"I hoped you would. But I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd chosen to wait somewhere safer."
"Safer is relative when cosmic entities are involved. If something had gone wrong in that chamber, I wanted to be close enough to do something about it."
"What could you have done against a cosmic entity?"
"Probably nothing. But I would have tried anyway."
I took her hand as we entered the elevator.
"That's why I love you."
"Because I make stupid decisions for your sake?"
"Because you'd fight an incomprehensible intelligence with nothing but telekinesis and stubbornness if it meant protecting someone you cared about."
"The Cryo-Lich Ring helps."
"It does help."
The elevator ascended toward the surface. Through the metal walls, I could faintly perceive the energy patterns in the surrounding rock and soil. The way trans-dimensional radiation had seeped into the earth around this facility over decades of experimentation.
My father had built this place.
