Dungeon Raider System

From the perspective of a being as old as humankind, time was supposed to be meaningless. Dana had seen entire civilizations born, flourish and wither more times than she cared to count, but the years she spent imprisoned in Rathcroghan felt longer than the entirety of her past life.

Things didn't get much better after she was released because the world she knew and loved had disappeared in the proverbial blink of an eye. If the zeppelins were already a big surprise, finding out that humanity was now relegated within tall walls to hide from creatures of myth and legends was a complete shock, even to a supernatural being like her. But worst of all was the fact that when she finally got the chance to check her cellphone, she didn't have phone service or wi-fi.

"Is my thingy broken?" Dana asked Jon after giving up on fixing it on her own.

"You really didn't expect to have internet access with how things are, did you?" Jon said.

"But what about my social media? What about my friends? Where will I get my funny cat videos!?" Dana's godly pout made Jon chuckle.

"Things are different now, you can still get internet but you only get a signal inside a city. They're built to prevent any kind of energy from leaking out, but even if they weren't we don't have the means to connect one city to another," Jon shrugged, not because he didn't care about his wife's problems, but because he was thinking about his past relationship with Uriel. "If I knew he was my son, things would have been really different."

"He's just like you and I would say I'm surprised none of you noticed before, but it's precisely because you are the way you are that you couldn't see it." Dana sighed after dropping the phone, though before it touched the ground it disappeared.

"How so?" Jon directed a quizzical gaze towards Dana that further proved her point, but she decided to spell it out for him.

"Most people would be, I don't know, shocked or something if they knew their wife or mother was a god, but you were more interested in learning when were the first humans born and both of you were probably wondering what did I know about lost civilizations. It's always the same with you, you find something that interests you and throw common sense out the window. The problem with both of you being interested in archaeology is that you were probably too busy trying to outsmart each other to notice you were just alike."

"Still... he's my son. All this time I thought I would recognize him if I ever saw him. Instead, I acted like a jerk to him all this time and now he won't speak to me." Jon said with no trace of his usual charm.

Dana left him to his own thoughts and exited the room wishing to be a mortal human for the umpteenth time in her long life. She looked at the noisy crew of the Pegasus bickering about someone cutting the line at the cafeteria, others laughing at the expense of the unlucky one tasked with cleaning the bathroom who just happened to be Lizzie Dragonfang and wished she could have that kind of relationship with people.

When something blocked her path, Dana attempted to go around it absent minded, but the obstacle moved along to get on her way once more.

"Are you busy?" Luna asked.

"Not really," Dana replied annoyed by both the question and the person who blocked her way. "but Jon prevented me about you and I'm letting you know that right now I'm not in the mood to answer any questions. Annoy me too much and I'll reap you."

"Thank you." Luna said, unfazed by the threat.

"Huh? Girl, are you right in the head?"

"It's sad that you missed out on Uriel's life, but you acknowledged he's a man now and gave him the space he needed." Luna as a whole was the embodiment of annoyance. She spoke too slow even for a human, she didn't leak any expression which made her impossible to read even for a god, she also had the pungent smell of a hybrid and to top things off, she also was nosy.

All that made what happened next make no sense even for Dana herself, who broke into a sobbing mess and couldn't resist but hug the tiny huntress who remained on the wheelchair. Luna dared to treat her like a person without caring that she was a god and that was already a great thing, but the fact that she cared so deeply about Uriel moved Dana to the core of her existence. It made her glad that her son had made a friend capable of understanding him and of seeing things objectively. It gave her hopes that she could bridge her relationship with her son somewhere in the near future, even if it took a century or two.

At that moment, Dana swore to herself that she would protect Luna no matter what because despite her unending curiosity, she was just too precious. Or so she thought, because the next words that came off Luna's mouth made her second guess herself.

"I didn't give you permission to touch me." Luna said coldly while Dana used her like a teddy bear until the latter remembered she needed to have an important conversation.

"Can I go now?" Artemis pouted the moment Dana appeared on her line of sight.

"Why are you so busy? It's not like Troy will fall if you don't go now. Last time I made you wait for a hundred years and I didn't hear a peep." She said coldly to her self proclaimed best friend.

"All this time you've been under a rock, we've been busting our asses like you have no idea."

"Then you should probably start speaking." Dana impatiently tapped the floor with her foot.

"So, remember that time when you told me to follow Jon to Atlantis and to make sure he didn't do anything stupid?" Artemis didn't wait for an answer and continued awkwardly. "well, he sort of did something stupid."

"That much I could tell, that's why you're here." Dana scoffed.

"I did give him my blessing, so there's that."

"I also know that, that is why you're still in one piece." Dana grunted with her brows furrowed.

"Okay, okay. So, I lost sight of him for like one minute and he went right inside the dungeon where I couldn't follow. Then he somehow solved the password, figured the riddle or was it a puzzle...," Artemis lingered for a couple seconds, then continued hurriedly when she noticed Dana was starting to lose her patience. "I made sure he survived, but those pesky things were really annoying and he ended up dying, but since no one had the balls to reap your husband he just lived... I guess."

"I know, can you skip to the part where everything went to shit?"

"That's the thing... I don't know what happened. I was at the island when things got weird. I never felt anything like this, but I heard some of the elders already knew this was going to happen. Anyway, the world was overrun by those things, they're called cryptids now by the way."

"What about the others?"

"Some of us helped humans, others took advantage of them, you know, the usual. But that's not all, some of us died, others went missing and others escaped to who knows where."

"Is that the reason why no one bothered to look for me?" Dana asked without much hopes of liking what she was about to hear.

"We did, everyone did. Not just Jon and me, I mean, literally everyone. All these years there's been people looking for you. Some even begged for you to return, but you never did." Artemis sighed, her gaze down like a sad puppy and the conversation came to an end right before the ship touched land.

That very moment Uriel woke up, with a screeching headache after his failed experiment but feeling much better after letting out all of his worries though his relief was short lived when he realized that he fell asleep in the cafeteria for everyone to see. Not that anyone blamed him or thought any less of him, but he felt a surge of regret that hit him like a hammer.

"I'm never drinking again." He grunted.

"Sure, sure, everyone says that." Nika said with a wide smile as she took a selfie with Uriel as evidence of his first hangover.

By then, the crew was already gathering up outside the ship to get briefed on their tasks by Nika. From categorizing the artifacts to turn them in, to repairing the ship and even upgrading it, everyone soon got to work and by nightfall the ship was resupplied and ready to set off towards their next destination. There was, however, one very small problem.

When Uriel knocked on 'Jon's' room to ask Dana for directions to get to the one who could help him with Scoundrel's soul, all he found was a note written in a rush.

'I'm taking Jon with me, see you soon.'