They got within, and Rory wouldn’t have faulted Ned for crashing the jeep at all. They were back in what used to be Dwellmont, but apart from the bones of the old human city showing here and there in the layout, everything else was completely new.

Unlike how human urban architecture typically revolved around stacking buildings next to each other in an orderly use of space, the Otherworlders seemed to favour a different form of layout. They had buildings of their own too, but these were constructed in what looked like strange, function-dependent layers.

“Arelland,” Rory said, poking his head out through the side of the car. “Does your city have different… levels for different functions?”

The elf had slowed down within the walls. Rory believed it was as much adhering to the Otherworlder version of speed limits as it was to give Rory and the rest of the humans time to take in everything.

Arelland turned his head just enough so that Rory could see the side of his face while he kept on moving. “You are correct. The empty layer you see before you is mostly for movement, recreational purposes, social gatherings, and the like.”

Rory looked around. All the buildings above them had been set on a latticework, held up by thick pillars that towered dozens upon dozens of feet in the air. This left a mostly airy, wide space on the ground for the Otherworlders to use for the exact purposes Arelland had outlined. Much of the rest of the city had been levelled to create things like parks, what had to be playgrounds, gardens, and the like.

“This is fascinating,” Ned said. “What are the different layers above us for?”

“The lowest is the Habitation Level.” Arelland pointed with one hand straight above him. “That is where most Otherworlders make their homes. Right above it is the Cultural Level. This houses our Trading Centres, Eateries, Mediation Zones, Knowledge Stores, and things of that kind. Above that is the Industrial Level, where most of our manufacturing takes place. The next two Levels are the Economic and Administrative Levels. The final one is the Coalition Level.”

“Coalition Level, huh?” Ned leaned forward over the steering wheel to stare at the top of the highest tower in the middle of Sanctorum. “Wonder what it’s like way up there.”

“Perhaps you will get to see.”

Allen and Miles looked at each other excitedly, while Ned’s eyes widened at Arelland’s words. Rory almost laughed at their excitement. It stood to reason the leader of the Otherworlders would receive them in her main office, which would no doubt be at the peak of Sanctorum, the way it had been built.

They passed by several streets where Otherworlders were strolling or playing a strange sport that involved chasing a mechanical bird. There were some kobolds here and there, but most Rory saw were elves, wearing non-combat clothes made of draping fabric. Several had masks, but many went maskless. They all eyed the apparently strange vehicles passing through their midst, pointing and staring wide-eyed.

“Do they know it’s me?” Rory asked tremulously at one point after an elven couple stared directly at him. “Do they… know who I am?”

Arelland laughed lightly. “You have a strong reputation here, Rory. I am certain you can imagine why.”

The lack of masks. That was why. Rory was the reason several of them had shrugged off the yoke of their dependence on masks on this world. It was his Sigil of Atmospheric Control that allowed them to regulate the air to breathe properly.

Most of these people here seemed to be simple citizens. They didn’t need to be loaded up with Sigils that they could have potential use for in a combat scenario. For them, taking in a Sigil that allowed them to breathe without needing masks was a no-brainer.

“No dwarves,” Ned noted.

“Or giants,” Miles said. “Or that many kobolds. Do the elves occupy most of the lowest Level?”

“No,” Arelland answered. “Most of the dwarves tend to remain indoors and higher up. Even with your recent Sigil—which unfortunately hasn’t had as much success as the elves took to your Atmospheric Control—staying higher up necessitates staying indoors.”

“And I assume the giants stay somewhere else,” Rory said. “None of these buildings are big enough to house them. Well, not more than one or two of them together, at least.”

“Correct. They may not be on our way, but perhaps you can meet them after the meeting with the Overseer.”

Their journey stopped near the centre of Sanctorum. The largest tower, easily as wide as a football field at its base, stood in the middle. Not everyone could go inside to meet the Otherworlders’ Overseer, so Rory asked most of them to stay near the parked vehicles. Arelland led Rory, Ned, Miles, and Alia within.

The interior antechamber was a large hall with a sloping ceiling, made with a material that looked like grey marble and lit up by strange blue lights glowing fitfully from the ceilings. There was no one inside. Rory wondered if it was normally like this, or if it was for his visit.

Arelland eventually stopped at a platform with a metal floor covered by a plush rug. Rory thought they would take some sort of elevator, though he wouldn’t have been surprised if the Otherworlders employed something fantastical like portals. But then, the platform started moving.

“A warning would have been nice,” Ned muttered as he wobbled in place.

“Ah yes.” Arelland looked at them a little critically. “I only now recall the lift does not take into account your Homeworlder physiologies…”

They all stared at the elf.

“Is… that going to be a real problem?” Alia asked.

“Hmm, how do you define problem?”

The platform jerked. Rory wobbled on his feet then too, wishing there was something to hold on to. There were railings at the side that would prevent them from falling over, but those didn’t help when he was near the middle. As the lift rose like an elevator, it rotated as well so that the overall motion was helical. Its movement wasn’t that bad.

The real problem was that it was speeding up rapidly.

“How fast is this thing supposed to get?” Ned asked, unable to hide the panic in his voice.

“Another excellent question.” Arelland paused to consider, looking completely unruffled despite the rising pace. “I will ask them to reconsider the regular method of approach.”

Arelland quietened and spoke into his hand. Rory was too busy trying to keep his balance to wonder if there was some kind of communication method attached to his suit, which wasn’t unlikely. But just a few seconds later, the platform’s approach slowed. They were soon able to keep themselves properly upright without trouble.

“Better?” the elf asked.

Rory and the rest of them nodded in agreement.

Now that he wasn’t worried about imminently falling over, Rory was able to observe where they were headed. Well, he tried to. Unfortunately, they moved into a tall chute, the platform rotating upwards around a central cylinder. The interior of the chute was plated with dark glass, preventing them from seeing what else was within the tower they were climbing.

Thankfully, they didn’t need to wait for long. After about another minute of silent rising, the platform began slowing even more.

“Are we finally there?” Miles asked. The light within the chute was dim, but there was enough to see the gleam of excitement flashing in his eyes.

“Almost…”

The platform soon came to a stop, and one of the glass panels disappeared to reveal a tubelike hallway. More of the blue lights glowed dimly overhead.

“Come,” Arelland said, then led them forward.

Rory and the others followed him through the short passage into a large antechamber. Most of the room was empty, except for strange plants lining the walls. Rory would have been happy to pause and check them out, but they reached the polished metal door guarded by a dwarf and a kobold, which Arelland stopped before.

The red-bearded dwarf nodded at them, then knocked on the door. There was no answer. Instead, the door slid into the wall noiselessly, accompanied by a woman’s deep voice bidding them to enter.

Rory took in the office with a quick glance—more plants at the corners, shimmering paintings draped over ceramic-white walls, and a crescent-shaped desk—before his eyes settled on the Otherworlders’ Overseer. The tall elf had her head shaved bare and wasn’t wearing a mask, the Sigil of Atmospheric Control glowing on the back of her steepled hands. She wore a strange mix of armour and silver, fur-lined robes that looked way too expensive.

“Greetings.” Her dark eyes bored into each of the humans. “I unfortunately have only the one seat, so unless you all wish to squeeze into it…”

Ned cleared his throat and Miles sniggered lightly. Shushing them, Rory went head and sat down on the hard chair. Clearly, this audience wasn’t supposed to go on for long. His butt hurt.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Rory said. “I suppose you already know who we all are.”

The Overseer nodded. “I do. Arelland has given me much to go on with. As I’m sure he has told you much about me.”

“Actually… all I’m aware of is your position. I wouldn’t mind a better introduction.”

Arelland coughed into his hand. The Overseer frowned at him, but then looked at Rory with the same drilling expression as before.

“As you wish,” she said. “I am Mirain. I have been the Overseer for the Otherworlders in this Battle Apocalypse since the beginning. And I will not be giving up this position until I have secured victory for my side.”

Rory blinked. That was not so much an introduction as a declaration of intent. “Well, I’m glad we can be honest.”

“Can we?” It didn’t seem possible, but her expression hardened even more. Her face could have been constructed from panes of hard glass. “As much as I have learned from Arelland, it has only led me to conclude that there are glaring holes in his story. Holes that only you can fill, Homeworlder.”

“We’re not Homeworlders,” Ned said.

“Is that so? Well, what are you, then?”

Rory cleared his throat to get a hold of the conversation. “Tell me, Overseer, what sort of holes did you find in whatever story you were told? I don’t want to repeat what Arelland has already said.”

Mirain leaned back in her chair. It was plusher than Rory’s. “Let us begin with the biggest issue—the Invigilator. I have heard what happened with the Corebeast. I know you tackled the Invigilator directly, had some dealings with the rebels threatening the war. But it is unclear to me how exactly you managed to come out unscathed… especially when the Invigilator did not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your own child was part of the rebels, correct? The Invigilator took them, and thus, you were desperate to retrieve them. But when you returned after your altercation in the System Space—which, in and of itself is a tremendous experience—your child was still missing. But you seem relatively… happy.”

Ah, so that was it. That drilling expression had grown sharp as daggers. Rory wasn’t sure how much he could trust this Overseer, but then, Alex wasn’t in a position where they could be harmed by any Otherworlder.

“How would information about my child benefit you?” Rory asked. “Suffice it to say that he isn’t part of the rebels now. In fact, I was part of taking care of the last of the rebels. They shouldn’t even be a problem anymore.”

The Overseer glanced at her table, her hard exterior faltering for a second as she seemed to consider something. “If it is a matter of trust that you balk at, then allow me to share a secret.” She leaned forward, her face suddenly blank as her armour whirred with hydraulics. “We Overseers are supposed to be in regular contact with the Invigilator. This has been the rule from even before the Battle Apocalypse began.”

“What?” Rory asked. The implications were starting to stagger him, but he wanted to listen directly from the Overseer. Behind him, the others had stiffened as well. “Don’t tell me the Invigilator is coordinating the whole war through you?”

“The Invigilator selects us Overseers before the war begins,” Mirain said. “We do not know the criteria, but we are charged with making sure that our sides do their utmost to win.”

More information that rattled Rory’s head, but he forged onwards anyway. “And what does the Invigilator tell you?”

The Overseer took a deep breath. “It is not as you assume. The Invigilator had more contact with us near the beginning of the Battle Apocalypse to ensure everything was set up correctly. There is no secret machination going on. The Invigilator does not have any say about how we conduct the war itself. It is natural for the communication to dip once the war is underway.

“But if something were to go wrong, something beyond the expectation and boundary of what the system naturally throws at us, we could always contact the Invigilator directly. Now, with these Misericords, everything is threatening to upend.

“We were supposed to be able to contact and confirm with the Invigilator that these creatures truly did belong here, but as I have been saying so far, there has been no contact. We have failed to reach the Invigilator.”

“What are you saying?” Rory’s head was threatening to spin with the implications, but he still needed to set them in stone for himself. “You sound like the Invigilator determines what sort of monsters get to appear here.”

“Of course. The Invigilator controls nearly everything about the system. What system works on what world, what kind of creatures will be compatible within that system, and every other such particular that we have no control over.”

“You mean… there are more kinds of systems?” Alia asked.

“Yes. The Plane Rulers control many, many worlds in this Plane, but Sigils only work on a handful of them. Different systems work in different worlds.”

“It would be too boring to have that same thing everywhere,” Arelland muttered.

Mirain frowned at him. “Not now, Arelland.”

Rory’s brain was whizzing at an incredible speed. What the Overseer had said made more than enough sense. After all, he had experienced how much Truck was hunting after entertainment. If there were more like him, if there were more who only sought entertainment, there was no doubt they would want to keep things fresh.

That meant giving every place they held a Battle Apocalypse its own new system.

The Overseer leaned forward on her table once more, face growing hard again. “Your turn, I believe. Going by your expressions, I have shared much that you did not know. Only fair that you tell me what I wish to learn.”

“And what’s that?” Rory asked, a little warily.

“The Invigilator and your child. What truly happened to them?”

There was an almost pleading expression on the Overseer’s face. Rory suddenly felt sorry for her. Losing all contact with the Invigilator must have felt like having the rug pulled from under her. She had lost an important base that she could have always relied on. Losing that, at a time when everything she had worked towards was threatening to collapse, had to be hard.

Rory took a deep breath. “The new Invigilator is my child.”

Mirain’s eyes widened. “Impossible.”

“Believe it or not, it’s true. They intend to end this whole war that you’re so desperate to fight to the bitter end. I imagine the introduction of the Misericords is part of their ploy to stop the war, what with how Sigils are ineffective against such monsters.”

It was now Mirain’s turn to feel overwhelmed. Rory could visibly see how her brain was trying to slot the new, terrifically surprising information into a tapestry that made sense to her.

“But if the Invigilator is your child,” the Overseer said, her expression rapidly changing. “That means you seek to contact them as soon as you can, correct?”

Rory tried to keep his face even, but he didn’t like the calculating look Mirain now had. “We do, yes.”

Another brief, imploring expression, quickly replaced by the calculating one. At this point, the only thing Rory got was that the Overseer wasn’t what he had expected. Weren’t leaders supposed to pride themselves on controlling their emotions? Mirain wore it openly. Maybe she thought herself so powerful that it didn’t matter.

No one else could take advantage of her, no matter what she showed.

“Let us make a deal,” she said. “I can help you get in touch, see if you can be successful where I have not been. However, I require your assistance with the Misericords first.”

“Oh?” Rory asked. “I thought you Otherworlders had things well in hand.”

“Perhaps, but not to the same extent as you Home—humans—from what I have heard.”

“How so?”

“We are forced to use physical means to stop the Misericords. It is no great concern yet, but we would ideally be continuing to use Sigils to good effect. Such as you have been. If you cooperate with us and provide us with your Sigil-use methods, I will agree to get you in touch with the Invigilator, at least as far as I can.”

Rory didn’t need to think long about that. “We’re setting up some things, back at the palace. If they successfully work out, I’d be happy helping everyone.”

He didn’t hesitate at the last bit, and the Overseer frowned a little at the use of everyone but made no comment on it. After a moment of observation, she nodded.

“Then I believe our meeting is concluded, unless there was more you wished to say?” Mirain said.

Rory already had too much to think about. He didn’t need more. “No, I think we’re good.”

The Overseer leaned back in her chair. “Then I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.”

“Oh yes!” Miles looked around in excitement. “We’re finally going to get a proper tour, right?”

Mirain chuckled lightly. “I leave it at Arelland’s discretion. However, be aware that your visit has reached a lot of ears…”

As Arelland led them back the way they had entered, the last thing Rory saw was Mirain peering at him with the same drilling expression. He was glad to be spared any more dealings with that, though that last statement did leave him worrying a little.

But more than that, he had something to look forward to now. A direct way to try to get in touch with Alex.