Lex stared at the map in front of him. It’d taken months of searching and even now he couldn’t believe what he’d found.

The Bermuda Triangle was a myth. He’d checked the records he could get his hands on, and - like Area 51 - they didn’t actually indicate anything supernatural or aliens. Unlike Area 51, however, there weren’t classified projects that had to be explained away; instead, the Bermuda Triangle was literally a product of hysteria and journalistic overstatement in a sea of bad records. They were both stories that people wanted to be true and therefore ignored the evidence that didn’t support the supposed mystery.

It was also undeniably true that the partial information from his grandfather pointed at the area. The maps definitely didn’t match the geography of the area from before the Tutorial, but the current geography was an almost perfect fit; several of the islands had moved significantly over the past year. They’d moved without any earthquakes or other large upheavals, which would have seemed odd except that this wasn’t the only place it had happened.

It had happened all over the planet. Almost every city had land appearing that had never existed before. Oddly enough, some of the land was barren, some was verdant, and some was actually developed as if it had been there all along but was simply now abandoned. Lex suspected that some of it had simply been hidden while some of it was new. There were some major fights going on about who owned it. It was a huge mess, with everyone from local landowners to municipalities and even the federal government fighting over some of the new land.

Lex was just as happy to avoid that; he’d served his time for his country and it didn’t need him for this. The only expanded land he was interested in had very quietly been claimed by New York City, since it fell completely within the boundaries of the city’s largest park. Somehow, the fact that it was actually a dungeon still hadn’t been noticed and neither had the fact that a road sometimes appeared and disappeared.

Lex suspected that something like that was happening here, since the new geography matched his latest map except for one feature: the island that held the Well of Souls itself. It didn’t show on the civilian satellite images that were all he could access these days. He was going to have to go out to sea again; hopefully he’d have better success than the past three trips. They weren’t totally wasted, since each trip had given him clues that led to the way he’d assembled the new map, but one each trip he’d hoped to find the Well and he hadn’t.

As it was, this reminded him of the stories of Schliemann and the rediscovery of Troy. He’d put together pieces from the epics, mostly Homer, and found an ancient city where the clues in the stories led him. It might or might not have been the actual Troy, but it was still a major archaeological find. Lex was following the clues his grandfather had assembled from his family’s stories to find something that was at least as impactful.

It would definitely be more important to Lex himself; in fact, it was important enough that he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it if it actually turned out to be what his grandfather thought it was. There were things the public didn’t need to know; the fact that an unknown number of people were actually really descendants of people from another world was probably one of those things.

It didn’t change anything in reality but it might make people focus on exactly the wrong things. He’d spent more than enough time in his professional life trying to figure out what religious terrorists would do to not understand exactly how much trouble something like that could cause, whether or not anyone could actually identify who came from where.

Finding a ship willing to take Lex out to a spot in the ocean wasn’t any harder than it had been the last three times; it just took money and time.

As it turned out, the spot he was looking at wasn’t actually in the Bermuda Triangle, at least not as his ship captain defined it. They were headed too far east, a fact which seemed oddly reassuring to the captain, who said there had been “odd things” seen in the Triangle over the past few months but wouldn’t elaborate.

Lex was overjoyed when land came into sight at almost exactly the spot his new map predicted. The island was big enough that it should have been easy to find on the satellite images, but it was definitely not there.

He was far less thrilled when he realized that there was no way to get onto the island. There were no docks; in fact, there wasn’t even a semi-decent place for a harbor. There were plenty of trees and a number of shallow beaches, so perhaps the tale about “floating off the island on a log” wasn’t entirely false. It seemed more likely that it was a raft or dugout canoe, but Lex couldn’t dismiss the possibility that it was a purpose-grown log shaped like a small boat. This was supposed to be a place of magic, after all.

They circled the island a few times. There definitely wasn’t a decent spot for this ship, but a smaller boat might work at several of the beaches. A helicopter would be better, as long as he didn’t need to carry much weight out; with a helicopter, he could survey the island from the air and possibly land near whatever he found.

Chartering a helicopter was certainly possible. Lex wondered if Baxter knew anyone; Baxter didn’t fly helicopters, but he did know a lot of people. Given the distance from shore, he might also need a ship to act as a waystation; that was something to ask as well.

“Mr. Rothmer? I’m Oliver Davis.” Oliver held out his hand to greet Lex as Lex stepped on the ship.

Oliver appeared younger than Lex had expected from Baxter’s recommendation; he looked younger than Thomas. Well, he looked younger than Thomas had looked, before the Tutorial; Serenity appeared younger than Oliver. Oliver was still clearly fit, though some old scars told Lex all he needed to know about why Oliver wasn’t in the military anymore; if the ones hidden by his clothes were as bad as the ones Lext could see, he’d probably spent years recovering enough to be able to fly again.

“Yes. Please call me Lex; I’m retired and there’s no need to stand on formality.” He’d take the lessened formality where he could get it. He didn’t expect it here; most veterans weren’t easily able to relax around the former Secretary of Defense while they were working. It was still worth a try.

“It’s nice to meet you. We’ll get under way in about an hour; until then, would you like some coffee?” Oliver didn’t wait for an answer; instead, he led Lex into a glassed-in covered area. It seemed to be set up for large groups of passengers, where they could see the water if the weather was too bad to be out on the open deck. Towards the back, there was a bar arrangement that held a number of snacks and drinks, including a coffee pot.

As he poured the coffee, Oliver turned back to Lex. “Baxter mentioned you served, but not which service.”

Lex smiled at that. No wonder Oliver didn’t seem intimidated; he didn’t know Lex from any other sixty-year-old veteran. “Air Force, then some time in civil service. You?” His description was accurate, even if it was extremely incomplete.

Oliver sighed. “Air Force, huh? I bet you knew a lot of pilots.” He shook his head. “All I wanted to do was fly. I loved helicopters as a kid, always have. I made it, spent a couple of years living the dream, then it all fell apart. Car accident. Not my fault, the other driver was drunk and didn’t even slow at the light, but it didn’t matter. Can’t fly if your body doesn’t work right. I had the choice between an honorable discharge and a desk job. It took me years to recover enough to fly again.”

He smiled, but there was a haunted look in his eyes. “Why am I telling you this? I usually just say I was a helicopter pilot in the Army. Guess I needed to vent today. Anyway, here’s your coffee; cream and sugar are over there if you need ‘em. From what Baxter said when he hired us, you’re headed out to an unknown island to explore it?”

Lex nodded and smiled. “I’m following a legend. I didn’t really expect to turn anything up, but I have the time now. The-”

The world shook around Lex and Oliver. The coffee pot rocked and nearly tipped over; both Oliver and Lex lost some of the coffee in their mugs. There was a sudden hard jolt as the ship slammed into the floating pier, then a series of loud cracks as it snapped.

Oliver stared at the damage he could see, clearly shocked. “We’re not going anywhere today. Not until everything’s been checked, and I’m not sure how long that will take.”

Lex nodded. He didn’t want to go out on the ocean in a ship that had just gone through its dock without having it inspected; flying in a helicopter that was thrown around like a child’s toy was worse.

Not long afterwards, it happened again. This time, it was a little gentler, but it still rocked everything that was on the water.

Lex could feel the denser mana around him. It was clear what had happened; the planet had Tiered up again. This time was far worse than either of the previous times, and he could only wonder: if it was that bad on the water, how bad was it on land?

An hour later, Lex was vastly relieved. The initial damage reports were in and the answer was not as bad as Lex feared. It was still pretty bad; the world wasn’t prepared for everywhere to be hit by earthquakes at the same time, even if most of them were small and didn’t do anything more than shake buildings.

Lex no longer had access to the sort of data he’d once had at his beck and call, but he was still confident in the pattern. He’d tracked his son as he traveled; anywhere he’d been, especially if he’d taken the time to visit the dungeons, was relatively safe. The worst disasters were all in areas where not only had Serenity not been invited but where all of the dungeons were eliminated. Lex couldn’t remember where they all were, but he remembered enough to make the connection.

Those places broadly fell into three categories. In some places, the Voice was dismissed as an “imperialistic plot” by the “Western elites.” Lex had to admit that that was probably partly his son’s fault, since he was clearly a Western elite who was famous due to the Tutorial, but he really couldn’t blame Thomas. The boy had done the best he could, and it worked out far better than Lex had ever expected. It was too bad he’d decided to change careers, but at least he’d gone to another career his father could be proud of.

In other places, the local leaders were so worried about the threat of dungeon monsters escaping that they decided to kill all of the dungeons. In many cases, this was a single city rather than a national-level decision, but it was clear there were going to be serious consequences from those local decisions.

The third case was similar to the second, but it was made on a national level. Lex believed that the given reason wasn’t true; instead, it was the fact that people both had to regularly clear the dungeon to keep it safe (and therefore some people had to be armed) and the fact that those people could potentially become more powerful by doing so that scared the regimes who made that decision.

Lex could only be thankful that his son had achieved enough fame to be noticed and pushed strongly for coexistence with dungeons. Without his efforts, it was entirely possible that the United States would have closed far more dungeons than it had; Lex wished he could say that it was entirely for the second reason, but he was certain all three would have been behind it. As it was, that hadn’t happened and wasn’t going to.

Lillene

Yes, Earth is Tier Three now. Gaia’s managed to keep things (mostly!) together so far.