Connie was proud of herself, extraordinarily so. Gramps was going to be over the moon when she got word to him that the plan had worked. They’d made contact and none of them were the wiser for it. They all thought it was just a combination of luck and a Spiral judge that had pushed them together, and that was for the best. It was important they were in the dark until Trelione’s concert.

  She had no idea how the man had managed to learn of Sanquar’s reappearance from their isolation, but somehow, the news had trickled all the way to his ears, or more likely, knowing the man, he was one of the first to know and started making his plans immediately. All Connie knew was that one of his grand plans was for her to leave home and attempt to make contact. She was under orders to pretend this was only a mission to scout out how the Spiral would feel about a comeback tour. She’d decided that the best way to accomplish that was to pretend the entire reason she was out was in itself the secret and let the concert itself seem like the answer to the mystery.

  It was too bad her parents had left over a decade ago on their own mission. They’d have been proud of how far she managed to take her studies in just that time. But apparently, one of Gramps’ old friends had found something deep in chaotic space and needed their assistance. She hoped they made it back in time for the big event but understood if they didn’t. Whatever was out there had been important enough that Gramps had almost gone himself. Really, she just hoped they were safe more than anything.

  Her cover as the ditzy, high-class musician and heir to a legacy had worked great so far, though she suspected Pryte had seen through her, possibly the orc as well. They were impressively aware of things going on around them. Had Gramps ever met the gnome before? She’d need to ask him. No, her real worry was her cousin realizing what was happening. That man had the potential of the biggest problem, but she had the benefit of him not seeing her since she was a kid. How the hell had one of her blood relatives ended up part of the Triox?

  They were another part of her list of things to deal with eventually. Sure, her Gramps had some of the credit for the destruction his concert had caused. But if he hadn’t had to run from those pieces of shit trying to clamp down on art, he’d never had to have detonated the arena like that. Their destruction was high on her list of priorities, just as soon as she made sure this new empire she had joined was strong enough to handle the fight. How hard would it be to convince their leader to fight her one on one? A nice old-fashioned duel would be satisfying.

  The funniest part of her whole journey so far was how she had finally found the man who could lead her to Sanquar. Once she had learned about Dave, she figured it would only be a matter of finding him. But that proved easier said than done. By the time she had gotten to the Archives, he’d apparently fled, and she couldn’t stick around to ask any questions thanks to the Triox taking possession of the place. That was another mark against them. Her grandfather’s library was one of her favorite spots to spend time. Everyone needed access to places like that without some idiot whining about what counted as valid literature and telling people just what they couldn’t read. Once she’d finally learned where Dave had fled to on the planet, he’d apparently left the Spiral, back to his planet that hadn’t been fully integrated yet.

  That had placed him well beyond her abilities to find, and without another idea of how to proceed, she figured an Arena climb couldn’t hurt. She might even find a faction that would be useful for information gathering. Okay maybe fate had played a small hand in all of this. It was hard to explain how else she’d managed to sign up just in time to find Glorp and meet Dave’s squad. Yeah, that was a bit of a fluke of chance there. She’d have to reconsider how much of this really was her own doing or not.

  Not that that matters in the long run. Gramps would be proud of her for using lady luck to accomplish her goal. It’s something that he’d done in his prime. No, the important part now was to keep Sanquar and, by extension, this whole faction alive until the concert. Once that kicked off, and she came on stage herself for her own debut, no one would notice when Gramps disappeared to talk to an old friend. That did mean she had to get them all to the concert as well, but she figured that part wouldn’t be a huge issue. Everyone loved live music.

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  No, the real problem now was keeping this damn faction afloat until the moment was right. She’d almost had to dig into her coffers already. Luckily, Pryte seemed to have that covered for now, but how long would he be able to fund this venture? She had no idea, but she did have an idea on how to not only gain them some goodwill throughout the Spiral but also bring in the needed cash to build this backwater planet up.

  Once they finished these Arena floors and they were able to connect to the Traveler’s Gates, she would announce her intentions to open a bardic college. She’d sell it as a reason for sticking around, keep them once again distracted from her real goal. It was a brilliant idea, and she was glad she’d come up with it. Her path should pull in some interesting people as well. They’d all need to be vetted, of course, couldn’t have any spies or assassins using her to gain access to Earth. Gramps would be furious if she let someone assassinate Sanquar.

  She checked over her classpath, focusing specifically on the musical synergy ability. She had only told them all about her main class, which was technically the only one she actively used. Was it really her fault if the path her grandfather had designed allowed the borrowing of other class orb features in her possession without truly multiclassing? She hummed to herself, fully activating the skill and taking in the abilities of an Underground Warden. A scouting class might have been more useful here, but she didn’t have anything that specialized in dungeon environments, so instead, she’d stick with this. It had some abilities to let her feel vibrations in the ground, as well as spot walls that seemed off. That should be plenty to get her through this floor.

  Immediately upon activating said abilities, she could spot several traps on the corridor past the dragon egg she needed to take with her. It looked like there were at least two pressure plates tied to something slithering around the ceiling above. While she was sure she could beat them in a fight, there was no reason to get her hands dirty. So, instead, she pocketed the eggs and carefully made her way down the path, stepping over the plates as she went. Once past them, she realized the next area wouldn’t be quite so easy.

  There were large figures stomping around in the chamber, but no traps as far as she could tell, and no treasure either, sadly. She broke her focus on the underground warden class and moved it instead to one of her favorite ones. The Screaming Banshee class did exactly as the name implied, and she’d often used it to improve the range of her own music, but in this case, she wanted the sonic assault abilities it came with. She gently massaged her throat, preparing it for the waves of noise it was about to emit. Hopefully, she didn’t need to heal herself after this.

  She stepped into the chamber with the creatures and spotted what they actually were, two giant stone statues come to life. They were both in the form of large pigmen, each carrying a massive stone sword. She focused on her throat and let the waves of destruction flow free from her mouth. An ear-piercing shriek resounded across the small room, building layers of sound upon itself until it crashed down onto the statues with the force of a battering ram. They both exploded into piles of rubble that crashed into the wall hard enough to crack it in several spots. She smiled. That had been easy enough. Why did everyone think that Arena climbing was so difficult?

  She hummed, testing her throat, and it came out pitch-perfect as always. Happy she had done no damage, she swapped her focus to a Speedmaster class. She was bored of this place and had remembered her own encounter with the Jesters. That made her reconsider the difficulty of the Arena, and decided to play it safe. Activating the dash abilities of the class, she ran for the exit, a song in her heart and on her lips.

  Dad, you were right. It wasn’t an easy journey, but we found the place Grom had described in his message. And it has to be a remnant of the Old Spiral, but that doesn’t make sense. How could parts of it be out here in chaotic space like this? Shouldn’t it all be contained in whatever reality it collapsed into? Is it possible we don’t understand the reality of what happened to it? Or were we just lied to? Either way, we will continue as you instructed. Hopefully, we can find Grom.

  Madelane’s last message to her father, one year into their journey

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