Hartville was a port city-state in District 9 whose only claim to political importance was due to its trade route access and history as a neutral meeting point between all the other city-states. Its proximity to Capital City meant that it was typically a pretty safe area, with very low crime. That was also in part due to progressive policies with high taxation meant to alleviate the lower bracket. It was the beacon of a middle-income society.

One thing it wasn't known for being was a dungeon city. It was too densely populated, and the air wasn't as rich in mana as somewhere like Arcadia or Hovelton. About twenty feet from the stadium was the city center, cobbled streets weaving through soft pastel stores with colorful awnings on their terrace. A fountain gurgled in the center of it all, in front of a tall cathedral with a clock. Hints of seabreeze drifted from the waterfront in the distance that was underneath a pier. In just that small stretch, dozens of people milled about, minding their business, ignorant of the fact that an unstable dungeon was about to spawn in the middle of it all and ruin their day.

Lexie had a single moment of sheer panic where she didn't know what to do, where her mind was so frozen by fear and disbelief that she could barely function. Denial was her first response, her brain's shield against accepting the horror.

Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe her anxiety was coming from something else and not from a dungeon spawning near a crowded square and a few feet away from a stadium with thousands of people inside.

Yeah, there was no possible way.

Except there was. It hadn't been that long since she'd felt her last unstable dungeon, it's influence turning the mana environment slightly more chaotic, making the mana under her skin skitter and shift. The longer she stood there the stronger the effect got and she knew she needed to call her father right now.

Aiden picked up instantly, his warm face and familiar smile filling the screen. It looked like he was in the kitchen. "Hey, bumble bee. Are you having fun–"

"Dad, I need you." The words were falling over each other in the rush of hysteria that filled her. "There's an unstable dungeon spawning underground. I don't…" Her breath hitched. "I don't know what to do."

Aiden's face shifted from a smile to shock and then to alarm. "Where are you?"

"Outside the Hartville stadium."

"Okay, I need you to get away from there, right now. Go somewhere safe. I'm coming."

"Should I tell someone, do something?" Lexie didn't even know what she could do. What did one do to destroy UD's? Shoot them? Uncle Max said she could do that if the dungeon was small enough but it didn't look like this one was. Also, she didn't have a gun on her and even if she did, the dungeon was underground. "[Heroes]. I need to do a [hero] alert, right?"

"Yes, that's good. Do you know how to do it?"

Lexie nodded. They'd been taught how to call the hero hotline and fill out an incident report at school.

"Call them. Tell them what's happening, but do it while you're getting somewhere safe, alright?"

Lexie nodded.

"Get your friends and get on a train. I'll track you and I'll be right there."

"Alright." Right after she hung up, Lexie called the hero hotline, and a holograph of a brunette woman staring at the screen and typing appeared in her view.

"Hello, this is the hero hotline. How can I help you today?"

"Um..." Lexie coughed to clear her throat and said, "There's an underground unstable dungeon in the process of spawning and we need [Heroes] to take care of it."

The woman didn't even skip a beat, continuing to drone in a monotone voice. "All our [Heroes] are currently busy. Local law enforcement should be there in about three hours. Tell me more about this dungeon. Are there monsters attacking?"

"No. It hasn't spawned yet. Three hours, you said?"

The woman nodded without taking her eyes off her black screen. "Can you see the dungeon?"

"Um… no. It's underground."

"If there are no monsters and you can't see the dungeon, how do you know a dungeon is spawning?"

"I can feel it."

"You can…feel it?"

"Yes. I can feel it pulling at my mana cloud. It feels more chaotic and the mana on my feet is trying to go into the ground…"

The woman gave her a blank look and Lexie realized that not many people could sense mana like she could, and she could only do it due to her father's black hole exercises which he'd described as secret, semi-forbidden knowledge. Meaning she couldn't really explain how she knew what she knew. They just had to take her word for it. Shoot.

"Just trust me." She tried to sound as convincing as possible. "It's there. I know."

"Right. The woman didn't look convinced as she went back to typing. With a droll voice, she said, "You know that there's a penalty for false reports right? You and your guardian could get in a lot of trouble for wasting the [Heroes'] time."

"I'm not making a false report and I'm not wasting their time. I'm serious, there's a dungeon."

"Right. Anyway, one of the law enforcement will come by and check it out in about three hours."

We don't have three hours. Lexie bit off the response, knowing it would do no good. The woman didn't believe her and Lexie didn't have time to convince her. She could feel the dungeon getting stronger rapidly, the mana field going wilder.

As the hero hotline lady hung up, Lexie's eyes skimmed around in panic, and she bit her lip. What to do now? She was supposed to go somewhere safe, but everyone was just walking around oblivious. No one was here to help these people and it might take Aiden hours to arrive. She had to do something.

Maybe Uncle Max might know what to do.

Lexie's heart raced as she called him, but was immediately sent to voice mail, due to no signal on his end. He was probably in a dungeon. Shoot. She left a message just in case he came out in time and could help.

Okay. She took deep breaths trying to calm herself enough to think of what to do next. Let's take it one step at a time. First things first, the fight had to stop. She needed everyone to evacuate and she thought about the quickest possible way to do that. No one would listen to her if she informed security or the ushers. She needed to tell someone who would listen and who had the influence to make other people trust her. Maybe Conrad?

Conrad.

As she ran back through the forcefield, the tension in the crowd adding to hers, she texted Dewie and Xena a simple message.

UNDERGROUND DUNGEON SPAWNING SOON. LEAVE STADIUM NOW.

By the sounds of the crowd within the forcefield, the game was still going strong and it was getting heated up. Lexie didn't bother looking. She immediately ran into the backstage area, where the guards thankfully let her in without a fuss. She dashed down the halls to the room where Conrad and Boris were sitting, watching the match in silence.

"This is brutal," Conrad was muttering at the black screen.

"It is," Boris concurred and glanced back to find Lexie at the doorway. He managed a wry smile.

"Hey, little bird. Come watch Top Dog get his ass kicked by a prepubescent boy."

"No. I came to report that there's an unstable dungeon opening up right outside."

That got both their attention and they shot to their feet, rounding on Lexie.

"What?"

"Yeah. It's an underground dungeon. We need to stop the show and evacuate everyone."

"Wait, slow down." Conrad put his hands up. "What do you mean? How do you know there's an unstable dungeon underground?"

"I can feel it."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. Trust me. Please, Conrad, we need to get rid of everyone and call the [Heroes]. Can you call your parents?"

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"I'll try but my parents haven't been home for weeks now." Conrad shook his head and shared a frightened look with Boris. "Are you…I mean are you sure?"

She nodded frantically. "What can we do? How can we stop this? We need people to leave"

After a moment of hesitation, he nodded. "Come on. Maybe I can talk to Kevin."

"Kevin?"

"The announcer. He said he was a fan, and if we can get him to make the announcement then maybe we could get people to….or maybe that would cause too much disarray." He shook his head. "We should talk to Douglas first. Let's get to the president's booth."

"Alright. But let's hurry." She couldn't feel the dungeon as well from all the way over here but she knew at the rate it had been going, that it wasn't a dungeon that would take hours to spawn. It would spawn soon.

She rushed to follow Conrad out and he walked determinedly down the hall. He branched off towards a gold-plated staircase that would lead up to a white door with a golden trim. A keycard materialized in his hand, and he used it to open the door, leading them into a luxurious balcony in the sky that was in direct view of the black screen but also had a gorgeous backdrop of the Hartville beach and the blue sea.

President Douglas was sitting on a plush white sectional, laughing with two other older men. Glasses of wine in hand, they were alternating between talking and watching the game on the screen. They seemed pretty pleased with themselves for whatever reason.

Lexie and Conrad approached quickly and one by one all three men turned their attention to them.

"What is it?" Mr. Douglas' eyes went to Lexie and he smiled. "Lexie. Nice to see you again."

"There's an unstable dungeon spawning outside," Lexie announced. "We need to get this place evacuated."

They didn't give Lexie the reaction she wanted. Rather than bolting to their feet and ordering Kevin to make the announcement, Douglas merely raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You need to announce an evacuation to help clear the stadium out," Lexie said.

"If there's an unstable dungeon, security would have alerted us, no?" His companion asked.

"No, it's underground. And it hasn't spawned yet, but we have to hurry."

"An underground dungeon?" The third man frowned. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"There were a couple that cropped up in Hovelton last year, I think," Douglas said.

"Oh yes, I think I heard about it."

"It was a real tragedy. But how'd you know one of those is here?"

"Because I can feel it." Lexie watched his eyebrow quirk in amusement.

"Feel it?"

"Yes, I can…." Shit. Lexie was running into the same problem she'd had with the hotline lady. Once again, trying to convince them of something she felt in her gut, was an exercise in frustration. It would be hard to get them to trust her. Even Conrad was staring at her, waiting for a response.

"We're wasting time." The urgency made her want to yell. No one was taking this as seriously as she was, and everyone was asking too many questions. "Can't we just evacuate now and ask questions later? I promise you I'm right."

Douglas smiled indulgently. "It's not that easy to evacuate people, sweetheart, especially if you can't give me a valid reason for your claim. What are you going to tell them? What instructions would you have them follow?"

Lexie was quiet. She didn't have the answers. Mr. Douglas tutted.

"Look, I know you've probably had a stressful week," Douglas continued. "Maybe go home. Relax a little, see a therapist."

"I'm not crazy," She glanced back at Conrad, but he was also looking concerned too. God. They were still wasting time.

Lexie glanced over and saw that she had a direct path to the announcer's table which was right next to the arena, a throw away from underneath the President's booth. If she could fly, she could make it there in two seconds.

She couldn't fly, but she had the next best thing.

She ran for the balcony.

"Lexie!" She heard Conrad shout behind her but she ignored him. She activated <Hustle and Shuffle> boosting to <lightfoot> as she hopped over the railing the wind rushing up to meet her until she landed lightly on the soft grass.

Kevin was focused on the match when she ran up to him, and once she was close enough for the mike to pick up the sound, she activated <Can I have Your attention and yelled, "Stop the match right now!"

Kevin bolted and whipped his head to stare at her. "What the fuck?"

"There's an unstable dungeon spawning outside right now! You all need to get out of here!"

It was hard to tell how many people were listening to her. In the arena, the fight had paused with Torin having a sword to Top Dog's neck once more. They both turned to her, their faces twisted with confusion.

No one was moving fast enough for Lexie's comfort.

"Did you not hear me? There's an unstable dungeon!"

"Alright, kid." A large uniformed man, security, picked her up from behind and slung her over his shoulder. "You're done for the day. That just earned you a yearlong ban."

"Wait, no. Wait." Lexie tried to fight him to let her go but he was already walking her outside quickly. In the corner of her vision, she could see Conrad arguing with President Douglas who looked pissed and she saw the fight resuming, with Kevin trying to smooth things over. She stopped fighting It wouldn't do any good anyway. No one in here was heeding her warning and they wouldn't until it was too late.

She needed to figure out how to save everyone here without their contribution.

After she got tossed out and the guard finished up with his speech about how she shouldn't do this again, Lexie's friends rushed out of the forcefield. In the meantime, Lexie had been trying to figure out what to do next. Alert nearby businesses and schools? There was no guarantee they would believe her, just like those in the stadium hadn't believed her. The easiest thing to do now was to stop the dungeon from spawning. Was there a way to get rid of it? A card she could use? Something.

That was when saw Xena and Dewie running out with confused expressions on their faces.

"Lexie?" Xena spoke first. "What the heck is going on?"

"There's an unstable dungeon back there." She pointed. "Is there any way you can contact [Heroes]?"

Xena and Dewie shared a look.

"I can contact Lionel," Xena said. "Though he might be busy with Fae stuff."

"I can try to call some of my teachers too. Or maybe tell Jace to call the teachers. He has a few of their numbers," Dewie said.

"Good. Try that, but from far away. You two should get on a bus or something out of the city. I'm going to go find the focal point of the dungeon."

"The what?" But Lexie was already running away from them. She figured the first thing she needed to do was calculate how large the circumference of the dungeon was, and for that, she needed to locate the center. She used the mana within her to find it and kept running until she reached the spot where she felt the strongest effect.

The spot was at the edge of a semi-secluded street outside a closed restaurant. In fact, all the restaurants on the street looked closed, some having signs on their door showing they'd been closed for months. They each left varying excuses for the closure. Strange. How did something different happen to all of them, leading to the same result?

It was also at the end of the block so there was very little foot traffic which Lexie found a little too convenient. The dungeon core was in an oasis of silence within the crowd swirling around them.

Was that by design or mere coincidence?

Before she could do much more than wonder, she felt a hand on her shoulder

She spun around with her heart racing, but relief flooded her when she saw her father.

"Dad!" She jumped into his arms and he wrapped them around her, pulling her close to him.

"How did you get here so fast?" Lexie asked.

"Never mind that." He pulled back and stared at her. "I told you to get somewhere safe."

She shook her head. "I tried to tell everyone, to warn them. They wouldn't believe me."

"Yes, I understand." He sighed and shut his eyes. "Below us is the core for this dungeon, isn't it?"

Lexie nodded. "I could feel it all the way from the stadium. It's a big one, bigger than the last one in Hovelton." And that one had an Eldritch Eye inside it. God only knew what this one would bring.

"Shit," Aiden swore and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What do we do?" Lexie asked him. "Is there anything I can do?"

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, clearly thinking and then he shook his head. It didn't look convincing.

"Dad," she said. "What is it?"

He opened his eyes and gave her a grave look. He squatted, taking her shoulders in his hands and looking her dead in the eye. "Lexie. There is one thing you can do but it might be a little risky for you."

That didn't sound like Aiden. "Risky how?"

"It involves behavior that might cause the Eldritch essence within you to spread."

Lexie shook her head. "No. I don't want to."

"Of course." Aiden didn't even hesitate. "I was just going to give you the option because if I didn't tell you and you found out later, you might resent me. But you do not have to do it. Let's get to safety and try to reach the [Heroes]."

"No wait." Lexie swallowed the fear pounding in her chest and said, "What is it? The thing you wanted me to do."

"Are you sure?"

No, but she thought about all the people in that stadium and nodded.

Aiden was nevertheless reluctant to start speaking. "This might not work, mind you. It's just…a theory I have and it's very messy and hard to articulate much less coach you on what to do–"

"It's fine Dad," Lexie said, tired of the hedging. "Just tell me what it is."

He sighed and said, "I want you to try to…communicate with the dungeon."

Lexie stared at him blankly. "Huh?"

"Naem can sometimes communicate with dungeons, the more intelligent ones that is. You have Naem's essence inside you, so it's something you might be able to do. Or might not. It's really hard to tell because there are no records of any humans having this power in history and I don't even–"

"I'll try," Lexie blurted out to stop his rambling. "Just…tell me how to do it."

"That's the thing. I don't know exactly how he does it," Aiden said. "I suppose you could close your eyes and try to reach out to the core pyschically. Meditate and listen for it. Try to connect with it and calm it down. But again, I don't know if it will work. If it doesn't work, you don't have to worry, but if it does work, there's a small chance that it might slightly increase your Eldritch essence."

"Um…okay." Lexie was somehow both praying that it did and didn't work.

She took a deep breath and began to meditate. She closed her eyes and thanks to her many months of intense meditation practice, it took her nothing at all to slip under. She slowly shut down all her other senses, except the sense of the mana at her feet. She related it to the mana in the grass, in the earth, reaching underneath for the swirling chaos beneath that.

The minute she touched it psychically, her heart began racing, her palms sweating and she felt like something was rushing through her brain. The chaos wanted to rush into her, pulling at that secret darkness within her, wanting some of it too.

Lexie's eyes flew open and she tore herself away physically and mentally.

"I can't," she said, shaking her head. I don't want to. I don't want to be more Eldritch.

Aiden nodded without judgment. "Alright. Then we need to get somewhere safe and..."

Lexie felt the atmosphere shift, right before the first tremor hit shaking the ground. She met her father's horrified gaze.

"I think it's too late."

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