The Coral Chamber, Lemurian Belt

  The Century Corps have arrived in the coral chamber, now accidentally in control of The Cult of Sheyane. Elghene and Woelyn have taken the time to meet with Centus and Darsah over hologram

  Centus (Over Hologram): So Woelyn was really undercover the entire time?

  Woelyn: Yes, I was

  Darsah (Over Hologram): I’m frankly impressed by your cunning ability Elghene, to make a plan like that and execute it was pretty astounding

  Elghene: Well, Woelyn was a fantastic actor, so a lot of the props go to her as well

  Centus (Over Hologram): The thing I’m confused about is what exactly happened with The Pionin’s truth, you’re saying you killed…Neve’s Boyfriend

  Woelyn: Well I just attacked him because I only knew him as the asshole I fought back on Atteyino and he just knew me as a cult member who almost killed him. He didn’t know I was one of the good guys.

  Suddenly, Kiqi and Hyuken enter into the room with the hologram

  Kiqi: What’s this about Aoenen?

  Darsah (Over Hologram): Hello Kiqi and Hyuken, my name is Darsah and the person next to me is Centus, it’s nice to meet you

  Hyuken: It’s nice to meet you?

  Centus (Over Hologram): So Kiqi, I just wanted to clear up a confusion I had, so you killed Aoenen for what reason?

  Kiqi: Well my intention wasn’t to kill him, but I needed to stop him from attacking Woelyn

  Centus (Over Hologram): Alright I read you, sometimes we need to make hard choices in the heart of battle

  Darsah (Over Hologram): So what’s the plan with the Cult of Sheyane?

  Sheyane Cultist: I mean me personally I’d like better benefits this Cult stuff doesn’t pay well

  The room turns to look at this Cultist

  Woelyn: This is a classified meeting, how long have you been in here?

  Sheyane Cultist: I’ve been in here since last week

  Woelyn: Alright….

  Centus (Over Hologram): Do you want to talk about this with the Grandmaster?

  Suddenly, someone else joins the hologram call

  Gladian (Over Hologram): Talk about what?

  Elghene: Dude you scared the crap out of me

  Gladian (Over Hologram): Sorry I was just dropping in to check on stuff, but it seems like you need my input

  Woelyn: So because of a gambit between me and Elghene, I am now the accidental leader of The Cult of Sheyane, so what now

  Gladian (Over Hologram): Offer all of them Century Corps membership, I mean we can probably rehabilitate a lot of them into productive members of society

  Sheyane Cultist: Not being a productive member of society is WHY I joined a cult in the first place

  Woelyn: OK can it smartie

  Gladian (Over Hologram): So are you gonna do that?

  Woelyn: Yeah sure why not?

  Kiqi: The membership requirements for this guild is too lax

  Gladian (Over Hologram): If you think you're so good at running a guild, you’re welcome to suggest another idea?

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Kiqi: ….

  Gladian (Over Hologram): That’s what I thought, anyone else have any other inquiries?

  Darsah (Over Hologram): No

  Gladian (Over Hologram): Alright I’ll see you soon

  Gladian leaves the call

  Darsah (Over Hologram): We are now in possession of three batteries and the first battery is in Palestine already

  Elghene: It’s a race against the clock then to find the final one

  Woelyn: We will be on standby to teleport to a common location to the batteries

  Centus (Over Hologram): Alrighty, we’re going to Department X now because we’ve been invited to a secret base after I killed Agent Weaforth in the Deadlian Labyrinth

  Elghene: See you soon then, and remember Centus and Darsah…remember what will happen when we get finally get the portal open

  Darsah (Over Hologram): Will do

  Darsah and Centus leave the call

  Kiqi: You have another plan Elghene?

  Elghene: You’ll know when the time is right

  Utah

  Back with Centus and Darsah, they are in a hotel meeting with Iehn and her group of Century Corpsmen who have been investigating Department X for the last few days and they recently got an invite to a nearby base

  Eoontaq: I regret to stay behind

  Sahu: I do as well, but someone needs to do damage control

  Iehn: It’s fine, we wouldn’t all want to go down there

  Three more people join the group

  Larkin: Department X is kind of like the dark shadow that’s been underlying my entire life, they’ve made me as a weapon of some kind, made me so I could never grow old

  Centus: You are my one true kin in the world, understanding the pain of immortality

  Hadane: At least you had the privilege of being alive in the first place

  Nest: But you wouldn’t want to be immortal forever would you?

  Hadane: Maybe being alive at all is better than nothing?

  Larkin: Let’s enter into jaws of the beast shall we

  Iehn: Alright everyone, let’s go

  Centus: Sahu, Eoontaq, I will see you soon

  Sahu: Yeah…we know

  Darsah: Alright here we go

  The Century Crops sans Sahu and Eoontaq head to the entrance of the Department X base

  Iehn: Alright, we have the invitation so we should be let in

  Iehn places the invitation in a special place, which causes the base’s doors to open up

  Darsah: So what do they have in store for us today?

  Spade: They might be trying to dig our graves

  Hadane: If we blink, we will never move forward into the unblinking abyss

  Nest: I think maybe you need a lighter outlook on life

  The Century Corps step into the Department X hide-out

  Begin Department X Base

  When you are 15% of the way through, a group of agents jump down there

  Department X Agent: So the killers of Weaforth arrive, along with Larkin

  Centus: So you are here to kill us

  Spade: I will make this place a graveyard if I must

  Nest: Well if this was a trap to lure and kill us, they certainly lured us in here

  Larkin: No, it feels like there’s more than that

  ???: You’d be correct

  Sticky and bloody green goo begins oozing out of the wall

  Nest: Uhm, what the heck IS THAT

  The Goo begins forming into the shape of a person

  Stange Goo: Hello….it’s been a while

  Larkin: Uhm, have we met before?

  Stange Goo: Yes…you just don’t recognize me because I’ve just changed o so much since we last met

  Iehn: I’m gonna investigate it

  Strange Goo: Don’t get too close you white mage

  The Stange Goo remerges with the wall and travels into it

  Darsah: Looks like a bonafide monster in the walls?

  Larkin: That figure…doesn’t seem like a monster

  Spade: It looks ungovernable, stay close

  Resume

  When you’re 45% through the base, the party comes across a large open area filled with strange machinery with green humanoid shapes in test tubes

  Darsah: This is not a trap to kill us, this is a test of some kind

  Larkin: Wait a minute…I know these shapes and colors

  Iehn: Right…these are clones of you

  Suddenly, the tubes open and the Larkin Clones attack

  Larkin Clone: Death to the intruder…death to the Century Corps

  Nest: Iehn, run into them

  Iehn: Yes ma'am

  Iehn runs head first into the Larkin clones causing them to explode

  Iehn: These were more unstable than before

  Centus: I wonder why Department X would need the Adamite Key, they already have a basically immortal army

  Larkin: It’s about having themselves be immortal, the clones of me aren’t meant to be people, they’re meant to be obedient and follow orders

  Darsah: I’m very interested by the composition of these unique units

  Spade: Looks like we’ll figure out what’s going on soon enough

  Resume

  When you’re 80% through the base, the party comes across an underground farm of sorts, with strange plants

  Darsah: This is more of my wheelhouse

  Darsah begins studying the plants in the farm, seeing strange magical roots of sorts, and plants long extinct

  Darsah: This is sort of stored chamber, using plant specimens with high aether counts for harvesting of some sorts

  Spade: For what do they need this for?

  Larkin: Perhaps they are feeding an army of somekind?

  Darsah: I wonder why they would need high aether count crops for that when crops like Corn would be easier to grow in situations like this. It’s more likely that what they are farming is the latent aether in this chamber

  Nest: Perhaps they want to be a beacon of some kind?

  Hadane: Someone like you

  Hadane emits a large burst of flame from her scepter, destroying the crops generating Aether

  Darsah: What a shame, the destruction of something green and beautiful

  Resume

  When you’re complete, the party comes across an open door, leading to a room with a bunch of swivel chairs

  Larkin: Hello, who’s here?

  Strange Goo: Why it’s just me

  The strange goo emerges from the wall and begins to sit down in a chair, it reforms into a figure, resembling Larkin, but with bloody patches all over his body

  Lark2n: Hello Brother