“Helloooo, Darling! Was you wanting me?” Almost like magic, Rebecca was the first one to answer. Glancing at the small square which made up her portion of the reserved chat screen – which was only about a fourth of the total screen size of the phone – Joshua could see that she had changed out of the simple one-piece dress which she was wearing at school, and now had on one of her more normal outfits. Dressed in what looked to be a dark purple cashmere sweater and a pair of neon-green leather pants, Joshua thought that Rebecca looked much move lively and vibrant than earlier.

“Yeah,” he answered her, trying not to stare too intensely into his phone. From the two small bulges perking up prominently from under her sweater, it was obvious she wasn’t wearing any sort of bra, and Joshua didn’t want her to realize how much his gaze was being drawn to the center of her chest as his imagination and memory went to working overtime. “I’ve got something amazing to tell you guys about, which happened on my….”

“There you are!” Laughing happily, a naked Olivia unceremoniously interrupted the moment she connected to the chat. “Why haven’t you responded to any of my messages this evening? Or mothers and Maria’s? We’ve all been trying to get in touch with you – we’ve got big news!”

“Big news?” Joshua asked, frowning slightly. What exactly had he missed already? “Did you guys find a Dungeon Zone too?” Joshua asked, wondering just how widespread the issue might be with the things.

“Dungeon Zone? What’s that?” Olivia asked, quirking an eyebrow as the rest of the screen was filled in as Natasha and Maria joined into the chatroom. “I don’t know anything about anything like that,” Olivia assured him, shaking her head from side to side negatively. “Mother just wanted to let you know about something she discovered today that’s kind of amazing…”

“Darling!!” Blowing several kisses into the phone, a naked Natasha laughed happily and used the opportunity to shamelessly interrupt Olivia. “Guess what I learned?” Beaming proudly, Natasha was grins from ear to ear as she basked in the glory of her own achievements in her mind.

“And what did you learn today?” Smiling lightly, Joshua figured what he’d learned was probably more exciting and important that anything she’d managed to uncover, but from his short time with her already over the weekend, he knew there wasn’t any reason to dwell on that. Natasha was an extremely excitable person by nature, and she wouldn’t be able to listen and focus on anything someone else had to say until after she’d gotten out what she wanted to first. Natasha was already bubbling over with enjoyment and excitement, and she had to let some of it out first before she could take in anymore from somewhere else – that’s just the type of person she was.

“I learned how we can all easily earn User Points,” Natasha giggled happily. “Not minor points, but actual user points which can then be spent on the big stuff!!”

“And how’s that?” Grinning himself, Joshua couldn’t help but be drawn into her enthusiasm. After all, the conundrum of how to get a bunch of them was already something which he’d been pondering on earlier himself anyway.

“It’s simple,” Natasha laughed, beaming proudly at her own brilliance. “All you have to do is earn a whole bunch of the minor points. They exchange at a rate of ten to one,” she informed them all, self-importantly. “Minor points are like dimes, whereas User points are more like dollars,” she offered as a comparison, while grinning wildly.

“Well, that’s great to know,” Joshua assured her, “but it doesn’t actually tell us how to earn any of those points. You’re just telling us to change dimes into dollars, when what we actually need to be doing right now is getting a job and earning more money!”

“Oh… So I didn’t learn anything worthwhile…” Pooching her lip out exaggeratedly, Natasha slumped down in the chair she was sitting in and hung her head low, looking utterly depressed. “I guess I’m just worthless,” she muttered, listlessly as she stared down at her toes.

"No… No…”

“Oh, grow the fuck up!” Joshua rushed to try and reassure her, but Rebecca interrupted him with a snort of disgust. “Of course you’re damn worthless,” Rebecca huffed at Natasha. “Don’t get so damn full of yourself. You’re just a plain concubine after all! Show your titties, spread your legs, and keep your opinions of yourself to yourself. Nobody cares about your damn self-esteem issues, and you don’t need to be praised and put on a pedestal for being the first to figure out something which everybody would’ve learned anyway in just a few more days,” she snorted. After dealing with Susan for the past year or so, Rebecca really wasn’t one who held the slightest drop of sympathy for anyone indulging in self-pity!

“Rebecca! Don’t talk to mother like that!” Instantly, Olivia was glaring into the phone and rushing to her mother’s defense, looking completely offended.

“Oh, you can piss off too, Honey.” Stressing the last word, Rebecca half spit, showing absolutely no sign of the affection which she’d lavished so heavily on Olivia earlier during breakfast at school. “Shut up, let your momma fight her own damn battles, and listen to our lord. Joshua had something which he wanted to tell us.”

“Umm... Right!” Using the opportunity to wiggle into the conversation, Joshua quickly spoke up to stop any further fighting between the girls. “I found out something which might be game changing today,” he assured them all, as she struggled to ignore all the hurt and angry looks glaring back and forth across his phone. Only Maria, who was dressed in a simple lace apron, was smiling, and smirking as if she found the whole situation to be funny. Everyone else looked as if they were going to start killing one another at any moment!

“Well… umm… anyway… There’s a new Dungeon Zone which just popped up sometime recently near my house,” Joshua rushed into telling the girls. “It wasn’t there the last time I rode the bus home, but we drove into it for just a brief moment this evening as we passed by. Apparently, the old White house has now become some sort of dungeon, and there’s something called the Rules of Engagement which applies there, as well as environmental combat.”

“And what’s a Dungeon Zone?” Maria asked, frowning slightly. “I haven’t played a lot of the games and such that you young ones have, and I’ve been so busy taking care of my lady, I’m afraid I don’t recognize the reference. Exactly what is a dungeon zone supposed to be, and how dangerous is it? Is it even dangerous at all? The way you make it sound, and the way you’re acting, I’m assuming it must be at least somewhat dangerous.”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Joshua admitted, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “If we’re talking about dungeon zones in games, they’re generally instanced areas which only one team at a time can go and challenge. They’re restricted to a single party, and no one else can interfere with the exploration and battles while that one group attempts them.

“The problem is,” Joshua sighed, “we don’t know if that holds true here in the real world, or not. Even if it does hold true, and there’s some sort of restriction which keeps others out if one team goes in – and there might be,” he reasoned, “since after all, there’s already such restrictions on who we can even talk about the World Renewal Project with.”

“Even if that’s true,” Rebecca mused, “it doesn’t do too much to help us at the moment. As far as we know, we’re the only ones in the entire county – heck, perhaps the only ones in the whole world for all we know – who are actually resting WRP at this point!”

“And if we’re talking about Rules of Engagement and Environmental Combat in relation to games,” Joshua added, “then the only thing that comes to my mind is it’s got to be a PvE environment.”

“PvE?” Olivia asked, despite her obvious annoyance directed over towards Rebecca.

“Player verses Environment,” Joshua answered. “In game terms, it basically just means that it’s a zone where players fight the environment around them, rather than other players. PvP Zones are what you call Player verses Player areas, and that’s where the players can use their skills to duel and kill other players. IF,” Joshua stressed, “the system is basing its terminology off modern games, then the fact that it’s talking about Environmental Combat probably means that it’s not a place where you have to worry about PvP occurring. Think of it kind of like a trial where one group has to defeat, without any external influence."

"Just like how underwear is everything under your outerwear, and not just your panties,” Olivia snorted. “You’ll never convince me that the game is using the same terminology that we’d expect it to!”

“Good point,” Joshua agreed. “We’ve already had examples to prove that things don’t always work the way we might expect them to. English has always been a living language and fluid to changes – years ago, talking about cocks, pussies, and asses simply meant you were talking about farm animals. A cock’s just a rooster, a pussy is a housecat, and an ass is nothing more than a donkey. Even a bitch is just a female dog. Language evolves over time and meanings change, and it seems like this system is going to force a whole new evolution into our language, just like it’s already evolving our bodies.

“In the end,” Joshua sighed, “the simple truth is that we can sit here and toss around ideas forever about what a Dungeon Zone is, but at the end of the day, they’d still remain nothing more than ideas. We’re going to have to head into the zone and explore it, to try and learn more about what it’s really like.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Natasha instantly objected. “I can’t say I can really approve of the idea of sending my daughter out someplace which we know might be dangerous just for an exploration mission!”

“Mom! I can take care of myself now, you know!” Turning bright red, Olivia was both touched and completely embarrassed by her mother’s overprotectiveness. “After all, I am Joshua’s knight!”

“And he’s got a Shadow,” her mother answered promptly. “A Shadow should be responsible for scouting, and not a knight. You should stay with him while Rebecca goes inside and scouts out the area first.”

“Mom!”

“I don’t mind,” Rebecca shrugged, nonchalantly. “If that’s what Joshua wants, then I don’t mind being the first to scout. I would’ve been dead already if he wasn’t for him,” she reasoned calmly. “If I end up dying while scouting and keeping him safe from some danger, I won’t regret it one bit. I’ve already enjoyed the extra time he’s given me, and it’d be an honor to fall in service of repaying that gift.”

“Rebecca!” Now Olivia was shouting at her in exasperation.

“Nobody is going to go in by themselves,” Joshua nixed the idea to stop the arguing. “IF we decide to go,” he stressed, “then we’ll go as a team, and we’ll go in as large of a team as the system will allow us. We’ll all go in and watch each other’s backs, and if the place is too dangerous to handle, we’ll all help each other run like hell and get out of there as a group together. There isn’t going to be any one person going in and risking their life while all the rest of us just sit and wait for their results.”

“But…” Natasha started to say something.

“Shush, mother. Don’t speak again, until you’re given permission,” Olivia interrupted, firmly. “Josh has made his decision and that’s just the way it’s going to be. You’re still my subordinate, even if you are my mother, and I’m not going to let you embarrass me any further.”

“Then if we’re going in as a team,” Maria interjected, completely ignoring the indignant look on Natasha’s face, “then we need to do some preparations. I should probably visit a gun shop and pick up a couple of dozen various weapons and plenty of ammunition.”

“I could probably use a good metal softball bat,” Olivia mused. “With my strength being what it is now, I might be even more effective with one of them than with a pistol. I’ve never shot one before, so my chances of actually hitting anything probably isn’t all that great.”

“A wooden bat,” Rebecca corrected. “I’m certain one of the large Catholic churches has holy water which Maria could acquire with a good story and a sizable donation. Don’t they use it for baptisms and such, on a regular basis? Holy water is supposed to be effective against spirits and the dead, so if you get a wooden bat, you can soak it in overnight and it might become more efficient for you.”

“That’s a good idea,” Olivia agreed, completely ignoring the earlier disagreement which she’d has with Rebecca, “though you should probably get several of them,” she corrected. “With my current strength, I might end up breaking a few if I hit anything too hard.”

“Of course,” Maria nodded. Pulling out a notepad from somewhere off-screen, she began to scribble down notes on it. “With the ways the laws currently are, I doubt I’d be able to buy any large quantity of firearms in less than a month or two,” she mused. “There’s background checks and then waiting periods, and all that to deal with…”

“Buy from a private collector,” Joshua suggested. “It might be a little more expensive, but the law doesn’t prohibit individuals selling guns to other individuals. Only dealers are really monitored closely and have to do background checks. When my grandfather passed away, he owned about twenty guns and we simply sold them all at auction. There wasn’t any background checks or waiting period required to sell them as an individual.”

“Well that’s nice to know,” Maria nodded. “Thank you. I’ll be certain to keep that in mind. Without a bottleneck for firearms,” she calculated, “I can probably have everything purchased and gathered up by this weekend, if that’s when everyone wants to get together again and explore the dungeon as a group.”

“I can’t this weekend,” Joshua said, shaking his head from side to side. “My parents wouldn’t ever allow me to go out and be gone two weekends in a row like that. Instead, let’s take the opportunity to earn some minor points over this week and the rest of next week, and we’ll convert those into at least a single rank with a firearm. It might improve our accuracy enough so we just don’t end up killing each other by accident, you know.”

“I’ll purchase a Detect Trap skill,” Rebecca offered.

“And I’ll spend an extra point in Baseball Murderizing,” Olivia chuckled softly.

“I’ll try and take a few things like Absolute Distance and Absolute Direction,” Joshua offered. “We don’t know what we’re going to run into, so it might be a good idea to draw out a map as we go. If skills are based on stats, I’d probably be the best for cartography with all the points that we’ve spent to up my intelligence already.”

“So I’ll need mapping supplies,” Maria nodded, adding them to her list. “And I should probably get a tent, several sleeping bags, and pack some food for hiking and such, since we don’t know exactly how long exploring the zone might take.”

And, like that, the conversation continued late up into the night as everyone made preparations to explore the zone on the following weekend. Well, everyone but Natasha that is… Silenced by Olivia, all she did was sit and pout pitifully, while her eyes sparkled like diamonds as she relished indulging herself in the role of “the innocent and abused beauty who was mistreated by all until her prince finally came and rescued her from her torment”.

Of course, the fact that her prince had completely put her out of his thoughts never once crossed her mind. Natasha was a firm believer that reality should never get in the way of a good fantasy!