The walk to the teleporter was quiet and uncomfortable. Amelia walked a few paces behind, arms crossed, eyes down. Dane glanced back now and then, unsure if he should say something or what he'd even say. Amelia was like a third wheel that did not belong, and Dane wasn't sure how to change that. It was hard to build trust with someone who was your slave. He wasn't just her boss. He had control over her life. So they kept their thoughts to themselves and moved through the dark forest in silence.

  The night was tense. The forest felt wrong, too quiet in places, too loud in others. Every snapped branch or rustle in the leaves made them flinch. The earlier ambush by Moogu had left their nerves frayed. Dane could still picture its hulking form crashing through the trees. Still, Dane figured they were safer now; most patrols would be distracted cleaning up the mess they'd left behind. It had worked out better than he expected. He couldn't have planned a better diversion if he'd tried.

  The fight with the cyborg bear had altered his perspective on things. Strength wasn't just about stats. He didn't need to push deeper into the dungeon to level up. He needed the right people around him, and he needed to level up his skills. If he kept relying on time magic, it would be a race to zero. Amelia helped, but the two of them alone weren't enough. Dane spread his stat points evenly, giving him flexibility but leaving gaps. He started to realize that if he focused more and had the proper support, even tough fights could become manageable.

  What the team needed now was a wizard. Someone who could handle ranged combat and bring elemental damage to the table.

  "Amelia," he asked, breaking the silence. Dane cleared his throat, his voice low. "You've been here a while. Do you know any Earthbound who might be decent mages?"

  He wasn't sure she'd help. He didn't want to force her, but it didn't hurt to ask.

  "I couldn't tell you," she said quietly, her expression unreadable. "We lose so many, I don't know where you'd even start. I can tell you which floors have Earthbound slaves, but I wouldn't know if any stood out."

  She sounded honest. That surprised him.

  Jason – Quarry, 20th Floor

  Jason Nelson was 23, short, sturdy, and just above the cutoff for dwarfism. He had wavy brown hair tied in a man bun, a style he thought made him look thoughtful, although it didn't quite come across that way with most people. He had a degree in Chemistry and had loved every minute of his lab work. Inorganic chemistry had fascinated him. But his father didn't care. Jason was expected to be a doctor like the rest of the family.

  Then the cataclysm hit. He tried to find his parents at the hospital, but they were gone. People nearby told strange stories. There was a flash of white light. The doctors went missing. Left alone in a collapsing world, Jason became a scavenger in what was left of Kansas City. Monsters were dangerous, but people got worse when food ran out.

  Eventually, the elves came and took over. They were tall, elegant, and strangely cold. Their presence brought order, but the quiet, dominating kind that made you nervous. Their arrival also brought knowledge. Jason received the initiation manual like the rest of the "rescued" Earthbound and started learning everything he could. Their grasp on magic and science was ahead of anything he'd ever seen. That's when he set his new goal: to become an artificer. When the combat trials came, he skipped them. He knew he wasn't a fighter and didn't pretend otherwise. The crowd didn't like it, but he didn't care.

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  That choice landed him in the mines. After ten years of labor, he'd be allowed to apply for citizenship and begin his magical studies. Oddly, the mines weren't as bad as he feared. The routine helped. His thoughts stayed busy, and the work gave him a kind of focus he hadn't had before. He even gained muscle, which was something he never cared about before. It wasn't the life he wanted, but a step toward it.

  Dane - Unknown, 30th Floor

  As they approached the Teleportation pad, Dane's hair began to stand on end. He didn't know why danger sense was going off, but he knew exactly where it came from. The room that held the pad was 20 feet ahead.

  "Everybody, we need to stop. Something is up ahead." Dane said with authority.

  "You're being paranoid." Amelia dismissed her, waving her hand in a way that would shoo off a fly while continuing her walk.

  Dane watched everything happen in slow motion. The floor ignited, a flame wall spreading through the area, engulfing everything in hellish flame. Heat slammed into them like a tidal wave. Ada reacted fast, casting Life Ward on the party. The sustained burn only registered as one strike. The spell still had two charges left. They were safe inside the flames, but their instincts kicked in, and they rushed out of the blinding red flames. The fire covered about half of the waiting room, and they found themselves trapped and unable to escape.

  "Dane, does it look like the shadows are moving?" Ada asked. She could see the flames flickering and the shadows dancing in the flame; however, there should only be three shadows. They counted 12 others that didn't belong to them. The extra shadows didn't move like the others. They pulsed, and could almost make out a devilish smile on the hollow shades. Life Ward was protected against physical and magical attacks, but could do nothing about the inferno they were in. The sweat began to drip off the adventurers like dew falling off grass in the morning, beads evaporating as they hit the sauna stone floor.

  Dane started to open a portal out of the room, but as soon as he began to conjure the spell, the eyes he had felt watching him left, and he felt a shockwave thud through his chest. An explosion above him rang out, and he could feel the beginnings of tenitus set in. He was disoriented and barely noticed when the ceiling began to collapse. He ducked, rolled, and barely dodged a stone the size of his torso.

  Stone rained down and crashed on the floor like a riptide into the shore. The large boulders bellowed and wailed as they broke loose from the roof. He saw, as one by one, his party went down. His connection was fading, but they had to survive. He gritted his teeth and started to cast once more.

  This time, he opened two doors, one underneath Ada and one under Amelia, ushering them to the 22nd-floor telipad, where it all began: his meeting with Khronos and Dia. His vision blurred. He felt both petering out and looked at his mana pool; he had a precious 5 MP left. He had skillfully evaded the falling rubble but felt the eyes back on him. The flames had been snuffed out, covered by rock, and now he could see a dark figure standing 100 feet away from him, the ghostly light from the portal pad illuminating the figure. He recognised him from his recurring nightmare. This man had killed him and Ada so many times in his dreams that he had lost count.

  Dane drew one of the bone knives from the 22nd floor wolf in his left hand and his revolver in his right. It had been a long while since he had engaged in combat with something intelligent. He aimed down the sight, drew a breath, and squeezed the trigger. His first shot landed two feet off target to the left, the bullet whizzing by his head and imploding the stone wall behind the man dressed in black with a flash, spraying dust and sparks.

  His opponent covered up his face so he couldn't read the expressions on his face. He saw his hand flinch; it was slight, but he could tell the man wasn't expecting a ranged attack. He tried to press his advantage, but the assassin before him melted into the floor, a pool of black, adding volume to the shadows. Dane waited twenty minutes, but there was no sign of the masked assailant. Cautiously, he walked to the telipad. He was met with a system prompt and selected his registered portal on the 22nd floor. Returning to his first all-clear floor.

  Dane was getting tired of not finishing his fights.