Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 186: Ch184. If there’s someone who can do this, it’s him

Chapter 186: Ch184. If there’s someone who can do this, it’s him

The forge was quieter than usual after the conversation died down. Mara hadn’t said a word in a while, she just stood by the door with her arms crossed, her gaze fixed on some point beyond the room, where her thoughts clearly wandered in places only she could access.

Miles sat in silence as well, fingers drumming quietly against the mattress as Sarissa leaned back in her cot, the flickering fire casting wavering shadows across her face.

That was when Tristan’s message came in, the short-range communication device around Mara’s wrist chiming with a ping.

The soft chime echoed through the air, and a pale-blue sigil opened around Mara’s wrist.

[Union Officer: Tristan Vale]

[Message: The council’s gathered. They’re waiting on you.]

Mara sighed, tapping the side of the projection to send a quick reply.

"Tristan?" Miles asked, without looking. "The goody-two-shoes guy from the Administration?"

"Yeah." Mara scoffed. "He’s helping me with keeping the Union together more than you did with simply shoving it all in my hands, you know? All the guild leaders are gathering at the Mass Hall. Dungeon War is pressing everyone’s nerves thin. Too many Tier 2 raids collapsing, too many unexplained low-tier Dungeons going up in rank."

"Sometimes I forget what it truly means to be outside the worldwide system..." Miles frowned. "Dungeon war, huh?"

"Yeah, a global-scale event meant for conquering dungeons and gathering resources. It’ll happen three months from now, and we still don’t have a single clue of what it means for the world or for us, other than that it’s going to be another blood bath."

Mara stepped away from the wall, grabbing her coat from a nearby hook. She paused long enough to glance at Sarissa.

"You’re sure you’ll be alright without me for a few hours?"

Sarissa nodded without opening her eyes.

"Go. If anything happens, I’ll scream again." She chuckled bitterly.

Mara gave a dry smirk and turned to Miles.

"Don’t let her sneak off to try and save the world again."

"She moves, I bind her legs with void thread." He chuckled.

"That’s off-limits." Mara glared at him. "It takes time and effort to make it, so no."

Sarissa snorted, and Mara nodded once, sweeping out of the room, her footsteps fading down the stairwell.

Silence returned. Not heavy, but familiar.

"How do you feel?" Miles shifted in his seat and turned to Sarissa.

"Like someone chewed on my bones and forgot to spit them out."

"Good metaphor."

They sat there a moment longer, until Miles broke the silence again.

"There’s someone I think you should meet."

"Is it another god? Because I’m still recovering from the last one, and I don’t think I want to meet another one for a long time." Sarissa didn’t open her eyes.

"Not quite. Think more... Niche. He calls himself the Professor. Capital P."

"That sounds even worse." She opened her eyes, grimacing.

"He’s not what you think. Just a guy, really. Strange one, sure, dresses like a pre-Glitch professor and speaks like he’s narrating a biography, but he’s not dangerous."

"How did you even find someone like that?" Sarissa pursed her lips.

Miles grinned faintly.

"Wandering. After you left, and Mara stayed behind to take care of the guild, I needed answers. So, I traveled. Dungeon to dungeon. Looking for any trace of what made the [Mouth of the Abyss] different. Looking for other places like it."

He stood up and walked over to the fireplace, poking the embers.

"One day, I ran into a dungeon that shouldn’t have existed. No markers, no clearing records. Just a sealed door with riddles carved in ancient glyphs, but nothing like the First Dungeon or anything I happened to stumble upon after that. It opened when I answered one of the questions, and he was inside."

Sarissa sat up a little more, interested now.

"He didn’t fight me. Said he wanted no skirmishes around him. Just offered me some tea, and said I looked like someone who had questions but didn’t know how to ask them yet. And then, he started talking about Stories. Not a story in the class sense. Real Stories. With capital S."

"Sounds like the ones we awakened after [Aardvark]."

"It does. That’s what I thought, but he wasn’t a Fable like Alice, the Hatter, or anything we read when we were kids. He was not tied to the same rules we knew until now. He knew about the system, but he talked about it like an infection. Something that overwrote what the world was supposed to be."

Sarissa stared at him, her eyes looking like they were searching for something in his words.

"He taught me how to see them, but not just through [Story’s Eye]. Through experience. He trained me, made me relive parts of my past I thought I had buried deep within my memory. And then, he asked if I wanted to change them."

"Could you?" Sarissa raised an eyebrow. "Could he?"

"No. But he said I could grow from them. Reshape my own narrative. That’s how I began really shaping my Classpect, how I became able to reveal Story-related skills that were already inside of me, but I hadn’t tapped into yet. He said Dee’s egg came from the Sea Between Realities, a realm where gods dwell, barely forgotten by humanity, and it would hatch if I fed it enough Stories."

Sarissa was quiet for a long time, but after a few seconds of what looked like careful consideration, she asked.

"Do you trust him?"

"As much as I trust anyone who doesn’t try to kill me on sight." Miles shrugged.

"And you think he can help me?"

"I don’t know. But I think that if anyone can make sense of what you’re carrying, of Alice and the Hatter embedded in your soul, and how to at least find a way to fix your own Stories, it’s him. He called Wonderland a wound. Maybe he knows how to treat it."

"Alright. When I can stand again, take me to him." Sarissa exhaled slowly.

Miles nodded.

"Until then," Sarissa said, her eyes closing once more. "No more secrets. You tell me everything, even the parts you think don’t matter." After a moment of pause, she added. "Please."

"Deal." Miles retorted. And for the first time in a long while, he meant it.