There were more veins than I recalled. Maybe I was just remembering wrong, or this had changed as well. I pride myself with a fairly good memory, but a small fact of whether it was around 70 or 150 veins in the mine, was something minor. What I was completely sure of was that there was no way in hell that the hidden dungeon should be here.

There was a freaking backstory and lore with regards to the dungeon. Something the people diving the dungeon would discover as they traversed the maze. That backstory had been pretty firm. The Oracle Helartha foresaw the First Rupture and the extinction of the nine races. In an effort to leave a legacy she sent her two sons to negotiate with the merfolk about creating the maze.

Her two sons were entombed in the maze, their life force tied to the rare Pearls of Eternal Damnation. To be tied to the pearls would mean they would survive the Rupture and destruction that followed. However, they would be tied to these peals for all eternity, and each second was a second in pain.

All that mattered little. The most important thing was the treasure they guarded. There were two items only. One was a blueprint that would be excellent to have for us in the future. It was a blueprint for creating magic devices popularly known as Mist Anchors.

In the Storm of Memories, the Echo Islands would fade after a time, change location. You could not successfully navigate to the same island twice. Unless you had a Mist Anchor. The Mist Anchors were an expensive, but relatively simple magic item to make. Required Runesmithing at a journeyman tier only. It would anchor the Echo Islands so they did not fade away and create a beacon that you would be able to travel to as long as you had the Guiding Pearl.

That would be a great boon, but the other item was even more fantastic. Especially with the upcoming destruction of the old continent. The other item was an Auction Core. It was the item that allowed the auction houses to exist. Normally you would start with a shabby little auction room at level 0, but the more coins that changed hands inside the auction house, the larger it would grow.

The established auction houses were all level 100 or more. They had been in existence for a long time. No one knew how to make more of these cores, they were relics from before the First Rupture. You would find virgin cores from time to time in the Echoes, and each auction house most likely had some held in reserve.

The important part about them was that once they were activated, the core could not be moved. That meant when the old continent was destroyed, all of the old auction houses would be destroyed. Each auction house would have to start over. From level 0. They would recover in time. However, for a month or two the auctions would be small, lacking the lustre of the old auction house.

However, what was so special about the Auction Core in this dungeon was that it was already level 25. Meaning if we could get our hands on it before the destruction of the old continent, we would have the largest auction house in the game.

The thought made me salivate. There was just one big problem. The two level 100 guardians. Even with Ed’s high level, it was still only half of their level. How to crumble that cookie without getting fur everywhere was the question that occupied me during our time in the mine. With seven of us and only 153 veins, it was over rather quickly.

It only took us an hour to mine all the veins, but we spent another hour imbuing and meditating. Martine did not have Imbue so she went topside with the iron ore and started crafting the components I needed for the lift.

When I got topside again, I immediately started crafting more fertilizer for me and Mia, we were running low on the high-quality stuff. From time to time Mia would flit by where I was working, giving me a little peck on the lips before she continued to wherever she was going. I found myself looking forward to those interruptions.

“Stop smiling so much,” Nise commented dryly when I went by to get more chicken dung for the fertilizer.

“Huh?” was my brilliant response.

“It’s weird seeing you smile so much,” she replied in a serious tone. “Sure, you might have smiled once in a while, but not the goofy grin that’s on your face right now.”

“Oh,” was my superior comeback when I finally understood what she was saying.

“I’m just kidding,” she said with a grin. “Mostly. It’s a stark difference, but I’m glad to see you happy.”

“Thanks, I guess the newness makes me giddy?” I half said and half asked, unsure of the validity of the claim myself. “Are you and Phil happy?”

“Ecstatic for my part, though I look forward to getting my sight fixed in the real world.”

The wistful smile on her face made me feel a bit bad. I had promised her and Kira to get their bodies fixed, but as soon as we got a huge windfall, I used the money to expand the guild instead. Of course, with a much larger guild, we could earn credits that more quickly.

Nise frowned. “I can see what you’re thinking and stop fretting. You did the right thing. There’ll be more opportunities for earning credits for our procedures. In fact, it’ll be easier to cover the procedures with more people in the guild.”

“Okay,” I said, letting the matter drop for now, but I swore to myself that I would see about getting them fixed as quickly as possible. “I wanted to talk with you about something else. It has slipped my mind, repeatedly.”

“Go on,” she said after I had stayed silent for a handful of seconds.

“Two of the crafters in the new bunch of recruits will be yours to command,” I said. She got a slightly panicked look in her eyes.

“But I don’t have Leadership or any empty skill slots,” she protested.

“That’s not so important, you do have Mentor, since you have been helping Andrea level up her different planting skills,” I pointed out. “And that’s more important. The two new members will be emulating your skills. They’ll be your helpers so to speak. We need a lot of ingredients and reagents, so we need to ramp up our focus on growing those, and raising more animals.”

She hyperventilated a bit. “I can’t do that, what if it’s someone who’s bossy?”

“They aren’t. They are two young and shy girls that would love the chance to work with plants and animals. Just like you,” I said. “Thelma and Chastity are much like you were just two months ago. You and them will be a perfect match.”

“Okay, but what about Leadership?” she asked, seemingly a bit calmer.

“While it’s too bad I forgot to mention it to you earlier, it won’t matter that much. When you hit level forty, just pick it up there. By then we should be an official village,” I said.

“A lot of people have been speculating, but no one has asked you. What’s the difference between an official and an unofficial village?” she asked.

“I haven’t told you that?” I was surprised. She shook her head, making me frown. “I could have sworn I told you.”

“Phil and I haven’t heard anything, neither has his family.”

“Goddarnit,” I grumbled at myself. “Okay, it’s a longer explanation, so why don’t we take it at dinner, so I don’t have to repeat myself too much.”

“Okay,” she said, giving me a large smile. “Phil will appreciate knowing, he has been going bonkers thinking about it.”

“Why hasn’t he asked then?”

“Mia has been running a line of don’t bother you unless necessary campaign for the past week in the real world,” Nise replied.

“What? Why?” I asked, very confused I had not asked for some peace.

“I don’t know, but if I had to speculate it was when she started flirting with you, but you seemed oblivious.”

“Flirted?” I asked, again confused. I knew Mia had said she had flirted, I did not think others knew.

“It was pretty subtle the first few days, but she ramped it up when you didn’t get it. Not that it helped a lot,” Nise said with a grin. “Well, in the end, it did. I wonder what finally got your attention.”

I could not help but blush deeply as my mind flashed to the scene in the pool, and later in my room. Stammering slightly I replied, “I guess I’m a bit of a dunce when it comes to romance.”

“As happy as she seems, you must be doing just fine,” Nise responded. We said our goodbyes and I went back to making fertilizer, but my mind was on something else. Why had Mia asked them not to disturb me unless it was important? A stab of worry lanced through my heart, and the thought that kept going through my mind the rest of the day was, ‘Has Marcus found a way to beat the mindreading technology in the pods?’

That thought kept rummaging around in my head, but I tried to pretend like there was nothing wrong whenever Mia was nearby. When I logged out, I was afraid of opening the door, thinking she might pounce me as she had done earlier. I opened the door and there—

—was no one there. I sighed with a mix of relief and disappointment. Relief because she was not there and I had not figured out how to deal with the situation just yet. Disappointment because she was not there and we would not be having mindblowing sex.

I made my way to the dining area, dining hall? Could still not decide on what to call it, so I went with the dining hall. When I got there, most people were already there, including Mia and Alicia.

Alicia stood up on her chair and started waving like crazy. “Daddy! Over here!”

I made my way over with a big smile on my face. It was a genuine smile. The little girl was precious. As soon as I got within a couple of metres from the chair, she launched herself at me. I had to take a couple of quick steps forward and catch her with stretched arms because she did not have the strength to make the jump.

“You caught me!” she giggled loudly.

“You need to be more careful,” I said sternly. “I almost didn’t catch you.”

“I knew you would,” she responded and hugged my neck. “I saved you a seat. Me and mommy even got you something to eat.”

I sighed at the way she ignored my concern. “Thank you, sweetie.”

When my eyes looked over Mia, I felt a stab of apprehension, but I quickly suppressed that emotion. I sat Alicia down on her chair. “I need to speak to everyone for a moment. Then I’ll be right back to eat with you.”

“Okay,” she replied with a pout. “Will you play with me? Mister Shell is missing you.”

“Sure,” I said with a large smile. I made my way over to a spot where everyone would be able to see me. With a few presses on my wrist device, I shut off the sound from the vidscreens for everyone, and my voice was amplified. Perks of being the boss.

“Sorry for interrupting your meal. But I was asked a question earlier today, and I was told that more of you have been wondering about it,” I said in a normal voice. There was no need to be loud. “The question was what the difference between an official and an unofficial village is. I thought I had gone over this at one point, but it seems that I haven’t.”

Someone started clapping, for like a second, but then stopped when no one else did. I gave a wry smile. “Thank you. Anyway, one of the differences is something that many of you have experienced. When you put down the settlement token there will be a series of quests to be completed. Another difference is that it can level up, becoming larger. Of course, the unofficial towns don’t have to pay taxes and they can claim as much land as they want.”

“Why didn’t we start an unofficial village then?” one of the new guys asked. Tomas was his first name if I recalled. He was one of the fighters.

“Because Blackport would be offended by that. You can only really build unofficial villages on the new continent without suffering from backlash in the form of the Kingdoms declaring war on you,” I replied.

“Oh, I guess that’s a good reason,” he replied with a shrug.

“More importantly, we get two buildings unique to official villages after we finish this round of quests. Two buildings you all will find very useful,” I explained. “We’ll be getting the blueprints to construct a small Adventurers’ Association and a Well of Souls.”

“Well of Souls?” someone asked. I did not catch who did the asking.

“Respawn point,” Ed replied loudly.

“Awesome!” and other exclamations in that style was the general consensus.

“Indeed,” I quickly said. “Another benefit is that we can convince NPCs to move to our town if we want. Since we’re officially a part of the Kingdom we might get quests that help with the security of the island. Most importantly for our situation, I think, is that as an officially recognized village is part of the kingdom, any attacks on our town is the same as attacking the kingdom. There’ll probably be at least a couple of Blackport guards stationed here.”

“Are you saying that if Dawnguard attacks our city, it’ll be the same as attacking one of the kingdom’s towns?” Ed asked seriously. “Even if we were at war before we built it?”

I nodded. “Indeed. If you want to attack an officially recognized village, you need permission first from the local ruler. Meaning it’ll be pretty hard because we got a pretty good relationship with the Lord of Blackport. Or at least I have.”

“I can’t wait for those dickheads—” Masuro laughingly started to say.

Miss Elleby and the parents simultaneously interrupted him, with variations of “Language!”

“I can’t wait for those ehm—meatheads to fu—mess up by attacking us. We can run attacks from the town and then seek shelter there when they come after us,” Masuro corrected himself. There were a lot of people that agreed eagerly with that plan.

“No, won’t work,” I quickly said, quenching their excitement. “Even though we don’t get tainted by PvP against our enemies, we’re still tagged temporarily, for an hour. Any of our members with a tag entering with a temp tag gives them permission to destroy defensive buildings and hunt down our members for four hours. So you mind your timers when you exit PvP, you hear me?”

“Damn,” several people muttered.

“Okay, I think that covered everything,” I said. “Any questions?”

Only one person raised their hand: Alan. When I indicated he could go ahead, he asked, “How do you know this? There’s no information anywhere about any of this. I’ve searched. I’ve only found a lot about village building on the new continent. However, they’re all unofficial ones. Even checked the achievement panel and the news stories. No one has been able to establish an official village.”

“You’re right, we’ll probably be the first guild to build an official village. The reason why I know so much is that I know someone who played it before,” I said, technically telling the truth.

“A beta-tester?” Alan gasped. “You know someone who broke the NDA?”

“That person didn’t sign an NDA,” I answered carefully. “I can’t reveal who it is.”

“Damn, we got some inside knowledge maybe?” someone else exclaimed. “This is awesome!”

“Okay, settle down everyone!” I said loudly. “What I just told you all is a guild secret, meaning that revealing it will violate the in-game and the real-world contract you’ve signed. Does everyone understand me?”

I got a series of reluctant acknowledgements from some of them but eventually, everyone had indicated they understood the severity of what I had told them. After that, we sat down to eat. Alicia and Mia had bought me a shake, chocolate flavoured.

“I chose that,” Alicia happily said.

I gave her a smile and thanked her while cringing inside. I was not a fan of chocolate drinks unless it was hot with lots of whipped cream. Same with pure chocolate ice cream. Just not a fan. Nevertheless, I drank it.

“Does it taste good? Chocolate is my favourite,” Alicia asked as she ate her slice of pizza.

“Knowing you personally chose it makes it better,” I replied diplomatically.

“So it is your favourite too?” she asked with eagerness in her voice.

With the look in her eyes, I almost immediately answered yes. “It’s one of them. Do you want to know what my absolute favourite is?”

She nodded her head eagerly and almost shouted, “Yes!”

“My absolute favourite is strawberry-banana. Have you ever tried that?”

She shook her head and turned to her mother. “Mommy, I want a strawberry-banana shake.”

Mia shot me an annoyed look that seemed to say ‘Look at what you have done!’, before shaking her head. “Sweetie, you’ve to eat your pizza. You can have one tomorrow.”

“I don’t like pizza!” Alicia harrumphed. “I want a strawberry-banana shake.”

“You’ve already eaten half of it, so that’s not true. You wanted pizza when we ordered, so now you’re going to eat it,” Mia said sternly, which made Alicia start crying.

“I don’t want to,” Alicia said between her sobs. “Stupid mommy, I hate pizza, I never liked it!”

“Listen Alicia, honey,” I said quickly. “If you eat some more pizza, I’ll buy you a small milkshake, okay?”

The waterworks halfway stopped, with tears in her eyes, a little bit of snot running from her nose, she looked up at me. In a tiny voice, she asked, “Strawberry-banana?”

“Yes, but you’ve to finish eating your slice first, or you’ll get no dessert,” I said trying to sound stern. Alicia turned back to her pizza and started devouring it with fervour.

Mia sent me a look that promised we would have a chat later. I heard her mumble, “Sucker.”

I shrugged. Being honest with myself Alicia, and probably Mia too, had me wrapped around their little fingers. We continued the meal. Alicia polished off her pizza slice, that she did not like, in next to no time, and I got her a small milkshake. A real one. Cost me almost 15 cubes. It was worth it seeing the look on her face. With a happy smile, she exclaimed, “It is my new favourite too! Can we go play with Mister Shell now?”

“Sorry honey, but there’s a meeting,” I said with an apologetic smile. Seeing her smile turn into a frown, I quickly said, “It won’t take long, but then I promise to spend an hour playing with you and Mister Shell.”

“Promise?” she asked in a voice that said I would break her heart and trust if I did not keep that promise.

“Yes,” was the only right answer I could give.

“Pinky swear?”

I put out my pinky. “Pinky swear.”

With that little ritual out of the way, we finished dinner. Afterwards, I gathered Edward, Liam, Kira, Masuro, Ainsley, Sarah, and Shenshun. The people that knew about my secret. As soon as we sat down in a corner, and made sure we could not be overheard by syncing our wrist devices to emit a noise screen, Edward asked, “What the hell was that in the mine?”

“It shouldn’t be there,” I replied.

“What are you guys talking about?” Kira asked. I explained the situation, including what I knew about it in the last timeline.

“Maybe it just spawned here because we got to the mine first?” Blaze asked.

“That makes no sense because Blackport did not appear after the First Rupture, like the old and new continent. It and the other islands between the two continents were tall plateaus that didn’t get completely submerged when the landmasses sunk,” I countered.

Sarah jumped in. “So it would not make sense for the merfolks to build a labyrinth here. Are you sure it was them, not someone else?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty damn sure. Astral Projection is a skill that there are records about, but was lost after the First Rupture. They’re the only NPCs that’ll ever have the skill in the game,” I said with conviction.

Shenshun had been typing on his wrist device, but he looked up with a complicated expression. “You said Agamemnon the Conqueror and Immortal Knights?”

“Yeah, what about it?” I replied.

He frowned at that. “They don’t exist in the game.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “That can’t be right, they started playing on day one.”

“I’ve searched all over the place, I haven’t been able to find any mention of either of them. Not even in other games. Which is weird, because the names aren’t that special.”

His revelation made us all lapse into silence. After a minute, Masuro ventured cautiously, “Maybe you just misremembered? I mean dying is bound to be a traumatic event, perhaps it messed with your brain.”

If he had said that earlier I would have vehemently denied it, but now I was not so sure. Ainsley shook her head. “No, Damian has been spot on with everything else. He might not be able to predict human behaviour, but things about game mechanics, locations, classes and so on, he has never been wrong there. There might be another explanation.”

“What explanation?” Blaze asked. “I’m drawing a fucking blank on anything.”

“Marcus mentioned that Damian was the Champion. That previous Champions, win or lose, never came into play again, when he started subsequent lives,” Ainsley said.

I found myself nodding. “You’re right, he did say that. So what you’re saying is that Agamemnon was the previous champion? And got curb stomped hard by Marcus and Dawnguard?”

“Yup,” she replied with a solemn nod. “I also think that it confirms that your rebirth, reincarnation, or what you want to call it is tied to the game. We speculated that, but now it seems confirmed. I also think that the game will provide unique opportunities to you, as the champion.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Like no one else completed all the starter quests for a long time, not until you did. Who completed all of them first last time?”

I had to think for a while before I found the answer. When an answer sprung to mind, I must have shown something on my face, because Ainsley asked, “It was Agamemnon, wasn’t it?”

I nodded mutely. She looked at the others. “I know it was a long time ago, but try and remember what you felt like when you got the starter quests. What did you think about them?”

Edward was the first to answer, “Pitiful, waste of time.”

Masuro and Blaze nodded. Kira added, “Disinterest.”

“Disdain. I remember we talked about how shitty the quests were that we had no interest in completing them,” Shenshun said. “Despite not being part of Dawnguard officially, I had access to their internal communication systems. Aragoth sent out a memo that said no one should bother with them. The items were worth more coins if sold directly.”

“So you’re saying that the pods are tied to whoever is behind his time travel and are used to manipulate people to give him some advantages?” Blaze asked, sounding pretty upset.

“I think that’s valid reasoning,” Sarah said. “The big question is why is Marcus reincarnating as well, over and over again? And what is the purpose?”

We all sat staring at each other for a long time. Edward finally said, “We’re not going to solve this mystery by staring at each other. So moving on, what do we do about the dungeon and these projections?”

“We can’t do a lot, the bosses are level one hundred,” I said with a shrug.

“Is the teleport formation only enterable once?” Shenshun asked.

I shook my head. “No, it only vanishes when the items have been removed from the centre of the maze. Or at least that was how it was.”

“Okay, so if we think that the game is biased towards you in some instances, like the starter quest and the location of this dungeon, couldn’t we assume that it would be harder for someone not with the champion to complete the dungeon?” Shenshun asked.

His question made us silent for another few minutes. Edward finally said, “If we wait until the respawn point is up and running in our town, then I’m willing to make an attempt. If things turn side-ways, we’ll just ditch Liam as the sacrificial lamb and get out of there.”

“Hey!” Liam protested.

Kira had a question. “If the pods are involved in this time travel business, that means Ken Masters are involved too, right?”

Ainsley and Sarah looked at each other and shrugged. Sarah said, “Most likely. Would explain why he personally interfered with the illegal interrogation of Damian.”

“But if he’s involved, why doesn’t he just tell Damian why it happened, and what he’s supposed to do?” Kira asked, frustrated, either on my behalf or just because she did not know the answer.

“Maybe it’s a test?” Masuro suggested.

His sister looked at him like he was stupid, but I agreed with his suggestion. “I think you’re right, Masuro. It might be a test, and Marcus might be the opponent I need to beat somehow.”

They all got thoughtful looks after that statement. We sat around for five more minutes looking at each other. Nothing of substance was said. So I stopped the meeting with, “So it’s agreed when the village quests are over, I’ll join Ed’s party inside the dungeon. Maybe it’ll be a walk in the park or we’ll all die horribly. Anyway, we can sit around yakking and get nothing accomplished, or we can go about enjoying our break. I got a date with a small girl and a giant tortoise.”

“He’s so whipped,” Sarah whispered theatrically to Ainsley, setting off a round of giggling. I shrugged as I made my way out of the dining hall and continued to Mia and Alicia’s room. I still had not solved my doubts about Mia, I would have to have a chat with her soon. Maybe when we logged into the game again. I squashed any doubtful thoughts from my conscious mind and put a smile on my face before I knocked on the door to their room.

Despite everything we had managed to accomplish and talk about today, I was still lost in the confusion of everything.

“Daddy!” the excited Alicia shouted as soon as the door opened.

Mia gave me a lovely kiss. “Welcome home.”