I Die to Rise: Resurrection System

"Where’s Sam?" Kurt asked again, but nobody could bring themselves to answer. The room had gone quiet. Even the hunters near the tray had stopped moving.

Riley looked around at each face in sequence, reading the room. "What’s going on?" she asked but got nothing as well.

Kurt’s gaze moved through the room until it found Rook, and when it landed, it stayed. One quiet word left his lips and it wasn’t a request.

"Talk."

Rook exhaled slowly through his nose. He stepped forward, and for a moment he just stood there. He was quiet for a moment, choosing his words, before he let it out.

"When you left," he said, "Sam was still unconscious."

Kurt’s jaw clenched. He knew this when he left for Cassandra’s but he did so anyway, and worse, he did so without checking in. He told himself it was urgent, that he’d explain when he got back.

"She woke up about six hours after you left," Rook continued. "First thing she asked was where you were."

Kurt’s cigarette shifted between his fingers. His grip around it tightened slightly as the paper crinkled. "And?"

Rook met his eyes. "We told her the truth."

Emma scoffed under her breath. "She didn’t take it well."

"Can ya blame her?" Lizzie, who had been sitting sideways in her chair with her legs dangling over the arm, dropped her feet to the floor and leaned forward.

"She kinda carried your sorry ass out of that volcano dungeon. Along with those weapons and that dragon egg. And when she finally came to, big surprise! You weren’t there Kurt," Lizzie said as she straightened his coat.

The seemed to room absorb this as whispers and murmurs filled the space. Kurt didn’t bother trying to defend himself. There wasn’t much defense available.

"What then?" he said.

Rook’s voice stayed even. "Well, she wanted to figure out her rank, said she could be more helpful if it were official. So we took her to get tested."

Rook sighed and added, "I’m sure she’d have preferred if you were there. But you’d already gone."

Kurt’s head dropped and his fist closed at his side. Cassandra’s eyes moved to it and she looked away, not saying anything.

"However, there was a bit of problem with the E-E Crystals," Rook continued.

Emma stepped in. "Yeah, either the equipment was broken, or—" she paused, "—she’s an unstable hunter."

Kurt understood what that meant. Hunters whose power level fluctuated based on their emotional state. And judging from what he knew about Sam, it tracked.

"The reading kept shifting," Rook said. "Mid F-rank one moment, high-tier B-rank the next. It eventually stabilized on high D-rank."

Kurt took a moment to process this. "Alright," he said. "So what’s with the faces. Where is she?"

Lizzie’s mouth opened, then closed. She twisted a strand of hair around one finger. "Hmm." She glanced sideways at nothing in particular. "Maybe we shouldn’t tell him. I don’t think he’s gonna to take it too well."

"You know I can hear you right?" Kurt said.

Rook didn’t draw it out. "She decided to clear a D-rank dungeon after she got her certificate. One that opened just outside the city."

The shift in Kurt was immediate. "And you let her go on her own?"

"Everyone has agency here, Kurt. You of all people should know that." Emma cut in, trying not to sound cruel. "Rook gives advice. But as long as it doesn’t drag the whole guild down, you’re free to do what you want. Nobody holds anyone’s hand."

"We did offer to go with her," Lizzie added. "But she was all wanting to ’prove she wasn’t a dead weight’. So we at least told her to take..." Lizzie cringed from trying to speak the name, "...Jerry."

"Exactly, she’s not alone," Paul added quietly from the side with a forced smile on his face. "She’s with Jerry."

Kurt breathed as his shoulders came down, half relaxed. "You’re right," he said, after a moment. "I’m sorry."

He turned it over in his head. Unstable or not, he’d seen what Sam was capable of at her ceiling, and a D-rank dungeon was not a ceiling problem. Plus she had Jerry, whoever the hell that was.

He looked up but the faces hadn’t changed. Some still weren’t meeting his eyes. He obviously wasn’t looped in on what was really going on. "Anything else I’m missing?" Kurt asked.

Lizzie approached from his left. She moved slowly, and this was like an alarm bell to Kurt. She stopped beside him and looked up at his face. "Ever heard of a hell gate?"

Kurt’s jaw clenched but he stayed calm on the outside. "Yeah. Had to brush up on my dungeon knowledge. One of the nastiest, most unpredictable things a hunter can run into. Why?"

Lizzie nodded frantically. "Right... because once a hunter steps inside and a Hell Gate is triggered, the dungeon locks. Difficulty goes completely sideways. And no one gets in or out until it’s done."

"No..." Kurt muttered as realization hit.

Rook stepped forward and placed one hand on his shoulder. "There’s nothing we can do from out here, Kurt. There’s no entering a dungeon when a hell gate’s been triggered."

"The barrier won’t drop until the dungeon boss is killed..." Rook paused. "...or until everyone inside is dead. She’s on her own."

Kurt looked at him and his voice now was on the edge of anger. "How long?"

No one answered.

"How long?!"

"Four days," Emma said quietly.

The cigarette slipped from Kurt’s fingers and tumbled to the floor and neither his hand nor his eyes moved to follow it.

Emma crushed it under her boot without comment, eyes never leaving Kurt’s face.

And the room felt suddenly too small, too loud, too quiet all at once. Cassandra’s hand brushed his arm, but he barely felt it.

His mind was already spinning through every worst-case scenario— Sam trapped, fighting some insanely powerful monster alone. Except someone named bloody Jerry was with her.

"She’s most likely dead," Zaza helpfully pointed out what Kurt’s mind was too scared to even go to.

And just before anyone could reprimand her for her bluntness, the elevator dinged and every head turned.

Eli stepped out. He was already straightening his gloves as the doors parted, adjusting the left then the right with precision.

His eyes moved across the room quickly and came to rest on nothing in particular, which meant he’d already taken everything in.

Then he adjusted his collar and looked up.

"Couldn’t help but overhear your hell gate dilemma," he said, pleasantly. "Perhaps I may be of some assistance."