Chapter 18:

Chapter 18: The Days that followed

SOLARIS: Journey Through Another World

A week had gone by, and the payment from the commission had come in. A total of 200 gold coins for each of them. Alice had a total of 500. She planned on going to get that armour from the smithing lady, but Clair had called them both to her office. When they arrived, Morningstar and Arthur were both there. One looked tense, while the other was snacking away at sweets, all carefree. If she had brought Morningstar with her, would the King still be alive?

" Morningstar wouldn't have been able to do anything either," Clair abruptly said, "It's written all over your face. Take a seat, both of you." She sighed. Alice took a seat next to Morningstar, leaning back against the soft couch. Morningstar patted her head; this was probably his way of reassuring her. Touching, but weird. Clair unrolled a map onto the glass table, moving aside the sweets as Alice swatted away Morningstar's hand. " I understand that you're looking for new armour, and a key item to a good armour set is the material. Right here you'll find a good metal," Clair said, pointing to a mountain range. " In the caves of this mountain, you'll find a rare metal that is incredibly lightweight and durable, good for making a new set of armour. Plus, this will help get your mind off what happened," Clair said reassuringly. " So why am I here?" Arthur asked, to which Clair handed him a commission paper,

" You are to head over to Kharon and help the Scholar of Centuries investigate a prison break," Clair moves over to Cleo and hands her a different piece of paper, " While Alice is away you'll be interning at the magic facility in Yha’vral for a few weeks," Cleo takes the paper, she looked excited to go to wherever that was. " And you," Clair said, startling Morningstar while he was mid-bite into a candy, " You will accompany Alice during her trip to the mountains, only step in if her life is in danger, understand?" He nodded. Whatever it was that Clair had said or done to him during the time he was here, clearly worked (and made him forget he was an all-powerful god), Alice wasn't going to argue against this. She needed the material and to get away from Yvrial. Lingering on what had happened wasn't good for her. Before Alice could leave, Clair handed her another slip, which was a wooden tablet with words carved into it.

" Head towards the tall tower near the outside of the Kingdom, you'll be able to use the new Krans gate with it," Clair said as she ushered her out. Morningstar waited outside for her. Alice decided that they would go clothes shopping first before they headed out,

" Lucy."

" Huh?"

" I can't keep calling you Morningstar; everyone's gonna be suspicious. Anyway, we'll find you something nice to wear before we head out. I assume you don't need armour?" Lucy nodded, though he didn't look too convinced about the name. Alice couldn't be picky with what she got for Lucy. She decided to get him a few white dress shirts, pants, underwear, and a couple of things he'd like. " Your total is 155 Yrvs," the cashier said with a smile, looking at Lucy. When he glanced over at Alice, she, too, was smiling at him. With a heavy sigh, he fished out a strange colored coin and handed it to the cashier, " Will this do?" He asked as the cashier accepted the coin, dumbstruck. They headed back to Cleos to grab Alice's bag, even though she could put everything in her inventory; she just wanted it.

" So...What was that?" Alice was curious about the coin he had used.

" It was a really old coin; only a good handful of them were made. I have some, but only use them when I need to," He said, sounding almost a little bit annoyed that he had to use them. Alice would tease him about it.

Suddenly looming in the distance was a tall tower that wasn't there before. Upon reaching the tower, she was able to see it fully, and it was impressive. It was made of a dark stone, and tons of people were going in and out. Some of those people were workers carrying things around; many guards were stationed here, and they seemed to be a different group from the normal ones. The inside was just as spacious. The central room was circular, and around it were other rooms that were also circular; a stone arch separated each one. A giant green crystal hung high over all of them,

" I thought teleportation magic like this was banned due to it sending them to the plane between?" Lucy asked, inspecting the six circles.

" Correct," Spoke a voice from behind them, "That's what the Talan Crystals are for, they're being used to tether the portals to this plane," A lady in a lab coat said, the scientist lady takes Alice's hand into a handshake, " My name is Lilian Krans, and you two must be Clairs," Lilian said, she was a little shorter than Alice, her face was well-rounded and soft looking. Her odd green colored hair had been pulled into a bun, and a pair of goggles rested on her head. Her name and the name of this place were the same; perhaps she was the one who figured all this out. " Were you the one who figured it out?" Lucy asked, and Lilian nodded. " I was able to figure it out a couple of months ago, once I got the approval from everyone, construction for each site began, and I oversaw this one's making," Lilian said proudly, looking around at the fruits of her labour. She led them to the gate that would take them to the closest to the mountains. For now, the gates will only take them to the four major cities, but will eventually work with the smaller villages. Along with quite a lot of people, Alice and Lucy waited for the gate to activate. " What's with all these people?" Lucy asked, looking around. Some of the people were staring, while others whispered to each other. " I guess you wouldn't have heard, but a labyrinth dungeon opened in the Heavenless Mountain. Everyone here is going to participate in it," Lilian answered. For some reason, the mountain name sounded really familiar.

" Heavenless Mountain is where we're going," Lucy reminded her. Right. This worked in Alice's favour, she could get the material and level up. The floor beneath them lights up along with the crystal overhead. Being surrounded by all this stuff made Alice remember something. Fishing through her bag, she hands Lilian her phone, " Can you try and get this to work? The battery died," Lilian took it excitedly, " For sure! Come find me when you return, I'll have it working in no time!" Lilian waved to them as she happily skipped away. This world has phones, but hers was different. A pulse ripples from the floor before a wall of light encases them. When it drops, they find themselves in the same building, aside from the outside, which was new. They had successfully teleported to another Kingdom(and not the planes between, whatever that's like). Alice and Lucy decide to head to the Mountains on their own. Lucy made them walk instead of trying to get a horse. His reason for this was so that Alice could savour the journey. Alice exhaled as they walked along the trail, occasionally passing by an animal of some kind.

Alice knew about Morningstar from the stories she had read back home, but was it the same here? " Why were you imprisoned? Was it cause you tried to rebel against god, Vathius?" Alice asked, at the mention of Vacthius, Lucy let out a laugh, " Orithoros, who you call Vacthius, isn't the god. He is but the god of the void," He clarifies, " My imprisonment happened because I went rogue for a little while. I was confused, but those years of doing nothing let me think, I realized-"

" You realized what you were doing was stupid?" He glared at her,

"Moving on, do you know the Monkey King?" If Morningstar were here, then surely the monkey would also,

" He was here, but he left."

" Left? He died!?"

" No, he left," Lucy said again, as if I made any more sense than when he said it the first time. " He got bored with this world. After helping imprison me, he asked the Emperor of the Heavens if he could leave. The Emperor allowed it after completing one final task-"

" How did you know if you were imprisoned?"

" He came to me, using an astral projection technique. He's long since left this world, though his staff is still here somewhere. He told me where, but it's been so long I don't remember." Alice wondered if she found the staff, would she be able to pick it up? " A shame that he left, he was a great drinking partner. He always had something interesting to say." Lucy says, letting out a nostalgic sigh as he stares off into the sky, seemingly reminiscing about his old days drinking with his buddy. By the time they arrived at the base of the mountains, there was already a large encampment set up. As they walked through, they got a good sense of who had shown up for the dungeon. Mostly gold-ranked Adventurers, and a couple of diamond-ranked. Alice had completely forgotten that she was still bronze, so she kept her badge off for the time being. The dungeon was set to begin tomorrow morning, and Alice and Lucy found a spot to set up for the night. " How exactly do we find this...unnamed metal Clair mentioned?"

" She must've been referring to Voidcore, a powerful metal. I've only heard about it through a story. You'll notice it when we get close," Lucy explains, rifling through his bag for something to eat. The next day, the cave entrance to the dungeon opened, it was enormous. The first room branched off multiple ways, everywhere but forward, as a giant door blocked the way. Mulitple magic seals held it shut, " We'll need to find the bosses that are holding the seals in place if we wanna progress to the first floor boss," Spoke a voice next to Alice, when she glanced over she saw an Adventurer, much like Lilian she had a soft looking face, a pair of glasses sat on her face as she turned to face Alice with a warm smile, it reminded her of a certain someone. " My name is Selia, a gold rank. We should team up so we can clear as many bosses as possible!" Selia proposed, Alice introduced herself and Lucy, as well as her rank, and, for the sake of not complicating things, Lucy was a gold rank who had forgotten his badge at home. " Bronze? I can see why you're not wearing your badge, but are you sure it's ok for you to be here?" Alice didn't like that comment, Selia didn't mean anything by it, but still. Alice pulled her badge from her inventory and pinned it to her shirt. This way, everyone would know the rank of the Adventurer who killed the floor boss.

"Let's go," Alice says, heading towards one of the tunnels. Selia followed happily alongside her. Lucy trailed behind.

The Mountain was a multi-layer dungeon. The map only allowed her to view the floor she was on, but she could see that there were two more layers below. As they progressed deeper, they ran into monsters. Selia was a ranged bow user, she kept her distance and shot arrows occasionally, mixed in with magic shots. Alice kept a normal pace as she cut down anything that got in her way. The monsters of this dungeon varied greatly, from goblins to snake people. Lucy kept to the back as Clair instructed, he would only step in when she was in life-threatening danger. Soon enough, they would stumble across the first mini-boss, a minotaur. A " Mous" was what it was called here, it was a yellow name with a level of 75. With Seila's help, Alice was able to take it down. Once it went down, a seal appeared above before shattering, one down, who knows how many more. With a heavy sigh, Alice and co pushed forward.

-MAIN OBJECTIVE-

Reach Level 900

REACH DIAMOND RANK IN 5 MONTHS AND HAVE ARTHUR JOIN YOUR TEAM

FLOOR BOSSES KILLED(0/3)

PREVENT THE DISCIPLES FROM BRINGING THE VALUED ONE

THE STARS BECKON YOU, ANSWER

-SIDE OBJECTIVES-

FIND THE VOIDCORE ORE

CLEAR THE MINIBOSSES ON FLOOR 1(0/50)

PROFILE: ALICE

LEVEL 59

ATK:213