We had apparently found our way to an old apartment building, much further away from the place we had started than the tunnel should have allowed. It looked like the pathways did something akin to a gate, but likely at much smaller distances. It was another thing I'd need to discuss with Quarilyn at some point, but now I was just glad to be free of the GPA headquarters.

From a window in a very dusty and entirely empty apartment, I could see some of the military action taking place across the city. Helicopters were constantly arriving and leaving the building. It reminded me of an angry beehive. Hopefully, much like bees, we had gotten far enough away to lose their attention for the moment.

The problem was Alexandria. I was worried about potential attempts at counterattacks on the city. I figured I had at least some time before they'd try anything, at least I hoped I did. They had to be focused on capturing me first, right?

"There's a parking garage next to this building. If we can get there, we should be able to meet your mantis friend without too much notice," Roberts said. He both sounded and looked exhausted.

"Have him get here as quickly as he can. But come into the city incognito if possible. I think it's best we avoid that fight," Pryte added.

"On it," I replied as I pulled up a chat window.

Dave: Okay, we should be safely away from their HQ for a bit. How quickly can Timon get here?

Karlinovo: He says if he flies straight to you an hour or so.

Dave: Have him fly to the city, but then drive to the parking garage near my location, and we will meet him there. I don't want any of the aircraft coming and going from spotting him.

Karlinovo: He says that's fine, but he's going to have to bring Chip.

Dave: Got it. I'll see them when they get here. I know it would make communication easier, but I want you to stay there. We are running thin on people to oversee things at this point, and are going to have to have some discussion on that when I get back.

Karlinovo: Had no intention of coming anyway. Need to get this soul knot stuff figured out. Were you able to get the pacemakers?

Dave: No, I wasn't. We will get them when I return, though. Roberts should be able to get us a contact.

Karlinovo: Good enough, I suppose.

Closing the chat window, I looked over at Pryte, who seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. "Timon is bringing Chip to speed up the travel. They should be here in a little over an hour. We can make our way to the garage once we are nearing the time. Ivan isn't coming, so communication with him won't work until we are face-to-face."

"Time to solve that problem when we return as well. I'm tired of our long-range communication issues," Pryte added.

I agreed entirely. Recruiting a few more scientists should help alleviate some of our technology debt there. There was only so much the few of us could handle at one time. We were likely going to need some volunteers to start working on their own cores as well, to give them a better understanding of how magic worked for their own projects.

The thing was, I wanted more than a few. With Roberts' help, my intention was to find everyone willing. Sure, that meant we'd almost certainly get a few spies, but I didn't care. That was always going to be a problem we couldn't easily solve as the empire grew, and it was better I accepted it now.

Sabotage was the real issue I foresaw. The potential of someone slowing us down, especially as our own needs were growing, would be a giant problem. It was something I planned to talk to Glunderlin about, since his people were very unlikely to be the source of our problems any time soon. It was, in theory, possible to work them into the research groups to watch out for potential problem people.

"When we get back, we need to plan out the dungeon delve," Pryte said, interrupting my train of thought.

"Damn, I entirely forgot about that with everything going on. How soon are they expecting us?" I asked, adding that worry to my plate.

"I just got a notice that the weather has shifted, so we should do it within the week. But we are going to have to rethink our delving group. Yorela was a big part of my contact there, and I'm not entirely sure how to replace her yet," he replied.

I knew the answer, at least as far as contacts went, and I needed to talk to her anyway. It wasn't fair to put off telling Laura about what had happened. I also wanted her help with the changes to Earth.

"We need to contact Laura when we get back. See if the Giants have her exact location. I think we are reaching a point where her skills are going to be far more needed," I said, looking at the former president for any reaction. I still wasn't sure exactly what kind of relationship he and my ex-wife had, but it had seemed close.

"Speaking of Laura, I'm somewhat surprised you haven't used her skills more here on Earth. She's incredibly good at negotiations," Roberts said, joining the conversation.

"As good as she is, you saw her frustrations with the GPA, the same as I did. Do you honestly think she was going to be able to make more headway there, considering where they seem to stand on what has happened?" I doubted he did, but my questions were also there to get a bit more information out of the man. There was a lot I needed to learn about him before I brought him completely into my zone of trust.

"Sadly, no, probably not. But she may have been able to get through to other old acquaintances towards ending the GPA. Though that assumes it's even realistically possible without what you will be doing anyway," he answered, with some defeat in his voice that matched a look on his face.

"As much as Laura may have tried to get me to understand this world over the years, I still have a lot of trouble even grasping the nuance of politics on this level. Why are they fighting so hard against me?" I bit my lower lip, frowning in annoyance after I asked the question. The act told me some of the earlier fun had given way to the usual dislike of the GPA.

What I had said also wasn't exactly true. I understood the different political systems out there, at least at a textbook level. These days, I even understood a lot of the people's motivations behind why they acted the way they did within them. Despite that, I didn't fully understand the fight here. Did they really expect whoever they were working with not to just betray them and take the planet for themselves? Assuming that was what was happening, I still wasn't entirely sure there.

"It's just power. Most things come down to that when you really start to dig into it. There are a lot of people on the planet who want to keep said power, and the invasion, plus subsequent shortage issues, barely affected them. What did affect them was your empire coming into existence and expecting to negotiate with the newly formed alliance as though you were an equal. That placed a lot of powerful people in a position where they either had to risk losing their fortunes and status or find a way to oppose you," Roberts answered.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Ah, so it's just more of the usual answer then. Those at the top think they should have whatever they want at the expense of those at the bottom," I replied. That was a reality I was familiar with, and one I would always hate. It was something I intended to push hard against.

It seemed there was one constant of reality that would never change, though. This push for power was something all the factions seemed to take part in. And it always led to horrific outcomes. Glorp, Mel, and the brothers were all examples of that.

"Welcome to the Spiral. I wonder if the idiots making those deals realize in the grand scheme of faction-level politics, they are the powerless," Pryte said, laughing just slightly as he did.

"Do they ever?" Roberts asked in return.

"No. They always think they are the ones who have some secret power figured out over the other one. Going to be interesting when we figure out who really wants Earth so badly, though. I still don't see why anyone cares to this level," Pryte replied.

I was glad he didn't toss any new theories out. We had plenty of those already. Whatever the bigger conspiracy play was, and even if it turned out to be multiple competing ones, we could deal with it once we had more evidence. And right now, collecting that evidence required a lot of work from Timon.

A new message window popped up as I was dwelling on that.

Unakite: The Earth speaks of expansion. The voices in the deep grow.

Karlinovo: Uh, what the hell is that?

Dave: I think it's the rock I just awakened. Didn't really realize it would have a connection to the soul chat, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Karlinovo: That doesn't sound normal. Did it speak like this outside the chat?

Dave: What should a newly awakened rock sound like? Because yes, this is what it's been like the whole time.

Unakite: Deep, deep within the rumbling, below the hot, something stirs in the core.

Karlinovo: Not like that. I've only experienced a few, but it's usually more like someone waking up from a nap that went much longer than they expected. That kind of confusion. Not odd prophetic ramblings.

Dave: Unakite, are you able to understand the questions I ask you?

Unakite: Deeper meanings are translated beyond the need to know, only the need to convey. The rock remembers all.

Dave: I don't know what that means.

Karlinovo: Neither do I, and I dislike it all the more.

Apollyon: What do you mean by the voices growing in the deep? Are you able to explain that?

Apollyon: I will take the silence as a no.

Dave: I'm not sure how fully awake it is yet. The description of the ability suggests it should calm down in the future. But I expect we will get a lot of these random messages until it does.

Karlinovo: We need to pay attention to them. There's something going on here, and I don't fully understand what yet.

Dave: Alright.

I closed the chat window after that strange exchange, and again wondered just what the dungeon energies were doing to the planet. I had a sinking feeling our temporary cure for the death curse was going to cause a much bigger problem down the line. But there was nothing I could do about that at the moment. Right now, it was the only thing we had keeping the curse under control until we could afford the help to truly remove it.

The rest of the next hour was spent mostly in silence. It seemed each of us had our problems to ponder. I hoped this excursion had helped Pryte take his mind off Yorela, but as it had done little for me and my worries, I doubted it had done much for him. I just had to comfort myself with the fact that Mel would do everything he could to bring them all back home alive.

"Let's head for the parking garage. I want to get back," I said, standing up and pushing my worries back down for the moment.

"Yeah, it looks like the activities at the HQ have calmed down anyway. Well, I should probably say former HQ. I can't imagine they will continue using it now," Roberts added.

"Stick close to me. I'm not Connie, but I should be able to keep us blending in a bit as we leave the building," Pryte said as we stepped into the elevator and headed down to the main floor.

Considering the main floor of the building was still just as empty as it had been when we first entered, I was a bit surprised that the power to the building was still turned on. It likely meant the GPA had plans for it, but I wasn't sure it really mattered what those plans were. Outside the building was a different story.

Tons of people were on the street, likely worried about another attack, given what had just happened at the HQ. It made it much easier for us to pass through the crowds undetected as we made our way to the parking garage.

While Pryte and Roberts looked the same to me as they had before, I assumed based on the lack of reactions that that wasn't true for anyone else. I figured at least someone would recognize the former president, and even if Pryte could pass for human, it still seemed likely he would draw a strange glance or two. None of that came.

As we entered the parking garage, a bright red firetruck honked at us. In the driver's seat sat a man I had never seen before. Actually, no, he was wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt. It seemed Timon had a means of camouflaging the bus. Pryte had immediately turned toward the honk, making me wonder if he could see through it.

Once we were within a few feet of the truck, the familiar design of the bus overtook the image in my vision. The door slid open, and the smiling form of Timon looked right at us. "Glad to see you're all still alive. Now get on and let's get back. And don't think I'm not annoyed at missing all the fun."

Karlinovo

He wished Dave had been able to get the pacemakers. The problem of locking those four away long-term was more than just an ethical one. Whatever the soul knots did exactly, they had no way of knowing, and even his enhanced defenses in the room were only his best guesses.

When you factored in their soul chat, it was entirely possible the jesters operated on similar wavelengths as well. Their control of soul channeling would suggest as much. There were so many new unknowns in this faction that he could hardly believe his workload. More surprisingly to him was how much he continued to enjoy it, despite the extreme dangers.

Hell, they had just survived an invasion. One where he specifically had given in to the idea of a hero's end. What the hell had changed since his resurrection? Were some of these people just infectious? Or was it possible the fear of death didn't weigh as strongly on someone's mind once it failed to stick the first time? Would he be as lucky a second?

These thoughts ran through his mind unabated as he made his way to check in on two of his newer allies. These two men had impressed him greatly. And while they were not exactly friends or peers just yet, he could see them growing in that direction over the next century.

"Bert, how are you feeling?" Karlinovo asked as he checked in on the two men who had nearly died alongside him. He was going to need both of their help soon to work on the new mystery of whatever that rock had been talking about. For some reason, he couldn't get the strange words out of his head, and that worried him.

"Not as bad as I think I should. I mean, I once broke my arm, and it took months to heal right. We all nearly died, and I can already walk on my own again," he replied, grimacing as he spoke.

Karlinovo was sure that it was a memory of just what they had been through resurfacing. That was something he also didn't like to remember, either. Had the jesters just ripped through them with magic, well, he likely wouldn't have the new images he was sure would become lifelong nightmares. The teeth that they had used to dig into his flesh, pulling him back from the gate, was something that was hard to forget.

"Likely the best that can be hoped for. And Johan?" he asked, turning to the man in the bed on the other side of the room. He added building a bigger medical facility to the needs of the city. These rooms were not big enough for two people to share together for extended periods, and thanks to the wounded, some rooms had three people in them.

"Better than Bert, I think, but still not great," he answered. Karlinovo wasn't sure he actually was better, but wasn't going to push the issue.

"Well, glad to hear you're both on the mend, because we've got a lot of work ahead of us. Dave awakened a weird rock, and it's been saying some things that have me worried. So gentlemen, I'm going to need both of you to start working on a way to get us to the center of the planet."

This will be my final entry into the book. I believe I have learned the secret of the mushrooms, but at the cost of my very soul. For all that come after me, it is important that you not chase after my discoveries. They have soul forges. The dwarfs are fueling them with the mushrooms, and those of our young who survive the depths. The creations are works of horror not fit for anyone to witness.

I have done my best to put an end to them, but I believe it will only be temporary at best. Given the monstrous deeds they have put even our souls into, perhaps it is best our people meet their end all the sooner. I do not believe we will ever be ready to face what the Dwarfs have done to us. Even now, the poison works its way through my body, but its goal has already been done. My corrupted soul has ruined their forges.

The Book of the Twinoges by Twinoge Scribe #2 (Alim)

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.