“Irene! Hey, heeeey, Medic lady! Over here!”

Irene turned, her eyes landing immediately on the nametag hovering above the head of a young man rushing toward her.

Drakonias: Level 6

(Fighter/Ranger)

She hesitated a moment, but recruiting was her job, so she put on a practiced smile and started toward him. “Drakonias, is it?”

“That’s me! Wow, I didn’t think I’d meet anyone else Awakened here. Don’t suppose you’re local?”

“My husband and I live in Alturas, but we’re spending a few months traveling at present.”

“I don’t know where that is. But you’re a Medic! I’ve never seen that class. We could really use a healer.”

Yeahhh, not gonna happen. She maintained her smile. “Well, if you need more information, I happen to have a pamphlet right here.” She pulled one out to hand him. “Do you have friends? I can give you a few extras if you want to pass them around.”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Four?”

She handed them to him.

He flipped it open, then his eyes went progressively wider as he read through it. “Wooow, where’d you find this? This is…”

“Impressive, right? We're part of a group that’s compiling all the information we can get our hands on. You can check out our website for more information, and we’ll be putting out a book soon.”

“Oh, awesome! If it’s half as detailed as this, it’ll definitely go on my list to buy.”

"Alas, I’ve come to bring warning of the dire times that lay ahead,” Irene said in a low, dramatic voice. “The gates of hell will open, and the armies of darkness will come forth, and only by preparing now can we be ready as mighty warriors and healers to stand against the tides.”

“An upcoming event?”

“I suppose you’d call it that. The point is, we need to get as many people leveled as high as possible in the next three months.” She pointed to the URL and QR code on the back of the pamphlet. “We’re trying to build a network, connect everyone, share information as quickly and thoroughly as possible. But only in person. We don’t want to go too public yet, anyone else who’s tried to leak this info has had their sites shut down fast.”

“Wooah, a cover-up? That explains so much. I thought it was weird this wasn’t international news by now. I mean, come on, dungeon monsters! This should have been front page material months ago.”

“It’s being actively suppressed, but like I said, we have an invasion… event imminent, and hiding this information is only going to leave the planet as a whole weakened and unprepared.”

“So it’s like a secret underground. Wow.” He shook his head. “And here I thought fighting monsters in real life was crazy enough. Got more of those? If I’m only allowed to spread info in person, I can think of a few others who might be interested.”

Irene handed him a whole handful. “Get as many people Awakened as possible. Buy the book if you can, and our website also has a list of other informational books you should get in hard copy for when the invasion takes out manufacturing and infrastructure. We’re trying to compile a complete leveling guide on every class we can gain access to.”

“I'll do that! Do you want help here, someone to back you up that your doomsday message isn’t a prank?”

“I’m not telling anyone else about the invasion yet, and neither should you. Today’s goal is to get more people to a dungeon to Awaken. But it’s just something to keep in mind. This is important, and time-sensitive. Be discreet.”

“I want in. How can I help?”

When they reconvened for a late lunch to compare notes, Levi had only managed to convince three people to come and was starting to think this place was a dead end after all. As he'd thought, everyone was too caught up in their normalcy to even consider an actual opportunity to be the heroes they wanted to imagine themselves as. After all, actually fighting for your planet required effort, and if he knew anything about these sort of people it was that they hated effort.

“How’d we do?” Cassandra asked as she passed out sandwiches.

"Twelve for me," Irene said, "But I also met another Awakened, and he wants to help.”

“Drakonias?” Peter asked. “He was admiring Henry. I think he might be interested in switching to Tamer.”

“He said he’d come to the demonstration tonight.”

“I wonder how many will actually show up. I got a lot of ‘yes’ responses, but people do tend to forget…” Cassandra tapped her chin.

“How many did you get, then?”

"Twenty seven!" Cassandra declared with a grin.

Levi snapped his head around to look at her, incredulous. "Really?"

"Really. And another eight or so maybes." She shifted, smiling secretively.

Irene sighed. “You're definitely shameless."

Cassandra stretched, smirking. "Whatever works."

Irene scowled. "We're supposed to be recruiting people who will be willing to join us, not trick them into it."

"I don't care the methods," Levi interrupted. "They need a wake-up call and if they need to be tricked into showing up for it, fine. What they do after is where the decision is actually made. If they're ignoring and dismissing the warnings even after seeing it for themselves, that's on them. Getting them Awakened is on us."

"Sheesh, no pressure, eh?" Cassandra laughed. "Don't worry, you'll have a full crowd tonight."

"Don't you mean 'we'?" Irene asked.

"I'll be avoiding dungeons from now on," Cassandra said. "Until we get word out, we need someone besides Mom to manage the website and keep tabs on things online. She's great, but... you know how she is."

Irene hesitated, then nodded. "I suppose you're right. But what about your own progress?"

Cassandra waved away the question. "I'll start power leveling in a month or so, plenty of time." She grinned mischievously. "Besides, if what Levi said is true, I'll probably be able to level even faster than you all by then."

"Be sure you tell me before you start," Levi insisted. "I'll assign an escort for you. Once dungeons cross into higher thresholds the danger increases dramatically. You won't be able to get away with smaller groups any more by then."

"You know I'm the one who actually wrote our instructional guides, right? You don't need to keep spouting the same warnings to me. I'm perfectly well aware that there are limits to what I can survive, and I have no intention of stupidly getting myself killed."

Levi took a moment to suppress the instinct to snap, and instead nodded. "Good. Tell me when you're going to begin, and I'll send a team with you."

"Sure."

"Right. Seems you’ve all got this and I doubt I’ll be any use here. This kind of thing isn’t my strong suit and I believe it would be a better use of time for me to try to reach level 15 as soon as possible. Once I can access the crafting system, we’ll have a lot more options as far as equipping and gearing up new Awakened too. It’s pretty obvious I’m doing more harm than good.”

“Three people is more than zero people,” Irene pointed out.

“And a whole lot less than twenty seven.” Levi unlooped the convention badge from around his neck. “I’ll swap with Gordon, he’d be more suited to this. I’ll agree that this is a good idea, that it’s something important that should be done. I’m not the right person to do it. I’ll be happy to do the Awakening runs to intro newcomers, but this kind of recruitment is not for me.”

“You at least going to loosen up a bit and have some fun?” Cassandra gestured back in the direction of the convention.

“No, I’m going to find any high level dungeons in the area, sweep them for Essences, and clear them if any have spawned. We should probably leave any level 1s alone at this point, so there’s still something for the newcomers to level in, but I need to progress. I’ve been stalled too long as it is.”

“Can I come too?” Peter asked. “I can help!”

Levi glanced at Irene.

For a moment she teetered, then slowly nodded. “Be very, very careful.”

“We will!”

“We will.”

“Then… good luck.”

“Don’t forget to meet back up with us tonight!” Cassandra pointed to Levi’s watch - they’d all gotten mechanical ones to track time in dungeons and sync up with each other. “9:30, don’t be late!”

Peter looked between them, then spoke up. “I’ll keep track too. Don't worry. We’ll be there.”