Attal kept muttering about connections and patterns as the elevator sank into the depths but quickly enough, Henry found himself looking around, a thoughtful frown furrowing his brows. The walls were different from what he’d seen above. This was naturally forming stone, as far as he could tell, but the air was growing cold. Unnaturally so. Was this the effect of some sort of magic? Or were they underwater?

  Unfortunately, before he could get any answers, Velistraine elbowed him, snapping him out of his thoughts. When he glanced at her, she tapped her head then pointed at his before doing a back and forth motion with her hand, which took Henry a second to interpret, so focused was he on where they were going. When her meaning sunk in, he opened up a telepathic channel between them, and the captain’s voice rang in his mind.

  “[What are you doing here? I thought you and Maurice were going to explore so how did this happen? And why are you two so chummy?]”

  Henry blinked at her, and slowly, a smile tugged on his lips as he realized that as he had been having fun and had gotten the opportunity to stretch his legs, Velistraine had been stuck somewhere waiting. In that context, her testiness definitely made sense. It was still a little funny, though.

  “[Right. So… to keep it brief, Ash got in a feud with a noble. We helped her out, and when the local law enforcement wanted to put skill-canceling cuffs on us, I sorta escalated things until he came out],” Henry explained as he nodded toward the shorter man’s straight back. “Then he had questions, we sparred, and we talked a little. He’s pretty pissed at you, though. Not sure why.]”

  Henry had the pleasure of seeing Velistraine’s expression change from concern, to envy, then finally settling on tight-lipped annoyance as her eyes flicked toward Attal, and Henry’s brow lifted.

  What had happened there? The two—while clearly still on speaking terms—seemed to be oddly pissed at each other. He had expected a response from the captain, only for someone else to chime in.

  “Because I’ve been telling her to come see me for years,” Attal said, turning toward them and interrupting them both. The look he gave her seemed neutral, but the weight behind his gaze said it was anything but. He was peeved, and that made it so he glared at her just a couple of beats longer than normal before he looked away. “Not that I ever got an answer,” he grumbled before looking ahead at the bare, flitting stone as they continued to sink below the surface. “I wanted to study the orb she’d kept. I realized they couldn’t function without the rest of the set, and I needed at least one more to study the interaction. To try and crack it and see what they’re for. I didn’t put that in the letters I’ve sent but somehow, I’ve never even gotten anything back. Did you even get them?” he asked, eyes narrowed, which had the very predictable effect of making Velistraine’s shoulders tense as she frowned in turn.

  Henry resisted the urge to take a step back and let two hash it out from a distance. Was that the source of the weird tension between them? He’d thought they fought over loot or something. Also, Attal could tap into Henry’s telepathy? He’d realized earlier the A-rank could detect his Telepathy back in the noble district but Henry hadn’t realized Attal could just hear him outright. In any case, he couldn’t dwell on that. It seemed that the tension had reached a boiling point and the two were ready to address the elephant in the room.

  “You kicked me off your island,” she spat between gritted teeth. “I thought we were friends.”

  Attal looked at her in disbelief for a second before he gestured at her with both hands in dismay. “You humiliated the crown prince!”

  Velistraine didn’t even flinch, so Attal took a deep breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “I didn’t kick you out. I told you to leave until things cool-off. How am I the bad guy in not wanting half the castle to be demolished? You do know that neither of us can or want to have to replace a government, right?”

  All semblance of diplomacy was right out the window and Henry was pretty sure if it hadn’t been for his levels, he’d be on his knees from the pressure roiling off the duo. They glared at each other for a second, then Attal turned away as the elevator dinged while Velistraine turned away to her right, arms crossed. “He asked for it.”

  “And you put him through a table, his grandma’s painting, and two walls in front of his parents and the rest of nobility. It was deserved, but it could have been handled better. Preferably not in the banquet the king threw for you. And that still doesn’t excuse the radio-silence. Why haven’t you said anything?”

  Henry peered past the man at the cave-like corridor behind him, and resisted the urge to slink past them. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself.

  “… I didn’t get them. I’m—uh. There was an accident with the Postmaster’s guild.”

  Attal looked at her, but she refused to look away from the wall, and he shook his head. “You got yourself banned and so they won’t deliver anything to you. That’s about it, I’m guessing?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  When there was no response, Attal let out another sigh, then tiredly, he nodded to Henry, and stepped into the dark corridor.

  “We’ll revisit that,” he grumbled as their steps echoed in the darkness and in the distance, Henry could see the shine of polished metal. “For now, before you see it, let me tell you a little about what I’ve discovered. I only had a part of the picture before now. I didn’t know the orb was connected,” Attal began, and while at first he struggled to get into the educating mindset, his tone quickly shifted as he explained, and the words flowed more naturally as he grew more animated as it echoed down the tunnel. “I grew up on the stories of the Cataclysm. I grew up on hearing about how the System one day just appeared. Spontaneously. Back then, there had been plenty of theories. The gods created it, though the System never denied nor confirmed it. Some thought it was an ascended being. A human or an intelligent monster. Then again, it neither confirmed or denied it. Whatever it had been asked, it never revealed its origins and if it did, that knowledge did not survive to our day. It was lost. It was gone.”

  Henry wasn’t surprised the System wouldn’t reveal its origins. That was familiar enough.

  “Another theory was that it came from another world. And in of itself, while a little shocking, that wasn’t a completely novel concept. Most Otherworlders were thought to be the work of fiction, but there were enough mentions that it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities. But I wanted to prove it, so ever since I gained my first level, I strived to find a way to peer through the veil. To see these others worlds. To step on one of them.”

  By now, the three of them had arrived in front of a massive, bulky steel door with countless carved symbols that shone with blue incandescent lights, and Henry felt both his senses and mana be shunted whenever they came in contact with the magic.

  He hadn’t known something like this could be done and while he would have loved to ask questions, Attal wasn’t done, and the man’s eyes almost shone with enthusiasm as he spoke.

  “I couldn’t. No matter what I’ve tried, no matter where I’ve tried it, I could never peer through. I’ve created enchantments to divine the location of another world or dimension. I’ve tried to send something out. I’ve tried to open a portal, it never worked. But it must be doable and through my research, I have read about the Rainbow Turtles and what they could do, so I turned my focus there. If what I read about them was real, then I might get a hint from studying them. I’ve already told you a little about my research with them so I won’t get into all of that but suffice it to say, they were the key. The legends said they traveled worlds. So what if I used them as a catalyst?”

  Attal’s excited gaze suddenly dimmed, and his expression clouded over.

  “Well. I succeeded. That had been the key. I won’t bore either of you with the details, but with enough power, with enough of a connection thanks to the shell, I managed to open a crack,” he said, then putting his hand on the door behind him, a ripple went through the inscribed glyphs, and the door cracked open.

  “The gate was immediately shut down, and I’m pretty sure it had been the System which intervened. It was open for only a handful of seconds, but that was enough for something to slip through.”

  Henry peered past the man into what he could only describe as a cell. Glowing symbols, much like the ones that had been on the gate, glowed on every surface, every wall, and while the sight was striking, Henry’s gaze was immediately drawn to the center of the room, where a twenty-foot tall block of glowing ice stood there. Smoke-like vapor wafted off of it, and its surface reflected the intense yellow light of the concentric circles surrounding it.

  In the ice, Henry saw the dagger-like black spines first, each longer than his arm. Then the scythe-like arms came out of a squat, almost-humanoid plated body that ended brusquely against the floor, as if the creature had been bisected and if Henry wasn’t wrong, it had been. But so had its head, which was severed at where the shoulders would have been. By all measures, this thing should be dead. But if so, why were all these protective measures needed?

  Henry stretched out his telepathic sense, expected it to be rebuffed by the surrounding magic, just like what had happened with the door, but none of that happened. Instead, it reached forward and when it got to the ice, he heard it, and for the first time in a while, Henry’s mind lurched. It was as if a wave of ravenous, chattering madness had suddenly noticed his presence, turning all of its attention toward him. It was loud and quiet all at once. Insidious. It spoke and intruded into his thoughts, creeping into his memories, grating and chattering and raving and screaming and h?????o?????w??????l???????i???????????n??????g???????

  Henry wrenched himself back and severed his connection to the Skill, but somehow, he still felt something squiggling and worming down one of his arms. Looking down, he found it contorting and seizing as if something had taken control of it, but a push of healing energy, empowering with Aspects was enough to cut off whatever was happening though he still kept an eye on it, just in case.

  To his side, Velistraine let out a soft curse, her eyes still glued at the creature, and when he gave Attal a look, the man nodded at him. “You’ll be fine. It’s suppressed enough that its effect is only temporary.”

  That sent a shiver down Henry’s back. Next, he activated Identify, while Attal stood next to them, eyes set on twenty-foot tall block of ice.

  [Void Lord (B) - Lvl 78]

  “This is what’s beyond the Cage. Or at least, that’s what I’m calling it. This is what the turtles had been running from. And I believe… this is why the System’s isolating us,” Attal said, and Henry, feeling clammy, felt like all of his recent preparations for whatever the System had alluded to were nowhere enough.

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