The Innkeeper

"My name is Lex," he introduced himself, since they were going to be working together.

"Gisele," she responded succinctly.

Lex only nodded, and then turned to look at the endless little critters trying to get to them.

"Give me a moment," Lex said, before he began forming an array. Comfortably secure behind his shields, Lex took his time to build a strong array capable of dealing area damage.

The lack of pressure allowed him to comfortably pursue his repertoire of premade arrays, and choose the most suitable one.

When he finally unleashed it, an orangish red flame rained down from the sky, burning all the insects it touched. Among the arrays Lex had prepared, this was not the strongest, but it was one of the ones with the largest reach. He was not really interested in killing all the insects originally, and planned on leaving. But Gisele's fiery red hair reminded him of it, not to mention that these insects could go and attack other helpless humans or any survivors of the strange green poison. It was best to get rid of as many of them as possible, so long as they did not delay him too long.

Most of the Foundation realm insects burnt to a crisp, though the Golden core ones were only wounded. But, unfortunately for them, using an array took no energy from Lex, so as long as he was uninterrupted, he could use it as many times as he wanted.

One wave, two waves, a dozen waves of flames fell from the skies until all the insects were burnt into fiery crisp, or into glowing charcoal. It only took a few minutes of his time. The reason Lex had not done this from the get go was that he did not want to take risks with the survivors.

"Let's go," he said calmly, as he proceeded towards his ship. Gisele remained silent as well, giving no indication of whether she found the feat impressive or not.

They set off as soon as they got in the ship, silence fell between them. Just because Lex had focused a little more than usual on Gisele's appearance did not mean he had a crush on her, or wanted to get closer to her in any way.

His focus remained on any other signs of life as they traversed the hilly terrain, yet all of it remained so barren. When all this was happening, Lex had been too busy trying to get as far away from the poison until he found a location safe enough to teleport away from. As such, although he caught glimpses of the eroding environment, he had not paid it too much mind.

Gisele, on the other hand, not only had no idea of what had happened, she was completely bewildered as the environment around her started to decay. As if that was not enough, she was soon after attacked by a horde of never before seen insects.

The day was quite eventful, to say the least. This was not even mentioning how she was suddenly feeling ill, though fortunately whatever was making her sick disappeared just as abruptly as it had arrived.

A short while later, they finally crossed the border between the rebel held area. Taking a detour around the fort took some time, but Lex was not willing to risk getting close to it. He did not believe that there were no traces of that poison left in that area.

"We're almost there," Lex declared, surprised that their trip had been uninterrupted by any other significant event. It seemed like they truly were traveling on a barren planet.

"Although there weren't so many people around when I crossed last time, it really wasn't this empty. I suppose everyone retreated to the stronghold," said Lex absently, not really expecting a response.

"A lot of people died very suddenly… and whoever died turned to ash, leaving no trace of their bodies. The same happened to all the beasts."

"What?" Lex asked, startled.

Before Gisele could clarify what she meant, a few things distracted him. First, Mary reached out to him.

"Lex, I thought you should know, a group of kids and civilians arrived at the Inn a short while ago. They were all wounded and so were being treated, but we've just discovered an extremely potent poison in their bodies. Even the Recovery Pod cannot heal them, and will at most slow things down. If nothing is done, they're going to die."

The news was quite alarming, as it meant even people who had survived the initial spread of the poison may end up dying.

But before Lex could process the news, or even check up on his new companion, he felt a strange fluctuation in space.

Overhead, a tear opened up in space itself, and insects began raining down from the sky. Only, these ones weren't as weak as the ones Lex encountered before. The weakest ones were at the Golden core realm, while a majority were at the Nascent realm. Based on this trend… there was even a chance for there to be some immortals!

"If there are immortals, we won't be able to cross so easily. Be ready to retreat to the Inn," Lex said seriously, his gaze fixed on the insect rain.

"No, I can't afford to leave the kids behind! If the situation gets bad, you can leave without me. I'll find my way across."

Lex snapped his neck back to look at her and see whether she was serious or not. He did not know if she was being stubborn, or really had something to rely on. Either way, for now at least, it seemed like he had to force his way through.

"And we were so close…" he couldn't help but mumble. One could even say that he had raised this flag himself by acknowledging how easy his journey had been, but Lex thoroughly refused to believe in flags. He would continue this behavior and prove that the continuous bouts of bad luck he encountered… were all just consecutive coincidences.