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  Solis is ejected from the states' only safe zone hours before the System descends, but succeeds in sneaking his sister inside. The System descends instantly, terraforming large portions of land and combining earth with the pieces of failed integration worlds. Solis finds himself on a dangerous, foggy mountain and seeks refuge in the caves within the earth. While exploring the underground cave network, Solis finds a group of Survivors: a Russian couple, a doctor, and two young siblings.

  Desperate to find resources, Solis clears out two level 9 [Swarm] crickets from the lower levels and makes a plan to kill the rest of the swarm, netting the group a higher level cap. The group discovers a crack in the cave wall that leads out to a large underground jungle, and upon investigating, they are immediately beset by more crickets. Solis overdraws his mana to save the group and discovers a relationship between [Corruption] and [Mana].

  Solis proceeds to teach the siblings a bit about magic, while Samir, in turn, teaches Solis about the scientific process and ethical experimentation. Through Samir and Solis's efforts, Solis learns a mana regeneration technique that is able to rapidly refill his mana levels and decides to use it to safely expand into the jungle by creating large stone domes that the ground can travel through.

  Chapter 18 - Dimensional Palimpsest

  "I'm tired of debating this. The people in the Palimpsest aren't real. If I want to sleep with every woman in there that I can woo, I will, and it's not cheating. So while you try to fix whatever problem exists for them I'll be in the nearest brothel having fun."

  -A Legion soldier arguing with his unit about Palimpsests

  “This is not the adventure I thought it’d be,” Ana grumbled to her brother. She had been picking that habit up from Samir, with all the muttered curses under his breath – to an extent, they all were. The caves were dark and dingy, and had begun to take on an air of aggressive containment. In short, everyone was beginning to go a little stir crazy.

  Ana thought that delving into the [Nominal] rank zone would be enough, having seen the lights beyond in the trees, but it had just been walking through fucking domes of rock. There was the occasional fight where Solis would trap a cricket or two in a dome, but Ira had placed Ana and her brother towards the back, lobbing knives and firebolts respectively.

  The Russian woman had finally relented after Solis proved he could make the domes reliability and safely, but they were still relegated to just tagging along instead of actually doing anything.

  In short, Ana was bored and wanted to actually fight something with her new [Skill]. It didn’t help that she still had the System question. Ana and her brother had resolved to use it, but just one question from Solis – a simple “do you care about collateral damage?” – completely detailed her train of thought.

  What did she want? To kill monsters. It was supposed to be simple. There was an unambiguous evil entity that was dead set on wiping out all of humanity. Killing them was the answer, yet every time she thought she had a handle on it, more questions just kept coming.

  “What type of monster do you want to kill?” “From range or up close, with magic, blade, gun, or some other form?” “Strong monsters come in all shapes, sizes, and abilities. Do you want to specialize or be a generalist?” “Do you want to work well in a team or be able to kill monsters alone?”

  On and on and on the questions went.

  Finally, on one of the group breaks, where she and Hans had randomly been sent back a few dozen domes, she sat across from her brother.

  “I came up with a good duo question?” she said.

  Hans’s eyes lit up, and he leaned slightly forward, “Really? What’d you come up with?”

  “I’m gonna ask what question we should ask to get us both on the path we want that we can reasonably accomplish in the next month.”

  Han opened his mouth, and then closed it, then opened it again. It made him look like a fish – the image made Ana chuckle.

  “I… don’t hate it.” Hans said with a nod. “I know what I want, and you know what you want, but we don’t know how to specifically get to that point. It's a weaker question, according to Solis since it includes multiple people, but waiting until we get another question isn’t worth it. Let’s do it.”

  Ana’s eyes went hazy for a second, and she just looked confused. “It says to ask how to open Saint Eithecards library?”

  “Who the fuck is Saint Eithecards?” Hans asked, just as confused.

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “I wasn’t actually asking.”

  “You were grumbling?”

  “I was not grumbling! Only you and Samir grumble.”

  “Solis has been grumbling lately. I think it’s contagious.”

  “Whatever. I’m asking the question, maybe the System will tell us more.” It was Hans's turn for his eyes to go hazy, and a moment later they widened to the size of saucer disks. “Paper. Paper now!”

  Ana didn’t ask, just slid over Solis’ notebook, which she had borrowed again. She watched as Hans began writing down a long, complex series of instructions, down to the minute they should perform a specific task, that culminated in an input code of over thirteen characters she didn’t recognize.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “What was that?” she asked when her brother was finally done writing.

  “Exactly what we asked for,” Hans said, “instructions. Very complex instructions on how to get into a library.” He pointed to the first few steps, “it starts with entering something called a ‘Dimensional Palimpsest’ that’s located in a castle in the center of the jungle.”

  For the first time in over a week, Ana felt a small spark. It was hard to describe, but it made her feel alive, something more than just the endless anger and desire to not be powerless in the face of the world ending. She couldn’t place the feeling, but she clung to it as she struggled not to hoot, holler, and scream her victory to the universe.

  “We did it! We can do this. We’re on our way!” Ana quietly cheered at her brother, who smiled a wicked grin in turn.

  “I think we did,” he said.

  “I think you did too!” Solis cheerily added on.

  Both the siblings cried out in shock, their excitement leaving their bodies with their souls.

  “It was a good set of questions. Leveraged the fact that you had two and were willing to share. Good for you.”

  “How long have you been listening,” Hans cried out.

  “Oh, the whole time. I’ve gotten pretty good at this whole [Circulation] thing, so I can keep [Translate] going at all times. You wouldn’t think so with how the skill hasn’t leveled at all.” Solis grumbled at the end, proving to Ana that, yes indeed, the grumbles were contagious.

  “What’s a Palimpsest?” Ana asked, recovering first. If the older boy was going to eavesdrop and sneak up on them, they might as well get some use out of the wizard-who-claimed-he-wasn’t-a-wizard.

  “It’s a piece of writing with another piece of writing written over it, common in old places like Baghdad and the Byzantine empire. Places where there was a lot of learning to be done, but not enough parchment to go around. I had to look it up, too, when the internet was a thing. Although I don’t think a Dimensional Palimpsest would be something so simple.

  “What do you think it is?” Ana pressed.

  Solis opened his mouth, a grin tugging on the edge of his lips, which caused Ana to roll her eyes, ready for snark that never came.

  “Well, the System said that the other, older worlds were integrated into ours. I was wondering how. I know Earth had expanded by fifteen, and I saw the world changing right in front of my eyes, but maybe that’s not all. Perhaps these Palimpsest’s are places where the older worlds have been layered on top of ours with some dimensional magic.”

  Ana and Hans both stared blankly at Solis. They looked towards each other and back towards the man.

  “You know,” Hans started, tapering off.

  “You really aren’t helping the Wizard allegations.” Ana completed the thought.

  “Oh, you little shits.” Solis laughed good naturedly. He shook his head and stared out of the dome, apprehension flashing across his face. “Just keep a hold on those notes Hans, make a copy too. We’ve been heading to the center of the rain forest anyway, but things are…” he stopped himself, giving the two teenagers a false smile. “Never mind that. We’ll head back for today. We’ll set up camp in the first dome. We’ll be moving around the edge for a while. Try to find more groups before heading further in and all that.”

  The older boy stood and ruffled the teenager's head, and Ana resisted the urge to bite Solis, but she didn’t. It was oddly comforting getting her hair tousled like that. From Hans' expression, she thought her brother might agree.

  —

  “What the fuck was that thing?” Samir hissed out when the group was back in the first dome and the kids were back in the cave.

  “I don’t know. It was too quiet for its size. It decimated that army of crickets. They were coming for us I think, before that monster got to them.” Solis stated plainly, no emotion touching his voice. It gave him a strange, robotic feel, which the smiles and laughter typically outweighed.

  “It looked like an Orangatan,” Dimitri offered.

  “A monstrous version, I agree,” Samir nodded.

  “We just saw the arms, but yeah. It’s not safe to continue going deeper into the forest. The crickets are easy. They’re a swarm creature, and we’re separating them from their swarm. Their level is more indicative of the entire swarm than one individual. That thing though… Dimitri, what level did you see?”

  Level 15. It had three tags, too. “Guardian, Curator, Elite”.

  Solis frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Why, have you heard of them?”

  Solis shook his head. “Just Elite. They are monsters that are considered strong, even for their level, but something the kids said. Palimpsest. Curator. They used their question, and it directed them to the center of the jungle, where that monster was.”

  “Suicide.”

  “I’d normally agree,” Solis said, before the rest of the group could throw away any notions. “But they phrased the question well. They asked for what was reasonably accomplishable in the next month. As long as we’re smart it will be fine, but I don’t want to do it alone. Let’s skirt along the outskirts, look for more cracks with more people.”

  Samir nodded, “I agree with looking for more people, but going back, deeper into the forest seems foolish.”

  Surprisingly, it was Dimitri who raised his concerns, "I’m not the only one who saw it. Right. It wasn’t just the big monster.”

  Silence filled the dome. They all knew what he was talking about.

  Solis had been making good time with the domes, getting faster and faster with each successive creation. They occasionally had to go around obstacles or make their way around a particularly large hole in the ground, but it had given everyone a chance to stretch their legs. At the end, though, they had spotted the army of crickets. More of a sea than an army. They were located down a large cliff drop, clearing out a large section of the jungle into a sort of clearing. Before the ape had even arrived, they had been carrying things on their back, underneath the cliff face to God knew where.

  They hadn’t been carrying trees or plants, though, but human body parts. Torso’s were balanced on their backs, or legs peeked out of their mandibles. There were other people in the mountain, and they were dying.

  The giant ape had reached a twenty-foot-long arm out to disrupt the swarm of monsters, killing many with a casual swipe of its oversized hand. That’s when they all decided to turn back.

  “It’s worth being fast to see if there are any other groups.” Ira held her husband's hand. “If they’re being attacked, but surviving we can help. Build defenses, buy time, something.”

  No one argued that after a moment, Solis cleared his throat. “We can ditch the domes. I have enough mana and I’m fast enoug now that I can make one if we’re attacked. We’d be a whole lot faster.”

  “What are we going to do about the kids?” Samir asked the next question on everyone's minds.

  “They have to come with us,” Ira said. “I’ll keep them close to me. I have a Enhancement Point to spend. There’s one that I can give my Shielding to someone else.”

  “I’ll take that one,” Dimitri countered, “That’s what I want my skills to do going forward anyway.”

  The discussion and the specifics continued, but the decisions had already been made. Between staying safe, stuck in their little cave, and potentially saving lives… in all of their minds, there was never really a question to answer.

  They’d all get their rest tonight, and in the morning they’d see what good they could do.