Chapter 80

Orin had thanked them. Walter had assured them he would be in touch, and soon. Angelica and Jay's group had said their goodbyes as well as their thanks for the dungeon run. Everyone had gotten something from the run, not just something but two items – an extreme rarity for dungeon runners. It had been a very fruitful day for every member of their group.

Jay welcomed Angelica to join them for a post dungeon run meal celebration but she had somewhere to be. So instead everyone exchanged handshakes and wished each other well as they separated.

Glimmerhide Group had been politely escorted out of the building. The group had done what they were supposed to do and more. Now it was time for the Church to adjust to what the group had done and the group really did not need to be there for that.

They had attempted to leave through the front entrance but had stopped upon encountering a large crowd. Jay noticed that the front face of the temple had been lit up and glowed a teal color. It was easily viewable from a distance and many people who had noticed it had come to the temple to find out what was going on.

There was no way to push a carriage or cart through the gathered mass of people so the Church Guards took Jay and his group along a flowery path to the rear of the building. The rear of the building was glowing, as was the entire building – not just the front face. Jay and his group were helped in to a waiting carriage.

Jay gave the driver the address of their destination and then settled next to M'redith for the ride. The group was quiet as the carriage rolled along, everyone taking a moment to relax now that they had finally left the temple. Jay turned on his aura and took turns cleaning everyone. By the time they arrived everyone was clean, their hair shiny and bouncy, and each of them smelled faintly of the beach.

The carriage slowly came to a halt and Jay rummaged around in his bag. As the carriage doors opened Jay took his mask out of the bag and put it on. It immediately adjusted to fit his face snugly and stuck fast to his skin.

The small crowd gathered in front were waiting to get in and muttered to each other as they watched as a masked Jay got out of the carriage and helped M'redith down. The others followed along behind her. They stood in front of a large building, a freshly white painted sign with red lettering hung over the entrance.

“Redgrass” it read.

Jay took his group to the entry line and walked to the front of the line, bypassing a number of people who had been waiting for quite some time. A few of them had some choice words for Jay cutting the line but he paid them no attention and walked right past them.

As Jay reached the head of the line the bouncer politely stopped him. Although the owners all wore masks anyone could put a mask on their face. Jay shook his head at his forgetfulness and turned his title on.

The Masked One appeared over Jay's head in blue lettering, showing his title off for everyone to see.

The bouncer had been preparing to throw Jay out and back to the end of the line. It wouldn't have been the first time someone had attempted to get in just by wearing a mask. He had reached a hand out to place on Jay's chest to stop him from entering when the bouncer saw Jay's title appear.

The bouncer snatched his hand back before it made contact with Jay's body. He swallowed once and nodded. “Apologies Sir, please go right ahead inside. The hostess will assist you with whatever you may need.”

The bouncer didn't know Jay but he had heard plenty of rumors about the owners of Redgrass. The owners had titles, real titles, just like the one from ancient stories. The title was more frightening than the mask – and the mask was pretty frightening. The staff had all been told that the owners would always identify themselves with the title. No names were needed.

The bouncer nodded nervously as Jay thanked him and led his group inside. As the last person, Norri, closed the door behind her the bouncer let out an audible breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding in.

The next person in line watched the interaction quietly. “Who was that?” they asked after the door shut behind Norri.

The bouncer ran a hand through the hair on his head and let out a deep sigh, “Owner. Glad I didn't stop them.”

“How'd they get that title?” the patron asked.

The bouncer looked at the patron like he was crazy, “Good question. You go ask him.”

The patron shook his head. “No.. no, that's ok. Forget it.”

----

Clad in a lovely yellow and white dress the hostess had immediately recognized Jay's title and stood a little straighter when he approached her.

“Good evening sir. How may I help you?” she asked seriously.

“I'd like somewhere for my friends and I to eat, four people total. Something private but not private if you know what I mean?” Jay said with a smile that was entirely wasted on the hostess as Jay was still wearing his mask.

The hostess shivered once under Jay's level gaze. All she saw was the mask looking down at her. “Of course. I know just the spot. Follow me, please?” she remarked as she led the group slowly through a few rooms until they reached the dance floor. There were a few people dancing and the room was well lit but not crowded. The music wasn't too loud either and was just loud enough to dance to while still being able to hear yourself speak.

On one side of the dance floor were a number of tables along with a private section set further back that had been roped off. A guard stood in front of the roped off entrance. He stepped aside as the hostess sat Jay and his group at a beautifully stained wood table. Each side of the table had a soft padded leather chair set in front of it.

Everyone took a seat and the hostess smiled. “Is there anything else I can get you before I send for your waitress?”

Jay grinned but stopped as he realized no one would see it. “This is great, thank you.”

The waitress smiled at Jay and then left the table.

“Post dungeon party?” Aiden asked with a grin.

Jay laughed, “Nope. After action review.”

“What's that?” Norri asked.

Jay sighed as he stretched his arms out above his head. His shoulders were sore from using the staff so much that day. “It's really just four questions. After every dungeon run you get together and you ask four questions, in order.”

Norri nodded.

Jay continued, “What did we expect? What happened? What went well and why? And finally what can we improve on and how?”

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“What's that supposed to do?” Aiden asked.

“It lets us figure out what we did right, what we did wrong, and how to do it right next time. It forces us to focus on improving how we run dungeons.” Jay explained.

“So,” he began. “What did we expect?”

Norri wasn't sure how the process was supposed to work but spoke up anyway. “We.. expected a dungeon? Three keys, put them in the pedestal and we're done.”

M'redith laughed dryly. “That didn't pan out did it.”

Jay nodded, “Ok, what happened?”

“We were ambushed with a surprise hard mode fight.” M'redith volunteered.

“Good. Now lets talk about what went right.” Jay offered.

The group broke out of their thoughts and discussed the fights.

M'redith and Norri had done excellent with trading off enemies. M'redith would pull them back to the group and Norri would split one off and kill it before returning for another. Aiden had done quite well with his heals – Angelica had barely had to do anything at all the entire run. Norri's staff work had been incredible. And Jay had done well calling out potential fight mechanics. The group as a whole had done well working as a group during fights.

The group all discussed why each of those things had gone well whether it was due to a specific person or a specific way of doing things.

“What about things we could improve on?” Jay asked. “I'm not limiting this to things we did wrong – even if we did something right if you see a way we could improve on that I'd like to hear about it.”

Aiden grimaced and raised a hand which was unlike him. Usually he just shouted things out.

A waitress approached the table. She wore black pants and a white button up shirt. The group discussed various foods before finally deciding to split a couple of pepperoni and cheese pizzas. Before she left Jay had her add some feta cheese to one of the pizzas for him. She thanked Jay and left for the kitchen to drop off their order.

Another waitress brought the table flute glasses and a bottle of champagne wrapped in a towel laid in a bowl of ice. “From the chef, with her compliments.” she said sweetly as she poured out four glasses and set them in front of each of Jay's group. Once finished she turned smartly and left leaving the group once again alone.

Jay looked back over to Aiden, “What were you about to say?”

Aiden looked sheepish. “So I don't mean this as a dig on anyone but there were a lot of little wounds. Like, too many. I could keep up with it but it really did seem like an excessive amount of wounds.”

Jay nodded, “I know I had quite a few. Ok, so how can we improve on that?”

“We're going to have to get hit a lot less often or we're going to find ourselves in some real trouble in the higher leveled dungeons.” M'redith said with a sigh. “I know I got hit too many times that run. I'll work on it.”

“We'll all work on it. I'm pretty sure we all took quite a few hits.” Jay said with a smile.

No one could see his smile.

Jay got frustrated and began to remove his mask.

“Aren't you worried people will figure out who you are?” Aiden asked as Jay finally pried the mask off.

“What people?” Jay said as he looked around. No one was sitting or standing anywhere close to them. “Besides, how am I expected to eat pizza with a mask on?”

Norri laughed. “Just kind of.. smush it against the mask?”

Jay shook his head with a smile that everyone could see this time.

“Ok. Next up. M'redith what could we improve on?” Jay continued.

She looked over at Aiden with a sad smile, “One of the skeleton dogs dropped to the ground but wasn't dead. It popped back up at the end of the fight and destroyed Aiden's ankle.”

Jay nodded, “Angelica has a special rod that allows her to heal injuries that normally require an infirmary to heal. If she hadn't been there Aiden would have been out of commission for the rest of the run. That was a big deal. We can't let that happen again. How can we improve?”

Aiden grinned, “Don't stop hitting things just because they fall to the ground?”

M'redith laughed, “It's funny when you put it like that but you're not wrong.”

Norri and Jay looked at each other with a grin. “Ok, so I think we all have been treating fallen enemies as dead enemies. No more doing that. From now on make sure your enemy is dead before moving on to another. Easy fix, right?”

Aiden nodded emphatically.

“Norri? How about you – did you notice anything?” Jay asked.

Norri smiled, “I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings but.. M'redith tried to pull while wounded. She didn't even realize she was injured.”

M'redith blushed but nodded in agreement.

Jay nodded, “Nothing to be ashamed about. M'redith just didn't notice she was hurt. So how can we improve on that?”

Aiden spoke up, “We need to be watching out for our injuries as well as others. Maybe do a check before each pull?”

“Wouldn't that slow us down a bit?” M'redith asked.

Aiden shrugged, “Not really. It should only take ten seconds. Besides, pulling when a group member is injured would be far worse than adding a little bit of extra time to each pull.”

“How about you Jay, anything to add?” M'redith asked.

Jay shrugged, “Just one. We fought too close to another group at one point and ended up pulling that extra group in to the fight. At the time it was just skeletons and it was no big deal but if that had happened in any of the other dungeons I've been in it could have ended extremely poorly for us.”

M'redith nodded, “I can work on my positioning. Maybe everyone should be a little more aware of where we are in relation to other enemies we aren't yet fighting.”

Jay nodded, “I can agree with that. Anyone have anything else?”

The group all looked at each other and shrugged.

“Then that's it. I declare this AAR or after action review completed. Now it's time for eating and drinking!” Jay said with a wide smile as he picked up his flute of champagne and his group did so as well.

“That was an excellent first run. Here is to many more! To Glimmerhide Group!” Jay toasted.

“Glimmerhide Group!” the others replied and everyone drank.

“You know what this champagne would go great with? Grilled cheese.” Aiden said as he began to rummage around in his bag.

“No!” insisted M'redith in shock.

Norri laughed, “Don't bother. It hasn't even been an hour yet.”

Aiden futilely tried to open his magical sandwich maker but it wouldn't budge. Apparently it was still making a grilled cheese that wasn't quite yet ready for consumption.

M'redith laughed, “We just ordered pizza Aiden! It should be here in minutes! Can't you wait a couple of minutes without eating?” she said in exasperation.

Aiden looked from person to person with a guilty look on his face. “...no?”