Darryl: What do you mean, they’re bad news?

Darryl stared at the pristine white ceiling of a bedroom that was spacious but furnished sparsely, lying on a comfortable but unfamiliar bed.

Thomas had bid him and Ben to go to their rooms and pretend like nothing was wrong, and they had done so. Darryl even took a quick shower before going to his room, just to be sure.

Thomas: As you may have noticed looking at their party description, Gunther Bauermann wasn’t actually in their party. Same for the girl. It’s just the four of them, while the German guy is in a party with an Elise sharing the same last name as him.

Darryl: Not me. Just their party name.

Ben: I saw party details. so?

Thomas: I sent the description of my Corpora glasses to him after finding out that those descriptions are unilingual, and traded him some of our paper and a pen.

Thomas: He didn’t tell the Frenchmen about this at any point during our conversation, and traded me back the paper with a message written on it.

Thomas: The Frenchmen must not have known that we can trade like that, because Louis was keeping an eye on us whenever I and Gunther were in the same room.

Ben: enough sus[ence! the message!!!

Thomas: They tried to kill him, but when you attack someone in a safe room you temporarily freeze. They didn’t all attack at the same time, so he couldn’t run out of the safe room after that happened. They’ve been keeping shifts since, at least one stays behind while the others leave to grind. The power gap only grew since.

Darryl: If he leaves w us, four against four. Good odds.

Thomas: It’s unfortunately more complicated than that. They didn’t attack him for his loot.

Ben: wut? then why??? :0

Thomas: The other crawler is his 19 year old daughter, and all our laws and police are gone.

Darryl: Ah.

Ben: WE KILL THOSE ASSHOLES!!!

Darryl: Perhaps we should.

Thomas: She apparently locked herself in her room after it happened and won’t come out. She struck back when they grabbed her, freezing her for hostility in a safe room. The clothes on her body were also frozen and indestructible as that happened, stopping their attempts.

Thomas: Her father managed to haul her paralysed body into a room while only he and Geruet weren’t frozen by the penalty, and no one else can open her door. He’s been waiting for an opportunity since.

Darryl: We are that opportunity.

Darryl: The plan?

Thomas: I don’t know yet.

Ben: KILL THEM!

Thomas: Sleep first. We decide our course of action tomorrow with a clear head.

Ben: SHIT!

Darryl: Yes. Come up with a plan tomorrow. We’re tired and angry now.

Darryl: Doors are indestructible and locks unbreakable. She safe.

Thomas: Indeed. Rushing will get us nowhere.

Darryl closed the menu and grimaced. He almost wished that Thomas had waited with this information until tomorrow, because the sleep that almost took him before was now completely gone.

He spent the next half hour staring at the ceiling, forming and dismissing plan after plan. They simply knew too little, and right now every plan ended with them killing the Frenchmen. Despite what these men were planning to do, something about that just felt wrong.

This game. This goddamned world dungeon. He felt like it was forcing them to these extremes. He wasn’t even in here for a whole day, and already it was making him plot to kill four people.

Even if he told himself that those bastards were planning a very dark but inevitably human sin, that it was people hurting people here, he couldn’t shake that this was all the world dungeon’s fault. If it weren’t for the damned Syndicate, they wouldn’t even be in this damnable situation.

He wouldn’t be fighting for his life, Rex would still be okay and billions of people would still be around. But those bastards had snuffed them all out, just to bring some entertainment to the masses. It made him sick. It made him angry. It made him want to blow up this whole dungeon, and then the Syndicate itself.

He knew he couldn’t.

Darryl knew he couldn’t do anything but survive and play by their twisted rules.

But he could save the girl. That much he could do. That much Borant couldn’t deny him.

At the very least he could see to her safety. That much he swore to himself.

With that oath on his mind, Darryl eventually fell asleep, the stress and fatigue of the day finally overwhelming his thoughts.

___

Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 6 hours.

Darryl woke up after a good eight hour sleep when Ben pinged him awake with a merciless flurry of messages. The French party had apparently left the safe room but one, and Ben thought it was a realllllly bad idea to allow the other three to roam freely or set up an ambush.

Which was absolutely true. More groggy than annoyed Darryl sent a quick reply and ignored the messages following as he slowly woke up and got out of bed. He had never been much of a morning person.

Ben: they left hoodie, others going left

Thomas: Don’t worry, they don’t know we have the neighbourhood map. As long as they don’t accidentally wander out of our range, they cannot actually ambush us.

Darryl: They have a bronze star too. Prob setting up an ambush in their boss map area.

Thomas: …

Thomas: Shit. That’s true.

Ben: follow them?

Ben: I can sneak?!

Thomas: No. Let’s not give them the opportunity to pick us off one by one.

Darryl: True. Face them together.

Ben: FINE

Darryl went to the showers and quickly rinsed his face, before returning to the safe room to find Ben pouting.

“They don’t actually have food in here, and I couldn’t take the bucket of nuggets before because my inventory wasn’t activated yet.” Ben grumbled, and his stomach growled the same sentiment. “Those bastards must’ve hidden this place’s food somewhere.”

“Or they’ve been eating their adventurer biscuits.” Darryl said.

Ben’s pout intensified as he took out one of the biscuits and studied it. The description said they were good for a whole day of nutrients and they’d probably wouldn’t lie heavy on the stomach in combat, but those were but paltry concessions compared the magnificent taste of the Bopca’s cooking skills.

“Let’s go back there and stock up on some food.” Ben said, the biscuit disappearing into his inventory again. “Those French bastards are either expecting us to attack, or continue grinding like nothing is going on. We should do something they aren’t expecting.”

Darryl quickly PM’d Ben’s idea to Thomas, knowing fully well that the teen made the argument for his stomach’s sake rather than on strategic insight. It didn’t devaluate the argument though, perhaps it was better to do something entirely unrelated first to throw the French off their game.

“Every hour we wait might be too late, though.” Darryl said slowly. “If we’re going to intervene, we should do it soon.”

“I know, I know.” Ben muttered. “But maybe we should level a bit more first. They’re stronger than us right now, by sheer numbers. We don’t have any hidden abilities save some exploits, while they may have some broken skills or combos to throw at us.”

“There’s no telling who’s the stronger group here, but we can’t let that dissuade us. We’ll never know for sure if they have some hidden trick to pull on us.” Darryl said. “Thinking like that invites permanent inaction.”

“But we could at least grab that gold box they gave us. A single gold item might turn the battle in our favour, so three are sure to do it. Meanwhile we only gave them silver and some gold they cannot actually copy with ease.”

Darryl pondered on that. It was true, it might indeed hold the answer of equalling out the numeric superiority issue.

They talked it over with Thomas when he arrived, and he was quickly persuaded. Gunther wasn’t up yet, so they couldn’t actually say anything to him before leaving. Hopefully he wouldn’t think they bailed on the problem when he woke up later.

“So…” Ben said.

“Grab food. Grab gold boxes. Gain some more experience. Save the girl.” Darryl said.

“And all preferably within the next 24h. We can’t let the last one simmer for too long.” Thomas said.

They all nodded, and exited the safe zone.