"I am glad to have the pressure of the dungeon off of my mind," Corey said the moment they were back in my core. I had returned the dungeon to my control and could again feel the strings connecting me to it.

"I, too, am happy to be back in the compass. I am surprised how well you handle the stress of being Dave's second core Corey," Gamma said as their form materialized next to Corey's.

"It is a high responsibility, and I do not take it lightly. I believe Dave is one of the keys to finding a way to help more of our kind," Corey replied.

"Guys, while I appreciate the compliment, let's not make me into some kind of dungeon core messiah, please. I've already got Traveler telling me I am something similar to one of you. Let's call that enough for now. Speaking of, Traveler, do you have a manifested form you can use to join us, or do you want me to unsocket you?" I asked after my uncomfortable words on how the cores had started to view me. I hoped they didn't try to make their divine being or anything similar.

"I can manifest, and later we need to work on young Alpha and Beta's manifestations as well. It will be best if they learn them sooner rather than later. It allows a dungeon core to somewhat be in two places at once, which I am sure you have all realized already," Traveler replied.

Their form appeared next to me. Similar to the other Traveler, in a geometric pattern, this one, though, looked like an octagon with two cones sprouting from what I thought was their upper area. It floated slightly off the ground, unlike Gamma and Corey, who used their legs. Was that something they could move past in the future?

"Ah, perfect. Well, follow me then," I said as I led them to the dining hall.

The smells of food hit me before I even opened the doors. It seemed like John and Rabyn had already gone to work. I hoped Rabyn didn't mind the number of new apprentices he was likely to gain. He had been reasonable so far, so I doubted he would be too upset. The Orc was incredibly pragmatic, so he would likely fully understand the need for more food preparation. Plus, this would help solve any of our potential food issues in the future, even if it did mean more mouths to feed in the here and now.

"Am I really the last one here?" I asked once I had closed the doors behind me and spotted everyone other than Trolke. While I liked the man, he wasn't really part of our Empire. At first, I thought the only newcomers to this meeting were Glunderlin and the other two librarians, but then I noticed the second Traveler's form resting on the table. I was glad someone had brought them along.

"Yes, you are. Now come get some food in you before we start your big secret meeting," Alex said, smiling.

"I don't know if it's that secret. However, I do want most of what we discuss to stay between this group for now. Especially since one of the discoveries pertains to Sanquar," I said, watching the bird's head instantly swivel toward me.

I purposely didn't follow up as I grabbed my seat and started on the rice dish in front of me. The sauce reminded me of curry, but not quite the same thing. I didn't know if it was something original based on the dish, or possibly a recipe from another world. Either way, it was another delicious dinner from the chefs, and I was happy to have it.

"I think I was very patient in letting you get that food down, but I really need to know what you found, Dave," Sanquar said. He had moved to a chair around the table in his excitement. Usually, he stayed in one of the stranger-shaped chairs along the walls.

"Yeah, that was a bit cruel of me, but Alex did demand I eat before talking," I said with a small smile on my face. While I had found it funny, I probably shouldn't have done it. "While we were evacuating the Archive world, we found a box in one of the apartments. It contained a diary of someone named Ronald Tammen, and he claimed to have been from Earth in it. I don't know if there is another planet named Earth or not, but some of what he described in my quick glances through it certainly sounded like here."

"There are a lot of planets that sound at least similar to Earth, an extremely high number. Generally, pronunciation is different, but spelling can often be the same. So we will need to dig deeper into what the man says in the journal. It does seem like a strange coincidence given Sanquar's quest for it not to be related," Pryte replied, pushing his bowl forward, only half eaten as he spoke.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Can we do that soon, please? I must know," Sanquar said, the tone of his words sounded like a desperate plea.

"Of course. Alex, any chance you want to give this a read-through and compare it as best you can to any landmarks or events on here?" I asked, looking at my daughter. One of us natives had to do it, and I just didn't have the time. I wasn't sure John or Maud did either, so it was either Alex or Grant, and I'd rather it be Alex.

"Yeah, of course. Hand it over," she said, stretching her hand out expectantly. I pulled it out of my System storage and passed it over. "Sanquar, after dinner, come join me in my room and we can start the process of comparing and contrasting what's in the book with the reality of our Earth."

"Thank you, Alex. I greatly appreciate it," he replied, his voice much calmer now.

"Now the bigger question, what do we do about the highways, and how do we handle our problem of being trapped here?" I asked.

"The next time we are on the Spire, we are going to have to look into a gate specialist. We can likely afford at least one hub, but we will need someone okay with us connecting to their world, and our options are pretty limited there," Pryte answered.

"Likely just the Golden Mountain Hammerfists," Mel added.

"That's fine with me. I've liked the interactions we've had with them, but what about the highways? How safe are we?" I asked.

"For the moment, we are fine. But this is a problem that will compound itself. Not only are the Reltleons in danger across the Spiral, but highways run very close to where the Spiral intersects chaotic space. They were built that way to keep them out of the deeper regions. If creatures such as what you encountered are coming closer to Spiral space, this is an escalation," The new Traveler, number twenty-nine, answered.

"I agree with my counterpart. We will need to seek out an engineer to ascertain just how bad the damage is and what is going on out there. I am worried about the ramifications to Hub City," Traveler Thirty-Two added.

"Finding an engineer isn't going to be easy. The last two I know of are working at the hub itself, and if other highways are crashing the same as this one, I have no idea how we will get there," Glunderlin said.

Rabyn wasn't sure what he had expected by Dave's off-world trip to steal some books and recruit a transport mage, but he was sure it hadn't been for him to return with a whole city of refugees. Not that he considered it a problem. No, this was just another sign of fate rigging the dice here. He could see that.

Suddenly, Rabyn had all the potential talent he needed for his plans. Gorpila was coming along incredibly well for so little time as well. All of the breads she had made had been fantastic so far, and even her attempts at tarts had gone well. Yes, one day she would be a pastry chef.

The fact that he was enjoying his new life so much was the biggest surprise twist to his own fate. Somehow, even the fighting had become meaningful to him. It turned out that when you actually cared about the cause, fighting to protect it became that much more fulfilling. And while he couldn't say he entirely backed all of the odd plans Dave had started to concoct, he did respect the man enough to back him. He wasn't ready to follow him into hell quite yet, chaotic space? Sure, but not hell.

Thinking of hell and fate brought his focus back to another problem altogether. He materialized the silver coin he had found in the Arena from his storage and looked at it again. It had three words on it. "All is not," which is three more than it had when he had found it. They have been slowly appearing, and not at any consistent rate that he could tell.

Considering the possible next words that could appear, it had been unnerving him since it settled on those three. What didn't make any sense at all to him was how it could be there. Floor Master would have been more direct, and likely wouldn't even have been able to get into the floor period. So who could?

As far as he knew, the only people capable of access a floor before it was initialized were the test staff and the System itself. The System should have wiped anything like the coin before the floor ran, so both possibilities seemed to be impossible. The problem there was that it left him no clue how it got there or whether it was even supposed to be found by him. How do you solve a puzzle with no information?

Perhaps it was time to bring the others into this strangeness, before the coin decided to make things worse.

One of the things that seems to make Olkerfins different from other species is their determination to maintain public academies on each of their planets. It is one of the unifying traits shared by the differing members of the species in the Spiral. Other factions rarely allow their members to attend such places due to the rigorous standards placed on the curriculum. But these standards have long helped the Olkerfins maintain their power despite remaining a rarer people within the greater Spiral. All Olkerfin, with few exceptions, are required to return home once a century to spend a decade as a teacher to the next generations about their experiences. This has greatly enhanced the education materials within the academies.

Olkerfins A People by Relna

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