Chapter 51 - Into The Tunnel

"Took you a while," Marvin threw his observation out as soon as Tom entered the basement.

"Trust me, I wish I could've come here quicker," Tom replied with a sour face. "Cleo, I need you to go and watch the house. Likely, someone is already out there watching the premises," Tom told the girl before stepping towards the loosely hidden hole in the basement's wall.

"Who is she?" Marvin asked before Cleo could as much as move a single muscle. "Don't tell me you brought an outsider to this matter!" he exclaimed in a jokingly manner, clearly unable to even fathom the possibility of being right.

"Sadly, you are mostly right," Tom informed his friend with a deep, exhausted sigh. "Everyone, meet Claudia," he then introduced the girl to the duo in the basement.

"I will ask again," Marvin spoke up as his face darkened. "Who is she?" The tone of this question was monotone and completely emotionless, only hinting at the true wrath that lurked in the depths of Marvin's soul.

"I met her back in the city. Scored a few runs together. And she ran into me right as I had to yeet out of the hub before they would pounce on me," Tom explained without any further delay. Yet, he twisted his lips in an ugly grimace when the topic of the recent events came up.

"So that's the case," Cleo said, interrupting the masculine show of strenght between the two friends. "Claudia, was it?" she asked the girl standing meekly behind Tom.

"Y-yeah," Claudia responded with a weak voice. From her lips trembled, it was clear how terrified she was.

Not by Marvin or Cleo. Even if the former had a pretty badass sense of fashion, now she was free of her act. She ditched this chilly-cold aura of hers, which was making it hard for people to approach her. Right now, Cleo looked like the sweet cinnamon roll, which was somehow disguised into dressing her hair in a modern punk style.

"Then I can only wish you luck," Cleo shook her head before patting Claudia on her arm and moving towards the exit ladder.

"Make sure to come back quickly. We are still on the clock!" Tom relayed his advice to the girl before grabbing Claudia's hand and looking her in the eyes. "Let's go," he said, trying to kill the pain in his heart caused by the girl's trembling face.

"Un," Claudia only nodded meekly before allowing Tom to pull her towards the hole.

From then, an arduous journey began. Due to the state of his body, Marvin was unable to walk through the tunnel. As such, he ended up occupying the only free cart capable of riding the rails that Tom and his father laid down in the passage.

"Where did all the other carts go?" Tom asked somewhere in the middle of their trip.

"Unless took them all," Marvin replied in the same monotone manner he used to speak to Tom before. "I hope you do realize that we will be deducting all the costs from your shares in the group," he added in a lower voice, finally at least openly hostile.

"Can you cut me some slack?" Tom asked, taking numerous attempts to quell his anger.

Sadly, all of them ended futile.

"You do realize what would happen to her if those bastards were to get their hands on her?" Tom suddenly asked his friend. Even though he was as angry as one could get, he continued to push the cart in which his friend sat.

"No? Not really?" Marvin countered, unwilling to yield any ground to his friend.

'It doesn't make sense,' Tom thought, startled by how strange turn this discussion was taking. 'Normally, he wouldn't bother arguing like that,' he recalled before a sudden realization struck him. 'Was that just my image of him, created by his act? On the other hand, maybe he is just honest with me, something I took as a bad sign? What if this conditioned my perception to look at everything else through this warped perspective?' he asked himself, trying to figure out the reason for his friend's strange behavior.

"Don't bother thinking about it too much. It's not like it matters anymore," Marvin shook his shoulders after a moment. Even though he didn't say that out loud, it was clear he noticed the deep anxiety in Tom's eyes. "Either way, the unless took all the heavy machinery. What's more, they nearly wiped clean your accounts to order everything they needed," he added, casting a curious look at Tom.

"It doesn't matter," the young man replied, even going as far as to roll his eyes. "Once I get to the dungeon myself, I will be sure to find a way to bring back the stones that everyone in the online hub is so crazy about," Tom said with a smile that only continued to widen.

"If you think that turning those stones into money will be simple…." Marvin shook his head over the naivete of his friend. "Well, there is no point discussing it. We are nearing the site," he added before nodding his head forward.

And there was truly a sight to behold just two corners away from them. Once the group finally reached the end of the dugout, Tom could finally see the insides of the Dome without the help of any artificial tools.

Because right now, the metal sheets that covered the entirety of the building's insides were bent out of shape and broken. This, in turn, allowed Tom a clear and unadulterated look at the mysterious portal revolving within.

'It's… levitating?' Tom thought when this single detail caught his attention. 'No, it's not like this… It's more like… It's not affected by the gravity in the first place!' he thought, not even bothering to hold his joy back.

"Tom?" a small voice called him out.

'Now that I can enter it, I should be able to get one step closer to solving the mystery of my memories.' Tom rejoiced, unsure how he was supposed to express his happiness.

After all the scheming, planning, plotting, and thinking, he got one step closer to fulfilling his utmost desire.

"TOM!" Claudia shouted, unable to bear with the tension any longer. As if she was some sort of commander, everyone in the dugout directed their eyes at her. "What am I even looking at?!" she shouted, clearly done with waiting for the answers.

"Boss, we brought the cables and everything. We are ready to connect at any moment!" one of the uncles approached Tom and said, clearly excited over the prospect of working on this particular project.

"Great, Cleo will be here in a few moments. We can start as soon as she arrives," Tom ordered before turning his face back to Claudia. "Listen, what you are looking at right now, is one of those portals that appeared all over the earth several years ago." Tom shrugged and explained the most disturbing part of the situation Claudia suddenly found herself in.

"Huh? You dug out a tunnel all the way to a fucking dome?!" she shouted, not from the anger, though, but due to the sheer shock of what those words would mean both for Tom and Claudia herself. "Are you mad? Don't you know what can happen if the containment will be broken?" she continued her rant for a while before noticing something peculiar.

There was a huge group of people in the room already. The containment unit of the portal was already broken. From the looks of things, it wasn't a recent event that took this protective barrier apart.

Yet, no one acted as if they were sentenced to death row. No one acted as if every second their bodies continued to consume a lethal dose of radiation. There were no effects to absorbing the dreaded dark mist... Because there was no mist whatsoever!

"Yes, I dug all the way. And yes, I know what will happen if the containment breaks," Tom announced with a loud voice before spreading his arms apart and moving two steps back. Right now, he was standing as wide as he could, right below the biggest hole in the metal sheet covering the immediate surroundings of the portal. "Absolutely, fucking, nothing. What you see is not some kind of disaster distilled," Tom continued to break every belief about common lies that Claudia could have.

"In other words, what you are looking at is the heart of Dungeons Online," Tom announced before squinting his eyes. "In other words, this vortex is a portal to another world, the one we saw through the eyes of our avatars."

"I'm here!" Cleo shouted as soon as she rushed through the open doors. Struggling to catch a breath and sweating all over, she was the embodiment of someone who lost all reason just for the sake of fulfilling the order.

"Great, everyone, let's begin!"