The Innkeeper

"Mary, I have a small, tiny, almost inconsequential problem," Lex said as he looked at the empty space in front of him. He was not aware of what existed within, but his instincts were clearly guiding him towards this, and urgently.

It was almost as if he was running out of time.

"What's up?" Mary asked, as she appeared on his shoulder, this time dressed up as a cowgirl. Or, well, a very Hollywood version of a cowgirl. She even had the tiny silver pistols and everything.

"Nothing too serious. Just that the anomaly that we have to deal with that will end this time bubble before time freezes for billions of years, killing us all, is hidden behind a bunch of time fractures."

He pointed at the bunch of nothing right in front of him, as if that was what he was talking about.

Mary unholstered her gun and pointed it towards the nothing, as if threatening it. For a few seconds she stayed like that, until she twirled the gun with her finger and put it back in the holster.

"I have good news and I have bad news. What do you want to hear first?" she asked.

"The bad news," Lex said. He didn't trust the good news. Good news was just bad news in disguise.

"The bad news is that you will have to navigate a maze without ever touching the walls or risk death and destruction."

"The good news is that time fractures are not complete barriers, and actually consist of cracks. That basically means you can slip right through the cracks. Just be careful not to actually touch any of the cracks."

"Ah, yes, excellent news."

He knew good news was just bad news in disguise.

"Is there any additional news? Such as how I can avoid touching the cracks? Or sense where they are?"

"Well, I recommend you become as small as you possibly can be. I recall you learned a lot of techniques to shape shift back when you still looked like a baby. That will drastically reduce your chances of running into cracks. At the same time, if you have managed to get yourself any time related treasures, use those. If not, I strongly recommend you go back to that girl with the smart watch."

Lex looked at her skeptically.

"Mary, is it just me, or has your mood been especially chipper since we came into this time bubble? It's like you're not worried at all about absolute death."

"You mean the way you're cowering?"

Lex gave her a bland look. He regularly faced deadly situations, but it was rare for even the system to be threatened by them. But while the system itself was panicking, Mary almost seemed jovial. He hadn't seen her in this good a mood probably ever.

He knew she wasn't being completely upfront, but it's not like he was interrogating her. Lex sighed, and then began to shrink in size to the smallest he could become. Coincidentally, Lex shrunk to the same size as his fairy body, which also happened to be the same size Mary was now.

"Good luck!" she yelled before disappearing.

In truth, Lex had caught onto Mary exactly. Her mood was the best it had been since she attached her soul to the system because… in the time bubble, the system was glitching, and pretty hard.

Lex had not noticed only and only because he was disconnected from the Inn at the moment. The Inn itself was operating fine, but he would have noticed the countless small anomalies indicating how poorly it was operating.

Even when the system was completely drained of energy and required Lex to repair its functionality, it still was operating in a better condition than it was now.

The reason this put her in a good mood was because Mary understood systems better than anyone else she had ever met. She had hijacked a system to save her soul from being destroyed.

Now that the system was malfunctioning, she could use this opportunity to do a lot of things she had planned. It was made especially easy for her since Lex refused to absorb the system into his soul.

This kept a disconnect between himself and the system that anyone with the right knowledge could use against him. A powerful immortal could steal Lex's karma and destiny, and through that directly hijack control over the Midnight Inn from Lex, and he would never know.

These were things Mary had hid not because she had bad intentions against Lex, but because the system never allowed her to reveal the system's flaws directly.

While Mary worked on the, and made a few subtle changes that neither Lex nor the system itself would notice, she paused. Technically speaking… she could do Lex a lot of harm as well. She was in the perfect position to steal the system from him. It couldn't be done now, but she could work her way towards it.

With the system at her command once more she could… she could…

Mary closed her eyes and clenched her fists. Lex had trusted her… listened to her requests even though he had no reason to. She could not betray him like that.

She opened her eyes once more, and began working on the system with renewed vigor. Only, this time she was not making arrangements for her new body. Instead, she was closing some of the loopholes through which Lex could be threatened.

What even Mary did not know, as she suddenly decided to help Lex instead of take advantage of him, was the subtle change Lex had undergone when he saw naked clones of his sister that day.

He did not want to think about the atrocities that could have been committed… most certainly were being committed… and all of that, because his parents had been too weak and too trusting.

That day, a part of Lex stopped trusting everyone and everything just a little bit less than before. That naturally included Mary as well.

Although he never showed it, because in front of the world Lex still liked to show his happy, goofy self, inside his heart he had begun to take many precautions… if at that moment Mary really had thought about harming Lex, the system might not have realized it, but Lex certainly would have.

After all, one more reason he was able to remain so calm in the face of deadly situations was because of the extent of his preparations.

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