147. The Catacombs (I)

Zane gained another Level that night.

𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕌𝕡!

𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟙𝟙𝟞 -> 𝟙𝟙𝟟

Reina was up to Level 104 now too; she fell asleep on him as soon as they were done, limp and panting.

One of her Signature Skills, Architect of Restoration, could heal all things—living or nonliving. It came in handy these last few weeks. He looked around the room, which looked like it'd been through a hurricane, and winced.

After Reina hit Level 100, she mentioned she'd unlocked a new Signature Skill—some kind of strong shield Skill, too. He was interested to see how they could use it together.

He stroked her hair fondly as she slept. The plan right now was to hit the L.A. A-rank first, then the Pacific island dungeon, then go out to Scandinavia and take some contract work with a leaking A+-rank dungeon—before coming back to do the Auction. A few quick-hitters.

By then he figured they'd be working nicely as a team. Just in time for the S-rank.

***

Later that day they left for the closing ceremony. Attendants were going down the streets handing out goodie bags with B-rank Vials of Essence. That, and tons of coupons—for World Ranker Network subscriptions, limited-time offers for Silicon Coven access codes.

They saw Elias just finishing up a speech on a dais—he caught sight of them too. More specifically, of Reina. His eyes bulged. He finished up his speech quick and scrambled off; Reina gave a little hmph.

The place was decked in flashy colors, giant VGI banners with World Rankers' faces on it streaming overhead—including Zane's own. Quite a lot of Zane's face, now that he looked around. Looking very serious.

You couldn't go five feet down the main street without hitting a market stall. Fireworks peppered the air here and there.

Elias had pulled out all the stops; he walked the mile or so from their hotel to the Beacon, Reina on his arm, and saw wine tastings and clown shows and weird exhibition duels—three Level 50s against one Level 80, all in flashy wrestlers' costumes. Snazzily-dressed vendors wheeled carts about, stuffed to the brim with sweets.

The whole thing had a carnival feel to it. Magic tricks were out of vogue now everyone had magic, but he saw other strange things. They brought in exotic animals—they'd somehow chained a B-rank Boss, a ten-foot-tall' Water Stallion' thick as a pickup truck, a muscly red-eyed beast snorting clouds of steam. Level 99—it'd escaped out of an ocean dungeon. A crowd gathered around it 'ooh'-ing and 'ahh'-ing.

The handler, a Ranger class with beast tamer Skills, was explaining how Monsters like these couldn't be tamed; something about their souls was twisted beyond repair. You had to establish a soul connection to tame any creature, but something about Monster souls and humans' went like oil and water.

But there were some normal creatures too. There was a little petting zoo with ponies with manes of candle-like fire, or shock-crabs in little aquarium exhibits with their claws tied together, or these massive fluffy rodents. The most popular were the Giant Giant Pandas. They were aptly named; like Pandas but about 25% bigger, or so said the Beast Tamer working the booth. They looked like giant war-bears you could ride into battle—except like normal pandas, they were lazy and sleepy most of the time.

Beast Taming was a very rare Skill, at least right now—more of a gimmick than anything. They didn't have the proper Skills and Inheritances to do it at a World Ranker level. The Beast Tamer apprentice, a Level 91 teen named Ben Cavill, was sweating and stuttering as he said it—trying not to look at Zane and Reina, who were watching him feed a Giant Giant Panda a stalk of Spirit Bamboo. He noticed pretty much everyone Zane was around nowadays was visibly conscious he was there, even if they tried to act normal.

***

They made it to the Beacon and its teleporters, a little square near the exits where most of the World Rankers had flooded. There were some general purpose portals marked South Asia, Southeast Asia, Scandinavia, West Europe, that kind of thing. But Zane was headed for one of the bespoke portals—the one going straight to Luminous Faction HQ.

Before they left, they said their goodbyes to Avery and Evan.

They were all decked out in little uniforms. Avery wore a blue-and-gold hoodie. Evan wore a fluffy golden cap. They both had little scarves around their necks with the same color scheme. Stitched on top were the words—Team Sunshower! And they were both beaming.

"We're team Sunshower!" said Evan. "Get it? 'Cause it's water plus light!"

He was so excited he could hardly stand still.

"Featuring the great and powerful Avery Lively!" said Avery. "And also her trusty sidekick Evan."

Evan nodded happily. "It's gonna be awesome."

"We're off to Utah," said Avery with a grin. "Then we're gonna Quest-hop all the way up the Midwest."

They'd taken a bunch of Quests from Factions that had high-rank dungeons leaking nearby. Often they had members trapped inside. These were usually regional powers, which meant they still had trouble taking on B or B+-ranked dungeons—which was where Avery and Evan came in.

Reina got her hands on some of those high-end communication crystals for them so they could stay in contact.

"Team Sunshower, roll out!" Avery cried.

The two of them gave a big wave and set off on their little adventure.

***

Then it was turn for Zane and Reina to go home. On the way out, a bunch of Coven salespeople around the Beacon tried wrangling them into a deal. Reina had been smiling contentedly, eyes half-closed, basking in the sun, resting her head on his chest. She reminded him of a big cat—a tigress lounging on a hot stone or something. She even made a sound kind of like purring.

When the salespeople came close, disturbing their little moment, it was like a switch flipped. She treated them a certain look, a look she sometimes treated his female fans to when they got a little too friendly. The salespeople scattered in cold sweats. Then she was back to smiling and relaxing again.

***

Back home, they were treated to a little festival. They came out of the teleporter through an arch of balloons—there were crowds of people lined up on either side of the square and Luminous Faction colors—white, purple, dark-green—lots of children and a few elderly folk too, all cheering and trying to get a look at him.

They weren't just here to welcome him; there was some kind of event going on—Reina had scheduled a cross-Faction conference today. Delegates from all over the Luminous Faction streamed in. They were to meet at the top floor of the Town Hall.

While Zane waited for things to get underway, he climbed up to the slanted red-tile roof.

The town hall was the tallest of the buildings there by a good margin; it was almost on a level with the tufts of lazy, drifting, bright clouds. From here, he swore he could see half the state.

You could see all the streets of new wood-and-stone skyscrapers dotted with little runes, ranged out before you in blocks. And beyond that, there were the Moon Fruit orchards, a long grid of silvery trees swaying softly in the breeze… past that, he could make out another Safe Zone. With its own Town Hall and Beacon. So much smaller they almost looked fake, like monopoly buildings spread out in a sea of lush grass.

Every few miles, another one cropped up. Smaller and smaller, going in all directions, spreading to the distant horizons… lots of them clustered around long sparkling rivers. Rivers that must flow all the way to Puget Sound.

Everything was light-green and pretty and lively. It hit him then—he was the Leader. This had all come about because he'd conquered this dungeon, way back when—and gave it the treasures to grow, and beat back its enemies, and destroyed the Dungeons in its way… Everything he could see—all this—was his.

This all used to be dungeon. Now it was dotted with people—he could see them drifting about. On his mini-map, and with the naked eye. People just... living life. People seemed pretty happy here, all told.

It was nice. He felt weirdly good about it.

***

Soon the conference was starting; he got dressed up and went to the penthouse, a swanky ballroom. There he drank Spirit Wines and shook a lot of hands.

All the various sub-Faction representatives were very happy to meet him. Some of them were from the Northwest—east Washington, all the way up to the Vancouver area. But there was a lot of Tomb King delegates too.

Before they came up to him, Reina would lean over and subtly whisper their names, Factions, and something important to know about them. There were hundreds of folk in the room, and she somehow had an encyclopedic memory of every one of them; some random person would come up and she'd greet them with such warmth—like they were old friends.

…She was really good at this.

She wore a classy white silk dress, slim around the waist, quite full in other places. She could look gorgeous in rags—in this dress she was something else. When she smiled, lots of them got flustered and started stammering. Zane didn't blame them. Sometimes when she smiled at him even he forgot what he was thinking about.

He didn't have to do much—just stood there with her on his arm, mostly. He said what she told him, and they lit up. The conference ended with most of them feeling more loyal than ever.

***

They'd set off for the L.A. Dungeon tomorrow.

Reina spent most of the day stressing over it. She was trying to piece together an action plan based off the scraps of information they knew about the dungeon's interior, double-checking and triple-checking—he encouraged her to relax. It was overkill; she was stressing herself out for no reason.

He figured she should treat this as a learning experience, a sandbox to test out her new Skills.

She bit her lip. "I wish we had full profiles of the Bosses. I'm trying to extrapolate their powers from our knowledge of the minions, but—"

"It'll be fine," he assured her.

"I should've tested my Skills more," she said, shaking her head. "I've never tried them in battle."

"This will be a good place to start."

"What if my shields go off-target? Zane, I'm not sure I have full control yet, what if they can't cover—"

"Reina," he said, since he could almost hear her brain whirring so fast it was starting to overheat. She blinked up at him, startled; he met her warm brown eyes. "I will smash the Monsters," he said. "You will heal me and defend me. It's simple. Just focus on learning your Skills. It'll be okay."

"I just don't want to let you down." She bit her lip. "I… we should have contingency plans—and strategies for each kind of Boss we'll encounter, at least—what if—"

"Reina," he said again. He brushed a lock of hair out of her face. She was spiraling a little; he had to ground her in something—something she truly believed in, something she felt was rock-solid.

This often turned out to be himself.

"I am the strategy," he told her, looking her straight in the eyes. "I am the backup plan. It doesn't matter what they hit me with. It doesn't matter if you screw up. You have me. I will not lose."

He said it like it was common sense; he held her gently.

She just stared at him wide-eyed.

"You have me," he concluded. "So everything will be okay."

Then, slowly, she nodded. And it was like a huge weight lifted from her. As she looked him in the eyes it was like all her waves of stress crashed against his rock of calm, and broke—and she was left with a sea of gentle feelings.

Then she felt a strong surge of affection toward him.

She really wanted to kiss him then. So she did.

Even he was a little surprised that worked.

***

They left the following afternoon.

The LA Faction was called the Sanctuary of the Stars. It had a steel-and-stone aesthetic. The buildings were squat and faintly gothic-looking. Folk here seemed tense, pale—he soon saw why.

Wails drifted over from the distance. He frowned. He could feel the presence of a glut of Dark, monstrous aura—just a whiff of it. The toxic source was a ways away. But it was leaking. He looked to the sky; in the distance he saw a haze of dark essence settling over the land, darkening the air…

That was their target.

The leaking A-rank dungeon was called the 'Catacomb of Fallen Angels.' And it broke smack-dab in the middle of the city, right at the intersection of four Safe Zones.

He looked east. Where the Hollywood sign used to be, there was now a massive tower of stone runes watching over the Safe Zones. Wards streamed out over the top of it, wrapping them tight. A last line of defense.

"Let's go," he said. Reina nodded, determined.

They had a clear path to the quarantine zone they'd set up around the dungeon. She'd called in a security detail—not to keep them safe, but to keep the roads clear for them. Luminous Faction warriors lined the roads to either side, keeping back the crowds; huddles of pale, hopeful faces looked up to him as they passed.

As they got close, they started hearing shouting. Felt bursts of essence exploding and bursting as Luminous Faction elites tried holding back the leaking Monsters…