Crystal, Levi soon discovered, did not actually know very much about who she worked for, or what was going on from a higher organizational standpoint. What she did know was a lot about the everyday goings-on of the containment facility and its associated training facilities.

She'd been shuffled through eight different dungeons over the course of her initiation and training, before electing to focus on containment rather than continue pursuing the multi-vocational options available to higher level initiates.

She couldn't tell him who was responsible for all this or where to find his minions. She did tell him the approximate locations of the other dungeons that they'd been using as training facilities. He could find them easily enough by cross-referencing her information with his mental map.

Levi did find it interesting how many different stories were being circulated. Javier had one understanding of the place, Crystal another, and upon deeper investigation it sounded as though there wasn't any official story being handed down. That more than anything else seemed indicative of the sort of operation this was. Where they valued secrecy above efficiency. Not a good combination for the long term.

But, then again, what did Levi know about running a secret kidnapping ring?

There was only so much they could get out of her; Lash still only had five minutes of Controlling Gaze at maximum, and she kept trying to divert the conversation into a detailed report about Levi and Lash themselves.

If Levi were a different person, he'd probably have assassinated her on the spot to keep information about soul-seekers restricted. He hated to imagine what the kind of people who didn't mind kidnapping civilians would do if they got their hands on the kind of mental control Lash represented. But Crystal herself was just another subordinate. She did her job and went home to her family on the weekends. And soon enough her family would need someone high level to protect them if they were to have any hope of surviving the coming invasion.

They were down to seconds now. He couldn't think of any more immediate questions to ask, so he may as well try to mitigate the future.

He prodded Lash's side gently to get his attention. "The week of October 24th, you need to be at home. Tell her that."

Lash twisted one tendril into a rough approximation of a thumbs-up.

"Why? What's going to--" her breath caught and and her eyes widened. She gasped and toppled backwards in shock. "You! What? You tricked me!" Furious, she launched herself forward, but the chains brought her up short before she could reach Lash.

She fell back with a snarl, but didn't stay down long. She lunged forward even faster, moving in a blur Levi could barely track. He felt entirely justified in not having tried to fight her head on. He knew full well the kinds of sneaky tricks Scouts could have up their sleeves.

She yanked hard on her chains, trying again to break free, threatening and demanding by turns as her anger and frustration mounted.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't acknowledge his words, perhaps didn't even hear them over her own yelling.

"Come on, Lash." There was no reason to stay longer. He hated what he'd done, even as he worried he hadn't gone far enough. But he had no desire to wait around here to watch another person succumb to despair as a result of his actions.

He closed the door behind them, though it was more a token action than anything meaningful. They'd broken the bolt quite thoroughly. It wouldn't be locking again any time soon. At least it helped muffle the guard's shouting.

Levi exhaled slowly, taking a moment to settle himself. He never thought he'd end up in a situation like this, fighting and interrogating other people. For so long it had been humanity vs demons, any infighting crushed years ago under the weight of necessity. Those who tried to profit at the expense of others hadn't survived long. The end of the world wasn't kind to loners and opportunists. Fall in, stick together, hold the line. Protect everyone you can. Don't get separated. Stay together. Don't stop fighting.

It felt wrong to turn on those weaker than himself, to forcefully declare that his good was more important than theirs.

But he hadn't started this fight. He hadn't kidnapped their families. He could do whatever he had to.

Lash tapped his shoulder with one tendril, gesturing in a complicated series of squiggles with the other seven.

Levi looked around for Skarm to translate, but he and Peter had gone off somewhere. Probably to help Irene with unlocking cells.

"Could you repeat that slower?"

Lash tipped himself sideways, not that there was much difference, and tapped at one of the doors, then wiggled his tendrils again in a sort of spiraling gesture.

"I don't understand."

Lash apparently took this as permission, and shot off down the hallway at his top speed. Levi could have caught up with him if he tried, but his emotions were already in too much turmoil to care about Lash's antics. If he wanted to go off and do who-knew-what, that was fine.

"Crackle, where's Irene?"

But, no, Crackle had gone with her to search for Cassandra. Levi didn't have any copies with him at present.

A moment later, however, one of Crackle came buzzing around the corner from the direction Lash had headed, bobbing in the air for Levi to follow.

He only took one last glance at the door behind which Crystal still loudly protested her imprisonment, then hurried after the scarab.

Around the far corner, down a stairway, and into a connecting passage; then Levi started to see people. Lots of people. He saw countless level 3s and 4s, an occasional 2 or 5, even one 6, but the vast majority were 4. Stuck at that first threshold slowdown.

He was impressed by the spread of classes represented. He wasn't used to seeing this many people of so many different classes all jumbled together without organization. Unlike the first timeline, the majority here seemed to be Mages, with Fighters and Rangers heavily represented, Medics and Scouts least frequent.

He didn't see any Tamers, though. Surprising. He'd have thought at least a few people would have chosen it.

Crackle buzzed at him to stop loitering and hurry up, so he shook off the curiosity. They crossed the corridor, pushing through the milling crowd, then down another set of stairs into another crossing of corridors.

This was where they found Irene, Peter, and a small group of Tamers following them. Irene smashed open bolts and Lash picked locks three at a time with his flexible tendrils. Levi activated his remaining manablade and got to work helping.

There were eight corridors across four layers, each with twenty cells. Not all were occupied, but it was over half. Once they finished releasing everyone it came to around a hundred people. Some had been locked up for weeks, others days.

According to Crystal, teams were selected to clear the dungeon every morning. Estimating from his cooldown timer they had perhaps four hours before that team would enter the dungeon.

Levi couldn't fight a full team capable of clearing this particular dungeon, especially with a hundred lower-level Awakened to protect.

At least not alone.

Running his mind back over the events of their evening infiltration, he didn't think their entrance had left any cause for suspicion. Levi hadn't encountered anyone on their approach, they'd slipped into the dungeon and locked up behind them, and hadn't made a splash by killing off anything notable once inside.

He didn't know how much damage Stunner and Two had done, or what the enemy's reaction to that would be. The worst case was that they'd call for reinforcements, or initiate stronger security of the surrounding area and catch Gordon and the rest of the team as they approached. But either way, it was more likely to appear as an attack than a ruse to infiltrate the dungeon.

They had a few hours to prepare. He had... most of a plan. They only needed the necessary resources to pull it off.

"Alright, I'm going to need as many tamers as are willing, and anyone who's able to deal a lot of damage."