He saw aliens similar in appearance to Morcai walking around in the circular space. Behind them, he noticed the bodies of dead animals piled up on one side of the room.
They seemed to be arguing and looking for something, but he couldn't sense their telepathy this far out. It was mildly comical, because instead of opening their mouths to yell at each other, they kept just giving each other angry stares. They were obviously looking for the dimensional core like he and Sophia were, but they hadn't found it.
"At the end of the middle tunnel there's a beast nest, but there are aliens in there looking for the core. They haven't found it yet. I'm going to check down the left tunnel," Alex said.
Alex checked down the left tunnel. He found the same circular room with more dead beasts piled up but no core. The aliens must've already tried that room. Then it was clearly down the right tunnel.
"It's the right tunnel. Let's move before the aliens double back and catch up to us," Alex said.
At the end of the tunnel, they found a much larger room than the other two, but this one didn't have a core either. Alex sensed there was something he was missing.
Something he wasn't understanding what he needed to to solve this mystery. Alex and Sophia looked everywhere, but they didn't find a core, big or small.
As they were looking, the aliens walked into the room. They had guns and flashlights of the sci-fi variety. These ones didn't look naked like Morcai. They had on some sort of grey and blue military clothes and body armor.
Most of them were more muscular than Morcai too, which made sense. They were soldiers. They had to be. They all had the same, unblemished eerie beauty to them too.
Some of them seemed more masculine and muscular than others. He was reminded of when Morcai said it could change its sex to female.
These ones must have changed their sex male to gain more muscle mass. Most likely, so they could take over heavy lifting duties. These aliens seemed very utilitarian. That or Alex was projecting that onto them. He couldn't tell.
They all seemed so perfect. Almost like they were engineered that way. Alex immediately threw up a psychic shield around his mind.
"Sophia, your shield!" Alex said.
Sophia pulled up her shield and activated the orange forcefield. It covered them both easily. It was quite large. The only real problem with it was that it only covered about a quarter of a full circle, so if enemies came around it from the left and right sides, they would be able to get around it.
They needed to use Sophia's shield if Alex was going to try to communicate with these aliens, since he could still only use two skills at the same time and he didn't want to be shot. Alex tried to contact the aliens using a wide-range telepathy idea he just thought of.
[New skill created: Open Telepathy]
The idea was that it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It was designed in a wave so that everyone in the room could hear it, even Sophia.
Unfortunately, Sophia couldn't understand it because it was in an alien language. Alex would try to translate for her.
[New skill created: Active Translation]
He had to drop his psychic shield to do this. He hoped that the training with Morcai would pay off. Otherwise, he was screwed.
'Identify yourselves. What is your purpose here?' Alex projected his thought to the room at large. Meanwhile, he was maintaining a direct line to Sophia that translated everything he and the aliens were saying.
One of the more androgynous soldiers stepped forward. It was wearing slightly more fancy clothes than the others, implying a higher status.
'Finally a human that can speak in a civilized manner. All the others keep trying to make sexual vocalizations at us. It's disgusting, inappropriate, and mildly flattering. I hate it,' it thought.
'Most humans don't have what we call telepathy like you do. All they can do is make vocalizations. It's how we communicate. Maybe try being a little more open-minded,' Alex thought.
'Why would I try being more open-minded? How are we supposed to ruthlessly massacre you in droves if we feel sympathy for your existence? This is war. There is no room for understanding or sympathy,' it thought. Its mental voice had an almost snake-like quality to it. At least that's the impression it gave Alex. A lot of hissing.
'That makes sense in a really messed-up way. Now who are you and what do you want?' Alex thought.
'It does not matter who I am. But if you must know, my designation is Dasrene. I want the dimensional core. And as this is the last room in this place and we detected the core was somewhere in here, you must have it. Since I don't see it lying around anywhere,' Dasrene thought.
'Unfortunately, I don't have it. Not yet. I feel like there's some secret we're missing that could lead us to it, but I haven't figured it out. Maybe you can help me think. And then we can fight to the death over it, like civilized people,' Alex thought.
Dasrene tried to read Alex's mind. As it didn't feel threatening, he let it happen. He figured it was just trying to tell if he was lying.
'You seem to be telling the truth. I too feel like we're missing something. I came in here with twenty units, but now I'm down to twelve. My subordinates keep disappearing, but I don't know how or why,' Dasrene thought.
'Uh, I'm only counting twelve of you total, and you said you had twelve units with you. Were you counting yourself when you said that?' Alex thought.
'I wasn't. There should be thirteen of us, including me,' Dasrene thought. Dasrene looked around and seemed alarmed all of a sudden. Their shoulders drew in closer, and their whole body seemed tense, like they were panicking over something.
'Torni! Where are you?' Dasrene thought.
When no one answered, Dasrene saw Alex's puzzled look and thought, 'I brought my betrothed with me on this mission. Probably not the wisest decision, but we wanted to be able to look each other in the eyes one last time if either of us were to die.'
'Wow, that's really romantic, in a morbid way. And really sad that they're missing. I'm sorry,' Alex thought.
'Don't be sorry. Help me look! Torni! Beloved!' Dasrene was getting desperate at this point.
'Whoa! Now there's eleven of you! What is happening?' Alex thought.
Sophia's shield disappeared. Alex looked for it and saw it as it seemed to be ascending into the air.
'What the. Sophia! Why are you flying?' Alex thought.
'I'm not! Something caught me! Help!' Sophia thought.
Alex watched as the shield ascended higher and higher until it eventually illuminated the ceiling, revealing massive bats the size of cars.
One of them was holding Sophia. And one of them was holding a glowing orb, which Alex assumed was the dimensional core, in its bat-winged hands.