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"Avan!" Came the cry from the room, followed by a loud "Uffff!" from Avan's air tube, which just came from an excited but also a bit worried Yue, who immediately launched into an attacking hug which ended in his airless situation. Yue hung on his neck, grinning, and squeezed tight, her legs wrapped around his torso, her face a few inches directly in front of his.

"Whew... Yue... Hi? Breathing?" Avan blurted out but grinned back with bright eyes, actually glad of the foxgirl's tumultuous greeting, who laughingly let go of him and jumped back onto the ground, only to bounce back and forth on her feet as she clasped her hands behind her back.

A bright and clear laugh sounded from further back, directly from the other woman in the room, who was just pushing her stone chair back from the table and approaching Avan with moist but mischievously glittering eyes.

"Where the heck have you been, Avan?" Elisa greeted him with a hug as well, which lasted longer to Avan's delight, while Yue smiled knowingly to her left. "Do you even know how long you've been gone?" Followed the next question, and both women saw the sudden tension in his shoulders as memories slipped back into the foreground, and he struggled through the weeks with repetitive deaths of fellow humans and his own.

"Avan, are you okay?" Elisa asked the only reasonable question, gently dragging him to the stone table in the center of the room, only to push him by the shoulders onto a chair.

Sighing but feeling a world of difference, Avan allowed everything to happen and sat down, only now noticing a familiar but unfamiliar person sitting on the left side of the table.

Before Avan had even half opened his mouth to speak, the other person had already preceded him, while both women sat down to his left and right.

"Hello, Avan." greeted the person expressionless, which resembled a human, but somehow looked different, and possessed a pink skin color. "I see you had more than a little... success. Not even I ever had that privilege..." He mumbled at the end, staring at Avan intensely the whole time as if he could read more out of him than others.

Still exposed to the person's stare, an encouraging squeeze of his shoulder came from his right side, and Elisa smiled apologetically at him as he turned his head to her, slightly confused and questioning.

"Hmm, yes. Well, may I introduce him? Although you knew him before, just in a different form. This is the bookworm. His name is Xanthar. And he is a creature bound to this dungeon."

Whew... THAT explains a lot. Appearance, disappearance, and appearance at will. I could have thought it myself, after the new knowledge with Horn. Came Avan's inner inspiration as he turned his head back to the person with raised eyebrows.

"Well, then, it's a pleasure to meet you, Xanthar!" He grinned mischievously at the former bookworm. "This time, I'm not trying to steal books from you either. Sorry again. Also for having so shamelessly lured you out with them on your second visit." Avan giggled at the end, which earned him a brief evil look from his counterpart until the other suddenly grinned back and nodded.

"Well, Avan, I think I was a little more than a little grumpy myself, after all this time alone down here. Grumpy is more like it. Forgive and forget, young man. But I'll gladly accept an apology. In the form of the story of what you experienced in the deeper levels of the dungeon! From your brief impression just now, not everything went so joyfully, huh?" Xanthar explained to him, becoming serious at the end as he cast a meaningful glance at the two again slightly worried women at Avan's side.

The addressed man sighed, ran his right hand over his hair, which could desperately use a wash, and, with all consequences, conjured up his teacup, which he had pilfered from Akkalon after the encounter.

Avan avoided Elisa's questioning gaze, earning a nod from Yue as he took a sip with the reassuring teacup in his hand and looked at his three listeners in turn.

After an internal jolt and a brief mental debate with himself about what spoke for and against, he started at the very beginning of his journey, but just before he could pick up the promise from Elisa not to be interrupted.

Avan dropped the bombshell, telling about how he came from a completely different world, without any magic, and how he woke up on Aorus.

As he talked about his journey and first encounter with Yue, he was amused to see Elisa, the brash explorer that she was, having to pull herself together to keep from bombarding him with questions.

He recounted, and had always been very proud of, much of his journey with detail about many little things, about the emotions that swirled around inside him, and his thought processes. Even back on earth, he had always been particularly good at one thing, and that was remembering details.

So he sat there, sipping his tea, distributing dried nuts and berries, the remains of his still warm meat skewers, and continued steadily.

When he came to the encounter with the god of the dead, Elisa could hardly contain herself, and Yue was also wide-eyed at his tales. In stark contrast, Xanthar sat quietly, nodding only occasionally, resting his chin on his two intertwined palms.

At the recounting of the dead, the still bizarre ordeal and his own deaths, and the loss of any sense of time in this circle of death and rebirth, Elisa took his right hand, which was resting on the table at the time, without comment and gave it an encouraging squeeze. Yue, on the other hand, continued to look at him with wide eyes, but with a lot of compassion in her gaze.

Avan continued, describing his difficulties with the situations, and how he had finally managed to defeat the skeleton crow in a final battle.

When his narrative came to the village of the Order of Healers, and his pictorial explanation of his experience of the beginnings of the Order, for the first time in all his hours of explanation, he could read a brief emotion in the bookworm's face, which quickly disappeared again under a professional mask, but a painful glint remained in his eyes.

All three were equally dumbfounded, however, when Avan finally came to the description of the temple and the gigantic statue, only to stare at him with huge eyes as he described Akkalon's sudden appearance. Those present hung on his every word, from the first meeting to the conversation and the gifts the god had given him.

Just as Yue and Elisa were about to open their mouths at the same time, most likely to ask about his dungeon creature, there was a short *poof* and Horn materialized out of the blue and gold shimmering mist behind Avan, much to the brief fright of all three present, except Avan.

Avan knew, without having to see it himself, that Horn was bowing elegantly and nodding once to those present.

"And this, my dear ones, is Horn. Horn, you already know those present here." Ava explained and winked at Yue, only to mischievously grin with a turn of his head to an open-mouthed Elisa.

A few explanations and mutual introductions later, in which Horn ended up with Yue petting him, much to his chagrin, all four sat back down at the table, while Horn took a waiting position behind Avan on the left.

"And yes...that was my story.... and the reason it took me so long." He finished his explanation with a slight smile, still with the weight of the mutilated corpses fresh in the back of his mind. "And Horn, unless physically present, can linger in my dungeon sphere of influence as an invisible caretaker."

A brief silence hung over the room as everyone processed their stories in different ways. Yue, sweet as she was, smiled encouragingly at him. Elisa grabbed her chin thoughtfully and gazed into space, probably comparing what she had heard with things she had read in all her books so far, and Xanthar looked at him with fascination and interest.

After another minute of silence, the bookworm in human form broke the silence with a clearing of his throat. "Ahem. I guess it makes sense to continue with me then, don't you think Elisa?" He asked the question pointedly in the direction of the young archivist, who snapped out of her thoughtful stasis and nodded at him after a few seconds of clarity.

Xanthar briefly drummed his pink hands on the stone table until he looked at Avan and began. "My name, as you already know, is Xanthar." He started, and Avan slowly nodded at him several times. "What is more important, however, is the fact that not only have I been the guardian of this dungeon for thousands of years as its creature bound to it, but I have also lived another life before that."

A brief silence followed, and Avan leaned forward tensely a bit after taking another sip of the tea, sharing it with Yue and Elisa, who stared at the tea after their first sips.

"I am the former founder, Xanthar, of the Order of Akkalon, Avan. I am the one whose origin you saw in our village... And my heart is clouded, yet it fills me with joy to hear about our village. For as a dungeon creature, I cannot survive long outside the dungeon, and have not been able to visit our former home for a very, very long time..." He dropped the next bomb, which in this case only surprised Avan, and turned the surprised people in the room around.

Xanthar told the same story that he had told Elisa and Yue, and how he had become the founder of the order at that time, just as Avan had witnessed firsthand. It became interesting for Avan when the strict but morally upheld rules of the order led to its downfall.

Even Xanthar did not know exactly why it happened the way it did. He only knew that at the beginning of a certain day, they were suddenly attacked by hordes of corrupted monsters. Monsters that belonged to different elements, different races, but their mana structure seemed to have been completely corrupted and twisted. These monsters had attacked in swarm intelligence, as if they were controlled, or as if they were nothing more than trained dogs, which danced to someone's whistle.

Everywhere the Order members went to help others, they were ambushed. Whether it was due to the special gift of their celestial mana or their vague connection to Akkalon, Xanthar could not say to this day.

Only that their order had been wiped out one by one, and finally the last survivors had gone out into the world with their families to find the source of these hordes of corrupted monsters.

Xanthar had stayed behind, and as the strongest monk of his order, he had defended the village and their heritage, built up over a hundred years, against thousands of monsters, until there was nothing left for him but to flee, also badly wounded. Unlike his brothers and sisters of the order, however, he went to the only place that seemed right to him; the Tower of Akkalon, which connected a portal from their hidden village to the dungeon.

And here, after a short time, and shortly before his death from his unhealing wounds, he was offered the opportunity to bind himself to the dungeon, and in a distant future, to be able to help again, when it was again a matter of eliminating corruption.

And so, over the millennia, he had played the guardian, the keeper of past knowledge, and had memorized the books and scrolls that had gradually decayed over the gigantic span of time. He had not chosen the form of the bookworm, but he had played around with the abilities of his own form and one day, more for fun, he kept it.

And when Yue and Elisa arrived here with new books and scrolls through Avan, he had not only been able to read something new for the first time, but had also found a familiar book soul in Elisa, and had exchanged knowledge.

"And so, I must finally admit, I am infinitely grateful to you. Thank you, Avan." Xanthar finished his story and at the same time stood up to bow to him so deeply that his forehead almost touched the surface of the stone table.

"Ahh...!" Avan waved off slightly ashamed. "All is well, all is well! No need to make bows to anyone here!" He explained, as he was more than uncomfortable with that, and Avan never liked being the center of attention.

Xanthar looked up and smiled at him as he sat back down. "But one thing, Avan, you can't deny."

Everyone looked at him, waiting to hear what the former founder of the order meant. "You are the person who can fight corruption."

The two women looked first at Xanthar and then at Avan, then back at the man, while Avan scratched the back of his head nervously again. Why is it always me? "Can I do this from the... back rows?" He asked lamely to the group, which earned him a giggle from Yue.

"Either way, young man, but from what you've told me, you don't just have the celestial element in you that is hated by the corruption, no, you are more than just a single person. You are a moving fortress.You are an all flooding wave of celestial mana. At least you can be, provided you learn to master your abilities as a dungeon. Which has never been done before, believe me." Xanthar looked hopefully at Avan, and finished his explanation with his hands crossed on the table in front of him.

A silence followed, and for a few seconds no one said a word.

Until Elisa could no longer hold on to herself and, amid loud laughter from Yue, bombarded Avan with questions, much to the general amusement and lightening of the just-so-serious mood.

"What other forms can you create with Akkalon's form? What exactly can you do with your sphere of influence? Is it like another sense? Does it give you a headache? Can you block things out? How does your celestial mana feel exactly? What did Akkalon look like exactly? Can I take a look at this ominous staff for myself? What kind of tea is this?..." And so it went on and on, until she herself was out of breath, her withheld questions shot out like a pistol.

Avan did his best to explain everything as precisely as possible to the diligent and overzealous archivist and researcher, while Horn talked quietly in a whisper to Xanthar, and Yue happily sipped the tea and snacked on dried berries and nuts.

After a few more hours, and a slow creeping tiredness after all this new information and events, those present decided on the further course of action. Avan just wanted to eat something real again, even though his greater dungeon influence seemed to have taken away more of his hunger and thirst, and he would now only have to eat a small portion a day, if that's what he thought. And a real bed would be so great... He dreamed to himself, until a grinning Yue tore him out of his daydreams with a gentle tap on the shoulder.

In the end, Yue and Avan wanted to go to Cyntha together, while Elisa wanted to talk a bit more about the newly gained information with Xanthar, who couldn't even leave the dungeon for an hour.

So Elisa and Avan said goodbye with a short kiss and the promise that she would join them tomorrow at the latest, while Horn dematerialized again, or as Avan called it in the meantime; Puffed.

After a rather short farewell to all involved, Yue and Avan were already on their way through the tunnel vault outside the dungeon gates. "How long ago that feels by now, doesn't it, Yue?" Avan exclaimed nostalgically, pleased with the situation as he took another look around the narrow tunnels, which fortunately no longer smelled of goblins and their feces.

Yue, who was dancing lightly through the tunnels in front of him at a bouncing gait, looked back over her shoulder and nodded, briefly casting a sad shadow over her face that quickly gave way to the newfound cheerfulness.

When Avan finally caught sight of the light outside, already ending in a reddish sunset, with Yue bouncing loosely in front of him, he quickened his steps in anticipation of a bed.

He almost ran into Yue, who had suddenly stopped and was sniffing the air, when he stopped just in time and looked at her in confusion.

Why is she so tense? Everything is quiet, and a breathtaking red sunset greets us... Avan asked himself as he looked in the same direction Yue was looking in fear, her foxtail twitching behind her in strangely ticked-off movements.

Only this is not a... sunset? He realized a second later, as Yue sprinted off, shouting to him. "Cyntha!"

 

"Cyntha's on fire!" And Avan ran after her, toward a skyline glowing red and covered in thick black smoke.

 

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