Chapter 200 — The Waystation, Uneasy

Chapter 200: Chapter 200 — The Waystation, Uneasy

He reached Floor Twelve on the afternoon of his fourth day, the standing lake’s familiar, calm expanse opening ahead of him with a relief so sharp it nearly buckled his knees the moment he actually registered it.

Four days. For a stretch the team crossed in two.

He swam the lake’s edge at a slower pace than his exhaustion strictly demanded, simply grateful for water that didn’t seem interested in producing anything worth fighting, and found the waystation’s warm, impossible lantern-light exactly where he remembered it — a cluster of structures built into the shoreline, half submerged, half raised on sturdy pilings.

He hauled himself onto the same weathered dock, and found the transition from water to air settling into him with none of the strangeness it once carried, Gillbreath easing out of his lungs on its own unhurried schedule rather than the abrupt shift a potion demanded.

The same halfling innkeeper greeted him at the dock’s edge, his weathered face registering genuine surprise once he got a proper look.

"You’re the one who came through with Frostweave’s crew," he said. "Weeks back, if I’m remembering right."

"That’s me."

"Alone this time?"

"Alone this time."

The innkeeper studied him a moment longer, something careful behind his easy, practiced hospitality. "Room’s yours, same as before. You look like you could use it more than most who come through here."

Arlen settled his modest fee, and made his way inside, the same dry, warm, unglamorous comfort he remembered greeting him properly this time — no team’s easy chatter filling the space around him, just his own tired footsteps and the low murmur of whatever other travelers happened to be passing through tonight.

He ate a proper meal in the common room, the first he’d managed since leaving Floor Ten, and found himself, halfway through it, genuinely struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Frostweave’s crew," said a voice nearby, and Arlen looked up to find the innkeeper settling into a chair across from him, unbothered by the intrusion in the particular way of someone who’d long since stopped being surprised by anything the Depths produced. "Good group. Steady. Ilyana’s about the calmest Elite-realm fighter I’ve ever hosted down here — some of them carry themselves like the whole region owes them something. She never did."

"She’s a good teacher too," Arlen said.

"I’d imagine. Team like that, this deep, moving as easy as they always did — you don’t build that kind of calm without knowing exactly what you’re doing." The innkeeper studied him a moment, not unkindly. "You’re moving considerably less easy than they were, if you don’t mind me saying so."

"I don’t mind. It’s true." Arlen turned his cup slowly between his hands. "Took me four days to cross what took them two." ℯℯ𝘭.

"That tracks, honestly." The innkeeper said it plainly, no judgment in it, simply the same unhurried honesty he’d have offered about weather or water levels. "This stretch doesn’t care much what rank a solo traveler carries. A team with real presence in it, the water tends to leave alone. Solo travelers get tested properly, every single time, regardless of how capable they actually are."

Arlen sat with that a long moment, the innkeeper’s plain, unbothered assessment settling into him with more weight than any amount of his own private worrying had managed.

"Is that common knowledge? That teams get an easier passage?"

"Common enough, down here. Not something people advertise on the surface much, I’d guess — sounds like it ought to be superstition, said that plainly. But anyone who’s actually worked this region long enough knows it’s simply true. Presence matters. A predator reads what’s coming toward it, same as anything else reads danger, and a team carrying real weight in it reads different than a lone traveler does, however skilled that traveler happens to be."

"I didn’t understand that, the first time I came through here. I thought it was just good routing. Luck."

"Most people don’t understand it until they’ve tried the solo version and found out the hard way." The innkeeper rose, gathering himself with the same unhurried ease he brought to everything. "Not saying that to discourage you. Plenty of solo travelers work this region eventually, and do it well. Just saying it took most of them longer than they expected, the first time they tried it alone."

He left Arlen to finish his meal in the common room’s quiet, settling warmth, and Arlen sat there a long while afterward, turning the whole conversation over with the same honest, unflinching attention he gave every uncomfortable truth about himself.

Four days for two. Every fight harder than it should have been. And now confirmation, plain and unbothered, that this isn’t me imagining a difference. It’s real, and it’s not something I can simply train my way past by trying harder tomorrow.

He thought about pressing on regardless — Floor Thirteen waited, and Fourteen beyond it, and he’d come this far already, supplies still holding, body still functional if exhausted.

He thought, too, about the accumulated weight of four days spent fighting for ground the team had walked through almost unbothered, and understood, with the same quiet, deliberate clarity that had carried him through every real decision in this life, exactly what continuing would actually cost him.

Not death, probably. Not yet. But every day deeper is a day further from help, in water that’s already proven it doesn’t extend me the same courtesy it extended them.

He made his decision before he’d finished the last of his meal, the choice settling into him without much drama, the same unhurried certainty he trusted more than any impulsive conviction.

Turn back. Not because I failed. Because I miscalculated what this trip would actually demand, and there’s no shame in correcting course once I understand that properly.

He found the innkeeper again before retiring for the night, and mentioned it plainly, the way he’d learned to mention most difficult things.

"Heading back tomorrow. Floor Ten, then the surface."

"Sound thinking," the innkeeper said, without any surprise. "This region rewards patience more than most. No shame in coming back once you’ve built a little more of it."

Arlen thanked him, and made his way to his rented room, the small, dry space settling around him with the same grateful comfort it had weeks earlier.

He lay there a long while before sleep finally took him, turning the day’s honest reckoning over one final time, and found, beneath the disappointment of a plan cut short, something steadier underneath it — the simple, hard-earned relief of a decision made clearly, rather than one forced on him by pride refusing to bend until it broke.

Tomorrow, I start back.

He closed his eyes, and let exhaustion carry him the rest of the way into a sleep considerably deeper and more grateful than anything the previous four days had managed to offer him.