Aside from Guin and Tea, everyone’s mouths dropped when the very disgruntled-looking white garule walked over to them, his orange eyes flashing annoyance in Guin’s direction.

  And she couldn’t help but grin like a fool.

  “S-Sathuren?” BronzePaw said and looked at Guin. “The healer you intended to call was... him?”

  Star snorted a laugh, earning her another glare before she managed to cover her face with her hand.

  “Ibraxis!” Tea exclaimed, instantly latching onto the much larger male’s arm. “You came!”

  “I would sincerely hate to think that you had something to do with this, Tea,” Ibraxis said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the other male, who really was quite short in comparison. Tea’s face fell as he kicked at the ground, but Ibraxis sighed and looked up at Guin. “I am guessing, however, that you are the one that conscripted me into this pointless nonsense, whatever it is.”

  Guin’s fluffy fox tail twitched playfully as she approached him, putting her hands behind her back as she stepped forward. “Who? Me? Now, for what reason could I have to have conscripted you into anything?”

  He raised a single brow. “I should have known that your curiosity in the real world would turn into you being a vengeful little monster in-game,” Ibraxis tilted his head. “I didn’t think you’d go quite this route, though.”

  “I’d be dreaming if I thought I would ever have the strength to beat you in combat,” she said. “But this kind of thing works better for me, anyway. I’m not really the player-fighting type.”

  “I don’t understand,” BronzePaw went, grappling for the words. “What... what exactly am I... to expect, from... this?” she asked, motioning to the group with Ibraxis included.

  The white garule shrugged. “A tentative alliance, I suppose,” he said. “I certainly have no intention of becoming anyone’s slave. But let’s just not be shocked when I kill Guin by the end of it.”

  “Better I die alone than with everyone else,” Guin said in a low voice, looking around. She wasn’t sure how serious Heed was, but she didn’t really want to find out, either.

  “Huh?” Ibraxis went, but Guin ignored him as she saw the groups moving up closer to Captain Othren.

  “So this is your sixth player?” Heed went with a laugh. “For a human, you sure keep the company of a lot of garuli.”

  “What’s your point?” Guin asked, crossing her arms.

  He shrugged. “I don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “If anything, I have respect. I don’t often see white garuli, though.”

  The garule warrior on their side eyed him cautiously. “A healer? A female?”

  “A male,” he corrected. Guin looked back at him in surprise but was even more surprised to see his irritated expression that wasn’t directed at her. It was directed at the smiling Heed. Until his eyes fell to Guin’s. “Am I supposed to be a healer?” he asked.

  “Please?” Tea looked up at him with pitiful eyes.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t ask anything from you, really,” Guin admitted. “But a healer is what we were... kind of hoping. You’ve always played a healer for us before. Is it a problem?”

  “It’s fine,” he said with a twitch, then looked back up at the other group, who was eyeing him with great curiosity.

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  Except the valkyrian. The valkyrian gulped.

  “P-Professor...” he went, pointing. “Y-You are...”

  “I am very annoyed, is what I am,” Ibraxis cut him off. Guin bit her lips together to hide her growing amusement as she realized that it was entirely possible that this valkyrian’s real-life fate could be as much in the balance as their in-game one. “But whatever. What is this dungeon about, anyway? What level?”

  “Can I just say something?” Drakov interjected. “Why the hell is this guy our healer? Didn’t he just recently, I don’t know, PK you, Guin? Why are you inviting him to our group?”

  “I might ask the same question,” BronzePaw asked. “If I put aside the fact that he is my brother, and I would usually try to stand up for him. But in this case...”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Star went, sounding highly amused at the whole thing. “That’s exactly why. He’s contracted. He needs to work with us—and win, too. A masterful stroke of vengeance, Penny-Guin,” the colorful young woman bowed.

  Drakov tsked. “Until he kills her again. And us.”

  “You really think he could take all of us on at once?” Star asked.

  “Does it matter?” Drakov asked. “All he needs to do is get Guin alone—”

  “Which he will not do for the next four or five days, as I would then be locked out of the game for 24 hours,” Guin finished their argument for them. “If I get locked out, then we will lose that time to win the challenge.”

  The tivarys girl on the other team laughed. “Oh, my—team drama already? We are going to win for sure!”

  “Level. Of. The. Dungeon,” Ibraxis repeated himself through gritted teeth.

  “20 - 30, or so the information that we have says, but not many people have gotten past the first boss,” Guin told him, and he sighed. “What, think you could kill me and solo it?”

  “It’s tempting,” he muttered. “What a waste of time. What are we waiting in line for, anyway?”

  As Tea started to explain what he knew to Ibraxis, Heed and Tyran’s group went ahead to speak with Captain Othren. Seeing that, Guin listened in, trying to get what she could by eavesdropping, reading the information, and putting together questions that needed to be asked. She wasn’t sure how many of the groups knew about the corruption and its source—Heed and Tyran’s group certainly didn’t—but the most important thing for them to do was to find the Prince and get him to return what he had taken.

  But if this really was the Tree of Dreams... Wait!

  “Ibraxis,” Guin interrupted their conversation. “You were a Candidate with Veil Sight in the Mist Tutorial, right?” He nodded. “Do you... know that tree?”

  His expression turned grave as he looked at the tree. “I do,” he said in a quiet, pained voice.

  “Is it really the same?”

  “It is.”

  “How can you tell? For sure?”

  “I am an Undying,” he said in a broken voice. “I can just... tell.”

  Guin looked down. “I met the Dragon King of Mist Moon Mountain in this tree,” she told him in a low tone, hoping to keep the information to her own group, if not just between her and the white garule.

  “The Tree of Dreams is the home of many a great spirit,” Ibraxis said. “But it is a place that is like the roots of a tree. There are many roads you can travel within; I am sure only one root of many is corrupted. Defeat its source now, and mayhaps you’ll be able to cut off the poison that would eat the others.”

  “They say... they say that the first boss was a guiding spirit from the land of the River Clan,” she said softly, looking for hope that he was right. “Is this ‘root’ then, from the River country? I won’t see the spirits I once knew so well?”

  Ibraxis shook his head, giving her that fragment of hope she wanted, but then told her, “The world within the Tree of Dreams is not like the world you see around you. The space is different. It moves with thought, not motion. Motion, itself, is driven by thought in that it is what you expect, and it leads you where you expect because it is that expectation—that thought—that drives it. It is a space of infinite doors, and infinite spaces, connected by the souls of a million beings; threads crossing over one another in a manner that is impossible to truly fathom as a being limited by simple biology...” His eyes, staring up into the empty canopy of the tree, glazed over as he spoke. “It is nature. It is life. It is energy. It is everything. And nothing.”

  The cool breeze ruffled the fur on her ears, and moments passed before Guin noticed that the area around them had gone quiet.

  “Wow,” Tea went, breaking the silence. “That’s amazing,” he said. “And we’re going in that? Whoa...”

  “BronzePaw,” Star said, glancing at the bronze garule. “Your brother says some crazy shit.”

  Paw nodded, then awkwardly turned away with balled fists.