Oh no, this was not good, this wasn't good at all. Detlef was trying to warn them, but they wouldn’t listen. That was probably his own fault, too. If only he had done better in yesterday’s raid, Terrence would have listened to him now, but he had disappointed him, and now his friends would suffer the consequences. Detlef didn’t quite know why, but he was sure that the dungeon was still bugged. There was something in the air that told him of incoming danger, a sense that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Worst of all was that the new girl, Waverly, was being dragged into this entire mess. He worried that she wouldn’t get the right impression of their guild. Of course, their conversations were a bit rougher than most other places, but Detlef truly believed that the people who had chosen him to be their friend were good people at heart. They were just a bit tense, that was all.

He tried not to pay too much attention to that sinking feeling in his stomach that kept asking him when Terrence and his crew were ever not tense. As they walked down the dusty slope toward the entrance of the mines, Detlef kept struggling with himself. With each step that carried them closer to the ominously dark opening of the dungeon, small pebbles rolled down the incline. Some of them kicked loose bigger ones, which in turn kicked loose even bigger ones. It wasn’t really an avalanche, but Detlef could see the signs when they presented themselves. This was obviously a very important choice that potentially led to his doom. Or maybe it was just some pebbles and a dark door that he was just too scared to go into because he was trying to avoid his responsibilities as a friend. How would he be able to tell the difference? He was such an idiot. Oh no, the spiral was starting again. He couldn’t even stop the spiral. He was such a waste of a friend.

With a deep sigh, he braced himself for the inevitable and what his therapist called a depressive episode, but Detlef just considered the logical consequences of not being good enough. If only he hadn't messed up so much, he could save Terrence and his friends and the nice new girl, from the disaster that was 100%, definitely, inevitably, inexorably going to happen.

To his surprise, however, instead of an ascent into the self-flagellation he deserved, he received a soft punch on the shoulder. He looked up, expecting Terrence to berate him for not giving Waverly the right impression of their guild, but to his surprise, it was the new girl herself he found walking beside him.

“Hey, are you, like, alright?” she asked, and there was a quality to her smile that told him she was genuinely curious, and wasn’t just asking out of politeness. That tiny tidbit alone surprised him so much that he didn't know how to respond for a while. He almost said "No, not really," but that was never the right answer, was it? So instead he said, “I’m just worried about this dungeon. I could have sworn that up until a few days ago, it was bugged.”

“Bugged, like how?” Waverly asked, tilting her head a little.

“You see how we all got leveled down, right? I think if we die in here, the level downgrade will be permanent, and we will also—”

Another hand landed on his shoulder, this one firm to the point of being a little painful. “Now, now, don’t go scaring the new girl. She’s not even in our party. She doesn’t know about power levels…”

“Oh, yeah, sorry…” Detlef said. They hadn’t even invited her to the party yet. Probably because the EXP sharing would be too bad for her. Terrence must have his reasons. When he saw Waverly raise an eyebrow at him, he just said, “Don’t worry about it. Terrence is right. It’s probably nothing.”

They’d arrived at the entrance to the mines. The half-done crane house loomed over them, the thick rope hanging from the half-finished pulley system swaying in the wind, supported by the ominous undertones of creaking wood. It was then that Waverly did something that Detlef didn’t expect from her. She seemed to be a regular girl on her first foray into VDO. Sure, Terrence hadn’t asked why she was alone in the forest, but the scene had been quite obvious, hadn’t it? She was just a girl on her first day in the game and had decided to check out the countryside and what marvels there were to find in the game world. Detlef had done quite the same when he first arrived in the game, and it was in pretty similar circumstances that Terrence and his friends had found him and recruited him for the guild. The game really was beautiful, and it was only natural to want to go out and explore it.

But something hushed over Waverly’s expression then, that made him rethink if he hadn’t gotten the wrong picture from the start. She worked her jaw and rolled her shoulders. Some people might have thought it was just tension, or perhaps some sort of nervous tick, but from a young age, Detlef had learned to notice when people around him were really pissed off. It was in the steeliness of her gaze, and the way that the muscles in her neck stayed tense even after she'd forced herself to stay calm, albeit with visible effort. Detlef often saw quite the same in his clients outside of the game. Especially when they were on tour, and they weren’t getting the very best that they decided they deserved.

That wasn’t to say Waverly was the same as some sort of shooting star, drunk on his first taste of real success. No, the way she looked at him, looked at Terrence, told him this went way beyond self-interest. Any second now she was going to say something, and get herself into trouble, just because Detlef couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

And before he could say anything, the girl spoke.

“No, I actually would love to hear what he has to say. Because honestly, I don’t think you’re treating him right. He’s, like, such a nice guy, and you keep pushing him around. I don’t think that’s cool, man. I don’t think that’s cool at all.”

Terrence took that as well as was expected. He looked at Detlef with complete murder in his eyes, before he turned back to Waverly, his hands raised in a placating gesture, lips curled into a smile that suggested this was all just a huge misunderstanding.

“Waverly, relax, really. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with this dungeon, and you don’t need to worry at all. Actually, I am so sure, because our healer here is going to demonstrate just how safe it is.” He turned to Detlef with the glacial pace of implied threats. “Just go in, die real quick, and respawn. Just to show our new friend here that it’s safe.”

Oh no. What was he supposed to do? What if this dungeon was still bugged, and dying in there would log him out for hours, if not days? He liked this game. He also liked having friends to play with. The Terrors were the first and only guild that had taken him in, which meant they were like family. A dysfunctional family, perhaps, but a family nonetheless. He didn't want to leave them, and he knew that he was going to be forced to leave if he didn't prove to Terrence just how far he was willing to go for the guild. Besides, Waverly deserved a shot at joining the guild herself, right? It was Detlef’s fault that Terrence was in such a bad mood and that Waverly couldn’t get a good impression of what the guild was like on most days. If he didn’t prove to her that it was safe, and that he was completely fine, she might say or do something that would ruin her chances of joining one of the top guilds in VDO.

What were a few dozen levels, anyway? He could always grind those back, give or take a couple of weekends. And what about a few hours of gametime? He could finally clean his apartment. Yes, those were all minor inconveniences. Things he could live with. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure that he could live with yet another regret weighing on his soul. Not sure at all.

Maybe he was worrying too much. Who knew? Perhaps he was lucky. Perhaps the dungeon really wasn’t bugged at all anymore, and he was worrying too much, like always. So before Waverly could say anything else, he quickly said, “Oh yeah, of course, Terrence,” and began equipping his worst gear out of his inventory. It wouldn’t do anything if he were to waste his high-level equipment on death. The only high-quality item that he kept equipped was [Poenitet], his staff. It was his most prized possession, soul-bound to him after he had completed the most epic quest line he’d ever seen in any game. It had begun the second he first stepped into the game, and had taken him six months in total. If the hints in the last quest he had received for it were true, there were even more powerful forms that it could take. But as it were, it would always return to him, even if he died, which was one of the most powerful traits a weapon could have in the game.

Waverly still looked as though she wanted to say something, but he forced a smile onto his lips. As always, it felt a bit unnatural, like the muscles he needed for it were cramping, but it seemed to do the trick, as the girl closed her mouth and rolled her eyes.

“It’s your funeral, I guess…” she muttered.

Behind her, Whirlwhisper laughed and slapped her on the shoulder with her staff. “That’s the spirit!” she said. “Yo, Terrence! We should give this one an invite! I usually don’t like the quiet ones, but I think you would actually fit in just fine.”

“Sure, after the dungeon. Let’s see how she does,” Terrence said with a benevolent smile.

“She can’t be worse than our current healer, right?” Slasher said, twisting the proverbial knife. Terrence’s smile changed at that. Detlef wouldn’t call it ugly, but… it definitely had that quality to it that made him want to do better.

And yet, it seemed that no one but Detlef noticed the quiet, furious twitch that rippled through Waverly's entire body. For a second, it almost seemed as though there was something shifting under her skin, as if something large and bestial was kept barely contained within the form of this quiet, unassuming woman. But of course, that was just a trick of the light, or perhaps Detlef’s mind playing tricks on him.

And yet, as Detlef nodded at the party and started his jog into the dungeon, he wondered if his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him, and if Waverly really did have slitted pupils.

———

Waverly was this close to jumping out of her skin. Almost literally.

She debated if she could do something to save the elf, but there really wasn’t all that much she could do. Even if she hadn’t been so angry, this situation was a lot, and in the end, while the thought felt like it was going to pull her stomach out of her throat, killing players in the game was her job now. She only wished it wouldn’t be under circumstances that made her feel way dirtier than that one time they tried out dirt wrestling in the alley behind the CrowBar, and decided to never do it again.

Because while yeah, sure, killing players was her job, the way these asshats treated one of their friends was so absolutely 100% against everything she believed in, that teakettle feeling in her core had become so damn strong that she could now actually hear it ringing in her stupid, un-pointy, inexpressive human ears. It was beyond annoying, it was ah-noy-ying-uh!

And yet, she mustn’t flip out. Just stay calm. She could do that, had done it a hundred million times back at home, when she’d done something different to what her parents expected, and she’d gotten an earful, and it was totally unfair, but she knew that barking in their faces wouldn’t do anything but get her ass grounded. It was the same thing here, but different, of course, but anyway, she really had to control herself super hard not to just take these guys by the throat and start punching.

She took a deep, calming breath, and the heavy feeling of guilt that sunk into her stomach like cheap mac&cheese as the healer guy rounded the corner and vanished from sight did the rest to calm her down. At least enough to not have to worry about her claws jutting from her fingers.

Still, she felt like she had to do something. She was really, totally bad at any sort of lying, including theater stuff (which was something she needed to get better at asap if she wanted to be a good Dungeon Boss) so she had just stuck to her guns and said as little as possible to not put her foot so deep in her mouth it would tickle her tonsils. But there were limits to what she could handle. Of course, she couldn’t push it too much, because no matter how huge of a jerk the three remaining humans were, they were jerks in very powerful armor, with tons of experience in the game.

Oh, and there were three of them. Which was also kinda bad.

A shimmer in the air, maybe two coffins behind Terrence told her that she wasn’t alone, either, but even if they both were outleveling the humans by a factor of four, the risk of Waverly shifting in the middle of a fight were too high. She just did it on instinct at this point, because it was just so damn useful, but that was beside the point.

If she didn’t do something, she would explode.

So she turned to face Terrence, who was too busy joking around with the mage, Whirlwhisper, and the rogue, Slasher, (if Waverly had gotten their names right) to notice how very fucking angry she was.

So she snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“Hey!” she said, folding her arms as she got his (startled and mildly annoyed) attention. “Is that how you treat all your guild members?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Terrence scoffed. “No, just the bad ones. You don’t know the entire story here, and to be honest, I don’t really appreciate the tone.”

“Okay, like, what could he have done for you to send him into a bugged dungeon to die? That’s super rude, and not warranted at all.”

“Oh not you, too!” Terrence sighed, like a father finding out his daughter had bitten into a crayon. “I told you not to listen to the guy. Obviously, the dungeon has been fixed, and he’ll respawn out here in a minute or two. Chill. Please.”

“But the Dungeon is still bugged!” Waverly said before she could stop herself.

Luckily, Terrence was too caught up in his own world to notice the slip-up for what it was.

“Well, we’re going to find out in a few seconds, one way or another. His health is dropping. What’s your game tag, so I can add you to the party btw?”

Waverly didn’t answer, too busy keeping her balled-up fists somewhere the humans couldn’t see them. She didn’t know which Monsters the elf had run into, but she just hoped they’d kill him quick.

“Yo, Earth to Waverly. Your game tag?” Terrence said, snipping his fingers before her in a mocking mirroring of her own gesture just a minute ago.

She could just lie, say that she didn’t know her game tag, just to stall for time until she could leave. All she had to do was to shut up, grit her teeth and keep a low profile until she could find a good moment to slink away.

And yet, just thinking that felt wrong, somehow. She had to shut up and grit her teeth at home, and it felt terrible, but this was her job, something that she’d been looking forward to ever since before she started College, and even more so after meeting Victor. It was supposed to be different, wasn’t it? Would it be like this every day?

No, this was her duty. She could almost hear her father say the words. And then her mom chimed in, the memory of her voice telling Waverly that she was supposed to make some sacrifices for the pack, and that they did the same thing every single day, and how dare she think herself special.

This was just how things worked. They needed adventurers to fight and die in the dungeons so that they could make mana and improve. She shouldn’t bark up that tree. She really shouldn’t. She should just join their party and try to lure them into the dungeon so that the other Monsters could kill them.

And yet…

“I really don’t think I want to join your party…” she said through gritted teeth, unable to stop herself. Even though she immediately felt way less dirty, somehow, it was all she could do to not growl the words. Actually, all things considered, she counted that as a win.

“Ohhhh….” Terrence said. For a split second, real surprise flashed in his eyes, but then his expression frosted over into a mockery of a smile. “Did you hear that, guys? She doesn’t want to join.”

As the Mage and the Rogue shifted to face her, Waverly realized that maybe shutting the fuck up would have been the better idea.

“That is too bad,” Terrence said, in a tone Waverly didn’t appreciate at all. It was all fake and stuff. “Because it turns out, we just lost a healer.”

Behind him, Whirlwhisper snickered, while Slasher raised both his eyebrows.

“Wow, he was right, the place is bugged,” the rogue said. “His level just dropped to five. And— Oh Terrence, you’re an ass!” He ended in a laugh that was first disbelieving, then soaked with Schadenfreude.

“You just kicked him from the guild?” Whirlwhisper asked with a snort. “Brutal…”

For his part, Terrence just shrugged. “Do you guys want to carry his ass back to a reasonable level? I certainly don’t. Plus he just DM’d me that he is stuck on the respawn screen for the next seventy hours or something, so he’s gonna miss the next raid anyway.”

Waverly’s mouth hung open. “…So?” was all she could bring herself to say.

“Zero absence policy,” Terrence answered as if Waverly had asked a real question. “You don’t become a top 5 guild in a game like this with slackers on the roster. Speaking of which…”

He took a step towards her, obviously annoyed that she didn’t wince back as he invaded her personal space. “Tell you what. You are now standing on official Terror Territory. Bugged or not, we’re going to claim this Dungeon.”

Whirlwhisper sighed behind him. “This piece of crap, really?”

“Yep,” Terrence said, eyes not moving from Waverly’s, as if he could just will her to look away first. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that Waverly was trying really, really hard not to growl. “They are obviously fixing it, so this is prime real estate. We can just send in a few newbies every once in a while, see what happens. And once it’s clean, we’re going to make bank.”

Slasher seemed to catch on to what Terrence was saying faster than Waverly because a smile that she didn’t like at all spread over his lips like a rash around the crotch of a plague demon. “That means this girl is trespassing, though…” he said.

Whirlwhisper nodded dramatically. “Which means we’ll have to killcamp her, just to send a message.” She flexed her fingers, and an orb of water appeared in her open palm.

Oh by Satan’s horns… how old were these jerks in real life? Fifteen? No, that couldn’t be right. She was pretty sure she’d read somewhere that VDO required you to prove you’re of age before you play. Because of the Succubi.

“Tell you what, though,” Terrence said, taking a step back with reluctance he tried to cover up with faked benevolence. “Since you’re so nice, how about this: You go in there and grab that idiot’s loot, and bring it back to us. Once you do, you can go your merry way and do whatever bullshit noob stuff you want to do.”

For a second, Waverly was almost impressed. If he hadn’t been such a colossal douche, his plan would even have made sense. He didn’t know her level. To him, she was just a low-level character, probably still with the [Novice] starter class. That meant she would have no penalty going into that Dungeon, if she were a real player.

If only he didn’t give her the impression that he considered the task below him, and sent her to rob the corpse of his former guildmate, after kicking him. No, this was just a way to get someone else to walk deep into the dungeon and retrieve…

Deep into the Dungeon.

Her Dungeon.

Where the exit was, and they wouldn’t be able to see her slip away.

Perhaps they’d even follow her in.

Waverly smiled. It was her first real smile since she’d encountered the group by the lake.

“Oh, yeah, like, sorry. I’ll totally take that deal!”

———

She’d just rounded the first corner of the mineshaft when Victor dropped out of [Stealth] beside her.

“What a bunch of assholes,” he stated, as one would talk about the fact that the sulfur clouds looked quite beautiful today.

Waverly, for her part, just rolled her eyes with the biggest sigh ever as she kept walking. “I know, right?!”

Victor fell in beside her, and they descended down the entrance tunnel. Neither of them spoke for a while, but not because there was nothing to say. Waverly, for her part, just didn’t say anything because she didn’t know where to begin. She’d hoped that everything was solved now that she was out of sight of Terrence and his guild, but the weird pressure in her chest was still there, and the whistle in her ears, too, even after she’d popped her normal, furred ones out of her skull. Her tail was free again, too, but no matter how much she tried to get it to wag, it refused, just stayed low and all fluffed with anger and stuff.

Why did she still feel so weird? She’d made a good exit, without breaking immersion or endangering the Dungeon. On top of that, she’d helped kill her first adventurer. Wasn’t this her job as a Dungeon Boss, killing adventurers?

Victor must have noticed that something was off, of course, but because he was the kind of guy who gave his friends space, he didn’t push, which Waverly totally appreciated, but somehow, she also wanted for him to push right then and there, and she didn’t quite know why. Her best guess was that everything that was going on was just… a lot, even though it seemed so simple, and that she just wanted someone to sort it out for her. Still, Victor would never tell her what to think, she knew, and so he stayed quiet, and her mind stayed a a…. Tornado, or something equally chaotic. She didn’t even know which image to use.

After a minute of slow walking, her mind cleared a little, and she’d just made up her mind to just call it a day, because everything would totally be better tomorrow, when they came across the crumpled form of an elf, lying in a heap in the middle of an intersection. Next to him stood Olaf and Oren, looking as puzzled as two boys on their first “A Sphinx Reads you Riddles” day in school.

“Yo,” said Victor, giving them a sloppy salute. His eyes, however, were glued to the dead healer’s form.

“Hey you two. How’d the lake treat you?” Oren said, tusks flexing under his smile, which didn’t quite reach his eyes, still squinted in concern.

“Like, pretty good…” Waverly said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at the corpse.

“Yeah…” Olaf said, trailing off. Then, apparently, he decided they shouldn’t ignore the dead elf in the room, and said, “So, do you know what this guy’s deal was? He just… sprinted down here, eyes closed, wearing nothing but this shitty cloth armor and that really pretty staff.”

Waverly squirmed a little, but before she could say anything, Victor took the lead. “He’s part of a group of adventurers who sent him down here to test if the Dungeon’s still bugged.”

“Ahhhh shit,” Oren said, spitting to the side. Waverly had seen a lit of people spit by way of punctuation, and she thought Oren’s annoyed-bothered spit was pretty good. “That’s one way of doing it, I guess. We shouldn’t have taken down the signs so early.”

Olaf shook his head, half disagreeing, half disbelieving. “Did I get that right? A group of adventurers sent this guy in? That seems like a dick move. Did they know we were bugged before? And what the bug does?”

Waverly just nodded, and Olaf let out a disapproving whistle.

Man, this entire situation was just…. Bad. She felt complicit, too, because she hadn’t stopped it from happening. With that thought, the pressure increased, and she noticed she was clenching her jaw, almost baring her teeth.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Olaf continued and took the words that Waverly couldn’t speak right out of her mouth. “We have to earn Mana somehow, I get that, but… I don’t know. I don’t think that brief moment of fear and shock before he ran into Oren’s axe really did all that much, mana-gain-wise. You usually want them to hold on for a while, right? So this kind of feels… dirty?”

And the moment Olaf finished, Waverly realized what had been bugging her so much. With the realization came relief, and resolve.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” Waverly said, voice quiet and moon-sickle sharp.

“I mean, like, we can tell ourselves that this is how things are supposed to go, right? Adventurers go in the Dungeon, we kick their ass, or get our ass kicked, either way, one side dies, rinse and repeat.”

Oren shrugged at that as if asking what her point was, but Olaf seemed to get it. Victor got it, too, there was no doubt about that. She didn’t even need to check.

“But like, thinking like that is totally missing the main point, right? Which is that the adventurers don’t just need to fight, but to feel. They need to be excited, or scared, or stressed, or triumphant, or whatever, but most of all, they need to come back and want to do it again.”

Oren’s eyes lit up. “Oh yeah, right. I mean, we didn’t have adventurers in here for such a long time…”

Olaf nodded, absent-mindedly scratching his chin first, then his tusk. “Yeah and even if we do have adventurers come in, the Boss just tells us to do our job and not worry too much. I mean, that’s fine, gets us out of trouble, but—“

“You kinda lose the big picture after a while,” Oren finished for him. “But I mean, what’s it to you? Sure, it sucks for this guy here—“ he jerked his chin at the dead elf. “And he’s not gonna come back here anytime soon, that’s for sure. But so what?”

“We need the mana,” Victor said. “Can’t fix the Dungeon without it.”

Olaf sighed at that. “Look, kid, you seem like the smart and ambitious kind, but leave that sort of thing to the Dungeon Master and the Boss when they come in. Oren and I have been at this for a while now, and let me tell you, they always ask you for initiative, but they get real cranky when things don’t go according to plan.”

“Yeah, maybe, but…” Waverly said, her fingers curled into fists. “It’s just not right! These jerks shouldn’t be able to do this!”

Oren raised a meaty eyebrow. “Who?”

Victor understood and answered when Waverly couldn’t. “The rest of the party. They’re still waiting outside.”

Olaf sighed again and leaned against the rough tunnel wall. “So what are you going to do about it? Rally the dungeon? You’re not the Dungeon Boss, so you don’t have that ability. Go out there and fight them yourself? Alone? Synched to level 5? Even as an elite, that’s a long shot.”

“I’m not synched tho!” Waverly blurted out, and barely recovered with a “Um, because Debbie Corinne didn’t have time to register us, remember?”

Olaf and Oren exchanged a glance that was half worry half exasperation.

“If Dungeon Health and Safety learns about that one…” Olaf said, rolling his eyes, leaving Oren to press Waverly further.

“Okay, you’re not synched. But that just means you aren’t elite. This is your first job, right? So what’s your level? Five? Six? Even at level seven, you’d be worse than a level 5 elite, so…”

Waverly was about to protest and tell them that she was level 19. But Victor squeezed her arm in a way that probably looked supportive, but was actually telling her that maybe she shouldn’t be blurting that around quite yet. At first, she didn’t quite understand why, because why shouldn’t the two of them know her level, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized it would have made the entire situation weird. They’d probably be jealous, or catch on to the fact that Waverly was their new Boss, and she knew Victor wanted to keep that under wraps, even if she didn’t quite agree with it.

So in the end, she said, “But we still got to try…”, which didn’t do much to convince the two orcs.

Then Victor spoke again, with the full power of the silent dude that presents an idea for once. “They said they want to occupy the Dungeon and turn it into a grinding zone.”

Both Oren and Olaf groaned at that.

“Oh by Satan’s silky scotch collection… not again,” Oren said with a heavy sigh.

“I still remember the last time, it was so much damn work,” Olaf agreed. But then he pushed himself off the wall and turned to leave. “But yeah, if it happens, it happens. Can’t really do much about it, kids. Just wait for the new Boss to settle it, yeah? It’s their job to break sieges, not trash mobs like us.”

Oren likewise stirred from his spot and joined Olaf on his way back toward the center of the Dungeon, motioning for the two of them to follow. “Come on guys, shift’s almost over. Leave it be.”

Victor, however, shook his head. “You guys go ahead, I’ll talk to Waverly for a little.”

Oren took a long look at her, then nodded. “Fine. And… yeah Waverly, don’t take it too hard. It happens.”

She didn’t even know what he meant, but she realized then and there that she was as tense as Medusa while applying her makeup.

Victor waited for the footsteps of the orcs to fade into the dark before he turned to her.

“Yo, what do we do?” he asked, but it was clear that he meant What do you want to do?

“I don’t know, Vic…” Waverly began. “I mean maybe they’re right in a way, you know? What if we kill the players outside and they tell everyone in the city that the Dungeon’s bugged, and then it’ll take even longer for us to grow and it will be super hard to actually learn anything in here, and stuff like that.”

Victor, however, was undeterred, and just looked at her with those stupid, calm, knowing eyes of his. “What do you want to do?” he asked, voice calm and even, telling her in so many words that whatever she said, he’d support her because that was just the kind of guy he was.

She wanted to keep this job. She wanted to succeed in it together with Victor. She didn’t want to put their little Dungeon in even more Danger than before, and possibly ruin the lives of people who now depended on her. She wanted to do the right thing, the smart thing, the thing that would make the business run, and prove to her parents that she could be trusted, and didn’t need to be controlled.

Her eyes were still fixed on the elf’s corpse. She remembered his sad smile as he showed her the healing magic, just to cheer her up, because he noticed.

Yeah, she wanted to do all of those things. The logical things.

But more than that, she wanted to do the right thing.

More than anything…

“I really, really, really want to punch those fuckers in the face.”