Tulland strode forward with his group in tow through a stone building that looked and felt a lot like a church built for giants. Their steps echoed across the stone floors as they pushed through the dim light coming through the windows.

"And there it is." Yuri motioned towards the back. "I told you it wasn't much to look at."

The dungeon itself was just like any other Tulland had seen here, a crack in the ground leading down to a cavity below the surface. It was so disappointingly boring it didn't even get over the low bar Yuri had set for his expectations.

"I thought this was an important dungeon," Tulland said.

"It is. Or was. Don't let it fool you with its looks. This was a deadly place for the unprepared."

"Well, we're prepared." Necia hefted her shield in front of her. "Or at least as prepared as we are going to be. Tulland, no more zoning out. We have to get through this place as soon as possible."

"Got it. Let's go."

Tulland and his group ducked below the surface. As they broke the border of the underground area, everything was black for a moment before they were suddenly blinded by an intense light that took precious seconds of blinking to get used to.

"What in the world is this?" Yuri said, before the others could even react to what they were seeing. "It's not supposed to be like this."

More wordiness.

Perhaps. But why didn't it tell us all this earlier? It would have been to our benefit to know.

Maybe it didn't want to worry us, or discourage us?

I doubt the System of this would even consider risking you, Tulland. If it didn't tell us before now, something must have stopped it.

The Infinite?

Likely not. This System is a savvy one, and The Infinite is hardly going to keep it from giving people information on a dungeon they could have just by stepping through its doors. I think something else is happening. Perhaps it simply didn't know.

How could it not?

I believe it's possible that after the last adventurer dared to step into this place, it lost its ability to see this dungeon. Now that we've crossed the threshold, the doors might have opened to it.

That doesn't sound good. Could the blight have that much control?

Tulland, I don't want to begin to guess how much the blight may or may not be able to do here or elsewhere. I hate to say it, but now would be a good time to bring back that paranoia of danger you once had. That fear you felt when you first entered The Infinite, all that time ago.

Fine. I hate it, but fine.

They walked through the dungeon, slowly verifying everything Aghli's System had said to be true. Not a single plant in this place looked right. They were black and brown things, roiling with the same blighted aura all the beasts of this world did. None of them responded to his farmer's sense in the slightest, though his farmer's sense responded to them with a general feeling of unease, like he had walked into a haunted place.

"I hate this." Necia kicked at a blighted weed, which dusted out from the damage. "Everything in here feels wrong. Like people shouldn't even be seeing this."

"I think that's the idea." Tulland moved around a blighted tree, trying to find anything redeeming before he drew his pitchfork and reduced it to a cloud of evil fog. "That there won't be humans to see it. I wonder if it would keep this dungeon running, then. If it would be worth it."

It wouldn't have the option. Lost worlds are not kept.

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Not kept?

Not kept. Each world continues on due to energy fed to it by the infinite. That energy is present in the smallest particles of its existence, pieces of matter far smaller than the smallest mote of dust. If there truly weren't people to serve here, The Infinite would withdraw that energy.

And without it, everything would fall apart?

Somewhere in a vast nothingness, there would be a cloud of dust circling another cloud that used to be its sun. So thin as to be almost invisible. A smudge where people once lived.

Tulland found himself walking a bit faster after that. He couldn't let a single thing the System had said actually come to pass. For a long time, his own death or anything bad at all happening to Necia had seemed like the most important things to avoid. Now, they had a rival. Something about the idea of this world being not just destroyed but wiped from existence was beyond what his mind could handle.

"He looks serious," Yuri whispered.

"He is. Yuri, you've never really seen Tulland have to get serious before, have you?" Necia asked.

"No. Is it worth seeing?"

"I've seen him dive off cliffs and over armies. Literally. I've watched him put down evil men who thought they were invincible, then go and take a bath within an hour. He's not… I make fun of him for being how he is, sometimes. But nothing makes me more glad than that he's held onto a bit of that. Just a bit of it. Because if it was all how he is when he's serious, he'd be a warrior who had seen enough bad that none of us would have a chance to turn him back to rebuilding anything."

"That's… heavy." Yuri's eyebrows dropped. "Should you be saying this right in front of him like that?"

"He won't hear it for a few hours yet. Besides, we've been together a while. A little bit of truth won't hurt us."

Tulland registered the conversation in a dull, passive way, but just as Necia said, he didn't have to focus to really hear it just then. Eventually, the whole group was silent, jogging through an empty dungeon seemingly devoid of threats. It took several hours before they found their first group of bears, a few dozen recently spawned beasts standing in a clearing. Tulland's focus put him on them so fast that Necia didn't even get to the fight by the time he had cleared them.

"Not so hard. I'm beginning to be hopeful." Necia put her shield back on her back, looked around the clearing, and took a breath. "If it's as empty as this the whole way through, then…"

"Tulland!" Necia had been standing near one of the diseased, vine-covered trees at the edge of the clearing. Now, she was covered in blighted vines, as more reached from surrounding plants to cover her. She batted away with her club, ashing a few of them per swipe but proving unable to get ahead of the pace at which each new vine was attacking here. "I need your help!"

If Necia was asking for help, it was bad. Tulland burst across the ground, actually overshooting her as the ground behind him exploded from the force of his jump. His scythe came out and flashed a few times, cutting Necia completely free.

"Thanks. I don't know if I could have gotten myself out of that. And I don't feel so good." Necia's skin was a few shades off her normal rosy color, drained in a way Tulland didn't feel good about at all. "I don't even know how to fight this now. It's… Oh, no."

Tulland saw the threat at the same time Necia did in the form of hundreds of vines snaking out of the forest. The trees themselves followed them, slower but still fast, sliding through the soil like it wasn't there. It was an unholy wall advancing on them, faster than at least Necia could run away.

Tulland got out in front of her and started batting back and forth with the hoe. The individual vines weren't hard to deal with, but there were tons of them. It was all he could do to keep them from grabbing them as he and Necia slowly backed towards the center of the clearing. Yuri followed, staying mostly invisible to him as she sat in his blind spot and waited for a chance to be of help.

"This doesn't seem good," Necia said.

"No. And we don't know what we are dealing with," Tulland replied between strikes.

The other system is working on it. It should have… here it comes.

A notification, the automatically read kind that didn't distract from the battle, flashed across Tulland's brain. It looked like Aghli's System was still working, even if it took it time to analyze what it was seeing.

Good job, Aghli. Tulland, it's doing its best. Pay attention to the information it's giving you.