Chapter 64: Chapter 60: The Dungeon’s Circumstances

Owen stared apprehensively at the orb in his hands, a glowing arrow pointing towards his destination. It had first appeared when he was supposedly two hundred and fifty miles out, and as he followed it, it had gotten larger. According to the instructions he had been given, it was currently large enough that he was only one mile away.

To his surprise, the initial model of orb he had been given had worked as advertised; this spot was roughly a thousand miles away from where he had first picked up a signal. But, as he had feared, he was indeed given charge of the expedition force that had been sent out. The force itself was small, a five person team of elites, just big enough to have some measure of safety against the regular Spine monsters, but just small enough to be fast and not very noticeable.

Most concerningly of all, though, the trip over had been easy. He was well aware that the danger of the Spine was not in its rank and file monsters, though those were indeed stronger than most anywhere else, it was in the big things. All sorts of nasty things had been reported as living in the Spine, and their expedition team hadn’t seen one of them.

To some, that might have been comforting, but Owen knew better; he knew Amelia. He had, for a time, been one of her teachers at the academy, and between that and the reports that were given about her…extracurricular activities, he knew she was something of a mad scientist.

So, here he was, approaching the base of a Hero gone rogue, one who liked to experiment with all sorts of things, and he had encountered abnormally low resistance on the way over. There was really only one option, and it was that all the threats were here, lying in wait.

But brooding over it any longer was going to be counterproductive. As such, he and his team were inching ever closer to Amelia, moving along a mountain wall and watching the arrow carefully, until, at last, the direction it was pointing began to change quickly, indicating that they were close.

Owen signaled for a halt, scanning the cliff face. And, after a moment, it became clear; though attempts had obviously been made to disguise it, there was a cave opening in the wall, right where the arrow was pointing. He motioned for his team to move forward as he carefully hacked away at the obscuring brush, opening a path large enough for a person to slip through.

They descended into the cave, and, to Owen’s shock, what awaited them was not a lab or Amelia, but a portal, swirling ominously in front of them. He bit a knuckle, thinking for a moment, then resignedly signaled for his team to move through it with him. Bracing for the worst, he stepped through the portal, and…into a recreation of the academy campus?

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