After talking things out with Himia, I emerged from the portal and back into Tuskrep. Even though I had been warned about how much time had passed, I frowned at the fact that it was almost dark out. Assimilating the Dungeon Nexus had taken a lot longer than what it had felt like. Several hours had gone by while we were busy.

  Not only that, but it also took a lot more out of me than I wanted to admit. I rubbed my chest where I felt my divine core, Cheroske’s gift to me. It was almost completely empty and would be until I rested again. A headache was still pulsing through my skull. My hands had stopped shaking, at least.

  I glanced back into the pit monopolizing the center of Tuskrep to see that the portal was closing, just as Himia said it would. What she did was still unclear, but I appreciated it nonetheless. The magic shrunk until it became a black sphere about the size of my fist. I had been warned that CC could still enter it, but the fact that she was unwelcome in my dungeons meant that she would have to expend a lot of effort to actually get here.

  “Badger!” came a glorious voice, and I looked up from the pit.

  Tabitha started running towards me, Britear out and ready for action. That alone pulled me back into focus. Somewhere deeper in Tuskrep, I could hear sobbing wails. Everything seemed peaceful aside from the crying, what with the area devoid of smoke or the sound of battle, but I was alert anyway.

  Once I was sure there weren't any threats in sight, I scanned my wife for any injuries, but there wasn’t so much as an errant blood stain on her armor. Her breathing was off, though, as if it were more shallow than usual.

  She must have noticed my confusion because she started slowing down, no longer hurrying. “You did it,” Tabitha said as she arrived in front of me and pulled me into a one-armed hug.

  “Yeah, I did,” I replied, wondering why that wasn’t a question.

  Tabs kissed my forehead before taking a step back. “Your DTER has spread everywhere,” she told me, jerking her thumb back towards the sound of people crying. “We’ve been trying to get the remaining villagers to calm down, but nothing’s worked. It’s just like back when we first met, Badger, but everywhere. I had Cojisto and Moose ride out to try and find any place that doesn’t have a pall over it, and they couldn’t find anywhere close by.”

  I grimaced at her words. This wasn’t an outcome I had anticipated. Even though I didn’t have enough information to come to the correct conclusion, I had figured the dungeons would go back to normal when they were plucked from CC’s grasp. That the Dungeon Threshold Emotional Response would be set to whatever level was ordinary for its owner.

  Not every DTER was created equal. It all depended on who or what the dungeon sprang from. For us Inspectors and powerful adventurers like Tabitha and Moose, even higher level owners would put off a mild effect. Maybe a prickly feeling on our skin or a feeling of alertness as if we had just gotten a shot of energy.

  Mine had never been so paltry, even though I hadn’t been as powerful then as I am now. When my dungeon formed around me, it seemed to have grown from the savage aura of the Coroda Wildlands while pulling from my own ferocity and rage at the people sieging my village.

  My DTER made sure that even the most stalwart of adventurers were wary to enter my domain. I still didn’t like to think about what it did to my own people, and yet I was already reminded of them as I heard the cries.

  “Himia,” I said, putting my hand on the crystalline sword I wore at my hip.

  The Information Elemental appeared at my side, popping into existence without a word. Tabitha shifted in surprise, her grip on Britear becoming a little tighter, but was disciplined enough not to attack. I figured it helped that Dalsarel would have mentioned her appearance.

  “Yes, Inspector?” Himia asked.

  I turned to face her. “How do we change the DTER?”

  “That is something I can handle for you now that I—”

  “Yes, thanks. Please do that. Make it something far less intense,” I ordered brusquely.

  I knew my tone wasn’t going to upset her, and she nodded. “At once.”

  My gaze went back to Tabitha as I felt something in the air change. Nothing that I could sense physically, but I could tell that the area had undergone a substantial shift. Almost immediately my wife stood up a little straighter, and her breathing was less strained. The crying in the background slowed to a stop.

  My DTER had a lot of weight to it way back when I was still just a kid playing paladin and guardsman, I didn’t want to imagine what it was like now.

  “When we succeed in taking over the other Dungeon Nexuses, make sure to do the same as soon as we’re done, okay?” I requested the Information Elemental.

  Once again, she nodded. “I understand. Do you want me to filter out the affected dungeons by level of hostility, amount of non-denizens, or change them all regardless of their contents?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “You can tell all of that?”

  “Yes, though I have not gone through the process for this cluster,” she informed me with a smile. “However, I will have that completed before I finish this sentence.”

  “So, it’s… done, then?”

  “That is correct,” Himia answered proudly. “However, I regret to inform you that the web, the dungeons attached but not local to the Nexus, have been severed when you took it over. Since they were not a part of the original array, I do not believe the denizens and bosses have perished as warned. More data is needed. In order to be sure, we would have to visit them and see.”

  “Are there any on the way?” I asked, frowning.

  “Yes, several. If you use your map, then I can show you.”

  I glanced at Tabitha, and she motioned for me to follow her. “Come on, we’re set up over here,” she said as she started walking. “Dals, Cojisto, and Moose are all on patrol right now, but they’re not too far. They can get back fairly quickly.”

  “Good. And Ferrisdae?” I asked as we entered the same building Elder Thrash had taken us to.

  “She’s been communicating with the other teams. Justisius finally got in contact with us about an hour ago.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “That’s good news.”

  He had been out of contact for so long that I had been worried they got dragged into whatever happened to the other group. Using my Minimap ability, I was able to tell that half of the people on the island had been killed during the event, but that was all. There had only been green dots remaining, which indicated friendly troops, without there being any red.

  Their group had been neutered right from the start. My initial thought had been a suicide bomber of some kind. Only the living showed up on my map, not corpses.

  Thinking about it reminded me that we should probably hurry, too. Now that CC had lost one of her biggest assets, it wouldn’t be too long before we saw a response. I was already kind of surprised that Ulrich hadn’t shown up yet.

  We entered the room with CC’s statue, and I involuntarily scowled. The mere sight of the Dungeonborn was enough to get my blood rising. Thankfully, Ferrisdae was here with the map, several notebooks, and the advanced Sending Stone, and she was quick to stand when she saw me.

  “Badger! You’re back safely!” the Forest Elf exclaimed, as if she had been worried. “And that awful DTER went back to something normal.”

  “It has been fixed, yes,” I replied as I tried to return to a more neutral expression. “Tabitha, can you gather everyone else? I want to be out of here as soon as possible.”

  “You’ve got it,” she said, snapping off a salute before hurrying off.

  “Himia, hello,” Ferrisdae greeted as we moved to the table she was working over.

  “Salutations, Junior Inspector,” the Information Elemental returned with a slight incline of her head.

  “Tell me what’s been going on while I was down there,” I requested as I took the map.

  It started changing the moment I put my hands on it. That part wasn’t unusual, but the way it shifted was and it caught the two of us off guard. Ferrisdae even hesitated to fulfill my order as we watched the map.

  Starting from where we were, it began to change color. The area around us changed to green as if magical ink spilled onto the parchment, oozing outwards. It got a good deal of distance away before the ink stopped. A second later, a red wave appeared towards the bulk of the continent. It overtook the rest of the map, including some of the ocean to the north, until it covered everything else.

  Everything except for a small strip of beach on the northeastern side, which was about as far from us as you could get. As I watched, some of the red receded, and then another area, before it settled.

  Pursing my lips, I turned to Himia. This wasn’t so different from the dots, just on a much larger scale. “Green is good, parchment is neutral, and red is bad, right?”

  “That is correct,” she confirmed. “As you have already gathered, the green area represents your dungeons, the natural color of the parchment are unaffiliated or destroyed dungeons, and red represents CC’s dungeons.”

  “That’s a lot of land we have to cover,” Ferrisdae whistled before sitting down. “Dals said there were more Dungeon Nexuses. Do we know where they are?”

  Himia pursed her lips. “Badger has already heard about Mount Rust and Camp Lexi, and thus I am allowed to talk about them. The last is, unfortunately, considered protected information.”

  “As in, you can’t tell us?” she asked, looking up at the secretary.

  “My apologies, but that is correct.”

  I eyed Ferrisdae. “Two out of three isn’t so bad.”

  “I suppose,” my junior replied with a sigh.

  Her eyes scanned the map. There were still several areas that hadn’t been filled in yet since CC hadn’t allowed Porolo Sitchken to go there. Two Xs appeared on the map, one to the north, and the other in the east. Those were our destinations. Both were very far away.

  “Himia,” Ferrisdae said slowly, as if unsure of whether or not what she’s going to say will work. “If you were leading this expedition and wanted to search for the final Nexus, where would you start?”

  It took the Information Elemental a few moments before she looked down at the map. “I would try to head northeast, towards the ancient city of Wolten Heights,” she answered, pointing to a place that had to be a few days away from us at best. “I can not explain why I would choose this route, but it used to be one of the largest trade hubs in the Gnomish Empire, with roads leading all over the continent.”

  “Which means Carr either had his last base there, or there’ll be information on how to find it,” I reasoned before nodding to Ferrisdae. “Good work, kid.”

  She smiled at the praise, though it looked haggard. “Happy to help.”

  I nodded and started to roll up the map. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what did I miss?”

  The smile on her face instantly dropped. “We received news back from Inspector Justisius.”

  Based on the look on her face, this wasn’t going to be anything good. I motioned for her to continue.

  Ferrisdae turned away and started putting the notebooks scattered on the couch away. “He had taken one of the other mages to go and figure out what had happened to the group on that island,” she explained as she worked. “According to testimony from the survivors, one of their members pulled something out of a Dimensional Pocket. It exploded before anyone could really see what it was, taking out over half of their number, including killing an entire team.”

  “Gods damn it,” I whispered, shaking my head. “And our security measures didn’t catch this at all? Or our clergy support? I know the deities have strict rules on how they’re allowed to interfere in mortal affairs, but this seems like the kind of thing that warrants warning.”

  “Justisius said that the investigation is ongoing,” she replied quietly.

  “And Liddy?” I asked. My fellow Inspector hadn’t vocally confirmed that she was in charge of that group, but his reaction had been very telling.

  “She was injured. Justisius refused to disclose more than that, but she’s safe,” Ferrisdae answered, lowering her head. “Unlike some others.”

  I paused for a moment as I turned to look at the Forest Elf. Her back was still turned to me, and I saw that she was moving slower now. She had been acting lethargic since I had gotten back. I could think of one reason.

  Delicately, I decided to ask the burning question. “Was your family there?”

  Ferrisdae’s shoulders fell for a moment, along with her head. “Yeah,” she confirmed quietly. “Justisius didn’t want to tell me more, but I managed to get it out of him. My uncle and one of my cousins perished in the blast. That was all, thankfully; mother was able to protect the rest of the family.”

  I stood there, silent as I watched her put the last notebook back down. That was a substantial loss right from the start, and that was coming at the event from a place of apathy, looking solely at the numbers. The loss of an Elven life, let alone two, represented centuries of life, culture, and power that we would never get back.

  To someone like Ferrisdae, who clearly loved her family, it was terrible news to receive, even if the others survived.

  Slowly, I stepped onto the table and reached out to her. I pinched her robes between my fingers and pulled her back. The young woman stumbled slightly, but I spun her around and hugged her.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Ferry,” I said, voice low. “But, you will continue with us, right? We can’t do this without you.”

  “You could,” she returned before hugging me back. “But you won’t have to. I’m still here. I’m sure I’ll have a big cry about it at some point, but right now I’m holding it in. Still shocked, I think. I won’t let it affect my performance.”

  I wasn’t sure how much of that I could trust, but she had earned the benefit of the doubt. Even though Ferrisdae and I hadn’t been working together for as long as others in the department, I trusted her completely.

  “Okay, I’m holding you to that,” I said before pulling away and gesturing towards the mess. “Let’s get this cleaned up. We have a long trek ahead of us, and I want to get out of here before it’s completely dark. Fair?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, snapping off the same salute Tabitha had earlier, and she got to work.

  Not wanting to leave her alone, I continued to help. We would need to keep an eye on Ferrisdae, but I had no doubt in my mind that the whole team would be there to lift her up if it came to that. I just hoped that it wouldn’t.

  https://www.audible.com/pd/B0CW3MWFBM