Chapter 41

  Once he’d put his Toga back on, the faerie sighed before answering his questions.

  “You have to understand something,” he said. “Your world isn’t the first or the last which has encountered the System and the Antithesis. Normally when the system arrives, everyone who can flee a world flees it because it means that the Antithesis is not far behind. But since the system brings a chance for power that effectively amounts to a unique opportunity, there are also ‘crisis tourists’ among the younger races who actually journey to one of these doomed worlds .”

  “Okay,” Eli said. “So they’re like first responders? Champions? Summoned heroes?”

  “No, no, no,” Gabri said. “They delve as deep into the dungeon as they can, claim all the rewards for themselves, and then leave before the Antithesis arrives and traps them.”

  “Oh,” Eli said, nodding. “Opportunists.”

  “Yes. But you also have to understand, they’re the best source of information about the system, because they’re the only ones who delve delve into the dungeon and return to the greater cosmos. The stories they tell, they’re...well, you have to understand. You humans, you’re not one of the younger races, so you wouldn’t understand what your appearance does to us.”

  “What do you mean we’re not one of the younger races?” Eli asked.

  “I mean exactly that,” Gabri said. “You’re not widely distributed in the cosmos like the fae are, or the elves or the dwarves or the dragonkin or the goblins or the orcs or just about anyone else. It’s why I was drawn to your mana in the first place, Eli. It was so uniquely tasty that I had to find out where it was coming from, and so I stabbed the spirit that was being drawn by it in the back with a metaphorical knife and came to speak with you instead.”

  “You did what?”

  “It’s not important,” Gabri said. “But just because you’re not widely distributed doesn’t mean you’re not widely known. It’s the opposite. You’re known to be part of the dungeon system. And the floors featuring Humans are uniquely dangerous, to the point where the survivors recommend escaping them immediately if possible. I thought that they were appearing too early because you yourselves are humans, but then you encountered the Voice of the Void and I panicked. It shouldn’t be able to hurt me in this form, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. I’m sorry I showed my cowardice.”

  “What do you mean it shouldn’t have been able to hurt you?” Eli asked.

  “I mean that I’m not really here, obviously. This form I’m presenting to you is a sliver of my greater consciousness animating a construct formed of your mana. But the powers of the Voice of the Void are said to be so vast that I didn’t trust the degrees of separation between this body and my true self, so I thought it better to escape than risk it,” the little faerie answered. “I’d say that I’m sorry for my cowardice a second time, but not a third, because I’m not that sorry.”

  “I understand,” Eli said. He sighed. “I need you to put me in contact with Erandius.”

  “No,” the faerie said.

  “Why not?”

  “Let him rest,” the faerie said. “Let all of the titans rest. Let them sleep. Do not wake the titans.”

  “Seems to me that he’s already awake,” Eli argued. “If he’s in orbit and—”

  Eli was about to continue with the argument when Gabri sudden had an expression of absolute shock.

  “He is, isn’t he? What does that mean for the other Lost Ones? I need to report this,” he said, and he vanished, his toga dropping to the floor.

  Annoyed, Eli summoned him back. “You can do whatever you want after you do the salt ritual again,” Eli said. “But let’s not forget that you’re my familiar . That means you do what I say.”

  The faerie glared at him, utterly unashamed that he wasn’t wearing pants. “Do you know who I am?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Gabri-al the faerie.”

  “Exactly,” the faerie said. “You presume to boss me around?”

  “Yes,” Eli said. “Now get dressed, then do the damn ritual.”

  The faerie continued to glare at him for a moment, then sighed and followed orders.

  With a half a cup of salt and a complicated casting of wind magic, the ritual of contact was repeated and a magical hologram of Erandius’s head appeared.

  “Hello again, Elias Mathews. I am pleased that you survived your ordeal in the dungeon,” Erandius said.

  “Hello Erandius,” Eli said. “I’ve been wondering something. Why do you not contact the officials in charge of our government?”

  “What’s the point? The system provides all the information required to get strong through its use,” Erandius said, tilting his head to one side. “I see you have made great strides in that direction. You remind me of another boy a long time ago. He too saw great opportunity when we unleashed the System and became a leader of some renown.”

  “What happened to him?” Eli asked.

  “He died in agony before his entire family was slain,” Erandius said conversationally. “But his heroism delayed their deaths a few weeks.”

  Eli swallowed, then nodded. “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do,” Erandius said, “But you might soon. The Antithesis comes, Eli. It does not care for your age, your sex, or your ‘political compass.’ So I have unleashed the system, which takes those matters into consideration to some extent. It’s already studying your world and adapting to it, you know? It always does, but it has been so long since it’s adapted to the world of its creators. It is throwing so many errors that require my attention.”

  “I think we encountered at least a few of those,” Eli said.

  “Is that so?” Erandius said. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Eli, I am busy, and as much as I’d like to talk with you all day, I have things to do. Is there anything that would make more people willing to delve the dungeon? That is the fastest way to power.”

  “I don’t know,” Eli admitted. “I’m still talking with the other dungeon delvers to figure things out. But the app we’re using to communicate isn’t available inside the dungeon and only those who return—”

  “What’s the address?” Erandius asked.

  Eli blinked. “What?”

  “What is the ‘website address’ or ‘ip address’ of the internet function which you and the others are using to communicate with each other?” Erandius asked. “I will ask the system to integrate it into the system itself.”

  Eli blinked again. Then he repeated the website address.

  Erandius nodded. “I make no promises, but I will see what the system can do.”

  The connection was abruptly broken from the other side. Eli swallowed. Had he just...integrated the system and the internet? That was sure to cause some problems, he thought.

  He called the Webmaster’s Girlfriend back. She answered on the second ring. “Hello Eli. What is it?”

  “I just spoke with Erandius. He’s going to try to integrate TitanSystem.App into the system.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea, he hung up before I could ask any questions,” Eli admitted.

  “I’ll speak with the devs. Eli, your security and support team is ten minutes out.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and they hung up again.

  He turned around to find the rest of his team looking at him, most of them freshly showered. He sighed.

  “Okay, so I have some things to explain,” he admitted.

  “Was that the titan?” Maia asked. “You can speak with the titan? The Titan Erandius , the head honcho, the guy who started all of this?”

  “Only if he answers the salt-call,” Eli said, shrugging. “Look, we have guests arriving in ten minutes, and I’m going to go take a shower to be presentable when we meet them. I think I’ll have to explain some things to some of them as well, so we’ll take everything all at once, yeah?”

  “Okay,” his mother said. “Go shower. You stink.”

  “Right,” he said. “Thanks mom.”

  He shut the door to his room. He didn’t take his time in the shower, much as he wanted to luxuriate under the hot water, but instead made it quick. He dried off and was brushing his teeth, walking about his room in his towel when the glass broke, and a tear gas canister began filling his room with crowd control gas.

  ?