It didn’t take long for me to run into yet another of what the Drassian researcher Erason had described as ‘ferals’.

  I was walking through a long tunnel, hoping it’d bring me closer to another entrance to the facility, when I heard a faint clicking sound.

  I instantly recognised it. I crouched and held my breath as I tried to determine its source, not wanting to give my position away too easily. All the while, I clutched to my dagger, trying to control the sudden hammering of my heart.

  “It’s… not ready.”

  I understood the words without recognising them. I knew this was an effect of me still having Erason’s journal stored. I also recalled this was something the last feral had done, garbling nonsense as it attacked me.

  That at least assuage any worries it was talking to someone else. I could tell the sound had come from further in the tunnel, but I couldn’t see it, even using [Moonlit Grace]…

  Was it invisible like the last one? Were they all like that? Did this one have different powers?

  I heard another click, this one further away. It was either baiting me in or leaving the area.

  I stayed still for a long time, far longer than it took for me to hear that sound for a final time. It didn’t speak again, only clicking, chirping, and occasionally growling as it moved, until I couldn’t hear it whatsoever.

  I pushed mana into [Kinetic Shell] as I walked, and toggled [Moonlit Grace] as much as I could manage. If I did get attacked, I wanted barriers in place that would absorb at least some of the damage. Also, even if the creature was invisible, if I was able to detect mana shifting or being displaced within the air, I might have a means to see it through its camouflage.

  Either way, as I continued, nothing happened. Still I didn’t relent in my ability usage, and still I was slow as I maintained my path towards the enemy I’d just heard—and, hopefully, the facility.

  There was a distinct measure of fear guiding my precaution. Only a couple of hours ago, I’d been growing more accustomed to my new abilties, gaining confidence and even managing to enjoy some aspects of my journey. It felt good to figure things out, and ultimately, despite the hoirrific nature of the underground, I felt equipped to deal with it.

  Another encounter with a feral, even an impending one, was swiftly working to unravel all of that. I remembered how much pain I’d been in from one of those landing a single raking attack on me, how I’d needed guns and stimulants just to fight back, and had ripped my previous mask in the process.

  I was also aware that my healing supplies were dwindling. If I could avoid fighting these things, I would, but I had an inkling that I’d end up facing off against at least a couple more throughout my time here. Who knew how many were even still alive, or how far they’d roamed? I’d ran into two already. There could be twenty, fifty, more…

  I was freaking myself out. I took a deep breath and shelved the concern. Yes, I was fairly oriented, and could probably find my way back to the surface from here, but what then? I didn’t have the resources to deal with the doctor right now, and that was assuming that there was no one else supporting his actions. If I involved my group, it could easily lead to all of us being punished or even killed. I’d been over these thoughts already.

  If I was going to return to that situation, I’d do it from a position of power. That, or I’d unlock the portal in the facility and use it to ride the fuck out of here.

  I’d considered the possibility that it would put me on a whole different part of the world than the one I hailed from. Tallos was large, but I’d never heard of a Drassian before. What if I ended up somewhere that didn’t know of humans? It was certainly possible.

  I pulled the turret from my [Hoard] and placed it in my hands before I continued walking. I’d have liked to have used the submachine gun, but the belt of ammunition the turret used didn’t slot into its cartridges, and this was the only gun I still had bullets for. Even then, the belt was dwindling. I could wrap it around my shoulders once and it hung down to my waist.

  What freaked me out more than anything was the difference in technology between Melusia and wherever the Drassians hailed from. Could they really be from Tellos?

  Well, it was possible that Melusia had access to similar technology, but that it was reserved for the absolute richest. That made sense, honestly. More sense than there being that staggering of a divide between their culture and mine. Boats and airships existed in Melusia, after all. If other parts of the world could make such things, it would stand to reason that Melusia could.

  Twists and winds in the tunnel brought me to another system of caverns, this one bereft of sound.

  It was eerily quiet here. I’d gotten used to the vast ecosystem of the underground, the various predators and prey animals that made up its structure.

  Here there seemed to be nothing. Did that mean I was on the right track?

  I continued until I heard something resembling a squeak, or, upon a harder listen, a creak.

  I followed the noise, toggling as I walked, my eyes trained for anything that moved, for any patterns in the air that looked irregular.

  It was still difficult to make out what was what under the guise of my new ability. [Moonlit Grace] transformed the landscape of my vision into a sea of swirling colour, accented by translucent fluctuations that boggled my perception. If anything, it reminded me of how I’d felt staring up at the vast sky inside of the rift, just as I’d first entered.

  That feeling that above me was something so transcendent and indescribably vast that I and everything else was a pinprick against infinity, it was juxtaposed by [Moonlit Grace]. My new sight was generous. Everything I looked at felt wonderful, near indecipherable, and incredibly complex. I was determined to make sense of it.

  It even transformed sound. That distant creak was easier to pinpoint when using my ability, and while I usually struggled to single out individual sounds with this ability, it was so quiet otherwise that I could really focus on what I heard. It was the intermittent sound of metal grinding against meta, and it was about a minute’s walk from here. I knew that much with certainty.

  I followed the sound. What I came across confirmed my suspicion.

  A familiarly designed door was repeatedly attempting to close itself. Below it, a metallic apparatus resembling a… seated minecart? Was being repeatedly crushed.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what the partially destroyed thing was. It looked to be somewhere between a cart and a carriage, and it had large wheels on its sides as well as another wheel that sat before one of the seats at the front.

  The door had caved the middle of the cart most of the way through, and the deep bends within the metal as well as the rigidity of the shape it had morphed into gave me the impression it wouldn’t bend any further. Nonetheless, the heavily door above it was closing almost entirely on a downswing and was only raising itself about two feet in its brief ascent before crashing down again.

  This was clearly a… potential entrance to the facility. Did I want to wander around and try to find another one? Or try my luck shimmying under this door?

  I was almost certain that even laid flat, the door would crash down low enough to crush me before the dilapidated mine cart stopped it in its tracks. Even at its highest point, it’d be a somewhat tight squeeze, and I wasn’t sure how much I trusted myself to simply roll through it.

  That said… could I find a console to open the door with?

  I searched, and quickly discovered the associated console was dead. Its screen seemed fine, with no signs of damage, but whatever connected it to the rest of the facility seemed to have been cut off.

  There went the simple solution…

  What if I jammed the door further?

  I decided to hunt for some nearby rocks for purpose of testing. They came apart quickly and with little resistance. Irritating.

  I’d need a really solid material. Something that wouldn’t break quickly under all of that pressure and that was big enough to prop things up. That or something I didn’t potentially mind wasting.

  Biting my lip, I took a look inside of my [Hoard]. The solution quickly stuck out to me, a material hardy enough that an explosion had barely dented it.

  Once again, a hefy portion of marilik shell came in handy. I was able to summon a section of the monster’s carcass directly under the door during the peak of its ascent, this portion of the shell the piece that had wrapped around its claw.

  The door immediately yawned, struggling against the hefty material. The screech was loud and jarring, and I was sure that if anything was in the vicinity, it likely heard it, but I wasn’t immediately bolting under to try and get through. Like it or not, I was giving it a few seconds to make sure the shell didn’t immediately crack under the door’s weight.

  Then I heard a clicking sound behind me, and I decided that ready or not, it was time to move.

  The moment I dropped to my belly and began to roll my way through, I felt something grabbing at my leg.

  Terrified, I kicked out and attempted to free myself, scrambling towards the carcass and manically attempting to store it before my assailant could follow me through. I managed to store the shell before the prompt even appeared, and as soon as I did, the door slammed down hard, hard enough that in a panicked, panting moment, I realised I’d not only managed to pull myself through the faulty doorway, but the mangled and still clutching arm of a feral Drassian.

  I stabbed down with my dagger quickly, attempting to get the thing off of me, but it was relentless, screeching a foreign diatribe I could barely make sense of.

  When stabbing didn’t work, I attempted to slice through its barely-visible arm. It took me time to realise that the creature’s skin was tough, like leather, and cutting through it took both hands and about as much frenzied energy as I could possibly summon.

  “Aaarghh!”

  With brute fear and instinct I cut my way through enough of its forearm that the creature finally released me. I scrambled away from the door as quickly as I could, my breath wheezing and my chest threatening to explode.

  I could still hear the thing thumping and smashing against the door. If there were more in the area, it might attract them. I wanted to get out of here, and quickly.

  I hadn’t been sure in the moment, but thankfully, I looked down at my ankle to find that it was completely intact. This feral hadn’t scratched or ripped at me like the last one, and the worst I felt was a bit of bruising and tenderness as I hobble-walked away as fast as I reasonably could.

  Those things were evil. I’d rather fight a hundred more rift monsters than deal with another, but as the cave walls changed around me and I began to realise I was drawing closer to an entrance, I knew that wouldn’t be an option. I clutched my turret close and used [Moonlit Grace] to help me breathe. The world had a subtle fluctuation. There was motion in almost everything, and I used it to guide my breaths.

  When I didn’t feel like I was going to faint, I continued. That brought me to another door, this one closed, as well as set outside a familiar area reminiscent to the one I’d been temporarily trapped in when I first happened across this place.

  Here’s hoping this door had a working console. I did not want to go back and try my luck versus the feral.

  Thankfully, the console worked. Rather than try to recall the code I’d previously used to enter, however, I had another idea.

  Reaching into my [Hoard], I pulled out a plastic card I’d previously had printed for me by a small talking machine, labelled as a Tier 1 Guest Pass’. After briefly navigating the console and finding the correct screen, I held it up.

  [Scanning…]

  [Authorisation recognised. Welcome. Please keep your Guest Pass visibly on you at all times.]

  Just like that, the door began to slide open. I blinked, feeling almost astonished by the simplicity of it.

  Like seriously, that was it? No life or death struggle or insane puzzle to get in this time? I just hold up a card and ‘there you go’?

  Once the doors were open, I saw a swath of turrets sitting at the other side, as if they’d been waiting for me to feel a moment of peace.

  I gulped, but nothing happened.

  Were these turrets broken?

  No. They reacted when I appeared. They definitely moved.

  No ammo, then?

  Wait. Maybe this was why I was meant to keep my Guest Pass on me.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  That made sense. Whatever system governed these things recognised me as ‘meant to be here’ and as a result, the turrets weren’t attacking.

  Well, that was convenient. Was there a good way for me to stick this onto myself?

  Didn’t seem to be. I’d try look out for something sticky I could use.

  Now that I was inside, I felt simultaneously relieved and worried. It’d taken me making a lot of noise for anything to find and attack me last time, but that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t run into an enemy simply walking through these corridors. I had to be on-guard at all times from here.

  My first goal was to map this place. After that, I’d try to find a way to obtain a level 2 pass, that or the code required to bypass the door to the control room.

  From there, I’d figure out how to complete my quest. I still wasn’t sure what shutting all of that off would consist of, or why there was what seemed to be a Drassian girl in there…

  Well, I was assuming she was a Drassian. That or another race I’d never seen or heard of…

  It wasn’t relevant. I stopped distracting myself and got moving.

  A low hum sounded in the backdrop of stillness as I traipsed the dim, abandoned halls. I spent most of my time wary, looking this way and that for any sign of motion of danger, my eyes trailing the flickering strip lights running along the walls and ceilings as I attempted to find my way back towards the facility’s core—but at times my mind wandered. I thought about what this place might have been like when the Drassians lived here. What such a mind-boggling place might feel like if it were active and alive…

  I’d never felt much of a desire to explore before. I’d been to the woods outside Melusia a handful of times, but never far. As far as I’d been concerned, all of my goals, aspirations, and the things I’d needed to reach them had existed within the stone walls of the city I’d grown up in.

  Seeing a place like this made me want to travel. To find somewhere as unique as this again, and preferably in less dangerous conditions.

  Maybe if I survived all of this, one day I could do that.

  A sharp left turn brought me into the main hall of the facility, the glass ceiling reaching so high I strained to see it, and the centre of the atrium filled with overgrowning flora.

  Seeing the plant life reminded me of a conversation I’d had with Ceri before. I could take samples before exploring the rooms, I supposed.

  I was a touch wary as I approached the viney, serpentine plants, red and purple and green stretching along their bodies, but despite my worries, nothing happened when I drew close.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but the plants were docile and still, and there was no sign of danger or change in the air quality as I moved closer into the bed of greenery and began to take stock of each distinct species I could spot.

  Of course, I had no clue what any of them were, but I could tell where some plants looked majorly different from others, and identifying them was what [Hoard] was for. Once I’d determined five distinct plants I wanted to take samples of, I pulled my dagger and began to cut off sections for my [Hoard] to analyse.

  My first discovery upon storage was that I’d actually selected three different plants to store—some belonged to the same species despite differing in size and colour.

  My second, more sobering realisation was that none of these plants were purported to really do anything. The now overgrown vines and the green and yellow-leaved plants were simply decorative, apparently common in ‘interior design for office spaces’, and the yellow fruit was nothing special, even before accounting for years of mist exposure.

  These revelations were frustrating, and more than a little overwhelming… I was just glad Ceri wasn’t here. She’d made it clear to me how terrible she felt not finding a cure for her friend, and honestly, I’d talked this place up without really knowing if there was anything down here worth getting excited about. Insofar, it looked like there wasn’t.

  Oh well. I wasn’t calling it a dead end yet. I’d still found some awesome things in this place already, and there could be something useful for Ceri in one of these countless rooms, so I’d try my best to remain hopeful. What good was it to assume I’d fail?

  I wanted to start searching rooms from here on. This place had multiple floors, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tackle things in a random order or be more systematic… One thing I did know was that any new area had just as much chance to be helpful to me as it did dangerous…

  I needed a map of the place. I made it my next goal to find one.

  As I walked through the central room, every now and then I heard a metallic whir that made me turn my head, and saw one of those little box things on wheels like the one that had spoken to me last time.

  A couple simply zoomed past me without stopping, but after about a minute, one briefly paused.

  “Hello, visitor! We hope that you are zrrg your stay!”

  Once again, a word I didn’t recognise passed by me as the small… creature? Was that the right word?

  As the device spoke to me.

  “Can you show me to…” What was the word? Last time I’d asked about a tour, one of these things had told me to go somewhere specific to set it up…

  “Can you take me on a tour?” I tried.

  “If you krrzh a tour, please go to reception and have one booked!”

  That was it.

  “Can you show me to reception?” I asked, a touch of hope in my voice.

  The little box wheeled back and forth. “Certainly!” It turned on the spot, multiple lights on its body blinking blue. “Let me lead the way!”

  Like that, it was off, wheeling its way to the far side of the room, somewhere in the opposite direction of the control centre.

  I followed along at a brisk pace, thankful for the little machine. I wondered what these things even did anymore now that the Drassians were gone. Did they simply run around in circles? Did they notice the absence of their previous creators?

  I pondered the matter until I had to duck under a half-descended metallic door to enter a new hallway, this one narrower than the one I’d came from. I saw a sign on the wall that apparently pointed towards ‘reception’.

  “Almost there!” the little machine chimed.

  I continued without acknowledging it. As soon as we turned the next corner, both me and the small box on wheels stopped dead.

  “Halt, visitor,” the box said in a comically serious whisper.

  I barely noticed the command; I’d already done so. In the dilapidated and thoroughly smashed room labelled ‘reception’, complete with broken tables, upturned chairs, scattered paper, and continually leaking water from a metallic sink, there sat a large amphibian creature.

  I wasn’t sure if the white-spotted yellow creature more closely resembled a frog or a cow, but the thing was about eight times my size and appeared to have entered through what I was now recognising as a large hole in the distant wall. Even in a room as large as this, it looked oversized, and it appeared to have done a fair deal of damage to the place simply by moving around on what I soon realised were four legs.

  This was bad. This thing looked dangerous, and a probe with [Moonlit Grace] didn’t dissuade that gut feeling. It was a similar size to the marilik I’d fought before, but in a room so filled with clutter and debris, I didn’t fancy my chances fighting it. I had no clue what skills it possessed or how hardy it was, and that was without mentioning the massively long tongue that I was now beginning to notice poking out of its toothless mouth.

  I was going to have to sneak past it if I wanted to progress. Thankfully, there was plenty of cover in this room, and if I gave it a wide enough berth—

  “Intruder detected!” the little robot announced as stealthily as an alarm screeched. “Please state your business!”

  I watched, standing somewhere between horror and disbelief as the little device rolled on ahead of me and confronted the giant monster.

  The amphibian, of course, didn’t answer. It simply blinked at its challenger.

  The silver box on wheels beeped between blue and red a few times, making a strange vrrm sound, and then raised its voice. “You are in a restricted area!” It accused, its high and usually friendly pitch sounding completely out of place here. “Please leave immediately, or there will be consequences!”

  Again, the frog thing simply stared at it. It didn’t seem to compute what the metal creature was saying, and if it did, it didn’t seem interested.

  “You are refusing to cooperate! Use of tier one deterrent is authorised!”

  With that, the centre of the box’s body opened to reveal what looked like a blunt prong. Electricity surged across it.

  It charged towards the monster like I imagined a jousting knight would. I watched with some mixture of surprise and morbid amusement. The wheeled thing barely came up past my knee, it looked like I could pick it up and throw it with ease. There was no way it was going to make that monster budge, let alone hurt it.

  Still, the little device fearlessly marched on, and things played out more or less how I imagined they would.

  I winced as not even a second after the device prodded the monster, sending what looked like a weak jolt of electricity into its body, the monster simply slapped it away with its tongue.

  The device went flying across the room, crashing loudly into an upturned table and leaving a dent.

  After that, the monster roared. It seemed pissed off now.

  Then, its eyes centred on me, the hapless bystander in all of this.

  Shit…

  Before my flight instincts could fully kick in, I heard a voice sound from the other side of the room, somewhat distorted at first.

  “Damage sustained. Intruder has gfrt tier one deterrent…

  “Use of tier two deterrent is now authorised.”

  I didn’t really see what happened at first. Just a bright blue light.

  And then I realised that was emanating straight from the body of the little box on wheels that had seemed so harmless a moment ago.

  And that light was shooting across the room, hitting the massive monster directly in the chest.

  I watched unblinkly as flesh melted away from the creature’s chest, a powerful beam piercing through its exterior and quickly melting away flesh.

  Within moments, the monster had fallen to the floor, presumably dead. When fifteen seconds passed and it didn’t stir, and I saw the smoke resonating off of its body, I all but confirmed my assumption.

  Still drinking in the absurdity of what just happened, my jaw hung slack, the little device rolled its way back over to me.

  “Threat neutralised! You are sdss now, visitor. Please, continue to follow me!”

  I simply gaped for a while longer, the metallic assistant patiently waiting a few feet ahead until I remembered how to make me legs work.

  How had that…

  So much power. The Drassians could create things that commanded this much strength, and this easily?

  That monster looked about the same level as the marilik, perhaps a little weaker. To think that it could be blown away that effortlessly…

  It was a good thing that these little machines had determined me as a ‘visitor’ rather than an ‘intruder’. I don’t know what the hell I would’ve done if one of these decided I was worthy of a ‘tier two deterrent’.

  Died instantly, I suppose.

  “Is everything alright, visitor?”

  “No, no. I’m fine… thanks.”

  “You’re welcome!”

  I suddenly remembered to breathe. I headed across the room and paused at the still smoldering body of the dead monster, checking its body to see if it still had a core intact.

  It did. A Rest Core, D Grade. I took it alongside some of the creature’s meat, throwing away some of the lower quality madmaw meat to make room.

  Eventually, I was led to a large desk. At this point, I was told ‘my destination had been reached’ and ‘not to hesitate if I needed anything else’. After that, the little machine zoomed right off.

  I walked behind the abandoned desk as the machine left, still dumbfounded at what I’d just seen. Hell, if I could figure out how to convert one of those things into a weapon, or how to keep one with me at all times, or how to harness a power like that beam it had used…

  Could I use a control stone on one of them?

  Questions for later. For now, I’d managed to find at least one thing that I was looking for…

  The wall behind the reception desk contained a map of the facility. From what I could see, certain rooms didn’t have labels, which made me wonder if there was a more complete version of said map elsewhere, perhaps one for people of a higher station, but even this map annotated most rooms.

  Apparently, the first floor was devoted to mineral processing and testing areas, as well as chemical labs, engineering rooms, and storage areas. There was another room past the storage areas that didn’t have a label, and part of me was wondering if something valuable was kept there.

  The second floor was filled with a mixture of botanical and biological labs and various offices for staff. The third floor was a cut between living quarters, more offices, and a large room called a vocational area that I wasn’t sure the purpose of as I didn’t recognise the word’s meaning in my own language.

  The fourth floor was entirely living quarters. I doubted I’d have any reason to go there. From what it sounded like, my main goal here was to explore the labs, the office rooms, and the storage area. That and try to find out what was in the three unlabelled rooms I could currently see on this map.

  Speaking of which, I pulled off and stored said map for my own convenience. It showed me the various corridors and exits as well, and even spanned a little into the cave system outside, so having it should stop me from getting lost again.

  Naturally, I searched the papers and contents of the drawers surrounding the desk looking for anything helpful, hoping to stumble upon a Tier 2 pass, but no luck there.

  That wasn’t to say I didn’t find anything noteworthy. One handwritten note I’d stored stuck out to me so much I re-read it twice just to ensure I was interpreting it correctly:

  We need to get out of here, Feyra.

  Surion is lying publicly now, saying that two excavators were devoured by monsters during our last expedition.

  I’m telling you, I saw it. The commanders are EATING us. I don’t know if it’s crystal addiction doing it, or if it’s something else, but there’s something evil about this place. I don’t even know if the two that died down there weren’t murdered. All I know is we’re being pushed around by maniacs and I feel like I’m losing my mind as well...

  And we can’t leave. Why? We’ve made countless developments here. Why can’t we bring them home to the people waiting for us? Because our leaders still want to play politics? Even while half of us starve and go crazy?

  I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m willing to let Mira die if it means taking down that barrier.

  She’s a good kid. It’s disgusting that she was ever hooked up to that machine, but I don’t know how to shut it down without hurting her. Honestly, I doubt anyone does.

  If it means we can get out of here, if it means going home to our families and getting out of this nightmare, I think we should consider it as a possibility. That’s all I’m saying.

  I’d say ‘think this over’, but we don’t have much time. If you won’t make a plan with me, I’m gonna end up trying something on my own, and I might get killed doing it.

  Or we can risk it together. Not exactly the first date I promised you, I know, but…

  I’ll be here tomorrow at 1600. We can talk about it then.

  Be careful. You can’t trust anyone anymore. I mean it.

  The author hadn’t signed the note. Sadly, just from piecing together context I was pretty certain that neither the sender nor the recipient had managed to make it out of here.

  At least not through the portal. Who knew? Maybe they found another way. Or maybe the barrier came down and was brought back up after.

  Or maybe they were eaten by ferals. I shuddered at the thought.

  Just what were people doing here?