“To be clear, this is only what we think happened to the hostages. We can’t say any of this for certain,” Andrew said. As soon as they got all the hostages back to the voidhouse Cal had called a quick meeting to see if it could be determined what exactly had been done to them, and after some discussing of the events, especially what the dogs had noticed Andrew had started talked about his and Libby’s conclusions.


    “Got it, no way to be sure. Spit it out, though. What do you think the Agency did to them?” Cal said, annoyed with how long this was taking. He wanted to go make the rounds checking on everyone.


    “We believe the Agency somehow came in possession of abyssal beast eggs that they implanted in their last round of hostages. I don’t understand what their goal was with this, but it’s the only thing we can determine from the data we have,” Andrew answered, some of the anger he clearly felt coming through in his voice. Cal completely understood and related, he was having his own issues regulating just what he wanted to do to Brice, but he knew that had to wait for now.


    “Their goals were simple: make us angry and afraid. They were willing to sacrifice Brice in this loop, likely without even informing him. We may be able to use that to our advantage in breaking him. Either way I will be testing what happens when a loop-aware person is in the Under Library hub when a loop resets on him,” Harold said.


    “That may have odd results, as we do not know fully how the force that controls loop-awareness works,” Libby replied.


    “What do we think now about the victims? Are they safe now?” Cal asked. They could plot their experiments later, he wanted to go talk to everyone. His father hadn’t even been willing to leave Jen’s side for the meeting, danger or not.


    “As far as we can tell, yes, the dogs have made their rounds. Once Matt and Starry are recovered we will see what they know as well. Their intervention and connection with Bug, while incredibly timely, was entirely unexpected,” Andrew answered. That was a topic Cal cared more about and would be talking with Bug as soon as she recovered as well. How had that bond formed exactly?


    “Okay, then I’ll check with you all later; I have people to visit,” Cal said before running from the room toward the makeshift hospital wing. Inside the half-assembled room that was meant to be a new gathering area were several beds and partitions with all the people and animals they had just rescued, plus one very exhausted dog who had greatly overtaxed her system. They had been nice enough to set her up next to Ethel and Andy, making Cal’s first stop an easy choice.


    “Oh look, you finally decided to visit us, poor sickle people, couldn’t be bothered to check earlier eh?” Ethel said, coughing lightly as she spoke. Her smile gave away the lack of serious reprimand.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    “Hey, someone of us had to rescue dozens of kids with their own mana spirits while you were busy being kidnapped, so you know the sooner you get out of this bed and get your school back open, the better,” Cal said, smiling back.


    “Don’t be mean to Ethel! She had a hard time; we were only kidnapped for one loop, and no one put fire bugs inside of us!” Bug said, chastising Cal loudly. Laughter exploded out of both Cal and Ethel.


    “It’s alright, Bug, they’re just joking around. Honestly, no idea how Ethel has it in her. Everything hurts,” Andy whispered from the next bed over.


    “Mom is like me, a fighter!” Frank whispered loudly, watching Ethel like a hawk. Cal was sure that man was just as angry as he was.


    “You really found a bunch of new people for the school, eh?” Ethel asked.


    “We did, and that’s something that we are going to have to strongly address this loop. We have a possible way to bring them all in, but we’ve gotta get them trained, and having you back is going to make that a ton easier. We were already running so thin on people with mana spirits,” Cal explained.


    “Yeah, I thought I saw Serilina walking around, I take if you recruited her?” Andy asked.


    “That was Andrew. There was another loop before this where none of us made it back from Earth. They had to work with Trashcat and the people in the Under Library to figure out a solution. Which, by the way, Libby is desperate to learn more about your root network, and Gus is about ready to implode,” Cal explained and spotted Ethel’s brow furrow just slightly.


    “Yes, I’m going to have to find more help to run that. We can’t ever force this much responsibility on poor Gus again. He didn’t deserve to have to shoulder that,” Ethel said.


    “No, but he managed. Without him, this would have all fallen apart before we even knew it had happened,” Cal said. That strange bird deserved a ton of credit.


    “What are we doing next? I have a strong urge to kill a lot of people,” Ethel asked.


    “Before this attempted trap of theirs, we were already taking a break to get everyone new settled and our supplies built up. Harold has been coordinating a lot of that, speaking of which. Does anyone know how Melissa is doing?” Cal explained before getting to another question.


    “Her healing powers aren’t working well on herself for whatever reason. I think it’s because of the attack source, but our paladin magic seems to still be working, so she should recover just fine,” Bug said.


    “Damn, I was hoping she could help accelerate the healing here, but maybe Matt and Starry can. This brings us to another question, Bug. How exactly did you end up bonded to a mana spirit alongside Matt?” Cal asked, giving his sister a slight glare.