With the athanor up and running, Basil’s basement reminded him of a drug lab.

The cylindrical alchemical furnace roared at the center of the room. Basil crafted it from the gearsman’s remaining bronze and a leftover cauldron. Tiny flames burst out of its base where coal crackled and burst with heat. A closed door held a boiling potion at the device’s top. The liquid’s color slowly changed from dark green to that of emerald as smoke exited through a pipe.

Athanor Family: Tool. Quality: C. Effect 1: Slowly improves the Quality of liquids placed within with no chances of failure. The improved item’s final Quality cannot exceed the athanor’s. Effect 2: Can be used to incubate [Slime] monsters with proper chemicals. The lazy alchemist’s best tool of mad science, invaluable for the creation of a philosopher’s stone… or beer distillation.

A shame the Dreambrew’s Quality was already at C. Basil would’ve preferred to have improved its quality before administering it to his patient upstairs.

“Mister, I am done!” said Rosemarine, his new lab assistant. The carnivorous plant proudly showed Basil a bottle full of her harvested pollen mixed with water. “I am done!”

Basil wanted to cultivate a new fertilizer that wouldn’t transform plants into voracious monsters. He intended to experiment with Rosemarine’s pollen and the old fertilizer separately until he figured out a harmless recipe.

“So am I,” Basil replied as he took the green medicine’s container out of the alchemical furnace with heat-resistant gloves. The process took hours to complete, but the results spoke for themselves.

Emerald Medicine Family: Consumable (Potion). Quality: C Effect 1: Heals 1 HP per milliliter for those who drink it. Effect 2: Buffs Vitality for 5 minutes if drank to the last drop. The perfect tool for the sick and the voracious newlywed!

This confirmed Basil’s theory that each Quality rank added a new effect to the item. He wondered how high it could get.

Basil stored the new potion in his inventory and put the pollen elixir in the furnace for refining. Although the refining process took longer than when he crafted directly with the System, the athanor method also removed the error margin. The Crafter Workshop Lair Feature he purchased only granted a mere 5 percent bonus to his chances, not enough to make a big difference. Basil could afford to wait without the risk of losing supplies.

It’s time. Basil ascended up the basement’s stairs with Rosemarine following him closely. He hadn’t been willing to administer the Dreambrew to officer Elissalde without additional healing methods at hand. For all he knew, she might react badly to it.

The Tamer made his way to the policewoman’s room and found her soundly asleep. Were it not for the slight rising of her ribcage, Neria Elissalde might have looked stiff as a corpse. Basil summoned the Dreambrew from his inventory and uncorked the bottle.

“Can I eat her if she doesn’t wake up?” Rosemarine asked.

“I forbid you to even try,” Basil replied, much to his adorable plant’s disappointment. She was a child, innocent but needing to learn manners. “No eating humans, friends or strangers.”

“But I can eat everybody else?”

“Sure, if I don’t forbid it.” Basil pressed the bottle against Officer Elissalde’s lips, pinched her nose, and force fed her the potion. It would have been easier with a medical tube. He should raid an abandoned hospital someday. “Prepare to use your pollen on her if she doesn’t react well.”

Rosemarine didn’t need to. The moment Basil emptied the bottle down her throat, officer Elissalde started to move in her sleep.

Basil set aside the bottle on a shelf and waited. His honored guest groaned in her bed, her fingers fidgeting. Her eyelids slowly opened to reveal tired black eyes.

“Uh…” Officer Elissalde grunted as she slowly regained consciousness. Basil waited patiently for her to finish peacefully waking up.

But then she noticed Rosemarine.

She screamed in surprise.

“Hey, it’s alright!” Basil tried to reassure officer Elissalde. The policewoman, in the throes of panic, ignored him. Her hands moved to her waist to grab a gun that wasn’t there. “Calm down! You’re alright!”

“Monster!” Officer Elissalde fell off the bed, quickly rose to her feet, and adopted some kind of fighting stance. Basil recognized it from Krav Maga youtube videos. “Back off!”

“It’s okay.” Basil raised his hands to show he carried no weapons. The officer’s eyes moved from Rosemarine to him, but her posture didn’t relax. If anything, she seemed even tenser than before upon realizing she was outnumbered. “You’re in a safe place.”

The officer’s jaw tightened as she glared at Rosemarine. “Safe?”

Basil suddenly realized that this woman’s only interactions with monsters involved fighting gearsmen and watchers for survival. She had never encountered non-aggressive creatures, let alone friendly ones.

Rosemarine glanced up at Basil in confusion. “Mister, do I use my pollen? Is she wounded in the head?”

“Shush, Rosemarine.” Basil locked eyes with Neria Elissalde. “She’s nice. I’m a Tamer, domesticating monsters is what I do.”

Officer Elissalde’s fists tightened, ready to strike at the first sign of danger. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my house in the Barthes close to Dax. I’m Basil, Basil Jean-François Bohen.”

To Basil’s surprise, officer Elissalde seemed to recognize his name. “Basil Bohen? From the René Lamont inheritance case?”

Basil’s jaw clenched in silent anger. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Mister?” Rosemarine noticed his frustration. “Are you okay, Mister? You look furious.”

“Yes, an old battle’s memory came to me.” A legal one. “I defeated some bad people.”

“How did they taste?” his plant asked naïvely.

“Bitter.”

Keeping her guard up, Officer Elissalde glanced around the room and noticed her belongings on a chair. Her eyes briefly wandered to her chest and the shirt and boxers on herself. Basil had changed her clothes in her sleep to extract the shrapnel and clean the blood off them.

Please don’t make assumptions. Basil cursed in his head when Officer Elissalde stared at him with an offended look. Oh God, she did.

“Did you do anything to me while I was unconscious?” the policewoman asked, her eyes full of terrible suspicion.

“Yeah, I saved your freaking life!” Basil replied with heavy sarcasm. What, just because he lived alone in the woods made him a potential sexual predator? What kind of logic was that?

“And I sprayed you with my seed!” Rosemarine chirped in, not helping her owner’s case.

Neria glanced at the plant with a mortified face. Rosemarine grinned in response. Her fangs drooled with saliva and made the policewoman even more uncomfortable.

“Not even remotely what it sounds like,” Basil said with a sigh. “I extracted metal fragments stuck in your flesh and she used healing pollen to heal your wounds.”

“I am deep inside you now,” Rosemarine whispered. “I hear your heart pounding in your chest…”

Neria Elissalde didn’t dare to ask for details. “Where’s the rest of my unit?”

“Your helicopter crashed in the marsh.” Basil looked for a way to sugarcoat the truth, but he could see in her eyes that she would know. “You were the only survivor.”

Officer Elissalde winced as if he had slapped her in the face. Her eyes widened in shock and examined Basil’s face, searching for any hint of a lie. He could see her thought process written all over her face. Denial; doubt; and finally, the crushing weight of acceptance.

Officer Elissalde’s shoulders crumpled like a sandcastle falling down and the fight left her. Her empty eyes glanced down at the ground. Her crestfallen expression made Basil’s stomach turn.

Even Rosemarine appeared a little touched. “It’s okay, Miss. We put them in the ground so flowers may bloom from their remains.”

“I’m sorry,” Basil replied with sincerity and immediately cursed himself for how banal he sounded. This woman probably lost friends and teammates in that crash. “We found you after dealing with a gearsman and buried the dead in the marsh.”

Officer Elissalde found the strength to look up at him again. “How long?” she asked. “How long did they lay out in the open?”

If I say nearly two days, it will be burned in her memory for the rest of her life. “It couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours.”

Officer Elissalde bit her lower lip. “I see,” she answered with a heavy, heavy voice. “I see.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you survived at all considering how much blood you lost.” Basil immediately regretted his words. That woman needed comfort, not curiosity. He wasn’t good at dealing with emotional shit.

“My Guard Duty Perk protects me from ailment damage.” Officer Elissalde put a hand on her waist’s bandages; the place where shrapnel hit her. She stared at them with sorrow. “That includes bleeding out.”

The hell? The System considered bleeding out an ailment? Basil struggled to grasp the concept’s implications. One could bleed out and yet not die because a magical force said so?

“I’m sorry, perhaps we can delay this conversion for later,” Basil said. “It’s a lot to take in. You should rest first. I can bring you something to eat or drink if you want. I’ve got tea, coffee, chocolate…”

“I… I wouldn’t mind a coffee.” Officer Elissalde lowered her fists. Although she remained apprehensive of Rosemarine’s presence, her expression softened up slightly. “Thank you for treating me, Mr. Bohen.”

“You’re welcome, officer.” Basil pointed at her riot gear. “You can find your phone and belongings there, although I stored your gun somewhere else. Your walkie-talkie didn’t survive the crash.”

After a moment of hesitation, Officer Elissalde responded with a short nod. Realizing that Rosemarine’s presence still unsettled his guest, Basil patted his plant on the back of the head. “Rosemarine, can you go downstairs and water the vegetables? I’ll take it from here.”

“Yes, Mister.” Rosemarine crawled out of the bedroom. Officer Elissalde’s suspicious gaze followed the plant until she vanished beyond the door.

Basil left the bedroom for a few minutes and came back with two cups of coffee. When he returned, he found officer Elissalde staring at the window phone in hand. She could see Bugsy working on enlarging the chicken coop from her vantage point.

“Is that a giant centipede in the backyard?” Officer Elissalde asked. Her eyes betrayed her apprehension, her fear, her distaste. Basil thanked his foresight for taking her gun away. She might have opened fire on Rosemarine on sight out of paranoia.

“Yes.” Basil handed her a coffee cup. “He’s domesticated.”

“You can tame these things? My sister can talk to dogs but…” Officer Elissalde took the coffee without looking away from the window. ”I never imagined bugs.”

“Neither did I a few weeks ago, but here we are.” It felt so weird to have a conversion with a fellow human after so long. Basil hadn't had one since the postman last visited his house over a month ago. “You’re in a safe place.”

She didn’t believe him, not entirely, but Basil could tell that she wanted to. “How long was I out?”

“Two days now,” Basil replied.

“Two days.” Officer Elissalde sounded halfway reassured. “Then there’s still time.”

“Time for what?”

The policewoman marked a short pause, as if afraid to reveal important information. She examined Basil in silence a moment before answering. “To evacuate.”

“Ah, of course.” It made sense. She probably needed to return to the army as soon as possible. “Is there a way to contact your superiors?”

“I already did.” Officer Elissalde raised her smartphone. “I sent a distress signal.”

Basil gritted his teeth. He didn’t like the idea of an army raid near his home. It could alert the watchers to his house’s position. “Your phone still works?”

“Mine does. Our radio officer can listen in on calls from afar with her head. I still don’t understand how.” She scoffed. “Magic.”

“Don’t tell me, I made a car burst inside a bug’s head.” Basil sipped his coffee and enjoyed the warm bitterness washing over his tongue. “I would like to arrange your pick-up away from my house. I don’t want gizmos following soldiers here.”

“I understand. We didn’t even know there were survivors hiding out in the marshes.” She sat on the bed, her eyes set on her coffee. “We thought everyone in the countryside had been killed or turned to stone.”

Something in the policewoman’s voice told Basil that she had lost people in the initial attack. He wanted to offer his condolences, but she was probably tired of hearing them.

“You don’t sound French,” Officer Elissalde noted, changing the subject.

She had sharp ears. Basil thought he had improved his accent. “I’m Bulgarian.”

“Bulgarian?” She smiled sheepishly. The policewoman had a friendly face, the kind that inspired trustworthiness. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. You must have been confused to see me nod.”

“I’ve lived in France long enough to pick up your ways.” Nodding in Bulgaria meant refusal rather than agreement, but Basil had adapted to the strange customs of the westerners. “And you sound like a Basque.”

“I come from Biarritz. I thought it would be a quiet transfer to a troubleless town.” She chuckled joylessly. “Then the world went to shit. Next thing I knew, I shot a robot breaking through my windows, got a screen stuck in my eyes, and I was drafted into the army.”

“You tell me.” Basil shrugged. “Seems like you’re holding out great. I saw your helicopters patrolling the other side of the river.”

“We weren’t holding out.” She took another sip of her coffee. “We’re leaving. That helicopter raid was a parting shot.”

“A parting shot?” Basil put two and two together. “When you meant evacuating, you meant evacuating Dax?”

“Yes. Orders from above. What’s left of it.” Officer Elissalde’s smile faded. “Nobody wants to die for a town of statues.”

Especially one without any strategic significance. Basil couldn’t blame them, though the news worried him. He wondered how the Unity’s machines would react without a frontline to keep them occupied.

“Is it that bad?” Basil asked. “I kept my head down for weeks, so I’ve no idea what the situation is elsewhere.”

Once again, he saw the hesitation on his guest’s face. She had many things to say but didn’t trust him enough to tell him everything. Basil couldn’t blame. He was, after all, a stranger living with monsters. His kindness could hide darker motivations.

“I don’t know much,” Officer Elissalde confessed with a sigh. “We’ve lost contact with Paris and the countryside is crawling with invaders. Troops in the southwest were ordered to evacuate to Bordeaux with civilians. Monsters overran most cities in the region, but not this one.”

Basil would have hoped the French army fared better than that. The absence of news from Paris was extremely worrying. The French state was heavily centralized around its capital. “I see.”

Officer Elissalde set her empty cup aside on the bedside table. “You could come with us.”

“Where?” Basil asked with a frown.

“To Bordeaux.” She glanced at the window with a frown. “It will be safer.”

Safer than here, with the monsters, was left unsaid. But it bothered Basil all the same. “No thanks,” he replied, politely yet firmly. “This is my home and I fought to protect it. I’m not abandoning this place.”

Officer Elissalde looked at Basil with a worried expression that screamed ‘you are making a terrible mistake,’ but she didn’t try to talk him out of it. She had sensed the determination in his voice.

“Anyway,” Basil changed the subject. “Any idea what’s happening? I’ve been looking for info about the Trimurti’s significance and Dismaker Labs, but came up short. Is the army investigating them?”

“We are, but…” She looked embarrassed all of a sudden. “I’m…”

“Not authorized to share?” Basil asked. She nodded slowly. “I understand. But if you’re looking for information, I’ve got a wrecked, dungeon-summoning server stored in my garage.”

Officer Elissalde’s face paled. Her fingers fidgeted with nervousness.

“What?” Basil asked.

She unlocked her phone and showed him a picture. He immediately recognized Dax’s arena. The angle implied the shot had been taken from above, almost certainly with the helicopter. Two gearsmen worked to raise a tower of steel on the sandy battlefield, surrounded by collapsed stands.

The machine was an incomplete cylinder of gears and circuitry, yet Basil immediately recognized the device for what it was.

“That was what our parting shot was meant to destroy,” Officer Elissalde explained. “We didn’t understand why they were building it, but from what you said… now I do.”

A server.

The robots were building a server inside Dax’s arena. It was a different model than the one Basil found in the water control station, bulkier, using both ancient gears and new technology. But its existence could only mean one thing.

The Unity intended to raise a new dungeon on Basil’s doorstep.