Today's Earth date: November 17, 1991

I just want to get to Iomallach. The faster we get to the city, the sooner we can have an actual rest.

But Horcus. Mother fucking Horcus. We're in the middle of nowhere, and he's found a sidequest. We met a young hunter. She needs help retrieving a specific herb or fruit or something.

Horcus thinks she's cute, and he says sidequests can have the best loot, so we should always take them.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

"Yes, please, come in, everyone," Perris said, holding the door open to Seaview Art and Antiquities for Wayne and the Zeroes.

Sammy and Fergus went first, followed by the rest of the party, Wayne going in last.

"Master Samuel," Perris said with a bow and a flourish, "Welcome to my humble gallery. My assistant will guide you on a private tour, but you are under no schedule or obligation. Spend as much time as you like with any particular piece, and we'd be happy to answer all of your questions."

Sammy's mouth hung open. He was transfixed by the paintings on display. Wayne smiled as Fergus gently guided Sammy toward the nearest piece to begin their tour. While the rest of the party joined Sammy, Wayne followed Perris into his office.

"This was no small feat," Perris said, opening a desk drawer. "The wealthy covet these items. Anonymity can be hard to come by for them otherwise."

The elf produced a small jewelry box and gently opened the lid. A silver chain with a white medallion rested on soft velvet. The medallion, strangely, was entirely plain. It had no etchings or jewels or decorative touches whatsoever. It looked like a bar coaster had been strung onto a necklace.

"The wearer can activate the illusion with mental intention," Perris explained. "For the best results, they should picture the disguise they wish to adopt as vividly as possible. The more detail, the more convincing the illusion. The greatest limitation is that the illusion isn't quite instant."

Perris put on the necklace.

"I have activated the illusion magic, but I remain unchanged to your eye, yes?"

Wayne said that was true. Perris still looked like Perris.

"One moment."

He stepped outside the office, shut the door, and opened it again to re-enter. Wayne saw a dashing young warrior with long brown hair step into the office. Perris' blue skin and pointy ears were gone, replaced by human features.

"The illusion magic cannot take hold while under direct observation. Line of sight must be broken for the disguise to take effect."

Wayne chuckled. The magic was convincing. "So who is this, then?" Wayne asked.

"Why, I am Laszlo the Paladin, of course." Perris grinned.

"Ha!" So he was. Wayne had only ever seen the Hero depicted in drawings and paintings. Now that Perris had named him, Wayne saw the likeness of Laszlo clearly.

Perris lifted the necklace from his neck–making Wayne realize that it had disappeared from view with the illusion as well. The elf's movements looked like pantomime at first, but when the chain cleared Perris' head, he flashed back to his usual self.

"Wow," Wayne said. "Does it need mana or some kind of charge to work?"

Perris shook his head. "High-end enchantments like this tap into the wearer's mana pool. It will automatically syphon mana while the illusion is active, but the magic is incredibly efficient. An untrained mage can wear an illusion indefinitely with no issue. The only time you'll have problems is if you are actively casting."

With the necklace back in its box, Perris gently closed and latched the lid.

"Thank you for this," Wayne said, "and thank you for being so welcoming to Sammy."

"Seems like a kind lad."

"He'll probably send you cookies after to thank you himself."

Perris smiled. "I'd be delighted to receive such a gift."

While Wayne used his Bank skill to withdraw gold for Perris, the elf asked about his travel plans.

"We're departing for Iomallach in a few days. We'll stop in Asplugha for a little bit on the way, but not long."

"I will miss your visits," Perris said. "I'm grateful for the excitement you have brought me in these past weeks."

"We'll be back through, eventually."

"I often visit Taluprom," Perris said. "If you make your way across the ocean, ask after me. If I'm in town, I would welcome the opportunity to speak and do business again."

"I'll do that. Thank you."

Wayne quietly joined the gallery tour. Perris' public collection was sizable but not to the scale of a museum on Earth. The full tour wouldn't take long, but Wayne didn't mind waiting the rest of the day if he needed to. Sammy was loving every minute of it. Wayne had no desire to cut that short, even by a second.

After Hector's fishing trip, Armond asked if he could change his answer. Fighting a boat-eating sea monster was enough fishing excitement for him. Wayne said not to worry if it took time. The cleric would have their entire stay in Asplugha to think about if he wanted. Walking empty ruins wasn't going to be exciting.

When they finally arrived at the Asplugha dig site, Wayne wasn't so sure he was right about the walk being unexciting. The whole camp was transformed.

The small fortified camp had the dreary hopelessness of a war-ravaged village when the party first visited. The few people they met had dour expressions, and a defeated silence hung over the camp. Now, workers of all kinds moved about with notebooks and maps, deep in conversation about findings and theories. The back gate was rebuilt for ease of access to the ruins, and Wayne could hear the sounds of hammers at work at the dungeon entrance.

"Ms. Galleia should have received payment terms some time ago," Penelope said when she approached the party. "I can't do anything to hurry that along from here."

"Thank you, but all of that's settled," Wayne answered. "We've been paid in full."

"I see. Then what brings you back?"

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"A certain… curiosity."

Penelope's eyebrow lifted and a smile curled her lips. Her cheeks betrayed a light flush. "Oh? What might that curiosity be?"

"Nothing significant," Wayne said. "We'd just like to do another walk through the ruins."

Penelope rolled her eyes. "Yes, sure, fine. Don't disturb or move anything, please."

"Of course not."

As the party followed a soldier to their temporary accommodations, Fergus elbowed Wayne. "Why do you enjoy tormenting that girl so?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's throwing herself at you, again," Margo answered. Fergus nodded that she was correct.

"No, she's not."

"Sure is," Margo insisted. "She was all over you on our first visit too."

"Really?"

"You really think she followed you back to the inn to talk about research?"

"...Yes."

"Our leader is hopeless," Fergus said. "No point in trying to save him now."

Wayne looked around at the other party members. They all said they agreed with Margo. It was obvious, painfully so.

"I never got that sense," Wayne said.

"Clearly," Margo replied. The rest of the party, minus Wayne, laughed.

As they picked beds in their dorm, Fergus added, "He's in love with an elf, anyhow. That will take a few hundred years for him to get over."

Hector and Armond laughed.

"An elf? Really?" Margo asked.

"No, not really," Wayne said, scowling at Fergus. "We had one date."

"One very successful date," Fergus clarified.

"I think she's pretty incredible, yes, but I know this isn't love. I was like that in my previous life. I was always too quick to fall for a girl."

Margo smiled. "So you are smitten with her then?"

"No. I mean, kind of, but it was a nice night. That's all."

Armond said it was normal to be taken with an elf maiden. They had quite the power over humans. Wayne tried to argue that he wasn't taken nor was he influenced by any power, but he gave up. The Zeroes weren't going to go easy on him. The more he resisted, the harder this would be.

"I'm going to sleep," he said.

The ruins still smelled like dead ratmen. The excavation team had a burn pile not far from the entrance where they stacked bodies for disposal, but days had passed since the Zeroes cleared the dungeon. Anything brought out now was well-into the decomposition process, breaking into wet, putrid clumps if handled too roughly.

The party intended to use Margo's Prism ability to search for more hidden rooms, but they agreed to start at the bottom and work their way up. If these ruins were like Julian's tomb or the Water Temple, the most interesting finds would be on the lowest floor, if there were finds to be had at all.

As they descended, Margo drifted to the back to speak quietly with Wayne.

"I didn't mean to upset you yesterday," she said.

"You didn't. I know it's in good fun."

"Still. It's sweet to find someone you enjoy spending time with." Margo's eyes looked lost in a memory as she spoke. "Even if it's not love."

"In my old life," Wayne began, "I could fall in love with a girl walking by me on the street. My imagination would extrapolate this vivid story of who she was and what she was like, and boom, in love. Then she'd turn the corner and I'd never see her again."

"That sounds like every young man, to be honest."

"I was the only kid writing love poems to girls," Wayne said. "I promise I was worse than the average boy."

"Love poems sound nice."

"Maybe here, they do. On Earth, poetry was not the move I hoped it was. At any rate, I know I'm not in love with Sheeri. We had a nice time, I'd do it again, but that's it. One nice date is not enough for me to say I'm in love."

"Anymore."

Wayne laughed. "Yes, anymore. Trying to learn my lessons, you know?"

Margo said she did. "May I give you some advice? I know it's not my place."

"Please do."

"Don't make the mistake of closing off the possibility completely," she said. Her eyes seemed heavy, distant. "If you find someone you enjoy spending time with, let yourself enjoy it. Don't let something arbitrary take that time from you."

"You must miss him," Wayne said.

"I do. He wasn't perfect, and we had our problems, but I thought we had time to figure it out."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"Yeah, me too." Margo wiped her eyes and excused herself to rejoin the party. Mostly she seemed to want to separate from Wayne to avoid embarrassing herself. Wayne could understand her discomfort and let her have her space.

Like any return trip to a dungeon, the walk back to the bottom was dull and uneventful. The expedition's progress was clearly visible, however. Where the ratmen bodies had been cleared, the researchers divided the floor into quadrants and labeled each room with its own reference number, a small chalkboard propped up on a stand by its door.

At one point, they passed a team of artists recreating every panel of a mosaic in their sketchbooks. Based on how thorough the research looked so far, Wayne suspected they would record every piece of art in the ruins, no matter how banal a particular piece might appear. Kryss was undoubtedly committed to her hobby, and she seemed adamant about process, both in terms of preservation and record-keeping.

She could have had quite the archaeology career on Earth, Wayne thought.

The research team in the boss room was minimal at present, six students and one supervisor measuring and recording every detail of every surface. While Fergus greeted them, Margo quietly confirmed the existence of a hatch, tucked into a corner like the one they found in Julian's tomb.

Intent on keeping knowledge of those hidden passages a secret for now, the party made camp in a nearby vacant room and waited for the research team to break for the day. The Zeroes rotated watch until Hector gently roused everyone, saying the coast was clear.

This hatch opened with the same simple combination sequence as the tomb hatch, so the party forewent chalking its location and the runes around it. Wayne chuckled to himself at the thought of an ancient race of extinct super builders reusing passwords. They dropped down into the secret room and closed the hatch behind them.

Looking about with his Light spell activated, Fergus frowned.

Like the tomb, this room had nine pedestals spaced evenly throughout. One Diagnostic Cube was present, but it appeared to have fallen off its perch and cracked on the ground. Fergus confirmed it was an Access cube, the one that controlled the barrier and its permissions.

Unlike the tomb, the pedestal room split off into four others, all with walls of brick, suggesting that this dungeon was more complete than where they had found Julian.

"Contact!" Hector yelled. Wayne didn't see red on his HUD.

The party formed up on the tank and followed him into one of the side rooms. This room was filled with bones, some the size of a human, but most looking progressively larger, dwarfing the size of the Skeleton Lord's bones even. A long stone table was empty save for a bowl of bone meal–confirmed with Resource Values–a mallet, a chisel, and what looked like the bones of a human. The femur was noticeably incomplete, like a half-finished sculpture.

When none of the bones moved, Hector lowered his shield and sheepishly apologized for the false alarm. Wayne said he would have made the same call if he saw the bones first. Better safe than sorry.

Fergus, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically quiet. Wayne knew that meant the old scholar was occupied with a mental puzzle, so he didn't bother his friend.

Resource Values.

Forgemaster Hammer. Average value of [no sales data available].

Forgemaster Chisel. Average value of [no sales data available].

Forgemaster Work Bench. Average value of [no sales data available].

The other three rooms weren't as interesting as the bone room, but seemed notable nonetheless. One looked like storage for Diagnostic Cubes and their swappable faces, akin to the cubes they found in Julian's personal chambers. Another room had four beds of dwarven proportions. Each was accompanied by a nightstand, but there were no other objects in that room otherwise.

The final room had floor plans carved into the wall, like permanent blueprints. The layout matched the maps on Wayne's HUD perfectly. These definitely referred to the dungeon they now stood within. Dwarvish script, this batch looking far more informal than the script they had observed thus far, appeared throughout the plans like they were notes or labels.

Wayne quickly determined these were the same characters from Julian's tomb, the ones they had not yet been able to translate.

For all of the unusual items and structures the party found in those rooms, one concerned Wayne the most: the ratman tunnel that broke through the wall of the blueprint room.

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