I say about CC? Jesus Christ, what isn’t there to say about CC?” The smile on Carr’s face was as sour as they came. “CC, I’ve got a lot of regrets in every world I’ve been to so far, which is only three but that’s still two more than most people, and you’re at the top of the damn list.”

  “This is going to go well,” I whispered sarcastically.

  “I regret fulfilling the promise I made to the old CC back in Rundathier,” he continued, shaking his head. “Not only do I regret making your personality as much like hers as possible, but I regret making your body in her image. Every time I see you, I get flashbacks. Do you know how many times I’ve avoided looking at you because you’re wearing her face?”

  The way he said that last line made me narrow my eyes. That sounded like the body he made for CC, however he did that, was based on someone else. Maybe one similar to the wife he mentioned? The Dungeon Master, Paul, looked a lot like Carr so there could be some kind of bias to make them look like the parents this otherworlder wished for them to have.

  All I had there was conjecture, and it wasn’t important at the moment. I did have another question, though.

  “Rundathier is the world he came here from after Earth?” I asked, frowning in thought.

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  “That information is currently protected,” Himia answered without looking away from Carr.

  “I promised her that body you ride around in now, and I gave it to you as some form of… what? Honor?” the man scoffed, becoming worked up. “I know better than anyone that honor gets you stuck in pits. That was my line. It might have just been nostalgia. Or wanting to feel like a hero again. Or, fuck, any multitude of things.”

  Carr pointed forward, again right towards where Himia was standing with his free hand while the other went into the air. I had to wonder if he was talking to someone who might have been recording, or if that was just what was keeping his attention.

  That thought immediately ended when the alcohol sloshed out of the bottle. Some of it landed on the floor, and slowly disappeared from the hologram. More of it landed on the empty space behind him, giving form to the spherical device that was no taller than I was. He continued to move in an animated fashion, ignoring what was happening behind him.

  “You seriously need to get a grip on reality, CC, because at this rate you’re going to end up—” Carr was cut off by a high-pitched whine.

  I watched as the slightly drunken look on his face disappeared in an instant as he became alert, but he went completely still. Very slowly, he turned his head to look at the machine. Its silhouette was disappearing from sight as the hologram stopped recording the liquid, but he still stared at it. I moved to get a better look at his face.

  Alertness, then concern, and then acceptance. All in the span of a few seconds.

  “Welp,” he said, popping the last letter of the word. He clumsily scratched his cheek as if what he had done hadn’t been worse than spilling a drink. “Don’t have the materials to make another one of those.”

  “Fool,” Himia said again.

  Carr turned back towards the Information Elemental. “I had planned on doing this tomorrow, when I sobered up. You know, put on my church clothes, get myself dolled up, have a proper go at it. Now that my decision has, apparently, been made for me…” he glanced back at the empty space again. “Guess it’s happening now, instead.”

  “Foolish man,” she continued.

  He played around with the back of his neck as the whine started to get even louder. A few lights activated on the HMIA before going off, and he rolled his shoulders as he stood up. He moved to take one more pull from his bottle only to find that it was now empty.

  “Of course it’s all gone,” Carr sighed, tossing the container over his shoulder. It missed the machine. He gave the room one last look around before nodding. I had never seen a man look so content even when there was the possibility that his machine would kill him. “So long, world. Himia Beta, if you see this, take care of—”

  The sound of glass shattering filled the room, loud enough to make me cover my ears. A single flash of light accompanied it, and then everything went eerily quiet. Both of us stood there, silent and motionless, as we took in what had to have been one of the worst drunken blunders I had ever seen.

  I would have said that it was a good thing this one only affected Carr, but current events made that statement completely false.

  “Himia,” I started, but she cut me off by putting up a hand.

  “The recording is still playing,” she said, wide eyes still watching the empty space.

  I arched an eyebrow at her. “How long is this recording going to go on for?”

  A pause. “Approximately twelve days, five hours, eight minutes, and—”

  “We don’t have that long,” I snapped.

  Another pause. “Please ask aloud for the recording to skip to the next instance of noise.”

  Sighing, I did so. Nothing seemed to happen right away, but after a few seconds I heard the door open up behind us. We turned to look at the newcomer.

  “Yo, pops!” the woman yelled, her voice echoing through the dome. “Nobody’s seen you in, iunno, a couple days or something so they pleaded with me to come check. Did you know your best bud Logan is acting up? Tried to punch me, the bastard.”

  Just as I was about to reach for my sword, Himia spoke. “Hologram. Nothing to worry about.”

  I stared as CC emerged from the short tunnel leading into the dome. She looked almost exactly like the statue of her back in Tuskrep. The Dungeonborn wore a dress that was covered all over in splotches of colorful paint, and her thick boots struck the metal floor with heavy thuds. A long strand of her long, curly red hair was currently twisted around her finger as she played with it, and her green eyes swept across the room before landing on the hole.

  “What the shit put this hole in the house?” she asked, gesturing towards it before walking up to the edge.

  Hologram or not, I very quickly moved out of her way. The Dungeonborn squatted with her toes hanging over the hole and stroked her chin. A look of curiosity crossed her face before she looked around again. It didn’t seem like she knew what the device had been for, either. I assumed she would have reacted a lot more strongly if she had.

  CC’s eyebrow did quark upwards as she turned and looked towards where Himia still stood. “Recording?” she asked, putting her hands on hips as she sighed. “Always, always with the notes. Whatever. Maybe it’ll have a clue as to where you went. Alright, end recording and play—”

  The image turned off, leaving us in silence once again. I didn’t wait for it to stretch this time.

  “So he disappeared, and it took twelve days to find out that he was gone?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “It seems that is an accurate assumption, Inspector,” Himia confirmed. “There is one more recording.”

  I frowned. “But Carr’s already either left the planet or dead?”

  “Correct. There is one more regardless,” she said confidently.

  “So I need to say, what? Play the last known recording?”

  As if to answer my question, CC appeared sitting on the floor beside us. I jumped back, narrowly missing the hole as I grabbed my sword again. Sobs echoed throughout the dome, and I saw the utter state of disarray the Dungeonborn was in.

  Her hair was a mess and her dress was immodestly shredded. However, her eyes were clear with a dangerous glint to them. The air seemed to get several degrees colder.

  “Did you think I would just sit back and take such slander, Keith?” she said, an executioner's edge to her voice. “I’ve done nothing but listen and obey you from the moment you created me, and I’m a mistake? Because of what you did? I will find you, and we will have words. I might not be able to invent the same things you came up with, but hear me well. I will find you, and we will have words. Like it or not, you are my father, and I will drag you back here kicking and screaming if that's what it takes. Consider this my declaration of intent. End recording.”

  “This recording is dated two weeks after Keith Carr’s,” Himia stated quietly after the hologram ended.

  “Given her state, it seems like she had a breakdown after her father’s disappearance,” I noted as CC continued to mutter to herself.

  The Information Elemental pursed her lips in an almost normal gesture. “CC has never been what you would call mentally stable.”

  “Yeah, I think I've gathered that much by now” I returned with a sigh. “Why is she like this? Because he made her that way?”

  “That information is, unfortunately, protected,” Himia answered. “But, mostly it is because she is crazy with a capital K.”

  “That’s—” I was about to correct her when I realized that was exactly what the Dungeon Master had told me during our first meeting. With a grunt, I shook my head. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  I gave the spot CC's hologram had been one last look before turning towards the Dungeon Nexus. There was only one thing left to do here.

  “Dals has probably warned the others by now. We need to get to work,” I said, finally letting my hand fall from my weapon’s pommel. “Tell me how to shut this off, then we’re going to work on taking over those dungeons. It must be done.”