Chapter 226 - Lateral Move (Patreon)

"Flip a coin," Teilon said.

"What?" Reivyn asked, shifting his focus over to his friend.

"There's only so many directions we can choose," Teilon explained. "If we don't know the right way, just pick one at random." Teilon shrugged. Reivyn quirked an eyebrow. "You have the highest Luck Stat out of all of us, so it would make sense for you to do it."

"That's not how the Luck Stat works," Kefira rolled her eyes. "Sure, it has an influence on random chance, sometimes, but you're just as likely to not initiate any kind of influence from the Stat at all."

"Yeah, yeah," Teilon waved his hand dismissively. "We'll just have everybody do it, then. Whichever side gets the most tosses, especially if it's consistent among those with higher Luck, that's the winner."

"I guess that makes sense," Reivyn said.

"Exactly. What could go wrong?"

"What could go wrong, he says," Reivyn gave Teilon a deadpan look. "You're right. The Outside isn't all that dangerous. There's just no atmosphere or gravity, but that can be overcome with our Stats, Skills, and Magic. The only real danger - just a tiny, teensy, itty-bitty danger - is if we attract an invulnerable, immortal, soul consuming monster." Reivyn shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Hardly any danger at all, if you think about it."

Teilon stared at Reivyn for a moment, waiting for him to crack a smile at his joke.

"Wait. Are you serious?" Teilon asked with a little less confidence.

"Oh sure," Reivyn nodded his head. "I've encountered a couple of them. Made it through without a scratch."

Teilon gulped.

"Ok, maybe let's think about it a little more," Teilon said. "What if we try and float in a direction and see if there's any change in how the veil feels?"

Kefira shook her head.

"It might seem like that would work, but the veil extends infinitely in every direction," Kefira said.

"How does that work? Isn't the veil like a membrane surrounding the Realm?" Teilon asked, confused. "If I remember correctly, aren't Dungeons bubbles that exist kind of on the outside of the Realm, attached to the perimeter? How do we cross an infinite distance every time we enter a Dungeon? Also, didn't you just say that you felt like you could pierce the veil easily?"

"That's a good question," Kefira said. "The difference is that we're inside the veil. The environment is made up of pure Space Mana. Sure, I could pierce the veil anytime I want using my own Space Mana, but piercing the veil and traveling inside here are two different things.

"The veil is like an infinite point. A point is a one-dimensional object, but there's an infinite number of fractions within the point. What's half of one?"

"Point five," Teilon replied.

"And half of point five is point two-five. We could go on and on and on forever, dividing up the point. On paper, they're fractions. It's a real number; however, inside the veil, those real number fractions are natural numbers to all of us while we're inside the veil."

Teilon shook his head and waved his hand.

"You lost me at point two-five," Teilon said. "I'm not a thinker. I'm a doer."

"It's a good thing you have all of us to do the thinking for you," Kimberly nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Exactly," Teilon said, throwing his arm around Kimberly's shoulder. "All of you do the thinking."

"You're the one who asked," Reivyn pointed out.

"Aha! And there lies my genius. I asked to get all of you to think about it. Giving me an explanation just crystallizes your thoughts."

Reivyn narrowed his eyes at his friend, but he couldn't think of a proper rebuttal to his statement.

"Any~way," Reviyn turned his focus back to Kefira and motioned for her to continue.

"Yes, well, when we're inside the point, traveling is a manifestation of the infinite fractions. We can float forward for a million years and never get any closer to our destination."

"But wait, that doesn't make any sense, either," Teilon interjected. "We use the teleport corridors all the time to move great distances. That contradicts what you just said."

"No, it doesn't," Kefira shook her head. "When we use a teleport corridor or teleportation, we're tethered to the Realm. It turns the point into a line, and we just travel along the line. Without a tether, we're just inside the point."

"Ok~ay. I guess that makes sense?" Teilon scratched his head. "Sooo... we still have to flip a coin?"

Reivyn looked at everyone in turn. Nobody else seemed to have any other ideas, including Kefira. He shrugged once again.

"Looks like it," he said. "Let's just hope we get the right side."

Reivyn pulled a coin out from his pouch. He gestured for everyone else to pull out their own coin, as well. He showed one side, and everyone matched his facing.

"This is heads. If it lands on this, we'll..." Reivyn stopped and looked all around. "Wait, how do we know which way to even choose? We have up and down, left and right, front and back, and everything in between. Which way leads to out of the veil in either direction?"

"Doesn't matter," Kefira said. "Think of it like we're inside the edge of a piece of paper. We would have to pierce exactly, perfectly along the horizontal line to not pierce through one side or the other, and I can kind of sense where that is. Anything deviating even the smallest amount will pierce through to the other side. Just pick a direction for one side of the coin, and we'll go with the exact opposite direction for the other side."

"Good enough for me. Just for simplicity, Heads will be straight up, and Tails will be straight down. One, two, three, flip!"

Reivyn tossed his coin up, keeping a careful eye on the coin as it flipped end over end. It would be annoying to miss catching it... and just as he thought that, he noticed Teilon miss his coin out of the corner of his eye. Reivyn caught his and turned to his friend, eyebrows raised. Teilon scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile on his face.

"I got distracted," he said. He pulled another coin out and flipped it, catching it easily as everyone else watched.

"Ok... I got tails," Reivyn announced.

"Heads," Teilon said.

"Tails," Refix said.

"Tails," Kefira answered.

"Tails," Kimberly concurred.

There was silence for a moment as everyone turned to look at Serilla. Her mouth turned into a line as she glanced at her coin again.

"...Heads," she finally said with an exasperated sigh.

Kefira looked back and forth between Serilla and Teilon, a small smile forming on her lips.

"I wonder what this says about you," she snickered.

"Hey, now! What's that supposed to mean?" Teilon said, hands on hips with an offended look on his face. He turned to Serilla as everyone else chuckled. "Don't listen to them. We're just the 'head' of the Party."

Reivyn guffawed.

"Sure, let's assign the rogue and the girl who never talks as 'heads' of the Party," Reivyn rolled his eyes.

"I talk!" Serilla defended herself.

"To Kefira."

"That's talking!"

"Sure. By the way, Teilon... 'head' of the Party? That was a terrible pun."

"I didn't have much to work with," Teilon shrugged.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Kefira asked.

"I'm good," Teilon said

 Kimberly nodded her head, still standing with Teilon's arm over her shoulder. Kefira looked around to the others, and everyone nodded their heads.

"Ok, here we go."

Kefira built up the Mana within her and concentrated. Reivyn watched the Mana shift to Space Mana within her control, but something was tickling the back of his mind. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, though.

Reivyn frowned as Kefira pulled the Space-attuned Mana out and began to manipulate it.

Wait a second... a thought coalesced in Reivyn's mind.

"Wait!"

But it was too late. Kefira drilled her Mana into the "ground" beneath their feet. A portal immediately formed and widened, but nobody had time to look through it to see what was on the other side, and Reivyn didn't have time to parse what his Divine Sense was telling him. A tremendous force dragged all of them through the portal at high speed, catching everyone by surprise.

Reivyn found himself immediately submerged in water. His Divine Sense showed him that everyone had been dragged through the tear in reality just fine, but the shock of suddenly being underwater must have broken Kefira's concentration. The portal winked out of existence, and Reivyn connected to everyone with a Mana thread.

"Everyone calm down," he subvocalized. "We're only about twenty feet under the surface. Just follow me."

He kicked his feet and launched himself upward. It took a short moment for everyone to recognize what he said, but they all stopped flailing around and followed him up. Reivyn broke the surface and took in a breath shortly followed by everyone else.

Reivyn looked all around. The edges of wherever they had ended up was outside his Divinse Sense range, so he had to visually inspect. The area was very dark with a familiar ethereal glow slightly illuminating the surroundings. He inspected all around and realized they were in some sort of cave.

"First off, we're in a Dungeon," Reivyn announced. He kept his mind focused on his Divine Sense in case any monster encroached on their position from either underwater or from above, but so far there was nothing. "Secondly, we're in an underground cave. Let's find solid ground first, then we'll come up with a plan."

"Sounds good," Teilon said.

"Before that," Kefira interjected, "what were you going to say earlier? I thought I heard you yell 'wait' before we got sucked into this Dungeon."

"Oh yeah. It just occurred to me that we didn't have to guess at all. You could have just pierced both sides at the same time, and we could have inspected either side." Reivyn shrugged. "It would have also probably stabilize the pressure, and we wouldn't have been sucked into this Dungeon unexpectedly."

Kefira just stared at him for a moment.

"Why didn't I think of that?" She frowned and started mumbling to herself as she contemplated the issue.

"I'll keep my Mana thread attached to everyone so we can communicate from a distance. Let's split up so we can find that ground as quick as possible."

Everyone nodded and then turned around, separating into various directions. Reivyn swam in a random direction at an angle between Refix and Kefira. Serilla was on the other side of Kefira, followed by Kimberly with Teilon nearby. Vyria and Xudrid stayed together between Refix and Teilon.

Reivyn used his Eagle Eye Skill to see further in the distance, but the Skill hadn't been Leveled up very far. He couldn't tell at this distance if he was looking at more darkness or the cavern wall. He kept swimming, keeping his head on a swivel to see as much of an area in front of him as he could.

His Divine Sense gave him a crystal clear picture within his range, but there were no walls or bottom of the underground lake in his perception. He glanced down with his Eagle Eye Skill, but he ran into the same problem as looking into the distance. He couldn't tell if he was seeing the bottom or just more darkness. He couldn't tell how deep or wide the cave was.

Reivyn's Swimming Skill was nothing impressive, but his Stats made up for it a bit. He traveled at a pretty fast speed, but even after several minutes of swimming, there was no end in sight.

"I got some light over here," Kimberly's voice came through on his Mana thread.

Reivyn was attached to everyone, but everyone else wasn't attached to everyone else, so he would have to relay the information.

"Kimberly's got something," Reivyn said across all of the Mana threads. "If you can't find her, just use your Sense Mana Skill to follow my Mana thread to me, and we'll go together."

Teilon and Serilla were closest to Kimberly, and Reivyn wasn't worried about Refix, Vyria, Xudrid, or Kefira. Vyria and Xudrid could just hop out of the water and walk there if they wanted to. He was confident everyone would be able to find their way to Kimberly's position without any trouble, but it was always good to have a contingency plan in place.

"Keep your eyes peeled for any monsters," Reivyn continued. "I haven't seen anything, yet, but that doesn't mean there aren't any."

The underground cave was incredibly monotonous. There was no change in the environment except for variation in the cave ceiling. After another several minutes of swimming in the direction that Kimberly had swam off to, Reivyn spotted the light she was referring to in the distance with his Eagle Eye.

At first, it was just a slight glow that was barely more powerful than the ambient lighting, but as he drew closer, he noticed the shift in color. The light in the distance was definitely sunlight, so Reivyn assumed they had either found the exit to the Dungeon, or at least the way to the exit. It was possible the exit of the cavern would lead them further into the Dungeon, but Reivyn didn't think so.

Kimberly was treading water with Refix, Teilon, and Serilla next to her as Reivyn swam up. Vyria and Xudrid were in the water, but they didn't have to tread to stay afloat. I need to learn how to do that, Reivyn thought to himself. He could tell from his Mana thread that Kefira was still several minutes away, though. She had much less physical Stats, and she had been going almost the opposite direction as Kimberly. Reivyn nodded to the others as he began to tread water as well with an unspoken agreement to wait for Kefira until they explored further.

"So what have we got?" They didn't have to wait long for Kefira to rendezvous with the group.

"Looks like a way to the surface," Reivyn jerked his head in the direction of the light.

Kefira had already spotted the light in the distance, so she didn't need to crane her neck to get a look. She just nodded her head and accepted the hypothesis.

"What're we waiting for?" Teilon spoke up.

With that, everyone turned and started swimming to the light. It wasn't a race. Nobody pulled ahead and tried to get there before everyone else. They swam as a group. With their Stats, they would need to swim in the water vigorously for hours on end to get tired. They had only been at it for several minutes, and none of them were straining themselves.

The light got brighter and brighter as they got closer, and it became obvious that it was indeed sunlight streaming through an opening in the cave wall. Reivyn zoomed in with his Eagle Eye once more, and he noticed that there was a bit of land above the water at the exit. There were lumps on the ground, but he couldn't make it out right away. He kept his vision on it, while keeping a focus below them with his Divine Sense, as they moved closer and closer.

"Those are dead monsters," Reivyn said as he was finally able to identify the lumps. "Either it's part of the scenarios of the Dungeon, or we've intruded on someone else's Dungeon."

"It could be an open Dungeon," Teilon supplied. The concept of an open Dungeon was one where it wasn't separated into infinite instances, but everyone shared the same instance that would reset at fixed intervals.

"As far as I know, open Dungeons are only theoretical," Reivyn replied. "That doesn't mean it isn't one, but I wouldn't count on it."

"Just saying."

The group slowed their pace so they could analyze their surroundings as they approached the clear evidence of conflict. Reivyn didn't recognize any of the monster bodies on the shore. He didn't have any experience with aquatic enemies, though, so he wasn't surprised that he didn't know what they were. He recognized that some of them were sharks, eels, and a couple squids - mainly from his Dreams - but that didn't help him with gauging their strength.

They were in a completely unknown Dungeon. The ambient Mana hadn't changed enough from the Tier 4 Region they had just been in to determine the level of Region the Dungeon resided in, and if the light was the exit, the ambient Mana being equal to a Tier 4 Region could mean they were in a Tier 4 Region or it could be even higher with the main concentration of the increased ambient Mana in the Dungeon congregating on a deeper floor.

"I don't sense anything," Reivyn said, "and I don't see anything, either. We have a couple of options, here: One, we could wait and see if anyone returns to claim these bodies. Two, we could just leave and not worry about it. We try and figure things out from the outside. Three - and I'm only listing it because it is an option that exists, but I have no idea why we would do it - we could delve further into the Dungeon to locate the cause of these monster deaths.

"Personally, I vote option two."

"Until something pops up that is clearly above your capabilities, I'll let you run the show," Refix replied for the first time in a while. "Less interference from me means more for your Life Experience, and don't worry about mine. Just being here, even without taking charge, gives me some points, too. If we see a horde of Tier 5 nuisance monsters, though, I'm taking charge."

"That's fine with me, dad," Reivyn said with a smile. "Technically, you saying that is still me following your wishes."

Refix rolled his eyes, but he cracked a small smile as well.

"Option two sounds good," Kefira nodded her head.

"Come on, where's your sense of adventure?!" Teilon queried. "Let's go with option three."

Reivyn stared at him for a moment.

"I'll pretend you said option two."

"Man, I never get to have fun," Teilon said. Reivyn believed that if they had been standing on land, Teilon would have put his hands in his pockets and kicked a rock. Treading water wasn't as conducive to acting like a kid, though.

"I agree with Teilon," Kimberly said. Everyone looked at her with mild shock. "Option two."

Reivyn laughed and glanced at his friend out of the corner of his eye. Teilon was looking at Kimberly like she had betrayed him until she stuck her tongue out at him.

"You know what I'll say," Serilla said. She would obviously defer to Kefira.

"Alright, let's get out of here, then," Reivyn said.

With that, they picked up their pace, but they still maintained their vigilance lest something popped up at the last moment. They got closer and closer until the lumps of dead flesh finally entered the range of Reivyn's Divine Sense. He immediately held up a hand and pinged the Mana tether he hadn't dismissed, yet. He subvocalized along the lines to everyone.

"There's a kid hiding behind one of the corpses," he said. "I say kid, but he's just a scrawny teenager. He's definitely old enough to bet Tier 2 or higher. He's armed with a harpoon."

"Does he look threatening?" Kefira asked.

"Aside from being armed with a weapon designed to attack things in the water and us being in the water, no," Reivyn replied. "He looks scared more than anything."

"I say we announce ourselves," Kefira said with a shrug. "If he's hiding with a scared look on his face, then he's obviously already spotted us anyway."

"Good point," Reivyn nodded his head. He turned his attention to the shore. "Hello! We're not monsters!"

"That's what sirens would say!" Came the reply.

Reivyn shared a look with the others. Everyone was just as confused as he was.

"What's a siren?" He called back.

"They would say that, too! You can't fool me, siren!"

The young man didn't come out of hiding, but he did readjust the grip on his harpoon. Reivyn pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as he thought of something to say to ease the worry of they youngster. He turned to face Vyria and Xudrid.

"Do you think the two of you could step up into the air and show him that we're just people?" He asked.

"Sure," Xudrid agreed.

The two of them floated up until their feet were just on the surface of the water, then they began walking like they were taking some invisible stairs. Reivyn watched the reaction of the kid hunkered down behind a dead shark, and he saw the kid's eyes go wide as saucers.

"Aaaah! Siren Sorcerors!" He screamed.

The kid threw his harpoon aside and scrambled back on all fours. He couldn't take his eyes off of the two cultivators until he bumped up against another dead aquatic monster. He screamed again at the unexpected contact, but it pulled him out of his stupor. He scrambled to his feet and charged out of the exit of the Dungeon, screaming about Siren Sorcerors at the top of his lungs.

"Well..." Reivyn said, drawing the word out as he watched the youth run away, "That could have gone better."