“We’ll be right back, Liam. I’m sorry the inn doesn’t allow for mixed bathing,” Kassandra murmured before giving me another kiss.

  “It’s fine, Nugget,” I replied, squeezing her waist gently before planting a kiss on the tip of her nose. “You ladies enjoy getting clean. I’ll get our stuff unpacked for now and push the beds together.”

  “Still annoyed about that,” Kassandra said, pouting cutely before I cured the pout with another kiss. “Thank you, Liam. Love you.”

  “Any time. Send for me if you need anything, and I mean anything.” I waited until my dwarf lamia agreed before I released her, letting her serpentine body slide back to the ground.

  The other three girls, who had been watching with amused grins or blushes, all trooped by to claim their own kisses with clean clothing in hand before leaving me alone in the inn room.

  Going back down the mountain had been much easier than going up it, and we’d made it to one of the small villages along the main road by pushing ourselves. While I hadn’t gotten confirmation from the System that my mission was done yet, I assumed that if the DSR needed me to go back, they’d let me know.

  Since it was so late, we’d gotten rooms at the inn for the night, renting out their largest room that was available with plans for the girls to hire a coach to convey them the rest of the way to Kassandra’s lands. We still had some time before we’d need to meet up with the other Juneau students heading north-east, and I was looking forward to spending time relaxing with my girls rather than always being on the move or training.

  I thought with a smirk as I turned back to survey the room.

  I’d also suggested that the girls send me back for a bit while they traveled, to allow them more space in the carriage. I’d not had the chance to test Tunnel to Contracted

  I thought while studying the two large beds.

  Since realizing how much of my System-boosted intelligence I’d been ignoring just by not exercising it, I’d been working on learning new things as quickly and clearly as possible. Everything from listening to audiobooks about different topics to working on logic and thought puzzles.

  “Too bad I don’t have some kind of magical fire inside of me that can produce complex mental puzzles for me to work on at need,” I chuckled, allowing my arms to segment and extend so I could lift a night-stand out from between the beds. “Guess I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Not a bad choice,” said a familiar voice from behind me.

  It was only because I recognized the voice that I was able to arrest the attack that was already in motion as soon as he spoke.

  Cerebaton still ducked on instinct as I swung about holding the solid oak nightstand over my head like an improvised club. Ducking wouldn’t have saved him, given my Shape-Shifting

  “Gods damn it!” I swore. “Don’t startle me like that!”

  “Sorry about that, Liam,” Cerebaton grunted, shaking his head and straightening the wrinkled suit he was wearing. “I should have warned you I was coming, but it honestly slipped my mind.”

  Judging from the bags I saw under the massive green man’s eyes, I couldn’t fault him for forgetting.

  Reeling in my shifted arms to a normal size, I gestured towards the table sat in the corner of the room with the nightstand still in my grip.

  “Sit. You look dead tired. I take it you popped in because you have something to tell me?”

  “Somewhat,” Cerebaton grunted, turning to eye the table and the chairs suspiciously. I couldn’t fault that reaction either, given his size and the spindly nature of the table.

  Apparently, Cerebaton decided he couldn’t trust them, because the large man began to shrink suddenly, his wrinkled suit falling like a sheet around him as his green skin turned pink and the antlers retracted into his skull.

  To give him a moment to make himself presentable, I turned back to the beds and set the nightstand down to one side. Given my System-enhanced strength, it was only a moment's work to push the two beds together in the center of the wall and adjust the blankets on top to cover the split in the middle.

  “Going to have to remember that crack is there. I’d hate to end up wedged in and falling through in the night,” I mumbled while tugging the blankets around.

  “I can imagine it would be rather uncomfortable,” Cerebaton said, his voice still deep despite him using Shape-Shifting

  “Oh? That’s surprising, I’d think a handsome guy like you would be chasing women off with a stick,” I shot back, finishing the work on the blankets and turning back to find Cerebaton sitting in his human disguise at the table.

  It’d been some time since I’d last seen him wearing this look, and it always struck me how much he looked like a young Dolph Lundgren from his days in the movies. Somehow, Cerebaton had produced a set of long sweat pants and a skin-tight muscle shirt, both in a dark gray, to cover himself. Which was good so he didn’t melt the chair he was sitting on.

  “Not really. I’m married to my work more than anything, but that’s not why I’m here,” Cerebaton drawled, leaning his elbow on the table and cushioning his head on his fist tiredly.

  “I could guess as much, you don’t normally drop in to talk about romance.”

  “I don’t drop in to talk about romance ever,” Cerebaton replied grumpily, shooting me a glare over his knuckles. I just rolled my eyes at him and scooped up the girls’ bags and set them on the bed as well.

  “Don’t stall,” I shot back at him and began digging through the spare bag for my own supplies. “I’m sure you are here to talk to me about what you guys found in the ruins. The ruins that you specifically asked me to go and investigate off the books. The ruins that the System itself gave me a mission regarding.”

  Cerebaton’s tired eyes hardened at that statement and I saw the thoughts wheeling in his mind, but he didn’t voice any of them just yet. Instead, he settled back into his chair with a thoughtful expression for several moments before he spoke again.

  “It’s straightforward enough, Liam. You were brought into this situation at my request, and thus you deserve to know what resulted of it. Especially as this is not the end yet.”

  “Ugh, I was worried about that. Also makes sense as to why you are here to fill me in. So what’s going on?”

  “Simple enough to start out, as I said. But the implications are dire,” Cerebaton paused to glare at the table in front of him before looking up to lock eyes with me. “You understand more intimately than most how traumatic a nonconsensual summon can be.”

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  “Shit… that body?” I asked and Cerebaton nodded grimly.

  “There was enough tissue remaining on the body that we could identify them, but not so much that we could guess who it was. The body belonged to a daemon, and based on the way we found her, it was obvious that she wasn’t willingly summoned there,” Cerebaton said with a heavy heart, still glaring down at the table like he was trying to make the table burst into flames with just his eyes.

  “Shit, I was hoping that I was wrong, but the cages…”

  “Those cages were a problem in and of themselves,” Cerebaton growled, his eyes flaring with light before he restrained it. “The metals from those cages is not naturally occurring in the mortal worlds. Entropic-resistant materials do not naturally form in a world, they require specific exposure to a mixture of both sides of the power coin to form, and it takes time.”

  “So somehow the people in that facility were somehow able to both get hold of material needed to restrain entropic beings, and also refine the necessary summoning rituals to actually capture a daemon?” I asked, wanting to make sure my logical leaps were going in the right direction that Cerebaton was pointing.

  “That is what it appears to be. I have Cariad working through the research notes that we recovered before eradicating traces of the facility. I appreciate you sealing up the entrance for us. I don’t want there to be any record or signs of the facility by this time next week. The last thing we need is methods to summon and possibly control daemons leaking out to the greater galaxy.”

  “It’s why I’ve made it a point to destroy anything that leans that way in each of the facilities. The different types of summoning have shown up in each of the other ancient human ruins, but this was the first one that actually had a daemon there.”

  “And I appreciate that. Miss Davies let me know that you’d been doing that as well. Beyond just being horrifically dangerous to dimensional stability, the methods of summoning entropic entities can also be turned on daemons. It is best if we remain out of the eye of the residents of the dimensions we look after.”

  Cerebaton let his head fall back on his neck and stared up at the ceiling in silence for a few moments, weariness oozing from every pore.

  “How long has it been since you got some sleep?” I asked, unable to hold myself back.

  “Daemon’s don’t rest like you do,” Cerebaton shot back, not looking at me.

  “Then how long has it been since you rested like you are supposed to?” I countered and Cerebaton snorted in amusement before finally answering.

  “Longer than I should. And it will be longer still before I can find my rest. I’ve covered the basics of what we found so far, and I know Miss Davies will let you know what she finds. She’s intelligent enough to know that I can’t directly order her to do so, given the situation at the offices. But keeping her charge informed falls within her purview in a way that none can question.”

  “Which is likely why you are having her review the found paperwork?” I asked pointedly and Cerebaton nodded tiredly.

  “That and she has a relatively light workload. Most of my other direct reports have several Travelers that they are looking after right now, as well as their regular duties. It just makes sense to lean on her freedom.”

  “Make sure not to overwork her,” I warned and Cerebaton shot me a sharp look.

  “I make sure that my people are well compensated, both in pay and time off so that they can do their best.”

  “Habit, sorry,” I apologized, getting a nod of understanding.

  “I can accept that… Anyway, to summarize what I came here to tell you: The facility is condemned, and I don’t want you to return to it. Within a week, there will be nothing but an empty cave scoured of any sign where it once was. The people who worked there were experimenting with something well beyond their right to study, and as such that information will be expunged. I expect that anything your contracted found that would detail such things shall also be destroyed.”

  “We didn’t get that far,” I reassured him easily. “The most we did was infiltrate and clash with a golem and some summoning traps. If there were notes or paperwork, we didn’t find anything.”

  “Good,” Cerebaton sighed again before looking up to meet my eyes. “I’m glad that you understand the immensity of what is going on here, Liam. The idea that a native species was not only experimenting with summoning magic that targeted entropic creatures, but also had somehow managed to get their hands on the material to trap them is bad enough. Add in the fact they managed to snatch a daemon? It makes me wonder how such a thing could have occurred.”

  The way that Cerebaton said that made a chill run down my spine, and I couldn’t just let it pass.

  “I get that you are upset, but can you elaborate there? You mentioned earlier that I was uniquely situated to understand a nonconsensual summon on this, which I get since that was basically what turned me into a Traveler after all. But the way you said that made it sound like…” I let the sentence trail off and Cerebaton took in a long and slow breath.

  “Like I expected something to intervene?” He asked, letting out his breath in a rush. I nodded and he glanced away for a moment before elaborating. “That is because I would expect something to intervene. Maybe something intervened.”

  “But what could—” I started to ask before snapping myself off. I didn’t need to ask that question out loud, because I already knew the answer.

  The DSR, or Dimensional Service and Repair, was established specifically to safeguard the dimensional membrane that kept the different realities separate. It was in that membrane that the daemons lived after all. I’d been told all this long ago, when Cariad had first introduced me to the concept and explained it all to me.

  I asked myself internally.

  Cerebaton gave me a single, slow nod without looking away, apparently able to read my thought process in my expressions.

  “It is likely exactly as you are thinking, Liam,” Cerebaton said quietly. “I cannot help but feel for the unfortunate in that cell, though. As from their positioning I have to assume they were left behind there, likely concealed in that illicit lab. I can only hope their passing was gentler than what would have happened if they had made it to that exam table.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said grimly.

  We sat there for several more moments in silence, both turning over the implications of what was going on in our heads. The System was something that the daemon’s progenitors had put into place, and was something even they did not fully understand. The extra-dimensional supercomputer that granted phenomenal cosmic power, at the low low price of not walking on the grass, had somehow directly intervened in a situation.

  , I thought silently. But my instincts said it had to be that. The System itself had spoken directly to me, given me quests and rewarded me for investigating things. It had directly asked me to find and destroy illicit research in that facility after all.

  

  

  

  

  As if it had been summoned by my thoughts, the message from the System burned its way across my vision, making me flinch.

  “Everything all right, Liam?” Cerebaton asked, tilting his head in concern.

  “Yeah… Just was surprised by something,” I said after a moment when the burning words faded from sight. I scrambled for a moment to find something to redirect the conversation to, the burning warning at the forefront of my mind until I hit something. “So Cari will let me know what she finds in the research?”

  Cerebaton grunted tiredly and nodded, pushing himself to his feet.

  “Yes, she will pass on what she believes to be important. I’m sure a bounty can be arranged for finding this information, though I’ll have to push a bit so it will take time. The higher-ups will be upset that the facility was cleansed, I think they were hoping to find and capture fragments of the… artifact you discovered at the previous location. This sobering reality will hopefully remind them that with bait comes a trap, and get the upper tiers to let us do our damn jobs.”

  “We can always hope,” I agreed without a problem. I’d never had to deal with C-suite executives, but Jameson had bitched about them often enough that I could feel bad for Cerebaton and Cariad for dealing with them.

  “I’ll leave you to it, Liam. You can fill your contracted in on what we found, so they understand the issue. Enjoy the down time with your contracted, keep training and growing. Once I have news on a bounty for your ‘freelance work’ here, I’ll let you know,” Cerebaton said tiredly before making a ripping gesture at the air next to him.

  The air parted, revealing a bland hallway beyond with beige carpets and an eggshell colored wall.

  “Make sure you take care of yourself, too, Cerebaton,” I reminded him as he stepped through the rent in reality. “If not for yourself, then for your employees. You can’t look out for them if you grind yourself to a nub.”

  “Will do, Liam,” Cerebaton replied without looking back, waving over his shoulder as the tear in reality sealed shut once more, leaving me alone in the inn room.

  I pondered, staring into the distance thoughtfully.

  I shivered again, despite the warmth of the room.

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