Aiden released a heavy sigh.
The squatting Max shot him a glare with his one good eye and held up a ball gag dangling on his finger. “You make that sound one more time, I’m going to shove this in your mouth.”
Aiden cocked his head at the larger man, bemused. “Why do you even have that?”
Max continued rifling through his rustic backpack, magically reinforced to fit in more items than it appeared. “We don’t know what kind of creature could come through this thing. It could be a gang of chaos canaries or something like that harpy I was obsessed with that one time. Or the siren I dated that other time, remember her?" He smirked at the memory but then the smile immediately fell away. "Or it could be worse. Could be a creature like my ex-mother-in-law.” He shuddered a little at that last one, his muscular shoulders shifting dramatically with the movement. “Anyway, I like to be prepared for anything.” The man finally pulled out a long shotgun that was decked out with all sorts of make-shift buttons at the side. He handed that to Aiden, then pulled a rifle out for himself.
“So,” he said as he straightened, brushing dust off his leather pants. “What do you think?”
“I think you should reevaluate your taste in women.”
Max threw him a droll look, while Aiden glanced at the buttons on the shotgun uncertainly.
“How does one work this thing exactly?”
“It’s not rocket science, professor. You point at something and shoot. Any of the buttons should do decent damage.” Max frowned at him, his well-formed wrinkles etching deeper into his forehead. “And I wasn’t asking your opinion on my sex life by the way. I was asking what you think about the fact that this is at least the fourth time this year that we’ve seen this.” He pointed at the swirling wind. “What’s going on with all these unstable dungeons?”
Aiden shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not a dungeon master.” Although he did have extensive experience with dungeons in the past. As The Archmage, Aiden had raided and taken down entire level 7 dungeons on his own. And as a superhero, he’d been on the front lines of the battle against quite a few unstable dungeons. But that didn’t mean he understood their mechanism very well. Unstable dungeons were unpredictable things, and he knew first hand how dangerous they could be.
Especially since Aiden, once the famous Archmage, was essentially powerless now.
Most dungeons were sealed upon spawning and the seal could only be broken by a party that met the minimum requirements to enter. Barring that, the dungeon would remain sealed so the monsters inside couldn’t escape.
But unstable dungeons spawned without a seal, so they needed to be destroyed immediately, otherwise a dungeon creature might escape to terrorize the town. It was especially dangerous because it spawned in Olden Street.
Close to home for Aiden.
They needed to get rid of it quickly, and for that he needed to focus.
Unfortunately, there were so many thoughts currently crowding his mind, fighting for prominence.
A wolf howled in the distance and the full moons illuminated the silvery dust over green grass. Max checked his barrel and then rechecked it. He also adjusted his eyepatch so it would readily flip open more easily. His muscles were coiled with tension, his eyes eager, hand prepared.
All the while Aiden stood by, waiting. He wondered what Lexie was doing right now. Was she staying put as he advised? Or was she up to mischief as usual?
A wistful smile crossed his lips. His daughter, though quiet, had always been the inquisitive type. It was how she got hurt in the first place, because he was gone to work one evening and she snuck out to follow him, curious as to what he was up to. But she hadn't made it very far. Aiden nearly went crazy when he found her on his way back passed out inside a ditch, bleeding from her head. He wanted to kick himself a million times over, the blame falling squarely on his shoulders.
He just couldn’t seem to get this fatherhood thing right, no matter how hard he tried.
He was a terrible father for many reasons, not least of which was the many years with her he'd already missed out on. And just when he was finally making up for lost time, there she was close to death. And now, she didn’t remember him. What cruel irony.
It’s what I deserve for being away for so long. All that time was spent working, teaching, fighting. Now that I’m back…I’m just a stranger to her. And I deserve it.
He sighed again.
Max gave him another dirty look.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “Just worried about Lexie.”
Some of Max’s anger dissipated. “You said she woke up?”
“Yes, but that fall really messed with her head. She doesn’t remember much about anything. Doesn’t remember me.” It was a painful pill to ingest, but he swallowed it down. “The healer I consulted said that might happen. He said her memories may come back with time, or they may not. But at least she’s alive and that’s what matters. We can always make new memories.”
“Right.” Max watched him uncertainly then turned back to the spawning dungeon believing the conversation was over.
But now that Aiden had started, there was a lot he really wanted to get off his chest.
“I mean,” he said. “Maybe it’s better she doesn’t remember, right? I wasn’t exactly a great father to her. I missed a bunch of her birthdays, and other important moments. Even her mother’s funeral.” He’d seen a video of it though, from a maximum security jail cell. He’d watched his poor daughter standing there, quietly weeping as they lowered her mother’s ashes into the ground. An emotion more devastating than guilt threatened to swallow him whole. “I let my Lara die, and then I let our daughter get hurt on my watch.” He grimaced, disgusted at his own failure and shook his head. “Scratch that, I’m a terrible, terrible father. And Lexie likely knows it. Or at least she knew it. But this way it can be like a new beginning. I promise to be better from now on. We can start doing all the father-daughter things we used to do when she was younger. Picking flowers in the forest. Teaching her to ride bikes. I get to plan her birthdays now. Her mother said she liked to visit antique shops. Maybe we can go to the one in Alberton and check out–"
“Do you want me to call Luke?” Max interrupted flatly. “No offense, but all this mushy crap is more his expertise than mine. And it's making me sick to listen to it.”
Mushy crap? “Er…no that’s fine.” Even though they were brothers, Max and Luke couldn’t be any more different. While Luke, acting mayor of Hovelton, was a people person, Max was the opposite. He wasn’t a great talker. He wasn’t much of a listener either.
But dungeon delving and fighting magical beasts, Max excelled at that. It was why, despite having little mana capacity or affinity, Max still led one of the most famous dungeon parties in the world.
With no magic to call on, he’d doggedly leveled up his physical and mental stats and specialized in long-range weaponry, specifically guns. Now, he had dual classes as a C-Rank Level 6 Rogue Type Fighter and a B-Rank Level 8 Gun Meister respectively. While his stats were only fairly impressive on paper, what he’d done with it, becoming one of the youngest, most prolific dungeon masters alive, was nothing short of legendary. Even Aiden didn’t quite know how Max had managed to lead his team in and out of so many dungeons successfully. Max didn’t give interviews either, and never spoke about what happened in the dungeons after it was gone.
Unlike some Dungeon Masters who chased after fame and fortune, Max was solely focused on the fortune part and nothing else. So, Aiden had to chalk Max’s success up to his dogged drive, insane courage and unexpected flashes of ingenuity.
If he wanted to, Max could have easily picked up a hero support role, if not become a [Hero] himself. He could have gotten a lot more fame and fortune that way. But Max hated heroes with a passion, likely because of how some of them treated dungeon delvers like disposable tools. Heroes also tended to be more physically and magically powerful than delvers, and they often lorded it over them constantly. Not to mention a few who took credit for the delver’s work in resolving a dungeon.
In any case, Max had shirked all offers from The Hero Association preferring to affix as a [Mercenary] instead, with a specialty in dungeon delving.
The [Mercenary] role gave one a certain type of freedom, but also meant higher taxes and more local government oversight. After all, it was very easy for a [Mercenary] to transition into [Villain]. And once the dreaded [V] was attached to one’s name, it was a stain that was really hard to get off.
Aiden knew that firsthand.
After all, he was once a hero beloved by many. Nowadays, strangers either froze in fear or spat when he passed by.
A slide of a window had them both glancing up. They were currently standing between two apartment buildings, one of them a brick building that served as a lower income rental home.
An elderly lady with purple eyebrows and rollers in her bright blonde hair stuck her head out. “You rascals aren’t done yet? How long is this going to take?”
Max completely ignored her so it was up to Aiden to answer. He shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe a few hours.”
“Well make sure you get it done by morning. The girls and I have a nature hike at dawn.”
“We’ll do our best madam.” He attempted a smile, but the woman didn’t smile back. Apprehension skittered over her face, then she swallowed, harrumphed and shut her window.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Ouch, Aiden thought, fingering the band at his neck. At least she’s not a spitter.
The silver bands were penance, identifying him as a former villain serving his sentence. The cool silver prevented him from using any kind of magic and kept his physical strength below a certain maximum too. And for an extra sadistic bite, the bands sometimes itched for no reason.
He scratched at the line of his neck, frustrated that he couldn’t reach under the band to get the spot he really wanted.
“You didn’t have to respond to the old witch, you know,” Max muttered, shaking his head. “There was no reason for it.”
“No reason to be rude either.”
“You could afford to be rude sometimes. Your niceness is off-putting.” Max squatted again and began to wiggle a modified bear trap out of his backpack next, carefully avoiding the green goo laced jagged teeth. “And it’s especially irritating because you’re not even a [Hero] anymore. So you don’t have to put on the whole overly accommodating PR act.”
“It's not an act. It’s called basic courtesy, something you could use a little of.”
He snorted. “Right. Is that what they teach you at that stuffy boarding school you went to?” His scoffing tone made it clear what he thought of Aiden’s former academy, and it immediately made Aiden defensive.
“Yes, my stuffy magic boarding school that trains only the best hero-mages, best school across at least three districts, also taught us excellent manners.” And as much as Max made fun of him for it, Aiden was proud of his alma mater, if only for that.
“Good for you,” Max responded. “But you’re a villain now so you might as well act like it. Which means manners go down the toilet where they belong.”
Aiden cocked an eyebrow in response. He frankly didn’t see what one had to do with the other. Yes, he may be a villain now–well ex-villain really–but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a polite one.
He didn’t get a chance to vocalize an answer though as the still-spawning dungeon suddenly sang at a higher register.
“Get ready,” Max said, aiming his gun. Aiden aimed too. Unstable dungeons were not like regular dungeons in which a portal appeared in a set location and entering it revealed an expansive universe with different levels, unknown treasures and occasionally monsters.
Unstable dungeons weren’t fully developed and acted more like monster spawners. They were chaos personified. Anything that went in got trapped, and then when the dungeon disappeared, it would spawn somewhere else and release whatever it trapped earlier.
Most often, these were monsters.
So it was in everyone’s best interest to disable an unstable dungeon before its portal finished spawning. That would, theoretically, freeze them or send them back to wherever they came from.
The idea was to shoot as many times as possible at the same time, right when the spawning reached its peak and was at its weakest.
But unstable dungeons, as mentioned before, were not predictable. And before it reached its so-called peak, a white force shot out of it and sped past, shimmering in the air.
“What the hell was that?” Max said, swiveling with his gun.
Aiden didn’t know. But it looked like the thing was heading for his house.
Lexie.
His daughter was home alone. His recently comatose, ten-year-old daughter who lost most of her memory was home alone and a thing was headed right for her.
Aiden's stomach dropped. Heart seized.
Oh, I am an utter failure of a father.
He forgot all about the dungeon and ran.
There was no service in the house.
Lexie tried just about every room, which was really only four other rooms, to find service. She was in a two-story cottage, made with wood and red brick. Her room was on the top floor, next to another neatly organized room that she thought was probably Aiden’s. Then she descended the stairs to the living room; neat but eclectically decorated with pastel blue and rust brown accents throughout the room. A shelf was built into the back wall, and each column was filled with books. A table beside that held a reading light and next to that was a loveseat and a yellow embroidered throw pillow, with misshapen ducks on it.
It was eerie how normal everything looked.
There was even a flat-screen TV made of shimmering glass fixed to the wall, and a vase full of flowers that looked like lilies.
It looked like she was still in the normal world.
And technically, she was on Earth. Earth 9 according to the manual. And it shared many of the features of her Earth except they had a different name for a few things. Like
What was the point of that? She thought. Why would the game creators just give random things different names?
Her phone screen also constantly showed no signal. No matter what angle she stood at, or how much she extended herself nothing changed.
She sighed. Was there really no way to reach anyone at home? At the very least to let them know she was alive and stuck in a video game?
Lexie nearly giggled at the thought. I wonder how they would even respond to that. They would probably think it was a prank call or something.
Her amusement died the moment she thought about her family and Mickie, her good friend since freshman year. She’d barely spent any time with Mickie these past few months, too busy catching up on several assignments and perfecting her application. One of Mickie’s last correspondences had been asking Lexie to accompany her to a party during the weekend. Lexie had turned her down as usual, because she’d had to study. She’d thought she would have time to attend all the parties Mickie wanted when she was done with school.
And now she might never have that chance again.
She also thought about her brother. Most fourteen-year-olds didn't want to hang out with their older sisters but Logan was different. They'd always been close, and he didn't have any other friends except her and the online people he gamed with. She wondered what he was doing now. How he was coping.
Just yesterday, I was worried I wouldn't get into MIT. Now I’m trapped in a weird video game dimension. Life really comes at you fast.
Or in her case, death did.
She paced the living room, her thoughts flying about but orbiting around one thing.
I need to go home.
Perhaps if she understood more about the game then she would find a way out of it.
She opened up her brother’s old texts again scrolling through. It was hard not to get a little emotional reading it, imagining him dealing with her death. I hope Mom and Dad aren’t too hard on him.
But Lexie forced herself to focus.
According to the welcome manual, the point of the game was to complete quests as her given role. But it notably didn’t guarantee her escape. It did say that once she was assigned a role, she would also be given chances to level up and earn rewards when she completed said quests. One of those rewards was known as a Travel Point, and with enough travel points, she could move between different earth dimensions.
The manual also highlighted that travel points were really hard to obtain.
They required “Acts of Exceptional Heroism, Revolutionary Discovery, or Unbeatable Leadership.”
How these things were calculated Lexie didn't know, and neither the manual nor the texts from her brother helped her find out. Most of them were character sheets, the occasional pontification about how hyperrealistc the graphics were and how it had expansive worldbuilding for a beta version of a videogame.
And the only thing the manual spoke about, apart from a brief intro, was the ISTS and a whole bunch of rules she had to abide by, most of which concerned keeping her identity a secret and performing her civic duty as a ‘Chosen’ once she was of age. They also hammered in on the possibility of complete soul termination if she broke confidentiality. And the thought of that should make her panicked, but this whole thing was just so bizarre nothing had sunk in yet.
It was like the most realistic fever dream ever.
Suddenly a loud bang ricocheted through the air.
Lexie screamed a little, and instinctively dove to the floor. She had never been shot at before – well, until she died that is – but she’d heard that was something you were supposed to do during shoot-outs. Lay low and stay there.
But this didn’t sound like a shoot-out.
It sounded like something slammed into the side of the house.
As it reared back and slammed again, the china rattled. The light fixture swayed in the aftermath and Lexie stared at it, her heart pounding. What was that? What was out there and why was it trying to get in?
Wait, relax. Aiden assured her nothing could get in unless she wanted it to, and while she didn’t know the man, he sounded pretty sure about that. Then again, he was a supervillain. What if he lied to her? Wasn't that what villains did?
He seemed like such a nice guy though.
Yeah, I’m sure Ted Bundy’s victims thought the same thing.
She glanced around. What was she supposed to do now? Hide? Tempting, but where would she even hide and what if it found her anyway? She would be crouched in a corner defenseless. No, that wasn't the answer.
And then that was immediately followed by the insane thought.
Maybe if she fought that thing she could level up.
Fight it with what? An equally hysteric response screamed in her mind. A cell phone and a can-do attitude?
Another slam rattled against the house, but this time Lexie kept from screaming. No time to panic. She needed to think. Luckily, she'd always done pretty well under pressure. It was why she tested well.
Lexie tried to convince herself that was all this was. Just a test. A test she hadn’t studied for and was very ill-equipped to handle but a test regardless.
She just had to ignore the pesky little detail that if she failed she might die.
But on the bright side maybe if she died, she would end up in her old world. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d go somewhere worse. Somehow that wasn’t an experiment she wanted to try.
The next slam shattered the window and Lexie ducked to avoid being hit by shrapnel. The thing was growing in ferocity and power with each slam. It was being kept out likely by whatever protection Aiden had placed, but she doubted it would hold forever.
She needed weapons.
“Um System Interface on,” she spoke out loud, too panicked to think the words clearly. “Can I access my weapons inventory?”
The response was swift
Great. Of course, it made sense. She supposed the system didn’t want ten-year-olds hauling grenades and such.
“Okay so is there anything you can do? Anyway, you can help me?”
Yes, but it didn’t sound like whatever was out there gave a damn about a protection artifact. And if she did nothing, it would eventually break in and hurt her.
“Screw it,” she muttered, getting up and running to the cabinets, throwing them all open. Aiden Sparrowfoot was a villain. There was no way he didn’t have any weapons lying around.
However, what she found wasn’t what she wanted. There was a deck of cards, vials of different colors, and varied assortments of pens. But no gun, no dagger, not so much as a pen knife.
What the heck kind of villain is he?
That was when she remembered he was an Archmage. Meaning he used magic.
Which also meant his tools were probably useless to her since she didn't know how to use them.
Crap.
Still, it might help. Lexie grabbed the cards, a few cauldrons, and the carved stick that looked like a wand. Then for good measure, she ran into the kitchen, grabbing all the knives in the holder.
Her hands were full and she went back to crouch behind the couch and wait.
She felt something pulsing in the air.
And then with one final hiss and slam, the door flew open.