“So any glaring questions?” Elise asked, twirling in place while waiting for Rebecca and Victoria to finish chatting, “I know a decent amount about how dungeons work, but the super nitty-gritty stuff I’ll leave to Rebecca.”

“Hmm… I guess my biggest question is just how we don’t really run into the rest of the guild while in here.” 

“Ah that’s a pretty easy one I guess,” Elise chuckled, sitting down on a rock nearby, “From magic, probably from the gods, make it so when you enter a dungeon, it’s like your in your own instance, you’ll only be with your party. From there, it’s split into cleared dungeons or uncleared dungeons. In cleared dungeons, there will be big open areas where you can run into everyone else in the dungeon. While in uncleared dungeons such as this one… you’ll just run into guild people in those areas.”

Plopping down next to Elise on the rock- not the best idea as it’s a rock… my butt hurts now… sad times- I asked, “Doesn’t that get super crowded though in the open community areas?”

“Hmm… that we’re not too sure of that,” Elise confessed, hugging her legs and curling up into a ball, rocking in place, “Some hocus pocus that makes it so people get diverted through different paths in the dungeon.”

“Ah, gotcha~! Well, I don’t really have any other questions right now… so I guess we can just chat about life?”

Giggling while stretching out her legs, Elise nodded, laying down flat on the rock, “What do you want to talk about? World events? Stuff about our personal lives? Both?”

Pondering for a bit, I was weighing the options in my head before Elise hugged me from behind, teasing, “Both it is, indecisive girl~! I guess I’ll tell you that fate must have been nice to you when you made probably what seemed like a flawed choice of not going to the hospital. When your parents were on trial, it was dug up that they had a lot of underworld connections and were members of some big organizations. So turns out that the entire upper echelon of the hospital was corrupt, and under the finger of one of the organizations.”

“Ah, that’s bad… did it turn out well during the trial then?”

“Yeah, because even though law enforcement and judges were corrupt, they took the trial to a town a bit further away, where all the judges hadn’t been bribed yet…” Elise sighed in relief, “I don’t know what did it, probably luck, but we got a judge that was very harsh on them too.”

Hm? Was this perhaps also the work of Selene? How much has she influenced…

“Then on the topic of big underworld organizations… how are things with your family and the pseudo-nobles?”

“Hmm… hmmm…” Elise murmured, wiggling her eyebrows while staring off into the distance, “It’s a whole different world as usual, with like… a few different factions, that keep shifting. A lot of dark politics pretty much.”

“So the usual? Or is there anything of note going on that you want to tell me about?”

Walking forward seeing how Victoria and Rebecca were coming our way, Lorraine in tow, Elise explained, “So you know how a few hundred years ago, there was like… a big war, causing the collapse of a lot of countries, and the collapse of all Abrahamic religions?”

“Yeah, it’s taught about in school and stuff, now people follow the Sects. It’s a shame my parents follow an extreme branch within the Sect of Justice.”

“Well, to get to the point of all this, rumors of the gods in this game have spread throughout the nobles, including my family. Thus… they’re swarming this game like flies, pouring money, resources, and help into the company that makes the game to try and gain favor. They’re all trying to harness the powers of these gods to annihilate the other families.” Sighing as she explained this, Elise revealed, “Even my brothers and sisters are going to be playing, so whenever Esports happen… it’ll be stacked with talent… and snobbishness of course.”

LIstening on our conversation, Rebecca exclaimed in shock, “They want to enslave the gods of this game to do their bidding? Am I picking up what you’re putting down?”

“Not my family, only some of the most twisted families are attempting that,” Elise muttered with a half-dejected tone, “I don’t want to suck you all into the politics of nobles though… it's ugly, and sometimes even inhumane…”

“What do we do then?” Victoria asked, walking along, scouting ahead, “Do we just play this game, live our lives as if we don’t really know anything? Or do we try and get in contact with Selene… and ask to see what we can help with?”

Sniping a nearby bat hanging from the ceiling- just some offhand accuracy practice- I asked, “I think… we don’t know enough. So let’s just try and get through this dungeon? We have been moving… REALLY slowly.”

Breaking into a run, Lorraine agreed, adding one final comment, “I’ll get in contact with my family as well, I’m part of a trading family after all.” Before pulling out some daggers and leaping away with a gleeful smile.

“I feel so average,” Victoria chuckled, tapping her staff on the ground to start casting a spell, “being from a foreign country does that I guess…”

Unsure what to do, Rebecca flailed around, confused, before hearing Lorraine yell, “Hurry up! I found the next room, it’s SWARMING with goblins and trolls! It might be the monster house!”

Snapping out of her despairing stupor and muttering, Elise broke into her… practically maniacal smile before running off… how “unexpected”.

I should go help…

Running along behind Rebecca, flicking through my quiver to check my arrows, trying not to stumble on the rocks on the ground, I started to draw back an arrow seeing Elise and Lorraine up ahead.

Coming to a stop next to Lorraine, Victoria caught up, asking Elise and Lorraine while hooking her arms over their necks, “Why are you two so pensive? Aren’t you two the battle maniacs?”

Nodding in agreement with a smug expression, Rebecca added, “Why are you all so afraid of this monster-filled room? We’ve been through them before!”

Poking Victoria in the side with the force of an angry mother, Lorraine explained, “Well because there are so many goblin mages in there!”

Falling quiet, Victoria and Rebecca nodded in sync, “That’s true…”

Watching those four so quiet… Hehe~, gives me an idea actually…

Letting loose my arrow into the head of a monster, ‘on accident’, I laughed, “Whoops~ seems I… may have done an oopsie~”

Esiyx

just a chapter.... that took a while... sry abt thatos

kinda ramping things up a bit~ fancy ik ik

... I miss my friendos on discord and in RL...

Take care all you readerss... thanks for sticking with me all this time...
*goes back to "writing"*