Lash reinflated from a floppy pile into his usual giant round self, staring around at Levi, then at Peter. To everyone's surprise, Lash gently wrapped his tendrils around Peter, pulling himself toward his side in what, in anything but a giant eyeball, would be... nuzzling? Levi wasn't sure what to do with that mental image; that was just weird.

Peter reacted with a surprised laugh, running his hands down the shadowy tendrils, squishing the semi-solid mass experimentally. A bit of the hardness had vanished from his eyes, leaving him looking more like the boy Levi remembered as he turned to his father with a vaguely stunned expression. "I want one."

Levi managed a smile. Peter had never been in a Control dungeon high enough level to have a Soul-Seeker. If that was what it took to distract him from vengeance, good job Lash.

Lash seemed to be enjoying the attention. He bobbed backwards, releasing Peter to raise his tendrils, switching to bladed mode, the tendrils narrowing and solidifying. Peter held out a hand, and Lash gently laid the shadowy lash in his palm.

Peter prodded the more-solid tendril, testing how far he could force his finger into it before its resistance became too high. Then he looked up to Levi. "Can I get one?"

"Once we're out of here, you can get whatever you'd like. We'll take a trip to grab anything you need and take care of a few loose ends." His list grew ever longer; pick up Gordon's son, go grab that double-plus kalvex from the secret boss room, initiate Peter's school friends, collect every type of elemental essence, find Peter a soul-seeker...

"Slayer disappeared. He's not even on my list now at all." Peter walked around Lash again, running a hand across the smooth orb of his back. One hand traced the patterns of purple shadow as they grew clearer and thicker toward the back, then all converged to burst out and form his eight shadow tendrils. He clearly wanted to say more, but resisted the impulse.

Levi covertly double checked his own minion list, verifying everyone was still present, even the out-of-bounds dead minions, and none had disappeared for him. At least not yet.

"Did he go back to his dungeon?" Peter asked in a rush. "Can we find him there?"

"Yeah." Levi didn't want to get into the whole question of individuality and uniqueness over dungeon monsters; Slayer wasn't distinctive enough to be irreplaceable. "We can go capture him again too."

"After we get Mom and Aunt Cas," Peter insisted, as though worried Levi was about to drop everything to go find him new minions that very minute and he wanted to head off the possibility.

So responsible already.

"Yes. After that. Right now we need to make a plan, and then stick to that plan. Lash is our greatest asset at the moment, so he's going first. You and Skarm follow behind him, make sure he doesn't get overwhelmed. I'll be rearguard."

"Okay." Peter crouched and held out a hand for Skarm to high-five. "Team Guardian!"

Levi smiled as he pulled out what small items he still had on his person. Most of the largest pieces of equipment were still strapped to Pierce or scattered across the floor of some dungeon, but he still had everything in his storage bags.

No body armor, no proper weapons, but he had a few extra pairs of gloves, boots, a lower-tier helmet, and a collection of knives available. Peter chose out his favourites of the lot, then put them on with utmost seriousness.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

Crystal White walked slowly down the hall, wishing that electronics worked down here so she could at least play some music while watching the high-level anomalous Awakened for signs of breaking out or going crazy. So far, they were quiet tonight. Only a handful of the begging types, that one woman who periodically started yelling for her son started up again.

Crystal shook her head. If you wanted to protect your son, you shouldn't have turned him into an unstable magical entity. But she knew better than to say anything. Crazies couldn't be reasoned with.

Speaking of crazies... she was coming up on that one guy who always knew her footsteps when she was walking by and always tried to hit on her. As if he wasn't a dangerous prisoner and she the supervisor tasked with keeping him contained.

She'd taken to jumping off the ground before reaching his cell, drifting past in silence rather than instigate his rather crude attempts at forming a relationship. If she didn't know better, she'd have sworn the ceiling at that particular spot was higher than the rest, too, enabling her escape more readily. But that had to be her imagination. Dungeons only wanted to kill people, not help them with their private agendas.

She was feeling quite smug about herself as she glided silently past the cell door, legs tucked up under her for no other reason than that it felt right to do so.

Then she caught sight of a flash of golden light coming up the hall towards her. Frowning, she set her feet down, dropping lightly to the ground. She leaned forward to assess the situation--

CRASH.

Crystal jumped and whirled as the door to the cell beside her slammed open, so loud and sudden she nearly had a heart attack on the spot. How had the flirting creep gotten his door open?

Instead of sitting chained to his bed, he stood in the center of the room. His chains hung broken from his wrists, wrapped around his body like excessive quantities of belts and straps, around his legs, around his torso, across his chest in an X. Black-red smoke billowed off his body, obscuring all but the glinting silver of the chains and the too-white curve of his manic grin.

Crystal jumped toward the door to close it, but she only hung in the air helplessly, as though her drift was no longer in her control. She flailed, reaching out for the ground, the ceiling, the door, anything to anchor herself, but could only float where she stood.

The prisoner cackled maniacally, growing larger with each step as he slowly advanced. Gone were his wheedling attempts at coercion, his crude attempts at humor. Instead there was nothing but greed in his eyes.

NO. Crystal wasn't going to let this happen. Not like this!

She poured all her mana into Skip, all her stamina, focusing intently on the far end of the hall. She waited, heartbeat desperately, frantically fast. She needed to let the power build, but she had to get away.

Red light illuminated the entire hall and mounting heat poured out from the cell. A burning chain lashed out, wrapping around her leg in a burning tight grip. She felt it bite through flesh, heard the metal grind against bone. There was no controlling her scream.

More chains, wrapping around her, holding her in place. She released the Skip, power surging as it tried to tear her free, but it only pressed her more painfully into the chains.

She slumped, depleted. No tricks left up her sleeve. No last-minute save.

Hopeless. It was all hopeless.

"Yes, give up, there's no reason to fight." The voice rasped almost caressingly, and Crystal found she was crying as she lay limply in the maniac's chains. "No reason at all."

Then the chains jerked her forward, into the cell; into the burning dark.

A flash of light.

Crystal gasped and stumbled backwards, off balance. She tripped over her bed and fell to the stone, hard. Frantic, she turned her head to see her attacker, but the darkness and crimson glow had completely disappeared. The cell was empty. The door was closed.

She felt vaguely that was supposed to be outside, but the chains around her wrists clearly said otherwise, and she was overwhelmed with such apathy and malaise she didn't care enough to pursue the errant thought.

She lay back, her heartbeat returning to something approaching normalcy as she relaxed into the emptiness. There was a freedom in giving up.

She didn't have to care any more. Didn't have to--

Crystal's brow furrowed and she sat bolt upright. No. This was wrong. Why would she be chained up? Clearly, she'd just woken from a nightmare. But what had happened the night before?

Had she gone mad? Was she--

"No, you wait out here."

Crystal froze, straining her ears. That had been a male voice. Unfamiliar. Not one of her fellow guards.

"I'm going to talk to her. You wait here."

Grumbling and muttering, too distant for her to make out.

Then the door to her cell swung open, revealing... a stranger. Level 17, with a giant floating eyeball hovering at his back like some kind of eldritch terror, tentacles of shadow draping around it as though resting its many elbows on invisible railings.

Crystal found herself hyperventilating again. She closed her eyes and tried hard to will herself awake. Just another nightmare. Not real. Wake up.

"Crystal White, level eighteen Scout." The voice snapped out, firm and commanding.

She looked up, instinctively straightening, expecting a reprimand for sleeping on the job. Instead, the scene remained unchanged. The terrible creature remained fully present. At least the man standing in front of it hadn't turned into anything horrible. Yet. But his disapproving scowl almost made her wish he had.