Gayle came down first, by which time Levi was already pouring batter into the waffle iron.

"I hope you reduced the sugar in those," she said by way of greeting. "That son of yours doesn't need any more sugar in his diet."

"I followed the recipe," Levi said, remembering in a flash of barely-suppressed irritation all the reasons he'd had for avoiding the Jackson side of the family. "Been away a while, you may recall."

Her eyes turned judgmental. "Yes, so you say."

"Please don't blame Irene or Cassandra for any of this." Levi closed the waffle iron and started a mental countdown. "I know you disapprove of my interference."

"I do. Very much so. What kind of crazy religious group have you gotten involved in? Demons and monsters and sacrifices, this is absolutely ridiculous. I expect this kind of nonsense from Cas, but you've managed to dupe Irene too and she's the sensible one. I don't know what to make of it. And I do not approve of you dragging my grandson into this. I know I can't stop Cassandra, and Irene can be stubborn when she wants to, but Peter's a child. This kind of thing is no life for a child!"

"He's old enough, and Irene and I both agreed that this is best for him.”

“I don’t know what pack of lies you fed my daughter to convince her that this was remotely sane, but—“

“Please stop.”

Something in Levi’s voice stopped Gayle mid-rant, and she frowned at him. “What?”

“I accept responsibility, but I’m not a liar and neither of your daughters is insane or stupid. If you’d like to hold this against me, you may do so, but please refrain from insulting my wife.”

“I wasn’t trying to—“

“You were.” Levi realized he’d lost track of his count and opened the waffle maker. The waffles were a bit dark, but not inedible. He flipped them out onto the serving plate and didn’t start a new batch. “I understand that you’re angry about all this, and that’s fair, all this is, to put it bluntly, insane. But it is also true. Ignoring reality is stupider than being willing to look stupid by accepting it. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m not sure I’d say that.”

“No?” Levi heard Peter beginning to patter around upstairs and turned on the heat for the bacon. “What would you say?”

“I’d say that you need a therapist.”

“That’s probably true.”

Gayle looked at him, clearly not expecting him to agree with her, but one small victory wasn't enough to deter her. “Well, then, why don’t you find one?”

“I don’t have the time. But if you’d like to arrange for someone to come by, I could spare a few minutes.”

“That’s not how it works and you know it.”

Levi sighed. “Frankly, there’s probably a whole lot messed up in my head. I just doubt that anyone would be ready to take me seriously until after 10/24. I’m a combat veteran who’s never been in the military, I’m a lone survivor of a war that hasn’t happened, I’ve watched friends die who are still alive. Even if we could get someone who’d believe it all, this isn’t the sort of thing you can solve in the time we have. Right now, I have to keep going. Press forward. Solve the next thing first. Once it’s over, then I’ll go to a therapist and let the psychologists do their thing, because I want to be free of this all as much as you do, but I can’t until I’ve done what I have to.”

“You sound so sincere.”

“Gayle, you were in the dungeon with us. You know perfectly well that I’m not lying.”

“I don’t know what I saw. I was very tired, it could have been a strange dream.”

Levi heard Peter’s footsteps coming down the stairs, accompanied by the light patter of lighter minions, and lowered his voice. “And the dinosaur?”

Gayle followed his gaze to the door, where Peter stepped in with a smile, already heading straight for the bacon, while Henry trotted at his heels and Skarm walked a pace behind.

“Yes, the dinosaur,” Gayle said, uncertainly.

Skarm grinned and nodded pointedly to Gayle, then turned his attention back to Peter and Henry.

“Well, it’s a strange era we live in.” She shook her head and walked away.

Levi turned over the bacon, shooing Peter’s hand away. “It’s not done yet.”

“Can I have cereal instead of waffles?” Peter asked, eyeing the darkened stack dubiously.

“You’ll have to ask your mother.” He was too far out of the game to frivolously answer a dangerous question like that.

“No,” Gayle’s voice echoed from the other room. “You don’t need more sugar!”

"Please, Dad?" Peter asked, and the way he looked pleadingly at Levi was something he couldn't logic away.

"A little," he conceded. "And one waffle."

“Deal.”

That agreement did nothing to stop Peter from covertly feeding his waffle under the table to Henry, pouring more than a little chocolate crunchy cereal for himself.

Levi didn't have the heart to make a fuss about it.

Irene came down about halfway through Peter's breakfast. She looked more tired than usual, which Levi supposed was reasonable considering the past couple days. She'd had a lot of new stuff dumped on her.

He put a plate together for her, then at a pointed glance another for Gayle and took it in to her in the other room.

Gayle was at her computer, on some networking site. She acknowledged the plate with a nod, and Levi tried to smile but she'd already looked away.

"Are we going to another dungeon today?" Peter was putting his bowl in the sink, but turned as Levi returned. "Can we catch more monsters?"

"We'll need to discuss things once everyone's awake." Levi glanced at Irene as she made her way steadily through the pile of bacon she'd grabbed, gulping at her coffee between bites like it was the last health elixir and she was about to bleed out. It was probably the least elegantly he'd ever seen her eat, and it made him smile. Even at her worst, she was still the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Irene demanded. "How are you so unfazed? I swear you can't have slept much."

"Higher level," Levi said, gesturing to where he knew his 'Level 9 Tamer' tag hovered above his head. "I don't need sleep the same way."

"You mean we can stop wasting time sleeping when we get higher level?" Peter asked.

"That's what it means," Irene said, sighing. "No more free hours."

"Sorry," Levi mouthed, then turned back to Peter. "You'll still need some sleep. Just not as much as we do now."

"I hope it isn't much."

Irene yawned expansively, then stuffed another whole piece of bacon in her mouth in three quick bites. Levi ate the last slice from the pan then added some more to start cooking. Cassandra hadn't come down yet and he expected Gordon to stop by at some point. He still had a promise to keep to a certain giant squirrel.

The last batch of waffles came out, crisp and hot, and after a quick survey Levi put three on his own plate, keeping one eye on the bacon to be sure it didn't scorch while he ate.

Cassandra finally joined them as Levi and Irene were cleaning up the dishes, grabbing a waffle in each hand and eating them like toast without bothering with plate or syrup.

"I think we need to start sending out information as soon as possible," Cassandra said, the moment she met Levi's eye. "We can level any time for ourselves, but if we have a time limit on networks and a limited number of days, then the top priority needs to be contacting anyone it's safe to contact. Agreed?"

Levi nodded, impressed that she'd jump right into it first thing in the morning. "I'm afraid most of that will fall to you and Laurence, though," he said. "I don't know how much use I'd be blundering around the internet. You're the ones with contacts there."

"It's a real shame technology doesn't work inside dungeons. I'd love to get some videos of monsters." Then she tilted her head. "Can I film your minions?"

"Sure, but the visual interference will make it look blurry and off."

"I'm not concerned about that. These people aren't going to nitpick. I just want a demo. Can you do some sword moves too for me?"

"Alright."

So that's how Levi ended up staging a mock battle in his mother-in-law's back yard. He, Two, and Skarm faced off against Henry and Centoo, in a surprisingly even fight that left them all quite battered. None of them held back, firing off their actual mana attacks for full authenticity.

Centoo used his charge ability and bashed Levi pretty good - he'd never been on the receiving end of that particular attack and hadn't realized quite how much of a punch it packed. Centoo seemed apologetic when he realized, though, and encouraged Levi to go ahead and retaliate with a full showing of Beast Bite and Destructive Slash.

By the time Cassandra signaled that she had enough footage, they'd need a good three health restoratives to bring everyone up to full even with Irene's bonuses. At least patching everyone up was enough to increase her medic level.

Peter, who’d been cheering and gasping from the sideline the whole time, rushed to Henry’s side as soon as the fight was over, then refused to leave his side until he was fully healed.

After all that was taken care of, Cassandra suggested Levi take Peter and go level some more while she worked on the presentation with Gayle. “I think it’ll be best if we don’t have too many people in the house,” she confided.

Irene looked like she wanted to stay and help, but also refused to let Levi and Peter go anywhere near a dungeon without her on hand, so it ended up being the three of them heading out.

“Is Gordon coming?” Levi hadn’t seen him yet.

“He’s going to be busy today,” Irene said. She looked around at the minions following them. “Weren’t there more of them yesterday? Or were those all Gordon’s?”

“I left some to watch over Laurence,” Levi said, checking his status info about them to be sure they were still alive. They were - and that wasn’t all.

Shadevine has reached level 4!

Shadevine has 1 stat point available.

Cen has reached level 6!

Cen has 1 stat point available.

Levi whistled. “Guess Laurence isn’t messing around.”

Even as he watched, health bars were dropping and recovering, evidence of combat taking place at that very moment.

Then, even as he watched, another notification inserted itself into his mind.

Congratulations, Levi Morrison!

You have 1 level available.

Applying to default class.

Tamer level increased to 10.

Tamer threshold 2 reached!

+16 health, +16 mana, +16 stamina

Unassigned Stat Points: 1

Unassigned Ability Points: 3 New class ability options are available.