Chapter 95 Fun Dungeon?
The glass doors slid shut behind with a hiss, sealing inside the Tenfold Keep. The air was cooler here, filtered and sterile, almost too clean. My eyes swept the lobby. It was simple, almost dostic. A water dispenser humd in the corner, flanked by a vending machine stocked with chips and canned sodas. A small bookshelf stood beside it, comics stacked ssily, their covers faded from too much handling.
It didn’t feel like the lair of a feared contract group. It felt like soone’s halfhearted idea of comfort.
Then my gaze caught on the reception desk.
A man sat there, dark-haired, in casual clothes, one leg propped arrogantly on the desk while he flipped through a comic book. He looked like he belonged in a convenience store lounge, not the entrance to a fortress hidden by invisibility fields.
When his eyes finally noticed us, his lips curled into a grin. “Heyo~! The man is finally here!”
Recognition pricked at . Ning Light. The infamous speedster who fried gangs for fun and outran law enforcent like they were children chasing a kite.
Ning Light. Speedster-7. Electrokinetic-7.
With SRC ratings, one through four were in the scientific realm. They were predictable, street-level capes you could asure in labs and textbooks. Five through seven ant highly dangerous, bending science to its breaking point, veterans and heavy-hitters who’d carved reputations in blood and notoriety. Eight and above? That was the anomalous territory. Science crumbled there, replaced by miracles and monsters.
Ning’s double sevens were terrifying in their own right.
He set his comic aside with theatrical flair, stretching. “Gave the tour yet?” he asked.
“I will,” Dullahan replied flatly, never pausing her stride.
Ning pointed at with a casual flick of his wrist, sparks jumping between his fingers like static mischief. “See, it’s always the newest mbers’ job to show the ropes to the new guy. Tradition, you know? As one of the oldest mbers of the group, I have the privilege of not suffering such an errand. Now, off you go, you two!”
He leaned back in his chair, legs crossing at the ankles like a king on his shabby throne. “And, Eclipse, welco to the mobile building of the Ten.”
I didn’t bother replying. I just followed Dullahan past him, toward the elevator that lood at the far end of the lobby.
The doors opened with a sterile ding.
We stepped inside.
Without hesitation, Dullahan pressed for the very top floor. The button lit, and the hum of the machinery began its steady climb. “Each floor is owned by a mber. It depends on them how they want to decorate the place, and as long as you mind your business, they won’t care about your floor.”
I leaned against the railing, watching the numbers tick upward. “How long has Ning been a mber of the Ten?”
“From what I heard,” she said, her helm tucked under her arm, “he was, in fact, one of the group’s founding mbers.”
That threw . Ning Light as a founder? It didn’t fit. Mrs. Mind was the mastermind, the old hag trapped in a child’s body. She was supposed to be the one who started this whole thing, and she was old! Did that an Ning was older than he looked? With capes, you could never tell. For all I knew, he could’ve been a century old. It was probably the work of a power.
Dullahan tilted her head, eting my stare with that hollow neck-stump where her face should have been hidden beneath her helm. “If you have questions, co to , and I will answer them as best I can. You can find on the seventh floor. Now, I won’t repeat myself, so listen well. The Nth Contract works more as a business entity. Unlike gangs, where you have to show power to carve your place in the hierarchy, here, we are all equals. Employees. As long as there are mutual benefits, you respect everyone’s space, and you share common interests, you’ll be fine.”
Silver materialized in my mind, brushing imaginary lint off my jacket sleeve. “So cute. It’s like one of those sitcoms when a senior in the workplace shows you the ropes!”
Onyx scoffed beside her, arms folded. “This is not a sitcom.”
The elevator dinged before I could answer. The doors slid open, revealing a polished hallway, sterile lights stretching overhead like a tunnel into sothing less mundane.
Dullahan gestured forward. “Go. Mrs. Mind is waiting.”
The hallway felt like it belonged in a corporation more than an outlaw organization. Polished tiles, recessed lighting, and soft hum of hidden vents. It was the kind of clean sterility that scread boardrooms and NDAs, not capes and blood. My boots echoed softly against the floor as I followed the empathic threads, faint strands leading like spider-silk through a maze of glass and muted colors.
The only presence on the floor glimred at the end of the path.
The glass doors slid open without touching them.
Inside, Mrs. Mind sat behind a wide desk that faced a panoramic window. Beyond the glass, the forest stretched out, black-green and endless, bisected by a single road. Far on the horizon, silhouettes of city-state spires or clustered town-buildings rose like jagged teeth. The childlike body she wore sat still, hands folded neatly, but her gaze was sharp and older than stone.
“Please sit,” she said.
I sat. The chair was plush, comfortable. That’s when I noticed an awful lot of plushies and dolls everywhere. Piled on her desk, lounging on the furniture, and tucked into corners like soft sentries. They were colorful, absurd, and at odds with the cold, glassy brains in jars floating on the other side of the room.
There were a few of them, brains bobbing like grotesque jellyfish in clear fluid. They didn’t radiate emotion, but the psychic tethers connected Mrs. Mind to each one. I’d read about it in the SRC archives: psychics offloading power into secondary or tertiary brains, either grown or harvested, to expand their output. The worst were enslaved minds, hive-like constructs … Royal’s maids and servants ca to mind.
Mrs. Mind’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Let’s talk business.”
“If you think I’ll sign a psychically binding contract,” I said slowly, “then—”
“I don’t an that.” She leaned back, her child-sized hands still perfectly still. “We do use 'psychically' binding contracts, but only with our clients, to ensure that we won’t be cheated. If you choose to work for , you will get your cut. Of course, you can decline a job, but at your own expense. I can’t pay for your food now, can I? As for living inside the Tenfold Keep, there won’t be any need to pay rent.”
Her eyes glead like marbles, catching every flicker of emotion I tried to suppress. “I heard your condition loud and clear, Eclipse. But now you have to hear mine.”
I stiffened. “And what’s that?”
“Pretty simple. No killing among mbers. And you must work. By work, I an jobs. A quota of at least three a year.”
“I don’t mind,” I answered.
The words left my mouth steady, though inside I felt the tension coil tight. I’d been bracing for sothing worse, an invisible leash, so compulsion, the kind of condition that would make regret setting foot into this glass tower. But no killing among mbers and a handful of jobs a year? That, I could live with.
Mrs. Mind didn’t so much as blink. “Good. Then we have an understanding.”
“Is that it?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“How about my living arrangent?”
“Sixth floor,” Mrs. Mind echoed without turning back to . “It’s yours. Decorate it, fortify it, burn it… do whatever pleases you. As long as you respect others’ spaces, you are free.”
I rose from the chair. My eyes lingered a mont on the dolls scattered across her desk, their glass-button eyes staring back blankly. For a mont, I thought of Silver’s habit of personifying them, giving each a na and a quirk. Onyx would probably just want to rip their heads off.
“Anything else?” I asked.
Mrs. Mind finally turned her face back toward , that eerie childlike smile tugging at her lips. “No. That will be all, Eclipse. Welco to the Nth Contract.”
I headed for the elevator and punched in the button for the sixth floor. The panel beeped, a sterile tone echoing in the enclosed space. “Silver? Onyx?” I murmured. “Am I clean?”
Onyx’s voice purred, velvet-edged with mockery. “Why? Do you want to take a shower with ?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not what I ant.”
Silver’s softer tone slid in next, warm as always. “You know what he ans, Onyx. And yes, you’re clean, Nick. She didn’t try anything. If she did, we’d know. With your empathy at full power, we’re more than capable of detecting any attempt at mind control on you.”
Onyx snorted. “You can’t be so sure. Rember Crow and his bullshit parasitic hypnosis powers? It was so subtle we didn’t even see it—”
Silver cut her off sharply. “We had split personality back then, and the powers were divided between us, rember?”
Their argunt fell into the usual background hum in my skull. I rubbed the back of my neck and stared at the digital floor number descending to my floor. The Tenfold Keep’s elevator glided smoothly, but my mind kept tripping on the condition Mrs. Mind had given . No killing, quotas, and mutual respect. I’d agreed to it. But agreeing and living with it were two different things.
“I guess, I’d have to behave more properly from now on, huh?”
The elevator chid, a soft, polite ding. Sixth floor. My floor.
The doors slid open with a whisper, and I froze.
The room before wasn’t a room at all. It was a shrine of neon-lit depravity. White walls and pristine floors frad a surreal ss: erotic art plastered from corner to corner, comics stacked in leaning towers with lurid covers, sex toys of every imaginable (and so unimaginable) shape laid out on glass shelves like trophies. At the center stood a black lacquered contraption that looked like a cross between a dentist’s chair and a dieval rack.
Onyx’s voice ca first, breathless. “…What the actual hell?”
Silver whispered, shocked. “Oh my God.”
I stepped forward, the soles of my boots clicking on the tile, eyes wide. “You’ve got to be kidding …”
All three of us were completely speechless. This was supposed to be my floor. And soone had turned it into a sex dungeon!
I jabbed the button for the seventh floor. The elevator doors slid closed behind , rcifully cutting off the sight of the white-walled circus of kinks and sha. The hum of the elevator filled the silence as it ascended.
Onyx groaned in my head. “Ugh… I want to gag… I think I saw a few suspicious stains—”
Silver snapped back, horrified. “Don’t even think about it! Forget about them!”
I leaned against the cold tal panel, pressing my palm to my forehead. For a brief mont earlier, I’d thought this arrangent of joining a crew of rcenaries with resources, mobility, and power was convenient. Strategic, even. The Tenfold Keep could’ve been my shield, my weapon, and my base of operations.
But now?
Now I was starting to regret everything.
Who the hell used to own that floor? And worse, was I expected to live in it?
Silver’s voice softened, as if she were testing the waters. “Is it too late for you to leave, Nick?”
I exhaled, slow, like smoke slipping between clenched teeth. “Probably.” I hated to admit it, but the SRC was closing on , and I didn’t think I would be so lucky as the last ti.
The elevator climbed. The floor number blinked. The silence thickened.
Then Onyx broke it, chuckling low and wicked. “Well, look on the bright side, Nick. If we ever get interrogated, you won’t have to worry about torture. You’ll break the second they strap you to any of that shit.”
I grimaced, but couldn’t help the twitch of a smile tugging at my lips.
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