Chapter 383 - 726 Souls
"So, where exactly are we going?" Hawk asks the moment he closes the car door.
Ethan and the rest of the team stare at him, tension written across their faces. "I don’t know, actually." Ethan answers.
"The Baroness just told us to head to the docks. Apparently we’re going to the dungeon site by boat." J.C. adds.
"Boat?" Hawk frowns. He sighs and fastens his seatbelt.
"What do we actually know about this dungeon, besides its level?" He asks again.
Ethan looks distinctly uncomfortable. "Nothing. And it’s not level eight like I said."
Hawk turns to look at him. "What level is it, then? Don’t tell me it’s a mutated eight." His eyes go wide.
Ethan shakes his head quickly. "No, not that. It’s not an eight or a mutated one. The Baroness doesn’t actually know for sure."
Hawk feels something in him about to snap. "What do you mean, doesn’t know for sure? I thought she said eight?"
Ethan exhales, defeated. "That’s what she said at first. Then she corrected herself, said she doesn’t actually know. What matters, according to her, is that I secured us a dungeon to clear."
Hawk closes his eyes. "For fuck’s sake."
"Well, look on the bright side. It’s not an eight, or a mutated one. The danger level’s gone down, right?" Taylor offers.
No one responds.
"Hawk." J.C. cuts in. "Where were you?"
"Needed fresh air." Hawk answers, offering nothing more.
"You were gone a long time, Hawk. We were worried." Carter adds.
"Relax. I wasn’t planning on leaving you all alone with that lunatic Voss." Hawk tries to lighten it.
"It’s not about leaving." Ethan says quietly. "You didn’t say anything before you left. We couldn’t reach you. We were worried."
"I said I needed fresh air!" Hawk snaps.
The air in the car turns hot and suffocating.
He’s stronger. How is that possible? J.C. is caught completely off guard.
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"Excuse me, Elder, I need to use the restroom." Sonia stands slowly, waiting for Elder Loujt so she can pass him and get out of the row.
"Of course, Your Highness." He whispers back, rising from his seat.
She slips past and heads down the aisle toward the restroom.
Once inside, alone, she sighs.
"Finally. Alone." She exhales in relief. She finishes her business, glances up, and stops on her own reflection in the mirror.
She scoffs at it. "You look like shit." Then giggles. "I never knew saying shit could feel so liberating." She giggles again.
"Ugh, alright. Alright. I need to stop and go back out there, to the world that doesn’t understand me." She pouts at her reflection.
She stands, washes her hands at the sink, still watching herself in the mirror. She dries them off, then points at her own image.
"You need to hang in there. Study. Learn. Do everything they want you to do. Until you can challenge and beat Elder Maer." The moment she says it out loud, her chest tightens.
She shakes her head. "No, Sonia. You can’t be afraid of Elder Maer. She’s only powerful because of her age. She’s not actually that strong."
Mirror Sonia frowns. "So you’re saying we can beat her when we’re that old? Wouldn’t she be older still by then?"
Sonia scoffs. "Stupid. Age isn’t everything, talent matters too. We’re already stronger than Elder Maer was at our age. We just need to keep practicing. Studying. Learning. Trust me. I want to be free too."
Mirror Sonia smirks. "You said we’re going to teach magic to the world. You said we’re going to prepare Altheon for magic’s return. So when’s that actually happening?"
Sonia pouts. "You know I haven’t stopped working toward that. It’s just right now, I’m doing the running around part."
She keeps talking herself through it, arguing with her own reflection, until a knock lands on the door.
"Ms. Hart." Elder Loujt’s voice, muffled through the wood. "Are you alright in there? You’ve been a while. There are people out here who also need the restroom." Half concern, half exasperation.
Sonia looks at the door and sighs. She glances back at the mirror one last time. "We’ll talk again later. Good luck."
She smiles, steps toward the door, and reaches for the lock.
The plane suddenly lurches left.
Hard.
Screaming and clattering erupt through the cabin. Sonia fails to get the lock open and can only hold on.
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Linus sets down his tablet, removes his reading glasses, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He closes his eyes, lets his head fall fully back against the chair, and breathes.
After a while, "Okay. I need to stop." He glances at his watch. A few minutes past midnight.
He sighs. "I need to sleep. Can’t afford to be running on nothing when I land in Highcrest." He switches off the table light.
He gets up and heads to freshen up in the bathroom.
A few minutes later, the ensuite door opens, steam trailing out behind him. He’s already changed into his sleepwear.
The bed had been turned down by Louis hours earlier, the sheets crisp now, gone cold, no longer holding the warmth they’d had when they were first made.
He sits on the edge of the bed and slips off his slippers, lifting his legs to settle beneath the blanket.
The plane lurches hard to the left.
Linus grabs instinctively at the blanket, the only thing within reach. Everything on the table clatters to the floor.
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"Thanks, Melissa." Captain Joshua Daniels holds his hot cocoa and smiles at the flight attendant.
"Thanks, Mel." Co-pilot Jeremiah Tooke lifts his own cup, clinking it against Daniels’s.
"Cheers."
The plane is on autopilot, the sky clear in every direction. Captain Daniels expects the flight to stay smooth the whole way. He’s relaxed, enjoying his cocoa.
Beep beep.
He checks the monitor. Nothing there. He flicks a switch and the beeping stops.
"Damn plane. This is supposed to be brand new. Why’s it acting as faulty as the old one?" Daniels mutters, blowing across the surface of his drink before sipping it.
Co-pilot Tooke laughs lightly. "Oof, this is too hot for me. I’m gonna go grab some ice or something." He unfastens his seatbelt and stands.
"Hey." Captain Daniels calls after him as the cockpit door slides open. "Check the rest of the plane while you’re out there."
"You mean go check on Mr. Monfort, right?"
"Yes, and the rest of the plane too, Tooke."
"Aye aye, Captain." He salutes, chuckling, and steps out.
Daniels shakes his head and returns his attention to his cocoa.
Beep beep.
He doesn’t even glance up. Just extends a hand and flicks the switch again.
It stops.
The next second, it’s beeping rapidly.
Daniels erupts. "I swear to God, I will comp—"
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
Everything happens too fast to register.
His cocoa flies from his hand, spilling across the console as the plane, calm and steady only a moment ago, lurches hard to the left. Hard enough that it makes no sense.
As if something, somewhere below them on the ground, had yanked it sideways by force.
The aircraft can’t withstand it. Every warning light in the cockpit flares at once. Alarms blare.
Daniels is lucky, his seatbelt holds him in place. He isn’t thrown. Some of his crew and his co-pilot aren’t as fortunate. They tumble through the cabin like clothes caught in a washing machine.
He can hear screaming beyond the cockpit door, things crashing, but none of it fully registers as real. Not yet. Not as something happening to him, to his plane.
It takes several seconds before his training finally kicks in.
He doesn’t even feel the burn from the spilled cocoa scalding his chin and neck.
The autopilot has already disengaged. He grabs the controls and fights with everything he has to stabilize the aircraft.
It isn’t easy.
The plane keeps descending, left wing first, at an alarming rate.
Later, when asked to give his account of what happened, Captain Daniels will say that somewhere in the chaos, one thought cut through everything else.
This is impossible. How can a plane this heavy descend left wing first, and not nose first? In every class I took, every simulation, every scenario they trained us for, this was never once one of them.
"Oh fuck! We’re gonna die!" Captain Daniels swears. He flips the communication chanel open.
"Mayday mayday mayday! Flight ARV 998 bound for Highcrest, we are.... Fuck! I can’t read the altitude! We are losing power! Something pulls us down! I repeat, something pulls us down! We are descending too fast. This is not technical malfunction! Something pulls us!"
Captain Daniels screams into his mic.
"We are going to crash! I repeat we are going to crash! Send help immediately!"
He then flips his internal coms.
"May God be with us all!"
The next second, Aurenvale Air flight number ARV 998, bound for Highcrest, disappears into the night as they descend, as if they enter a blackhole, along with its 726 souls on board.