Courtney sighs, “I hate what you just said because it means I can’t look at Rosha’s dad as evil.”

Jason holds both his hands up, “Woah there! Even if I haven’t heard much, I’m more than willing to bet he is evil to some extent. Rather, he seems more like one of those people who try to claim to be beyond morality. Sure, in this universe, morality isn’t an absolute thing. But claims like that are a lie because morality is partially subjective. They can’t claim to be beyond morality when it is to some extent decided between the two sides.”

After that, there isn’t much else to cover of the heavy stuff and the three hang out in the den till it is time to head to bed. Courtney however has something else to do. Things hadn’t been settled during their talks but she knew one thing. Jason had been right about her being in a gilded cage but also that Rachel’s father could actually stop her. The cage door was open, she just had to step through.

In fact, it didn’t even mean she had to abandon the cage. After all, it still had worth. But she couldn’t limit her resources if she truly wanted to protect Rachel. While Courtney doubted that her dad would ever actually do anything harmful, there was some debate as to whether his opinion on what was and was not harmful would match her own.

To limit herself to information filtered by a potential source of danger was intolerable. Until now, all the training and propaganda had limited her view. Like standing on top of a hill, it appeared she had the best view but since she never looked behind herself, she missed the wall that Rachel’s father had built.

Now was a time for change and after logging out she spun up her private instance. Even though it had all the connections provided by her employers, it was still private. That, however, doesn’t mean she isn’t going to set up a new section. Because while once someone has left they can’t check on what is going on, anyone else who ends up in the room would be able to update Rachel’s father.

So one hidden room later and Courtney is ready to start. And that is where she pauses. As she thinks about it, while she was trained to expand her network, none of it involved starting from scratch. The first step was always either using pre-existing connections or going to the other maids to see about their contacts. Even if that failed, the answer wasn’t to find your own help. It was to talk to whoever the head maid was.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Maybe even the head maid didn’t know the answer. It was entirely possible that they would just have connections to their masters’ actual spies. This didn’t stop her, though. Even if unintended, Rachel had actually provided a way out. While it wasn’t a deep connection, she knew a person in NeoRealm that could cut through the nonsense. Better yet, because it was before they met up and Rachel’s direct orders Courtney hadn’t personally researched the man.

She had read the report on him but there wasn’t anything to connect her personally with the man. So while having to communicate through NeoRealm would slow down things it would be worth it. After all, who better to try to start real world shenanigans than someone well known as the fourth wall breaking mage, Andrew.

That figured out, Courtney looks around the empty hidden room and laughs. She had been prepared to do an all nighter and now it was going to be a simple matter of writing a letter. Sure, that will take some time, but nothing like setting up an entirely new web of contacts. Courtney sighs and logs back into NeoRealm. From there, it is just a matter of putting word to paper and she can get to sleep.

Then early next morning, before Rachel, no, Courtney shakes her head and corrects herself. Once in game you have to keep names straight. So before Rosha wakes up, Courtney goes out into the den and hands the letter over to Gregor to get to the guild. While it would have been nice to have Rosha’s personal introduction, she couldn’t risk it slipping out to anyone else.

Letter taken care of there isn’t much else for her to do but wait. Not for long though as it seems the idea of sightseeing has everyone up early. And as luck would have it, Gregor had predicted this and so had breakfast ready early as well. Not only that but the breakfast truly fit the fast part. The meal wasn’t anything fancy. Just some oatmeal with fruit. An easy to eat meal that doesn’t feel like something you need to linger on.

While that was going on, Peter was out on the town. Gregor had given him a task and he planned to get it done and be back to the house before the group left. It shouldn’t take long but since it involved bureaucracy you could never be certain. While the passes to get through the city gates worked for most things, sightseeing within the town wasn’t one of them.

It wasn’t too big of a deal except for the noble section of the city. While the nobles have some of the most amazing displays, they also prefer to have it all to themselves. For most cases, if you’re just walking through the noble district, nothing should bother you. Just standing around and observing fancy displays on the other hand is going a little far. At least to the nobles.

Of course, the royal family in charge of the system is very much against the nobles turtling up and not going out anymore. So the day passes were invented, allowing non-nobles to go out and enjoy the crazy creations that some of the nobles have managed to come up with.