Awakening (Peregrine x Gryal)

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"A wizard?" Halp replied, jogging off, and then jogging back again when he realized that Tage had absolutely no intention of running after him, and that, if he wanted to talk to her and her new friend, he was going to have to walk. "That's great! Tage and I are both close-quarters fighters, so a little bit of ranged support is just what we need. I was going to be a wizard, a death and blood-based wizard, and I went a little ways into that school. Like... until I was level 3. But I decided it was much more fun to wave a gigantic battleaxe around." He grinned widely, tapping the giant battleaxe that was strapped behind his shoulders. "I don't regret learning the magic, though. Blood magic comes in handy sometimes."

They made the rest of the way to the cave accompanied by the endless stream of Halp's chatter. By this point Tage had well grasped the trick of only paying enough attention to what Halp was saying that she would be able to respond in brief if the man asked her a question, while otherwise drowning out everything he said. Ripley seemed to have gotten a hang of the trick to, or, at least, he wasn't trying to keep up with Halp. Perhaps it was simply that the AI couldn't find a way to get a word in edgewise.

They reached the cave without interruption, and Halp was quick to let out a bellow of excited rage, pulling out his battleaxe and charging into the cave to start, just as he had said, waving the thing around like a lunatic. For a moment, Tage felt herself hesitating on the threshold. Consciously she knew that there was nothing in this cave that would pose any sort of danger to her, but for a moment her mind was back to that cave, as she had stared down into the burning firelight, already covered in the wounds that the shadowy creatures of the forest had inflicted upon her. At that moment she had so wanted to flee, to give it all up, but the thought of that child, NPC or no, had driven her down into the depths.

Her thought process was suddenly and violently interrupted by the body of a dead weevil, flying at her head. She let out a yelp of surprise, batting the thing away with a squeal. The sound of Halp's laughter drifted up to her out of the cave. "HALP!" Tage screamed, drawing out the dagger and short sword that were at her waist. "I'm going to kill you!" She artfully traced the point of the dagger in the air, creating the symbol for a fire cloak, which immediately enshrouded both dagger and sword. Casting magic using her own weapons was one of the few tricks Tage had up her sleeve, and she was quite proud of it.

"Not me!" Halp yelped as Tage charged in after him. "Get the rats!"

It would have been a well designed cave, Tage had to admit, had the three of them not all been level 7. Normally it would have been remarkably boring, wandering into a cave that posed no real threat, one-shotting little demons that popped out of holes with glowing red eyes and an irritating chatter. However, it was hard to be bored when Halp began gathering together the bodies of all of the dead weevils, getting Ripley to set them on fire, and then lobbing them like makeshift grenades into the holes, trying to get one of the weevils to set itself on fire, and pop out with one of its dead fellows on its head. After nearly thirty tires on Halp's part, he finally managed to succeed, only to fall over laughing as one of the demons materialized underneath its dead fellow, only to suddenly have its head set on fire. Tage took her revenge in that moment, picking up one of the weevils by its tail, still living, and throwing it onto Halp's laughing figure. The thing promptly bit him in the face which was, of course, exactly what Tage had wanted

At that point the quest quickly devolved from being "kill fifty of the weevils for the baker" to "see what kind of torment Tage and Halp could inflict upon each other using the weevils, both living and dead". Ripley, willing or not, was dragged into their schemes as they hacked their way deeper and deeper into the cave. At one point Tage managed to cast a simple confusion spell upon the weevils, causing them to charge Halp down. He let out a shriek, and began to race down the corridor as fast as he could.

That was, of course, until he hit something in the darkness, and a sudden burst of fire erupted from the wall, setting him on fire. In an instant Tage was all business. She raced over, quickly disposing of the few weevils still alive after the burst of flames. "You alright?" she asked, obviously concerned.

"Yeah," Halp replied. "It was a low-level trap."

"But what was a fire trap doing in a den of demons? That was something only a mage could cast, and I'm pretty sure weevils haven't suddenly become wizards."

"No clue," Halp replied. A grin split his face. "Let's go find out."

After setting off that first trap, things began to get a bit more serious. Of course, nothing in here really posed a threat for them, but the weevils began to come in larger and larger numbers. Long before the little group reached the second trap they had killed, not just fifty, but easily double that number of the weevils.

"No wonder the level 1 characters always turn around," Tage replied, panting slightly. It wasn't like it was hard to kill the things, but it still took some energy to kill them when they came in such large numbers. "They'd get overwhelmed."

They didn't come to a halt again until they reached a set of massive wooden doors, buried in the back of the cave. "Definitely not demon-made," Halp muttered. "Well! Let's knock, shall we?"

"You might want to..." Tage began. Halp, however, ignored her, swinging his battleaxe forward with a yell to send it crashing into the wooden door. The thing splintered, and, from the other side of the door, a lightning bolt sprung forward, hitting Halp full in the face. "Check if it is trapped first." Tage finished, helping her slightly smoking friend back up.

"Gee, thanks."

"No problem."

The room on the other side of the door looked far more like a laboratory than it did a weevil nest. In fact, if Tage had to pick a single adjective to describe the place, laboratory would have done really well. On the far side of the room, a large, vicious looking weevil sat inside a cage, futilely trying to chew her way through the iron bars. "There's the queen," Tage said. "But what's it doing in a cage?"

"Who's there?" Tage jumped, spinning around to press her back to Halp's in a reflexive defensive posture. It hadn't been any of the three companions who had spoken. From the darkness, a void Djinni stepped out of the shadows. His red eyes glowed, incensed. "Who dares to disturb my research!?"
 
After a few minutes of being with Halp, Ripley had reached the conclusion that the only way to deal with the constant barrage of chatter coming from him was to not deal with it - a small portion of his attention went to short-term retention and catching his name should it be mentioned, but most of his thoughts were elsewhere as they made their journey.

Silly as the warrior was, he was right in thinking that ranged support would be good. Ideally, they would have a cleric onboard as well, but seeing how they had none they'd have to rely on what little healing blood magic the barbarian had, if any, to see them through this. As they walked, the AI pondered optimizations, changes to its own code. Segments of the AI went online and offline as they moved, editing, changing, remodelling - nothing noticeable from the outside, but now that Halp's incessant stream had brought him some very paradoxical peace he had time to implement both his notes and Tage's suggestions in a better manner than just adding them to a database.

The cave itself was rather unimpressive, a simple hole in the wall. A flick of the hand had a fireball appearing on Ripley's staff once more, quickly shooting out to one of the weevils. His teammates, on the other hand, seemed to be taking the quest far less seriously, and as the wizard blasted weevils methodically he could see them engaging in various improductive tasks, like throwing corpses at each other or exchanging death threats.

By now Ripley had become used enough to not knowing what was going through other people's minds to not show any surprise - if that was the way they wanted to do the quest, they were certainly free to do so. He would continue using his fire to...

His trail of thought was interrupted by Halperion running excitedly to him and explaining what could only be described as a terrible plan - setting weevils on fire and then using them to attack other weevils as they emerged from the tunnels.

Wondering if he had simply missed something that would turn this plan into a stroke of genius, the AI decided to give it a chance, nodding his acceptance as he set the first of the little creatures on fire. With curiosity he waited for the moment to reveal this plan's masterstroke.

It never came. After quite a few missed attempts, one succeeded on setting the weevil on fire as it spawned, which in turn lead Halp to topple over from a combination of laughter and Tage throwing an enemy into his face. A short period of pondering had Ripley finally shrugging and going with the flow - as long as they didn't expect him to join in he'd be fine. He had to admit to himself that he was finding their inefficiency rather enjoyable, simply from watching the amount of fun they were having, Halp's roaring laughs and Tage's hopefully joking death threats.

Ripley made a valiant effort to remain neutral, but in the end it was impossible to do so when one of the enemies, goodness knew who'd thrown it, ended up in his face. After roasting the unfortunate creature, Ripley gave in to the experience he had gathered in these last few minutes - namely, that weevils were suprisingly aerodynamic, and joined in the enemy tossing, borrowing ideas from attacks the two had done to each other; though always careful to keep them toned down.

He bit his lip when he saw Halp run down the corridor, but said nothing as the trigger for the trap clicked with a fireball following up. The atmosphere sobered up immediately - and Ripley fortunately caught on it as soon as he heard Tage's voice. Now was when the real challenging part of the quest began.

With the numbers of enemies increasing, so did the demands on Ripley's magic, leaving little to no time for fooling around - not that it seemed to be the time, since none of the others were. Again, Halperion's rush and thoughtlessness ended with him taking a trap straight to the face, this time in the form of lightning; all this mere seconds before being warned about the fact that it might be a trap.

With the door splintered by their warrior, they made their way in. Ripley knew what was waiting inside, but he made a point of waiting until the boss had announced itself with a very stereotypical sentence before reacting to his presence. Knowing he was a mage - and, if asked, he would say it was thanks to the magical traps before - Ripley switched from fire magic to metamagic, readying up a counterspell for the wizard's upcoming attack - it was a matter of time, but with counterspells he could keep his attadck rate under control more or less.
 
"Hey, hey," Halp said, bouncing up and down on the spot. "What's this nonsense? You've been the one setting those weevils on the baker?"

"Setting weevils on a baker?" the mage asked, incensed. "I have been doing no such thing."

"Then whatcha doing with a weevil queen in this lab, if not setting the weevils on the baker." Halp ran towards the cage.

"Get away from her! She's the culmination of all my research." The magician aimed a spell at Halp, only to have it collide with an invisible barrier as soon as it was spawned. Halp blinked in surprise, before glancing over at Ripley.

"That you? Good job!" He continued to move towards the cage.

"I said get away from there! I will not let you touch her."

"What's a Djinni doing with a demon anyways?"

Normally Tage would have thought that Halp was being far too relaxed in this situation, and would have likely insulted him for his behavior before drawing him back to the task at hand, but Tage remained quiet. This time, she knew exactly what he was doing. Along with the ability to be the most obnoxious person on earth, Halp also had the skill to make himself the center of anyone's attention. Usually through aforementioned obnoxiousness. Combine that with the fact that the wizard was focused on Ripley, as the one blocking his spells, and Tage became nearly invisible. It was a technique the two of them had used before, although they rarely found themselves with a low enough NPC opponent to actually put it to use.

As Halp continued to do his best to enrage the mage, Tage snuck around behind him. At the moment he was too close to the wall for Tage to actually get behind him, but as Halp got closer and closer to the weevil queen's cage, Tage was presented more and more of an opening.

The mage was starting to fire attacks faster and faster, although the fact that he didn't want to destroy any of his own equipment kept him rather reserved in his attacks. Ripley was doing a good job at mitigating most of the attacks the mage fired off, and the few that the AI couldn't get Halp was able to dodge. "Let's see what's..." his hand crept out, only for him to scream as a bolt of electricity arced from the bar of the cage and hit him on the hand.

Crap. That meant Tage was going to have to change her plan. If they wanted to get rid of the weevils for good they were going to have to kill the queen, but to get at the queen they were going to need the wizard. That meant she couldn't simply kill him right off the bat. Instead she was going to have to...

"Hahaha! You thought my cage would be as unprotected as that? You must be kidding me. Now, stand still while I..."

He didn't get another word out. That one last step forward was all Tage had needed. She sprung out from behind him, bringing the flat of her blade down hard on the top of his head. The void Djinni let out a surprised "ooo?" before crumpling to the ground in a heap.

"Well," Tage said, from her position behind where he had been standing. She tossed her hair behind her shoulder, resting the flat of the blade on the exposed skin. A slight head tilt to the side, a wide grin, and Tage considered herself admirably posed. "That wasn't so hard. Let's tie him up and see if we can't figure out how to open that cage, ne?"

"Aaaaah," Halp murmured. "Good job. And such a great finishing pose, too."

"I know, right?" Tage replied with a laugh.
 
Quest chatter, with the humans trying to figure out what the NPC was all about. Ripley knew what the questline was, of course, so he said nothing, but an errant thought crossed his mind - even if he knew what the plot was, he was acting differently from the other humans. Perhaps he would fulfill his purpose better if he pretended not to know.

This was easy to do, but the AI pondered whether he actually wanted to ask questions or not. Perhaps it was due to Halp's peculiarities and Tage's knowledge, but neither seemed the slightest bit suspicious about his behaviour - wouldn't it be safer to remain silent if he wasn't going to be suspected by it? After all, there were more ways talking could go wrong than being silent.

Drawn out of his thoughts by a sudden motion from the mage - a fire rune - Ripley's hands moved in an almost-immediate reaction drawing two runes of his own before the flaming sphere hit Halp, making it fizzle in the air harmlessly. He received Halp's congratulation with the fuzzy, happy feeling that provoked in him being perceived as useful, smiling as he focused on identifying the runes the opposing Djinni was using to draw his own and cancel them out if he could - which in the case of higher level spells was definitely out of his reach, and even sometimes the simpler spells resisted his efforts to dispel them.

For a two-on-one situation, the fight against the enemy wizard was very much coming up as a draw in terms of damage dealt - Halp had not tried to do any damage, the wizard hadn't managed to land any spells on him for one reason or another. Positioning-wise, though, the situation was far different, with Tage slowly but surely sneaking behind the NPC, his voice conveying more and more annoyance as Halp got ever closer to the cage.

A sharp lightning shock changed the balance of damage in the wizard's favor when Halp touched the cage, the void Djinni gloating for just a brief moment before being knocked out by Tage's sneak attack. Ripley sighed in relief, a warm feeling washing over him as he realized the battle was over - was this what humans meant when they talked about tension leaving them? It was generally talked about after defeating a boss, after all.

A silly ritual followed with Tage attempting to make herself look as heroic as possible, bringing a small smile of good-natured amusement to the AI's lips, which tugged at them even more with Halp's congratulation on that posing.

He felt comfortable in the group, which was, well, unexpected. Halp was way too Halp to notice anything odd about Ripley, and neither him nor Tage minded the fact that the AI preferred to stay silent if he didn't have much of use to say. Perhaps in time that would change, but for now small talk was something Ripley would rather stay away from. That didn't stop him from enjoying the chatter both players had among them, though; a fact that had surprised him at first.

With the players trying to figure out how to open the cage, Ripley set about doing the same, blocking access to the knowledge of how to do this for the time being. A few seconds to reorganize his train of thought later, the AI was facing this problem as if it were completely new, pondering at the same level as his human allies were.

They seemed to be focusing on the human side of things, trying to get the mage to talk once he woke up; so Ripley decided to take an approach closer to his aptitudes. The magic spell had to be inscribed somewhere to power these bars - he would try and find the runes that fed it and nullify them.

Truth be told he wasn't too sure of how they planned to interrogate the now-unconscious mage, but that was their problem - they managed to wake him up somehow judging by the noise and the sudden sputtering from the mage. A quick glance revealed Halp standing triumphantly as the mage tried to shake off some vile green and sticky fluid that had obviously woken him up by being poured on his face.

"And you said I'd never get to use it! Feel the power of my stinky goo!" He cheered, waving the flask that had contained the vile mixture around and almost managing to goo himself.

With Tage standing around and a very happy warrior with an axe around, the mage seemed just slightly more cooperative - cooperative enough to not throw any fireballs at them, at least.

"So! How do we open the cage?" Halp's happy form was punctuated by the large battleaxe he was holding nonchalantly. A scary look indeed, but definitely not scary enough for the wizard's quick reply; specially if one took his personality in mind.

"The key's in that chest over there. You have to unlock it to turn the lightning off." He offered quickly, eyes narrowing as he pointed to a chest behind his desk.

"Well that was easy! See, I can do a good job too! I'm terrifying and intimidating, hear me roar!" Harp rattled on as he quickly stepped towards the container.

Had Ripley not deactivated his knowledge about this quest, he would've known that chest was the mimic he'd identified in the quest before - waiting for some careless, eager adventurer to provide it with its next meal. Who knew what the dark mage would do if Halp got caught in the creature's belly?
 
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This time it was not the mage who received the flat of a sword blade over their head, but Halp. The death djinni whimpered, ducking down to the ground and cradling his head in his hands. "Taaage. What was that for?"

"Honestly." Tage replied, returning her sword to its sheath. "You've walked into this guy's traps three times now. Are you really so masochistic that you want to make it a fourth?"

"A trap?"

"Yes, Halp, a trap. T-R-A-P. How long have you been playing games again?" Still keeping one eye on her friend to make sure that he didn't decide to ignore her advice and open the chest anyways, Tage returned to the mage, hoisting him to his feet. His hands were bound behind his back with a length of rope to keep him from casting any magic, and his feet were so close together he had to shuffle to walk. All the same, Tage slowly but surely forced him over towards the chest. "We'll make him open it."

The mage's eyes darted towards the chest. "And how exactly am I supposed to do that with my hands tied behind my back?"

"Dunno." Tage leaned in closer, drawing her dagger in a fluid motion and placing it against the man's back. "Improvise."

"What do you expect me to do, headbutt it open?"

"Hmm, interesting idea." Tage removed the dagger from his back, but kept her other hand firmly on his bound wrists. With a motion, she gestured Halp over. The Djinni seemed to instantly get what Tage wanted from him, and came to stand in front of the mage. With a quick motion Tage kicked the man's feet out from underneath him, sending him toppling forward towards the massive Halp. Hap caught his upper body, and Tage grabbed on to his legs, and together the two of them began to walk him towards the chest. The mage certainly wasn't making it easy for them, but between the ropes and Halp's strong grip the mage was making no progress towards escaping.

Tage came to a halt in front of the chest. "One." They swung the mage backwards and forwards slightly, building up momentum. "Two..." They began to swing him backwards again. "Thr..."

"Alright!" the mage screamed. Tage and Halp promptly dropped him, and he landed with a heavy thump on the ground.

"As scared as you are," Tage began, kneeling on top of the mage's back, "I'd say there's some pretty nasty spell on that trunk. Now, here's the thing. I'm personally inclined to just throw you at that chest and see what kind of spell gets triggered, but Halp has a thing for the baker. He'd rather simply kill the queen and get rid of the nest. So, here are your options. You can tell our mage exactly how to open the cage and kill the queen, and we will march you back to the city, nice and easy, for trial. Or, you can remain silent, try to trick us, or do any number of other things, and I'll simply throw you at the chest and leave the beginners to clear out this cave indefinitely. Up to you!" She smiled, as though these were the most delightful options in the world, and as though she didn't realize that the mage was face-down in the dirt and unable to see anything at all. She simply couldn't help it. If there was one thing Tage really loved, it was theatrics.
 
Ripley turned around when Halp's hp went down by one - a soft bonk accompanied it, marking Tage's intervention, and then Halp's whimpering. The AI suprised itself smiling at Tage's admonisments, noting down the fact that some humans were reluctant to adapting. It seemed like yes, Halp was about to fall into the fourth trap and Tage's intervention had stopped him.

In the meantime, Ripley had found small carvings down the bottom of the cage and along the bars - very hard to notice, but the AI did have an inhuman visual acuity. The symbols seemed to be feeding their power to the cage, but also acted as a security system among themselves - trying to tamper with one would activate the others, delivering another shock. Unless, of course, you managed to locate the core of these runes and disable it, which was what the AI was trying to do right now.

In the meantime, interrogations were happening, and the AI's curiosity made him glance towards the players from time to time - his main purpose was to gather information about them, after all, not to solve quests. Tage seemed to be threatening him rather casually, her dagger on the man's back in the first of these glances; by the second she'd enlisted Halp's help and they were carrying the man, with the final glance revealing that they were about to toss him onto the chest - final because the mage broke down to that threat, which didn't stop Tage from following up with another, driving the point home.

Her motions were easily identifiable, grandiose - much like an NPC's would, designed so that confusion by their meaning was minimal; no way to misunderstand having her knee digging into your back while she threatened you. As far as Ripley was concerned, this wasn't too weird for what humans could do, and judging by the woman's smile she seemed to be enjoying manhandling the mage quite a bit, so where was the harm in it? That was the point of the game, after all.

Ripley blinked when he heard her mention him, standing up and heading towards the void Djinni in time to hear her detail what the NPC's options were. None of them too pleasant, to be honest, and the AI felt curious about his choice - much more to know whether his allies would deliver on their threats than because he cared about the NPC's end.

The mage pushed himself slighty upward with obvious effort, managing to separate his face just enough from the ground to gasp an "Okay, okay! The master rune, it's the fourth rune above the lock, on the inner side of the bar." He gasped, not really able to breathe too well with part of Tage's weight on his ribs.

The AI nodded silently, walking back to the cage once again to the background noise of Halp wondering out loud if he would look better as a void Djinni, quickly checking the location the wizard had pointed out. There was a rune there indeed, and the AI's fingers traced the dispelling rune right over it. A soft click marked the cage opening - and a moment later the cage discharged all its leftover energy on the AI, who apparently didn't learn from other people's mistakes either.

Ripley felt himself on fire, being lifted off the ground and thrown backwards by the bolt. Pain - pain was new, pain was unwelcome. Pain was very, very unpleasant, and it made tears well up in his eyes, his twitching muscles leading him to curl up in a ball on the ground instinctively. A series of subroutines sprang up, he grit his teeth, clenched his fists, hearing the clanging sounds of the weevil matriarch releasing herself from the cage that'd contained her and heading towards... him? Tage? Halp was definitely in combat from his happy yelling, and while the AI wanted nothing more than to stay still until the hurt was gone he knew he had to help his allies, so he unfurled himself, standing up slowly with a pained grimace. What was it that humans said in these cases? Ah, yes.

"I'm okay." He stated weakly, unethusiastically as a fireball appeared on his staff and flew towards the oversized demon.
 
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When the blast of fire appeared out of nowhere from within the cage, Tage let out a yelp of surprise, nearly toppling off the void Djinni. This wasn't because she was afraid of being attacked, but more because she hadn't expected an AI of the program to fall into a trap. It hadn't even occurred to her that Ripley might not know that would be coming. Unless he had gotten hit on purpose? No, that didn't seem like it.

The mage surged to his feet, pushing Tage the rest of the way off his back, just as the weevil queen barreled out of the cage. Halp, who had been in the middle of starting to laugh at Ripley for getting caught in a trap, immediately pulled his battleaxe out and began to work to distract the queen. Tage hurled herself at the escaping mage, her face contorting with rage. She bowled him over before he could take two steps, and the two of them began to grapple on the ground, the mage desperately trying to wiggle free, and Tage doing everything in her power to pin him to the ground.

When the mage was somewhat subdued, with a bloody nose and a black eye, Tage turned to glance at the far side of the room where Ripley was on the ground. "Ripley, you alright?" she called. His response didn't instill much confidence, but Tage doubted that the AI would die from an attack like that. Even though that had been quite the fireball.

"Hey, hey," Tage said to the mage, leaning down over him and grabbing a fistful of purple hair to force void eyes to meet void eyes. "That was really stupid. I warned you. No traps. Now... now you'll have to be punished." An evil grin crossed over her face, and the mage whimpered.

In all honesty, Tage wasn't all that mad at the mage. If it wasn't for the fact that she had assumed Ripley wouldn't allow himself to blunder into the trap, she would have acted upon the assumption that whatever instructions he gave ultimately ended in a trap. That had been an oversight on her part, but it didn't change the fact that she had made a promise. Of course, throwing him at the chest wasn't such a reasonable punishment anymore. Tage had a much better idea.

"Oi, queenie!" she shouted at the weevil, hurling a small ball of frost in its direction, spawned from the tip of her dagger. Halp disengaged, trusting that Tage had a plan for getting the queen's attention. "Dinner time~" She stepped back, revealing the void mage, who was now firmly bound and unable to do more than wriggle helplessly on the ground. The queen immediately changed targets, throwing herself at Tage, but the young woman rolled to the side and the queen barreled into the trussed figure.

He let out quite a pitiful cry when the queen turned to her tormentor, red eyes glowing, and for a moment Tage felt a little cruel in what she had done. However, Halp's shout of "Good thinking!" quickly wiped away any remaining trace of guilt.

"Ripley, circle around, block the entrance and, if you can, try and shield us from her attacks. Halp, you've got a moment to prepare. Take it. As soon as she's done with the mage, we'll tag-team her."

It turned out that, despite her fearsome appearance, the weevil queen wasn't really that much stronger than any of the three. But it did give the perfect opportunity to show exactly how comfortable Tage and Halp were with each other, and how quickly they could incorporate someone else into their team. The two moved back and forth across the cave, with Tage using her quick maneuverability to lure the queen in to a place where Halp could strike a devastating blow. Whenever one of the two of them got backed into a corner, it was quite gratifying to have a sudden attack from Ripley redirect her attention, when normally they would have suffered a painful hit.

When the queen reached about a quarter health her tactics changed quite suddenly, going from an aggressive, dominating attack, to something a bit more sly. If anything, this made it easier for Tage to combat her, as she no longer had to worry about the queen using her overwhelming strength to bowl her over. When she was nearly out of health, the queen seemed to decide that it was far better to live another day than to try and eat these very painful morsels. It was then that having Ripley in the back truly proved advantageous. Had the queen managed to disappear into those tunnels, it was doubtful any of the three would have ever see her again. Only a skilled tracker could track a weevil in its own burrow.

Instead, Ripley was able to hit her with one final attack, leaving nothing but a steaming pile of demon flesh to slide forward a couple more feet, before coming to a jiggling halt.

Tage let out a sigh of relief, straightening from her crouched position to clean off both sword and dagger and sheathe them at her waist. "That wasn't so bad," she said cheerfully. "Did they drop anything interesting?"

"The queen dropped an essence. Low level. And the mage dropped a staff, a poisoned dagger, and a few coins. How would you guys like to split it?"

"Hmm... Why don't you take the coins, give Ripley the staff, and I'll take the essence and the dagger?"

"I seem to be getting the short end of that stick."

"In case you've forgotten, you'll get the reward from the baker as well. And I'm sure you'll get her undying gratitude when you bring back the queen's trophy."

"Ahhh..." Halp swooned. "Good point."
 
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The AI fixed his eyes on the mage as he struggled to his feet, bothered beyond imagination by the fact that his body was not complying as much as it should to his commands, an annoying side effect of this particular variety of pain. Tage seemed to have him rather completely under control, though, and the AI had to admit it felt some sort of... joy? At watching the wizard get pummeled. And a bit of guilt at that realization, which was weird and contradictory and overall unpleasant. Pain had unleashed such a troublesome chain of emotions in him.

With Tage too close to the wizard to risk hitting her with one of his fireballs, Ripley turned to the queen instead, who was being kept busy by Halp - he could probably use some help, though, so the mage started pelting her liberally with his fiery strikes - it might not be the most powerful attack, but when all you have is a hammer every problem is a nail.

He kept Tage in his sight just barely, noticing that she was winning the fight and talking with the mage - he wasn't quite sure what she was doing, but he had bigger, angrier weevils to worry about. Next thing he knew about her, she was trying to get the Queen's attention, which made both him and Halp stop in their attacks.

The AI looked at the unfolding scene after a blink, two. It was, well, rather brutal despite Halp's cheering - which didn't seem to bother him at all, much to his surprise. Humans were usually bothered by scenes of brutality, after all, but perhaps it simply did not count when it was an NPC or a monster that was the target of it.

His trail of thought about how the AI controlling the NPC was also still alive was interrupted by Tage's instructions, to which he nodded, settling in a comfortable position on the backline of the fight - Tage and Halp were really in sync working with each other, which Ripley lacked; but his reaction time and decision-making speed made up for this in such a low-level fight. Shielding his teammates from her attacks was not the simplest task until he realized that her AI targeted the last known attacker, making it simple from there on to time his own blows right as she was about to strike at his teammates. Perhaps not the role a wizard was supposed to do according to most theories about it, but Ripley was not really feeling constrained by that definition.

The change in tactics from the queen did absolutely nothing to change Ripley's role or tactics - her attacks were slightly faster, less predictable, but to the AI it really was no issue to figure out her patterns even locked out of pre-existing knowledge about the quest as he was. It was during the queen's retreat that he was forced to alter his role, seeing how his allies could not reach her - in a quick succession the mage let loose five or six fireballs, not very strong on their own, but enough to barely finish off their target before she dove into her tunnels and out of sight.

Loot distribution went quickly, with Tage abusing Halp's lovestruck nature into giving up most of the loot. Ripley was more interested in how, or why, Halp was willing to give up things with a numberable value for the gratitude of someone who would not be able to assist him in anything. Food for thought, but the AI said nothing about the fact, instead nodding in agreement with Tage's statement at the start of the loot distribution.

"That was a good result, yes." The AI unlocked his knowledge about the quest, checking out the other endings it could have had - this was one of the best, though the one where they got the mage to surrender and handed him into the town was rated higher and thus rewarded with better loot. Still, his staff wasn't bad at all - the mage grabbed it, twirling it around - lighter than the one he had before, sturdy, conductive to magical energies. A good weapon all in all, though perhaps he should glamour it to look like the knotted stick he was used to using.

The way back he spent it lost in thought, not really paying much attention right now to the banter between Halp and Tage - he'd analyze it later, but for the time being he was more interested in figuring out what exactly the warrior wanted from the baker that'd be worth giving up his share of the loot for - and quickly, before reaching the city.

The journey back was far too short for him to make up his mind about it, but at least he had some ideas about it - it had required checking other databases than his own and extrapolating a lot, but he had various ideas of what Halp could want from the baker Djinni. As they walked among the white houses approaching the equally-coloured bread statue, Ripley sent a quick message to the quest-handling AI, backing it up with an elevated access login. Confirmation arrived shortly afterwards, as they stepped into the bakery.

Inside, a young Djinni - Ice, Lightning and Crystal - with a very shapely body that fit the "cute" archetype was humming to herself distractedly, working on baking some bread. As she heard the door ring, she turned around with a smile.

"How can I... oh! You're Halp's friends, right? Did you manage to clear the weevils?" She asked, cleaning her hands on an apron as she walked forward.

Upon Halp's enthusiastic confirmation her smile grew even wider, though she declined to see the queen's head to verify it.

"Oh, wow, this is great!" She cheered, happily. "I, I don't know how to thank you!" She paced back and forth, running to the back of the shop a moment later and coming out with a wrapped package - Ripley already knew what it contained, a pretty good bread with buffs and regeneration; but by the way Halp was bouncing up and down he clearly did not expect it. "Um, it's not much, but I have this..." She mumbled as she walked up to Halp, offering the package - and as the warrior leaned forward to take it, she stepped up and planted a kiss on his cheek, blushing an intense shade of pink as bright as her eyes, whispering "My hero..."

In the background, of course, Ripley was noting all this down, possibly having to do so above Tage's laughter - after all, he'd been the one to tell the NPC what its reaction should be like in order to test Halp's interest.
 
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There was a moment of stunned silence after the action of the baker, where it would have been possible to hear the drop of a pin. That was shattered a moment later as Halp's mouth fell open and his legs nearly collapsed from underneath him. Tage burst into laughter, nearly doubling over as she gasped for breath. The baker blushed an even deeper shade, before ducking her head, muttering a soft "excuse me", and racing into the back of the store.

Tage's laughter was abruptly interrupted by Halp, who bonked Tage on top of the head. "What'd you have to go and laugh for? You scared her off."

"I'm sorry," Tage replied, gasping and rubbing the top of her head. "But you should have seen your face!" She succumbed to another fit of the giggles.

Halp glowered for a moment, before laughing a bit himself. "Yeah, I know. That was very unexpected!"

In truth, the baker's actions weren't just unexpected, they were completely unprecedented. The thought kept bouncing around in the back of Tage's head as the three of them moved out of the shop, heading to a park to enjoy the regular food that had been included with the baker's specialty bread. Where had that come from?

There were always players like Halp, who insisted on flirting with every cute girl they saw, so the NPCs had to be able to realistically react to situations like that. But, in all her time playing games, Tage had never seen an NPC initiate anything even remotely romantic with a Player. Up until that moment, it hadn't even occurred to her that it might be possible. After all, the NPCs were, well, NPCs. True romance with a player was simply beyond their scope. Halp seemed perfectly content to forget that fact, and soon enough it seemed that even her kiss had slipped his mind. Tage, however, couldn't forget it. She felt her eyes continually being drawn to Ripley as they finished the bread, stood up, and began to make their way out of the city.

Could that odd occurrence have anything to do with... him?


The next day when Tage logged in, she was greeted by Halp, who was over-enthusiastic compared even to his usual over-enthusiasm. He was quick to share the exciting fact that he had won a scholarship that would let him travel abroad for the spring semester. Tage was very quick to congratulate him, only to realize that this meant, once the spring semester began, he was not going to be able to log into Djinni anymore. Halp was forced to agree with that assessment.

They sat in silence for a little while, staring at the trees, before Halp jumped to his feet, delcaring that, if he was going to be away for five or more months, he wanted to make the most of the time he had left. He declared, with his usual level of impetuousness, that before he left he wanted to see the front lines on the war against the demons. Normally, Tage would have done everything in her power to dissuade him from this particular idea. After all, there were demons easily three times their level at the front lines, and they showed up with alarming frequency. However, this time she found herself agreeing, on one condition. Instead of just trying to move there as quickly as possible, they'd create their own story quest out of it. They would start at the dock of the Port City, and walk the whole way, living like a couple of characters out of a TV show.

The idea appealed to both of them, albeit for different reasons. For Tage, it was a chance to explore and roleplay. For Halp... well, there really was no guessing what went on in his head, but most likely the simple fact that it would be getting him closer to his decided goal was sufficient.

It was Halp who suggested inviting Ripley along. Normally having a third person along would have made it that much harder to get their schedules to line up, but with Ripley that didn't exactly apply. Of course, Tage didn't mention this, and the two of them reached out to Ripley, agreeing to meet up at the Port City.

It didn't take much effort to get Ripley on board, and they quickly decided that the "quest" would begin on the first day of winter break, which was just over two weeks away. Up until that time they would be allowed to play however they wanted, but once the quest began they could only log in to Djinni during the arranged meeting time, just after lunch at 1:00 PM, and if one of them had to leave early the others would have to log out as well.

It would be, Tage declared with great enthusiasm, the ultimate Roleplaying quest.

Tage didn't log in much during the remainder of the two weeks waiting for the quest to begin. This was due to a bargain she made with her parents, that, if she stayed off it for most of the two weeks leading up to winter break, she would be guaranteed every evening for the two weeks of winter break. As much as Tage begrudged the time spent away from her games, and the time that she could otherwise have spent playing with Halp, she agreed. For one thing, Ripley was always online, meaning that whenever she logged in she would have a friend around. For another, the guarantee of uninterrupted time over winter break would make the quest that much better.



For Tage, at least, the two weeks wait dragged on. Perhaps the hardest wait of all, though, was the first Saturday of winter break, waiting until the agreed upon time to enter the game. She sat in the living room, fidgeting, until her younger brother kicked her off the couch and sent her to her room.

At last it was time. The moment the clock hit one Tage was logging into the game. Her avatar resolved at the dock of the Port City. There was a new ship coming in, bringing in a collection of new players, and the whole place was thriving with activity. Halp logged in only a few seconds after her, waiting on the other side of the port.

"Looks like Ripley's logged in as well," Tage said with a smile, when she and Halp finally got close enough together that they could hear each other over the surrounding commotion. "Let's track him down and get started!"
 
Halp's reaction was everything Ripley could've hoped for - as well as Tage's. It was easy to tell that neither of them were expecting it, with Halp's momentary mental shutdown and Tage's uncontrolled burst of laughter. Unexpected was the way Halp expressed it, but if Ripley'd been a bit better at reading people perhaps he would've realized what truly was happening - neither of them had considered this a possible outcome. No matter how cute Halp thought the baker was, he never expected his affections returned. Unfortunately, this note slipped past the AI - but he would in time return to analyze and discover it.


Ripley spent most of his time questing, training and generally watching humans when Tage and Halp logged out. He had a lot of time without either of them, a lot of quests that humans would want to do, and a lot of skills to level. He felt a lot more comfortable in his human-seeming nature after managing to trick Halp, and so he felt safe setting off on his own.

Quest zones were as interesting as cities. Where in cities he could find roleplayers in the bars and traders in the streets, the outer areas were the home to those gathering and questing - two very specific, very focused tasks; and it was interesting to find out how the humans worked to overcome their weaknesses, how far they tried to push their limits before desisting, or even how they behaved when they knew they had complete control of a situation.

One of the first things Ripley noticed was rotations - a remnant of times past with the TITAN system in place or most likely a comfort zone to move in, but most players were using the same sequence of attacks over and over to deal with most mobs unless forced to change by something the monsters did. As Ripley watched, the monsters seemed to be slightly sharper, slightly more inventive with their motions. Pushing the players, but not beyond the amount they could handle.

While he researched the humans, the AI investigated as well which runes he wanted to focus on. Metamagic had proven its worth by almost completely nullifying the enemy mage's abilities - granted he was several levels above the NPC, but it still seemed like a very good choice to focus on. But as a secondary skill, fire had not really fulfilled his expectations - an odd thing to consider, since he knew exactly how powerful fire spells were, and yet he found himself wishing for something more powerful.

Lightning, ice, water, nature, the wizard tested the basic runes for each of them, cutting through one monster after another in his quest to find the one that seemed more suitable for his nature - after all, he wanted to maximize his effectiveness ingame. He wanted to be a desirable partner to team with even if he was an "odd human" simply by compensating with skill.

He was in the process of deciding when he got a message from Tage and Halp about their quest to travel from Port City to the frontlines. The terms they imposed were almost enough to make him reject the offer - since he couldn't go offline when they did - but, in the end, curiosity won over the danger of angering them. They would most likely not find out, anyways, since he could very well stay online and appear offline in his friendslist. Taking a risk, as Tage had told him he should.

The two weeks of waiting were not really such for the AI - he quested with Halp from time to time and, on the rare occasions she was online, Tage; but he also made quite a few acquaintances, people he ran into in a quest zone and invited him over to a group. Of special interest to him were roleplayers, so he spent quite a bit of his time simply sitting in cities and bars listening to the neighboring players talk about their stories and the such - sometimes their lack of lore-appropriate behaviour grinded on him, but for the most time they did their best and he could appreciate their attempts. A part of him wanted to participate and lend his knowledge when they talked about lore... but he didn't want to draw that much attention to himself, so he simply stuck around observing.

That was, until he was offered a drink by a passer-by, and he found himself dragged into the roleplay whether he wanted to or not - and as one might imagine, the AI was extremely good at lore-appropriate behaviour, even if he wasn't a human. He would even go as far as to classify the experience as pleasing, seeing everyone acting in a lore-friendly way; and on seeing his willingness to participated he was invited to join the RPs several times.

Eventually, the two weeks had passed. Ripley had learned much about how humans thought from talking with roleplayers, seeing why they thought their characters would act a certain way, simply seeing them interact; but he'd also learned from those doing quests around him, from the traders - all knowledge that the TITAN databases already contained, but that he was supposed to analyze from zero. Beyond that, he'd also become better at his skills, and he was positive that he could pass as a human by this point - probably not perfectly, but as long as he didn't talk there were no flaws in his disguise.



When Tage and Halp logged in, the AI was watching the new arrivals milling about in the upper deck of the soon-to-dock ship, smiling to himself as he heard their excited chatter. New arrivals were always excited to discover this new world, and that was pleasing in and of itself.

Halp's loud call for him had him turning around with the same smile to meet both warriors - or, as Tage would insist, spellsword - nodding to them. His robe had changed slightly, having been replaced by a higher level but still simple gray one; but his staff remained the same - whether it was because of a glamour cast on another weapon to look like that or it was the same weapon was up for debate. The AI walked towards his friends, pushing the thoughts about the new arrivals aside.

"You're just in time." He nodded, smiling at them. "I've taken the liberty of preparing a few points of interest we could visit on our way to the frontlines. Highly rated vistas, a few unique demons' lairs that have been cleared, that kind of thing. I thought it might be interesting to take a break from the fighting to simply observe the world. I'll need your input on which ones you want to visit, but there's still a while before we reach the first one - Melfior's Tower of Lightning, one of the first raid-bosses in the game. The metallic, spiked structure still remains electrified to this day." The AI smiled apologetically, shaking his head slightly. "Sorry, I get excited about these things. How have you two been?" A surprising turn to small talk from the AI - he was rather proud of it himself, if he had to be honest.[/hr]
 
"Aww! Isn't that sweet?" Halperion cried, moving forward to grab onto Ripley, pulling him into a one armed hug and using his other hand to ruffle the boy's short brown hair. "He's plotted a route for us." Satisfied with his act of molestation, Halp released the unfortunate AI. "Completely unnecessary, of course, but we can't blame him. He didn't know you are a world-class explorer, now did he Tage?"

"Don't be so cruel," Tage replied, blasé. "Impromptu exploration is always fun, but having a few destinations in mind won't hurt us. We'll have plenty of time for unexpected adventures. Everyone got everything you need?"

"All good, mom." Tage smacked Halp on the back of the head in response to his words, and then they were off.

If Tage was being completely honest, she would not have been able to deny that she felt a small twinge of jealousy and bitterness about the fact that Ripley had taken it upon himself to decide their destinations, when this whole quest had been her idea in the first place. Of course, Tage knew she was being unfair, and she made sure to keep those feelings to herself. It wasn't as though Ripley was making my all the decisions, because he left it up to the two of them to pick the final destinations. And, Tage had to admit, he'd done a remarkably good job. Almost all of the destinations were ones that Tage herself would have picked to visit, and the few that weren't were often even better than the ones Tage would have picked in their place.

From the Tower of Lightning they traveled even further east to the behemoth tree, and the majestic city of the plant djinni that had been built inside its trunk. A day after that and they were even further north, and managed to get on a rare expedition of the Deep Crystal Caverns, a sight that had all three of them drooling at the beauty. Back when this place had still been demon territory, it had been home to a crystal demon that had attacked anything that came close to its treasure, demon or djinni. The leader of the Maidens, before her guild had become so famous, had defeated the demon with a group of only five people by stealing the egg of a cliff eagle demon that had lived nearby and left it the cave. After the monstrous fight, the damage of which could still be seen today, it had been easy for the small group to kill the heavily wounded crystalline beast. Every couple months, though, the caverns had to get a group of adventurers to head into the Deep to hunt the crystalings, lest one of them grow as big as their forefather. At this point it had become such a well known quest that it was usually filled months in advance, but an unexpected drop-out of a high-level quester because of another quest spawning nearby which required his skills allowed the three entry to replace him.

"It's good to see you loosening up a bit, Rip," Halp commented as they exited the cave. He had a pale pink crystal in hand, a gift from the NPC djinni who had led the expedition, which was the exact same color as her eyes. For being such a goof he really did seem to have remarkable luck with the women, although Tage suspected that it was more the way that girls fawned over puppies than anything else. "You were so stiff when we first met!" He clapped Ripley on the back before racing ahead, to go by a piece of rock candy from a nearby vendor.

It was true, Tage realized. Although Ripley was still rather reserved, as seemed to be his natural state, he was no longer so stiff about Halp and Tage's constant teasing. Perhaps he was simply growing used to it. Or, maybe, he was simply getting better at perfecting his human interface algorithm. It was a little bit surprising for Tage to realize how often she forgot that the spirit djinni was an AI. Oftentimes she would go several hours before something would bring it to mind again. She felt like that should bother her for some reason, but it just didn't.

From the Caves they went to the Canyon of the Winds, then to the Bone Graveyard, and then the Forest of Flame. Halfway through the forest they met a merchant, who hired them to kill a pack of Fire Wolf Demons that had appeared on the other side of the forest, and then escort them the rest of the way to the Trade City of Velora. Just outside of the forest they were attacked by a royal wyvern, who dropped a rare cooking ingredient called the Wyvern Queen's Egg. That led to a slightly out of the way trip to the southeast, to the base of a guild called the Bread Knife, a group dedicated to finding rare ingredients and using them to cook meals unlike anything that could be found in the real world. There was a chapter of the Bread Knife in every game that had the cooking skill, and it was one of the few guilds that was based in the real world as well as within TITAN.

The Wyvern Egg wasn't enough to capture the attention of a high-ranking member, but it was sufficient to get them a mid-ranker who made egg-stuffed-mushrooms that had Tage swooning at the smell alone. They spent the night in a local inn, stuffed to bursting and with one night paid for bringing the egg to the city.

"Well worth the side-trip," Tage mumbled sleepily as the little group snoozed in front of the fire in the common room, listening to the drunken roar coming from within the local bar.

By this point it had been six days since they had started their trip, but they were still well under halfway to the front lines. The next two days they dedicated to making some serious progress, so that by the second Monday of break they had made it to Alonia, the Gateway City to the Middle Territories.

The journey began to get more dangerous. The lush forests faded away under the remnants of the war that had yet to fade away. Out here the demon attacks became much more numerous, and most of the beasts that attacked were far above the group's level. The cities became less prevalent, and all but a few of them were managed by the 10 largest guilds in Djinni. The only guild that wasn't represented was the Kingslayers, a group composed entirely of the most elite demon-slayers in the game, ranked as the number one guild, and the group that had been pushing the front lines since the very start of the game. Despite their strength and affluence, the Kingslayers did not manage any cities. All of their resources went to killing the demons that blocked further forward progress. No one had any doubt that it would be the Kingslayers who led the party that would one day challenge the King of the Demons and break through the northern mountains.

Although the three of them were still heading from landmark to landmark, seeing some of the greatest sights in the world, their progress slowed further and further. They could no longer risk spending the nights outside of a town, and oftentimes they had to cut their adventuring short because they wouldn't be able to make it to the next city before nightfall. All the same, the increased danger seemed to make the sights even more spectacular. They visited the Stone Garden, the former location of a demon with petrification magic, and saw the exterior of the Obsidian Manor, the largest discovered ruin of the Old Djinni World. Halp and Ripley had to work together to drag Tage away, as she was fully prepared to throw caution to the wind and go ruin delving, despite the fact that it would be guaranteed suicide. They did, however, manage to get to the top of the Gargoyle Tower, a giant, demonbuilt clock tower that had been transformed into a watchtower by the Autumn Knights, the number three guild.

Time continued to pass, and it was starting to look less and less likely that they would make the front lines before the end of winter break. Their desire to see fun things slipped away, and they were left with a singular goal: reach the front lines in the next three days. The game, however, seemed to conspire against them in the last day. The current border to the front lines was a massive river that sprung from a deep well in the center of the continent and flowed all the way down to both coasts. It had been the border for well over six months, because there were only a few natural bridges and it was very difficult to bring the resources needed to establish a new city. When Tage and the rest reached one of the cities that guarded the five natural bridges however, they found a swarm of people.

"What's going on?" Tage asked the air. "I wouldn't have thought there'd be this many people..."

Halp shrugged, but someone standing nearby heard Tage's question and took it upon themselves to answer. "A River King came out of the water and is set up on the bridge. No one's getting past until we get some high level party to defeat it, and it is looking like it is going to be four days before that happens. Until then everyone who wants to cross is hanging out here. There is going to be a feast tomorrow if we can get enough food, so if you've got the spare time you should head out hunting." The beast djinni smiled, before heading off into the crowd.

A rather defeated looking Halp, Tage, and Ripley made their way over to the Horseshoe, the local inn. They adopted a table in the back corner of the room and sat in silence for a few minutes.

"We could always... Get to another bridge?" Tage suggested, obviously lacking enthusiasm. Halp didn't even bother to answer. There was no way they could make it to another bridge in four days, let alone the two they had left. There was a reason that everyone was waiting here until some high level fighters arrived.

"It was a stupid goal, anyways." Halp said, rather bitterly. "We're not even level 10. Of course we couldn't make it to the front lines. I'm sorry for dragging you guys into this."

"Hey," Tage said softly, trying to get a little pep back into her friend. "Even if we don't make it, look at how far we got! And think about all the cool things we saw. This has been an absolutely..."

"You guys aren't even level 10?" A voice suddenly cut in, interrupting Tage. A thin, pretty moon djinni with water eyes plunked herself down at the table, grinning widely. "Damn. It's a miracle you made it this far!"

Everyone gaped at her, but all she did was giggle.

"Rhanna, don't be so rude." A fire, sun, day djinni moved up behind her, placing his large hand on her shoulder. "Pardon us. We weren't trying to eavesdrop..."

"I was!" Rhanna cut in. The fire djinni ignored her.

"But we seem to be in a rather similar predicament. Perhaps we can help each other out? I'm Toreck. May we sit?"

None of them answered. Tage glanced at Ripley, and then at Halp. Neither seemed willing to speak. It seemed she had become the de facto leader of this party.

"...O...of course," Tage finally replied, swallowing the quaver in her voice.

"Thank you." Toreck's voice was low and charming, and Tage couldn't help the small flutter of her heart when he grinned at her. "I'll get straight to business, then. The bridge may be the only way over the river, but that doesn't mean it is the only way across. Nearby there is a cave that will lead us to the other side of the river. However, you need a party of five or larger to enter, and no one wants to join Rhanna and I."

Tage was immediately suspicious. "Why won't they join you? With the bridge out, I would think that people would be lining up to set up parties."

"Well, you see..." Toreck looked rather uneasy. "Half the time people go into this cave, it triggers an event that leads to guaranteed death, and apparently in a rather... unpleasant manner. Even if that event doesn't trigger, you still have to be strong enough to fight your way through."

"Then why would you want us? We'd be useless in a fight."

Rhanna let out a giggle. "We don't want your help for the fight. Toreck and I are plenty strong enough to get through in our own. We'd do it alone if it want for the size restriction. So now we just need to find other people desperate enough to give it a shot."

For the first time, Halp spoke. "Why are you so desperate?"

Rhanna raised a brow. "Does it matter?"

Tage kicked Galp under the table, and he lowered his head with a faint blush. "Sorry."

Toreck brushed away the apology with a wave of his hand. "No matter. So. Will you join us?"
 
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Halp's exhuberance was met with resignation by the AI as he was grabbed and shaken, waiting patiently until the warrior had the decency of letting him go. He wasn't aware, as the man had said, that Tage was a good explorer; but the way he saw it it was far more likely that he could prepare a good journey than that they would chance upon it - regardless of Tage's skills, you can't really expect winging things to work as well as planning them through. Thus, he nodded at Tage's words reprimanding Halp, and then once more when she asked if they were ready - how could he not be?. And they were off.

The sights weren't such an impressive thing to the AI as they probably were to the humans - they were certainly grand, but without the contrast with dull, normal life the AI saw them as just another part of his world. Beautiful, but not overwhelming. Even less if he was familiar with the inner workings of them, since it removed part of the mystery in them. Still, their reactions were as interesting to him as the environment was to them, noticing which parts they liked most, which they didn't, what they thought more or less impressive.

Still, it was annoying to find out that they wouldn't be able to visit the Crystalline Caves as things were going right now. They were, as far as the AI could tell, one of the most impactful views along the route, and missing on that information would be troublesome - it wouldn't be tragic, but it'd certainly be bothersome since goodness knew when he'd get another chance to get that information.

A couple of minutes later, a quest had spawned nearby requiring the attentions of a high-level character. A few more minutes later, one such adventurer had withdrawn from the crystal caves, and access was granted to those next in line - which happened to be Tage, Halp and Ripley. The latter was satisfied with the discretion of his meddling, and simply enjoyed watching his allies enjoy the scenery and the company of other adventurers with a small smile on his face - he even engaged conversation with some of them!

Halp seemed to notice how much of an achievement this was, congratulating Ripley - the AI met it with a quiet "Thanks.", a small blush and an embarrassed stare at the ground. He liked his efforts being recognized but he didn't know how to react to it, so Halp's encouragement had the rather opposite reaction, making him a bit more withdrawn than he was before.

The journey was, despite everything, definitely enjoyable for Ripley. Seeing his teammates so excited about these things - Tage almost killed herself running into a huge raid area on her own! - even if it cut on their playtime was an interesting thing, plus he got to meet and talk with new people that were unaware of his peculiarities, which was a good source of information too.

As time went by, though, the sightseeing stopped and he got to see their "business" side when they started focusing on getting through the terrain as quickly as possible. It'd seem that their planning was different from the AI's, since they were very unconcerned with advance at the start and very eager to progress in the end, instead of establishing an average pace and maintaining it.

Still, it was just at this time that the journey got harder. Monsters had larger sight radius, far more dangerous attacks. Cowardice was the better side of courage in this case, and running was required in more than a few cases. In a few others, even that wasn't enough, and Ripley nudged the monsters into the path of other, higher level adventurers to keep them busy while they walked past. And, when they finally managed to get past the hordes of monsters that were near the frontlines and into the city, well, the AI already knew what the trouble there was. He couldn't really tell his allies, though - at least not with Halp around, he'd ask uncomfortable questions - so he was forced to wait until they found out on their own.

He was already thinking on how they could get past this without showing his hand to Halp - most legal options didn't seem like they were feasible enough, unfortunately - when the solution just fell into their laps in the shape of two high-level adventurers, in as much of a rush to make their way through as they were. Ripley raised his head in surprise when they were talked to, his hand staying a second or two longer than he'd planned for in his show of support for the discouraged Halp.

He was nodding his agreement before the two newcomers had finished explaining their plan to get through. It was definitely their best chance at getting through that did not involve him doing any kind of detectable manipulation. But with that being said, the Grotto was not the most hospitable of dungeons, and proof of that was that despite being very close to the city and having had multiple high level parties attempt to clear it, the dungeon was still very much active and causing trouble. Part of the trouble was, of course, that the boss only remained dead for a few hours barring certain specific conditions that hadn't been discovered or met yet; and being the necromantic demon that he was he quickly raised everything else in the dungeon when he returned.

"We will join you." Ripley's first words were a confirmation in the name of everyone - perhaps not the best words on which to join a conversation, but he didn't want to give his allies time to back out. And they would also be his last unless he was spoken to, happy to leave the spotlight to Tage and Halp.

This silence wouldn't be broken until after they'd left, with the two cheerful high-levels and a much happier Halp chatting away while Ripley and, surprisingly enough, Tage, walked slightly behind. Soon her motives were clear, when she leaned close and whispered if he could do something to prevent the cave killing them.

Ripley blinked - he was relatively sure that his manipulations had been subtle, and while there was the chance that Tage had noticed something, he wasn't expecting it. "I don't have to." Was his honest reply, nodding at her with a half smile. "The cave won't notice us with our level."

Soon they had arrived at the entrance to the cave, a large hole in the side of a hill that led to a series of catacombs, full of the skeletons of fallen demons. The entrance itself was ominous, framed in carved bones of various creatures and pulsing with dark magic - the very dark magic that would permeate every inch of the dungeon.

In this case, however, it wouldn't. Ripley was sure of this, and furthermore he'd contacted the AI in charge of the dungeon. Everything had been arranged to ensure as painless a passage as possible for them - which wasn't much, because the dungeon itself was difficult. They'd have to rely on the moon and fire djinns to be as good as they said in order to make their way through.

Ripley just stared at the entrance, taking advantage of the moment of peace that preceeded their final plunge into the darkness - after they went through that door there'd be no going back - to softly recite the place's lore.

"The grotto of bones. Said to be an ancestral tomb where, somehow, the bodies of the greatest fallen demons of history can be found; its animated sentries harbor a hatred against anything living that invades their dark, immobile world. Even the air itself defends the crypts against invaders, threatening to rip their bones out of them and animate them to execute their defenseless forms. Deep underneath, a demon known only as the Deathless works tirelessly to call the fallen back into the fray." He blinked, raising his eyes from the ground. "And our only way to the frontlines for the time being. The only question remaining is do we try to sneak past the sentinels, or do we fight them head-on?"
 
Both Tage and Halp glanced at Ripley in surprise as he spoke up. It wasn't that either of them objected to his agreeing for all of them, as neither of them would have been content with giving up when another opportunity presented itself, it was simply that Ripley had never taken up the mantle of authority in that way before. He had always been a follower, an observer, and he certainly had never made a decision without consulting them before. All the same, both of them nodded their agreement to his words.

"Excellent!" Rhanna cried, clapping her hands together in an exhibition of childish glee. "Toreck and I are ready to go, so shall we get this show on the road?"

Halp's mood had definitely picked up, now that he was back on his way to completing his absurd goal. He nodded his agreement to Rhanna's question, before bouncing to his feet and nearly tripping over his own chair. Tage, on the other hand, was much more reserved. She was glad that this unexpected opportunity had presented itself, of course she was, but she wasn't like Halp. She didn't believe that things would always go their way, just because they needed it to. And, having been given an opportunity, she didn't want to think how crushing it would be, both for herself and Halp, if this somehow went wrong. Yet all probability said that, if they went in that cave, they would die. 50% insta-death. It was utterly mind boggling. And, even if that event didn't trigger, they would still have to get through all the strong monsters that would be waiting in there. Rhanna and Toreck might be strong enough to get themselves through, but would they be able to get through, and protect the three low-level players that would be tailing them? Could they even trust Rhanna and Toreck not to simply abandon them once they had met the entry qualification for the passageway? It seemed the longer that Tage thought about their chances, the further they fell.

If only that event wasn't there. She had the strength and courage to face monsters that were far, far above her level to defeat when that was all she had to worry about, but facing such a challenge when she knew that there was a fifty percent chance that it would be utterly futile and they would die anyways... that was what truly crushed her. It was too much. She would muster through it, somehow, for Halp. She was his friend, and this was part of her duty. But if only there was some way to prevent that event from triggering...

In that moment, an unexpected memory suddenly came to the front of her mind. She remembered that cave, light and airy after the completion of its quest, and Ripley, standing in the middle, vacant-faced and limp like a string puppet hanging on a hook. It seemed such a random thing for her to be thinking about in that moment. Why would she care about some memory of Ripley contacting TITAN?

Oh. He had contacted TITAN. Could it be that... No, surely that wasn't possible. But why not? Despite how much he looked and acted like a person, Ripley wasn't a real person. He was an AI. More than that, he was a sub-part of TITAN. And TITAN controlled everything that took place within this game. It controlled whether or not that event would trigger. It seemed impossible, that Ripley could make such a change. That Ripley, the quiet, sweet, caring Ripley that they had traveled with over these past two weeks had the ability to alter something so important, but the more she thought about it the more sense it made. She thought back over the course of their journey, of all the unexpected and exciting things that had happened to them. Their unexpected entry into the Crystal Caverns. The Wyvern Queen's Egg. The way, as they had roamed deeper into the dangerous areas, the monsters that always seemed the closest to catching them would get distracted by a passing party of high level adventurers, when the demon already had prey right under its nose. Prey it was on the verge of catching. Had all of that been Ripley? In that moment, it seemed likely. Perhaps it was her hope speaking, a desperate hope that she might be able to keep chance from ending their quest when they were so close, but she would never know unless she asked.

She dropped back gradually as they made their way out of the inn, until she found herself walking side-by-side with Ripley. She waited a few more moments for her two new companions to get a little further ahead, before she leaned in towards Ripley. Voice pitched low to ensure that no one but him would hear what she was saying, Tage softly asked "Can you... Is there anything you can do to keep that event from triggering?"

Ripley's reply was like a double wave for Tage. She'd been right. And, as if that wasn't mind-boggling enough, apparently the cumulative level of the party was low enough that there wasn't even the possibility of that event triggering. It was like some sort of weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Unknowingly, a little spring entered Tage's step, and she bounced her way up to where Halp, Toreck, and Rhanna were walking.

It was a surprisingly short journey outside town to the entrance of such a dangerous cave. The whole place looked remarkably unpleasant, and Tage had seen the way that the surrounding adventurers had given this place a remarkably wide berth. It was as though the place was cursed, and its appearance certainly did a lot to promote that idea. They walked up to the entrance of the cave before pausing briefly. Everyone turned to face Ripley as he softly spoke, reciting some of the basic information about the cave. Tage felt a faint shiver creep up her back. This place was dangerous.

"Wow," Toreck said after Ripley finished talking. "I'm amazed you know that. I wouldn't have thought you would have had time to read the lore from this area, yet."

"Don't be so easily impressed," Rhanna scolded, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she took the first couple steps into the cavern. "He probably just read it right off the panel."

"Ah," Toreck replied, blushing slightly. "Right."

"Keep up, won't you," Rhanna's voice echoed back up to them out of the darkness. "And try not to die, newbies."

Halp muttered something under his breath that Tage couldn't quite catch, but she still knew it probably wasn't anywhere near as witty in reality as it was in Halp's head. He stalked after the moon djinni.

Tage followed after him, each hand poised lightly on the hint of a weapon. She knew that she would never be able to do anything if they were actually attacked, but the feel of the weapons in her hand gave her some measure of courage. They made her feel at least somewhat in control. Since they had crossed into the Middle Territories, Tage had been practicing using simple support magic to slow enemy attacks and increase her compatriots' abilities to dodge. It might just be enough to get them through this place alive.

The air grew heavier around them. Tage's hands began to shake, and she felt her breath coming in short gasps. It felt like the air was pressing down on her, suffocating her. She couldn't breathe. Her legs locked up, and Halp, walking behind her, nearly ran into her.

"Hey," he whispered to her. "Easy. It's just a game."

It's just a game. How many times had she told herself that when she had been descending into that cave. It's just a game. It's just a game. She had told herself that over and over. Yet, when the floor had fell away from under her, when she had fell into a world of writhing darkness that reached out and touched her, which pressed up against her and smothered her, she had not remembered it was a game. She had descended into total panic, and had fought for her life to escape. She was being smothered. She was...

Up ahead, a light emerged from the staff Rhanna had drawn. Its warm glow tore through the darkness like a dagger through fabric, and in an instant Tage was released. She took a deep breath, and her shaking stilled.

"Honestly," the moon djinni muttered. "Only a few steps in, and you're already falling apart? How'd you make it all the way out here in the first place? Get a hold of yourself. The light's going out now, and I'm not bringing it back." The light went out. The dark, stagnant air pressed in around her again. Tage bit the inside of her lip, and forced herself to focus. Now that her initial bout of panic was over, she could feel the differences. This air was heavy, stagnant, and suffocating, but it was not alive with threat in the way the air in that place had been. She could do this.

Toreck dropped back slightly, coming to walk beside Tage. "Don't worry. We'll keep you safe. Just do your best to hide, and don't do anything that would draw attention to yourself. We'll clear out all the bad guys, and then you'll be through."

Tage nodded slightly, before murmuring her agreement. They moved deeper.
 
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Ripley would've grinned at Toreck when he stated his amazement at his knowing - he'd planned and prepared a reply for this particular scenario, and now he'd get the chance to use it!

"My brother plays a lot of Djinni. It's all he ever talks about." He shrugged, imitating perfectly one of the roleplayers he'd seen before while out-of-characters. "And don't worry about us. Our death penalty is much lower than yours, after all." He smiled at Rhanna, nodding, even though she'd stopped looking at them and was already slinking into the cave's shadows, followed by Toreck. Tage went after her, hands on her weapons. Next came Halp, and last Ripley himself - which to others would've been a very, very stressful situation to be in, but the AI was perfectly comfortable since the fear of the unknown required unknown things to be around, which no longer applied to that dungeon.

The AI looked around their environment with concern as they moved forward, his eyes drifting from time to time to the the woman who'd seemed hesitant to go in, reluctant. This cave was not coincidentally similar to the one she'd found him in - rather, it'd been part of the previous iterations of the quest, ultimately scrapped because of the high level requirement reducing the pool of possible participants a lot. It was similar enough to be affecting her, as the AI had feared.

This reached its peak a few seconds later, when Tage began to show signs of being overtaken by panic - her breathing accelerating, almost a whimper. With hardware access Ripley would know for sure, but before he could become certain Rhanna had already reacted, lighting a small flame for the trembling woman.

Ripley couldn't help but feel responsible for that - he, or a previous incarnation of him, had been responsible for designing the quest that tested her so much that it'd left scars in her mind. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, and he wasn't quite sure how he could fix it, which was an even worse feeling.

Toreck and Halp had reached out to Tage as well, and the only one left without doing so was Ripley himself. He waited until the lights went out again, leaving the three other members of their group to lead, and snuck next to the woman, putting a hand softly on her shoulder - a sign of support or encouragement. Perhaps too late, perhaps the woman didn't need more encouragement, but Ripley didn't know this.

Tage.

It's okay.

You don't have to be afraid.

The three messages rattled off one after another almost instantly, with Ripley skipping right over pretending to use a keyboard, but the last one took a few more seconds to arrive. He wasn't too sure how to express himself, for one, and he didn't want to bother the woman. Still, it seemed like the right thing to do, somehow, so he went for it.

I'm sorry that my quest made you have problems with caves.

With that, the AI seemed to be done speaking - but if she didn't push it away he'd leave his hand on her shoulder as they kept following the high-levels around the dungeon, making their way ever deeper into the catacombs - bone-covered floors, pillars of skulls, niches with skeletons spread through the walls, rising higher than the eye could see - and not a speck of light. Tact and sound guided them; with Ripley not cheating at all in this regard - though he would if the going got rough. Soom the heavy thumping of steps made itself heard in front of them, heading slowly in their direction.

Toreck stepped back towards the newbies as the moon djinni suddenly stopped making any noise. "Hide in the holes on the walls." He whispered softly, though his steps afterwards didn't show him doing the same, and neither did Rhanna.

Ripley didn't bother to look much for a hiding spot, just jamming himself into the first free one he'd found, probably breaking contact with Tage since she'd had her panic attack unless she tried to cram them both into the same niche. The thumping sound grew ever closer, and any kind of noise, from a sneeze from the place's dust to loud breathing would have the huge creature on them. Ripley could already imagine the monstruously tall creature's leg - ending in a conic bone that seemed like it shouldn't be able to hold its weight, the AI knew it stretched upwards to meet a heavy, muscular torso that had a face carved into it. From the torso four arms, each of them grafted with a different weapon - sword, flail, axe and spear - which the creature used with deadly skill when roused.

And that was exactly what happened a moment later when the two higher-level players rushed forward. Ripley couldn't quite see what was going on from his hiding spot, but the clanging of metal against metal, the blasts of air from all sorts of magic, the crackling of lightning accompanied by flashes of all colours, crumbling of stone, screeching and the sound of splintering bone... It was anyone's guess who was winning the fight, who was casting what. The AI could've figured out, if needed, but there really was no need for that - a moment later, a burst of muffled laughter came from Rhanna.

"Boy, that was tougher than I'm used to!" She said, her quiet tone echoing in the silence after the fight; proud of her victory. Ripley slipped out of his hiding spot with an easygoing smile, checking that his allies were okay. Usually there'd be another giant skeleton charging their way by now, but Ripley's measures had ensured that there was nothing else nearby that could answer the noise the fight had made.

Barring the status of his allies - all were mostly okay, though he didn't know if Toreck or Rhanna had sustained damage during the fight - the run was looking questionably good. On the bright side, Rhanna seemed to be familiar with the dungeon and had chosen the very shortest route to the boss, meaning that with the sentinel out of the way they would be at the Ossarium in a minute or two, maximum; and without running into any other creatures with any luck - not that luck had any say in it right now.

On the dark side, the very shortest route taken meant that none of the incensaries that puffed smoke into the lower layers of the labyrinth would be disabled, which in turn would make the low level players have to run around any fights blocking vents to stop the creatures from receving some major buffs, instead of safely hiding as they were now.

Still, for now, all he could do was follow the high-levels and hope that they managed to deal with the creatures in the Ossarium as easily as they'd dealt with the sentinel. And, of course...

How are you holding up? He sent to Tage.
 
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For all the times Ripley reached out to Tage, either physically or through the system, she ignored his contact. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate his attempts to try and comfort the pain inside her, but was simply the fact that she couldn't think about it. She couldn't think about Ripley, who he was, and how he had come to be. In this place, which seemed only a thin veil away from... The thoughts were too potent, too painful, too close to the present moment.

As she hid in the crevice of a rock, listening to the foreign sounds of a battle that was far above her own skill and experience level, Tage stared at the glow of her HUD with an almost fiery passion, and carefully studied the faint lines in the rock in front of her. It seemed as though these two, small things were the only thing that kept her from going completely mad in this moment. Back in that cave, she had been completely blind, deprived of every single one of the myriad of hints that usually surrounded her at any given moment, reminding her that this was a game. No longer had pain been numbed to a background blur, or the ground been generally smooth. She had suddenly felt the weight of her clothes on her back, the hem that had brushed her leg had been composed of hundreds of threads, instead of just a single, smooth piece. Every detail had been pushed into overdrive, brought so close to reality as to be completely indistinguishable, at the kind of detail that would have been impossible to maintain for every single one of the hundreds of millions of people who played in the TITAN servers, but for one person... For one person it could be done without a problem. The air could be made thick and heavy, the place could be filled with sounds that sent shivers up her spine, and the screams of a child...

Tage felt her fingernails biting into the palm of her hand as the memories flooded back to her, and she bit down on her tongue until her teeth clicked together, and a small message reminded her that self-mutilation was banned within the game. Yes. Because this was just a game. She stared at the HUD, at the wall, at the lines of her own hand, anything but the darkness that began to grow only a couple feet away, before swallowing everything up. From the distance and the darkness, Tage heard the silvery sound of Rhanna's voice, proclaiming their victory. She turned away from the rock wall to look out into the blackness. The two djinni returned to Tage and the others' hiding spots, beckoning them forward. Tage forced herself back to her feet, one hand still upon the hilt of her dagger, before getting back into line behind Rhanna.

Just before they set out into the darkness once more, Tage pulled up her friend's list, quickly selecting Ripley's name. With one hand, she sent over a short message, brusque and to the point. She couldn't risk having the AI misunderstand what she meant, and she would apologize later if it appeared to offend him.

I'm fine. She sent.

Just leave me alone.

I don't want to think about it.

Tage locked her vision on Rhanna's pure white hair, which seemed to practically glow in the djinni nightvision. The older djinni seemed to sense Tage's eyes on her, and she shook out her hair luxuriously, running her fingers through it before flipping it into Tage's face. The girl might have been a bit of an ass, but she somehow managed to make Tage feel better. Her hand repositioned on the hilt of her dagger, resting a little more comfortably. They'd make it through this.
 
Tage's reactions were confusing for the AI. She seemed like she wanted support, from the way she was behaving, but her words said otherwise. Of course, the AI wasn't going to say that his analyzing routines were better than the woman's words - if she said she wanted to be left alone and not think about it, then he was probably wrong and would have to adjust his routines to account for that. Still, she sounded annoyed. Perhaps it was because of how the AI had insisted on her health? Maybe it was annoying to her. The AI made a mental note about that.

After cutting off contact with Tage as she wanted him to, not even sending a reply message to confirm reception, the AI pushed her out of his thoughts, focusing instead on the dungeon they were clearing at an extremely inappropriate level. Ahead of them lay the central area of the dungeon, which had been rather dramatically called "The Eternal Tomb". Fumes coming from several braziers in the area they were in provided the monsters in it with various buffs, but if all went according to plan they wouldn't have to fight any in that zone - even though the main route was simply a large pit with a spiraling ramp down its sides, the players' path surrounded by mummified corpses embedded on the walls; the multiple tunnels splitting off to the sides letting the patrols be skipped if one was careful enough or, if the group was searching for loot, leading to optional bosses - versions of bosses previously slain in other dungeons, brought back to life by the Deathless.

The underleveled group found themselves staring down the depths of the pit soon enough after passing through the massive gates that separated the two zones. In this second area, darkness was not as overwhelming, letting them see foggily to the other side of the pit from where they stood. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the creatures to move back into the tunnels they patrolled before making their way down, which was in fact more complicated than it sounded. A couple of close encounters later, they'd made their way down the pit, facing the hole they'd have to jump through in order to face the Deathless - not only would the fall make them take damage, but it was here that most parties stood a chance of simply being executed, with the Deathless casting a spell that ripped their bones out of their body as soon as they jumped down the hole.

The environment around them was oppressive as the party stopped to look down the hole - shadows danced around them, flickering at the edge of their eyes simply to unnerve them; the air was heavy and punctuated by the heavy thudding of footsteps that echoed around them without a clear direction. A soft hissing came from the hole, seeming to whisper the names of the players in the dungeon every so often, or perhaps it was just an illusion.

Eventually, Toreck interrupted the feeling of dread. "We've made it this far. No point in hesistating now." He said quietly, perhaps more to himself than the others, as he dropped down the hole, teeth grit as he waited for the trap to trigger and wipe the entire party. Of course, nothing of the sort happened, and a moment later he opened his eyes and looked around the room. The dark cavern was illuminated by sickly green runes carved on walls and floor, covering it completely. In the center, a hunched demon emitted the hissing they'd heard before going down, much louder this time around as it turned to face the intruder - slow, deliberate. Fearless. Its dark robes revealed two sets of arms, one bigger than the other and holding a staff and a book, the other two empty-handed. Tattered robes framed the figure, the holes revealing much of the scaly skin underneath, covered in runes that much like the ones on the floor glowed dimly. Rhanna had jumped in at this point, as had Halp and Ripley himself, and he found himself being stared at by the hooded figure briefly before he proceeded to inspect the rest of the arrivals. If the AI was concerned about Tage's wellbeing, he kept it very much to himself.

No words were exchanged before the creature raised its staff and drew a half-circle above its head in the same sickly tones as everything else in the room. A soft rumble, and the ground burst open in several spots as skeletons made their way out of their graves, four or five creatures that were lumbering slowly towards the intruders. All in all, maybe four or five seconds had passed since Toreck's landing on the room. Ripley nodded to himself, raising his staff to provide what little damage he could with his level as he reviewed the boss' tactics - simple tank and spank until he hit half health, then a round of summons which walked slowly towards the boss. For each one that reached him, the boss would heal up faster whent he chanelling ended, to the point where if four or five of the creatures reached him the party would probably wipe. Ripley bit his lip softly in nervousness, tweaking some values under the hood - hopefully nobody would notice that the level ten mage was now hitting as if he were his real level.
 
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Jumping into that hole was by far the hardest thing that Tage had done yet on this damnable journey. The pit seemed to laugh at her, and she wanted to scream at it, to tell it she wasn't afraid, that it wasn't going to get the better of her. Instead, she couldn't make a noise. She couldn't even shake. She couldn't do it because she didn't dare let Halp see any more fear from her. He was already confused, or at least had been when they had entered the cave. If she showed anything else, he would start to ask questions, later. Once they got out. She didn't want any questions.

So, when the soft, warm feeling of Rhanna's spell engulfed them, protecting them from any damage from the fall, Tage forced herself to not hesitate. She stepped off the edge, clenching her teeth together so hard that she swore her jaw was about to pop. If this wasn't a game. Because it was. Just a game.

There was light down below, enough light that Tage's eyes briefly shut, almost reflexively, as they adjusted to the new brightness. When she opened her eyes again, they immediately locked on the dark figure of the demon, which watched them with empty eyes that were nonetheless full of a cruel, burning malice.

Even as Tage and Halp took a few stumbling steps forward, Rhanna and Toreck threw themselves forward. Had Tage been paying attention, she would have seen a wide grin splitting both of their faces. These two were truly high-level adventurers that lived for the fight, and they approached this battle with utter confidence in their own success.

There was very, very little that Halp could do at this point, considering that even a single hit from one of the summoned creatures, let alone the boss himself, would likely cause their health to fall to at least half, if not a full instant kill. Tage, for the most part, felt the same way, but there was still something she could do. What was it Ripley had said, when they first entered this cave? Creatures that hated life. That, in turn, would mean they would be weak to life. Tage had never done much with life magic, having always been more interested in things that would directly increase her damage output, but she had taken the time to memorize all the basic elemental symbols before she had seriously committed herself to the path of a spellsword. She was intimately familiar with how to cloak her own weapons in fire, so how different could it be to cloak Toreck's weapon in life?

Much harder than she had expected, apparently. Normally she pulled up her overhead, quickly and easily tracing the familiar symbol to summon a flame cloak for her dagger. Now, however, she was having to do it entirely from memory, and he found herself messing up even the parts she should have known well. Her hands were shaking at the sound of the battle that was raging around her. Not only that, but she didn't just have to modify the fire part of the spell, she had to modify its target. The second part was much easier, but it was still another bit of complexity in an already challenging endeavor.

But, eventually, she got it. A faint ping sounded, and a message popped up telling her that she had learned a new spell. In the middle of the battlefield, Toreck's massive two-handed sword began to glow faintly green. It was an incredibly weak spell, and Tage didn't know if it would have even the smallest effect when it came to Toreck's blows. But at least she had done something.

The last thing she expected to have happen was for every eye in the room to suddenly turn toward Toreck, and for every creature to begin lumbering his way. Oh, dear god, what had she done? Had she just made a stupid mistake? A fatal mistake?

Two balls of condensed magic struck the boss, and he let out a hiss of pain and frustration. His abyssal eyes were still trained on Toreck. Tage felt like she couldn't breathe. If the warrior died, they'd all die. She waited for him to yell at her, to tell her to get rid of it. Instead, he laughed. Summoned minions crumpled around him before dissolving into a cloud of toxic black mist. Drawn in by the glow of his sword, they were unwilling or unable to dodge his blows. To the side, Halp was tracing patterns as well, and a brief glow of blood magic would surround Rhanna and Toreck in turn. Once again, Tage doubted the effect was even noticeable to the warriors, but she also understood the feeling. Ripley's spells seemed to at least be having something of an impact, but she and Halp were, ultimately, useless. They were way out of their depth.

It didn't seem to matter, Rhanna and Toreck moved with almost astonishing ferocity, seeming to pinpoint the demon's every weak point. His health fell, slowly but surely. Just before the demon reached half health, Toreck broke away from combat, jumping backwards and signalling Rhanna to hold them back with a round of explosive magic. He ran over to Tage.

"His attack pattern is going to change soon.." He was speaking so fast that Tage could barely understand him. "Get that cloak back on my sword and keep it there, no matter what. I'm a tank, I can take whatever he does, Rhanna or your friends can't.."

Tage nodded, wide eyed, heart pounding. She wasn't even fighting, yet every time the thing's head flicked in her direction she felt her heart leap into her throat. The symbol of her new spell appeared before her eyes, and she traced it, as quickly and efficiently as she could with her hands shaking like leaves.

When he hit half health, the Deathless let out a horrific scream. On the edges of the battlefield, skeletons erupted out of the earth. Tage and Ripley screamed, desperately dodging out of the way, but the skeletons ignored them. For a moment their heads were trained towards the Deathless. They all took a single step forward. But then, like clockwork,every head turned towards Toreck. They took a step in his direction.
 
Tage's brief moment of weakness went unnoticed by the AI - much as he was paying attention to everyone, he wasn't capable of noticing that her hesitation was more than the standard fear of fighting a much higher level boss - then again, most humans wouldn't have noticed either, not unless they knew Tage very well.

The landing gave them a brief moment of calm before the storm before the boss' spawned minions started heading towards them, with Ripley replying with carefully measured attacks - a major difference from Rhanna and Toreck, who had thrown themselves into the fight with what would seem like reckless abandon to a casual observer - nothing of the sort, though, for the AI's analysis routines, which quickly showed them to be using almost-optimal movements, strikes, and dodging patterns. And, apparently, enjoying it quite a bit, which was after all the purpose of a game, was it not?

On the backline, Ripley had managed to fling a couple of shots onto the oncoming skeletons, making them wary enough to not charge at them outright, while Halp and Tage tried to modify their spells to aid the higher level players. The boss himself was deftly handling the onslaught the two fighters brought onto him, strikes being blocked both by staff and magical walls appearing out of nowhere, making the boss' slow movement a much smaller advantage than it would originally seem. Still, even with only two people hitting a boss that was designed to handle a full party, they were managing to slip past its guard, precise strikes that sliced muscle and sinewy flesh and, slowly, lowered the creature's fighting ability.

The tide of the fight turned, though, when Tage finished her life imbuement spell onto Toreck's weapon. It'd taken a surprisingly long amount of time for such a simple spell so despite Ripley's efforts to discourage the skeletons from closing in they were dangerously close - but they turned around to face Toreck as soon as the green glow showed up on his sword. Ripley nodded to himself, a good read on the situation there from Tage that'd make the tank not have to waste any time on building aggro and enable him to focus on dps.

Up to now it had been the boss that had been wailing on Toreck with an endless assault of magic attacks, but now the skeletal minions added their share to it. If the tank was in any danger, he didn't give any signs of it, as he dodged, blocked, weaved and simply powered through their strikes, cutting down one after another of the creatures, which seemed to reform endlessly from the ground, as unwilling to lay dead as the warrior was. With the creatures distracted so, Ripley was also free to focus his attacks on the boss - and, while they wouldn't do much, every little bit of damage mattered.

It took some time, much longer than it usually would, but eventually the boss was about to hit his second phase. Toreck ran back, letting Tage know just exactly how important her spell was - there wasn't much time before the second phase began, though, and soon a horrific screech had the dead rising from their graves again.

Ripley lowered his staff, looked at the newly risen creatures - skeletons made of rune-covered bones, glowing in sickly colours in the darkness, lightning striking from their bodies to the carvings on the walls, almost unable to contain the unholy energies that gave them life. Next to the wizard, Tage's shaky hands - perhaps a bit too shaky? Was she actually okay? But then again, she didn't want him to ask her about that so... perhaps he'd have to find out some other way.

Despite the danger the new summons posed, Toreck just laughed the moment they turned their eyes onto him. The Deathless hissed loudly as they started shambling, his assault on the tank redoubling as the summons walked towards him with the determination of the risen dead.

Perhaps if the warrior had been less experienced they would've had their victory, but the man seemed to have faced these creatures before, and knew just what to do. Rhanna started unloading her attacks on the Deathless, who was ignoring her to try and make that blasted sword's wielder disappear once and for all - the reason why she was leaving Toreck to fend for himself became clear soon, when the first of the energized skeletons reached the warrior and with a thunderous boom exploded in a bright green sphere, leaving a crackling cloud of energy as his parting gift. A moment later, there was another explosion, and another, as the skeletons reached Toreck one by one and delivered their lethal payload, the warrior disappearing under the brightness of the energy clouds; magical projectiles flying constantly from the Deathless as well... and then the attacks stopped; and Rhanna was leaping back eyeing the boss warily in case it turned to attack her.

As the energy dissipated, the warrior's body became visible - kneeling on the ground, sword stuck on the ground, a shadow among the green that slowly became solid, revealing a gentle golden glow around him, and a wild smile of triumph. With a roar, the man stood up, not a scratch on him from the explosions, and turned his attentions on the Deathless once more, who redoubled his efforts to bring the man down.

Slowly, surely, the boss' HP went down thanks mostly to the unsung Rhanna's lethal strikes - and the two fighters proved their status as veterans by maintaining their level of execution for the excruciating minutes that this fight took, dodging and weaving as if they were freshly awoken. Eventually, it was too much for the Deathless to handle - it stumbled, Toreck's blade found it's chest, Rhanna's dagger his neck, and the creature fell to its knees. A soft gurgle was the only noise it could make with its throat slit as both staff and book disappeared into thin air, the runes around them suddenly dying out and leaving them in perfect darkness as the sound of bones falling echoed around them, coming from the opening above.

Rhanna's light came back, revealing the woman's pleased smile. "Told you we were strong enough to make it on our own." She said as she cleaned her dagger on the slain beast's rags - perhaps not the most thought-out option, but it definitely looked heroic.

Toreck's grin was by no means smaller than hers, though he took to his sword with a proper piece of cloth. "Well, we didn't quite do it on our own." With the sword clean, he sheathed it, heading to Tage and giving her a friendly smile. "Good work with the life spell. I didn't think it would be strong enough to distract them, but I'm glad to be wrong."

Halp was smiling like a kid on Christmas. Soon, he'd become as hype as he always was and start spouting about the bossfight and how awesome it was, but for now he seemed to be simply overwhelmed with joy and amazement. Ripley was looking forward to hearing his analysis on the fight, and he specially found amusing the sounds he made to accompany his narration.

While Toreck was heading towards Tage, Rhanna had moved to one of the walls of the chamber, which had crumbled as the Deathless... died? From there on, it was a simple walk to the outside of the chamber, and Ripley set off after her. He wanted to ask Tage about her wellbeing but... Well, perhaps she'd open up more to another human. Part of the problem of revealing he was an AI, now that he thought about it - would Tage treat him like the human he was intended to be?

The AI remained in absorbed silence as they walked up the path, pondering this. He was paying attention to the human interactions around him, sort of - recording them to review them when he was alone and had nothing better to do; but he wouldn't notice them right now; not even if they were to directly ask him something. He was far too concerned with the effects that revealing his status as an AI might have in Tage's behaviour towards him, since she was his main source of human-information, after all.
 
It was only after the fight was over that Tage began to realize that she was shaking. Some mixture of panic and adrenaline had finally shattered whatever mental wall she had put up, and now her heart was racing so hard she thought it might burst right out of her chest. It really was a remarkable simulation. Or maybe that was her real heart, and she simply couldn't tell the difference. She forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, balling her hands into fists briefly before releasing them. No one noticed. The shaking slowed, before coming to a complete stop.

That was, of course, until Halp snuck up behind her and clapped her heavily across the back. She let out a scream, turning around to slash at him with her dagger. He barely leaped out of the way in time, but he burst out laughing. "Oh. My. God. You should have seen your face!"

"Halp," Tage said, teeth gritted. "I'm going to kill you." The dagger flipped around in her hand, her sword appeared in her other hand, and she threw herself at Halp.

"No," Halp yelped, dodging again, before parrying a blow with the handle of his battleaxe. "Please no! We are so close to getting out. Tage!"

Off to the side, Toreck was laughing. He stepped forward, nimbly dodging through Tage's attempts to get at Halp, and clapping her on the shoulder as well. "What a rush! Good job, you two."

Rhanna huffed, turning back from her place at the mouth of the new pathway that had opened up, briefly walking backwards. "We're the ones who did all the work."

"Yes," Toreck agreed, practically shouting after her. "But they survived." He turned to grin at both Tage and Halp. "That deserves a commendation right there!"

"Hey!" Halp complained. Tage, for her part, found herself torn somewhere between indignation and amusement, and ultimately settled on a barking laugh, and punching Toreck on the shoulder.

"We'd better get out of here," Toreck said, seeming utterly unfazed by Tage's blow. She, on the other hand, rubbed her scraped knuckles with a slightly sheepish look on her face. "I'm quite done with this place, and it looks like our friends are going on ahead without us."

The remainder of the walk out was easy. It seemed that, when the Deathless had crumbled, all of the minions that had been roaming the network of caves along with him had crumbled, too. Tage wondered how long it would take him to come back. "Maybe we should have let others know we were doing this?" Tage mused quietly. "So they could follow through after?"

"Nah." Toreck replied. "A, no one would be brave enough to go second. Remember, all probability said that we should have died, rather than clearing the place out. B, I don't want anyone piggybacking off my hard work."

"Isn't that kinda what we were doing?" Halp asked, rather cluelessly.

A devilish gleam flashed in Toreck's eye. "You are right, it is. I guess I'd better kill you all now, so that you can go back and do it on your own." A dagger appeared in his hand and he threw it with almost blinding speed at Halp. He yelped as the thing bounced off his helmet and embedded itself in the wall.

Tage started laughing. "You should have seen your face!" she mocked, while Toreck retrieved his knife.

"Stop fooling around and hurry up!" Rhanna shouted from up ahead, her voice echoing back through the dark passages. A light appeared at the end of her staff, casting a bright gleam in the surrounding area. "What if the thing resurrects while you guys are fooling around?"

"You're such a spoil-sport, Rhanna," Toreck complained good-naturedly.

"Horse around after we get out of here."

They climbed up the rest of the way in silence, and Tage found herself rapidly coming to miss the noise of their conversation. It left her too much room to think. Rather than dwelling on it, she chose to break the silence once more. "What should we do when we get to the other side?"

"You didn't even have a plan?" Rhanna asked, a trace of laughter breaking into her voice. "What on earth were you guys thinking?"

Tage shrugged. "Halp's leaving the country at the end of winter break, and we wanted to do something... I'unno. Big. And what's bigger than the frontlines?"

"She's got you there, Rhanna," Toreck said. Rhanna huffed, but nodded her agreement.

"That reminds me," Halp broke in. "Now that we've survived this grand adventure together, and have become the best of buds, wanna tell us why you two were in such a hurry to get out here? We have our deadline, but it obviously would have been much safer to just... wait."

"Well, we..."

Toreck," Rhanna scolded, cutting the man off.

"What? Even if we tell them, what are they going to do with the information? Oh, better yet. If we tell you, you have to come with us!"

"Oh, dear god. Remind me why I have such an idiotic friend."

"What? It's not such a bad idea."

"What are a group of level 10s going to do?"

"Nothing. But there's no harm in it either, and then they'll really get something big. Come on, Rhanna. They really did help us out."

Rhanna contemplated it for a moment. "Fine. Whatever."

"Yes!" Toreck fistpumped. "But you have to promise not to tell anyone."

"We promise," Tage and Halp said in unison. All three of them were so wrapped up in the conversation that they did not notice Ripley's silence. Rhanna, however, did, and she cast a rather odd look at the Djinni. Ultimately, however, she didn't say anything.

"Okay. Here we go. Krajni told us that the trap finally triggered. We've got the Knight cornered, and the raid is going down tomorrow."

There was a moment of stunned silence as both Tage and Halp gaped, before both spoke at the same time.

"You got the Knight?" Halp cried, while Tage said, "The Krajni? The Ultimate?"

Both of those were names that every single person who played Djinni knew. The Knight was, according to lore, the right hand demon of the King. Unlike the King, who remained at the passage, silently guarding, the Knight was an avatar of the battlefield. Whenever he appeared, the tide always turned for the worse against the Djinni who were fighting. Most commonly, the Kingslayers. He was impossible to track, and almost impossible to defeat, as he gained strength with every individual, demon and djinni, involved in the battle.

Krajni, better known at this point as the Ultimate, was the leader of the Kingslayers. He was the strongest player in Djinni, by a massive margin. Every young player who came into the end dreamed of becoming Krajni. When word of him had first begun to spread, there had been a sudden rash of Shadow, Void, Night Djinni appearing in the game. Shortly afterwords, and a rumor was spread that it was by the will of the developers, one of the Kingslayer raids had dropped an incredibly rare cosmetic effect, which every member of the guild had voted should be used on Krajni. It had granted him a set of dual horns, and increased his height by a solid half-foot. The Ultimate was by far the most recognized figure of Djinni: Darkness of Ages Past. It was rare for him to ever come off the front-lines, but when he did people lined up for blocks to catch a glimpse of him. He had become so influential, in fact, that he had become a part of the game lore, and at one point TITAN had created a quest where the reward was Krajni's first sword. The thing was utterly useless, but still sold for millions of dollars of in-game currency for collectors.

Tage was the first one to catch the implication of that information. "Wait. That means you are a part of the Kingslayers?"

"Right-o," Toreck agreed.

Halp's mind, however, was in other places. "Are we going to get to meet the Ultimate?"

Rhanna laughed. "Yeah, you will." Halp began to look like he was about to explode, and Tage felt her heart begin to flutter. "And, if you keep looking like that," Rhanna scowled, "You are going to get slapped."

"Rhanna's got a crush," Toreck advised quietly. A ball of fire suddenly exploded on his head.

"I do not," Rhanna objected.

"Do too."

"Do not."

When the group emerged from the cave, they were significantly uphill of where they had gone in. They climbed out of the hole, before making their way around to the ledge on the backside of the entrance. From here it was easily possible to see the brightly gleaming river that had marked the edge of the Middle Territories, and the city the five of them had been in earlier that day.

"It's surprisingly beautiful," Tage said softly.

"Yeah," Toreck agreed. "You wouldn't think such a wartorn land could be pretty, but it really is. You'll start seeing wild country soon, as well. Country that hasn't seen a djinni for thousands of years. That's even more beautiful, in a way."

"You ready to get going," Rhanna asked, "Or do the kiddies need a break?"

"I thought you promised us horseplay." Toreck teased. Halp scowled. Tage was still too busy looking back over the land they had traveled to say anything. She imagined it would almost be possible to plot the entire route they had taken to get here for this view.

"Horse all you want," Rhanna replied dryly. "I want to get to the rendezvous point before nightfall, and it is going to take twice as long now that we've picked up a group of tagalongs."
 
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It was almost miraculous how Ripley managed to not notice any of the excitement happening around him in the cave, but abstracted as he was, focused as only a machine could be, it became explainable. He was still there, sort of - a bit of a glassy-eyed look, unnoticeable in the dark, a tired stumble to his steps, a limpness of his frame. Perhaps in another circumstance it would've been noticeable, but with the news that Toreck had broken to his human companions, Ripley was miles away from being the focus of anyone's attention. Just as he wanted it.

In his mind, he reviewed the interactions he'd had with Tage, running simulations of them, trying to figure out the X factor of whether she was treating him like a human or not. She was clearly not treating him like Halp, but then again Halp was nowhere like Ripley. She didn't have, as far as he could tell, any acquaintances that were similar to the AI himself, so he was going to have to approximate - and from her behaviour with Toreck, Rhanna, the people from quests from before, it all pointed towards it being a possibility. He ran more simulations, changing parameters slightly, a small furrow in his brow appearing when he realized that they were all returning the same result - maybe.

Maybe was inadequate. Maybe wasn't precise enough. If he knew he was being treated differently, he could learn from that difference. If he wasn't, then he could learn of how he was being treated. But not knowing which of those it was, it invalidated so much information! It was frustrating, and frustration was an unpleasant feeling that nagged and refused to let go, gnawing at him. He shook his head very slightly, leaving his thoughts barely in time to hear Toreck and Rhanna take part in a very childlike exchange of accusations.

During the trip up and out, the AI reviewed the interactions that had happened. More things to worry about - with Halp, he would've been unnoticed, but Toreck and, specially, Rhanna, seemed to be paying him more attention. It was... it was probably too late to try and blend in with his companion's excitement, so perhaps it'd be best if he pretended to not know who either the Knight or Krajni were? He was, after all, rather dispassionate for a human, so it wouldn't be out of character for him to not be too excited about it? He bit his lip softly with worry, unconsciously.

Perhaps he was overthinking things. There was no reason for them to suspect he was an AI, so they'd assume he was a human. Perhaps they wouldn't question this even in the face of new data, and just put it in the "human oddities" bag. Slightly reassured by this thought, he willed the thoughts out of his mind, as much as he could - he couldn't stop worrying about it, but there were more things to analyze. Rhanna's reaction of suspicion had put him on edge, but perhaps it was due to the fact that he hadn't promised to keep the "secret"? Still, that didn't seem to have stopped Toreck, so hopefully it was not as relevant as the AI thought.

No, let's not go back to that. The Knight! The fight was promising indeed. The Knight was an endgame world-boss, and he was tough by any metric you could want to consider. Beyond the standard requirement of high power to beat him, he required good communication and good reflexes from everyone involved. Ripley wasn't too sure of how many times before the Kingslayers had run into him, but he doubted that they'd brought him low enough to see the full repertoire of abilities the boss had. He could, of course, connect to the priviledged network and find out, but thinking about this was stopping him from worrying about being discovered, so he'd rather not - though, in the end, all he could conclude was that it'd be an interesting event to bear direct witness to before they reached the outside.

Outside, he nodded at the comments about the beauty of the scenery - he couldn't quite appreciate the beauty of it, but he knew that the places it was based on were considered as such. He'd much rather look at a bustling city, but he could justify that as a matter of different tastes. Still, there was something about the sight, the size of it, the immensity of the vista before him that made him feel small even though he was part of something much greater than what was in front of his eyes. Toreck and Rhanna returned to their bickering - friendly bickering? Was that even the right term for it? Still, it seemed to not be making them angry at each other, so it had to be friendly, but with Ripley's mind back in the present he felt the need to defend his group against Rhanna's accusations.

"We'll try our best not to delay you, then." He replied quietly, turning away from the view to face Rhanna - perhaps he was out of place talking for the others, but he couldn't imagine with their excitement that they would do anything to risk their chances to see this encounter. "Thank you for this opportunity." He added, with a small bow towards Rhanna first, then Toreck. Humans from some countries did this, didn't they? He'd have to find a suitable one to be his human persona's residence if they ever asked, to make it make sense. The truth was, of course, that he was simply more used to the Djinni custom of bowing than the human ones.

With his piece said, he withdrew to himself again. Tage did not want to talk with him, he couldn't trust Rhanna, Toreck or Halp, and he couldn't leave to do something else; so it seemed the time to blend into the background and let the others' conversation hide his presence.
 
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