"I'm telling you it just opened on its own," one of the guards said frantically.

"Does the Traveler working the gate agree?" I asked. I had no idea who they specifically had as I had only met Traveler Thirty-Two, but that implied there were at least thirty-one others.

"I do," said a purple cone that had suddenly appeared floating in front of me.

"I assume you are the Traveler core in your manifested form?" I asked, looking them over. There was no face at all on the cone, and the voice had seemed to just emanate from the shape. Did all the Traveler cores form something similar?

"I am, I am Traveler Twenty Nine, and I am glad that if we have to flee this world, it is to one friendly to dungeon cores. But to the point at hand. The chaotic space horror was able to use the trace mana signatures to force the gate back open. I do not know that I am strong enough to stop it from happening again," the core replied.

"Would another core help?" I asked. I was sure Beta would be glad to do so. Likely overly so.

"Perhaps," they replied.

>Dave: Beta, are you okay if I leave you in an attempt to hold the Traveler's Gate closed?

>Beta: To defend the Empire, I will do whatever you order!

>Dave: Thank you. Let me know immediately if anything strange happens.

>Beta: Strange how?

>Dave: If the gate still opens, anyone trying to open it, any monsters showing up, or anything like that, tell Beta or me immediately.

>Beta: But I can still fight them, too, right?

>Dave: Yes. But we need to know in order to join in the defense.

>Beta: For the Empire!

"Okay, I'm leaving Beta here in one of the other sockets," I said as I drew Beta out of the box cutter and placed them temporarily into one of the empty ones. I waited briefly to see if they manifested anything, but nothing appeared. That was something to work on with them and Alpha when we returned, then.

With that mostly settled for the moment, we made our way back to the mayor's office for more planning. Plus, I had a few questions. Very little of what I had read in the Archives had to do with chaotic space. All I really knew were the basic ideas of it. It's an area outside the influence of the Spiral, and extremely dangerous.

To my surprise, we were led to a larger room when we returned. Apparently, Pryte had decided we needed to get some food into us while we discussed the plans. He wasn't wrong, but I hadn't expected it at all. And considering the fight I had just been in, I likely needed food far more than the rest of the group.

"We have a problem," Yorela said as she slammed the skull of the creature down onto the table. The jaw quivered just slightly. Despite everything we had done the damn thing was still alive. Well, assuming you could call it life anyway. It was still functional was probably the better way to view it. That explained the lack of experience notification from the fight.

"Uh, does that have to be on the table?" Glunderlin's words were hard to understand through the fear in his voice.

"No, but sometimes I like being dramatic. If you all are planning to get us all out of here through the highways, well, these nightmares are about to be a giant problem toward that end," she replied, moving the skull to the ground before sitting down.

"Okay, before we fully get to that problem, I've got some other questions I need answered. Most of my earlier time in the archives was spent learning about what I thought directly impacted Earth the most, which means a ton of unknown unknowns have become known unknowns, if you understand what I'm saying," I said before reaching down and breaking off a piece of what looked like bread. While it was crustier than I would have liked, the flavor was surprisingly savory.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Not really, but go on anyway," Pryte said in between bites of his own meal.

"So I know we need access to some kind of travel for our faction between the Spiral and our universe, but most factions aren't using the highways, so how exactly is that working for them?" I asked. I assumed it had something to do with the porter and the way Pryte could get back and forth to the Spire, but I figured it had to be bigger than that.

"Oh, that's simple enough. Most factions, as they grow, start their own transport network. There are a few factions that also rent out their networks, which is probably going to be a thing we have to look into until we can assess the damage to the highway. Not that that was always going to get us everywhere easily. You went through one of them when you entered the Archives the first time," Pryte answered.

That made a lot of sense now that he said it. It wasn't as though I had forgotten the experience of how I had gotten to the Archives. It was more that my brain disliked thinking of how it felt during those times. Too much fear and anxiety had overwhelmed a lot of my ability to understand what was happening around me well.

"I assume that's going to cost credits we still don't have, though?" I asked. We were going to have to find a solution for getting something into our coffers eventually.

"Yes, it will, and I don't have any good ideas to solve that yet either," Pryte responded, and then immediately downed the rest of a bowl of soup.

"Well, then, my other big question. I don't fully understand chaotic space. Why does it exist? What is it?" I asked, not really sure he would have an answer to the second question.

"Chaotic space is something that pushes against universes in the Spiral, slowly ripping free parts of them and adding to its own space. Factions can fight against this, and usually do with ease, but considering the size of a universe, they can rarely be everywhere, and this is especially true for newly integrated universes," Pryte replied.

"The actual answer is no one knows what chaotic space is, why it seems to feed off integrated universes or how the fuck the things that appear in it do so," Yorela added harshly. The topic didn't seem to be one she was big on.

"What neither of them really wants to say is that chaotic space is a topic that scares a lot of the Spiral. It's a place full of amazing resources due to the weird nature of mana flows there, but it's incredibly dangerous. Despite that, there are whole civilizations that live within it, choosing to avoid the Spiral entirely," Elody said before I could follow up with another question.

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, putting my forehead in my hand. I could feel some bubbling anxiety as I realized the implication of what Pryte had said earlier. "Does this mean my universe is already losing parts of itself to chaotic space?"

"Yes."

"No."

Yorela and Pryte had both answered at the same time. While I hoped Pryte was the one with the right answer, that was rarely the way things went. "Okay, Elody, could you clear this up, please?" I asked, turning my head to her.

"We don't know. The problem here is again one of size. We don't know when it starts, because the parts just vanish off into chaotic space once the tear is big enough. Until the mana flow spreads out throughout more of your universe, detecting it will be near impossible, but once that happens, we can begin to fight it off and close the tears," she replied.

"So, another thing to look forward to then?" I asked, frustrated with the levels upon levels of problems.

"Potentially. We will need to start organizing teams to deal with things. You can't be expected to handle everything personally," Pryte replied.

I sighed loudly, but decided not to ask anything else. I instead started really digging into the food in front of me. We had enough problems at this exact moment, and my stomach wanted me to solve at least one before I continued adding to my stress levels. The strange soup had a texture like a stew, but reminded me more of tomato soup. Dipping the bread into it was an incredible combination. I was going to have to ask John to learn how to make these once we were back.

"Back to the problem at hand," Yorela started to speak, and then wiped some of the soup off her face onto her sleeve before continuing. "If these things are already trying to force their way into this universe, that means there will be more out there waiting for us. We do not have the means to kill them. You saw what it took just to put this one down temporarily, so how exactly do we all intend to get out of here now?"

"We fight our way through, not much of a choice is there?" Cecile responded. I appreciated the simplicity in his answer, even if it wasn't good enough at the moment. Just because I didn't like the reality of her words didn't mean I didn't respect the truth of them.

"Yeah, we might make it back with half the fleet that way, if we're lucky, and I'm not even sure all of us will be there with them. Dwarf bard, what kind of music do you know?" Yorela asked, looking up from her food at the face of a very annoyed Connie.

"I'll have you know I'm Constance Aurelia V, and I am far more than a simple bar…" She started to reply, but was cut off by the booming voice of Mel entering the room.

"Good news fer once, everyone. I've got Grant ready to help us clear a path home!"

One of the better dishes I've tried from the Reltleon cuisine is something they call Highway Pot. It's a stew served with a hearty bread. But the real trick to this stew is that it is a perpetual one that has been continually cooking since the death of their world. New ingredients are constantly added to the central pot. And all new pots of it are started from the original one that was saved. It is considered a great honor to be served one of these meals. It took me years to befriend one of the families before I was allowed to touch it. While I recommend everyone try it if they can, that may not be feasible for most.

Dangerous, Secret, and Lost Foods by Tony Dainour

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