Floor 1

Terra

Five Years Later

The land beneath Lisa was barren, the presence of even weeds sparse. As she coasted through the sky there were spots where a hint of green could be seen, but for the most part the world still hadn’t recovered.

It was when she neared Heron that the landscape changed, the brown replaced by a vibrant green. The carpet of grass and flowers below became a joy to see after the hours Lisa had spent over dead land.

Yet she frowned at the change, as it seemed far too short. During their survey of the new world they’d noticed one fact, a lot of the empty space of the floors hadn’t merged with the original one.

Lisa flitted over a black obelisk, one that sat on the outskirts of Heron. It was the forward base they’d used in the past, now abandoned as it could no longer transfer anywhere. Instead it was more of a historic landmark, though perhaps only to the people who’d fought against the Architects.

When she reached the city there were cries of excitement below, and she rolled in the air while waving. It was hard not to smile as some of the children pointed up at her, but she wanted to deliver her package so didn’t stop to greet anyone.

So Lisa headed further into Heron, sticking to the air. When she neared one of the taller buildings she folded her wings, an act that cast her to the ground like a rock. Yet when she hit the ground right foot first she barely felt the impact, though the nearby cobblestone shuddered.

The people closest to her on the street wisely took a few steps back, while most began to whisper to one another. Lisa retracted her wings into her back and walked past everyone.

She hurried along, knowing that a few of her admirers might pop up with her arrival. Though Lisa was flattered by the attention, neither she nor Mika liked the almost fanatic adoration some people in Heron had developed for them.

The place she’d arrived at was in no way as tall as any of the nearby ones, instead it had a large overhang of a second floor. They had built it almost like a mushroom, with a fat top that allowed for a lot of room while giving the street plenty of room for itself.

Lisa paused as she glanced at the nearby spire, a building made after the merge had occurred. She knew that it served as a commune for the nyanko, who thoroughly loved their vertical lifestyle. Outside of it a few even lounged in the sun, their eyes half-closed as they barely watched the pedestrians pass by.

When she walked into the command post there was only noise. Lisa flinched at the cacophony of dozens of people yelling, as they dashed about the main room. Papers were lugged about, and some even floated away from their holders without permission.

A tall man adorned in red leather armor stood near the center of it all. With a scowl on his face and arms crossed, he watched the crowd closely.

“Lance!” Lisa called out as she started to wave.

For a brief moment a smile appeared on his face, but then Lance scowled as the entire room went quiet. Everybody had turned at Lisa’s shout, and a few of the younger seemed far too interested in staring at her.

“Get working!” Lance shouted as he stomped the ground.

The distraction that was Lisa was forgotten as the room returned to chaos. Lance shoved his way through the crowd, crossing over to in front of the young girl.

“Ain’t you supposed to be out scouting with your darker half?” Lance asked when he finally got next to her, his scowl once more replaced with a smile.

Lisa hugged the big man. “Something came up, I need to talk to dad about it. Is he upstairs again?”

“Yeah, he’s been staring at the film you kids keep bringing back.”

The kid comment irritated Lisa, but she ignored it since Lance didn’t mean it to be insultive. She patted him on the arm and walked away. “Thanks!”

Lisa picked her way hurriedly across the room, trying her best to not disrupt the runners in their tasks. The information they were sorting was important, and a delay at the worst time could possibly cause some innocents to die.

So she managed to keep her temper under control, even when a wall of bodies temporarily blocked her passage at one point. When the runners dashed away, apologizing as quickly as they walked, Lisa flashed a smile to try and reassure them.

After she’d crossed the room a set of stairs awaited her, which she nearly leapt up in a hurry. When Lisa reached the top of the stairs she ran to the first visible door, and without knocking threw it open.

The hard wood slammed against the interior wall, a noise that made Lisa wince. “Sorry!” she called out as she entered, mentally chastising herself. Quite often she forgot her own strength.

The room was wide, but rather than being laden with people instead large tables covered in maps filled the place. A small sphere sat above each table, a projector that presented the most up to date information on the maps.

At one of those tables stood a man with long white hair, pulled into a ponytail so that his pointed ears were revealed. He sent a glance in Lisa’s direction on her entry, but aside from that showed no interest. Instead the man was focused on the map in front of him, one that was an overhead image of Grantis.

Next to him on a small chair was seated a young boy. The kid leapt from his seat when Lisa arrived and ran over to her, his white fox tail flicking energetically behind him.

“Lisa!” the boy shouted as he reached for her with his little hands.

She scooped him up without question and squeezed him in a hug, laughing as one of his furry ears tickled her cheek. “Dorian, how are you?”

“Great!”

“How’s your mom doing?” Lisa asked as she managed to resist lifting him up and spinning. The last time she’d done that the boy had thrown up.

Dorian frowned as best he could, though even with his frown Lisa found the kitsune unbearably cute. “She keeps getting sick, so she’s home.”

With that comment Lisa looked past her half-brother and raised an eyebrow at her father. He managed to ignore her, and her probing look, and instead seemed to focus harder on the map.

“She’ll be fine, just let her rest up and it’ll be alright,” Lisa reassured Dorian as she walked over to her dad.

Theodore, or Fenix to almost everyone on the planet, finally turned and put his full attention on his daughter. “You’re earlier than I expected.”

Lisa absent-mindedly toyed with one of Dorian’s fox ears. “We were taking aerial shots of Grantis when Mika noticed a convoy heading off to the salt plains.”

“A convoy? Not another try by the Guild to raid the gnomes?”

“It was a group of refugees, everybody was an elf.” Lisa paused at that, as something felt slightly off but she couldn’t quite place it. “Mika went to guide them to the nearest green zone.”

Fenix rubbed his eyes. “They’re just falling apart aren’t they. I’ll request Viva send a truthseeker, that way we can make sure there are no spies.”

Lisa reached for the waist pouch at her hip and fished out a small black box. “This is all the footage we took during the last scan. Most of the world is still dead.”

“Perhaps not as dead as we thought.” Fenix accepted the box and slipped it into a slot on the table. “I had an envoy from the orcs, they’ve run into subterranean things that are popping up near their city.”

“The Maw?” Lisa asked, afraid that they’d somehow managed to get out of the labyrinth before the shutdown.

Fenix shook his head, and reached out for Dorian. “No, worms that eat everything they can.” He accepted his son into his own arms, the young boy having grown quiet during their discussion. “I’m thinking your mother might have forgotten to warn us about a few things.”

“Maybe Kuzu’s friend can make us some sort of...dewormer?”

“Alexia is already busy working on a satellite system, so that we can do a proper global scan. The avians have actually started to help with scouring the planet, but they don’t like to go far from their roost.”

Lisa went to sit down in a seat, but paused as her father lifted up his hand. “What?”

“I know you just got back but I need you to check something for me.”

“I’m still coated in dust and grime, and you’re about to ask me to fly through a few more storms aren’t you?” Lisa asked with a notable edge to her voice.

“The caskmasters left a note with Lance that there were some goblins at the rivers,” Fenix said, “I’ve tried to have a few others send someone to check it out but nobody has replied yet.”

Lisa sighed, but couldn’t disagree about why he was sending her back out. “And if there’s even one, and it multiplies, we might have another annoyance on our hands.”

Fenix nodded his head. “Just do a quick aerial survey, if there are goblins you should notice their burrows from the air.”

She really didn’t want to head out, especially since it was close to midday, but Lisa knew that this would be partially her fault. Both Mika and her had taken on the task of cleansing floor seven prior to the merge.

“I’ll go now, say hi to Kuzu for me!” Lisa said as she turned and walked to the door.

“Bye!” Dorian called out behind her, to which she responded with a quick wave back.

A few minutes later and Lisa was back outside with her wings unfurled once more. The crowd on the street cleared out enough room for her, a couple of them applauding her for some reason.

Seconds later she was airborne and ascended to a height that made Heron look like a smudge on the ground. That high up the air started to thin out, but she had grown accustomed over the past couple of years to it.

When she started out to the north Lisa thought on the last few years. The floors had merged successfully with the first floor, and then the labyrinth had closed off. There was still a portal in Grantis but it no longer responded to anyone.

That combined with the arrival of all the other major cities on the first floor had shaken up the entire city of Grantis. The Guild that had held a stranglehold on their economy and governance lost significant influence, and soon people began to flee the city for Heron.

Now the Guild was serving as an active annoyance, one that her dad had shown interest in squishing. Lisa wasn’t quite certain why he didn’t ask her or Mika to destroy them all, as that’d easily solve their issues.

Lisa’s line of thought was disrupted as, while coasting through the air, she ran afoul of a dust storm. It swept in from the west and hammered her, turning the sky as brown as the barren landscape below.

All Lisa could do was grab her goggles from the pouch and don them. Thankfully even though Lisa couldn’t see anything except for dust, she knew instinctively what direction was north. So with renewed eagerness she flapped her wings and pushed onward, hoping to clear the dust storm soon.

If the Guild was one of the major problems of the first floor, the dust storm was easily the next largest. They had grown a bit more severe for some reason since the merge, a fact that Alexia had once told her stemmed from a shifting in the atmospheric activity.

Mika had understood it, and even started some sort of talk about climates and tides, but Lisa had tuned out. How her sister could find enjoyment with such trivial things was beyond her.

Lisa emerged from the dust storm, bursting out into sunlight which sparkled off of various rivers and streams ahead. The entire seventh floor was laid out in front of her, one of the larger chunks of integrated land which was merely grass, stone, and water.

With an adjustment of her wings Lisa descended, and then glided silently over the southern fringe of the water plains. She kept her eyes open, looking for any sign of a goblin. Even the sign of some sort of tunnel dug into the ground would be enough to warrant her attention.

About ten minutes later she hadn’t found anything, though with a cough she realized that her body was still coated in dust and filth. The fact that she hadn’t had a chance to relax in a while tugged at a corner of her mind, so when she saw a waterfall flowing down into a pool a thought came to her.

“It’s not like anything can hurt me,” she commented to herself, and promptly swooped down to the ground and landed.

Lisa checked her surroundings before she did anything else, but saw nothing that might be a trap. So she checked the water itself, the pool warm to her touch. Perhaps because of the sunlight striking it.

With that fact established she disrobed, though her wings were kept out. The normally pure white feathers had browned considerably, no thanks to the dust storm.

Lisa waded into the pool, the water only about waist high, and sat down in it. The warmth of the water gave the feeling of a massage, and she closed her eyes with a smile.

As though encouraged by how good it felt to have a bath, Lisa fully submerged herself for a moment. She stared up out of the water at the sun and for a moment gave into the temptation of fully relaxing, her mind wandering for quite a while.

When Lisa finally stood up her whole body had been for the most part cleansed. The dust was gone and her wings seemed to almost glow in the sun. Lisa couldn’t resist the giggle that bubbled out as she spun in the pool, revelling in the moment.

“Uh...hello?” asked someone from nearby.

With a start, Lisa turned to the masculine voice, her wings instinctively folding around her torso.