Chapter 78: Summoned

Without any notice, no flashbang, no big gate, not even that sick lurch in the stomach that usually came with teleportation, Kael simply was there.

One blink he was in the underground storage room with the zombie’s slack corpse still tilting forward, the air smelling like old copper and damp concrete. The next, that smell was gone, replaced by a sterile emptiness that didn’t feel like air so much as absence.

He couldn’t even believe his own senses, because it wasn’t that he moved. It was like the ground under his feet had been rewritten, swapped out while he stood on it. The world hadn’t carried him anywhere. The world had changed around him.

Where he stood was a dark room with only a thin blue light ring around him, perfectly circular, perfectly centered, as if someone had drawn a boundary on reality and told it to behave.

The darkness here wasn’t just lack of light. It had weight. It pressed on the eyes, made distance hard to measure. Kael’s first instinct was to reach for his crowbar like it could explain what was happening, but the blue ring made him hesitate, an irrational feeling that stepping out of it would trigger something immediate and ugly.

In the corners of this room, and all around him, he could see faint square lines of blue. Lightning-thin geometry, clean and sharp, forming large cubic platforms where several creatures were standing on.

Creatures here is imperative.

Because there wasn’t a single human figure here.

Everyone had a humanoid silhouette, but not the shape of a human. Some were too tall. Some were too wide. Some had horns that cut into the darkness like jagged parentheses. Others had tails, multiple arms, elongated necks. The shapes were wrong in ways that made Kael’s skin prickle. And worse: he couldn’t fully see them, like the room refused to let him focus unless it wanted him to.

Suddenly, one of the cubes lit up.

The blue faint light became brighter, washing over the figure standing there and revealing it in full.

It was the rabbit.

The twin-tailed tux. The hovering posture. The monocle. The red eyes that somehow managed to look like they were both furious and offended by Kael’s continued existence.

“You again! It’s always you! ALWAYS!” the rabbit howled, voice cracking and ricocheting off invisible walls.

“You’re acting like I caused trouble,” Kael didn’t even wait for his turn to speak before he interrupted. The words slipped out with a tired edge. He was past polite. Past intimidated. Being polite hadn’t saved him from goblins, basilisks, or administrators.

“You see what I have to deal with! This impudent bastard! Let me take him out!”

“Rabbit…” an elderly voice sounded, behind Kael.

He didn’t need to turn to know how powerful the owner of the voice was. The voice didn’t shout. It didn’t need to. It carried authority the way gravity carried weight, inevitable, unquestionable. It had power in it, the kind that made Kael’s spine straighten on reflex.

“Yes, Lord Dragon…” The rabbit’s rage didn’t vanish, but it compressed, like a dog forced to lower its head while still baring its teeth.

“First off, you smell,” Dragon said, and with a mere wave of his hand, all the soot, stink, and goblin gut disappeared from Kael’s body. Even his tracksuit, which was burnt to a crisp, returned to being new and pristine again.

Kael was surprised at how simple this creature made this feel, and also knew how dangerous he could be if he wanted to.

“Much better… so. Let us understand first what is going on,” the elderly voice continued, calm and measured. “We have been summoned here on urgent notice. We have many matters to tend to back at our own floors…”

“Ah, yes, if you’ll excuse me then,” Torrac said, somehow managing to sound both frantic and righteous, “I’d like to eliminate this… climber, from the tower.”

“For what reason?” a higher pitched voice replied, sharp, feminine, and unimpressed. Kael couldn’t see who spoke, only felt the way the air seemed to lean toward that platform when the voice sounded.

“Lady Snake, this young man…” the rabbit said, gesturing wildly as if Kael were a stain he’d been trying to scrub for days, “he’s been nothing but trouble. He already was admitted by the tower on a technicality. He shouldn’t be here!”

“Feels like what you guys are talking about is pretty important,” Kael said, “mind if you include me in it?” He spread his hands slightly, the universal sign for hello, I’m the problem you’re screaming about. “Since, you know, I’m right here.”

“Stop interrupting us, you impudent fool!” Torrac howled.

“IS THAT against the rules?” Kael asked, and he could taste the satisfaction in it. He didn’t even try to hide it.

The rabbit once again, stumped with the mention of the rules, couldn’t reply. It was almost funny watching him choke on his own indignation, almost.

“So,” Kael said, voice leveling out into something deliberately casual, “what’s all this about? I’m a pretty busy man, you know. Busy trying to stay alive…”

He tried to get the appearance of the other people in the room, but apparently unless they themselves allowed it, he couldn’t see. It wasn’t just darkness. It was permission. The platforms were there, the silhouettes were there, but details slid away from his mind like water off glass.

“It is not against the rules to interrupt,” the one they called Dragon replied. “In fact, it is borderline breaking the rules bringing you here against your will. However, we need to confirm a few things. The Rabbit here had mentioned that you were causing trouble in the tower.”

“Is the tower incompetent enough not to realize that trouble had occurred?” Kael asked, and his tone sharpened a fraction. He was poking at a beast with a stick, but the beast had already called him here. Might as well learn if it could bleed.

“That is not the case,” Dragon said, voice unchanged.

“Then why am I here?” Kael tilted his head, forcing his body to look relaxed even though his instincts were screaming at him to keep his knees bent and ready.

“Because you were going to screw over the whole damned floor! By yourself! That needs to stop!” Torrac howled, hopping in place as if volume could replace logic.

“How was I going to do that?” Kael shot back. “I was minding my own business until you guys called me. What did I do to screw over the tower?”

“You! You….” Torrac’s mouth opened and closed like it physically hurt him to answer.

Kael’s eyes narrowed. “Is it about the map?”

“SILENCE!” the rabbit howled, and it came out a little too fast, a little too panicked.

The rest of the council seemed a bit taken aback by the rage the rabbit was showing.

Kael’s lips twitched.

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