{-Llewel-}
“So I doubt any of you have forgotten the base at Kyirius already,” Tinath began, cautiously. She must’ve been trying to make the rest of the context sound less bad for Esaphi, who already looked stressed. “On second thought, maybe I should back up a little more… Alright, I know you don’t remember Anseshara, but it had to do with that. In the original storyline—before they took you out—you two and the player were supposed to go there together. After collecting the keys from the other companions you were able to enter and get to where you needed to be. As soon as you entered, though, a timer started. The idea was that it would give you two buffs for an amount of time in Anseshara, then a serious debuff around the time of other story stuff.”
Llewel, realizing where this was going, dared to ask, “We never got to that part of the story, did we?”
Tinath shook her head. “From what I was told, right then was when things started to go downhill. So when you were taken out of the story mode, those status effects more or less stayed in the exact spots they were at that moment. They found out about it while they were trying to figure out how to capture you—that the status effect was bugged and triggered around runes, which would’ve only really been in Anseshara in the story quest. Through that third trial we did for that scholar, though, they learned it wasn’t both of you. For one reason or another, Llewel was still buffed, but Myr had the debuff, which I guess showed up as headaches outside of battle.”
“So they’re doing it to try to capture them that way?” Zetai asked.
“That seems to be the only guess we’ve got,” Tinath pointed out. “All they care about is that it does something—I’m guessing pretty much everyone there is willing to do whatever they need to to finish this. They know they’ll get both of you if they threaten one. It’s probably one of the few things they haven’t already tried.”
The longer Esaphi stood in silence, the further she seemed to be going down a spiral. “They have to know that won’t—it can’t solve—oh I have a terrible feeling about all of this… Are they really that interested in capturing you? Are you sure you’re going to be alright..?” Then she stopped. “Wait a minute. Rune-activated. So being around me—”
“It’s okay!” Myr said quickly. She didn’t look any more at ease than Esaphi did, but she sounded as genuine as she could. “It’s okay, really! It’s not your fault or anything, and it’s not bad right now, either. Don’t worry about it—you didn’t do anything.”
Neither of them seemed to take any real comfort in the words.
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“Next important question,” Llewel began. “What are we going to do? We can’t just ignore the problem—they’re more likely to find us and, Myr may say she’s fine now, but that won’t last. We can’t keep wandering around here like nothing’s going on.”
“But I don’t know if we have any other options,” Reynneak remarked. “I mean, there’s nothing we can do outside of that. We can’t ask them to stop. Avoiding it won’t really solve the problem—we wouldn’t run into it for a little while, sure, but who knows how far they plan to take this. Though just pushing through despite it can’t be the best option, either…”
“Well, I guess we’ve got to pick our poison,” Tinath sighed. “We either fall into their trap by ignoring it, or we trap ourselves trying to work around it. I don’t see much opportunity for a mythical third option.”
“Choosing one doesn’t mean we have to stick with it,” Zetai pointed out. “We’d probably be doing exactly what they want us to if we try to stop them now. We can’t really wait until they have everything set up, but… I don’t think there’s anything we can do that isn’t going to put something at risk.”
“A part of me wasn’t actually expecting that kind of thing to come from you,” Reynneak remarked.
She let out a hmph. “Well, things have to get serious when the twins start getting involved. They’ve got some serious rethinking to do if they think we’re just going to let them do whatever they want.”
“Within reason,” Llewel stressed, “right? As admirable as that sounds, I really don’t want anything to happen to any of you either…”
“They’re gonna have to work pretty hard if they want to get rid of us,” Zetai said confidently. It didn’t really help, but he pretended like it did.
“I wandered around for a little before I found this cave,” Esaphi began, “I can show you where they’re working. There’s also some alternate cave routes that can get you to the same areas, but I don’t know if a lot of other players would be using them, or if they’d be good to wander around in…”
“Show us anyway.” Reynneak pulled up his map so he could mark down the places she pointed out. “Having some idea of where they are lets us know exactly what we can do.”
“Check the quests in the area, too,” Zetai instructed. “As long as they’re not around here, we can do those.”
“Says there’s one right next to me.”
They all looked at Esaphi and she let out a nervous laugh. “It’s a lot harder than it looks, you know—fighting off that instinct to just randomly give you a quest. But I’ve got some practice since I never want to give it to any of the meaner-looking players. Do you want to see it?” They collectively nodded and she let the instinct take it over from there. “If you’ve got the time, I’d like to ask you something.”
[Quest: Letter Delivery
Esaphi needs your help to deliver a letter to her parents. Would you be kind enough to bring this to Ilataesi City and give it to them? Without looking, of course. That would be rude.
Rewards: 450 EXP, 600 coins]
“They’ll give you the reward,” Esaphi continued, as if that would determine it for them, “no need to hunt me down again.”
But Myr quickly spoke for them all: “Of course we’ll help! Your letter’s safe with us.”