Gareth's mother noticed the state of Lyra's clothes before she'd finished stepping through the door.
Her clothes were stuck to her skin and a small puddle was already forming beneath her feet.
"Good lord." She moved toward her quickly. "You're completely soaked. You'll catch pneumonia like that."
"It's really not that big of a—"
"And the bag too." Lady Elizabeth looked at her. Then at the bag. Then at Gareth. "What exactly happened?"
Lyra opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"Dorian dropped his bag in a fountain." She said it quietly. "And I went in to get it."
Lady Elizabeth looked at her son.
Gareth's face gave absolutely nothing away.
"And why didn't he go?"
Lyra didn't answer. She just looked at the floor.
Lady Elizabeth held her gaze on Gareth for a few more seconds. Then she exhaled — the specific sound of someone who has decided there's no point looking for an answer right now.
"Good lord." Murmured more toward the ceiling than toward either of them. "Kids these days are just something else."
She turned around.
And at that exact moment, Roxanne appeared coming down the stairs, heading toward the dining room.
"Roxanne." Lady Elizabeth stopped her before she reached the last step. "Lend the girl some clothes. You look about the same size."
Roxanne stopped.
Looked at her mother.
Looked at Lyra.
"Huh? Why? What's wrong with her clothes?" A beat. "And who even is she?"
"She's a friend of your brother's. She had a little accident involving a fountain."
Roxanne took that in. She looked Lyra up and down with that measured calm she applied to everything.
"What kind of idiot would do that...?"
"Roxanne." Lady Elizabeth's tone didn't rise in volume. It didn't need to.
"I still don't want to do it."
"Come on. Be nice."
Roxanne looked at her mother. Then at Lyra. Then back at her mother — with the expression of someone who has calculated that this particular fight isn't worth having.
"Fine." The word came out like it cost her something.
And she went back up the stairs.
Lady Elizabeth turned to Lyra with a smile that hadn't moved from her face once.
"Go to the end of the hallway — there's a bathroom where you can change."
Lyra looked at the floor. At the trail of water she'd left since the front door.
"B-but... my clothes are dripping. If I walk through I'll soak the whole floor."
"It's fine." Lady Elizabeth waved a hand. "It's just water. It'll dry. Go on."
"I'm so sorry for the trouble, I really am."
"Don't say that." The smile held. "Go."
Lyra nodded and moved quickly down the hallway, leaving a line of small damp prints on the floor behind her.
Lady Elizabeth watched her go. Then she turned to Gareth.
The smile was still there. But the tone behind it was something else entirely.
"I cannot believe you let a girl do what you should have done yourself." A moment. "That's not very gentlemanly of you."
Gareth looked at her.
He didn't say anything.
Lady Elizabeth studied him for another beat. Then something in her expression shifted — not by much, but enough.
"Then again..." She stepped slightly closer. "You do have good taste." A shorter pause. "Well done."
And she headed to the kitchen.
Gareth stood in the hallway.
'Ehh... what?'
***
Dinner passed in the kind of quiet that isn't equally uncomfortable for everyone at the table.
For Lyra it clearly was. She held her fork with too much attention for something that didn't require any, and looked at her plate more than necessary.
For Roxanne the quiet was her natural habitat. She ate with the specific efficiency of someone who doesn't consider dinner a social event — just a biological one.
For Lady Elizabeth it was the kind of quiet that was waiting for exactly the right moment to be filled.
For Gareth it was just quiet.
'The food's good.'
It was Gareth who broke it first — though not exactly by choice.
"And Vi—..." He stopped. "And Dad? Is he not coming to dinner?"
Lady Elizabeth looked at him for a moment before answering.
"I doubt it." A beat. "He has a lot of work tonight."
'Work?' Gareth looked at his plate. 'What work is she talking about? Sitting in an office talking to his colleagues without actually doing anything?'
"But let's not talk about him." Lady Elizabeth set her fork down with the gentleness of someone changing the subject on purpose. She looked at Lyra. Then at Gareth. The smile from before came back. "Tell me — how long have you two been together?"
Lyra choked.
Not figuratively. Literally. She had to bring her hand to her mouth and cough twice while the color of her cheeks changed in real time.
Gareth opened his mouth.
"We're not tog—"
"It's not that kind of relationship!" Lyra cut him off before he could finish, at a speed that suggested she'd had the answer ready before the question was even asked. "We're just friends! Nothing more than that...!" She said it with way too much energy to be convincing, and she clearly knew it too, because she immediately brought the volume down. "Nothing more than that."
'She beat me to it.'
Lady Elizabeth looked at both of them — Lyra red-faced and staring at her plate, Gareth wearing the expression of someone observing a natural phenomenon — and nodded with the patience of someone who doesn't need anything explained to them.
"I see." A moment. "It's very obvious you two don't quite know what you are yet. But that's alright — you're young. You'll figure it out as you go."
Lyra didn't look up from her plate.
'Figure it out...? I don't even remember her name properly.'
It was Roxanne who spoke next, without lifting her eyes from her own plate, with the tone of someone making an objective observation rather than a personal comment.
"Impressive. Focused on having a girlfriend, but not on becoming our father's successor." A beat. "No wonder you're so weak."
The table went still.
Lyra looked up.
Something in her expression changed — not gradually. All at once.
"Dorian isn't weak." She said it before she could stop herself. "He's very strong. He just never uses his real potential."
Then she realized what she'd said.
And how she'd said it.
"Oh..." The color rushed back to her cheeks. "Sorry."
She straightened up in her chair like that could undo the last five seconds.
Gareth looked at her for a moment. Then at Roxanne.
"I'll be honest." He said it with the calm of someone reading off a report. "I am pretty weak, at least when I compare my magic to yours." A beat. "But that's fine. I know exactly how much you want to become the successor yourself, so you have a better shot at it this way."
'Technically true. I don't even know all the spell names. Magic isn't my strong suit.'
Roxanne looked at him for a moment.
"Whatever you say."
And went back to her plate.
That was when Gareth saw it.
Through the dining room window, on the branch of the tree growing just outside the wall — a black silhouette, completely still, watching him with two points of green light.
"Excuse me." He pushed back from the table. "I need to use the bathroom."
***
He closed the bathroom door, opened the window, and Corvus stepped in without a word and settled on the edge of the sink with the calm of something that has been waiting patiently and has no interest in rushing.
"How'd it go?" Gareth looked at him. "Find anything interesting?"
"I did, actually." Corvus tilted his head. "I have information you'll want to hear."
"Good."
"I'll start with what interests you most." A beat. "Your name came up in the meeting. The debate was about who Mourgare really is. Several of them leaned toward the idea of a Hunter using a pseudonym — but that was ruled out almost immediately. In a situation like this, anyone would want the fame and the recognition. Saving the world isn't something someone does anonymously unless they have a very specific reason for it."
Gareth turned that over.
"Makes sense." A beat. "Honestly raises my opinion of them a little. They have common sense."
"Then they moved to the second point." Corvus continued in that tone of something that has memorized every detail without effort. "If Mourgare wasn't part of the Association, should they consider him an ally or a latent threat? Opinions split. Some felt that if he's strong enough they could bring him into a guild — increase the chances of clearing the tower once and for all. But others argued that would shift everyone's attention toward him and take prestige away from the Association. They couldn't allow that."
"Ha." Gareth crossed his arms. "Expected as much. They want people to keep thinking they're the heroes — meanwhile they hadn't even found the entrance to the first raid."
"In the end the conversation closed with Victor's final word." Corvus paused in a way that had something almost theatrical about it. "He said that before making any decision about Mourgare they needed to study him properly. According to him, the most efficient way to fight monsters is through orb manipulation. But only those with a current or past connection to the Association have access to those orbs. And if Mourgare isn't part of it — whether he once was or is operating entirely alone — Victor leans toward the second. Which would mean they're looking at a genuine anomaly. Someone who can face monsters without using magic at all."
Gareth stayed quiet for a moment, looking at the window.
"Victor..." He murmured it almost to himself. A smile appeared on its own. "You're a lot smarter than I gave you credit for."
'I'd underestimated him. In the game Victor was the biggest obstacle — rank S+, pure brute force, not much else. But that analysis doesn't come from someone who fights with brute force. It comes from someone who thinks before they act.'
'I'll need to keep that in mind.'
"Was that all they discussed about me?"
"Yes." Corvus looked at him. "After that they moved to another matter. One they flagged as urgent."
"Which one?"
"There's a Stronghold that's been active for some time." A beat. "It's emitting twenty-five thousand mana units. Classified as threat level — calamity."
Gareth didn't answer right away.
But something in his posture shifted.
"Where?"
"In a forest on the outskirts of Eldralid. The portal connects to what they called..." Corvus tilted his head. "The Necromantic Fortress."
Gareth's eyes opened all the way.
'The Necromantic Fortress.'
He remembered it perfectly. First run. He'd found it by accident while exploring secondary zones. Vast, complex, with multiple bosses layered through it that regenerated if they weren't cleared in the right order. Nearly impossible to complete through conventional means.
Except for one detail nobody else knew.
'It's a subdomain of floor 2. A subdomain of the main raid. Which means that if you destroy the root — the central portal connecting it to floor 2 — everything else collapses with it.'
'The fastest way to clear it isn't to fight through it. It's to find that portal and use it.'
He looked at Corvus.
"I'll add it to my list."
"I knew you would." There was something in Corvus's tone that on any other creature would have been called amusement.
Gareth looked back at the window.
'In a normal run I wouldn't go. Not worth it for the time it takes. But this isn't a normal run.'
'I need to get stronger before floor 2. And that place has a couple of permanent buffs I'm not about to pass up.'
'Besides...' A beat. 'I'm going to have a great time.'