Chapter 143: Entering The Abysslon

Vina came up out of the grass with dirt on her chin and her hair full of clover.

"Again!"

"Enough for now," Rishin said. "Your mother is going to scold me for that shirt."

Garen had been watching the whole game from the edge of the table. He waited until Vina ran off toward Billy before he walked over to join them.

"You are teaching them here," he said. "Good. That buys us what we need."

Rishin tilted his head. "Which is?"

"Levels." Garen folded his arms. "Helen and Daniel are Level 1. I meant what I said at the table. They go into Floor One matches first and come back with some strength in them, and then we go in."

---

Helen had come up behind him with Vina’s jacket over her arm. She stopped.

"Into matches," she said. "Alone?"

Garen turned. His face told her the answer before his mouth did.

Logan already knew it. He had walked into his first match with a Normal-rank class and a blank talent, and nobody he loved had been anywhere near him.

’Matchmaking does not care who you came with,’ he thought. ’She would land on a random map with strangers, and so would Dad, on different maps. The only thing I could do is watch the broadcast.’

"The Tower does not let anyone go in with them," Isolde said. "Not us, and not Logan. They would each be on their own."

"Then no." Helen put the jacket down on the table and smoothed it flat with both hands. "I did not sit in that house through every one of my son’s matches just so he can sit through mine."

---

"She is right," Rishin said.

Garen looked at him. "Senior, they have no levels."

"And they will gain them on the rim, beside two Tier-9 players and every unit this family owns." Rishin nodded toward the lawn, where Vina was now trying to climb Terry.

"I told you the first layer is gentle. Out here, the only way for them to grow is to go into the Tower alone. In there, they grow with all of you standing around them."

"And if the rim is not as gentle as you remember?"

"Then you will be standing next to them," Rishin said, "instead of watching a screen."

Garen opened his mouth. He closed it again and looked at Isolde, and she shook her head once.

"He is right, and you know he is right," she said.

Garen let his arms fall. "I hate it when he is right."

"You have had a great deal of practice," Rishin said.

---

The next question was harder, and it was Alice who asked it.

"Who walks in?" She looked around at all of them. "It has to be one person. Everybody else has to be pulled, or we land in different places."

"It has to be the person everyone here cares for," Rishin said. "And who cares for every one of them back."

Alice was already looking at Logan. So was everyone else at the table.

Logan felt his ears go hot.

’My parents and Vina. Alice.’ He counted them off. ’Garen and Isolde, who took my family in and had their healers mend Mom and Dad. Of course I care for them.’

"Us too?" Garen said, and he was only half joking.

Isolde elbowed him. "Do you doubt it?"

"No," Garen admitted. "I just wanted to hear it."

"And you," Logan said, turning to Rishin.

Rishin shook his head.

"Do not count me," he said. "The Abyss decides who belongs beside you, and it does not ask your opinion. If it leaves me behind, I will walk in after you and find you on the rim."

"It might put you anywhere," Alice said.

"Then I will walk further."

Vina had wandered back at some point with Billy rolling behind her. She took hold of Rishin’s sleeve with one hand.

"You are coming with us," she informed him. "I decided."

Rishin looked down at the small hand on his sleeve. He did not pull it away.

...

Garen and Isolde left to settle everything two Tier-9 players had to settle before they walked out of the world.

When they came back, the whole family gathered on the lawn one last time.

Every unit stood in the garden with them. Billy and Terry had taken the front without being asked.

Martha and Winsmoke had filled every spare storage ring in the house with food. Andrivida stood at Isolde’s shoulder, and Lisbell sat on Garen’s boot, a small black cat that happened to be a Tier-9 powerhouse.

Rishin stood a few steps apart from the family. Vina marched over and pulled him in by the sleeve, and he let her.

Logan opened his panel.

```

[ Floor 10: Abysslon ]

[ Once entered, you cannot exit by surrendering. ]

[ Enter? Y / N ]

```

He looked at the garden, at the low stone wall at the far end and the herb beds and the house behind the trees.

His mother’s hand was on his shoulder. Alice’s fingers were laced through his.

’I brought them all this far,’ he thought. ’Now I am taking them somewhere I cannot bring them back from.’

"Logan." Alice squeezed his hand. "Whenever you are ready."

He pressed yes.

---

The white did not fade into grass this time.

It faded into cold. The air smelled of wet stone and old iron, the way a cave smells a long way from its mouth.

```

[ Welcome to Abysslon. ]

[ Abysslon Feature 1 activated. ]

[ Entered alongside Logan Wolf: Alice Rezvolt, Helen Wolf, Daniel Wolf, Vina Wolf, Garen Rezvolt, Isolde Rezvolt, Rishin. ]

```

Logan read the last name, and then he turned around.

Rishin was standing right behind Vina, with her fist still wrapped in his sleeve. He was reading the same panel, and his mouth had pressed into a thin line.

"Told you," Vina said.

Rishin did not answer her. He put his free hand on top of her head and left it there, and his thumb moved once across her hair.

Isolde turned away and pressed her knuckles against her lips. Garen put an arm around her.

---

The second panel came before anyone could speak.

It did not come as a panel. It came as the same voice that had rung through the garden, directly into every ear, and it sounded closer this time.

```

[ Abysslon rule: You have one year to reach the end. ]

[ Players who do not reach the end within one year will remain in Abysslon forever. ]

[ Time remaining: 365 days. ]

```

Helen’s hand tightened on Logan’s shoulder.

Daniel said nothing. He took Vina’s other hand and held it.

Alice looked at Rishin, because he was the only person in their group who had heard this voice before. His face did not change at all.

’He knew,’ she thought. ’He knew on the lawn when I asked him. It prefers to deliver that particular news in person.’

Logan did the arithmetic without meaning to.

’One year for every unit once we reach the second layer. One year for us from the moment we arrived.’ His jaw tightened. ’And whatever we take out of the units’ year, we spend on keeping everyone alive.’

"Three hundred and sixty-five," he said aloud.

"Three hundred and sixty-five," Rishin agreed. "Do not count them yet. Look where you are first."

---

They were standing on a wide stone platform at the edge of a town.

The town climbed and tumbled along the lip of something so wide that Logan mistook it for a grey sea at first. The far side of it was lost in grey haze. Its depths were lost in darkness.

It was a hole in the world, and the ground simply stopped at its edge.

Buildings hung off the rim on chains and spars. Some were made of stone and some of pale bone or glass, and one of them looked grown rather than built. Bridges ran out over the drop to towers that stood on nothing Logan could see.

People were moving along the streets between them. Some of them were human. Most of them were not.

Vina’s grip on Rishin’s sleeve slowly loosened as she stared out over the edge.

"Grandpa Rishin," she whispered. "Is that the Abyss?"

"That is the Abyss," Rishin said. "And this is the rim. Stay close to me, little one."

He looked down into the dark.

"I came back," he said, too quietly for anyone but Logan to hear.