Twenty minutes and about fifteen hundred hit points later, the Great White Lepiidae gave its final roar and collapsed on its side. With the final boss down, there was nothing left except the ruined library.

“Now that’s it,” Kaldalis said, panting for breath.

He paused a moment before repeating himself, louder.

Brother Gnider grumbled something inaudible at this distance. The priest had kept as much distance as physically possible for this fight, and Kaldalis couldn’t blame him. The end boss of this dungeon always learned mechanics from the bosses defeated in the run, and the Horned Musk Dragon imparted its fire trail to the monster. The Lepiidae already used its charge attack a lot, and so adding a persistent no-go area to the charge caused it to become covered in danger extremely quickly. With sword and shield equipped, Kaldalis lacked the mobility tools to circumvent the fires, forcing him to stand and fight on an ever-shrinking battlefield.

Fortunately, all of his grinding, training, and gearing paid off. At the end of the fight, he was victorious. At the end of the fight, the Dedication Ring’s buff increased his exp gain just enough to get him to level 22.

“I just upgraded all my gear,” Kaldalis grumbled. “And now I have to replace it all again? What a nightmare.”

“What’s next, then?” Brother Gnider demanded. “Dark rituals? Sacrifice on an unholy altar?”

“Sure, if you need to add a bunch of black mana,” Kaldalis said with a shrug, though he quickly grimaced. He needed to stop saying shit like that to NPCs. “Sorry, nevermind. This building up ahead is the source for Kaia’s Flicker. Quick and painless, and then you’ll have it.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” the priest grumbled, following Kaldalis’s lead towards the library. “Just like your story about the Lataxinans.”

Kaldalis had to smirk at that. He anticipated having to throw those words back in the man’s face after he used Kaia’s Flicker. As much as he wanted this to work, he expected the man to see but still refuse to believe.

The library was exactly as Kaldalis remembered. The only difference since his first visit to the large stone building was that a large number of the scrolls were missing from the shelves now, having been retrieved for the research team. There were still a few hundred left, and Kaldalis wondered what would happen if they ran out. Would game mechanics replace them? Would the new scrolls be the same as before, or would they be new information in order to keep the retrieval profitable? Or would the repeatable quest eventually come to an end?

It wasn’t Kaldalis’s concern. What mattered right now was getting Brother Gnider upstairs to learn the ability before he could get cold feet and change his mind. But the priest was made of sterner stuff than Kaldalis had feared. He didn’t balk as he approached the tablets.

“What does it mean?” he whispered, presumably as the tablet translated itself for him. “Why is it-”

The man’s back went ramrod straight suddenly. Kaldalis knew he’d received the notification to learn Kaia’s Flicker.

“Is this it?” Brother Gnider asked, turning towards Kaldalis. “All I have to do is accept this message?”

“Yeah,” Kaldalis confirmed. “Once you accept, then you have Kaia’s Flicker. Over and done, just that fast.”

“And what is the cost?” the priest asked, drawing himself up to his full height. The man’s deep voice gave the question gravity, though it was significantly reduced by him barely being over five feet tall and Kaldalis being nearly two feet taller.

Kaldalis almost leaned forward ominously and said “everything” but that wasn’t going to be conducive to forging an alliance with the priest.

Might be funny, though.

“Already paid,” Kaldalis said, gesturing vaguely through the wall and towards the direction of the dungeon they’d just passed through. “The only cost is doing the work to get down here. And, I suppose, you have to read the little history lesson.”

Brother Gnider stared at Kaldalis for a long moment, as if he didn’t trust him. Kaldalis had nothing to hide, though, and eventually the priest gave a curt nod.

“It’s done, then,” he said. “Now what?”

“Now you activate it,” Kaldalis said. “Just like a weapon ability or whatever else. It will dump you in the Paths Between Paths for a couple of seconds, which will let you dodge anything that’s about to hit you in the real world. Once you’re in, you’ll see the Lataxinan vessel, though it’ll be far away. It just looks like two big white shapes. I’m afraid it’d be a challenge to get you a closer look.” Kaldalis scratched his chin, trying to imagine how to accomplish it. “We’d either need to crash the barricades at the Panbu dungeon, or I’ll have to beat you most of the way to death with my spear before giving you a super jump suplex. I know better than to ask you to endure that.”

“But it will look as you described?” Brother Gnider demanded. “A mystic void, with two distant shapes?”

“Yeah, I can guarantee you that,” Kaldalis said.

“Fine,” the priest said, and then promptly vanished.

Kaldalis waited for a second, trying to determine if he should use his own Flicker to follow. It wasn’t as if he could speak on that side to give the man a tour of the near-featureless darkness, but meeting his eyes in the blank void might have done something to ground the man. The most important thing was convincing him that what he was seeing over there was real, and perhaps a familiar face being there as well might cement it.

But the moment had passed now. If Kaldalis Flickered in after the man, then Brother Gnider would pop back up in the real world first. That would be fine if the gap was only a second or so, but as the gap grew, so too did the danger. What if the priest decided that this was unforgivable heresy or something and take it upon himself to execute Kaldalis as soon as he popped back in and before he could orient himself on his surroundings?

So Kaldalis waited.

It only took a second or two longer.

Brother Gnider returned to the world with a slight popping sound and a big gasp for air. He dropped to his knees as if in shock, and something fell from his hand to roll across the stone floor.

It all seemed a bit overdramatic to Kaldalis, but he let the man have his moment.

“By the Glorious One,” Brother Gnider said, his face pale as a sheet. “It’s true. It’s all true.”

Kaldalis gave the priest a moment to collect himself. When he caught his breath, he reached for the object that had fallen from his grasp to tuck it back into his robes.

“What is that?” Kaldalis asked, peering curiously.

The man pulled it out again briefly, letting Kaldalis see what it was.

A spyglass.

“Holy shit,” Kaldalis said. “Damn. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Brother Gnider’s lips quirked into a smirk as he tucked the small telescope away again.

How much had he seen? Had a telescope so small let him see the Lataxinans themselves? Or had he just gotten a good enough view to confirm that it wasn;t just a big shiny rock?

“I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you,” Brother Gnider said, with a new tone that Kaldalis hadn’t heard from him before. Was that sincerity? “My only regret is that I can only offer you what little aid my station allows.”

“What does that mean?” Kaldalis asked. “You’re on my side now?”

“It means that I’ve been wrong all my life,” Brother Gnider said with a shake of his head. “I was born hating people like you. I thought you were evil, sent to turn us from the path of the Glorious One. But you’re just… You’re just a man.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Kaldalis admitted carefully. “But I’m trying my best.”

“If your every word is as honest as this one, then we’ve made a dire mistake,” Brother Gnider said quietly, more to himself than to Kaldalis.

“Yeah,” Kaldalis confirmed. “We’re going to do our best to mitigate those mistakes, but people are going to die.”

“Not that,” Brother Gnider said, suddenly focusing on Kaldalis with an intense look in his eyes. “The Contender’s whole plan. The whole reason he’s here. It’s all wrong.”

“Obviously,” Kaldalis said, “assuming his plan is what I think it is. What is his plan?”

“Take me to your council in Cotanaku,” Brother Gnider demanded, his usual severe demeanor reasserting itself. “The sooner I can appraise them of the situation, the faster we can all work together to form a plan to open his eyes as mine have been.”

Kaldalis doubted that was the way this would end. But he didn’t have anything to lose, did he?