Winfrey

Secret Tunnel, Somewhere Beneath Voinete Mansion, Meteo Town

"Hold up," Olrica grumbles, the lantern in her hand spreading light around sporadically as she fumbles around in the dusty tunnel, "Yet another goddamn trap. This is like the thirtieth pressure plate so far."

"This all seems rather excessive, to be honest," I complain, peering back down the dim corridor stretching up behind us, "How far down are we by now?"

"Not a fuckin' clue, boss," Olrica sighs, squatting down and pulling a knife out, "At this point it all strikes me as pretty redundant though. It's the same gas trap as every one before it."

"At least they all seem to be intact, and from how musty it is in here I don't think anyone's been this way in a long, long while. Maybe not since it was closed off originally," I voice some idle conjecture. The door's mechanism and location were also extremely well-hidden and we only knew where to start looking because I found a scrap of some journal or whatever when I was cleaning out the third-floor study that mentioned a secret excavation in the wine cellar.

"Well, let's just hope that whatever it is that's at the end of this is worth the effort of looking," the assassin mutters, prying the rectangular, rust-stained plate of metal from out of the stone it's embedded into, "Though, I appreciate the proficiency experience for disarming them all. Silver linings and all that."

"Speaking of which, he should be arriving at that mountain shrine soon," I segue, feeling bored, "This might go some way to redeeming the fat lotta nada I've come up with since he and Horizon skipped town."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, we're all in the same boat as far as that goes," Olrica sighs, pushing on her knees to stand and dusting herself off, "Ok, that's dealt with. Got it down to a science now."

We continue along in silence, the only sound the dull clacking of misplaced boot on stone and the odd hacking cough to get the dust out our lungs, since neither of us thought to bring a cloth or something like that we could have made an improvised mask out of.  The latest subject of conversation lingers in my mind, swirling through my gut and curdling on my tongue.

Seeking some sort of outlet for the ill feeling stewing inside me, I broach a question, "Hey, so....what do you think of me, Olrica? Be honest."

"Uhh..." she slows down, peering over her shoulder, "Whaddaya mean?"

"As a person," I clarify, then again, feeling that wasn't quite specific enough, "And as someone meant to be in charge."

"That's a pretty loaded question to just dump on me outta the blue," Olrica complains, huffing, "How about you step back a bit and explain?"

"Figured that was pretty obvious," I frown, a little more hostile than I mean to be.

Olrica stops, turning and going to lean against the wall, "Honestly? Don't got any strong opinions. Not a knock against your character or anything, I just don't know you all that well. Or anyone else in the guild when it comes down to it, and I figure most of us would say pretty much the exact same thing about the others. I'd say you're all good people, for what it's worth, but...I'm guessing that's not something you care to hear about."

I look away from her for...some reason, I don't quite understand why.

"Ok, this might be kind of a stretch, so if I'm understanding this wrong, just, sorry in advance," Olrica hesitates, "'I could have done something', 'I shouldn't be here', 'I don't deserve this', 'I hope I'm not being a burden'. Any of that sounding familiar at all?"

I flinch, a sense of deep shame pervades my body, my skin prickles with heat, "Yeah. A bit."

Olrica sighs deeply, her shoulders sagging as her posture scrapes lower against the wall, "Thought so. I can relate, after a fashion, but I can't really sympathise. I'm not a very empathetic person. I just can't be that way for people. Probably because I can relate, paradoxically. You get me?"

"Mm. I think so," I nod slowly, joining her by the wall, "It's been close to a week since Alex left the guild in my hands, and I decided to try and change and...well, nothing has. If anything it's just gotten slowly worse without me being able to do anything to stop it. I just don't have any way of exerting control over the state of affairs. I so much as step out of the mansion, and I've got more'n a dozen assholes waiting in ambush for the chance to make a quick buck off my corpse, because that's all I am to them. I've done almost nothing to make good on the trust placed in me since the first day, and it's plain as day that you and the others don't see me as a leader."

Olrica opens her mouth as if to say something, before swallowing it after the first syllable.

"What?" I question her reticence immediately.

"I was going to say something before I realised it wasn't my place to say anything on the matter," Olrica mutters, shaking her head briskly, "In any case, it's not like Silver is really doing any better than you, to be completely honest. At least, not so far as actually putting in the effort goes, and we both know that he's not really the most stable person in the world. Understandably, given you-know-wh- ow, bitch. Not you, just...yeah."

She clutches her arm, scowling, "I know it's a necessary precaution, but damn. Anyway, I think the point is that we're not really expecting you to step up? I realise that sounds pretty shitty and vague but...well it is, I'm not exactly a fucking poet. We don't really need someone to tell us what to do or band us together right now. We're - almost - all responsible adults and whatever our reasons for sticking around are we're gonna. So, yeah. We get it. The situation is fucked, there's nothing we can do about it either, and I guaran-fuckin'-tee that Silver understands that as well, so why get hung up on something you haven't got any hope of controlling?"

"Because like it or not, I do have a sense of responsibility, and fixing this mess is my responsibility in his absence," I fire back, "I realise that I can't do anything more about the idiots in DDA, but I need to do...something! Anything besides sitting around in this dingy ass house with my thumb up my ass waiting for the next band of fuckos to try breaking in while we run out of money, supplies and miss out on hours of sleep."

Olrica grunts as she pushes off the wall abruptly facing me for a moment then twisting on her heel to walk onward down the tunnel, "Man, I don't know why you're pouring your heart out to me, of all fucking people, but I don't have an answer for you. And let me tell you, those feelings? They don't ever really go away. Not 'til you've lived with it for years and you're too numb to notice and too deafened to hear yourself think anymore. But maybe that's just me - honestly, I don't wanna talk about this stuff to begin with, and listening to me ain't gonna do you any favours. So why don't we just get this over with instead?"

I hang my head, realising that pushing my problems on her like this is selfish. Not in a like, self-deprecating way, but...also kind of is. Hard to think straight. Point being, it's making Olrica uncomfortable, and I can more or less get why from her own digressions. My whining is just reminding her of her own anxieties.

"Sorry, that was..." I start to apologise to her for my insensitivity.

"Don't be," Olrica cuts me off swiftly and firmly, "It's fine to talk about stuff like that, I'm just not the person to do it with, yeah? Like I said, we aren't that close. You're better off hashing it out with someone who actually knows you well or someone actually qualified and experienced. Trust me on that at least. It might not help in the end, but it's better than a complete stranger - or a fuck-up, like I am."

"...Alright," I hesitantly agree, and we leave it at that.

---

 

???, Somewhere Beneath Voinete Mansion, Meteo Town

The long, long walk ends suddenly with a dead-end, a threshold denoted by a line going across the floor, up the wall, across the ceiling and back around the other way in an incomplete loop made of some sort of metal with weird occultic symbols carved into it stands around two feet away from the end of the wall, but parts of it are missing, rubble from the ceiling having fallen to the ground at some point. Beyond lies a wooden trapdoor.

"Looks like whatever this was it's broken now," I give some speculation, "Ought to be safe to cross."

"Yeah, probably," Olrica nods, leaning over to waft the end of a knife across the air in front, "If I had to guess, though, the damage is pretty recent. The dust on the floor's been disturbed and the rubble is strangely clean."

"Thought nobody has been down here?" I wonder, crossing over the line in a hop, my heart sinking to my gut and rising back when nothing happens, "Yep, safe."

"Well, I doubt anyone has," Olrica shrugs, putting her knife away, "More likely, some kind of seismic activity caused the damage. Maybe from when we got stomped on by Arevas?"

"Could be," I shake my head in askance, "Stand back a second, I'm gonna open this hatch up."

"Doesn't look locked, so go ahead. Don't open it all at once, though, give me a chance to check through the crack for wires."

"Got it."

Walking to the other side, I kneel down and grab the thick metal ring, pulling with a good tug when it becomes clear that it's wedged in there tight. I have to move my boot forward to stop myself from wrenching the thing out entirely, having underestimated my strength somewhat. Either way, it's open - more than just a crack like Olrica wanted - and we're not dead or anything, so I figure we're safe.

A bright light from beneath, down a shaft with ladder rungs hammered into the stone hewn walls, emanates upward, stinging my eyes and Olrica's. We'd long gotten accustomed to the dim light given off by the lantern on her waist.

"Shit, that's bright," I hiss through clenched teeth, jerking my head to the side and squinting, "Think there's someone down there?"

"Could be," Olrica mumbles, also squinting, "I'll go ahead. Give you a signal to come down."

"Yeah, go ahead," I nod, blinking rapidly to force my eyes to adjust. Olrica descends rapidly to the bottom after muttering the name of some Skill under her breath. She doesn't seem to be making any noise, which is a little eery, but I figure that's the effect of the Skill. I don't remember what it's called, but from what I've seen so far, I think it's just something all Assassins have.

"Hey, come down!" Olrica beckons, "You're going to wanna see this."

"Is there just you down there?" I ask curiously, sitting down and scooting over the edge, catching a lower rung with the toe of my boot.

"Looks that way."

At the bottom is another short corridor, with a bit more headroom than the previous. It opens out into a massive chamber made entirely of metal and what looks like concrete. I don't know the exact word, but it reminds me heavily of those massive, circular rooms you find in the sewage systems of large cities with a multitude of different pipes coming out of the walls and into the open space in the room's centre or into a circular opening above.

In the exact centre, suspended by chains and connected to a few of the larger pipes, is a huge glass orb, stained internally by some sort of brackish fluid but otherwise utterly empty. Beholding it, and entering the room past another few odd layers of material in the floor, I feel a suffocating sensation creeping across my body, like the heated air from a freshly lit bonfire. It's unsettlingly familiar in how it penetrates to my core.

"...You can feel that right?" I whisper through clenched teeth.

"Yeah. Yeah, I can," Olrica slowly pulls her knives out, as spooked as I am, "Think we should go back and get the others?"

I shake my head after a moment's consideration, "No, Satanic Big Bird is locked up tightly. Might be some stray vestige like from Miner's Nightmare still lurking, but I don't think we'd still be talking freely if there were."

Olrica bites her lip, looking like she wants to bolt for the ladder immediately, "Ok. Watch your back in here."

"So, what do you think this place is?" I frown, swallowing my discomfort and doing my best to ignore it as I look around. It smells like stagnant water and...something else I can't place. Kind of tangy and metallic with a hint of spice.

"Looks like part of a storm drain," Olrica mutters, kneeling close to the floor, "That's like a sort of junction point in a sewer system for huge amounts of fluid if you didn't know. We're probably connected to Meteo's, but I don't think that's what this room is for."

It sparks a few ideas in my head, "What are you looking at?"

"Floor and from the looks of it the entire room is covered in patterns and symbols," Olrica cranes her neck, standing, "Pretty sure this whole thing is some kind of...uhhhh...I dunno what the local vernacular would be. Ritual? Enchantment? Array? One of those."

I stare at the glass orb, "That oversized flask would be the core of it then, I'm guessing. Hm. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Maybe," Olrica twirls one of her daggers through her fingers, "This is the City Core, isn't it?"

"Yupperoo," I exhale, shivering, "Some kind of artificially created one based on that demon juice like the Pool maybe. Why is this down here?"

"Didn't the people who used to live in the mansion own the land around here? Doesn't seem that unusual."

"Suppose so," I walk around slowly while she follows behind, "Don't think this really helps us any. From the looks of the place, even if we somehow refuelled it, it would fall apart before long. Pipes are rusted to hell and the concrete looks a little like Terrorstone now that I'm looking a little closer."

"Hopefully if it all collapses, a sinkhole doesn't open up under the mansion," Olrica prays fervently, "Hm? Is that a door?"

Almost flush with the wall, a rectangular seam that doesn't belong nor share the crystalline appearance of the Terrorstone-esque corruption of the concrete material lies ahead. There's no obvious handle or button I can see from here, but it is almost certainly a door of some kind.

"Think you can get it open?" I ask the professional her opinion.

"Dunno," she shrugs, putting one dagger away again, "I'll give it a go, I guess? Did you find anything that'd help when you were snooping in that office?"

"Just the scrap paper. Not even a safe like there was downstairs, though I'd have figured there would have been. So that was a disappointment."

"Worst comes to worst, we can try cracking through with a hammer or something," Olrica stretches, as if psyching herself up, "This might take a while. You should head back and tell the others."

I frown, concerned, "Are you sure you'll be alright alone down here?"

"Yeah, yeah," she waves me off as she approaches the door, "Get gone. Bring me some water and a 'back-up plan' with you when you come back."

---

 

Angelus

Main Lobby, Voinete Mansion, Meteo Town

"Greetings, I'm Angelus Reach," I introduce myself to the trio of visitors, "I'm an Officer in charge of dungeon raiding matters. Can I ask for a quick explanation of what you're doing here?"

The pair in front share a look before the 'fancy' wyvernblood man speaks up, his voice soft and rich, "I am Logan, I represent Adventurists, an unofficial Guild that's migrated from Harvwen Quest Online. Next to me is Kolexim from Master Dragon and behind us is Denny from Holy Spring Orchard."

"Harvwen Quest...that's the one set on the floating archipelago aimed at western teenagers, isn't it?" I recall the name vaguely as being one of the more niche titles that focuses primarily on minigames and roguelite exploration over most other forms of content.

"Half-right," Logan scratches at his throat, shifting in place awkwardly, "But that's neither here nor there. How up to date are you on the latest news?"

"We've not had the luxury to participate in the local gossip for a while," I smile sardonically, "I take it something noteworthy has happened?"

"The Town Guard are all but destroyed now," Kolexim speaks up, "Courtesy of the Darkest Dreamers Alliance and a few other assholes. Now they're rampaging without restraint across the entire town. In response Town Hall issued an emergency Silver-Tier quest to the leader of Rambling Rose in order to quell the rioting and they've since reached out to a number of affected groups and mercenaries to join in."

I frown, both at the revelation that the town's security force has been annihilated with barely any effort and the fact that Rambling Rose is now leading an opposition faction amongst the players that aims to deal with the 'villains'. Although I won't deny that it's a good thing that DDA will be made to answer for their crimes so far which will alleviate the pressure on us, the fact that it's Rambling Rose at the head of the effort makes me wonder why they'd bother helping us out.

To look good, perhaps? By all accounts and the two encounters I've had with their leader, Hadrian, he's a selfish man who cares greatly about his image, to the point of endangering his own life just for the chance to show off before a crowd. But I daresay I find there to be little value in reaching out to us so soon in that case. From a 'PR stunt' angle, it'd be just as effective to let Truthseekers die off and then raise the banner of vengeance on our behalf, and more expedient.

Could be that it's of more or less the same line of thought, and instead they're looking to use this show of generosity to try and coerce us into some manner of concession in exchange for protection from DDA. That might be a possibility, and if it weren't for our knowledge of them and the imminent response of the Empire, perhaps we might have considered it. Unlikely, from what I understand of Silver's attitude, but potentially, perhaps.

"I take it you're here to invite us to participate, in that case, then?" I table my concerns for later discussion with Windy and the rest.

"Yes and no," Logan clasps his hands together, pointing with both index fingers, "We were hoping to use this mansion as our headquarters for the duration of the Quest. That way it would be more convenient for all of us and you'd have a degree of security, since DDA are all but guaranteed to try and attack this place."

Using us as bait while also positioning themselves to do whatever they like to us. Is it?

Perhaps I'm being too sceptical of their intentions. Even if Rambling Rose is nominally in charge thanks to being the ones to have triggered and disseminated the Quest, I shouldn't expect the other members of this temporary confluence of interests to be wholly aligned with whatever Hadrian and his lackies have planned. 

"That's not a decision I can make on my own," I demur, folding my arms, "Who else is involved in this endeavour?"

"Wolf Hunt, the Pavillion of Myriad Dao, a number of smaller teams and mercenaries," the thus-far quiet Denny, a Quirstic with a dull expression interjects, "I expect more will join as word spreads. DDA has a lot of enemies."

Hearing that Wolf Hunt are joining is good news since we share a fairly good relationship, all-in-all, and their participation could moderate the influence and tactics of Rambling Rose if we were to work together again. At the end of the day, it's all still above my authority to authorise on the spot, but I don't see any better options to help tide us over until the NPCs make their move.

"Although I won't make any promises right this moment, I believe you can consider Truthseekers as cautiously interested in meeting to discuss terms and their specifics," I declare, "Unless you can think of any reason to say no, Grand?"

Grand blinks, surprised to be remembered, "Err...no? Sounds good to me."

Logan nods as though this outcome were expected, "Well, thank you for your time. We'll be in touch with an invitation to a meeting to that effect, I expect."