The Innkeeper

Lex felt weird being at the opposite end of a welcome, but he did not let the greeting drop his guard. He peered inside the door, but could not see anyone. The little he could make of the room inside gave him the impression that it was a cozy, carpeted reception, well lit and with a line of chairs to sit in, as well as an empty reception desk.

But when he was done looking, he realized that his companions seemed much more wary than him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Didn't you hear that creepy noise?" Bearin remarked, slightly annoyed. The sound… whatever that sound was gave him chills down his spine. The best way to describe it was an utter gut wrenching squeal of a dying man.

"The noise? You mean the welcome?" he asked, confused. But the confusion lasted only a moment, as he quickly realized what happened. Lex could speak and understand all languages in the universe due to the Universal Language Converter that had been tattooed behind his ear. In fact, most of the time he wasn't even aware that he was speaking in another language, as to him, it was all in English. But the difference became evident in a situation like this, where they encountered a language no one else spoke.

The greatest problem Lex had now was… he had no idea what language he was speaking, so if anyone asked, he'd have to make something up.

"The 'sound' was a greeting which said 'welcome guests'. Though, I can't seem to see who was speaking."

"Alright, get in defensive formation. Lex, you lead. No matter what the situation, we need to investigate the house."

Lex nodded, and walked in, his shield in his hand. It wasn't that he didn't trust his own defenses, but after that arrow nearly broke through his barrier, he decided to stop underestimating everyone.

As soon as they entered, a projection appeared behind the reception desk and looked at them. The projection seemed to be a female from the Crystal race. Their body structure - externally, at least - was remarkably similar to humans except, instead of skin, their body was made up of see through crystals. The way humans‌ wore clothes to cover their skin, the Crystal race covered their bodies in cloth and colored gems. To allow others to look through their clear body was considered extremely indecent, equivalent to a human in the nude.

But even wrapped in a simple cloth, with turquoise crystals forming a smooth mask to cover her face, the projection looked immaculate. Under the gaze of her purple eyes, Lex felt a warmth in his heart, as if it pleased him to be looked at by her. The innocence in her eyes, the gentleness of her…

Lex's soft expression turned hard as he brought his shield forward and drew his sword, glaring at the projection like an enemy. His sudden action startled the group, as well as the projection, but before anyone could inquire, Lex spoke in the same gut wrenching language that the group had heard earlier.

"If the hospitality of your race involves influencing your guests spirit, then I must say, I am quite disgusted by the Crystal race."

The projection of the woman was suddenly even more surprised by his words, but then giggled.

"Silly human, why do you resist? Is it not your honor to be deemed a guest by the great- the great - the great…" the projection started stuttering, while her seemingly simple and innocent visage began to morph.

"There's something wrong with the projection," Lex warned but, just as he was expecting the worst, the projection disappeared and the lights turned off. They waited a few more moments to see if anything would happen, but nothing did.

It seemed time had eventually caught up with whatever mechanism was keeping this building operating.

Turning on the talisman equivalent of a flashlight, the group continued further in. From the outside, it appeared as though the building was only one story large. Yet when they began exploring, they found stairs leading to a basement. Since the remainder of the building was empty Lex continued to lead the group down as he tried hard not to think of every horror movie he had ever seen.

It seemed that the hold horror movies had on a dark basement guarded by a crazy, hostile projection could affect even cultivators. Yet nothing crazy happened. Instead, after a couple flights down the stairs, they encountered a sealed metal door. There was no grip, handle or anything of the sort so he had no idea how to open it.

While Lex was comparing everything he saw to a zombie movie called Evil Resident, Cwenhild was keeping herself from having too much hope. Her instincts told her that such a well protected and guarded place would surely by the focal point, right? But at the same time, experience told her not to jump to conclusions.

To get through this sealed door, Cwenhild turned to the last two members of the group, the jade twins. They were both body and spirit path dual cultivators, but that was where the similarity between the two ended. Jade 1, as the older twin was called, was an intellectual, and specialized in materials engineering. Long story short, he was exceptionally good at destroying any object.

Jade 2 was strong. That was all there was to Jade 2, but when something excelled to a certain level, it entered a league of its own. Although he had not been able to break Lex's defense with his brute strength, he once picked Lex up and flung him hundreds of feet away with a single flick of the hand.

Owing to the hurry they were in, Jade 1 approached the metal wall and, after observing it, began to concoct some kind of solution from different items he had in his backpack. Barely a few minutes later, he added the solution to a plastic spray bottle and lightly sprayed the metal door, immediately causing it to start sizzling, and then eventually dissolve.

"Hold your breath," was all Jade 1 said as he returned the items to his bag.

Unfortunately, though, the mystery of the building was not immediately solved as they continued down a few more stories before reaching a massive hall that seemed to extend far beyond what their feeble lights could reveal.

"What are the chances this is a wedding hall?" Lex asked aloud while mentally telling himself that he had already killed zombies before so he should not be afraid.

"There's too much security for it to be something mundane, yet we haven't seen anything that would reveal what this place is," said Cwenhild, doing her best to figure out where they could be.

"The highest concentration of energy is that way," revealed Patrick, pointing straight ahead.

With his shield and sword still in hand, Lex slowly continued towards where Patrick pointed before he reached a large, glass wall. He could vaguely make out a few shapes on the other end of the wall so he squinted his eyes and brightened up his talisman to get a better view.

With the talisman shining brighter, Lex noticed a bit of writing on the glass wall but suddenly, it didn't matter. He no longer needed to read to understand what this place was.

"No way," he muttered in disbelief.

"What is it?" Patrick asked, coming closer. As the one with the best idea of how high the energy concentration was, he was the most excited. But the excitement turned into horror the moment he scanned the area beyond the glass with his spiritual sense.

"This is a sleeping bunker," Lex revealed to his companions, as he recalled what he knew of the Crystal races' culture.

As a species that enjoyed immortality, one of the favorite pastimes among their citizens was to visit the future. More specifically, since they could live for millions of years, their brains and psyches were developed in such a way that they were not depressed by the thought of living to infinity. As such, the dread of the future was often replaced by curiosity and wonder.

But, actually waiting a million years to see what the future held was a bit tedious. A much better way to see the future was to fast forward through the present - or as near to that as they could achieve.

This desire brought forth the idea of 'sleeping bunkers'. It was like a community time capsule service. Anyone interested could visit a sleeping bunker, state how much time they wanted to sleep, and then be put to rest for dozens, hundreds, thousands of years, or even longer. The bunker would provide them with absolute security, so they need not worry about the hassle of finding an appropriate place to go to sleep for extended periods of time. This was such a popular concept among the Crystal race that many knew of it. Lex had even studied about it in one of his classes.

And now, standing in front of hundreds of glass capsules with sleeping members of the Crystal race, Lex was in one.